Vice President JD Vance is encouraging Americans to help get social media users fired if they celebrate the murder of bigoted broadcaster Charlie Kirk. His comments, made yesterday while hosting Kirk’s podcast, are part of a larger right-wing “cancel culture” campaign to punish and expose people who mock or celebrate Kirk’s death.

“I promise you, we will explore every option to bring real unity to our country and stop those who would kill their fellow Americans because they don’t like what they say,” Vance said on the podcast. “But you have a role too. Civil society… is not just something that flows from the government. It flows from each and every one of us. It flows from all of us. So when you see someone celebrating Charlie’s murder, call them out. Hell, call their employer. We don’t believe in political violence, but we do believe in civility. And there’s no civility in the celebration of political assassination.” 

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“There is no unity with someone who lies about what Charlie Kirk said in order to excuse his murder,” Vance said, likely referencing Karen Attiah, who was the only Black full-time columnist at The Washington Post until the publication fired her for publishing a social media post that repeated part of a Kirk quote about the intellectual inferiority of several prominent Black women.

“There is no unity with someone who harasses an innocent family the day after the father of that family lost a dear friend,” Vance added. “There is no unity with the people who celebrate Charlie Kirk’s assassination.”

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Vance said that the government would be investigating groups that fund such commentary, including The Ford Foundation and the Open Society Foundations, the nonprofit run by George Soros, a Democratic mega-donor who is a common right-wing bogeyman.

Vance’s comments occurred amid a background in which he and the president have promised to use the Department of Justice and the Department of Homeland Security to persecute “Leftist” and non-governmental organizations that allegedly provoked the violence that led to Kirk’s murder. In a statement after Kirk’s murder, the president pledged to “find each and every one of those who contributed to this atrocity and to other political violence, including the organizations that fund it and support it.”

There’s no evidence that Kirk’s suspected killer had a particular political or ideological affiliation that motivated his alleged actions.

When discussing Vance’s comments, progressive political commentator Mehdi Hasan noted that the majority of academic research on terrorism and extremist attacks blames right-wingers far more than left-wingers.

“The Anti-Defamation League’s Center for Extremism found that, of 444 people killed by extremists between 2013 and 2022, 75% were killed by right-wingers,” Hasan said. The University of Maryland’s Terrorism Center concluded that the majority of terrorist attacks carried out between 1948 and 2018 were right-wing inspired, and Chris Wray, the former FBI director appointed by the current president, said that the number one domestic terror threat in the U.S. is from religiously motivated white supremacists, Hasan additionally noted.

Next time someone on the right claims all the political violence in this country is coming from the left, not the right, do please show them this. You're welcome

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— Mehdi Hasan (@mehdirhasan.bsky.social) September 15, 2025 at 10:30 PM

Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Monday that “visa revocations are under way” for foreign visitors celebrating Kirk’s death.

“America will not host foreigners who celebrate the death of our fellow citizens,” Rubio said in a post on the social media platform X. “Visa revocations are under way. If you are here on a visa and cheering on the public assassination of a political figure, prepare to be deported.”

On the same day, Attorney General Pam Bondi pledged to prosecute people for “not mourning Kirk’s death in accordance with the administration’s preferences, saying that it’s “hate speech” to criticize Kirk and that hate speech isn’t protected by the First Amendment.

Numerous right-wing figures criticized Bondi for her incorrect claim.

Fox News’ Britt Hume said, “Someone needs to explain to Ms. Bondi that so-called ‘hate speech,’ repulsive though it may be, is protected by the First Amendment. She should know this.”

Christian broadcaster Erick Erickson wrote, “Our Attorney General is apparently a moron.”

Former Fox News host Megyn Kelly wrote on Tuesday, “Hate speech is not prosecutable in America (which is good). Pam Bondi knows this.”

In a Tuesday post attempting to clarify her stance, Bondi said that “hate speech that crosses the line into threats of violence is NOT protected by the First Amendment… It’s a crime. For far too long, we’ve watched the radical left normalize threats, call for assassinations, and cheer on political violence. That era is over.”

In response to Bondi’s post, Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-CA) replied, “This is rich. AG Bondi has REFUSED to prosecute MULTIPLE direct death threats against me and my family.”

Numerous educators have recently been dismissed or put on leave over allegations of publishing insensitive social media posts about Kirk’s death. Employment lawyers have noted that private and government workplaces can fire people for any behavior seen as disruptive to a workplace’s business or reputation.

At least three websites — Charlie’s Murderers, Cancel the Hate, and Charlie Kirk Data Foundation — have asked contributors to screenshot images of social media users mocking Kirk’s death so that they can expose these users, their places of work, and other possible details. The website Charlie’s Murderers was active over the weekend but offline as of Monday morning.

Numerous web commenters have called it a “fitting legacy” that Kirk’s biggest fans should use his death as a way to get left-wingers fired. During his life, Kirk and his right-wing-funded organization for young conservatives, Turning Point USA, launched a Professor Watchlist which inspired death threats and public campaigns to fire “radical” college educators “who discriminate against conservative students and advance leftist propaganda in the classroom.”

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