Trump's Trials - High-profile conservative figures lead calls for critics of Charlie Kirk to be fired

Episode Date: September 16, 2025

Vice President Vance and other high-profile political figures have called for people who speak negatively online about the assassination of Charlie Kirk to lose their jobs.Support NPR and hear every episode of Trump's Terms sponsor-free with NPR+. Sign up at plus.npr.org.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

You're listening to Trump's Terms from NPR. I'm Scott Detrow. We're going to be doing all sorts of things. Nobody ever thought was even possible. President Trump has brought back string to the White House. We can't just ignore the president's desires. This will be an entirely different country in a short period of time. Every episode of Trump's terms, we bring you NPR's latest coverage of the 47th president.

With a focus on actions and policies he is pursuing on his own terms and in the process, taking the presidency into uncharted territory. Today's story starts right after this. Hey, it's Rachel Martin. I'm the host of Wildcard from NPR. For a lot of my years as a radio host, silence sort of made me nervous. That pause before an answer, because you don't know what's going on on the other side of the mic. But these days, I love it. Hmm. Oh, gosh.

Give me a minute. Yeah, yeah. Think. Listen to the Wild Card podcast only from NPR. I mean Martinez. Vice President Vance hosted an episode of conservative activist Charlie Kirk's podcast on Monday. Vance blamed liberals and also the left for Kirk's assassination, even though little evidence has been released. He also had a message for the audience.

So when you see someone celebrating Charlie's murder, call them out in hell, call their employer. Dozens of people have already lost their jobs for negative social media posts about Charlie Kirk. And Vance is the latest in a series of high-profile post. political figures to call on people to face consequences for their online activity. NPR's Whoa Jingnan has been covering this story. So first off, what was in some of the posts that actually got people fired? What it really ranged in tone and somewhat definitely what many people would find objectionable. There were some posts that say things like karma or good riddance or he spoke his fate into existence.

In other cases, it's a real stretch to call the defending post a celebration of Kirk's death. Washington Post columnist Karen Natia was fired for a series of social media posts. They condemned political violence and mostly talked about gun violence. She only mentioned Kirk once in reference to a quote Kirk had made about prominent black women and affirmative action, saying that they, quote, do not have the brain processing power to be taken seriously. So Kirk had a large following for his conservative Christian views like growing big families, but he also made many controversial statements like these. He said some gun dads every year are, quote, worth the cost,

to have the Second Amendment. He also regularly cast immigrants and trans people as threats to society. So who exactly is making these calls to fire people, and how are they going about it? High-profile conservative influencers are flagging posts they don't like. And sometimes we are seeing government officials and lawmakers jump in. Tennessee Senator Marsha Blackburn called for the immediate firing of multiple people in her state, and at least one person was fired. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said, quote,

visa revocation are underway for individuals cheering on the public assassination of a political figure. The head of the OJ Civil Rights Division, Harmeet Dillon, suggested universities could lose federal funding over the employee's words. And Congressman Clay Higgins didn't single out any individual, but he said he wants to pressure social media platforms to ban people for life if they, quote, belittled the assassination. So have we ever seen or heard of anything like this before? Crowds tours online naming and shaming campaigns. They aren't new. After George Floyd's death in 2020, for example, there were efforts to fire people

who said hateful things about him online. But it was nowhere as organized and led by massive online influencers. Even more striking is seeing lawmakers and even the vice president joining in and using the power of their office to exert pressure. I spoke with Loretta Ross,

a visiting professor at Smith College. She's deeply concerned about the current moment. I think it's a can to the McCarthy period where people were punished, fired, blacklisted for having opinions that the government didn't like. Ross herself was on a watch list that Charlie Cook created early in his career that targeted academics he and his supporters considered to be radical left. Some of Kirk's allies have recreated that idea.

We see at least two websites have been set up to collect information about people who have said things about Kirk that support us deemed problematic. They claim to have received tens of thousands of entries, although that's not a number we can verify. We've got a little extra time here. I'm wondering, I mean, it hasn't even been a week yet since what happened to Charlie Kirk happened. I mean, is it maybe because just emotions are raw right now, or is this something that you think might increase in volume as time goes on?

It's hard to say. The news reports about people getting fired have been coming in at a pretty steady drumbeat. and many people are expressing fear and concern over, like, what they say on social media. So it's really hard to say. Okay. And you're going to keep track of this. That's NPR's Wojingnan. Thank you very, very much.

Thank you. Before we wrap up a reminder, you can find more coverage of the Trump administration on the NPR Politics Podcast, where you can hear NPR's political reporters break down the day's biggest political news. news with new episodes every weekday afternoon. And thanks, as always, to our NPR Plus supporters who hear every episode of the show without sponsor messages. You can learn more at plus.npr.org. I'm Scott Detrow.

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