A majority of Democrats, Independents and Republicans agree that ‘extremist political rhetoric’ contributed to the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk, according to a new poll.<\/p>\n
The survey from NBC News found that 54% of Democrats agree that extreme rhetoric from ‘some in the media and by political leaders’ was a major factor in Kirk’s killing. An overwhelming majority of Republicans, 73%, expressed the same sentiment, while 53% of Independents agreed.<\/p>\n
Across all respondents, 61% of Americans said they believe rhetoric contributed to Kirk’s death.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, 28% said they believed Kirk’s killing was caused more by the lone actions of a disturbed individual than the broader political climate. Another 4% said it was a combination of the two.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
The poll marks the first time in 15 years of NBC News polling that majorities of all major American political groups agree that extreme rhetoric was a major factor in causing a violent incident.<\/p>\n
Polls going back to the 2011 shooting of former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, D-Ariz., show a steady rise in Americans blaming political rhetoric for violence, rather than just a lone individual.<\/p>\n
In Giffords’ case, 71% of respondents blamed the lone attacker, while 24% blamed rhetoric. By the time of President Donald Trump’s second assassination attempt, however, 37% blamed the attacker and 54% blamed rhetoric.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Kirk’s alleged killer, Tyler Robinson, faces a capital punishment trial in Utah. Members of his family say he became politically extreme and moved further and further to the left in the year leading up to Kirk’s assassination.<\/p>\n
Robinson faces a slew of charges, including aggravated murder, which carries the potential the death penalty. He has not yet entered a plea.<\/p>\n
Judge Tony Graf<\/u> granted a defense motion to allow Robinson to wear civilian clothes in court, citing his constitutional presumption of innocence, but denied a motion to allow him to appear without shackles.<\/p>\n
Robinson’s next hearing is scheduled for Jan. 16, 2026, when he is expected to make his first in-person appearance.<\/p>\n
Fox News’ Michael Ruiz contributed to this report.<\/i><\/p>\n<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A majority of Democrats, Independents and Republicans agree that ‘extremist political rhetoric’ contributed to the assassination…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":26631,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26630","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stocksflux.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26630","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stocksflux.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stocksflux.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stocksflux.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stocksflux.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26630"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stocksflux.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26630\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stocksflux.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26631"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stocksflux.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26630"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stocksflux.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26630"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stocksflux.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26630"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}