Obama appears to blame Trump for 'extreme views' that contributed to Charlie Kirk assassination

Former President Barack Obama publicly addressed the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk for the first time on Tuesday, calling it both “a threat to all of us” and “a tragedy.” His comments, however, also included criticism of President Donald Trump and claims that his administration is perpetrating extremist views.

Speaking at the Jefferson Educational Society in Erie, Pennsylvania, during a conversation with broadcaster Steve Scully, Obama said: “When it happens to somebody, even if you think they’re quote unquote ‘on the other side of the argument,’ that’s a threat to all of us, and we have to be clear and forthright and condemn it. Regardless of where you are on the political spectrum, what happened to Charlie Kirk was horrific and a tragedy.”

Obama then, seemingly out of nowhere, shifted to Trump, where he said that the current administration had emboldened extremist views. “But I’ll say this — those extreme views were not in my White House. I wasn’t empowering them. I wasn’t putting the weight of the United States government behind them. When we have the weight of the United States government behind extremist views, we’ve got a problem,” he said.

The former president had previously commented on the assassination in a post on X. “We don’t yet know what motivated the person who shot and killed Charlie Kirk, but this kind of despicable violence has no place in our democracy,” Obama wrote. “Michelle and I will pray for Charlie’s family tonight, especially his wife Erika and their two young children.”

The phrasing of that message—particularly the line, “We don’t yet know what motivated the person who shot and killed Charlie Kirk” — was met with backlash from users, with many accusing Obama of downplaying the killer’s motives, especially considering Kirk's views.