By Trevor Hunnicutt and Steve Holland
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -Since the U.S. conservative activist Charlie Kirk was shot in a brazen display of violence, President Donald Trump has embraced the role of spokesman in an extraordinary way.
Trump was first to confirm the news to a country in shock that Kirk was dead and first to announce that the latest suspect was in custody. He shared when Kirk’s funeral would take place and said he would attend. Before a suspect was detained, Trump blamed without presenting evidence the “radical left” for Kirk’s murder, with many of his followers repeating the accusation and calling for vengeance amid a wave of right-wing anger.
Kirk, a popular but divisive podcast host and author of a half-dozen books, left behind a wife, prominent friends and legions of followers after being gunned down on a Utah college campus on Wednesday where he was giving a speech.
Yet it is Trump who has taken on a central role in messaging after his political ally’s grisly public death, delivering information that typically would come from law enforcement or local officials rather than the nation’s top leader.
His actions contrast with the more cautious approach of past presidents. But they are very much in line with his penchant for direct communication, defying convention and putting himself in the middle of domestic and international issues.
“The one thing about Donald Trump is he is a very detailed individual,” said Mercedes Schlapp, a senior adviser to Trump in his first term. “Whether he is building the Rose Garden Club or we have this awful tragedy, he wants to be the one to break the news.”
Trump ordered flags to be flown at half-staff, said he would award Kirk the Presidential Medal of Freedom and saw his vice president accompany Kirk’s casket back to his home state on Air Force Two – all fairly unusual ways for the U.S. government to honor a political operative who has never held office or served in the military.
Trump had a personal and political relationship with Kirk, the co-founder and president of the conservative student group Turning Point USA he credits with helping him appeal to young voters.
“Charlie had a magic over the kids,” Trump said on Friday on Fox News’ “Fox and Friends,” recalling how his teenage son Barron was awe-struck by the charismatic 31-year-old activist.
Kirk was also a sharply partisan figure whose combative style and anti-LGBTQ and anti-immigrant rhetoric often brought him to clash with others online and in public. His far-right views on abortion, civil rights and gun control also garnered strong reactions from the groups his comments targeted.
Trump has called for a non-violent response from his supporters but sidestepped reporters’ questions over how to unify the country in the midst of its most sustained surge in political violence since the 1970s. Trump himself was the subject of two assassination attempts last year.
Trump downplayed the extremism from the political right, telling reporters on Thursday that “we just have to beat the hell out of them,” stoking his supporters’ calls for political revenge against the “radical left.”
Twenty-two-year-old Tyler Robinson of Utah was arrested on Thursday night for the shooting. Motives remained unclear, with investigators closely scrutinizing messages engraved into four bullet casings. Experts have said they could reference left- or right-leaning groups.
DEFINING THE NARRATIVE
Schlapp said Trump, a former reality television host, has come to enjoy unstructured exchanges with the press and the bully pulpit that comes with the attention lavished on him.
She noted that his approach to communication has been more aggressive in his second term in office.
“He just really wants to drive the news, and who is better to drive the news than Donald Trump? And his strategy has worked,” she said. “His administration is on offense from a media standpoint like nothing I’ve ever seen. We were getting hit all the time in the first term. It has allowed the president to define a narrative.”
There have been no briefings by Trump’s aides since the shooting. Aides regularly defer to Trump on policy announcements or the administration’s thinking, declining to “get in front of the president.”
Trump’s in-the-moment, off-the-cuff style comes with the risk of influencing a law enforcement process or later being contradicted by a clearer picture of the facts.
“Presidents typically don’t release breaking news like that,” said Yu Ouyang, professor of political science at Purdue University Northwest. “They know the impact that their words would have.”
Critics, including Senator Elizabeth Warren, took Trump to task for his remarks last week ignoring that liberal and Democratic figures have also been the target of political violence in the U.S. Some commentators contrasted Trump’s repeated messaging on Kirk versus his relatively muted response to the assassination of Minnesota Democratic Representative Melissa Hortman earlier this year.
In a video message from the Oval Office on Wednesday, he said “violence and murder are the tragic consequence of demonizing those with whom you disagree” – but then only called out the rhetoric of the left.
“Even though (Trump) is trying to console at times, a lot of his rhetoric has also been very much ramping up – blaming a particular group before we even know who has done this,” said Denise Bostdorff, a College of Wooster communication studies professor who has studied presidential rhetoric.
The White House did not respond for comment. Trump’s staff touts the president’s accessibility, while many of his supporters relish his norm-busting, blunt communication style.
“Ronald Reagan was an orator,” said Barry Bennett, a former Trump campaign adviser, “but Donald Trump understands the speed of news and how to get a story out there.”
(Reporting by Trevor Hunnicutt and Steve Holland; Editing by Colleen Jenkins and Aurora Ellis)
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