After Kirk’s Death, Trump Targets Critics in Expanding Free Speech Fight

Four months before he was assassinated at Utah Valley University on Sept. 10, Charlie Kirk staged one of his trademark “American Comeback” tour stops at San Francisco State University.

Under a white tent, with a stack of MAGA hats at his side and a raucous student crowd in front of him, the scene looked eerily like the one where he would later be killed. The video of that day, posted on YouTube, is titled “Charlie Kirk & Riley Gaines Take on Freaky San Francisco.” In it, Kirk sipped tea from a Peet’s Coffee cup as he debated students. He folded his arms and looked down as he listened to each new question.

In response to a question about why America is so politically divided, Kirk said, “The left is the one dividing this country,” adding, “We heal this country by defeating the left.”

In the days since Kirk’s killing, President Donald Trump and his administration have seized on the moment to justify a broader crackdown on political dissent. Trump officials have launched investigations, pressured universities to hand over student information and promised to target what they call a left-wing domestic terror network — raising fears that the free speech movement Kirk claimed to defend is now being undermined in his name.

“ I think they’re seeing an opportunity here to do something they’ve wanted to do for quite some time, which is silence criticisms of their movement, get rid of some of their political enemies and send a chilling effect that silences critics or potential protesters,” said Nolan Higdon, a political and media analyst at UC Santa Cruz. He pointed in a blog post to the recent firing of MSNBC pundit Matthew Dowd and a Florida reporter for their observations while covering Kirk’s killing.

ABC pulled comedian Jimmy Kimmel’s show last week after a Sept. 15 monologue, following FCC Chair Brendan Carr’s podcast comments that called Kimmel’s remarks as “the sickest conduct possible” and warned the network could face regulatory consequences.

Kimmel, who returned Tuesday night, had said that Trump’s supporters were eager to characterize Kirk’s accused assassin “as anything other than one of them.”

On Tuesday, Kimmel said “it was never my intention to make light of the murder of a young man” and used most of his monologue to accuse the Trump administration of attacking the First Amendment. Trump has also called for the termination of late-night hosts Jimmy Fallon and Seth Meyers.

“Our government cannot be allowed to control what we do and do not say on television, and we have to stand up for it,” Kimmel said.

Kirk rose to national prominence as the co-founder of Turning Point USA, a nonprofit organization that promotes conservative values on high school and college campuses, in 2012. TPUSA, which created a website identifying college instructors it claimed discriminated against conservative students, expanded beyond campus activism to become a major engine for Trump’s 2024 campaign, using its nationwide network of student chapters to energize young conservatives.

A popular podcaster, Kirk used social media and his college campus events to argue that free speech was under attack at American universities because of liberal bias among students and faculty. Although Kirk’s campus events were billed as forums for respectful debate, they often devolved into name-calling and shouting matches. In 2023, he called San Francisco State an “island of totalitarianism.”

Speaking at a memorial service for Kirk in Glendale, Arizona, on Sunday, Trump pledged to defend free speech “at all costs.”

“The tradition of reason and open debate that Charlie practiced is not a pillar of our democracy; in many ways, it’s the basis of our entire society,” Trump said to an audience of tens of thousands of people.

But Trump has made a cottage industry of suing U.S. media outlets over coverage he deems unfavorable. In December 2024, ABC News contributed $15 million to Trump’s planned presidential library as part of a settlement in a defamation case. The lawsuit stemmed from anchor George Stephanopoulos’ inaccurate on-air claim that Trump had been found civilly liable for raping writer E. Jean Carroll. Trump was found liable for sexual abuse and defamation.

In July, Paramount, the parent company of CBS, agreed to donate $16 million to Trump’s presidential library to settle a lawsuit over coverage on CBS’s 60 Minutes. Last Friday, a federal judge dismissed a $15 billion defamation lawsuit against The New York Times.

UC Berkeley, where Kirk spoke in 2022 and had reportedly planned to return later this year, is one target of a sprawling antisemitism investigation launched by the Trump administration earlier this year.

Just two days after Kirk’s death, on Sept. 12, the university announced it had turned over information of more than 160 students and faculty to administration officials after a request by the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights. The investigation largely centers on pro-Palestinian protests that erupted on university campuses following the Hamas-led attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, and the ongoing retaliation by Israel that has followed.

UC Berkeley’s decision to cooperate with the investigation has rattled some on campus, who say the school — long celebrated as the birthplace of the free speech movement — is failing to defend its own students and faculty.

“The administration has not been honest with its own community, and it has broken trust with the community … knowing full well that the consequences [of forwarding these names] could be deportation, harassment, detention, loss of employment, limitations imposed on passports, congressional hearings, vilification, abduction,” said Judith Butler, a distinguished professor in UC Berkeley’s graduate school. “All of these things have happened to students at other universities.”

By debating students and posting the clips online, Kirk helped swell the ranks of the Republican Party and turn Turning Point USA into a kingmaker in the American conservative movement. California — and the Bay Area in particular — proved especially useful foils.

“This is also a guy who was trying to make money off the internet. He knew his audience was MAGA folks, and one of the biggest villains of that movement is the state of California, whether it be Nancy Pelosi, Gavin Newsom and his lockdowns, or the ‘blue-haired liberals’ they make fun of,” Higdon said. “So coming out here and recording videos that make you look intellectually superior to California’s college youth plays really well with that audience.

“I don’t think it’s surprising that Kirk would choose California as a location for that.”

Takumi Sugawara, president of the San Francisco State University chapter of Turning Point USA, said it still “doesn’t feel real” that Kirk is dead.

“He was so relevant to my life. I listened to his podcast, I tuned into his show like every morning,” Sugawara said, adding that he joined Turning Point USA because he wanted to promote free speech on campus. “ I wanted to foster this environment where people can agree to disagree, but still call each other fellow Americans and fellow free speech lovers.”

He said he opposed ABC’s decision to suspend Jimmy Kimmel Live over comments Kimmel made in a monologue following Kirk’s death.

“ As long as you’re not inciting violence or directly threatening someone, all speeches are protected,” Sugawara said, adding that he has seen an increased interest from people wanting to join SFSU’s TPUSA chapter meetings. “I truly believe that as long as I have the right to speak my mind, you get to do the same.”

On Tuesday, during an emotional opening monologue, Kimmel urged his audience to speak out against the Trump administration. Trump criticized the network’s decision to reinstate Kimmel, saying it amounted to an illegal campaign contribution to the Democrats, and threatened legal action against ABC and its parent company, Disney.

“This show is not important,” Kimmel said. “What is important is that we get to live in a country that allows us to have a show like this.”

KQED’s Brian Krans and Elize Manoukian contributed to this report.