Rep. Seth Moulton (D-Mass.) said he’s received threats over his Thursday statement urging the Trump administration to help cool the nation’s political temperature after the shooting of conservative activist Charlie Kirk.
“My office has received an extraordinary number of violent and graphic threats yesterday and today from right-wing individuals online and over the phone—directed toward me, my family, and my staff—after I pointed out the simple fact that President Trump should join [House] Speaker [Mike] Johnson [R-La.] and other level-headed Republicans in condemning political violence, not inciting it further,” Moulton wrote in a Friday statement on social platform X, with a screenshot of hateful comments under his social media posts.
The Massachusetts Democrat said the “solution” to political disagreement in America is “never violence.”
“It should be easy for everybody to say that,” he told his followers, urging GOP lawmakers to condemn violence “just as I and many other Democrats condemn violence by the left.”
Lawmakers across the aisle condemned the assassination of Kirk at Utah Valley University on Wednesday. Several high-level Democrats, including former Presidents Biden and Obama, also spoke out against the violence.
“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. Michelle and I will be praying for Charlie’s family tonight, especially his wife Erika and their two young children,” Obama wrote in a public statement.
President Trump, however, blamed the political left for the loss of Kirk in a Wednesday night video message from the Oval Office.
“Radical left political violence has hurt too many innocent people and taken too many lives. Tonight, I ask all Americans to commit themselves to the American values for which Charlie Kirk lived and died,” Trump told the public.
Shortly after the shooting, GOP Rep. Thomas Massie (Ky.) called on Trump to tone down his rhetoric.
“I think that’s ridiculous rhetoric,” Massie told The Hill.
“It’s amusing,” he added. “It doesn’t offend me that he’s over the top with the rhetoric, but some people take it literally, and he should probably tone that down himself.”
Still, some Republican lawmakers, such as Rep. Nancy Mace (S.C.), have openly blamed those with differing political views for Kirk’s assassination.
“Democrats owned what happened today,” Mace told reporters outside the Capitol shortly after the news of the shooting broke. “Just because you speak your mind doesn’t mean you get shot.”
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