Trump news at a glance: fears president will seize on Kirk’s murder for campaign of vengeance | Trump administration
On Sunday the late rightwing activist Charlie Kirk is set to be hailed by Donald Trump as a martyr of the Make America Great Again (Maga) movement.
But Kirk’s memorial service at a football stadium in Arizona could, critics fear, be exploited by the US president to turn collective grief into a campaign of vengeance against his political opponents.
Trump has spent the past 10 days escalating threats against what he calls the “radical left” after the fatal shooting of Kirk, 31, on a university campus in Utah.
The White House is considering classifying some groups as domestic terrorists and revoking tax-exempt status for certain non-profits, even though there is no evidence linking these groups to the killing.
How Trump is capitalizing on Charlie Kirk’s killing
Trump and his allies have sought to undermine the legitimacy of the Democratic party, branding it an extremist organisation despite it having roundly condemned the attack on Charlie Kirk.
Officials insist their focus is preventing violence, but critics see an extension of Trump’s campaign of retribution against his political foes and an erosion of free speech. They warn his administration is trying to harness outrage over Kirk’s killing to crush dissent.
“Political violence is very often used as a pretext to crack down on civil liberties and on opponents – this is page one of the autocrats’ playbook,” said Steven Levitsky, a political scientist at Harvard University.
Trump’s reported pause on Taiwan weapons aid sparks fears he is using island for China trade deal
Donald Trump’s reported pause on US$400m in weapons aid to Taiwan has fuelled fears he is using US support of the island to negotiate with China.
Trump’s pause on weapons provisions, if confirmed, included orders for lethal munitions and autonomous drones, but could still be reversed, the Washington Post reported on Friday.
It came amid US efforts to negotiate a trade deal with China and before Trump and China’s leader, Xi Jinping, spoke on the phone on Friday. Trump said they had made “productive” progress on a range of issues. But analysts said respective readouts of the call did not mention Taiwan.
Tulsi Gabbard did not alert White House before revoking 37 security clearances
Tulsi Gabbard, the director of national intelligence, did not inform the White House that her office was revoking the security clearances of 37 people – including top deputies to the CIA director, John Ratcliffe – before it happened last month, according to three people familiar with the matter.
The move meant the White House did not having an opportunity to closely vet the list before it became public and there appeared to be no paper trail from the president directing the effort, the people said.
Officials only realized after the fact that Gabbard had managed to pull the security clearances of career CIA officials. Several of Trump’s top advisers view the episode as a serious blunder that comes as Trump is sceptical of the intelligence community.
Why is Trump so obsessed with Jimmy Kimmel and US late-night TV shows?
Since ABC made the decision to indefinitely suspend comedian Jimmy Kimmel from his late-night talkshow after on-air remarks about the killing of Charlie Kirk, Donald Trump has encouraged further action against other late-night hosts.
Most presidents have accepted the relentless punchlines on the Tonight Show as part of the job since the show became hugely popular in the 1960s under comedian Johnny Carson.
But Trump is a different political animal. He has singled out Kimmel, who has kept the Maga movement in his crosshairs since candidate Trump backed out of a scheduled 2015 appearance at the last minute.
What else happened today:
Catching up? Here’s what happened on 19 September 2025.
