WASHINGTON (OSV News) — Officials are urging calm and increased dialogue after the fatal shooting of conservative activist Charlie Kirk Sept. 10 during an event at Utah Valley University in Orem, Utah.
The same week in Washington, lawmakers reacted to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s drone incursion into Poland, and points of tension emerged between the Trump administration’s immigration and manufacturing policies after an immigration enforcement raid on a Hyundai facility in Georgia the previous week.
Officials seek off-ramp on political violence after Charlie Kirk killing
Many elected officials, Republicans and Democrats, issued statements condemning political violence after Kirk, 31, was killed.
At a press conference naming the suspected shooter in what officials called the assassination of Kirk, Utah Gov. Spencer Cox, a Republican, said political violence “is different than any other type of violence.”
“We will never be able to solve all the other problems, including the violence problems that people are worried about, if we can’t have a clash of ideas safely and securely … especially those ideas with which you disagree,” he said.
“That’s the problem with political violence, is it metastasizes, because we can always point the finger at the other side; and at some point, we have to find an off-ramp, or it’s going to get much, much worse,” he said.
Cox also urged Americans not to watch or share videos on social media showing the moment Kirk was shot.
“This is not good for us, this is not good to consume,” he said. “Social media is a cancer in our society right now, and I would encourage people to log off, turn off, touch grass, go hug a family member, go out and do good in the community.”
“Touch grass” is an idiom meaning people should spend time on real-life activities rather than online ones.
Cox previously oversaw a project called “Disagree Better” during his tenure as chair of the National Governors Association which sought to improve collaboration between red and blue states and encourage “healthy conflict for better policy.”
Democratic elected officials also called for calm and condemned the violence.
Gov. Josh Shapiro, D-Pa., told ABC News Sept. 11, “This violence is leaving scars. It’s claiming lives.”
“I think some of the rhetoric I’ve seen online is just dark and it is dangerous. The talk of revenge is only going to make us less safe. The talk of celebrating this man’s death — no matter how profound a disagreement over a policy should be, he left behind a wife and two children. No one should be celebrating that. No one,” Shapiro said.
The governor’s residence in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, was attacked by an arsonist in April, soon after Shapiro and his family celebrated Passover. The alleged assailant was charged with attempted murder.
Shapiro did criticize comments Trump made in the Oval Office Sept. 10, in which the president blamed the “radical left” for the violence before the alleged killer was identified.
“I think it is dangerous when the president cherry picks which political violence he’s going to condemn and which he’s going to allow to just simply pass. I think we need to be universal in condemning all political violence,” Shapiro said.
Kirk was a staunch ally of President Donald Trump and of Vice President JD Vance. In some of Trump’s comments since Kirk’s death, Trump has also said his supporters should respond with “nonviolence.”
Some Catholic bishops have also called for prayer and nonviolence.
Lawmakers respond to Russian drone incursion into Poland
A bipartisan group of senators said they would seek to label Russia as a state sponsor of terrorism due to its kidnapping of Ukrainian children, as political momentum increases to approve a sanctions package on Russia after its drone incursion into Polish airspace.
Sens. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., and Katie Britt, R-Ala., introduced a bill Sept. 11 that would slap the label on Russia and Belarus unless they return more than 19,000 Ukrainian children kidnapped since the start of Russia’s full invasion of Ukraine.
In comments to reporters the same day, Graham noted only Cuba, Iran, North Korea and Syria are currently designated as state sponsors of terrorism under U.S. law.
“It’s hard to get on that list. Well, let me tell you, Russia’s earned the right to be on this list,” Graham said.
“The violent abduction of these children is a crime against humanity. Vladimir Putin is a war criminal,” Blumenthal added. “Putin believes that there is no Ukraine. What he is seeking to do by kidnapping these children is to erase Ukraine from the face of the Earth.”
Poland is a NATO member nation. Under the terms of NATO, which was implemented in 1949, the group considers an attack against one or several of its members as an attack against all, and pledges collective defense in the face of such a scenario. There are currently 31 NATO members.
Poland and NATO allies shot down the drones, marking the first time in the history of NATO that alliance fighters engaged enemy targets in allied airspace, officials said.
Tension between Trump immigration and manufacturing policies emerges after ICE raid
After immigration authorities arrested 475 people in a raid on a Hyundai manufacturing site under construction in Georgia earlier in September, Trump later offered to allow some to remain in the U.S., South Korean officials said Sept. 11.
The raid of the Hyundai facility in Ellabell, Georgia, about 30 miles west of Savannah, was conducted “as part of an ongoing criminal investigation into allegations of unlawful employment practices and other serious federal crimes,” a statement from the Department of Homeland Security said.
Afterward, Trump wrote on his website Truth Social that he was “hereby calling on all Foreign Companies investing in the United States to please respect our Nation’s Immigration Laws.”
“Your Investments are welcome, and we encourage you to LEGALLY bring your very smart people, with great technical talent, to build World Class products, and we will make it quickly and legally possible for you to do so,” he said. “What we ask in return is that you hire and train American Workers.”
But Trump told reporters Sept. 7, “We’re going to look at that whole situation.”
“You know, when they’re building batteries, if you don’t have people in this country right now that know about batteries, maybe we should help them along and let some people come in and train our people to do, you know, complex things, whether it’s battery manufacturing or computer manufacturing or building ships,” he said.
Critics said such efforts were contradictory to Trump’s stated intention to increase manufacturing in the U.S.
The CEO of Hyundai Motor Co. said in an interview with Axios Sept. 11 the raid will likely delay construction of the company’s U.S. battery plant by several months.
Catholic social teaching on immigration seeks to balance three interrelated principles: the right of persons to migrate in order to sustain themselves and their families, the right of a country to regulate its borders and immigration, and a nation’s duty to conduct that regulation with justice and mercy.
More than 300 of the South Korean workers arrived in Incheon, South Korea, on Sept. 12 on a chartered Korean Air flight. The incident has enraged public sentiment among Koreans across the political spectrum. South Korea’s president, Lee Jae Myung, warning that unless the U.S. fixed its visa process to allow temporary skilled workers to set up manufacturing plants, billions of dollars in South Korean business investments in the U.S. will be imperiled.
Kate Scanlon is a national reporter for OSV News covering Washington. Follow her on X @kgscanlon.
