Critics worry Donald Trump will use memorial service for Charlie Kirk to turn collective grief into revenge campaign against ‘radical left’ – key US politics stories from 20 September 2025 at a glance
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.
