A TV political pundit has reportedly been fired for on-air comments he made after the death of Charlie Kirk.
Kirk, a close ally of US President Donald Trump, was shot while speaking at Utah Valley University in front of some 3,000 people yesterday.
After his death, Matthew Dowd appeared on MSNBC Live With Katy Tur when he was asked about the ‘environment’ in which a shooting happens.
Follow Metro’s live blog for coverage of the Charlie Kirk shooting
He told host Katy Tur: ‘He’s been one of the most divisive, especially divisive younger figures in this, who is constantly sort of pushing this sort of hate speech or sort of aimed at certain groups.
‘And I always go back to, hateful thoughts lead to hateful words, which then lead to hateful actions. And I think that is the environment we are in.
‘You can’t stop with these sort of awful thoughts you have and then saying these awful words and not expect awful actions to take place. And that’s the unfortunate environment we are in.’
Kirk, 31, was the founder of the right-wing youth activist group, Turning Point USA.
He frequently criticised gun control, abortion, Islam, LGBTQ+ rights, among other demographics and topics, during his debates with liberals on college campuses or viral YouTube videos.
Kirk, a gun-owner, was addressing the subject of gun violence when he was fatally shot, witnesses say.
Dowd has been fired after social media backlash against his remarks, Deadline reported, citing network sources.
MSNBC president Rebecca Kutler issued an apology to the network’s public relations X account, saying: ‘We apologise for his statements, as has he. There is no place for violence in America, political or otherwise.’
Dowd apologised for his ‘tone and words’ on his Bluesky account.
‘Let me be clear, I in no way intended for my comments to blame Kirk for this horrendous attack,’ Dowd, who joined MSNBC in 2022, added.
‘Let us all come together and condemn violence of any kind.’
Kirk, whose death was confirmed by Trump, was something of a right-wing wunderkind, revving up a new generation of conservative activists across Turning Point’s 850 college chapters.
The podcaster was a strong supporter of gun rights, saying in 2023 that it is worth ‘some gun deaths every single year so that we can have the Second Amendment to protect our other God-given rights’.
He spoke at Trump’s inauguration, helped vet potential White House appointees and was a good friend of Donald Trump Jr.
The police are still hunting for the gunman behind Kirk’s killing. While two people were detained in the chaotic first hours of the shooting, both have been released.
FBI agents said today a ‘high-powered bolt-action rifle’ has been recovered in a wooded area near the campus.
Officials later released photographs of a person of interest, showing a man wearing a baseball cap, dark sunglasses and a black long-sleeve shirt with an image on it.
Kirk’s killing, the latest in a string of attacks targeting political figures, has raised fears of more violence to come.
This year alone, the US has seen 356 mass shootings, according to the Mass Shooting Tracker, of which more than 100 have taken place on school grounds.
Just four minutes after a gun was fired at Kirk, a shooting unfolded at Evergreen High School, Colorado, that led to one death and two injuries.
The county sheriff said the shooter was a 16-year-old male.
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