The United States is facing a political crisis unlike any seen before following the killing of Charlie Kirk, warned former President Barack Obama.
At an event in Pennsylvania on Tuesday, Obama said he did not know Kirk and disagreed with many of his views, but called the killing “horrific and tragic.”
He criticized President Trump’s statements toward his political opponents and referenced previous Republican presidents who, he said, emphasized national unity in times of tension.
In response, the White House called Obama “the architect of modern political division.”
Before the arrest of Tyler Robinson, who is accused of Kirk’s killing, Trump allies blamed left-wing activists and the rhetoric of Democratic lawmakers and their supporters for the incident.
“I believe that in times like this, when tensions are high, part of the president’s job is to unite people,” Obama said. He urged Americans to respect the right of others to express views we may deeply disagree with.
Obama also praised Utah Governor Spencer Cox, a Republican, for demonstrating “that it is possible to disagree while adhering to a basic code of how we engage in public discourse.”
He further noted that he did not use the 2015 mass shooting at a black church in South Carolina by a white supremacist to attack his political opponents. He recalled that after the September 11, 2001 attacks, President George W. Bush “made a clear effort to declare that ‘we are not at war with Islam.’”
“And so, when I hear not only the current president but also his aides, who have a history of calling political opponents ‘parasites,’ enemies who must be ‘targeted,’ this indicates a broader problem we now face and something we all must confront,” the former president said.
