Overview

• Alternet, citing new reporting from The Guardian, says President Trump and MAGA allies leveraged Charlie Kirk’s murder to target liberal groups and donors, pursued talk of probing George Soros, and threatened legal action against ABC following Jimmy Kimmel’s suspension.
• Harvard’s Steven Levitsky called the response “Page 1 in the authoritarian playbook,” arguing leaders are using political violence as a pretext to pursue political opponents.
• Former federal prosecutor Paul Rosenzweig criticized the push to invoke federal racketeering laws against Soros as frivolous and an example of weaponizing the law.
• Russell Muirhead warned that casting broad swaths of the left as part of a conspiracy or domestic terror network risks turning peaceful opponents into punishable enemies.
• New York Times columnist David French cautioned that MAGA-driven online mobbing and firings are likely to alienate voters, highlighting a case of a worker dismissed after echoing Kirk’s own past remarks.