Charlie Kirk would not have wanted those making light of his death punished, according to a CNN commentator.
S.E. Cupp took issue on Tuesday with high-profile members of the Trump administration, like JD Vance, pushing for such people to be fired.
On CNN News Central, anchor Kate Bolduan asked Cupp about Vance’s call to action on Kirk’s old podcast.
“When you see someone celebrating Charlie’s murder, call them out,” Vance instructed. “And hell, call their employer. We don’t believe in political violence, but we do believe in civility, and there is no civility in the celebration of political assassination.”
Cupp rejected that course of action.
“It’s illiberal and it’s the opposite of what Charlie Kirk would have wanted,” said Cupp, a conservative. “Charlie Kirk was a debater. I didn’t like what he said, and I was offended by what he said. That’s alright, you know? It’s not illegal, it’s not a crime to offend someone. And yeah, I think this is the opposite of what we need.
“When we meet speech we don’t like, we meet it with more free speech. We have to debate our ideas. We have to be able to talk about the things that we disagree with. We have to do that civilly,” Cupp continued.
“But we can’t punish people for disagreeing with us. We can’t punish people for being jerks and celebrating the death of someone. That’s not illegal and that shouldn’t be who we are.”
Kirk himself asserted last year that hate speech “does not exist legally” in the U.S.
Hate speech does not exist legally in America. There’s ugly speech. There’s gross speech. There’s evil speech.And ALL of it is protected by the First Amendment.Keep America free.
— Charlie Kirk (@charliekirk11) May 3, 2024
“Hate speech does not exist legally in America,” he wrote on X last May. “There’s ugly speech. There’s gross speech. There’s evil speech. And ALL of it is protected by the First Amendment. Keep America free.”
Attorney General Pam Bondi, amid pushback from the right, on Tuesday reaffirmed her commitment to prosecute “hate speech that crosses the line into threats of violence.”
Meanwhile, several instances of employers firing workers over their comments about Kirk have thrilled MAGA influencers.
One notable example was MSNBC analyst Matthew Dowd, who said just after the shooting that Kirk’s “awful words” prompted “awful actions to take place.”
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