NEW YORK — Matthew Dowd’s firing has opened a floodgate.
The MSNBC political analyst, who lost his job shortly after on-air comments about slain conservative activist Charlie Kirk, was the first of many figures to face consequences Thursday for public statements or actions about the shooting.
Raw feelings about the killing have ignited a campaign to shame — and worse. Several conservative activists sought to identify social media users whose posts about Kirk they viewed as offensive or celebratory. Right-wing influencer Laura Loomer said she would try to ruin the professional aspirations of anyone who celebrated Kirk’s death.
MSNBC said Dowd is no longer with the network after his comments, shortly after the shooting, in which he said that “hateful words” can lead to “hateful actions.” Both MSNBC President Rebecca Kutler and Dowd apologized for the remarks, which Kutler called “inappropriate, insensitive and unacceptable.”
Dowd said he didn’t intend for his comments to blame Kirk for the attack, as some may have construed them. Still, it brought an abrupt interruption to his work as a television commentator, which the former aide to President George W. Bush has done for nearly two decades.
The moves to curb certain public commentary after Kirk’s death are particularly notable, as his admirers had lauded him as a champion of free speech.
Actions spread across country
A Florida reporter was suspended for a question posed to a congressman. A comic book writer lost her job because of social media posts, as did educators in Mississippi and Tennessee. “CBS Mornings” host Nate Burleson was attacked for a question he asked. An Arizona sports reporter and a Carolina Panthers public relations official lost their jobs.
An anonymously registered website pledged to “Expose Charlie’s Murderers” and asked people to offer tips about people who were “supporting political violence online.”
The site published a running list Thursday of targeted posts, along with the names, locations and employers of people who posted them. While some posts contained incendiary language, others didn’t appear to celebrate the shooting or glorify violence. There were several similar efforts, including one by activist Scott Presler, who asked his followers about teachers purported to have celebrated Kirk’s killing and posted findings on X.
A staff member at the University of Mississippi was fired after sharing “insensitive comments” about Kirk’s death, according to the school’s chancellor, Glenn Boyce. The university did not identify the employee or immediately respond to questions from the Associated Press.
The president of Middle Tennessee State University said he’d fired a staffer who offered “callous and inappropriate comments on social media” about Kirk’s shooting. President Sidney A. McPhee did not identify the staff member but said the person “worked in a position of trust with our students.”
It wasn’t clear if it was the same person, but an X post by Tennessee GOP Sen. Marsha Blackburn identified an assistant dean of students at MTSU who posted online that she had “ZERO sympathy” after the shooting. Blackburn said the person should be ashamed and fired.
A warning to teachers in Florida
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ education commissioner warned the state’s teachers that making “disgusting” statements about Kirk’s killing could draw sanctions, including the suspension or revocation of teaching licenses. Commissioner Anastasios Kamoutsas said in a memo to school district superintendents that he’d been made aware of “despicable” comments on social media.
“I will be conducting an investigation of every educator who engages in this vile, sanctionable behavior,” Kamoutsas said in the memo, which he also posted on X on Thursday. “Govern yourselves accordingly.”
The rush to police commentary appeared to have little precedent in other recent examples of political violence, such as the 2022 home-invasion hammer attack on Paul Pelosi, husband of then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi; or the shooting deaths in June of Minnesota House Democratic leader Melissa Hortman and her husband, Mark.
DC Comics announced that it was ditching a new “Red Hood” series, a Batman spinoff, after one issue had been published and two more were in the works. The comics’ writer, Gretchen Felker-Martin, had published comments about Kirk’s shooting online that DC called offensive.
“Posts or public comments that can be viewed as promoting hostility or violence are inconsistent with DC’s standards of conduct,” the comics publisher said.
Loomer, an informal advisor to President Trump whose pressure campaigns have resulted in several firings in his administration, attacked the entertainment website TMZ for what she called a “disgusting” livestream in which employees could be heard laughing and cheering seconds before Kirk’s death was announced. TMZ said the noise had nothing to do with the Kirk story — the staff members were crowded around a computer watching a car chase — but apologized for the bad timing and how it looked to viewers.
A writer for the Arizona media company PHNX Sports was fired after conservative activists called attention to a series of online posts that attacked Kirk’s positions on guns and Gaza and called him evil.
The NFL’s Carolina Panthers distanced themselves from an employee who posted comments about Kirk and a photo referencing Wu-Tang Clan’s song “Protect Ya Neck.” Kirk was shot in the neck. Football communications coordinator Charlie Rock was fired, according to a person with knowledge of the situation who spoke under condition of anonymity because the team typically doesn’t announce firings.
Rock’s name has been removed from the team’s website. He did not immediately return messages seeking comment.
CBS News anchor under attack
Burleson, a former NFL star turned anchor for CBS News’ morning show, was attacked online for asking former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy on the air Thursday whether this was a moment for the Republican Party to reflect on political violence. His co-anchor, Gayle King, immediately tried to soften the question by interjecting, “I’d say both parties.”
Another former NFL player, Jay Feely, running for Congress in Arizona, said the question was offensive. “Charlie Kirk was assassinated in front of his family and you ask if Republicans need to tone down their rhetoric?” he said. (Kirk’s family was not present at the shooting.) Some conservative media stars also weighed in, with talk show host Erick Erickson calling for Burleson to be fired and Clay Travis calling him a ”moron.”
A reporter for the Floridapolitics.com news site was suspended for texting a Florida congressman a question about gun control immediately after Kirk’s shooting. Peter Schorsch, Floridapolitics.com publisher, said he was concerned that reporter A.G. Gancarski was trying to provoke a source rather than initiate a serious policy discussion. Utah law allows people to carry guns on college campuses; Kirk was slain on the campus of Utah Valley University in Orem.
U.S. Rep. Randy Fine, a Florida Republican, texted back that he had learned of Kirk’s shooting only 23 minutes earlier and was repulsed to get the question when people should be praying for Kirk’s safety. Schorsch said he agreed that the timing was inappropriate, and didn’t want any of his staff members to be put in danger by anyone angry about it.
“I think everybody today should be asking questions about a wide range of policies,” Schorsch said in an interview Thursday. “But when a house is on fire, I don’t think you should ask questions about a person’s insurance policy. You put out the fire first.”
He said Gancarski was a good reporter who made a mistake. He’ll be back on the job after a few days out. Gancarski, reached by phone, declined comment.
The feminist website Jezebel removed a post headlined “We Paid Some Etsy Witches to Curse Charlie Kirk” that was published Monday, two days before Kirk’s death. “The piece was intended as satire and made it absolutely clear that we wished no physical harm. We stand by every word,” Jezebel said in an editor’s note.
“We may republish at a later date, but out of compassion for the victim’s family, we want to make clear that we prioritize an end to violence over anyone wanting to read about Etsy witches,” Jezebel said, in a reference to the online storefront.
Bauder and Swenson write for the Associated Press. AP journalists Sophie Bates, Kate Payne, Steve Reed and Nicholas Riccardi contributed to this report.
