Powerful public figures spread false info about Charlie Kirk assassination, beliefs, invent quotes

Public employees across the U.S. are facing sanctions including firing for social media comments that celebrate or condone the assassination of Charlie Kirk, sometimes selectively paraphrasing his comments on the Second Amendment's tradeoffs as Kirk's admission that he could be hoisted by his own petard.

High-profile public figures and institutions from New York to Washington and Dallas to Hollywood have gone beyond cherrypicking Kirk's words since his death, however, attributing others' words to him, fabricating or editing quotes and making assertions about his alleged killer and political movement that are lacking or contradicted by hard evidence.

Some have walked back their claims when confronted or sought to clarify what they meant, while others made fresh dubious remarks in correcting themselves.

American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten, who was given unusual power to shape COVID-19 school reopening plans in the early Biden administration, deleted her repost of a comment that called suspect Tyler Robinson a "right winger who didn't want Charlie Kirk to speak" and "did what right wingers do and shot him."

The comment contrasted them with "leftist students" who "signed petitions, staged a protest, and lined up to challenge" Kirk when Utah Valley University wouldn't cancel his event Wednesday at which he was killed.

"This seems important to state," Weingarten wrote without elaborating. When Washington Free Beacon editor Peter Hasson said she was spreading a "false flag conspiracy," Weingarten apologized "if anyone thought it was a false flag" and asked everyone to "de-escalate and condemn political violence."

School choice activist Corey DeAngelis called on her to resign anyway, since Weingarten is scheduled to address "Teachers Against Fascists" on Tuesday afternoon and speak on her book Why Fascists Fear Teachers that night, promoting the same narrative that allegedly drove Robinson to assassinate Kirk.

Actor Billy Baldwin, whose nearly 250,000 X followers are more than twice as many as Weingarten, claimed that Robinson is a "white Christian, Conservative, Republican male with a gun... again," and not black, transgender, Muslim, an immigrant or a Democrat, promoting the narrative that right-wing political violence is more common than left-wing.

The lesser-known brother of Alec Baldwin did not acknowledge law enforcement details such as a found bullet casing that read "hey fascist! CATCH!"

A day later Billy Baldwin apologized only for calling Robinson a Republican, changing his characterization of the suspect to "Christian family. Conservative upbringing. Pro 2A family around guns his entire life." 

He responded to several critics with variations of "there are those in the media that are speculating that Tyler Robinson was further right than Charlie Kirk," a so-called "Groyper that support[s] alt right white supremacist and holocaust denier Nick Fuentes. There is lots of evidence to support this." He cited a screenshot of a post by "meme warfare" group Other98.

Dallas megachurch pastor Frederick Haynes, whose 13,000-member Friendship-West Baptist Church counts Democratic Rep. Jasmine Crockett as a member, falsely said a "white Christian" killed Kirk and used air quotes to describe Kirk's faith in his Sunday sermon, repeatedly disputing that he was "assassinated" like Martin Luther King Jr. was.

The church announced the same day Haynes would be taking medical leave.

Horror author Stephen King unconditionally retracted his claim that Kirk "advocated stoning gays to death" and said what Kirk "actually demonstrated was how some people cherry-pick Biblical passages."

He was apparently referring to a clip posted in King's thread that showed Kirk challenging a children's content creator's reliance on Leviticus to justify Pride Month, noting the same book of the Bible commands the stoning of homosexuals. 

The New York Times also falsely reported that Kirk made antisemitic remarks on his podcast, later correcting its report to note Kirk was quoting someone else's post to critique it.

Washington Post columnist Karen Attiah altered a Kirk quote to change its meaning without acknowledging she changed it, claiming the newspaper fired her Friday for "[s]peaking out against political violence, racial double standards, and America’s apathy toward guns."

Attiah had written on the liberal social media platform Bluesky that she would not engage in "performative mourning for a white man that espoused violence" and, in a since-deleted post, purported to quote Kirk: "Black women do not have the brain processing power to be taken seriously. You have to go steal a white person's slot."

Her Substack essay on her firing misrepresented a Guardian report that correctly quoted Kirk's comments from a two-year-old episode of his show, which noted that MSNBC host Joy Reid, former first lady Michelle Obama, former Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee and Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson all credited affirmative action for their success.

Before that, "we would have been called racists" for calling them "affirmative-action picks," Kirk said. "You" — the four black women specifically, not "black women" as a group — "do not have the brain processing power …" Kirk also speculated they believe "anti-Asian, forced discrimination policies" played a role in their success.

Rep. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., claimed that "if we really want to be honest, there is much more right wing fueled violence than left wing violence," citing a New York Times report that relies on Anti-Defamation League research to claim an increase in rallies, protests, "offensive banners" and "racist fliers" by white supremacists, with no mention of violence. 

A report this spring by Rutgers University's Network Contagion Research Institute found that "assassination culture" is far more embraced by the political left than the right, with 50% of survey participants who describe themselves as left of center saying the murder of X owner Elon Musk would be justified, and 56% the same about President Trump.

The day before the assassination, Murphy shared an interview in which he said "we're in a war right now to save this country" and "you have to be willing to do whatever is necessary in order to save the country." He emphasized that using "de-escalatory politics" wouldn't convince President Trump to "stand down."