Donald Trump ally Charlie Kirk assassinated in Utah

Conservative activist Charlie Kirk has been shot dead on a university campus in Utah, in what Donald Trump condemned as a “heinous assassination” and a “dark moment for America”.

The US president ordered the country’s flags to be lowered to half-mast in Kirk’s honour. He posted a four-minute video in which he expressed “grief and anger” over Kirk’s killing and vowed to address what he called “radical left political violence”.

“For years, those on the radical left have compared wonderful Americans like Charlie to Nazis and the world’s worst mass murderers and criminals,” Trump said. “This kind of rhetoric is directly responsible for the terrorism that we’re seeing in our country today, and it must stop right now,” Trump said in the Oval Office.

The shooting, on a university campus where young people had gathered for debate, shocked a country grappling with deepening political fissures.

Kirk was speaking with students at an event at Utah Valley University, a public university in Orem, south of Salt Lake City, when he was struck by a bullet in the neck.

The shooter has not been identified. Two separate individuals were questioned by law enforcement but later released.

FBI director Kash Patel said in a post on X on Wednesday that the investigation was ongoing and the agency would “continue to release information in interest of transparency”.

In a joint statement, state law enforcement and the FBI said the shooting was “believed to be a targeted attack” and the shooter was “believed to have fired from the roof of a building” into a courtyard where the event was being held.

The shooting was widely condemned by Republicans and Democrats alike as an act of political violence.

His killing came less than three months after a Minnesota state lawmaker and her husband were murdered in a targeted attack. Earlier this year, Pennsylvania’s Democratic governor Josh Shapiro was the victim of an arson attack and assassination attempt.

Trump survived two assassination attempts last summer as he campaigned for the presidency.

Mike Johnson, the Republican Speaker of the House, said violence had “become all too common in American society”.

“This is not who we are. It violates the core principles of our country . . . it must stop,” he told reporters on Capitol Hill. “We can settle disagreements and disputes in a civil manner, and political violence must be called out.”

Trump and others blamed the “radical left” for Kirk’s killing.

The president said his administration would “find each and every one of those who contributed to this atrocity and to other political violence, including the organisations that fund it and support it, as well as those who go after our judges, law enforcement, officials and everyone else who brings order to our country”.

“The Left is the party of murder,” wrote tech billionaire Elon Musk on his social media platform X, shortly after news of the shooting. Katie Miller, wife of Trump’s close adviser Stephen Miller, wrote that liberals “have blood” on their hands.

Laura Loomer, a rightwing activist whose lobbying has prompted Trump to fire members of his administration, said on X it was time to “shut down, defund, & prosecute every single Leftist organisation”.

“The Left is a national security threat,” she wrote.

Kirk, who was 31 with a wife and two young children, co-founded Turning Point USA, a grassroots organisation that promotes conservative politics at secondary schools and universities. The group and its campaign arm, Turning Point Action, rallied support for Trump and the Republican party in recent years, especially among younger voters.

Kirk hosted The Charlie Kirk Show, an influential daily talk radio programme. A Turning Point spokesperson last year told NBC News the podcast was being downloaded between 500,000 and 750,000 times a day.

His appearance in Utah was billed as the start of an “American Comeback” tour of college campuses. He regularly drew large crowds for what he described as a “prove me wrong table”, where he engaged in often combative question-and-answer sessions with the audience.

Campus police at Utah Valley University said more than 3,000 people were at Wednesday’s event.

Minutes before the shooting, Kirk posted pictures and videos from the event to social media.

“WE. ARE. SO. BACK,” Kirk wrote on X. “Utah Valley University is FIRED UP and READY for the first stop back on the American Comeback Tour.”

At a press conference with state and local law enforcement, Utah governor Spencer Cox said Kirk had been the victim of a “political assassination”.

“The investigation is ongoing. But I want to make it crystal clear to whoever did this: we will find you, we will try you, and we will hold you accountable to the furthest extent of the law,” Cox said, adding: “I just want to remind people that we still have the death penalty here in the state of Utah.”

Additional reporting by Stefania Palma