The left simply can’t seem to comprehend that their own side may have played a significant role in the ongoing political violence epidemic. During the unfolding aftermath of Wednesday’s deadly shooting of conservative activist Charlie Kirk at a Utah college campus, The Don Lemon Show went live and hosted several guests to discuss the shooting and political violence in America.
Host Don Lemon, briefly acknowledged the existence of politically charged violence on his own side of the aisle, but was quick to shift a majority of the blame back onto the political right, citing President Trump as a motivator, to which retired policeman Michael Fanone concurred:
LEMON: And look, again, Michael, you know I’m real, I want Charlie Kirk to be okay. But, no one is excusing Charlie Kirk’s behavior and what he’s done and what he stands for. And, a lot of that political violence, if not most of it—it happens on both sides of the aisle—but a lot of that political violence comes from the right. You have a President out there telling people that—police officers that they can, you know, handle people aggressively and they can do whatever they want with it and, you know, just all kinds of things like that. This is a moment where people should be looking at—taking a good look in the mirror to see, like, “Hey, look at what has happened.”
FANONE: I agree. And—but I also know that they won’t.
The tag-team pessimists ignored the obvious: that Kirk’s politically motivated assassin was most definitely anti-Kirk, and therefore unlikely to have been a conservative. Exactly which side should be “taking a good look in the mirror?”
Lemon and Fanone continued to condemn the right for the political violence in America by zeroing in on one of the Republican Party’s (and Kirk’s) biggest demographics: young, white men:
LEMON: The MAGA right can say what they want, but most of the political violence, especially the shootings, have been done—Michael, you tell me if I’m wrong—by young, white men who are usually right-wingers, and some of them far right-wingers. Am I correct? It’s not—
FANONE: You are correct.
LEMON: And it’s domestic violence, it’s not—no Muslims, and that kind of thing—it’s white men in this country.
FANONE: Yeah, it’s predominantly been young, white men who are inspired either by, you know, right-wing extremist ideology, or white supremacist, white nationalist ideology. Those are facts.
So far, the logic has been: a) the right wing’s rhetoric was mostly to blame for the political violence occurring across the nation; b) young, white men were mostly responsible for this violence; c) these young, white men were roused by racist dogmas, pushing them to target public figures or large groups of people.
So then how did Kirk, a fairly-young, white male who was very much right-wing become the target of politically-charged violence, inspired by the Republican Party and carried out by a young, white male? The killer had not been apprehended, so it was not yet possible to know their identity or their motive. But Lemon and Fanone’s line of reasoning did not match up with reality, or at least not with the recent incident.
Fanone propelled the rhetoric even further, depicting Trump as a villain that had formed the hostile environment:
I mean, he’s done everything he possibly can from, you know, the highest seat in the land, if not the world, to dehumanize those who don’t agree with him politically. I don’t know anyone else who’s contributed more to this moment than Donald Trump, and maybe a handful of his enablers.
To be clear, Fanone was referring to political violence in general in the above quote. But the logic he and Lemon established throughout the episode did not account for how or why Kirk’s life was wrongfully taken.
Left-wing loon Glenn Krischner joined the show to doubt both Trump’s ability to make a non-partisan stand against heated rhetoric and Republicans’ commitment to citizen safety:
And I know it might displease Donald Trump if the Democrats and the Republicans got together to, you know, call for turning down the temperature, the political rhetoric in this country. No, that won’t please Donald Trump. And I know there are Republicans in Congress whose only calculation seems to be their re-election prospects, and they don’t want to alienate any of Donald Trump’s base. But, at what point do the lives of your own constituents become more important than your prospects of re-election?
The left, while claiming to be decisively intolerant of this tragic death and political violence as a whole, was unwilling to consider the possibility that they themselves may hold some responsibility in the fomenting of said violence. And their analysis failed to account for how someone could possibly wish to harm such a prominent conservative like Kirk. The disingenuous calls for unity weren’t helping appearances, either.
The transcript is below. Click "expand" read:
The Don Lemon Show
September 10, 2025
(…)
DON LEMON: And look, again, Michael, you know I’m real, I want Charlie Kirk to be okay. But, no one is excusing Charlie Kirk’s behavior and what he’s done and what he stands for. And, a lot of that political violence, if not most of it—it happens on both sides of the aisle—but a lot of that political violence comes from the right. You have a President out there telling people that—police officers that they can, you know, handle people aggressively and they can do whatever they want with it and, you know, just all kinds of things like that. This is a moment where people should be looking at—taking a good look in the mirror to see, like, “Hey, look at what has happened.”
MICHAEL FANONE: I agree. And—but I also know that they won’t.
(…)
LEMON: The MAGA right can say what they want, but most of the political violence, especially the shootings, have been done—Michael, you tell me if I’m wrong—by young, white men who are usually right-wingers, and some of them far right-wingers. Am I correct? It’s not—
FANONE: You are correct.
LEMON: And it’s domestic violence, it’s not—no Muslims, and that kind of thing—it’s white men in this country.
FANONE: Yeah, it’s predominantly been young, white men who are inspired either by, you know, right-wing extremist ideology, or white supremacist, white nationalist ideology. Those are facts.
(…)
FANONE: I mean, he’s done everything he possibly can from, you know, the highest seat in the land, if not the world, to dehumanize those who don’t agree with him politically. I don’t know anyone else who’s contributed more to this moment than Donald Trump, and maybe a handful of his enablers.
(…)
GLENN KIRSCHNER: And I know it might displease Donald Trump if the Democrats and the Republicans got together to, you know, call for turning down the temperature, the political rhetoric in this country. No, that won’t please Donald Trump. And I know there are Republicans in Congress whose only calculation seems to be their re-election prospects, and they don’t want to alienate any of Donald Trump’s base. But, at what point do the lives of your own constituents become more important than your prospects of re-election?
(…)
