Secretary of State Marco Rubio likened the assassination of Charlie Kirk to a “death in the family” for the White House, while Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned that such political violence only threatens democracy around the world during a joint press conference Monday.
Rubio and Netanyahu were delivering joint remarks in Jerusalem after holding a meeting to discuss the ongoing war against Hamas in Gaza, when a reporter asked them about the ramifications of Kirk’s assassination.
Rubio called the assassination “horrifying” and “shocking” to those in the White House, including President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance, who were both close with Kirk.
“He was a personal friend to a lot of people in that White House,” Rubio said of Kirk. “The president, to the vice president, to multiple people. It was a combination, you know, political assassination, but also death in the family type event.”
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Kirk’s work had him engage in debates with people with opposing views and ideologies across college campuses and online. He was shot and killed while engaging in a debate on the campus of Utah Valley University on Wednesday at a Tuning Point USA event.
Both Rubio and Netanyahu said the assassination marked a threat to democracy in its effort to “intimidate” and “silence” the effort to hold discourse between people who disagree not only in America, but around the world.
“Once a society loses the ability of people with strong disagreements to engage in discourse, then the only option you’re left with is either silence or violence,” Rubio said. “Neither one of which is acceptable. Both are very destructive.”
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Netanyahu rhetorically asked how democracies can address those members of society who don’t believe in free speech and resort to violence.
“How do you actually address the threat of the poisonous incitement of the people who don’t believe in free speech, who believe in the imposition of their views on others? Speak of democracy, but actually want to trample democracy into the dust? How do you deal with that?” the prime minister asked.
Netanyahu then described democracy as “the nonviolent resolution of conflict within a society.”
“Nonviolent resolutions and decisions are made not by bullets, but by balance,” he said. “And these people increasingly are more and more violent.”
