After conservative activist Charlie Kirk was murdered in Utah last week, leftist and contrarian figures across the country reacted with open celebration, prompting widespread public condemnation.

Fox News Digital spoke this week to several experts who analyzed whether the trend remains a fringe occurrence or if celebrations of political opponents’ deaths and injuries are becoming mainstream.

Paul Sracic is a former politics professor at Youngstown State University and is currently an adjunct fellow at the domestic policy-focused Hudson Institute in Washington, D.C. He said the answer depends on one’s definition of ‘fringe.’

Sracic said recent surveys showed as many as one-fifth of self-identified liberals agreed that political violence is sometimes justified.

‘Presumably, most of these very liberal and liberal voters support Democrats. This should horrify Democratic leaders, but it’s arguably the inevitable outcome of Democrats either adopting or at most failing to push back against notions that words themselves can be a form of violence and therefore can make people feel ‘unsafe’ if they are exposed to a political argument with which they disagree,’ Sracic said.

Democratic leaders, however they might personally think, also know that these more-energized voters must be attracted to the polls in the midterms, no matter the political environment, in order for the party to have a shot at winning back part of the federal government, he said. 

Rep. Andy Barr, R-Ky., who is also running for Sen. Mitch McConnell’s to-be-open Senate seat, offered another perspective – focusing on the increasing trend of political violence from the left against the right.

He cited Rep. Steve Scalise, R-La., nearly being assassinated at a Virginia ballfield, two attempts on President Donald Trump’s life, and Kirk’s murder.

‘Make no mistake—whether you stand with President Trump, support Israel, or believe in free-market capitalism, you are being targeted,’ Barr said.

‘I will work with the Trump administration and provide every resource necessary to prevent these acts of domestic terrorism before they happen.’

Democratic strategist and former congressional staff advisor Julian Epstein argued that multiple factors are driving the reaction to Kirk’s killing.

‘The celebration of Kirk’s death on the far left, both on and offline, is far too common, and not sufficiently denounced,’ he said. ‘The minimization of assassination by Democrat elites in arguing the both side-ism — and in the case of an ABC reporter, the moral relativism — is also too common.’

Epstein warned that the indiscriminate use of historically charged terms like ‘fascism’ is radicalizing political bases, and argued the left is failing to uphold Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s Civil Rights-era call to reject violence as a path to political change.

‘That failure occurred not only with the Kirk assassination, but also during the L.A. riots and the scourge of antisemitic violence on college campuses and elsewhere in the past few years,’ he said.

Link Lauren, former advisor to Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. and host of the podcast ‘Spot On,’ said the trend is no longer fringe but increasingly mainstream:

‘They call us Nazis, fascists, and threats to democracy. In the wake of George Floyd, the left burned down cities and businesses,’ Lauren said.

‘Since Charlie’s assassination, conservatives have gathered in churches and peaceful prayer. [That] tells you all you need to know.’

At the Manhattan Institute, legal policy fellow Tal Fortgang added that political violence is ‘capacious.’

‘There is an increasingly mainstream view among progressives, gaining ground within the Democratic Party as its democratic socialist influence grows, that terrorism is justified if it evens out power disparities,’ he said. ‘So you see prominent Democrats downplaying the atrocities of Oct. 7, 2023, on the grounds that Israel was the more powerful party in that fight.’

Fortgang said New York Assemb. Zohran Mamdani and the Democratic Socialists of America have risen in prominence since the Hamas terror attacks.

‘And, as Mamdani’s star has risen, so has the premise that violence is justified if it’s someone ‘powerless’ attacking someone ‘powerful.’’

Fortgang also pointed to comments from Democrats like Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts after the murder of a health care executive – a case in which the prime suspect has been treated like a celebrity outside his ongoing court hearings.

Warren originally said that violence is ‘never the answer,’ with the caveat that ‘people can only be pushed so far… if you push people hard enough, they lose faith in the ability of their government to make change.’ She later clarified her remarks, stating: ‘Violence is never the answer. Period. I should have been much clearer that there is never a justification for murder.’

Fortgang said suspect Luigi Mangione ‘struck a blow against capitalism,’ and posited that Kirk’s suspected murderer Tyler Robinson may have been motivated by a desire to avenge transphobia.

‘Hamas fights settler-colonialism when they burn families alive. Systemic thinking is dehumanizing, but it became basically orthodoxy on the American left,’ he said.

‘Even if it is not solely responsible for the uptick in political violence, or its widespread celebration, it helps sustain it. That’s what the Democratic Party needs to confront.’

Turning Point USA announced Thursday it ‘unanimously elected Erika Kirk as the new CEO and Chair of the Board’ following the assassination of Charlie Kirk.

‘May God Bless Erika, the Kirk family, and the entire team at Turning Point USA,’ the organization said in a statement.

This is a developing story. Please check for updates.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., said he believes Senate Democrats are posturing for a government shutdown to score a political win with their base, and he’s trying to prevent it.

In an interview with Fox News Digital, Thune argued that Democrats, led by Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., lack a real reason for not backing the GOP’s short-term government funding extension other than to appease the ‘far left.’

Thune said that in March, when Democrats last joined Republicans to keep the government open, Schumer and his caucus made a ‘very different argument’ about averting a partial government shutdown, but the move was unpopular with their political base.

‘It’s getting to the point now where their base [has] got so much influence in the party, and they’re so demanding on just resisting and fighting everything, with respect to the Trump administration, that they can’t see straight,’ Thune said.  

‘It is borderline pathological. It’s like a disease,’ he continued. ‘They just — that this is something with which they’re afflicted, and I think it really blurs their vision. And I think they run the risk with this, again, of putting themselves in a position of where they are viewed as the party that’s trying to block the government from being funded.’

House Republicans unveiled their stopgap bill, known as a continuing resolution (CR), earlier this week that would keep the government open under current spending levels until Nov. 21.

The bill is ‘clean,’ meaning there aren’t partisan policy or spending riders, save for the millions meant for beefing up security measures for lawmakers, the judicial branch and the administration, and funding meant for Washington, D.C.’s budget.

While the Republican-controlled House is expected to pass the bill on Friday, the Senate is a different story. Despite Thune commanding a majority in the upper chamber, he will need Senate Democrats to support the bill. And so far, they aren’t budging.

Thune contended that the bill is everything that Democrats — when they controlled the Senate under former President Joe Biden — dreamed of: a clean, short-term bill. But the issue at hand now is a matter of communication.

Schumer has accused Thune of not speaking with him, or Senate Democrats more broadly, about the bill, and he has labeled the GOP’s push to avert a partial government shutdown a partisan effort led by President Donald Trump.

But Thune said he did try to talk to Schumer last week when the GOP was gearing up to change Senate rules to blast through Democrats’ blockade of Trump’s nominees.

Thune went to Schumer on the floor to discuss the then-ongoing talks between Republicans and Democrats on a since-failed deal for confirmations, but he recalled that the Democratic leader brushed him off.

‘He couldn’t get out of the conversation fast enough,’ Thune said. ‘He was, like, running off the floor. So, I mean, there was certainly an opportunity there to say, ‘We need to sit down and talk about, you know, a CR and how to fund the government.’ I just think this is more political posturing.’

‘That’s the way it’s supposed to work. But the way Schumer likes it to work, and I think this is, again, part of his business model, is you go into his back office, behind closed doors and write this, you know, in the dark of night, and that’s just not the way we’re doing business,’ he continued.

Senate Democrats unveiled their own counter-proposal to the GOP’s bill late Wednesday night that includes a slew of their priorities not included in the clean CR, like permanently extending expiring Obamacare premium subsidies, undoing the ‘big, beautiful bill’s’ Medicaid cuts, and clawing back the canceled funding for NPR and PBS.

Thune said that some of the issues that Democrats were pushing in a short-term extension ‘don’t fit there,’ but that conversations, particularly on finding a deal for the healthcare insurance tax credits, could be had later on.

Still, he viewed Democrats’ resistance as not ‘serious,’ given that the end goal of the short-term extension is to actually pass the dozen spending bills to fund the government — a feat that hasn’t been pulled off in Congress since the 1990s.

The House and Senate are currently working on a path forward for three spending bills, which both chambers have already passed. Thune hoped that if lawmakers were able to avert a partial shutdown, that work could continue with the remaining nine funding bills.

‘This will test the seriousness of whether or not they actually want a real appropriations process, and whether they want to have a bipartisan way of funding the government,’ Thune said.

‘And if the Democrats would give us consent to get on them and work with us, we could have a bipartisan process on the floor like we did with those other three, and we could fund most of the government the old-fashioned way, which is the way it’s supposed to be done,’ he continued.

But before any of that can happen, the bill has to make its way to the upper chamber. Thune is leaving the door open for the Senate to work into the weekend, but the Sept. 30 deadline is fast-approaching.

Congress also has a recess scheduled for next week to observe the Jewish New Year, and a vast majority of Republicans will be in Arizona for conservative activist Charlie Kirk’s memorial service. 

There are also several procedural hurdles in the Senate that will have to be dealt with, further bogging down the process. Ultimately, Thune believed that it would be ‘up to the Democrats.’

‘If they want to put a vote up sooner, later, and our members again — if the Democrats are going to fight us and make us do this the hard way — may just decide, let’s just set this up for votes,’ Thune said. ‘When we get back here, and we get up against the deadline, when it becomes real, then we use live ammo.’

Fox News Digital reached out to Schumer’s office for comment, but did not immediately hear back. 

The Trump administration on Thursday asked the Supreme Court to set aside lower court decisions barring President Donald Trump from dismissing Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook.

The new request, which was expected, came on the heels of Cook’s participation in the crucial, two-day Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) rate-setting meeting. For months, Trump has pressed the Federal Reserve to cut rates in order to help spur the nation’s economic growth. 

On Monday, the U.S. Court of Appeals blocked Trump from immediately firing Lisa Cook from her role on the Federal Reserve Board of Governors, clearing the way for her to participate in the FOMC meeting.

The outcome of the FOMC meeting impacts every American, with knock-down effects felt in borrowing costs from everything from mortgages to credit cards. 

‘The president lawfully removed Lisa Cook for cause,’ White House spokesman Kush Desai said in a statement on Sept. 15. ‘The administration will appeal this decision and looks forward to ultimate victory on the issue.’ 

The D.C. Appeals Court ruling also came as the Senate narrowly voted 48-47 Monday night to approve Trump’s Fed board nominee, Stephen Miran. He participated in the FOMC meeting alongside Cook.

Trump last month tapped Miran — who currently leads the White House Council of Economic Advisers — to fill the seat vacated by Federal Reserve Governor Adriana Kugler, following her resignation in August. He will finish the remainder of Kugler’s term, which ends on Jan. 31, 2026.

Last week, U.S. District Court Judge Jia Cobb temporarily blocked Cook’s firing, allowing her to continue in her current role for now. She said Trump likely violated Cook’s due process rights and that the Federal Reserve statute does not account for conduct that occurred before a governor took office, like the mortgage fraud alleged against Cook.

The allegations originated with Bill Pulte, a Trump appointee to the federal agency that regulates Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. 

Pulte tied Cook to a trio of properties in Michigan, Georgia, and Massachusetts, which prompted scrutiny over whether Cook had misrepresented how the homes would be used. The three mortgage loans were issued in 2021, before she was nominated by former President Joe Biden to join the Fed board. 

Pulte made two separate referrals to the Justice Department over Cook’s mortgage applications.

Trump seized on those allegations and ousted Cook on Aug. 25, which prompted her to sue him in federal court three days later. Her lawsuit named as defendants Trump, the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, and Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell.

The suit, which was filed on Aug. 28, centered on whether Trump satisfied the ‘for cause’ provisions under federal law required to remove a sitting Fed governor, is the first of its kind. Cook’s lawsuit does not address the allegations that she listed multiple houses as a primary residence on mortgage filings. 

The Justice Department opened a criminal investigation on Sept. 4 into Cook over allegations of mortgage application fraud. Her lawyer, Abbe Lowell, wrote in a filing on Sept. 2 that she ‘did not ever commit mortgage fraud.’

Cook’s lawyers have also stressed both in court filings and in arguments before Judge Cobb last month the novelty of Trump’s attempt to oust her — a move they argued lacked sufficient cause, and could be used as a dangerous pretext to oust other members of independent federal boards.

NEW YORK – Meghan McCain believes ‘the U.S.-Israel alliance is incredibly strong’ even amid rising antisemitism across the country and increasing political pressure from both sides of the aisle. 

Fox News Digital sat down with McCain on Tuesday evening before she received the ‘Champion of Israel’ award from the American Friends of Magen David Adom (AFMDA), which supports Israel’s emergency medical and disaster response service. She noted that in her observation, issues surrounding the U.S.-Israel relationship appear to be more partisan as far as the left is concerned. 

McCain said that she sees some pro-Israel Democrats, specifically pointing to Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., ‘hedging in different places.’ During her award acceptance speech at this year’s AFMDA New York City gala, she also called out New York City Democratic mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani, who has taken heat for previous acceptance of antisemitic rhetoric such as ‘globalize the intifada.’ 

‘Pray for this city,’ McCain said, adding, ‘he’s an animal.’ The statement garnered applause from the audience, which gathered at Manhattan’s Cipriani Wall Street.

McCain also acknowledged that there are political elements not just on the left, but also on the right that oppose Israel, all of which she condemned. She urged those in attendance to ‘fight together to combat this destructive message of the radical left and within my own party on the alt-right.’

Despite this, the White House’s ties to Jerusalem give McCain hope that the relationship between the two nations is ironclad.

‘Of many of the reasons that I’m glad that President Trump is president is his wholehearted support of Israel is definitely one of them,’ McCain told Fox News Digital. ‘I think that we have an incredibly strong alliance and shared values and shared political interests and shared global interests.’

The former co-host of ‘The View’ also said that she believes the majority of the American public understands that ‘the interests of Israel and the interests of the United States of America are shared, especially in our fight against Islamic extremism.’

Charlie Kirk – who was also a steadfast supporter of Israel – came up both in McCain’s speech and her conversation with Fox News Digital.

‘I think we’re all sort of struggling with his assassination,’ she told Fox News Digital. ‘I am not satisfied with the reaction of the broad swath of Democrat leaders. When you have people like Ilhan Omar that are still accepted in Democrat spaces after what she said about Charlie Kirk in the wake of his passing, I mean, it’s hideous.’

Speaking to the audience of first responders and their supporters, she pointed out the contrast between those who save lives because of their beliefs and those who end them.

‘Where what you do here is about saving lives, the other side has nothing to offer but destruction. There are people all around the world and even in this country who do not want to participate in debate. They do not want to be proven wrong,’ McCain said.

‘And in the instance of people brave enough like Charlie Kirk to stand for Judeo-Christian values and the values of family and life and freedom and the right of Israel to defend itself against its enemies, they will try to destroy you by any means necessary and dance in celebration when you fall,’ she later added.

Addressing gala attendees, McCain delivered a strong defense of the U.S.-Israel alliance, as well as her personal unwavering support for the Jewish state.

‘No matter how much of the world — motivated by moral cowardice, material interest, or the sublimated antisemitism that still stalks the globe — turns away from Israel, I will not. I will never. And I speak for millions and millions of Americans who feel exactly the same,’ McCain said to a cheering crowd.

McCain credited her father, the late Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., and his relationship with the late Sen. Joe Lieberman, D-Conn., for her desire to deliver a strong defense of the U.S.-Israel relationship.

‘My father always understood the importance of the connection between America and Israel. His deep friendship with the man who was for all intents and purposes my uncle, the late Senator Joe Lieberman, was what exposed me to Jewish life, thought, and practice from a young age,’ McCain said. Later in her speech, she added that she and her husband, Ben Domenech ‘feel the same way, as so many Americans do: that Israel’s cause is right, Israel’s fight is noble, and Israel’s means are just.’

Magen David Adom (MDA), which is essentially Israel’s version of the Red Cross, handles a wider range of issues than its American counterpart, the Red Cross, such as disaster relief and blood services. 

On Oct. 7, 2023, MDA handled over 21,600 emergency calls, five times more than the number of calls it gets on an average Saturday. Additionally, MDA dispatched 1,430 ambulances and intensive care units alongside hundreds of emergency motorcycles, three helicopters, command and control vehicles, and 24 mass casualty response vehicles equipped to deploy mobile treatment sites. Since the Israel-Hamas war began, 38 MDA personnel lost their lives.

McCain concluded her speech with a stark warning — that Israel’s fight is America’s fight and that ‘If Israel were to lose its war — God forbid — the armies of darkness would march toward us here in America, too.’

Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y., requested that Attorney General Pam Bondi undertake an investigation into Doctors Without Borders under the Anti-Terrorism Act.

In a copy of Stefanik’s letter reviewed by Fox News Digital, she accuses Doctors Without Borders, often known by its French acronym MSF, of having gone on a media offensive against U.S.-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, accusing the organization of ‘orchestrated killing.’ 

Stefanik claimed the attacks ‘mirror propaganda continuously pushed by Hamas and threaten to undermine the only large-scale humanitarian food operation currently working in Gaza.’ 

GHF has distributed 167 million meals to Gazans since it started operations in May. During the same period, less than 18% of aid sent into Gaza by the U.N. has reached its destination due to theft and armed looting, per the United Nations Office for Project Services.

Stefanik stated in her letter to Bondi that by ‘using its platform and resources to amplify Hamas-aligned disinformation,’ MSF ‘may cross well into unlawful activity.’ Stefanik noted, the Anti-Terrorism Act ‘makes clear that no individual or organization may provide material support to a designated terrorist group, including through propaganda.’

Stefanik pointed out several indicators that demonstrate MSF ‘are in fact not neutral in the Gaza conflict and in fact only seem to promote Hamas-supported rhetoric.’ She said MSF ‘has made no reference to hostages illegally held by Hamas in Gaza,’ and has not ‘campaigned for them to receive medical treatment.’

Stefanik described several hostages who required specialized care. One hostage was being treated for cancer on Oct. 7. Another lost his hand during a grenade explosion at the Nova festival. A third was kidnapped while nine months pregnant and gave birth while held captive. ‘None is included in MSF’s ‘humanitarian’ advocacy,’ Stefanik said.

Stefanik also called into question the ‘extremist actions and rhetoric’ of MSF staff, which have led to criticism of the organization. In one case, after MSF lamented the death of a staffer who was killed in Gaza in June 2024; the Israel Defense Forces confirmed he was a rocket expert for Palestinian Islamic Jihad. In another, a staffer publicly called for Palestinians to ‘fight and die as martyrs’ according to the French publicationLe Journal du Dimanche in March 2024. 

Stefanik also questions whether MSF, a registered 501(c)(3), has violated the ‘strict prohibitions’ that come with nonprofit status. She asked that Bondi’s office review MSF’s ‘political attacks’ and, if necessary, refer the group to the Internal Revenue Service. 

‘This is not a matter of routine oversight,’ Stefanik concluded. ‘It is a matter of national security, the protection of U.S. taxpayers and donors, and the defense of legitimate humanitarian organizations in one of the most dangerous conflict zones in the world. President Trump has made clear that the United States will never tolerate support for terrorist organizations in any form, and this case demands that same clarity and resolve.’

MSF did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital’s questions about Stefanik’s letter.