Raw emotion rages on Capitol Hill as lawmakers grapple with Charlie Kirk's killing

WASHINGTON — Nearly a week after Charlie Kirk's assassination, emotions are running high on Capitol Hill, with many GOP lawmakers publicly grieving for their friend and casting blame on Democrats and the media for the conservative activist's shocking death.

Resolutions to honor Kirk — and punish his opponents — are flying around Congress. Rep. Nancy Mace, R-S.C., and Buddy Carter, R-Ga., both running for higher office in 2026, have authored dueling resolutions to strip Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar of her committee assignments after she criticized Kirk’s past “words and actions” immediately after the shooting.

Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, R-Fla., who was close to Kirk, is calling on Rep. Andre Carson, D-Ind., to fire a staffer who re-posted a quote on social media saying Kirk was “a casualty of the violence he incited.”

And Republican Rep. Chip Roy, who is running for attorney general in Texas, is calling for the creation of a special committee to investigate the “money, influence, and power behind the radical left’s assault on America” in light of Kirk's death.

On Tuesday, Tyler Robinson was formally charged by Utah prosecutors with felony aggravated murder, two counts of witness tampering and other offenses; he has not yet had an attorney appointed to represent him. While the investigation is ongoing, the suspect’s mother told investigators that Robinson had become “more political and had started to lean more to the left, becoming more pro-gay and trans-rights oriented,” said prosecutors, who are seeking the death penalty.

Robinson also told his father that he had carried out the shooting because Kirk "spreads too much hate," the father told investigators, according to charging documents.

There have also been numerous efforts by Republicans to lionize Kirk in the Capitol, to mixed results. In addition to her move to censure Omar, which will get a floor vote this week, Mace has also offered a resolution to have Kirk lie in honor in the Capitol Rotunda. Luna sent a letter to Johnson urging him to put a statue of Kirk in the Capitol. Rep. Andy Ogles, R-Tenn., has offered another to posthumously award Kirk the Congressional Gold Medal. (President Donald Trump has already said he'll award Kirk the Presidential Medal of Freedom).

A moment of silence for Kirk on the House floor hours after the Sept. 10 assassination gave way to a shouting match between Democrats and Republicans. Meanwhile, Democrats, including all of the party’s top leaders, were largely absent from a prayer vigil for Kirk on Monday night led by Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La.

This week, House GOP leaders will hold a floor vote on a resolution condemning the Kirk assassination; honoring the “life, leadership, and legacy of Charlie Kirk”; and calling on Americans “to reject political violence, recommit to respectful debate, uphold American values, and respect one another as fellow Americans.”

Leaders on both sides of the aisle are urging their members to lower the political temperature in an institution that has seen its share of political violence over the past 15 years, from the Gabby Giffords and Steve Scalise assassination attempts to the Jan. 6 attack and two attempts on President Trump’s life last year.

But in the raucous House of Representatives, that message isn’t getting through to everyone.

In addition to retaliating against Omar, Mace has been tweeting nonstop about the Kirk assassination, specifically calling for the firings of individual educators at universities and other schools who have criticized Kirk on social media.

“Good morning to everyone except the teachers across the country celebrating Charlie Kirk’s assassination. May your careers end as fast as your humanity did,” Mace posted on X.

“There is no unity with those who want us dead,” she wrote in another post.

Rep. Derrick Van Orden, R-Wis., has done the same, retweeting dozens and dozens of posts about people who criticized Kirk or celebrated his death, as well as lashing out at the press and his Democratic colleagues, while calling for retribution.

Van Orden has also approached the press in person, telling a gaggle of reporters outside the Capitol a day after the shooting that “every single one of you here” is “responsible for that assassination.”

When an NBC News reporter responded that the shooter and a motive had not yet been identified, Van Orden interjected: “You know what? Knock it off. Knock it off.”

The suspect in the Kirk shooting had not yet been apprehended at the time.

Speaking to reporters on Tuesday, Democratic Caucus Chair Pete Aguilar, D-Calif., said “every leader has an obligation to lower the temperature right now.” But he singled out Mace and Van Orden as members who are “not doing their part” to cool things off, adding that Speaker Johnson “needs to address” them.

And Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., had harsh words for Mace, who he said was seizing on the Kirk shooting for her own political benefit.

“Nancy Mace wants to lecture Ilhan Omar and Democrats about civility? Are you kidding me? It’s not a serious effort,” Jeffries told reporters. "It’s an effort to drive donors into her gubernatorial campaign.”

Omar, in an interview with Mehdi Hasan on his site Zeteo, slammed Kirk defenders who have said the activist was simply engaging in "civil debate."

“There is nothing more effed up than to completely pretend his words and actions have not been recorded and in existence for the last decade or so ..." Omar told Hasan. "These people are full of s---, and it’s important for us to call them out while we feel anger and sadness."

Omar, like other Democrats in the Minnesota delegation, was friends with the late state House Speaker Melissa Hortman, who was killed by a gunman in June along with her husband and their dog. The same gunman shot and wounded state Sen. John Hoffman and his wife.

Johnson has urged lawmakers to “turn down the temperature.” A former constitutional lawyer, the speaker said he’s a staunch defender of free speech but that employers have the right to fire workers for saying things that don’t represent their employer.

“We do not censor and silence disfavored viewpoints. People in America are allowed to say crazy things,” Johnson explained.

“Now, that said, if I’m an employer or I’m a government agency, and I have someone in my employ who is online celebrating the heinous murder of an innocent person, a young husband and father,” he said, “I can make the decision that they don’t deserve to work for me, they shouldn’t represent my company or my agency, and I have every right to do that. And I think that’s appropriate.”

In a statement Tuesday responding to criticism of his staffer's post, Carson’s office said the congressman has repeatedly condemned all political violence but that “every House staffer has a First Amendment right to share their personal views.”

His office said the post has since been removed but that the staffer was met with "misogynistic, violent, and hateful comments and threats." Carson's office said it also has received multiple death threats, which have been reported to Capitol Police. "That is also unacceptable,” the office said.

"Congressman Carson condemns all political violence, and calls on every American to do the same," his office said.

Sen. Kevin Cramer, R-N.D., told NBC News that everyone needs to do “some self-reflection” and work on “regulating our hearts.”

“We’re at a time when the impulse to a tragedy is to blame somebody else, and in a political situation, to blame an opponent or an adversary, or what you think of as an enemy,” Cramer said. “And I think there’s enough responsibility for everybody to bear some of it.”

The day after the shooting, Rep. Jared Moskowitz, D-Fla., was talking to reporters about how lawmakers need to tone down their rhetoric when he heard another member on the Capitol steps nearby speaking loudly and animatedly about Kirk.

He paused for several seconds to look up at the lawmaker and listen in: It was Mace.

He continued: “And so that’s some of the — some of the problem is, you know, we got to figure out how to bring the temperature down.”

This article was originally published on NBCNews.com