President Donald Trump told everyone at Charlie Kirk’s memorial that he disagreed with the slain conservative activist’s reluctance to hate his political opponents because “cruelty” has always worked for him, Kara Swisher says.
The veteran tech journalist told The Daily Beast Podcast that while the president may have been attempting a joke, there was plenty of truth to what he said.
“I don’t know. I feel like it was badly timed,” said Swisher. “I think he was trying to make a joke about how Charlie Kirk wasn’t like that—you know, you try to find something funny at a funeral. But I think that was the absolute truth about himself… That’s how he feels about people. He really does.“
“The thing is, he does move on from and then becomes friends with people he hates, or he has friends that… he hates and then he’s friends again,” Swisher continued, citing Rupert Murdoch and Elon Musk as two of the more prominent examples.
“So that’s his M.O. But it’s completely on-brand with him. Hate works for this man just the way ‘hope’ worked for Obama. And so he’s really leaning into what works for him, which is cruelty.”
Whereas Kirk’s widow, Erika, forgave her husband’s killer and said that “the answer to hate is not hate,” Trump saw it differently.
“He did not hate his opponents. He wanted the best for them. That’s where I disagreed with Charlie. I hate my opponent, and I don’t want the best for them. I’m sorry, Erika,” Trump said at the Glendale, Arizona, memorial, prompting some laughs. “But now Erika can talk to me and the whole group and maybe they can convince me that that’s not right. But I can’t stand my opponent.”
Swisher said Trump’s comments, which included tangents on tariffs, autism, Joe Biden and “radical left maniacs,” resembled a campaign rally.
“It was a pretty low bar compared to most of the other speakers,” she said of Trump. “It was a little bit untoward at someone’s funeral of a friend.”
It wasn’t just Trump’s comments that drew attention. Afterwards, while standing on stage alongside Erika Kirk as “America the Beautiful” played, he even danced a little.
When reached for comment, the White House referred the Daily Beast to Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt defending the president by telling reporters Monday that Trump “is authentically himself.”
“I think that’s why millions of Americans across the country love and support him, including Erika Kirk, who… was leaning on the president for support during that time. And he was there to give it to her, as well as the vice president and many other top-ranking cabinet officials,” Leavitt said.