By Alex Henderson

Copyright alternet

After the fatal shooting of MAGA activist and Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk, “Real Time” host Bill Maher forcefully called out two groups of people: internet users who were celebrating Kirk’s murder, and far-right pundits who were declaring that “we are at war.”

Maher stressed that Americans have every right to agree or disagree with Kirk’s views, but the “Real Time” host made it clear he had no use for “ghouls” who either celebrated the killing or called for violent retaliation against Kirk’s critics.

President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance responded to Kirk’s murder by claiming that most of the political violence in the United States is coming from the left — a claim that conservative MSNBC host Joe Scaroborough finds ludicrous in light of the countless Democrats who have been targeted for violence by far-right MAGA Republicans, from Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer to Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro to Minnesota House Speaker Melissa Hortman (who was fatally shot) to Paul Pelosi, ex-U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (D-California) husband.

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During a passionate rant on the Wednesday, September 17 broadcast of MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” host Scarborough lamented that Trump is doing nothing to bring Americans together at a time when healing is desperately needed.

Scarborough, a Never Trump conservative and ex-GOP congressman, told fellow “Morning Joe” host Mika Brzezinski and their colleague Willie Geist, “Some on the hard right are trying to stifle free speech. They’re engaging in cancel culture. You have the free press going, ‘Wait a second. Hold on. The right is now doing what we’ve been attacking the left for doing for years?’ And the answer is, on so many fronts: Yes, they are…. I pray that as a country, we can get past this. We can mourn the passing of Charlie Kirk.”

Scarborough added, “We can come together and do everything we can do to make sure something like this never happens again.”

When Geist noted that Trump repeatedly claims that violence is dominated by “the radical left” and “lunatics on the left,” Scarborough responded, “I haven’t seen Democratic leaders do anything but talk about how tragic this shooting, this assassination was. I do remember, though, the president of the United States continually making fun of and mocking an 82-year-old man (Paul Pelosi), who was attacked, in a savage political attack, that almost killed him. It would have killed him if the police had not showed up in time. And his target was Nancy Pelosi — and somehow, that was a punchline.”

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Scarborough added, “That remained a punchline…. This is just a country that is in desperate need of a president who will bring us together…. Willie, we’ve got to get there…. Let that be his legacy instead of tearing us apart, because tearing us apart will only hurt the Republicans.”

The Never Trumper argued that divisive rhetoric from Trump will benefit Democrats in the 2026 midterms.

Scarborough told Brzezinski and Geist, “Tearing us apart will only lead to massive Democratic victories next year. This is what happens in America when you see when you see the finger pointing and the yelling and the scapegoating. That doesn’t work here. We are Americans. They will actually appreciate a president that brings us together. But my God, we are so far from that right now. Willie, it’s sad.”

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