The many, many troubling things that right-wing activist Charlie Kirk said in the public spotlight during his brief career are being trotted out online in the immediate aftermath of his horrific assassination, including comments he made about the 2022 hammer attack on Paul Pelosi.

We are going to be hearing a lot from Trump and the Republicans in the coming days about how violent the American Left is, no matter what we end up learning about the person who shot Charlie Kirk. And while Kirk is being praised on the right for his unapologetic views and mode of unabashed free expression, we can't discount how he himself dismissed an act of politically motivated violence just a couple of years ago, and downplayed the role that conservative rhetoric played in it.

The double standard being invoked here, which strikes everyone on the left as gross and unfair, is going to continue to feel gross and unfair, while the media and Democratic politicians remain careful not to promote or accept political violence of any kind.

While expressing one's opinions, no matter how repulsive, should not be something that gets someone killed, neither should being married to someone in the political spotlight, because of their spouse's opinions and positions.

That was the case with Mark Hortman, the husband of Minnesota state legislator Melissa Hortman. Both were killed in June in an act of political violence allegedly committed by someone on the right, who also targeted another Democratic lawmaker and his wife.

As ABC News and others have noted, President Donald Trump pointedly ignored those very recent acts of politically motivated violence in his remarks Wednesday night about Kirk's killing. Trump only mentioned the attempt on his own life last summer in Butler, Pennsylvania (the motives for which remain unclear), the shooting of United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson in December, and "attacks on ICE agents," saying "radical Left political violence has hurt too many innocent people and taken too many lives."

And as KRON4 notes today, Charlie Kirk was notably insensitive and grotesque in his comments about the violent attack that could have killed Paul Pelosi in his own home three years ago.

In the aftermath of that event, on his podcast The Charlie Kirk Show, Kirk asked, "Why is the Republican Party, why is the conservative movement to blame for gay, schizophrenic nudists that are hemp jewelry-makers breaking into somebody’s home, or maybe not breaking into somebody’s home?"

Kirk was promulgating a debunked internet rumor that Pelosi was harmed during a gay tryst gone wrong, and referring to the fact that the perpetrator, David DePape, was associated with a loose nudist collective in the Bay Area through his relationship to longtime nudist activist Gypsy Taub.

Whether DePape suffers from mental illness has been a topic of discussion by Taub and by his attorneys during his state and federal trials. But it did not prevent him from being sentenced to life in prison in state court, and to 30 years in federal prison in the federal trial. But before he had even gone to trial, DePape gave a jailhouse interview in which he put out a statement calling himself a patriot, saying his message to America was "You're welcome," and saying his only regret was "I'm so sorry I didn't get more of them... I should have come better prepared."

DePape had a "hit list" of multiple individuals, including the actor Tom Hanks and Governor Gavin Newsom, and he had intended to find Nancy Pelosi in her bed and to break her kneecaps if she didn't admit to "lying" about some sort of liberal conspiracy.

Kirk continued his comments, which came just days after the 2022 attack, saying of DePape, "And why is he still in jail? Why has he not been bailed out? By the way, if some amazing patriot out there in San Francisco or the Bay Area wants to be a midterm hero, someone should go and bail this guy out… Bail him out and then go ask him some questions."

Kirk went on to complain that other criminals committing similar offenses in Chicago and San Francisco get let out on bail immediately, but not "when you come after the Pelosis."

You may want to disagree with him, but New York Times columnist Ezra Klein asserts today that Kirk was "practicing politics in the right way" by going to college campuses and engaging people in debate. The quality of those debates, and the talent Kirk had for shouting down disagreement with misinformation and incendiary fiction that he called "facts" notwithstanding.

Still, Klein makes an important point:

Kirk and I were on different sides of most political arguments. We were on the same side on the continued possibility of American politics. It is supposed to be an argument, not a war; it is supposed to be won with words, not ended with bullets. I wanted Kirk to be safe for his sake, but I also wanted him to be safe for mine and for the sake of our larger shared project. The same is true for Shapiro, for Hoffman, for Hortman, for Thompson, for Trump, for Pelosi, for Whitmer. We are all safe, or none of us are.

Related: Right-Wing Firebrand Charlie Kirk Fatally Shot During Utah College Speaking Event

Top image: Charlie Kirk at Utah Valley University on September 10, 2025 in Orem, Utah, shortly before he was fatally shot. (Photo by Trent Nelson/The Salt Lake Tribune/Getty Images)