Political analyst Matthew Dowd has been fired from MSNBC after appearing to blame conservative activist Charlie Kirk for his own death, a source at the network has told The Independent.
Calls were made for Dowd to be sacked after he implied that Kirk’s “hateful thoughts” and “awful words” led someone to shoot him during an event at a college in Utah on Wednesday. The high-profile Donald Trump supporter, aged 31, died shortly afterwards.
Asked by anchor Katy Tur about the “environment in which a shooting like this happens”, Dowd said Kirk has been “one of the most divisive, especially divisive younger figures in this, who is constantly sort of pushing this sort of hate speech or sort of aimed at certain groups”.
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“And I always go back to, hateful thoughts lead to hateful words, which then lead to hateful actions. You can’t stop with these sort of awful thoughts you have and then saying these awful words and not expect awful actions to take place. And that’s the unfortunate environment we are in.”
MSNBC president Rebecca Kutler issued an apology on Wednesday, describing Dowd’s comments as “inappropriate, insensitive and unacceptable”.
“We apologize for his statements, as has he. There is no place for violence in America, political or otherwise,” the statement added.
Fox News host Jesse Watters demanded that Dowd be “fired immediately” and that he expected him to be “terminated within 24 hours.”
“You can’t say Charlie deserved to die. Just can’t say that, and I hope he loses his job. It’s dangerous, Greg. That’s the message. It’s dangerous to open your mouth, so shut it.”
Kirk’s killer remains on the loose, and a person who was taken into custody was released a short time later after being found not to have been involved in the shooting, FBI Director Kash Patel said.
“The subject in custody has been released after an interrogation by law enforcement. Our investigation continues and we will continue to release information in interest of transparency,” Patel stated on social media.
In an Oval Office address on Wednesday evening, Trump blamed the “radical left” for the shooting, despite the assailant not having yet been identified.
“For years those on the radical left have compared wonderful Americans like Charlie to Nazis and the world’s worst mass murderers and criminals. This kind of rhetoric is directly responsible for the terrorism that we’re seeing in our country today and it must stop right now,” Trump said.
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