Hinson calls rhetoric cheering on Kirk’s death is unbelievable

WASHINGTON — North-central Iowa congresswoman Ashley Hinson is calling for an end to politically motivated violence in the wake of last week’s assassination of political activist Charlie Kirk.

Hinson says she’s disturbed by a lot of people on the left “support and cheer” the assassination, saying that type of rhetoric is unbelievable. “I think about the Congressional baseball shooting, obviously my good friend Steve Scalise was shot. I ended up with him last Wednesday and had some very serious conversations, you can imagine what that feels like going through that again. Then I think about the attempt on the president’s life in Pennsylvania, and now of course this politically motivated assassination. I think the truth is political violence in America is almost exclusively left-wing violence directed at people on the right. I don’t think it’s an American problem, I think it’s a left-wing problem.”

Some state and federal lawmakers have called for the immediate firing of employees of the Board of Regents universities who are accused of celebrating Kirk’s killing online. During a conference call with reporters on Tuesday afternoon, Hinson agreed with those lawmakers calling for action to be taken. “That’s pretty clear cut to me, and I think anyone who celebrated a death like this should face the consequences. There’s a pretty clear value system that we should hold our staff at our universities who are educating our young people too. Again, for what I said about Charlie going everywhere to have those conversations with people that they sometimes disagree with, there’s a way to do that in a civil way, and clearly the way these people are choosing to do it is not a civil way.”

Hinson, whose district includes Cerro Gordo, Worth, Mitchell, Floyd and Butler counties in our listening area, says a resolution will be coming to the House floor this week honoring Kirk and condemning in the strongest possible terms his assassination and all forms of political violence.