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House erupts after GOP speaker requests prayer for Charlie Kirk [1]
['Daily Kos Staff']
Date: 2025-09-10
A yelling match broke out in the House chamber Wednesday after Speaker Mike Johnson requested a prayer on behalf of Charlie Kirk.
The conservative activist and Turning Point USA founder was shot and killed during an event for his “America Comeback Tour” at Utah Valley University Wednesday.
After Johnson paused a vote to request a moment of silence for Kirk and his family, GOP Rep. Lauren Boebert of Colorado similarly suggested that everyone participate in a prayer.
“Silent prayers get silent results,” she said.
And while conservatives mourn Kirk’s death, Democrats have been quick to call out the discrepancy between Republicans’ reaction to last week’s school shooting in Minnesota and the shooting of Kirk.
GOP Rep. Anna Paulina Luna of Florida quickly jumped in when Democrats pointed out the change of heart, shouting expletives across the floor.
“You fucking caused this,” she yelled.
Charlie Kirk hands out hats before speaking at Utah Valley University on Sept. 10.
To Democrats, the right’s sympathetic response to Kirk’s murder seems to reek of irony after some of them used the Minnesota shooting to campaign against transgender people and to point fingers at the left.
"[Gov.] Tim Walz and the people around him, they're not trying to solve this,” House Majority Whip Tom Emmer told Fox News days after the shooting. “They're just exacerbating the problem, and they've been exacerbating it over the last several years.”
Emmer also attacked Walz for making Minnesota a trans refuge state.
And while prominent right-wing influencers—like Kirk—pushed the narrative that the Minnesota shooter’s gender identity drove them to violence, House Democrats are pointing out Republicans’ change in approach this time around.
As of Wednesday, it is not yet clear what the shooter’s motive was for killing Kirk. However, responses to Kirk’s death have invoked plenty of blame as Republicans quickly labelled—without evidence—the shooter as a violent Democrat. The suspect has not yet been identified.
Just before her shouting match on the House floor, Luna blamed the left for the shooting.
“I am done with the rhetoric this rotten House and corrupt media has caused. EVERY DAMN ONE OF YOU WHO CALLED US FASCISTS DID THIS,” she wrote on X. “You were too busy doping up kids, cutting off their genitals, inciting racial violence by supporting orgs that exploit minorities, protecting criminals, and stirring hate. Your words caused this. Your hate caused this.”
She later doubled down on her statement while speaking to reporters.
Former Minnesota House Speaker Melissa Hortman, who was shot and killed along with her husband in June.
“Stop with the rhetoric. You’re getting people killed. You’re gonna get one of us killed, too, while you continue doing it,” she said.
In contrast, Democratic Sen. Ruben Gallego of Arizona, a Marines Corps veteran, called for an end to political violence in his response to the shooting.
“Beyond politics Charlie Kirk was someone’s father, husband and son,” he wrote on X. “Remember that first, before engaging in whataboutism. His family will never be the same. Political violence has to stop by all sides.”
The last shooting of a prominent political figure was in June, when two Democratic Minnesota state lawmakers—Minnesota House Speaker Melissa Hortman and state Sen. John Hoffman—and their spouses were shot in their homes. Hortman and her husband, Mark, were both killed.
What Walz called a “politically motivated assassination” at the time was similarly used as a vehicle for finger-pointing.
In a since-deleted tweet, GOP Sen. Mike Lee of Utah called the tragedy a “nightmare on Waltz street”—a misspelled reference to the Minnesota governor.
While the impacts of gun violence weigh heavily regardless of victims’ political affiliation, one message seems to be emerging through it all: A violent rhetoric is emanating across party lines, and something needs to be done about it.
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