US President Donald Trump said Saturday he hopes the United States will heal in the wake of the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk, though he blamed what he called the "radical left" for fueling violence. "I'd like to see it heal," Trump told NBC News in a telephone interview. "But we're dealing with a radical left group of lunatics, and they don't play fair and they never did." Kirk, 31, was fatally shot Wednesday while addressing students at Utah Valley University in Orem, about 40 miles south of Salt Lake City. The apparent targeted attack took place despite security that included six university police officers and Kirk's private team. Videos from the event captured the moment Kirk was struck by a bullet, sending students fleeing in panic. He was rushed to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead hours later. "To my great fellow Americans, I am filled with grief and anger at the heinous assassination of Charlie Kirk on a college campus in Utah," Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform. In the same post, he accused the left of fostering dangerous rhetoric: "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 the country today." — Agencies
