Former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said Sunday that “every American is harmed” by the fatal shooting of Charlie Kirk.
Kirk, 31, was shot and killed at an event on the campus of Utah Valley University on Wednesday. The conservative activist and founder of Turning Point USA is survived by his wife, Erika, and their two children.
“It’s not just visible public figures who have reason to fear from this season, this era of political violence, it’s every American because every American is harmed by this,” Buttigieg told NBC News’s Kristen Welker on “Meet the Press.” “It’s an attack on an individual and an attack on a country whose entire purpose, entire way of being is that we can resolve what we need to resolve through a political process.”
Kirk’s slaying has been met with condemnation from politicians across the political spectrum. Buttigieg specifically credited conservative Utah Gov. Spencer Cox (R) and progressive Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) for their messages and leadership in recent days.
Cox, who has received praise for his handling of the shooting, urged the country to “choose a different path” during a press conference on Friday.
“This is our moment: Do we escalate or do we find an off-ramp?” Cox said. “It’s a choice.”
Sanders, noting recent examples of political violence in the United States, called this “a difficult and contentious moment in American history,” in a video posted to his YouTube account on Thursday.
“Every American, no matter what one’s political point of view may be, must condemn all forms of political violence and all forms of intimidation,” the Vermont Senator said. “We must welcome and respect dissenting points of view.”
Buttigieg said he was “encouraged” by those unifying messages. The 2020 Democratic presidential candidate added, however, that moving past this current era of political violence will require effort from all Americans.
“Right now, the categories that matter in responding to this killing aren’t left and right or MAGA and Democrats,” Buttigieg said. “I think the only category that really matters here is helping or hurting. Are we doing things that help America move from this moment to a better place, or divide America and make us worse off?”