House Republicans threaten to cancel anyone who disparages Charlie Kirk

Republicans in Congress are launching an aggressive campaign to punish individuals they accuse of posthumously smearing Charlie Kirk, threatening to bring them before lawmakers, defund entities that protect them and oust them from positions of power.

They are also trying to castigate one of their own.

On Monday evening, two House Republicans introduced resolutions to censure Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) and remove her from her congressional committees for comments she made about the conservative influencer during an interview with liberal commentator Mehdi Hasan. During the interview, Omar expressed “empathy” for Kirk’s wife and children but also chastised those who “completely pretend” that the conservative influencer just wanted a “civil debate,” pointing to his views on guns, slavery and George Floyd. Omar also reposted a video to X from an anonymous user who called Kirk a “reprehensible human being” who was “spewing racist dog whistles” in his “last, dying words.”

One resolution, from Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.), was introduced under special rules requiring it to come to the floor by Thursday, though it’s unclear whether it will pass. The other is from Rep. Buddy Carter (R-Ga.) and seeks to remove Omar from the House Budget Committee and Education and Workforce Committee.

“This resolution is like deranged in the way that Nancy is. She’s an unhinged person. If you read [Mace’s] resolution, there is not a single quote that is attributed to me,” Omar said in an interview. “It is somebody else’s words that she wants to censure me for, which I don’t know. I’d call that crazy, but we already know she is.”

Mace responded: “Only 28 members of the House have ever been censured and we can’t wait to make lhan Omar No. 29.”

The efforts are part of a cascade of activity — some rhetorical and some more substantive — from GOP lawmakers seeking to leverage their government authority to punish those they believe have disparaged Kirk after his death. One lawmaker from Wisconsin introduced legislation threatening to block federal funds to entities that employ people “who condone and celebrate political violence,” and three dozen GOP lawmakers are demanding the formation of a House committee to investigate the “radical left’s assault on America and the rule of law.”

“We have the power of the purse,” said Rep. Derrick Van Orden (R-Wis.), whose X feed following Kirk’s death has called out a stream of people, including teachers and city council members, who he says should be removed from their jobs. “Executive action can be taken. But I’m going to work this way through legislation here. So if this is the law of the land, it’s the law of the land.”

The aggressive rhetoric from House Republicans echoes the tone from the White House, where President Donald Trump, Vice President JD Vance and senior adviser Stephen Miller have vowed to undertake a broad campaign against left-wing groups they say have engaged in violence. And it’s a stark departure for the Republican Party, which has historically championed free speech and decried the “cancel culture” of the left for punishing those whose viewpoints it deems offensive.

Tyler Coward, lead counsel at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, a nonprofit civil liberties group that often defends college students on free-speech issues, defined this reaction from lawmakers as “the cancel culture part of the tragedy cycle.”

Coward said it is not uncommon for members of Congress to urge action against people glorifying tragedy, which also happened after the Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel by Hamas. But he argued that the wave of calls for action against those who lawmakers think are celebrating Kirk’s death “feels unprecedented.”

“When legislators start suggesting that organizations — maybe private contractors or, in this case, public schools in some instances — are not going to receive any funding unless they take action against somebody who has engaged in protected expression, I think that also raises serious First Amendment concerns,” Coward said.

The First Amendment generally prohibits the state from using a penalty, or the credible threat of a penalty, to retaliate against protected speech, experts added.

“It is the very purpose of the First Amendment to prevent the government from using state power to determine the bounds of acceptable discourse with respect, in particular, to people’s moral views about what is permissible or impermissible to speak, with a few exceptions,” said Aziz Huq, a professor of constitutional law at the University of Chicago.

Mace is just one of several lawmakers using their legislative power to target Kirk’s critics. Rep. Chip Roy (Texas) and 33 other Republicans have demanded that House leadership form a panel probing the “money, influence, and power behind the radical left’s assault on America and the rule of law,” citing attacks on GOP lawmakers, the killing of Ukrainian refugee Iryna Zarutska in North Carolina and the killing of Laken Riley by an undocumented immigrant. Van Orden vowed to end federal funding to local communities because of comments on social media from a teacher and two city council members in his district.

Many of these initiatives are unlikely to succeed — they would need Democratic support to pass the Senate, for instance — and Congress has limited ability to completely bar funding from local communities, though it can work to stop federal grants and reduce funding for specific programs.

But the House can take action against its own members, including Omar. Mace’s resolution condemns the Minnesota Democrat, who has often been a target of attacks from Trump and other prominent Republicans for her progressive politics and rhetoric. Omar was removed from the House Foreign Affairs Committee in 2023, in a party-line vote, after what Republicans described as “repeated antisemitic and anti-American” remarks. There were two other efforts to censure Omar and a third one that included other progressive lawmakers who are part of a group known as “The Squad.”

Mace’s resolution calls for the House to censure Omar and remove her from her committees because of her comments to Hasan during a town hall on Zeteo, his media company. She also points to Omar’s reposting on X of a nearly three-minute TikTok video in which an unknown person criticizes the far right for propping up Kirk and Democrats for “normalizing” him.

“Charlie Kirk was Doctor Frankenstein, and his monster shot him through the neck,” says the person.

A spokeswoman for Omar defended her comments in the Hasan interview, in which she name-checked Mace as someone “who constantly harass[es], you know, people that she finds inferior and wants them not to exist in this country or ever.” Omar did not erase her post sharing the video.

“Congresswoman Omar was one of the first to condemn Charlie Kirk’s murder. She explicitly expressed her sympathies and prayers to his wife and children. She condemned his assassination and has routinely condemned political violence, no matter the political ideology. The same can’t be said about those who authored these resolutions,” said Jacklyn Rogers, Omar’s communications director.

Mace introduced the measure under special House rules that circumvent leadership and will force a floor vote in the next two days. Democrats are expected to try to block the resolution, but they may not succeed. One Democrat in House leadership — Democratic Caucus Chair Pete Aguilar (California) — said that lawmakers, including Omar, have an “obligation to lower the temperature” on both sides of the aisle.

“I disagree with the retweet of one of our colleagues. I disagree with how some of our Republican counterparts are talking about this,” Aguilar said.

GOP efforts aren’t limited to legislation. Some members took to social media to call out individuals they deemed had spoken improperly about Kirk.

Mace highlighted a Facebook post by a South Carolina professor who mocked state Rep. Luke Rankin Jr. for proposing to name a road after Kirk. Mace reposted the comment alongside the professor’s Facebook profile, announcing, “CAUGHT: Another professor in South Carolina openly celebrating Charlie Kirk’s assassination.”

The same day, Mace called on the Department of Education to defund schools unwilling to discipline employees who celebrate Kirk’s death.

Van Orden echoed Mace’s concerns, saying students were afraid to attend some schools because their teachers made offensive comments about Kirk.

“I have six universities in my district — four-year universities — five trade schools. We’re getting calls and calls and calls to my office here and back in the district about college students that are terrified to go to school because their professors are doing garbage like this,” he said.

On Sunday night, Rep. Randy Fine (R-Fla.) asked his X followers to identify any Floridians who work for the government or entities that get money from the government and who celebrated Kirk’s death. He said he would move to get them fired or to revoke their professional licenses, though it’s unclear he has the power to do so. Mace issued a similar call against state or federally funded employees and offered a tip line where they could be reported anonymously.

Rep. Clay Higgins (R-La.), meanwhile, called for, among other things, a lifetime ban from social media for anyone celebrating Kirk’s death. “I’m leaning forward into Big Tech and the executive branch. Full weight of my office. But everything I do is tempered by my oath to uphold the Constitution,” he said in an interview.

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Mariana Alfaro contributed to this report.