58 House Democrats vote against resolution condemning Charlie Kirk’s assassination

In addition to the 58 who voted no, 38 House Democrats voted “present,” meaning nearly half of the caucus did not support the resolution.

By Andrew Kerr, The Washington Free Beacon

Fifty-eight House Democrats voted against a resolution Friday condemning the brutal assassination of conservative commentator Charlie Kirk at a college campus in Utah. Another 38 House Democrats voted “present.”

One of them, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D., N.Y.), said she opposed the resolution because it “brings great pain to the millions of Americans who endured segregation.”

The resolution, which passed the House in a 310-58 vote with unanimous Republican support, condemned Kirk’s assassination “in the strongest possible terms” and denounced “all forms of political violence.”

The assassination “is a sobering reminder of the growing threat posed by political extremism and hatred in our society,” the resolution stated.

It also honored Kirk for having “personified the values of the First Amendment” and for standing as a model for young Americans through his commitment to civil discussion.

In addition to the 58 who voted no, 38 House Democrats voted “present,” meaning nearly half of the caucus did not support the resolution.

House resolutions honoring the victims of political assassinations aren’t typically contested on party lines.

The House unanimously passed a resolution condemning the shootings of two Democratic state lawmakers in Minnesota, for example.

But when it came time to consider the resolution for Kirk, some House Democrats believed they were being led into a trap, Axios reported Thursday, saying that anything short of a unanimous vote in support of the resolution “could be a messaging coup for Republicans.”

Those fears came to pass on Friday. The prominent Democrats that voted against the Kirk resolution include Rep. Ilhan Omar (D., Minn.), who attacked Kirk while speaking inside a church this past weekend, saying:

“I do believe those of you who are interested in rewriting this hateful man’s history are full of shit.” Omar narrowly escaped a formal House censure on Thursday over her comments about Kirk after being saved by the votes of four Republicans.

Ocasio-Cortez also voted against the resolution condemning Kirk’s assassination, saying in a statement that the measure “brings great pain to the millions of Americans who endured segregation, Jim Crow, and the legacy of that bigotry today.”

Ocasio-Cortez is preparing to run for either the Senate or the presidency in 2028, according to reports Friday.

The 58 Democrats voted against the resolution condemning Kirk’s murder just over two months after an unnamed House Democrat told Axios that their base has told them that “civility isn’t working,” and to prepare for “violence … to fight to protect our democracy.”

Kirk’s alleged assassin, Tyler Robinson, leans to the left politically and said in a text message to his transgender lover that he murdered the conservative commentator because he “had enough of his hatred,” according to charging documents released Tuesday. The state of Utah will seek the death penalty against Robinson.

The House Democrats voted against the resolution as misinformation about Kirk and his alleged assassin, Tyler Robinson, runs rampant in the mainstream media.

Several prominent reporters have fabricated quotes to either cast Kirk in a negative light or Robinson in a positive one. That includes former Washington Post columnist Karen Attiah, who falsely accused Kirk of saying all black women “do not have the brain processing power to be taken seriously.”

Kirk was actually referring to a select group of individual black women. The Washington Post fired Attiah on Monday.

ABC News chief national correspondent Matt Gutman, meanwhile, falsely said Tuesday that Robinson murdered Kirk in order to “protect” his transgender lover.

“The terminology he used, he was trying to protect him,” Gutman said as he claimed to refer to the texts that Robinson sent his lover after murdering Kirk. “He kept calling him ‘my love.’ ‘My reason for doing this is to protect you.'”

Nowhere in the messages prosecutors released Tuesday did Robinson use the word “protect” or say anything that implied that he murdered Kirk in order to protect his lover as Gutman claimed on Tuesday.

Other news outlets have falsely insinuated that Robinson’s politics remain a mystery. NPR reported Thursday that “little is still known” about the assassin’s politics because “there is no evidence of his positions on other issues of importance to the left, such as immigration or labor.”