WASHINGTON – The FBI has requested interviews with six Democrats from the U.S. Congress who told members of the military they must refuse any illegal orders, a Justice Department official told Reuters on Tuesday.
The move, reported earlier by Fox News, comes a day after the Pentagon threatened to recall Senator Mark Kelly, a Navy veteran and one of the six lawmakers, to active duty potentially to face military charges over what Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth described as “seditious” acts on social media.
The other lawmakers, who made the comments in a video released last week, include Senator Elissa Slotkin, a former CIA analyst and Iraq war veteran, and Representatives Jason Crow, Maggie Goodlander, Chris Deluzio and Chrissy Houlahan, all military veterans.
The legislators created the video amid concerns from Democrats — echoed privately by some U.S. military commanders — that the Trump administration is violating the law by ordering strikes on vessels purportedly carrying suspected drug traffickers in Latin American waters.
The Pentagon has argued the strikes are justified because the drug smugglers are considered terrorists.
The Justice Department official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the interviews were to determine “if there’s any wrongdoing and then go from there.”
The FBI did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
In a statement on Monday, Kelly dismissed the Pentagon’s threat as an intimidation tactic.
WASHINGTON/KYIV — Ukraine on Tuesday signaled support for the framework of a peace deal with Russia but stressed that sensitive issues needed to be fixed at a meeting between President Volodymyr Zelensky and U.S. President Donald Trump.
Kyiv’s message hinted that an intense diplomatic push by the Trump administration could be yielding some fruit but any optimism could be short-lived, especially as Russia stressed it would not let any deal stray too far from its own objectives.
U.S. and Ukrainian negotiators held talks on the latest U.S.-backed peace plan in Geneva on Sunday. U.S. Army Secretary Dan Driscoll then met on Monday and Tuesday with Russian officials in Abu Dhabi, a spokesperson for Driscoll said.
U.S. and Ukrainian officials have been trying to narrow the gaps between them over the plan to end Europe’s deadliest and most devastating conflict since World War Two, with Ukraine wary of being strong-armed into accepting a deal largely on the Kremlin’s terms, including territorial concessions.
“Ukraine — after Geneva — supports the framework’s essence, and some of the most sensitive issues remain as points for the discussion between presidents,” a Ukrainian official said.
Zelensky could visit the United States in the next few days to finalize a deal with Trump, Kyiv’s national security chief Rustem Umerov said, though no such trip was confirmed from the U.S. side.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said on X that over the past week the U.S. had made “tremendous progress towards a peace deal by bringing both Ukraine and Russia to the table.” She added: “There are a few delicate, but not insurmountable, details that must be sorted out and will require further talks between Ukraine, Russia, and the United States.”
Oil prices extended an earlier decline after reports of Ukraine potentially agreeing to a war-ending deal.
Underlining the high stakes for Ukraine, its capital Kyiv was hit by a barrage of missiles and hundreds of drones overnight in a Russian strike that killed at least seven people and again disrupted power and heating systems. Residents were sheltering underground wearing winter jackets, some in tents.
Zelensky will discuss sensitive issues with Trump
U.S. policy towards the war has zigzagged in recent months.
A hastily arranged summit between Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin in Alaska in August raised worries in Kyiv and European capitals that the Trump administration might accept many Russian demands, though the meeting ultimately resulted in more U.S. pressure on Russia.
The 28-point plan that emerged last week caught many in the U.S. government, Kyiv and Europe alike off-guard and prompted fresh concerns that the Trump administration might be willing to push Ukraine to sign a peace deal heavily tilted toward Moscow.
The plan would require Kyiv to cede territory beyond the almost 20% of Ukraine that Russia has captured since its February 2022 full-scale invasion, as well as accept curbs on its military and bar it from ever joining NATO — conditions Kyiv has long rejected as tantamount to surrender.
The sudden push has raised the pressure on Ukraine and Zelensky, who is now at his most vulnerable since the start of the war after a corruption scandal saw two of his ministers dismissed, and as Russia makes battlefield gains.
Zelensky could struggle to get Ukrainians to swallow a deal viewed as selling out their interests.
He said on Monday the latest peace plan incorporated “correct” points after talks in Geneva. “The sensitive issues, the most delicate points, I will discuss with President Trump,” Zelensky said in his nightly video address.
Zelensky said the process of producing a final document would be difficult. Russia’s unrelenting attacks on Ukraine have left many skeptical about how peace can be achieved soon.
“There was a very loud explosion, our windows were falling apart, we got dressed and ran out,” said Nadiia Horodko, a 39-year-old accountant, after a residential building was struck in Kyiv overnight.
“There was horror, everything was already burning here, and a woman was screaming from the eighth floor, ‘Save the child, the child is on fire!’”
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said an amended peace plan must reflect the “spirit and letter” of an understanding reached between Putin and Trump at their Alaska summit.
“If the spirit and letter of Anchorage is erased in terms of the key understandings we have established then, of course, it will be a fundamentally different situation (for Russia),” Lavrov warned.
A group of countries supporting Ukraine, which is known as the coalition of the willing and includes Britain and France, was also set to hold a virtual meeting on Tuesday.
“It’s an initiative that goes in the right direction: peace. However, there are aspects of that plan that deserve to be discussed, negotiated, improved,” French President Emmanuel Macron told RTL radio regarding the U.S.-proposed plan. “We want peace, but we don’t want a peace that would be a capitulation.”
In a separate development, Romania scrambled fighter jets to track drones that breached its territory near the border with Ukraine early on Tuesday, and one was still advancing deeper into the NATO-member country, the defense ministry said. (Reporting by Idrees Ali, Phil Stewart, Devika Nair, Tom Balmforth, Pavel Polityuk, Alessandro Parodi, Michel Rose, Luiza Ilie and Sergiy Karazy; writing by Matthias Williams; editing by Frances Kerry and Mark Heinrich)
WASHINGTON — A federal judge on Monday dismissed criminal charges against two perceived adversaries of President Donald Trump, FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James, ruling the U.S. attorney he hand picked to prosecute them was unlawfully appointed.
The ruling throws out two cases Trump had publicly called for as he pressured Justice Department leaders to move against high-profile figures who had criticized him and led investigations into his conduct.
Lindsey Halligan, a former personal lawyer to Trump, was named interim U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia in September to take over both investigations despite having no previous prosecutorial experience. The findings by U.S. District Judge Cameron McGowan Currie came after both Comey and James accused the Trump Justice Department of violating the U.S. Constitution’s Appointments Clause and federal law by appointing Halligan in September.
New York Attorney General, Letitia James, speaks after pleading not guilty outside the United States District Court in October in Norfolk, Va.
‘No legal authority’
Currie found that Halligan “had no legal authority” to bring indictments against either Comey or James. But Currie dismissed the cases “without prejudice,” giving the Justice Department an opportunity to seek new indictments with a different prosecutor at the helm.
“All actions flowing from Ms. Halligan’s defective appointment,” Currie wrote, were “unlawful exercises of executive power and are hereby set aside.”
After the decision, Attorney General Pam Bondi told reporters the Justice Department would “be taking all available legal action, including an immediate appeal to hold Letitia James and James Comey accountable for their unlawful conduct.”
Bondi said that because Halligan was made a special U.S. attorney, she can continue to prosecute cases.
“She can fight in court just like she was and we believe we will be successful on appeal,” Bondi said.
James and Comey separately said they were grateful for the ruling. James’ attorney, Abbe Lowell, said she would “continue to challenge any further politically motivated charges through every lawful means available.”
In an Instagram video, Comey said the case against him “was a prosecution based on malevolence and incompetence and a reflection of what the Department of Justice has become under Donald Trump.”
It is unclear if prosecutors could seek to bring a new case against Comey over the same conduct. The five-year statute of limitations on the charges expired on September 30, and Comey’s lawyers have already indicated in court filings that they do not believe prosecutors have more time to refile the charges.
Both Comey and James have been longtime targets of Trump’s ire. Comey as FBI director oversaw an investigation into alleged ties between Trump’s 2016 election campaign and the Russian government and later called Trump unfit for office.
James, an elected Democrat, successfully sued Trump and his family real estate company for fraud. Trump ordered Bondi to install Halligan to the post after her predecessor Erik Siebert declined to pursue charges against Comey or James, citing a lack of credible evidence in both cases.
Halligan moved swiftly
Shortly after her appointment, Halligan alone secured indictments against Comey and James after other career prosecutors in the office refused to participate. Comey pleaded not guilty to charges of making false statements and obstructing Congress after he was accused of lying about authorizing leaks to the news media. James pleaded not guilty to charges of bank fraud and lying to a financial institution for allegedly misleading on mortgage documents to secure more favorable loan terms.
Attorneys for Comey and James argued that Halligan’s appointment violated a federal law they said limits the appointment of an interim U.S. attorney to one 120-day stint.
Repeated interim appointments would bypass the U.S. Senate confirmation process and let a prosecutor serve indefinitely, they said. Siebert previously had been appointed by Bondi for 120 days and was then re-appointed by the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, since the Senate had not yet confirmed him in the role.
Lawyers for the Justice Department argued the law allows the attorney general to make multiple interim appointments of U.S. Attorneys. Still, Bondi sought to shore up the cases by separately installing Halligan as a special attorney assigned to both prosecutions. In that same document, she also said she ratified the indictments.
Currie found that Bondi’s attempts to retroactively secure the cases were invalid. Currie, who is based in South Carolina and was appointed by former Democratic President Bill Clinton, was assigned to rule on Halligan’s appointment because federal judges in Virginia had played a role in appointing her predecessor.
The challenge to Halligan’s appointment was one of several efforts lawyers for Comey and James have made to have the cases against them thrown out before trials. Both also argued that the cases are “vindictive” prosecutions motivated by Trump’s animosity.
Halligan has come under intense scrutiny by courts, particularly over her handling of the Comey case. A federal magistrate judge found she may have made significant legal errors in presenting evidence and instructing the grand jury that indicted Comey. The trial judge repeatedly questioned whether the full grand jury had seen the final version of the Comey indictment.
WASHINGTON — The Pentagon on Monday threatened to recall Senator Mark Kelly, a retired Navy captain, to active duty status in order to prosecute him after saying it received “serious allegations of misconduct.”
The statement did not say what charges Kelly could face if it took such a step. But President Donald Trump last week accused Kelly and other Democratic lawmakers of seditious behavior for urging U.S. troops to refuse any illegal orders. Trump, in a social media post, said the crime was “punishable by DEATH!”
“All servicemembers are reminded that they have a legal obligation under the UCMJ (Uniform Code of Military Justice) to obey lawful orders and that orders are presumed to be lawful. A servicemember’s personal philosophy does not justify or excuse the disobedience of an otherwise lawful order,” the Pentagon said.
Waving Ukrainian flags and hoisting signs that read, “Appeasement Isn’t Peace,” demonstrators outside the Ukrainian American Citizens’ Association described the plan as a laughable, “copy-and-paste” of Russia’s demands, signaling America’s willingness to capitulate to the Kremlin.
The peace deal put together by Washington and Moscow calls for Ukraine to cede territory, reduce its military, and give up on NATO membership — stipulations that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has categorically rejected in the past.
“Nobody in their right mind would ask a country to give up its territory, its military, its freedoms,” said Ulana Mazurkevich, president of the Philadelphia-based Ukrainian Human Rights Committee. “They do not know Ukrainians. … We will not give up — we fight, we fight, we fight.”
The 28-point blueprint to end the nearly four-year war may force Ukraine to choose between standing up for its sovereignty and preserving American allyship, Zelensky said last week when the proposal was leaked. Simultaneously on Sunday, world leaders convened in Geneva, Switzerland, to discuss the contentious plan. (Trump has pushed Ukrainian officials to accept the plan by Thanksgiving.)
“We will rebuild but it won’t be the same, and I just feel such pain and anger at how much they have taken from us over and over and over again,” the rally’s co-organizer Mary Kalyna said. “It’s not just dirt, there are people there.”
Kalyna added: “It’s like a reward for the aggression, which we will not stand for. We cannot stand for it.”
Olena Chymch (right), from Germantown, joins other Ukrainians and Ukrainian Americans at an emergency rally Sunday Nov. 23, 2025, to protest the 28-point “peace plan” for Ukraine.
While Russia would make almost no concessions, the plan would severely weaken an already decimated Ukraine; in return, Kyiv — which has said it was not involved in the drafting of the peace proposal — would receive international security guarantees and reconstruction assistance.
Bucks County U.S. Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick, a longtime defender of Ukraine and member of the Ukraine Caucus, called the plan “Russian-drafted propaganda” on social media.
Correction: The United States wants Russia’s answer on an unconditional withdrawal of Ukraine by Thursday.
This Russian-drafted propaganda must be rejected and disregarded for the unserious nonsense that it is. This moment requires Peace Through Strength, not appeasement.… https://t.co/BQCxtkeMFD
Between renditions of the Ukrainian national anthem and “Glory to Ukraine” salutes, protesters on Sunday also rebuked the plan’s amnesty agreement, which would likely mean Russian officials and soldiers could not be prosecuted for war crimes. “The rapists, the murderers, the genocidal maniacs … are all supposed to be forgiven — absolutely no prosecutions,” said Ukrainian American Eugene Luciw.
“That’s what America stands for? Does America stand for justice?”
This article contains information from the Associated Press.
KYIV, Ukraine — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky told his country in an address Friday that it could face a pivotal choice between standing up for its sovereign rights and preserving the American support it needs, as leaders discuss a U.S. peace proposal seen as favoring Russia.
Russian President Vladimir Putin, meanwhile, cautiously welcomed the U.S. plan to end Moscow’s nearly four-year war in Ukraine, which contains many of the Kremlin’s longstanding demands while offering limited security guarantees to Ukraine. Putin said it “could form the basis of a final peace settlement,” while accusing Ukraine of opposing the plan and being unrealistic.
The plan foresees Ukraine handing over territory to Russia — something Kyiv has repeatedly ruled out — while reducing the size of its army and blocking its coveted path to NATO membership.
Zelensky, in his address hours earlier, did not reject the plan outright, but insisted on fair treatment while pledging to “work calmly” with Washington and other partners in what he called “truly one of the most difficult moments in our history.” He said he spoke for almost an hour Friday with U.S. Vice President JD Vance and Army Secretary Dan Driscoll about the peace proposal.
“Currently, the pressure on Ukraine is one of the hardest,” Zelensky said in the recorded speech. “Ukraine may now face a very difficult choice, either losing its dignity or the risk of losing a key partner.”
Speaking at a meeting of Russia’s National Security Council, Putin called the plan “a new version” and “a modernized plan” of what was discussed with the U.S. ahead of his Alaska summit with President Donald Trump in August, and said Moscow has received it. “I believe that it, too, could form the basis for a final peace settlement,” he said.
But he said the “text has not been discussed with us in any substantive way, and I can guess why,” adding that Washington has so far been unable to gain Ukraine’s consent. “Ukraine is against it. Apparently, Ukraine and its European allies are still under illusions and dream of inflicting a strategic defeat on Russia on the battlefield,” Putin said.
Trump says he wants Ukraine to respond within a week
Trump said Zelensky is going to have to come to terms with the U.S. proposal, and if he doesn’t, “they should just keep fighting, I guess.”
Asked by reporters about Zelensky saying his country faces a difficult choice, Trump alluded to their tense meeting in February that led to a brief rupture in the U.S.-Ukraine relationship: “You remember right in the Oval Office not so long ago? I said you don’t have the cards.”
Trump in a radio interview earlier Friday said he wants an answer from Zelensky on his 28-point plan by Thursday, but said an extension is possible to finalize terms.
“I’ve had a lot of deadlines, but if things are working well, you tend to extend the deadlines,” Trump said in an interview on “The Brian Kilmeade Show” on Fox News Radio. “But Thursday is it — we think an appropriate time.”
While Zelensky has offered to negotiate with the U.S. and Russia, he signaled Ukraine has to confront the possibility of losing American support if it makes a stand.
He urged Ukrainians to “stop fighting” each other, in a possible reference to a major corruption scandal that has brought fierce criticism of the government, and said peace talks next week “will be very difficult.”
Europe says it will keep supporting Ukraine
Zelensky spoke earlier by phone with the leaders of Germany, France and the United Kingdom, who assured him of their continued support, as European officials scrambled to respond to the U.S. proposals that apparently caught them unawares.
Wary of antagonizing Trump, the European and Ukrainian leaders cautiously worded their responses and pointedly commended American peace efforts.
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, French President Emmanuel Macron and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer assured Zelensky of “their unchanged and full support on the way to a lasting and just peace” in Ukraine, Merz’s office said.
The four leaders welcomed U.S. efforts to end the war. “In particular, they welcomed the commitment to the sovereignty of Ukraine and the readiness to grant Ukraine solid security guarantees,” the statement added.
The line of contact must be the departure point for an agreement, they said, and “the Ukrainian armed forces must remain in a position to defend the sovereignty of Ukraine effectively.”
Starmer said the right of Ukraine to “determine its future under its sovereignty is a fundamental principle.”
Existential threat to Europe
European countries see their own futures at stake in Ukraine’s fight against the Russian invasion and have insisted on being consulted in peace efforts.
“Russia’s war against Ukraine is an existential threat to Europe. We all want this war to end. But how it ends matters,” EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said in Brussels. “Russia has no legal right whatsoever to any concessions from the country it invaded. Ultimately, the terms of any agreement are for Ukraine to decide.”
Trump in his radio interview pushed back against the notion that the settlement, which offers plentiful concessions to Russia, would embolden Putin to carry out further malign action on his European neighbors.
“He’s not thinking of more war,” Trump said of Putin. ”He’s thinking punishment. Say what you want. I mean, this was supposed to be a one-day war that has been four years now.”
A European government official said the U.S. plans weren’t officially presented to Ukraine’s European backers.
Many of the proposals are “quite concerning,” the official said, adding that a bad deal for Ukraine would also be a threat to broader European security.
The official was not authorized to discuss the plan publicly and spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity.
European Council President Antonio Costa, in Johannesburg, said of the U.S. proposals, “The European Union has not been communicated any plans in (an) official manner.”
Proposal meets with skepticism in the U.S. Senate
“This so-called ‘peace plan’ has real problems, and I am highly skeptical it will achieve peace,” said Sen. Roger Wicker, the Republican chair of the Senate Armed Services Committee. “Ukraine should not be forced to give up its lands to one of the world’s most flagrant war criminals in Vladimir Putin.”
Wicker added that Ukraine should be allowed to determine the size of its military and Putin should not be rewarded with assurances from the U.S.
Democratic Sen. Chris Coons, who serves on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said there’s “general concern and alarm that this is a Russian wish list proposal.”
Ukraine examines the proposals
Ukrainian officials said they were weighing the U.S. proposals, and Zelensky said he expected to talk to Trump about it in coming days.
A U.S. team began drawing up the plan soon after U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff held talks with Rustem Umerov, a top adviser to Zelensky, according to a senior Trump administration official who was not authorized to comment publicly and spoke on the condition of anonymity.
The official added that Umerov agreed to most of the plan, after making several modifications, and then presented it to Zelensky.
However, Umerov on Friday denied that version of events. He said he only organized meetings and prepared the talks.
He said technical talks between the U.S. and Ukraine were continuing in Kyiv.
“We are thoughtfully processing the partners’ proposals within the framework of Ukraine’s unchanging principles — sovereignty, people’s security, and a just peace,” he said.
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump on Friday met the man who had proudly proclaimed himself “Donald Trump’s worst nightmare,” but he seemed to find the opposite.
The Republican president and New York City’s Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani were warm and friendly, speaking repeatedly of their shared goals to help Trump’s hometown rather than their combustible differences.
Trump, who had in the past called Mamdani a “100% Communist Lunatic” and a “total nut job,” spoke openly of how impressed he was with the man who had called his administration “authoritarian.”
“I think he is going to surprise some conservative people, actually,” Trump said of the democratic socialist as Mamdani stood next to him in the Oval Office.
The meeting offered political opportunities for both men. For Mamdani, a sit-down offered the state lawmaker — who until recently was relatively unknown — the chance to go head-to-head with the most powerful person in the world.
For Trump, it was a high-profile chance to talk about affordability at a time when he’s under increasing political pressure to show he’s addressing voter concerns about the cost of living.
Until now, the men have been political foils who galvanized their supporters by taking on each other, and it’s unclear how those backers will react to their genial get-together and complimentary words.
“We’re going to be helping him, to make everybody’s dream come true, having a strong and very safe New York,” the president said.
“What I really appreciate about the president is that the meeting that we had focused not on places of disagreement, which there are many, and also focused on the shared purpose that we have in serving New Yorkers,” Mamdani said.
Mamdani and Trump said they discussed housing affordability and the cost of groceries and utilities, as Mamdani successfully used frustration over inflation to get elected, just as the president did in the 2024 election.
“Some of his ideas are really the same ideas that I have,” the president said of Mamdani about inflationary issues.
The president brushed aside Mamdani’s criticisms of him over his administration’s deportation raids and claims that Trump was behaving like a despot. Instead, Trump said the responsibility of holding an executive position in the government causes a person to change, saying that had been the case for him.
He seemed at times even protective of Mamdani, jumping in on his behalf at several points. For example, when reporters asked Mamdani to clarify his past statements indicating that he thought the president was acting like a fascist, Trump said, “I’ve been called much worse than a despot.”
When a reporter asked if Mamdani stood by his comments that Trump is a fascist, Trump interjected before the mayor-elect could fully answer the question.
“That’s OK. You can just say yes. OK?” Trump said. “It’s easier. It’s easier than explaining it. I don’t mind.”
Trump stepped in again when a reporter asked Mamdani why he flew to Washington instead of taking transportation that used less fossil fuels.
Mamdani, who takes office in January, said he sought the meeting with Trump to talk about ways to make New York City more affordable. Trump has said he may want to help him out — although he has also falsely labeled Mamdani as a “communist” and threatened to yank federal funds from the city.
But Trump on Friday didn’t sling that at the mayor. He acknowledged that he had said he had been prepared to cut off funding or make it harder for New York City to access federal resources if the two had failed to “get along,” only to pull back from those threats during the meeting.
“We don’t want that to happen,” Trump said. ”I don’t think that’s going to happen.”
Afterward, Mamdani’s former campaign manager and incoming chief of staff Elle Bisgaard-Church told NY1 that the pair clearly disagreed on some issues but were able to find common ground on things like reducing crime.
“We discussed that we share a mutual goal of having a safe city where everyone can move around in comfort and ease,” she said, before later adding, “We know that there have been labels thrown all around that are just simply not fair and we kept it, again, at where we could find agreement on making the city affordable.”
Trump loomed large over the mayoral race this year, and on the eve of the election, he endorsed independent candidate and former Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo, predicting the city has “ZERO chance of success, or even survival” if Mamdani won. He also questioned the citizenship of Mamdani, who was born in Uganda and became a naturalized American citizen after graduating from college, and said he’d have him arrested if he followed through on threats not to cooperate with immigration agents in the city.
Mamdani beat back a challenge from Cuomo, painting him as a “puppet” for the president, and promised to be “a mayor who can stand up to Donald Trump and actually deliver.” He declared during one primary debate, “I am Donald Trump’s worst nightmare, as a progressive Muslim immigrant who actually fights for the things that I believe in.”
The president, who has long used political opponents to fire up his backers, predicted Mamdani “will prove to be one of the best things to ever happen to our great Republican Party.” As Mamdani upended the Democratic establishment by defeating Cuomo and his far-left progressive policies provoked infighting, Trump repeatedly has cast Mamdani as the face of Democratic Party.
Some had expected fireworks in the Oval Office meeting
The president has had some dramatic public Oval Office faceoffs this year, including an infamously heated exchange with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in March. In May, Trump dimmed the lights while meeting with South African President Cyril Ramaphosa and played a four-minute video making widely rejected claims that South Africa is violently persecuting the country’s white Afrikaner minority farmers.
A senior Trump administration official who spoke on condition of anonymity to describe internal discussions said Trump had not put a lot of thought into planning the meeting with the incoming mayor — but said Trump’s threats to block federal dollars from flowing to New York remained on the table.
Mamdani said Thursday that he was not concerned about the president potentially trying to use the meeting to publicly embarrass him and said he saw it as a chance to make his case, even while acknowledging “many disagreements with the president.”
Instead, both men avoided a public confrontation in a remarkably calm and cordial series of comments in front of news reporters.
Mamdani, who lives in Queens — where Trump was raised — has shown a cutthroat streak just as Trump has as a candidate. During his campaign, he appeared to borrow from Trump’s playbook when he noted during a televised debate with Cuomo that one of the women who had accused the former governor of sexual harassment was in the audience. Cuomo has denied wrongdoing.
But the tensions were subdued Friday as Trump seemed sympathetic to Mamdani’s policies to want to build more housing.
“People would be shocked, but I want to see the same thing,” the president said.
The adage goes, “If mom says, ‘No,’ call grandma.” So if grandma says, “No,” do you call a lawyer?
Popular D.C. bagel chain Call Your Mother is doing just that after claiming that a shop in Long Branch, N.J., is cramping their style, filing a trademark lawsuit within the U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey.
Call Your Bubbi, a beach town cafe and kosher-certified bagel shop, opened last year within the Wave Resort and offers your classic bagel fare.
Andrew Dana and Daniela Moreira, the married couple behind Call Your Mother, say the Jersey cafe is intentionally using a “confusingly similar” name and branding, which can harm their nearly six-year-old company that has about 25 locations, in the Washington area and six in Colorado. The dispute has quickly gone viral within the food scene and bagel-loving communities.
“I cannot believe how this has blown up,” Dana said. “It has taken on a life we never expected.”
Call Your Bubbi owner David Mizrahi did not respond to multiple requests for comment from The Inquirer.
Dana said the couple first found out about the Long Branch cafe when a neighbor texted a photo of its storefront, asking if Call Your Mother had expanded to New Jersey. From there, they looked at Call Your Bubbi’s online and social media presence.
Dana and Moreira own the trademark for the phrase call your mother for use as a deli, cafe, or restaurant, according to court documents. They’ve also trademarked their logo, a rotary phone (which mimics the shape of a bagel). In its branding suite, the Call Your Mother text often circles around the rotary graphic.
Call Your Bubbi also uses a round image with its name similarly circling around its bagel logo. According to the Washingtonian, the cafe also at one point used a rotary phone motif on its merch. Both shops use hues of pink and blue in their branding.
“People might think we’re sort of hunting this stuff out — that’s not the case at all,” Dana said. “It looks just like our logo. We tried for months and months to get in touch with the owner. We got hung up on. We didn’t know what else to do.”
At one point, Dana told the Washington Post that he noticed a tagline on the top of Call Your Bubbi’s website: If Mom says, “No,” call your Bubbi.” He told the Post, “I just felt like they were goading us.”
In August, the couple sent Mizrahi a cease-and-desist letter, court documents show. They say they never heard back or saw a change in the cafe’s branding. Last Tuesday, they officially filed the lawsuit.
Call Your Mother is being represented by Philadelphia-based attorney Matthew Homyk, a partner in the intellectual property group of Blank Rome LLP. Homyk didn’t respond for comment as of publication time.
“In Jewish culture, the terms ‘mother’ and ‘bubbi’ both denote a caring and nurturing Jewish matriarch,” the lawsuit says. “Both marks evoke the same core idea — a warm and loving (but also somewhat instructive or scolding) prompt to call your mother or grandmother, and to go grab some coffee and bagels while you’re at it.”
The suit noted that Mizrahi‘s original incorporation in March 2024 was for “Bubbies Bagels,” but that “sometime thereafter,” he began using the Call Your Bubbi label instead.
The Jersey Shore cafe appears to use a blend of both names as of publication time. On Yelp, it’s Call Your Bubbi. On Google Maps, it’s billed as “Bubbi Bagels @ Wave Resort,” but its phone line and merch still identify it as “Call Your Bubbi.”
The shop’s web domain is bubbibagels.com, but the top of its website says Call Your Bubbi. Similarly, its Instagram username is @bubbibagels, but its icon is the contested Call Your Bubbi round logo.
Dana said they saw no issue with the cafe going by “Bubbi Bagels,” or something similar.
“He can call it Bubbi’s, he can call it Mother’s, I don’t really care. But Call Your Bubbi is so close, we had to sort this out,” Dana said. Still, Dana says, Mizrahi won’t return his calls.
Josh Gerben, a trademark attorney not affiliated with the litigation, says the suit makes for a captivating case study. He posted his own analysis of the brand dispute on LinkedIn and says he believes Call Your Mother has a strong case for trademark infringement.
“As a trademark attorney who grew up in a Jewish family, I can tell you that those two names draw from the same emotional well,” he said. “If this case goes to trial, the judge or jury will have to determine whether an average consumer would think these brands are owned by the same company.”
Restaurant-related trademark disputes aren’t new. In Philly, Chickie’s & Pete’s has a grip on the use of crabfriesthanks to owner Pete Ciarrocchi registering the phrase as a trademark back in 2007. Since then, his lawyers have sent cease-and-desist letters to restaurants nationwide for using the phrase.
(It has also sparked some cheeky clapbacks, like Betty’s Seafood Shack in Margate, which now calls its version of the fries “For ‘Pete’s’ Sake.“)
The lawsuit is asking for the court to rule that Call Your Bubbi illegally used Call Your Mother’s trademark materials and engaged in unfair competition and to order that they permanently stop using the name or anything similar.
They also want all infringing materials destroyed, a report proving compliance, and financial remedies, including Call Your Bubbi’s profits, along with damages, interest, attorney fees, and other appropriate penalties.
“We want him to be able to have his business and us to have ours,” Dana said. “The last thing we want to do is spend money on legal or focus on this. We want to focus on making bagels — and figure out how to finish this quickly.”
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court is meeting in private Friday with a key issue on its agenda — President Donald Trump’s birthright citizenship order declaring that children born to parents who are in the United States illegally or temporarily are not American citizens.
The justices could say as soon as Monday whether they will hear Trump’s appeal of lower court rulings that have uniformly struck down the citizenship restrictions. They have not taken effect anywhere in the United States.
If the court steps in now, the case would be argued in the spring, with a definitive ruling expected by early summer.
The birthright citizenship order, which Trump signed on the first day of his second term in the White House, is part of his administration’s broad immigration crackdown. Other actions include immigration enforcement surges in several cities and the first peacetime invocation of the 18th century Alien Enemies Act.
The administration is facing multiple court challenges, and the high court has sent mixed signals in emergency orders it has issued. The justices effectively stopped the use of the Alien Enemies Act to rapidly deport alleged Venezuelan gang members without court hearings, while they allowed the resumption of sweeping immigration stops in the Los Angeles area after a lower court blocked the practice of stopping people solely based on their race, language, job or location.
The justices also are weighing the administration’s emergency appeal to be allowed to deploy National Guard troops in the Chicago area for immigration enforcement actions. A lower court has indefinitely prevented the deployment.
Birthright citizenship is the first Trump immigration-related policy to reach the court for a final ruling. Trump’s order would upend more than 125 years of understanding that the Constitution’s 14th Amendment confers citizenship on everyone born on American soil, with narrow exceptions for the children of foreign diplomats and those born to a foreign occupying force.
In a series of decisions, lower courts have struck down the executive order as unconstitutional, or likely so, even after a Supreme Court ruling in late June that limited judges’ use of nationwide injunctions.
While the Supreme Court curbed the use of nationwide injunctions, it did not rule out other court orders that could have nationwide effects, including in class-action lawsuits and those brought by states. The justices did not decide at that time whether the underlying citizenship order is constitutional.
But every lower court that has looked at the issue has concluded that Trump’s order violates or most likely violates the 14th Amendment, which was intended to ensure that Black people, including former slaves, had citizenship.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit in San Francisco ruled in July that a group of states that sued over the order needed a nationwide injunction to prevent the problems that would be caused by birthright citizenship being in effect in some states and not others.
Also in July, a federal judge in New Hampshire blocked the citizenship order in a class-action lawsuit including all children who would be affected.
The American Civil Liberties Union, leading the legal team in the New Hampshire case, urged the court to reject the appeal because the administration’s “arguments are so flimsy,” ACLU lawyer Cody Wofsy said. ”But if the court decides to hear the case, we’re more than ready to take Trump on and win.”
Birthright citizenship automatically makes anyone born in the United States an American citizen, including children born to mothers who are in the country illegally, under long-standing rules. The right was enshrined soon after the Civil War in the first sentence of the 14th Amendment.
The administration has asserted that children of noncitizens are not “subject to the jurisdiction” of the United States and therefore not entitled to citizenship.
“The lower court’s decisions invalidated a policy of prime importance to the president and his administration in a manner that undermines our border security,” Solicitor General D. John Sauer wrote in urging the high court’s review. “Those decisions confer, without lawful justification, the privilege of American citizenship on hundreds of thousands of unqualified people.”
When Lauren Vaughn, a kindergarten assistant in South Carolina, saw reports that right-wing influencer Charlie Kirk had been shot at an event in Utah, she opened Facebook and typed out a quote from Kirk himself.
Gun deaths, Kirk said in 2023, were unfortunate but “worth it” if they preserved “the Second Amendment to protect our other God-given Rights.” Following the quote, Vaughn added: “Thoughts and prayers.”
Vaughn, a 37-year-old Christian who has taken missionary trips to Guatemala, said her call for prayer was sincere. She said she hoped reading Kirk’s words in the context of the shooting might prompt her friends to rethink their opposition to gun control.
“Maybe now they’ll listen,” she recalled thinking.
A few days later, Vaughn lost her job. She was one of more than 600 Americans fired, suspended, placed under investigation or disciplined by employers for comments about Kirk’s September 10 assassination, according to a Reuters review of court records, public statements, local media reports and interviews with two dozen people who were fired or otherwise disciplined.
Some were dismissed after celebrating or mocking Kirk’s death. At least 15 people were punished for allegedly invoking “karma” or “divine justice,” and at least nine others were disciplined for variations on “Good riddance.” Other offending posts appeared to exult in the killing or express hope that other Republican figures would be next. “One down, plenty to go,” one said.
Others, like Vaughn, say they simply criticized Kirk’s politics.
In the pro-Kirk camp, at least one academic was put on administrative leave after threatening to “hunt down” those celebrating the assassination.
This account is the most comprehensive to date of the backlash against Kirk’s critics, tracing how senior officials in President Donald Trump’s administration, local Republican lawmakers and allied influencers mobilized to enforce the Trump movement’s views. The story maps the pro-Trump machinery of retaliation now reshaping American political life, detailing its scale and tactics, ranging from shaming on social media to public pressure on employers and threats to defund institutions. Earlier reports by Reuters have documented how Trump has purged the federal government of employees deemed opponents of his agenda and cracked down on law firms defending people in the administration’s crosshairs.
Americans sometimes lose their jobs after speaking out in heated political moments. Twenty-two academics were dismissed in 2020, the year George Floyd was murdered by a Minneapolis police officer, most for comments deemed insensitive, according to the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, a free-speech advocacy group. In 2024, the first full year following the outbreak of the latest Israel-Gaza war, more than 160 people were fired in connection with their pro-Palestinian advocacy, according to Palestine Legal, an organization that protects the civil rights of American supporters of the Palestinian cause.
The backlash over comments about Kirk’s shooting stands apart because of its reach and its public backing from Trump, Vice President JD Vance and other top government officials. It represents a striking about-face for Republicans, who for years castigated the left for what they called “cancel culture” — the ostracism or punishment of those whose views were deemed unacceptable.
Supporters of the firings say that freedom of speech is not freedom from consequence. Standards of behavior should be high for people like doctors, lawyers, teachers or emergency workers who are in positions of public trust, they said.
In a statement, White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson said: “President Trump and the entire Administration will not hesitate to speak the truth – for years, radical leftists have slandered their political opponents as Nazis and Fascists, inspiring left-wing violence. It must end.” She added: “no one understands the dangers of political violence more than President Trump” after he survived two assassination attempts.
Turning Point USA, the youth movement Kirk founded in 2012, said in a statement that it supported the right to free speech, “including that of private employers to determine when a bright line has been crossed and an employee deserves to be terminated.” The organization, however, cautioned that while celebrating or gloating over Kirk’s death was “evil and disqualifying behavior, respectfully disagreeing with his ideas, statements, or values is every American’s right.”
Vaughn is challenging her dismissal in a federal lawsuit filed September 18, seeking reinstatement. As part of the case, she submitted a letter she received from the Spartanburg County School District superintendent that described her remarks as “inflammatory, unprofessional, and inappropriate.” Responding to the lawsuit, the district said Vaughn’ s post “appeared to endorse Mr. Kirk’s murder or indicate that it was ‘worth’ him losing his life to protect Americans’ constitutional rights.”
The punishments have often been driven by social media campaigns that circulate screenshots of the offending remarks, along with the names and phone numbers of employers, and appeals such as, “Internet, do your thing.” What typically follows are hundreds of angry or threatening messages, Reuters found. Several individuals who were targeted said in interviews they were inundated with phone calls. One recalled receiving a call every minute for an entire day. At least two said the harassment was so intense they plan to sell their homes.
Julie Strebe, a sheriff’s deputy in Salem, Missouri, lost her job after posting comments on Facebook about the shooting, including “Empathy is not owed to oppressors.” She later said she viewed Kirk as an oppressor because, in her words, he sought to marginalize vulnerable groups and used his platform to rally conservative white Christians behind “racist, sexist, hateful views.” She said her bosses were besieged with calls for her dismissal and that, at one point, a hand-drawn sign appeared across from her home reading, “Julie Strebe Supports the Assassination of Charles Kirk.”
Strebe said she installed five surveillance cameras at her home and now fuels her car only at night to avoid neighbors. Moving from Salem would mean leaving extended family, but she said the small city has grown too hostile to stay. “I just don’t feel like I could ever let my guard down,” she said in an interview. Strebe’s former employer, the Dent County Sheriff’s Office, declined to comment.
Many Republican officials have embraced the punitive campaign. Some have proposed extraordinary measures, including lifetime bans from social media for those deemed to be reveling in Kirk’s death. The U.S. State Department revoked visas for six foreigners who the agency said “celebrated the heinous assassination of Charlie Kirk.”
Speaking on a special episode of Kirk’s podcast on September 15, Vice President JD Vance urged his listeners to inflict consequences on those celebrating Kirk’s death.
“Call them out, and, hell, call their employer,” Vance said. Vance’s office pointed Reuters to comments made earlier this year in which the vice president said, “where I draw the line is encouraging violence against political opponents.”
Some academics compared the backlash to the “Red Scare,” the anti-Communist purge that peaked in the 1950s, when officials, labor leaders and Hollywood figures were accused of Communist ties. Thousands were investigated in a climate of fear that shaped U.S. politics and culture for a generation. There are “very disturbing parallels,” said Landon Storrs, a University of Iowa history professor.
Several prominent Republicans have voiced unease at the clampdown, especially after the Federal Communications Commission openly pressured broadcaster ABC to suspend talk show host Jimmy Kimmel following a monolog in which he suggested that Kirk’s assassin hailed from the political right. Police haven’t fully detailed the findings of their investigation into suspect Tyler Robinson and his motives. Robinson hasn’t entered a plea to the murder and other charges against him.
Republican Senator Ted Cruz warned on his podcast that letting government decide “what speech we like and what we don’t” sets a dangerous precedent. Silencing voices like Kimmel’s might feel good, he said, but “when it’s used to silence every conservative in America, we will regret it.” His spokesperson declined further comment.
Charlie Kirk, founder of Turning Point USA, speaks in 2022.
‘Massive purge of these evil psychos’
The campaign to punish Kirk’s critics began almost immediately.
About 30 minutes after Trump’s announcement that Kirk had died, right-wing influencers mobilized. Among the first was Chaya Raichik, operator of the widely followed Libs of TikTok account, which had posted on X, “THIS IS WAR,” before highlighting a Massachusetts teacher who had written: “Just a reminder, We’re NOT offering sympathy.”
By night’s end, Libs of TikTok had published or reposted the professional details of 37 individuals, often accompanied by commentary such as “absolutely vile,” “Your tax dollars pay her salary,” or “Would you want him teaching your kids?”
“It’s actually terrifying how many of them are teachers, doctors and military members,” Libs of TikTok wrote the next day. “We need a massive purge of these evil psychos who want to kiII all of us for simply having opposing political views.”
In the week after the shooting, Libs of TikTok shared the names and profiles of at least 134 people accused of celebrating violence or mocking Kirk’s memory, frequently tagging Trump administration officials including Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Attorney General Pam Bondi. At times, the influencer posted disciplinary actions taken against specific government employees.
“BREAKING: This marine was fired,” Libs of TikTok posted on September 12, a day after calling out a Marine Corps captain. The officer had responded to Kirk’s death by posting an emoji of clinking beer mugs, according to a screenshot the influencer shared with followers. Reuters could not verify the authenticity of the beer-mug post; the captain declined to comment. Libs of TikTok also reported similar disciplinary actions involving an Army Reserve officer and an Army colonel who had commented on the death on social media.
The Pentagon and the Justice Department issued statements condemning celebrations of Kirk’s death but did not address questions about their relationship with Libs of TikTok.
Right-wing influencer Scott Presler began posting screenshots of Kirk commentary, too.
“Take a screenshot of EVERY single person celebrating today,” he told his followers on September 10. “You bet your behind we will make them infamous.” Over the next week, Presler shared posts on X about 70 people who had commented on the killing, and wrote in one message: “Almost every person we’ve posted about — who celebrated Charlie Kirk’s assassination — has been fired.” Presler didn’t respond to requests for comment.
For many on the right, outraged by celebratory reactions from the left, the wave of firings became a form of catharsis.
“It’s good that they are shamed and humiliated and must live with the repercussions for the rest of their lives,” right-wing podcaster Matt Walsh told his audience as he discussed the firings. “It’s good if they wake up every day until they die wishing they had not said what they said.” Asked for comment, Walsh emailed back: “f**k off.”
On YouTube, video blogger and recovery coach JD Delay expressed glee as he read aloud names of those who had lost their jobs over their remarks.
“I’m having fun! This is so much fun!” he shouted, raising his hands in excitement. Delay told Reuters that he believes in “accountability and consequences” and that “if you publicly say abhorrent things and get fired from your job, I’m going to laugh at you.”
The punishment campaign sometimes veered off course. In at least five cases, people were wrongly blamed for comments made by others. In another case, a website that drew up a blacklist called “Expose Charlie’s Murderers” vanished after taking in tens of thousands of dollars in cryptocurrency donations. Attempts to identify and seek comment from the site’s creators were unsuccessful.
President Donald Trump takes the stage during a memorial service honoring conservative activist Charlie Kirk in Glendale, Arizona, on Sept. 21, 2025.
Several online influencers said they received hundreds — sometimes thousands — of tips from individuals seeking to get Kirk’s detractors fired. Reuters was unable to verify those figures. But at various points, Presler, Libs of TikTok and other right-wing personalities publicly urged tipsters to be patient as they worked through the volume of submissions.
“Can’t keep up with all of you,” Presler wrote on X on September 12. “Post your submissions below & I’ll go through them as I can.”
A day later, the post had drawn more than 2,700 replies.
The tally of more than 600 people punished for criticizing Kirk is likely an undercount. Many companies and government organizations haven’t publicly disclosed terminations or suspensions.
Those punished came from at least 45 states and represented a cross-section of society, from soldiers and pilots to doctors, nurses and police officers.
In Michigan, an Office Depot employee was fired after being filmed refusing to print a poster memorializing Kirk. In Ohio, a Starbucks barista lost her job after she was accused of writing an anti-Kirk message on a cup of mint tea.
Reuters couldn’t determine the identities of the Office Depot worker or the barista. Office Depot and Kroger — the grocery store chain that runs the Ohio Starbucks — condemned the anti-Kirk incidents and said the people involved were no longer employees.
Requests to 21 federal agencies — including Homeland Security, Veterans Affairs and the Defense Department — for the number of suspensions or dismissals tied to the Kirk assassination were either ignored or declined. When the Office of the Director of National Intelligence was contacted, its deputy chief of staff responded on social media, accusing Reuters of trying to generate sympathy “for the ghouls who celebrate his death.”
Educators among the main targets
Teachers, academics and university administrators were among those most frequently punished for criticizing Kirk. More than 350 education workers were fired, suspended or investigated in the days following the assassination, including 50 academics and senior university administrators, three high school principals, two cheerleading coaches and a theology instructor.
The prominence of educators in the backlash may stem from several factors. As leaders tasked with shaping young minds, teachers have long been cast by some conservatives as ideologues who aim to pull their students left. Their status as taxpayer-funded employees made any perceived partisan commentary especially combustible.
In interviews and public statements, at least six teachers cited another reason for speaking out: concern over the frequency of gun violence at schools nationwide — and anger at those, like Kirk, who have championed widespread access to firearms.
Vaughn, the South Carolina kindergarten assistant, said that was front of mind when she went to Facebook to quote Kirk’s 2023 remark dismissing some fatal shootings as the price to pay to protect gun rights. Like other teachers across the country, she said she regularly practiced active-shooter drills at her elementary school and saw fear on her five-year-olds’ faces as they learned how to hide from a gunman.
As she defended her post on the day of Kirk’s death, she told a Facebook friend that she felt “no satisfaction” at the assassination. “Just heartbreak for everyone and anyone affected by gun violence and the hope that one day, enough will be enough.” Speaking to Reuters later, she said, “The one thing I want people to know is that my message was out of concern for the kids.”
Many educators did celebrate Kirk’s death, including a Virginia teacher who wrote, “I hope he suffered through all of it,” and a Texas middle school intern who said the shooting “made me giggle.” Screenshots of both posts were circulated by right-wing influencers. Reuters could not locate the original posts, which may have been deleted or made private. The Virginia teacher was suspended and the Texas intern was fired. Neither could be reached for comment.
While schools that suspended or fired educators cited disruptions to the learning environment, some private employers pointed to a violation of company values or safety concerns as the basis for terminations. Corporations caught up in the backlash gave a variety of explanations: Delta Air Lines CEO Ed Bastian said in a statement some employees’ comments were in “stark contrast” to the company’s values and violated its social media policy, while a United Airlines statement said the company had “zero tolerance for politically motivated violence or any attempt to justify it.”
At least a dozen Kirk critics who took pains to condemn the shooting also found themselves out of jobs or suspended, sometimes after Republican lawmakers got involved.
In the wake of Kirk’s death, Joshua Bregy, a climate scientist at Clemson University in South Carolina, shared another user’s Facebook post that read, in part: “No one should be gunned down — not a school child, not an influencer, not a politician — no one. But am I going to allow people to make a martyr out of a flawed human being whose rhetoric caused notable damage? Not a chance.”
The Clemson College Republicans reposted part of his message, labeling him “ANOTHER leftist professor” and calling for his termination. The post was amplified by right-wing influencers and Republican state lawmakers who threatened to defund the public university unless Bregy was fired.
Clemson initially pledged in a September 12 statement to “stand firmly on the principles of the U.S. Constitution, including the protection of free speech.”
The next day, Trump himself reposted a state lawmaker’s call to “Defund Clemson.” On September 16, after South Carolina’s House speaker and Senate president sent a letter to Clemson’s trustees demanding they “take immediate and appropriate action,” the school fired Bregy. Bregy’s Facebook post was “blatantly unprofessional” and “seriously prejudicial to the university,” Clemson said in a letter informing Bregy he had been dismissed.
Bregy is suing Clemson in a South Carolina federal court in a bid to be reinstated. His lawyer, Allen Chaney, said the academic would have kept his job “but for the really aggressive, coercive tactics of elected officials in South Carolina.”
Clemson, State House Speaker Murrell Smith and Senate President Thomas Alexander did not respond to requests for comment. Clemson has yet to file a response to Bregy’s suit.
In at least six other cases, Republican officials publicly threatened to deprive universities and schools of taxpayer funds unless specific critics of Kirk were fired.
Chaney, who serves as legal director of the South Carolina chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, said the threats to defund Clemson and others crossed a constitutional line. “The government can’t police speech by pressuring third parties,” he said. Last year, the Supreme Court unanimously held that government officials cannot use their authority to “attempt to coerce” private parties into punishing or suppressing speech they dislike.
The threats to defund schools that resist firing Kirk’s critics were “stunning,” said Paul McGreal, a constitutional law professor at Creighton University Law School in Nebraska. “Government officials are threatening speakers with punishment because they disagree with what they’re saying. These are core First Amendment protections that they’re violating.”
Kirk praised as Christ’s ‘13th disciple’
Since Kirk’s assassination, many Republicans have cast him as a saintly champion of free expression. Evangelical figures have likened him to Saint Stephen, revered as Christianity’s first martyr. One Republican lawmaker told Congress “he’d have been the 13th disciple” had he lived in Biblical times. Trump compared Kirk to the ancient Greek philosopher Socrates, slain President Abraham Lincoln and assassinated civil rights icon Martin Luther King Jr. when posthumously awarding him the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
Kirk’s legacy is complicated, however. He gained fame for debating college students as part of his work with Turning Point. Kirk also advocated criminalizing expression – such as pornography – that clashed with his Christian views. When Black football players started kneeling during the national anthem in protest at police brutality, he backed Trump’s call to strip the National Football League of taxpayer subsidies. The White House later said Trump was making a statement, not a proposal.
Kirk repeatedly denigrated minorities, calling transgender people an “abomination,” warning of “prowling Blacks” in cities, accusing wealthy Jews of stoking “hatred against Whites,” and declaring Islam incompatible with Western civilization. He also dismissed Pope Francis as a Marxist.
Some of those who spoke out against Kirk after his death said they were disturbed by the hagiography.
“I just felt compelled to remind people who he was and what he stood for,” Kimberly Hunt, a human resources worker in Arizona, said in an interview. She had posted a video captioned, “Save your tears for his victims, not him.”
In the video, Hunt cited Kirk’s record of using derogatory language about transgender people and Muslims, before adding that his children “are better off without him.” Hunt was fired soon after. Her employer, an Arizona construction firm, did not respond to requests for comment.
Hunt told Reuters she understood her words sounded harsh but stood by them. She said they reflected Kirk’s stance in a debate last year that if he had a 10-year-old daughter who was impregnated through rape, “the baby would be delivered.”
The retaliation has silenced many voices. Scores of people who posted anti-Kirk comments have since scrubbed or locked their accounts, Reuters found. Others said in interviews that they are pushing back.
Hunt said she has raised more than $88,000 from a GoFundMe campaign titled, “Doxxed, Fired, but Not Silenced.” She said she wants to use the money to further her education, become a content creator, and keep calling out people like Kirk.
“It’s definitely just emboldened me,” she said.
At least 19 lawsuits have been filed against employers who punished Kirk critics, state and federal court records show. At least two plaintiffs have succeeded, including an academic in South Dakota who got his teaching job back.
Karen Leader, an associate professor at Florida Atlantic University, took to social media after Kirk’s death to protest a narrative that he “was a shining inspiration to youth and a noncontroversial figure who just wanted to have open and civil dialog,” she said. “Anyone who’s in higher education knows that it’s not that simple.”
She noted that Turning Point rose to prominence through its Professor Watchlist, a site that encouraged students to report faculty for allegedly holding “radical left” views or being a “terror supporter.”
Kirk had described the Watchlist as an awareness tool, not a blacklist. Those on it have said in interviews, social media posts and public forums that it fostered harassment and intimidation. In 2023, a Turning Point reporter was accused of assaulting an Arizona professor who was on the watchlist after confronting him on camera about his sexuality and shoving him to the ground. The reporter admitted to harassment, assault and disorderly conduct and was ordered to complete a diversion program. A Turning Point cameraman admitted to harassment in the case.
On September 10, Leader began posting Kirk’s past statements on X. She said she made a mistake by incorrectly accusing Kirk of having uttered an ethnic slur and then deleted it. The rest of her posts she said she stands behind, including one highlighting Kirk’s claim that Black Americans were “better” during Jim Crow.
“None of it was me encouraging violence,” Leader said. “I was sharing evidence.”
Jordan Chamberlain, a former staffer of Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, shared screenshots of several of Leader’s posts and tagged her university, asking if it approved of the content. Libs of TikTok shared Leader’s faculty headshot. The university’s president announced she had been put on administrative leave. Her address and phone number appeared online, and menacing messages followed.
In one voicemail reviewed by Reuters, the caller said: “We’re coming to get you. Karen Leader, we know where you work. We’re gonna come to your home as soon as we have your location.” Leader said she has rarely left her apartment since.
She reported the threats to Boca Raton police, which referred the case to campus officers, according to a police report. Florida Atlantic University police said their report could not be released because of an active criminal investigation.
Florida Atlantic University confirmed Leader was one of three academics who were on leave pending investigations. It declined further comment. Chamberlain also didn’t return an email seeking comment.
“Whether my career is over or not, I don’t know,” Leader said. “But my life has changed.”
