'We Know Better': Experts Watch in Horror As Trump Admin Hides Record of Right-Wing Violence

[Celerity]

https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/we-know-better-experts-watch-in-horror-as-trump-admin-hides-record-of-right-wing-violence


White House Deputy Chief of State Stephen Miller speaks during the public memorial service for right-wing activist Charlie Kirk at State Farm Stadium in Glendale, Arizona, on September 21, 2025. (Photo by Patrick T. Fallon / AFP) (Photo by PATRICK T. FALLON/AFP via Getty Images)

Since the assassination of Charlie Kirk, you’d think that the main violent force in American life lies on the left. Top Trump administration officials have spent the days since Kirk’s murder using it as an excuse to crack down on the political opposition. In this telling, Kirk himself was a responsible steward of public discourse, a martyr felled as part of a long, forceful, national campaign to eradicate right-wing voices.

To experts and former government officials who have devoted their lives to studying and fighting violent extremism, this narrative is galling. According to research conducted by multiple federal agencies and academics, in this century, right-wing extremism has been the dominant inspiration for politically motivated attacks within the U.S. “We know better,” Bill Braniff, director of the Department of Homeland Security’s Center for Prevention Programs and Partnerships until his resignation in March, told TPM.

The office that Braniff ran, known as CP3, focused on fighting violent extremism. First created after 9/11, the office doled out grants to states and local governments, and worked to coordinate different law enforcement entities and other groups to prevent mass shootings, assassinations, and other attacks before they happened. Braniff resigned after massive staffing cuts from the Trump administration; the office is widely seen as defunct after Trump installed a 22-year old former intern as Braniff’s successor.

Since the assassination, he and other extremism experts have watched with concern as Trump officials rushed to blame Kirk’s death on progressive groups, pledging to suppress speech and defund left-wing political organizations. The Justice Department even scrubbed from its website a study finding that far-right extremists have committed far more homicides than those on the left. At the core of the administration’s campaign is a claim, stated by White House official Stephen Miller, that liberals represent a “vast domestic terrorist movement.”

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