Arnold Schwarzenegger has warned that America risks falling off a “cliff” after the assassination of Charlie Kirk.
Speaking at the University of Southern California, where he was receiving an honorary doctorate, the 78-year-old actor-politician said that social media companies, the mainstream media, and political parties were all sowing division.
“So, we’re getting hit from so many different angles,” he told the audience. “And we have to be very careful that we don’t get in, closer to the cliff. Because when you fall down that cliff, down there, there is no democracy.”
The Terminator star, who served as the Republican governor of California from 2003 to 2011, repeated his warning, saying, “We have to be very, very careful. I think it is very important that we turn this around and that we show people power. Because the people can turn this around, the people have the ultimate power.
“And so this is why I recommend very strongly that people who say, ‘Well, what can I do? I’m just an individual,’—each and every one of you in here can make a difference.”
His comments come after a flurry of incendiary statements from prominent right-wingers, including Tesla CEO and X owner Elon Musk, after Kirk, 31, was shot dead at an open-air event in Utah last week.
Kirk was downed by a single bullet as he spoke to students at Utah Valley University in the city of Orem. Almost immediately, MAGA figures started threatening recriminations against the so-called “far left,” even when details about the suspect remained scant. It transpired that the suspected shooter, Tyler Robinson, comes from a Republican-voting family, though his own political preferences are less clear.
Less than 48 hours after Kirk’s murder, Trump took the opposite stance to Schwarzenegger in an appearance on Fox News.
“I tell you something that is going to get me in trouble, but I couldn’t care less,” he responded when asked on Fox & Friends how the divisions in the U.S. can be remedied.
He went on: “The radicals on the right are radical because they don’t want to see crime… The radicals on the left are the problem—and they are vicious and horrible and politically savvy. They want men in women’s sports, they want transgender for everyone, they want open borders. The worst thing that happened to this country.”
Musk took a similar view. “The left is the party of murder and celebrating murder,” he said in a video link-up with a weekend rally in London organized by the far-right activist and convicted criminal Tommy Robinson.
In a separate appearance on Fox News, Eric Trump complained that “the bullets are only going one way.” On Monday, however, his father was hit by a reality check on Monday when a reporter confronted the president with a list of right-wing attacks on Democrats.
CBS News’ Chief White House Correspondent Nancy Cordes reminded Trump that political violence spans both ends of the political spectrum. “Given the killing of [Minnesota Democrat] Melissa Hortman, the attack on [former House speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband] Paul Pelosi, the attack on [former Arizona Democrat] Gabby Giffords, the attack on the Pennsylvania governor’s mansion, why make the case that violence is only on one side?” she asked.
“I didn’t say it’s on one side,” Trump replied, “but I say the radical left causes tremendous violence and they seem to do it in a bigger way.
“I really think they hate our country.”
