President Donald Trump said Friday that the “radical left” was responsible for much of the political violence in the country, and appeared to excuse violence on the right by saying that it was driven by people who “don’t want to see crime.”

Trump’s comments, in an interview on “Fox & Friends” that ran for nearly an hour, expanded on a series of statements he had made since the assassination of Charlie Kirk, the conservative activist and political organizer. The president had seemed to excuse violence from right-wing or other supporters, while promising investigations into who was funding and organizing the left, suggesting the violence was somehow coordinated.

Shortly after Trump spoke Friday, the FBI and the governor of Utah announced the arrest of a suspect in the Kirk case, and said that all preliminary indications were that he had operated alone. But by that time, Trump had already begun to make the case that the killer was the product of a violent “radical leftist” firmament, while downplaying any suggestion that the right has been subject to the same blight.

‘We Just Have to Beat the Hell Out of Them,’ Says Trump

Trump built on the case he had made Thursday evening to reporters that “we have radical left lunatics out there, and we just have to beat the hell out of them.”

Trump is often deliberately vague in his wording, but he appeared to be suggesting that the left needed to be beaten politically, noting later that he wanted his supporters to respond to the killing of Kirk with “nonviolence.”

But Trump dismissed Friday a suggestion from one of his interviewers that there were extremists on both the left and the right, saying his biggest concern was those on the left.

At one point, Ainsley Earhardt, one of the conservative hosts of “Fox & Friends,” turned to Trump — who was in the studio, sitting on a couch amid friendly interviewers — and said, “We have radicals on the right as well. How do we fix this country?”

Trump did not wait for the whole question to be completed before he was ready with an answer. “I’ll tell you something that’s going to get me in trouble, but I couldn’t care less. The radicals on the right oftentimes are radical because they don’t want to see crime,” he said. “The radicals on the left are the problem, and they’re vicious and they’re horrible and they’re politically savvy.”

America has seen a wave of violence across the political spectrum, targeting Democrats and Republicans. Among the notable incidents before Kirk’s killing was the assassination of a Democratic Minnesota state representative, Melissa Hortman, and her husband. Another Democratic state senator, John Hoffman, and his wife were badly wounded in a separate shooting. The suspect in both incidents was said by the authorities to have compiled a list of dozens of largely Democratic lawmakers, abortion rights advocates and other potential targets.

Trump and Allies Rewrite History of Capitol Riot

And in the nearly eight months since his inauguration, Trump and his allies have sought to rewrite the history of the Jan. 6, 2021 riot at the Capitol, including by granting pardons to virtually all of those who had been convicted of federal crimes related to the uprising, even those who had committed violence against police officers.

Trump’s comments Friday came after he revealed that a suspect was in custody for the killing of Kirk. At the time, he did not provide details, nor did he discuss the suspect’s possible political affiliations, which are still unclear.

On Wednesday, hours after Kirk’s death was announced, Trump offered a short recorded tribute to the young conservative organizer with whom the president and one of his sons were quite close. At the time, a search for the suspect was underway. But Trump left no doubt about where he thought the blame would lie.

“For years, those on the radical left have compared wonderful Americans like Charlie to Nazis and the world’s worst mass murderers and criminals,” said Trump. “This kind of rhetoric is directly responsible for the terrorism that we are seeing in the country today, and it must stop right now.”

But he has often rejected parallel logic that right-wing vilification of his political opponents was responsible for violence committed by those more closely aligned with his worldview.

Argues for Investigation of George Soros

And he used the Kirk assassination to argue for investigations into his own political opponents, an effort to guide the Justice Department and the FBI in a way that most presidents have carefully avoided.

At one point in the conversation on Fox News on Friday, Trump said that George Soros, the 95-year-old philanthropist, and his family should be investigated for “agitation.” Soros has been a major funder of liberal groups and a longtime target of right-wing groups.

Trump then turned the subject to a critique of former President Joe Biden, saying he had had no idea what was happening while “radical left” advisers took control of the country.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

By David E. Sanger/Kenny Holston

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