National security expert Juliette Kayyem slapped down GOP strategist Lance Trover Saturday after dismissing claims that only Democrats were engaged in the type of heated rhetoric that led to the killing of right-wing influencer Charlie Kirk.

Responding to a clip of Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ) urging “to take the temperature down” on heated rhetoric, Trover said it was still an open question as to whether Democrats would actually follow suit, claiming that such rhetoric was “only coming from one side.”


“Of course there are [those] that just spend all their time whipping up their base, both right and left, I'm not going to disagree on that, but I heard the congressman on there saying 'we need to tone down the rhetoric,’” Trover said.

“I go back to what was on the bullet from this kid, 'fascism,' and that's only coming from one side currently in this debate, and it's on every placard and poster around the country. I think it's a valid question of are they going to live up to what they say they're going to do, with the 'Nazi' and the 'fascism' and the like?”

Anti-fascist messages were discovered to have been engraved on bullet casings belonging to Kirk’s suspected killer, Tyler Robinson, including “Hey fascist! Catch!” and “bella ciao,” an Italian anti-facist folk song theorized to have been written in protest of brutal working conditions imposed on agricultural workers.

Kayyem, who previously served as Massachusetts’ undersecretary for Homeland Security, immediately pushed back on Trover, casting doubt on the idea that Robinson’s motives for the killing were already evident.

As the two engaged in a heated back and forth, Kayyem regained control of the debate by declaring “this was my point, not yours!”

“The point is, who cares? A man was killed, and you have yet to say political violence is bad, period!” Kayyem said. “That's all the people want from the president! That's all, and they're getting this spin and this; stop counting! Because you're not going to define a perfect motive in this case, you're not going to define it.”

Trump’s response to Kirk’s killing was to

blame the attack

on the “radical left,” something Kayyem seized on as being antithetical to calls to tone down insightful rhetoric, and an example of what she characterized as Trover’s hypocrisy.