Vice President JD Vance went after former MSNBC host Mehdi Hasan this week for digging up old social media posts from Charlie Kirk, the conservative activist who was killed in September. The back and forth between them has gotten a lot of people talking online about whether it’s right to criticize someone after they’ve died.
Kirk started Turning Point USA and was shot and killed on September 10 while he was running an event at Utah Valley University. Even though he’s gone, the movement he built has kept going strong and actually gotten bigger. But some people are still bringing up things Kirk said when he was alive and calling them out.
According to Fox News, the whole thing started when Hasan reposted something Kirk wrote about New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani. That’s when Vance jumped in and said, “According to Mehdi Hassan, the real victim of hatred was not the guy murdered by a left wing lunatic, but people like Mehdi for facing criticism of their views.” He also wrote, “Charlie Kirk was killed by a left wing radical. But I am the real victim because Charlie Kirk was mean to me.”
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What set this off was Hasan sharing a post Kirk made back in June about Mamdani, who ended up winning the Democratic primary for New York City mayor. Kirk had written, “It’s not Islamophobia to notice that a man who wants to globalize the intifada is about to run America’s largest and once greatest city.” He went on to say, “It’s not Islamophobia to notice that Muslims want to import values into the West that seek to destabalize our civilization. It’s cultural suicide to stay silent.”
When Hasan posted this again on Saturday, he called Kirk “a racist bigot” and said he “incited hate against minorities.” That’s what got Vance fired up enough to respond the way he did.
A bunch of people on social media started comparing what Hasan said to an old joke from comedian Norm Macdonald. In the joke, Macdonald said, “What terrifies me is if ISIS were to detonate a nuclear device and kill 50 million Americans. Imagine the backlash against peaceful Muslims?” The point was to show how weird it is when people worry more about the reaction to something bad instead of the bad thing itself.
The whole situation with Mamdani possibly becoming New York City’s next mayor has already had people arguing about immigration and culture in America. Kirk spoke out against Mamdani’s views while he was still alive. Now that Kirk has been killed, everything he said is getting even more attention.
Hasan used to have a show, but they canceled it in November 2023 and he left the network a few months later in early 2024. After Kirk died, some colleges actually punished workers who posted things celebrating or defending his murder. Vance has been speaking out on a lot of hot button issues lately, including when he got into it with Israeli lawmakers while visiting their country.
Published: Oct 28, 2025 01:00 pm