MSNBC Fires Matthew Dowd For Speaking The Truth About Charlie Kirk's Rhetoric

Charlie Kirk did nothing to deserve being murdered, but MSNBC fired analyst Matthew Dowd for speaking the truth about Kirk's hateful and divisive rhetoric.

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Charlie Kirk didn’t deserve to die. His family and friends didn’t deserve the grief that they have been dropped upon them out of the blue like a 20-ton weight.

It is common when a known figure dies in a horrific way for the media to lionize that person and overlook any negatives to play up the positives.

In our current media environment, where the big corporate-owned outlets are terrified of the president, the murder of a close ally of Trump has resulted in the press nearly canonizing Kirk and deeming him a saint.

The truth, as with most things in life, is somewhere in the middle.

It is true that Charlie Kirk did not deserve what happened to him, and the act of violence that took his life must be universally condemned, but it can also be true that in life, Kirk used rhetoric often that was deeply partisan, divisive, and hateful.

Matthew Dowd made the mistake of saying what the corporate media, including MSNBC, is afraid to say about Kirk when he said:

He’s been one of the most divisive, especially divisive younger figures in this, who is constantly sort of pushing this sort of hate speech or sort of aimed at certain groups. And I always go back to, hateful thoughts lead to hateful words, which then lead to hateful actions. And I think that is the environment we are in. You can’t stop with these sort of awful thoughts you have and then saying these awful words and not expect awful actions to take place. And that’s the unfortunate environment we are in.

Dowd was perhaps inartfully trying to say that hateful words fan the flames of extremism and can lead to political violence. The right immediately freaked out and accused Dowd of blaming Kirk for his own murder.

MSNBC felt the need to issue an apology, which is fine, but then they caved and fired Dowd.

For his part, Dowd apologized on Bluesky, “My thoughts & prayers are w/ the family and friends of Charlie Kirk. On an earlier appearance on MSNBC I was asked a question on the environment we are in. I apologize for my tone and words. Let me be clear, I in no way intended for my comments to blame Kirk for this horrendous attack. Let us all come together and condemn violence of any kind.”

Dowd could have done a better job in talking about how hateful, divisive rhetoric dehumanizes people. Hateful rhetoric dehumanizes the target and also the speaker.

How Dowd characterized the rhetoric that Kirk used was true. It was the part about consequences that got him into trouble.

Below we’ll discuss what this means for MSNBC, free speech, and truth in our media.

Dangerous Rhetoric And The Media’s Responsibility Not To Whitewash It