Most Americans have no idea that the alleged killer of conservative leader Charlie Kirk was a leftist sympathetic with the antifa and “furry” movements.
In a revealing survey on the media’s coverage of Kirk’s assassination and the arrest of 22-year-old EXCLUSIVE MRC POLL: Only 24% of likely voters know Charlie Kirk’s assassin was a radical leftist.
The elitist media are the enemy of the people., just 24% identified him as left-wing, 35% called him a conservative or centrist, and 27% didn’t know his politics.
The McLaughlin & Associates national poll of 1,000 likely voters, conducted for the Media Research Center, highlighted how the media disguised and mangled the politics of the alleged killer to put the blame on MAGA supporters.
It also showed the impact of entertainment influencers, such as ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel, who tried to divert blame away from liberal politics. Jimmy Kimmel Live! was briefly taken off the air after he told his audience, “We hit some new lows over the weekend with the MAGA gang trying to characterize this kid who killed Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them.”
In the days following the September shooting at Utah Valley University, the media reported that Robinson came from a conservative MAGA family. Less attention was paid to the left-wing etchings on bullets he carried, including one said to be supportive of antifa and another referring to supporters of the so-called “furry” community, where people dress up and act like pets.
EXCLUSIVE MRC POLL: Only 24% of likely voters know Charlie Kirk’s assassin was a radical leftist.
The elitist media are the enemy of the people.https://t.co/pcoX1Ncs41
— Media Research Center (@theMRC) December 3, 2025
While supporters of Kirk and his Turning Point USA organization were convinced Robinson’s left-wing and pro-LGBT politics drove him, media headlines such as NPR’s “Why did alleged assassin target Kirk? Evidence paints complicated picture,” were typical.
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“With nearly a quarter of respondents convinced that Kirk was killed by a right winger, it is inarguable that the corporate media have mangled the facts of the case. But the fact that the most common response was professed ignorance about Robinson’s motive highlights another pernicious aspect of the press’s approach to this story: their lack of interest,” said the analysis of the poll on MRC’s NewsBusters site.
“Given the media’s disastrous mishandling of this story, it should come as no surprise that respondents’ news consumption habits proved a significant determining factor in how they understood Robinson’s politics. Only 18.8% of those who primarily watched left-of-center cable news outlets were able to correctly describe his ideology, as compared to 27.7% who asserted that he was right-wing. Surprisingly, even among right-of-center cable news viewers, barely over a third of participants (33.5%) answered that Robinson was left-wing, and a still-considerable 18% believed him to be right-wing,” said the analysis.