Education Secretary Linda McMahon released an extended video statement Wednesday on X regarding the shooting of conservative figurehead Charlie Kirk. 

McMahon began by praising those who have honored Kirk’s memory and the “values he held so dearly,” but she quickly turned her attention to denouncing the “small but vocal fringe” that has “sought to excuse, justify and even celebrate his murder.”

Many of these individuals, the secretary claimed, work at America’s colleges and universities or K–12 schools.

“Alarmingly, many of these advocates of political violence are teachers, professors and administrators,” she said. “Make no mistake, ideological capture can lead to political violence by demonizing people with dissenting views.”

The solution, McMahon said, is to act swiftly, “condemn” those who have “crossed this ethical line” and “end the ideological capture that causes our schools and universities to become cradles of intolerance.” 

That does not, however, mean backing down from difficult conversations or prohibiting controversial speakers, the secretary said at conference hosted by the Federalist Society and the Defense of Freedom Institute.   

It’s “just like after 9/11, when President Bush came out and said we cannot stay at home, we cannot cower [and] we cannot double down,” McMahon told attendees. “We just have to be vigilant moving forward.”

She urged conservatives on campus to stay strong and mirror Kirk’s approach to all future discourse.

“Charlie is no longer with us to lead this charge,” she said in the video. “It now falls to all of us to carry it forward.”