A lot of things happened. Here are some of the things. This is TPM’s Morning Memo. Sign up for the email version.
Trump Revealed the Arrest on Fox News
After two different people were mistakenly nabbed as suspects in the assassination of right-wing extremist Charlie Kirk, President Donald Trump revealed Friday morning on Fox & Friends that the alleged assailant was finally in custody:
The bizarre spectacle of the president of the United States dribbling out news of the arrest and calling for the death penalty on a morning news show came after his FBI director had spent two days live-tweeting his own investigation and touting his relationship with the victim.
A couple of hours after Trump’s appearance on morning TV, law enforcement on the scene in Utah held a press conference announcing the arrest of a man suspected in the shooting and identified him as 22-year-old Utah resident Tyler Robinson.
“We got him,” Utah Gov. Spencer Cox declared.
Few details were immediately available about Robinson or his motives. The press conference in Utah was still underway as Morning Memo was published.
The arrest reportedly came late Thursday night in St. George, Utah, more than 250 miles away from where Kirk was killed Wednesday on the campus of Utah Valley University. Law enforcement had released new images and video Thursday of the alleged assailant fleeing the scene of the shooting. Investigators recovered a bolt-action rifle in a wooded area near campus.
The investigation under FBI Director Kash Patel has been marked by an even greater degree of confusion and chaos than is typical after a major incident, according to various reports. Patel and his top deputy, Dan Bongino, held a tense and desperate-sounding online meeting with some 200 agents Thursday morning: the NYT reported:
They expressed themselves with such fierce urgency that, in the view of some participants, it hinted at another motive: to prove they were up to the task.
The director wasted no time before calling out subordinates that he said failed to give him timely information …
Mr. Patel said he would not tolerate any more “Mickey Mouse operations,” an official on the call recounted. It was one of his few utterances without profanity, the person added.
Trump Leads the Way in Post-Shooting Vitriol
President Trump continued to lash out wildly in the aftermath of the Kirk shooting, before an arrest was made in the case or a motive established. “We just have to beat the hell” out of “radical left lunatics,” he said on the White House South Lawn.
White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller similarly poured fuel on the fire, posting on X:
There is an ideology that has steadily been growing in this country which hates everything that is good, righteous and beautiful and celebrates everything that is warped, twisted and depraved. It is an ideology at war with family and nature. It is envious, malicious, and soulless.
A Trump State Department official, also posting on X, suggested that visitors to the U.S. would be screened for social media comments “praising, rationalizing, or making light” of Kirk’s death.
Sign of the Times
A false report of an active shooter on the grounds of the U.S. Naval Academy led to an altercation between a midshipman and a law enforcement officer in which both were injured:
Amid the initial chaos and confusion on campus, the midshipman mistook a law enforcement officer for the shooter and struck him in the head with a parade rifle. The law enforcement officer then fired at the midshipman, wounding him in the arm, the officials said.
Appeals Court Judges Publicly Rip Supreme Court
In an extraordinary display of dissatisfaction with the Roberts Court’s unprecedented use of the shadow docket during the first few months of the Trump II presidency, the full 4th Circuit Court of Appeals publicly questioned during oral arguments Thursday how they’re supposed to follow the high court’s cryptic and often unexplained decisions.
Quote of the Day
“It has been observed that individual Americans are putting up more fight than many institutions. Those individuals are also smaller targets for the authoritarian president and his allies. They are less powerful. But that’s obviously why it’s more important for the institutions to engage and not to succumb to the climate of fear. That climate, after all, only exists if it goes unchallenged. There is no climate of fear without capitulation.”–Philip Bump
For Your Radar …
There’s a busy weekend ahead in Federal Reserve Board Lisa Cook’s legal challenge to her firing by President Trump. The D.C. Circuit ordered emergency briefing on whether to block the lower court order that temporarily reinstated her to Federal Reserve Board. An appeals court decision could come as soon as Sunday night, and the case could be at the Supreme Court by Monday.
Rare Oversight From the Senate GOP
Senator Michael D. Crapo (R-ID), chair of the Senate Finance Committee, sent a letter this week to the Social Security Administration following up on explosive revelations by the agency’s former chief data officer that DOGE had mishandled a database containing the confidential personal information of hundreds of millions of Americans. Crapo’s letter did not include a demand for documents.
Dem Senators Try to Stop Military Funeral for Ashli Babbitt
Sen. Ruben Gallego (D-AZ) tried to block the Pentagon from giving military funeral honors to Ashli Babbitt, the Jan. 6 rioter killed by law enforcement in the Capitol, but was stymied this week by Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-AL).
How It’s Done
Former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro was sentenced to 27 years in prison for couping to overturn the 2022 election.
Pro-couping Secretary of State Marco Rubio condemned the outcome: “The United States will respond accordingly to this witch hunt.”
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