SCOTT SIMON, HOST:
President Trump says he will attend Charlie Kirk's funeral in Arizona. Details about the service haven't been released. NPR's senior political editor Ron Elving joins us. Ron, thanks so much for being here.
RON ELVING, BYLINE: Good to be with you, Scott.
SIMON: What are your thoughts about Charlie Kirk's assassination and the reaction even before a suspect was identified?
ELVING: There was the shock of seeing someone slain in such a way when so young - just 31 - with a wife and two small children, someone so talented and driven. You did not have to share Kirk's viewpoint or condone all of his rhetoric or his provocations. You just had to appreciate his energy and obvious gifts of persuasion. And he gave every sign of being a force in American politics for years to come, whether elected or not. And it was appalling, of course, to witness the reaction, not the grieving in public, but the warring on social media, the instant willingness to blame it all on the other side of the divide.
SIMON: Utah's Governor Cox has been very measured in his response. Of course, he's a Republican in a deeply conservative state and has said, bluntly, he sees this killing as part of a pattern of political violence and asking everybody to think about, quote, "where we are and where we want to be."
ELVING: Yes, Cox had the elevation on all of this you want to see in our leaders. And he directed his outrage at those who would exploit the tragedy and deepen the divisions among us, including the purveyors of hate speech from the left and the right on social media. You have to wish that all of our national leaders could've done as well as Cox.
SIMON: Last week, we were discussing President Trump's plans to send the National Guard to Chicago. Yesterday on "Fox & Friends," he indicated a change of plans.
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "FOX & FRIENDS")
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: We're going to Memphis. Memphis is...
UNIDENTIFIED HOST, HOST:
That's the next city.
TRUMP: ...Deeply troubled. And the mayor is happy. He's a Democrat. The mayor is happy, and the governor - Tennessee. The governor's happy.
ELVING: Well, first, we should note that the mayor of Memphis, Paul Young, made it clear last night he was not happy. But he also added that he wanted to work with the Guard and make the best of the added help. And he also agreed with other elected Democrats in the region, saying that cities do need the resources to fight crime. Not a show of force from the Guard, but the resources that support that would be helpful to them.
And one criticism we're hearing of this send-in-the-Guard surge, is that it's largely a cover for stepped-up deportations. That's the increase in arrests that we're seeing in some of these places, and that's what's producing the numbers and not some grand turnaround in the overall crime rate. So we'll see what remains in place when these deployments end.
And as for targeting Memphis instead of Chicago, it surely had to do with the attitude of the governors. A confrontation such as Trump was pushing with the city of Chicago would not have been well timed, given what's happened with Charlie Kirk or given what's happening in Ukraine and Gaza. And we should mention also, there's a report in The Washington Post this morning that the administration is considering surging National Guard troops - several thousand - in Louisiana and having them stay for a year.
SIMON: Kirk assassination seems to have set off some partisan reaction - finger-pointing in the House - and real concerns about the security of lawmakers. And that would not seem to help the chances for the parties to come to an agreement to avoid a government shutdown in a few weeks.
ELVING: As you say, the one thing uniting the parties on Capitol Hill these days is fear - fear for their own personal safety and the safety of their colleagues, and that is no joke. But perhaps even that meager shred of shared interest could achieve some good purpose. Congress needs to achieve a compromise to fund the government and all its programs past the end of the fiscal year, which is September 30. The Charlie Kirk moment could make that kind of compromise impossible, or it could make such a compromise so imperative that members of Congress would see it that way, too.
SIMON: NPR's Ron Elving. Very good to speak to you, as always, but especially this week. Thanks so much.
ELVING: Thank you, Scott. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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