{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://www.mcconnell.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/pressreleases?ID=1EB690BA-5B7E-47CD-8345-094E90751992", "McConnell in CJ: We Must Reject The Political Violence That Took Charlie Kirk's Life", "2025-09-11", "2025", "2025-09", "Republican", "Senate", "KY", "Mitch McConnell", "M000355", "www.mcconnell.senate.gov", "mcconnell", "https://www.mcconnell.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/pressreleases", "scraper", "Washington, D.C. \u2013 U.S. Senator Mitch McConnell (R-KY) penned an op-ed for The Courier-Journal today regarding political violence threatening the fabric of American society:\n\nCharlie Kirk was a husband, a father of young children and a man of faith. His death yesterday is gut-wrenching on those grounds, above all else. I\u2019m keeping Charlie\u2019s family in my prayers as they try to make sense of the senseless, as are so many Kentuckians who were drawn to his work in the public eye.\n\nOf course, Charlie\u2019s death will be remembered not just as a personal tragedy but an assassination \u2014 an escalation of the political violence that increasingly threatens the fabric of our society. If you\u2019re worried and angry about that trend, you\u2019re absolutely right to be.\n\nIn Congress, it is tempting to declare a particularly tense or emotionally charged debate as unprecedented or corrosive. As something of an elder statesman, I often find myself reminding colleagues that we\u2019ve been through worse than today\u2019s recurring gridlock.\n\nIn fact, our Constitution anticipated and encouraged lively debate. Our system of government was built for it. Passionate disagreement is a sign of the health of our democracy. And guardrails exist to protect it.\n\nThroughout my career in the Senate, I\u2019ve tried to reaffirm these guardrails:\n\nI\u2019ve been a staunch opponent of restrictions on free speech. I\u2019ve fought repeatedly to preserve the right to political speech in elections (even for deep-pocketed Democratic opponents) and in the public square (even for flag-burners).\n\nIn the Senate, I\u2019ve fought just as hard to protect the rights of the minority party to unlimited debate (even when my side wasn\u2019t the one that stood to gain).\n\nGuardrails matter. They keep the American experiment rolling. But if passionate disagreement is a sign of health, political violence like yesterday\u2019s sickening display is a sign of decay. To excuse or encourage it is to place a cynical bet against America.\n\nWhatever an assassin\u2019s deluded justification, there is nothing less American than to override the guardrails of public discourse.\n\nYesterday\u2019s assassination comes with an especially bitter irony. Charlie Kirk\u2019s success as an activist and communicator came from his appetite for passionate disagreement. His willingness to peacefully debate all comers was an example of exactly what the founders had in mind.\n\nBut the founders also knew that combatting the sort of cowardice behind political assassination was too big a job for government, alone. They knew that the responsibility to reject political violence would rest on the shoulders of every American.\n\nEvery one of us must resist the temptation to treat those with different politics as enemies. We must treat the clash of ideas in the public square as a celebration of our democracy, not a pretext for war. If you\u2019re ever tempted to believe in recourse to violence among neighbors, patriots and fellow citizens, think again. Think of Charlie. And keep his family in your prayers.", 1, "2026-03-30T01:40:41Z", "2026-04-06T19:10:29Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["https://www.mcconnell.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/pressreleases?ID=1EB690BA-5B7E-47CD-8345-094E90751992"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 0.7354889530688524, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}