Tyler O’Neil, senior editor for The Daily Signal, is also author of the book, “Making Hate Pay: The Corruption of the Southern Poverty Law Center."
The book points out how the SPLC, once respected for defending Civil Rights for blacks in the Deep South, pivoted to an anti-conservative, money-making organization. Its founder, Morris Dees, stepped down in 2019 amid allegations of sexual harassment and racial discrimination.
After the assassination this week, O'Neil is calling on the left-wing nonprofit to remove Kirk’s Turning Point USA from its Hate Map.
The map is an SPLC initiative that it says tracks hate and antigovernment extremist groups.
It’s published annually and in its 2025 release – which covers 2024 – includes 1,371 groups.
The current list includes more than 20 evangelical Christian groups such as Family Research Council and American Family Association, the parent organization for AFN, and many more.
It includes faith-based legal groups, too, such as Alliance Defending Freedom, which has argued and won landmark cases.
The SPLC takes issue with groups who believe in God’s design for human sexuality and gender. Eighty-six organizations on the map are classified under its “Anti-LBGTQ” category.
The map includes the Ku Klux Klan and has a small number of antisemitic groups.
Turning Point USA was added in this year’s release less than five months ago.
After Kirk’s killing, SPLC issued this response on its Facebook page: “Violence is never the answer. We condemn the shooting of Charlie Kirk and all violence in any form. Our history shows violence only fuels division – justice requires peace.”
But the hateful rhetoric against conservatives coming from SPLC in others helps fuel attacks like the one that just resulted in Kirk’s death, O’Neil says.
“If they want to put their money where their mouth is, they need to take Turning Point off the map today,” he said on Washington Watch Thursday.
He doubts they will, however. SPLC did not remove the Family Research Council from the map in 2012 after Floyd Lee Corkins II opened fire at its Washington, D.C., headquarters.
In a video of his confession (pictured at right), Corkins told the FBI he targeted FRC because he found it on the SPLC hate map. He said he intended to shoot everyone in the building and smear a Chick-fil-A sandwich in their faces.
At the time, liberals had criticized Chick-fil-A for funding socially conservative groups like the FRC, O’Neil reported.
SPLC, having criticized Steve Scalise, a Republican House member from Louisiana, did not remove Scalise from the map after he was shot by James Hodgkinson during a GOP baseball practice in 2017.
Hodgkinson specifically targeted Republicans in the shooting. He had volunteered for Sen. Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaign in 2016 and “liked” the SPLC on Facebook.
“The SPLC condemns it, but that’s not enough,” O’Neil told show host Jody Hice. “If they oppose political violence, they need to take Turning Point USA off the hate map immediately.”
O’Neil has reached out to SPLC for a response but had not received one on Thursday.
Utah Republican Governor Spencer Cox, in addressing Kirk’s murder, described violent attacks on both Democrats and Republicans.
He named as examples Minnesota lawmaker Melissa Hortman and her husband, two assassination attempts on President Donald Trump, and the firebombing of Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro’s official residence.
“We can return violence with violence; we can return hate with hate," the Governor warned. "That’s the problem with political violence. It metastasizes. We can always point the figure at the other side. At some point we have to find an off ramp or else it’s going to get much worse.”
Violence goes both ways, but …
Violence has been committed against both parties, but the attacks on conservatives seems to be higher in number.
O’Neil was able to document seven high-profile incidents before Kirk’s death: An attack against Rand Paul, a Republican U.S. Senator from Kentucky, in 2027; Minnesota State Republican Senator Shane Mekeland in 2018, a thwarted attack against conservative Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh in 2022, the Butler, Pennsylvania attack on Trump in July of 2024, the West Palm Beach attack on Trump in September of 2024, plus the FRC and Scalise mentioned above.
The attacks on Kirk and Trump are the only known long-range efforts with a sniper.
“There are a few situations where Democrats have been attacked. There have been multiple attacks on Republicans and conservatives in the past few years,” O’Neil said.
