In Sept. 10, 2025, shortly after the fatal shooting of Charlie Kirk on the campus of Utah Valley University, U.S. President Donald Trump ordered flags flown at half-staff until Sept. 14 in memory of the conservative activist.
Some users on social media viewed the decision as divisive — posts quickly appeared claiming Trump had not taken a similar action after Democratic lawmaker Melissa Hortman, a former Minnesota House speaker, and her husband were shot and killed on June 14, 2025.
Snopes readers wrote in and searched the site asking whether it was true that Trump ordered flags flown at half-staff following Kirk's death but not Hortman's.
It was.
The White House publishes a list of all presidential actions on its website. A proclamation titled "Honoring the Memory of Charlie Kirk" ordering flags to be flown at half-staff was issued the day of Kirk's death. Searching for proclamations issued on or in the days after Hortman was killed revealed no results.
The lack of a response also aligns with quotes Trump made at the time of the shootings in Minnesota, in which state Sen. John Hoffman and his wife also were wounded. Presidents often call state or local officials in the wake of such events. After Hortman was shot, Trump referred to Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as "whacked out," and said he would not call because, "Why waste time?" according to The Associated Press. (Walz was the Democratic vice-presidential nominee in the 2024 election.)
In the wake of Kirk's death, the White House released a video statement from Trump condemning "radical-left political violence." The statement mentioned "attacks on ICE agents," the attempted assassination of Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania in 2024 (the shooter was a registered Republican who donated to Democrats in 2021), the fatal shooting of health care executive Brian Thompson in New York in December 2024 and the shooting of then-House Majority Leader Steve Scalise during a baseball practice in Virginia in 2017. The statement did not mention Hortman's assassination.