WASHINGTON — Following Charlie Kirk’s assassination, President Donald Trump may be uniquely positioned to tamp down the anger that suffuses American politics and lead a movement to bind up a bitterly divided country if he chooses.

But, political strategists and officials from both parties told NBC News, that’s not the path Trump appears to be taking.

Trump has been both a target of assassination attempts and a fount of vitriolic rhetoric. He knows firsthand the passions that drive American voters and, were he to renounce partisan attacks and call on others in both parties to do the same, that gesture could potentially send a healing message.

With the killer still at large and a manhunt underway, Trump, in his video response, laid blame on familiar foils. In a message from the Oval Office on Wednesday, he singled out the “radical left” and made no mention of cases in which Democratic elected officials in Minnesota and Pennsylvania were targets of violent attacks.

Rep. Don Bacon, R-Neb., said the moment is ripe for Trump to put forward a unifying message.

“I wish he would,” he told NBC News. “But I would say this: He’s a populist, and populists dwell on anger.”

One Republican operative, who was granted anonymity to speak candidly, said they were rattled by Kirk’s killing but ultimately unsurprised by the violence, fearing “it will get worse next year.”

“I think there’s really not much the [Trump] administration can do,” the person said. “Trump has many great qualities, but he is not the type of leader that will ‘call on better angels’ and to be fair, the left does not currently have anyone that can, either.”

In his appearance, Trump also vowed that his administration will ferret out unspecified people and groups that “contributed to this atrocity and other political violence.”

Asked how Trump plans to carry out that pledge, the White House press office did not answer directly. Abigail Jackson, a White House spokeswoman, wrote in an email: “The president was clear: the perpetrator or perpetrators of this horrific act will pay for what they did. They will be caught, and they will be brought to justice. And any other whack jobs who engage in targeted political violence like the tragic assassination of Charlie Kirk will be held accountable to the fullest extent of the law.”

Trump had a fresh chance to address Kirk’s death on Thursday during a 9/11 memorial ceremony at the Pentagon. This time, he eschewed any partisan comments and took a more measured tone.

“Charlie was a giant of his generation, a champion of liberty and an inspiration to millions and millions of people,” Trump said.

One senior White House official said in an interview Thursday that Trump is feeling the weight of Kirk’s death. The 31-year-old conservative activist was close to Trump’s political operation, helping the president turn out voters.

“He’s disappointed and sad,” the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity. “The president uniquely feels that we’re just in a place in this country where some people don’t believe in having a different view, and they are willing to be violent about that.”

“The most immediate thing is people want to find the killer,” the official continued. “That’s the most immediate practical consideration — and to honor Charlie. Then we will see what else we can do in the coming days and weeks to try and prevent this sort of thing — but also hold accountable the people that foment this sort of thing, of which there are many. These things don’t just happen in a vacuum.”

Like Trump, the official invoked the president’s adversaries, saying that “many on the left have used violent rhetoric.”

As an example, the official mentioned California’s Democratic governor, Gavin Newsom — “New-scum,” as Trump calls him — who last month said of the president, “We’re going to punch this bully in the mouth.”

Erin Perrine, a longtime Republican operative who has worked for Trump’s campaign, pointed to some Democrats who blamed Trump after the shooting. Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker on Wednesday said Trump’s “rhetoric often foments it.”

“Those same people lecture us about lowering the rhetoric,” Perrine said.

Steve Bannon, the president’s longtime ally, called Kirk a “casualty of war” on his podcast and, in an interview with NBC News, said Democrats were seeking political unity only on their terms. “The left always wants to bring the country together when they are losing the narrative,” he said. “We’ll just have to see who the shooter is before we can define a specific course of action.”

Some Republicans and Democrats fear that Kirk’s assassination marks a point of no return for the nation’s politics, with violence a frightening inevitability. Threats against sitting members of Congress have been rising of late, according to U.S. Capitol Police. A spokesperson for the Democratic National Committee said Thursday that there was a bomb threat at the group’s headquarters in Washington. The Capitol Police determined it was not credible.

Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., said a suburban school board member told him that she wouldn’t run for re-election a year ago, explaining that her salary “wouldn’t cover the cost of a funeral.”

Al Cardenas, who as chair of the American Conservative Union in 2013 introduced Kirk at that year’s CPAC event, said in an interview: “These outcries over Charlie Kirk’s murder are understandable.”

But he pushed back on the adage, “This is not who we are” — a formulation that people often use to explain national tragedies.

“As a matter of fact, it is exactly who we are,” Cardenas said.

Consoling a frightened nation is often part of a president’s job. An iconic moment of Barack Obama’s tenure came in 2015 when he sang “Amazing Grace” during a eulogy for the slain pastor of a Black church in Charleston, South Carolina.

George W. Bush presided over an uplifting moment for the country when he threw out the first pitch of a World Series game at Yankee Stadium in the month following the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

Rahm Emanuel, who worked in the Bill Clinton and Obama White Houses, hearkened back to the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing that killed 168 people.

Emanuel, who was working as a White House senior adviser at the time, noted that Clinton traveled to Oklahoma four days later and delivered soothing remarks.

“In your mind’s eye, what you think of ‘bully pulpit’ was that a president’s voice has a moral tone to it,” Emanuel said. “Right now we’re very long on bully and zero pulpit.”

Kirk was shot to death while speaking at an outdoor event on the campus of Utah Valley University. Afterward, a few Republicans modeled the sort of unifying message that Trump has thus far eschewed.

Utah Gov. Spencer Cox, a Republican, speaking on national television in the aftermath, cited acts of violence against members of both parties, including an arson attack against Democratic Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro. Shapiro was purportedly targeted in the April incident because of his stance on the war in Gaza.

In his remarks, Cox also referenced what authorities described as the “politically motivated assassination” of Minnesota’s former Democratic state House speaker, Melissa Hortman. Her husband and dog were also killed in the attack in June.

“Our nation is broken,” Cox said. “We’ve had political assassinations recently in Minnesota. We had an attempted assassination on the governor of Pennsylvania. And we had an attempted assassination on a presidential candidate and former president of the United States and now current president of the United States.”

“If anyone at the sound of my voice celebrated even a little bit at the news of this shooting, I would beg you to look in the mirror and to see if you can find a better angel in there somewhere.”

Another Republican official also invoked the Hortman killing. Bacon told NBC News that demonizing political rhetoric “has an impact.”

He added, “I have to remind people, we had Democrats killed in Minnesota too, right?”

Trump’s political persona is that of a warrior, not a conciliator. For this president, “it’s almost not possible for him to transcend politics in this moment,” said Sarada Peri, a White House speechwriter for Obama.

“It would be inauthentic,” she added.

But Trump does have a vice president. Often it’s the No. 2 who takes on the role that a president, for whatever reason, can’t or won’t perform.

Enter Vice President JD Vance, who was close with Kirk. So far, Vance’s social media posts have not cast blame, focusing more on Kirk’s life.

On Thursday, the vice president abruptly shifted plans, scrapping a scheduled appearance at the 9/11 memorial ceremony in New York to fly to Utah. He was expected to gather there with Kirk’s surviving family members and friends.

Air Force Two was then expected to transport Kirk’s casket, along with his family, to Phoenix, a source familiar with the plans told NBC News. Kirk had based his political organization, Turning Point USA, there.

“You ran a good race, my friend,” Vance wrote on X. “We’ve got it from here.”