GOP senator: I’ll hold fundraiser at ‘The Interview’

Sen. Mark Kirk (R-Ill.) wants to hold a fundraiser during a screening of “The Interview,” he said after Sony Pictures canceled the movie’s screening this week.

“I’m going to be trying to hold the first big Kirk for Senate fundraiser at a screening of ‘The Interview,’ so that everybody shows the North Koreans that you cannot edit what we want to see and do in the United States under the First Amendment,” the Illinois Republican told WBEZ radio on Thursday.

{mosads}“It was a terrible lesson to terrorists, to give them what they wanted,” he added. “I hope that now all the media about this movie makes it a smash hit, and that we see many more movies like it and teach the North Koreans a lesson about what Americans can and cannot do.”

The comedy film, starring James Franco and Seth Rogen, featured a comedic CIA plot in which two entertainment journalists try to assassinate North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. Hackers linked to North Korea carried out massive attacks on Sony in retribution for the movie and threatened violence against theaters showing it, leading the studio to cancel its Christmas Day release earlier this week.

The remarks from Kirk, who is up for reelection in Illinois in 2016 and is considered one of the GOP’s most vulnerable incumbents, seemed to echo President Obama, who on Friday said that it was a “mistake” for Sony to pull the plug on the movie.

“We cannot have a society in which some dictator some place can start imposing censorship here in the United States,” Obama said.