September 12, 2025 • 39 mins
After a 33-hour manhunt, authorities have identified and arrested a suspect in Charlie Kirk’s murder. The suspect has been identified as a 22-year-old man from Utah. Kirk was fatally shot in the neck while conducting an outdoor speaking event at Utah Valley University on Wednesday. The suspect was arrested on suspicion of aggravated murder, felony discharge of a firearm causing serious bodily harm, and obstruction of justice charges, according to a court affidavit. The suspect is being held without bail. Former FBI counterterrorism and counterintelligence operative Eric O'Neill joined us to discuss the investigation and arrest.
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
It's night Side with Dan Ray on WBS Boston's news radio.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
Just bring up the date in the Red Sox and
the Yankees score at Fenway Park. The Yankees in the
top of the seventh lead two to nothing. So far
the there's only six hits in the game, all of
them by the Yankees. The Yankee pitcher has had his
way for six innings, so there's still some time left here.
(00:30):
But Aaron Judge it is three hundred and sixty second
home run. He's now fourth on the Yankee all time
home run list. So lots going off, Lots going on
on the Yankee side of the allegedd tonight. But it's
a quiet night for the Bosox. Up until now, they've
only had four base runners, all by walks. As you
(00:55):
can tell if you're a baseball fan. I'm someone who
does believe in jinxes, and so I don't want to
be I'm not rooting for the Yankee pitcher. But I'm
going to have told you now in two different ways,
what's going on at the candle ball game? All right,
we know what is going on out in Utah. It
has been a horrific week out there. Charlie Kirk, a
(01:16):
conservative activist who is really become a bit of a
folk hero. A brutal, a brutal assassination on Wednesday at
the midday hour on the campus of this college in
Utah Utah Valley University. If you've seen the kill shot,
(01:43):
and it was just one kill shot, it's a brutal
piece of video. And I would not advise anyone to
seek it out or or search it because it is
really a brutal piece of video and it took law
enforcement out there. Initially it looked as if this guy
might have made a getaway, clean getaway, but it didn't
(02:04):
have he was I thought it might have been had
some may marks of a professional hit. It did not.
It turns out to be a I think a pretty
confused young man. Twenty two year old Tyler Robinson with
us on tonight, and I'm delighted to be joined again
by Eric O'Neil. He's a former FBI operative who played
a key role in the capture of Robert Hanson, considered
(02:26):
to be the most critical spy for Russia in history.
Eric's been a guest before and welcome back to night'sid
Eric O'Neil, How.
Speaker 3 (02:39):
Are you tonight, Dan it's good to be back on
night sun.
Speaker 2 (02:43):
Yeah. So, I'm just curious. I really thought when this
story first broke on Wednesday, and it looked as if
the authorities were really flommacks, they didn't have much of
a lead. I thought, you know, the distance of this shot,
the accuracy of the single shot, it seemed to me
(03:06):
to be the earmarks of maybe a professional hit squad. Obviously,
I was dead wrong on that. Did that thought ever
cross your mind anytime on Wednesday? I'm sure you followed
this story closely.
Speaker 3 (03:19):
I followed it very closely. You know, I didn't quite
think it was a professional hit squad. That area that
Charlie Kirk was in, in the courtyard of that school
is very hard to defend. You would need essentially Trump's
secret service team, and even they didn't do a great
job in Butler in order to protect that area. Now,
(03:43):
I will say that the shooter, who you know, thank goodness,
has been arrested, did plan this very well. And that's
why you might you might suspect this was a very experienced,
you know, professional you know, he had a change of clothes,
he changed his look as he walked onto the campus,
(04:04):
as he did the shooting, and then as he departed,
he certainly had plotted out where he was going to
shoot from his vantage point. And that Mauser thirty out
six bolt action rifle, you know, has a scope on it,
but it's not just buy it and go shoot. You
need to sight in your scope and he knew how
(04:25):
to do that. Apparently the family had gone shooting as
a family, and he had sighted it in for the
for the two hundred meters to fire down to where
Charlie was going to be, So he had certainly planned
that as well. Now, that shot, if you've never shot before,
it's very difficult. If you've ever been deer hunting or
(04:45):
have just recreationally shot long guns, it's not the hardest
shot in the world. But that ulti action rifle, he
had one shot to make it's tip. He was not
going to get a chance to chamber another round, to
work the ball, chamber another round and shoot twice. Charlie
kurst Closs protection would have taken him to safety by then.
(05:07):
You know, we had that one shot and he made
a count.
Speaker 2 (05:09):
When I heard it was a mouser. I think that's
very similar to the to the weapon that Lee Harvey
Oswald used when he got three shots off at President
Kennedy in nineteen sixty three.
Speaker 3 (05:22):
Yeah, I'm not sure what he used, what Lee Harvey
Oswald used there, But I did talk to a friend
who's a very experience shooter about that particular gun, and
his first thought was absolute overkill for that distance. That
that caliver is huge. You could kill an elephant with it.
(05:44):
So he certainly was was going for the kill there.
That that was a very intentional assassination.
Speaker 2 (05:52):
Yeah, And of course what's come out now is that
this is a young kid, pretty confused. It's scary to
think that that there are that many young people in
our country. I was reminded when I saw him, and
I saw the looks of him of another obviously troubled
young man, Luigi MANGIONI uh, the uh, the shooter who
(06:16):
last last winter, last December, had taken out the the
shot him in the back from very close range.
Speaker 3 (06:23):
By the way, the CEO of United Health.
Speaker 2 (06:27):
Brian and my suspicion, and I was really troubled by
some people around the country who seem to take some glee.
There's been a lot of people who have lost their
jobs by having taken glee in the in the murder
of this young guy who probably they must have disagreed
(06:50):
with politically. But but I was stunned that so many
people would would take to you know, you know, the
the internet and post horrific stuff about the death of
a young thirty one year old man who was married
and had two kids. What's that saying about our society
(07:11):
these days?
Speaker 3 (07:13):
Yeah, it suggests that we're not going the right direction.
I found many of those comments repugnant. And I don't
blame any employer that fired someone or for cheering the
incredibly public execution of someone who was sitting in an
open floor for them and inviting people to exercise their
(07:36):
freedom of speech. So I, you know, I and I
think that if you look at the shooter, if you
look at the shooter who killed the Sea of United Health,
if you look at the school shooters, these tend to
be young men who are radicalized and then they have
(07:57):
their psychotic break and they they take it to an extreme.
Speaker 4 (08:02):
Uh.
Speaker 3 (08:03):
And this new thing that's happening now we saw it
in the in the recent church shooting, right, and now
with with this individual etching or painting UH little slogans
on you know, hear the shooter on his on the
shell casings and then the shooter at the church recently
on the different clips. Uh, you know, almost to get
(08:26):
their message across, to let it survive into perpetuity. And
and and there's something very deranged about that.
Speaker 2 (08:33):
Do you think you know again you you basically caught
Robert Hanson in the act of handing over materials to
to you know, to Russia, very dangerous FBI agent who
kind of lived a double life. Do you think that
these shooters MANNGIONI obviously had an escape plan. Uh, this
(08:58):
guy was able to get away from the campus without
being apprehended or he was gone. And I mean he
could have if he had had thought it beyond you know,
just going to his home. Right, do these guys you
said that they have this psychotic break and they then
(09:18):
do this thing which is somewhat out of character to
say the least. But not only did he did he
kill Charlie Kirk, but he basically, if it's proven, may
have signed his own death warrant.
Speaker 3 (09:35):
Well, that's true. He Uh, what I think what happens
is it's our young young people are too online. Parents
are allowing their children to go online far too young
there have been studies that show that the children who
start with social media as young at seven can have serious,
(09:57):
uh you know, mental issues in life and everything from
depression and onward. It's just not something that is particularly
good for society in the way that it is presented,
with the constant streaming and doom scrolling and the algorithms
(10:18):
that will will note that you're interested in something and
then continue to feed it to you over and over again.
And you know, I was talking earlier about the fact
that not too long ago, at least when I grew up,
which really isn't that long ago, I'm not battled before
the advent of the of social media. You know, you
(10:39):
knew the people in your neighborhood, you you know, and
and everyone else you knew was maybe a drive away,
and those are the people you saw. And you had
your you know, the small place you lived or the
city that you lived in. But but if you had
some predilection to do this sort of violence, if you
were the sort of person who could be radicalized, you didn't.
(11:02):
You didn't live in an online collective of people that
are spread all over that can reinforce this idea for you.
Speaker 2 (11:10):
Yeah, I mean here he was on one of the platforms,
I guess talking to one of his buddies about where
he hid the gun. You know, the gun I saw
the terrain was very close to the to the road
by the university, right, And what did he expect the
buddy to go pick up the gun and get it
(11:30):
out of there?
Speaker 3 (11:31):
I just maybe, I, I mean, it may It doesn't
make a lot of sense. He, you know, decided that
he was going to be decided he didn't like Charlie Kirk,
was probably listening and consuming content from radical people who
didn't like Charlie Kirk and had to reinforce over and
over again, and then decided that he was going to
(11:51):
go change the world. There's this idea that that I
find very troublesome that speech is violence, and it's not.
You know, it's the way that we share ideas. It's
the way that we debate ideas. It's the brilliant way
that we bring ideas to the front so that we
(12:14):
can discuss them and find which is the best. And
when people say speech is violent, and young people believe it,
then the counter effect is violence because if someone's doing
violence to you, you can you know, some people think
you can do it back absolutely.
Speaker 2 (12:31):
Eric, I want to take a quick break, and I
just want to, on the other side, talk briefly about
the role of the FBI here, because there was a
lot of pressure on the FBI to conclude this and
to find that person. And as I said on Wednesday night,
when they hadn't found him, I thought to myself, hmm,
and it looks as if it was the video and
(12:53):
the photographs, which were very critical. I kind of curious,
and I'm going to ask you why they did pop
those out earlier. I think they had them, but they
kind of waited. I'd love to know from an investigator's
point of view, why they took that length of time,
because my fear with these guys disappearing ala Eric Rudolph
into the hills of Montana or Idaho or wherever and
(13:16):
just disappearing. My guest is Eric O'Neal, former FBI operative.
We if you if you want to ask Eric a question,
feel free to give me a yell. We're going to
change the focus a little bit after we conclude with Eric,
and I'm going to have to talk to you kind
of seriously about what is your relationships with your family
(13:40):
members and what is it like around your dinner table?
Do people still talk to each other? Do they do
they tolerate different viewpoints? We'll get to all of that.
I promise Eric will be back with you in just
a moment. Hang tight, Thanks so much for being with us.
Coming right back on Nightside.
Speaker 1 (14:00):
It's Night Side with Dan Ray on Boston's news Radio.
Speaker 2 (14:05):
Back with Eric o'nil, former FBI operative. How much pressure
was in the FBI when this case came. I mean,
here you have Charlie Kirk, who many felt was one
of the key elements the number of young people who
he activated politically for Donald Trump in twenty twenty four.
This was a close friend of the president, an advisor
(14:28):
to the president, and a political operative of the president
who was assassinated in front of four thousand people at
this college. Had to have been immense pressure on the FBI.
You've been inside the FBI. What do you think it
was like in those first few hours leading up to
the hours leading up to the arrest.
Speaker 3 (14:46):
I can guarantee you it was incredible pressure on the FBI.
You might also recall that Charlie Kirk was very good
friends with J. D. Bance, our Vice president, and that's
how he was brought to Trump. How Vance was brought
to Trump in the first place was by Charlie Kirk.
He's also he also was good friends with Cash Pattel,
(15:09):
the director of the FBI. So it's uh, you know,
a lot of pressure was coming down from the top
to say, we need to find the shooter right away.
And you saw one of the most immense rapid manhunts
I think I've ever seen, uh come into play there
in Utah. You had the FBI, you had legions of
(15:31):
local police, you had agent FBI agents from other field
offices coming into the country. Yeah, the marshals right, it
was an immense manhunt. It was it was only a
matter of time until they found the shooter.
Speaker 2 (15:47):
So let me ask you this question.
Speaker 3 (15:49):
Pressure was huge.
Speaker 2 (15:50):
Yeah, let me ask you this question. If you're the
fact that pressure was that huge, they must have had
a pretty good idea literally from Jump Street that the
guy who was up the roof and who was scurrying
around to the roof once they started to look at
some of the video, the video from the university, that
that was the guy. Why did it take him so
(16:10):
long to put the picture out there? What advantage was
there in not putting.
Speaker 4 (16:15):
Well.
Speaker 3 (16:16):
I think initially they did have a wealth of forensic evidence.
They had a handprint, they had his arm print, they
had his footprint. It turns out they had other pictures
and videos that we didn't know about. Contemporaneously, they had
an idea and an image of who this person was.
They just didn't know where he had gone or his
precise identity. And I think the FBI thought in the
(16:39):
immediate instance that they would catch him rather quickly, that
they knew his point of egress from the college, that
they had found the weapon, that they knew the way
he was moving, and that it was only a matter
of time. And when that didn't happen, because he had
jumped in the car and made it home and gone
to ground, they started putting out more information to try
(17:02):
to get help from the population, which was more than
happy to help. My understanding is there were over seven
thousand tips that came into the tip line, more than
any other investigation.
Speaker 2 (17:13):
So why then did delay There was a similar delay
up here in the Boston bomber case. They had pictures
of the suspects and they held off releasing those. I'm
just wondering what that strategy is is it.
Speaker 3 (17:27):
Well, there's a couple of reasons. You know, when you
release those pictures, and especially those grainy pictures that could
be many different people, you run the risk of false accusations.
You run the risk of vigilanteism. You're also going to
get that immense number of tips right away, and you
need to be prepared for that. Yeah, and I truly
(17:50):
think they thought that they were right on his tail
and they would have them very soon, okay.
Speaker 2 (17:54):
And I also assume that when you get those many
tips and someone says, I know that's my cousin, I
know that's the guy that lives down the street, all
of those tips really followed saying yeah, they got to
be So you're following, you're chasing your tail maybe, Okay,
So that makes sense. Eric O'Neil, you gave us some
really good insight here tonight, and I do appreciate it
(18:15):
very much, and thank goodness that this crime appears to
be solved again. He enjoys the presumption of innocence, at
least within the context of the court system, not necessarily
in the context of public opinion. Once you look at
those pictures, and you'll look at him as always, Eric
I appreciate you taking the time, particularly on Friday night,
(18:35):
to help us out. Thank you so much. Thank you.
Speaker 3 (18:38):
It's great to be back on Night's side, and we'll
talk again later.
Speaker 2 (18:41):
Absolutely, Thank you very much. Eric. Now we get back,
what I want to do right after the news is
I want to issue a challenge to every one in
my audience, whether you are a conservative, a liberal, flaming
or raging moderate, a right wing, a left winger, however
you describe yourself, I think it is time for us
(19:05):
to take a good look in the mirror at all
of ourselves and realize that we will not be able
to survive as a country if we do not just
tone down this violence. And I have a couple of ideas,
and I'd like to hear your ideas as well. Back
on Nightside, right after the news at the bottom of
(19:25):
the hours.
Speaker 1 (19:26):
With Dan Ray on Boston's News Radio.
Speaker 2 (19:31):
Okay, I think it's time for all of us to
take a deep breath here, and I would ask you
just to give me a moment to set this question
before you, and I hope many of you will join
the conversation. We have an hour and twenty minutes left
until we get to the twentieth hour of the week.
I have no idea what I'm going to do in
the twentieth hour of the week tonight, but I would
(19:53):
like to make it maybe a little lighter so we
can end the week in a good fashion anyway. I
have been doing this program now for eighteen years. Formally,
we do not begin on nineteenth year until October first,
but I was doing this show through most of the
summer of two thousand and seven before it was named
(20:15):
Nightside formally. And I made a decision a long time
ago based upon some thoughts that I had advice that
people gave me. I wanted to do a talk show
that was different. I wanted to do a talk show
that gave everybody an opportunity to speak. I'm a big
believer in First Amendment, and I think talk shows are
(20:39):
the best way that you can one participate or oil
simply listen. I prefer you to participate then simply listen,
but put that aside. It is an opportunity. We called
Nightside a metaphorical North America's back porch, the idea of
a back porch in a neighborhood that you might have
grown up in when you were younger. And people sitting
(21:02):
on the back porch on a summer night sharing information
and observations, comments and opinions, and people in neighborhoods, they
tend to be more tolerant of one another's opinion. But
obviously there's there's a variety of opinions. I would hope
in every neighborhood in America. I have tried to run
(21:24):
this show in that way. However, I think that I
am going to tighten up the rules a little bit.
I don't care what opinion you might express, but I
want you to understand that there's going to be more
people walking the playing here on nightside, that all opinions,
(21:50):
in my opinion, in my mind, are not equal, and
if it has nothing to do with you the the ideology,
there are conservative opinions, liberal opinions, middle of the road opinions, whatever.
When you get off into the fringes where this guy
Tyler Robinson lived and where I think Luigi Mangioni lived
(22:11):
for a while, and you just listen to the same
thing day after day after day, you almost brainwash yourself
and you therefore can justify someone said that this guy
was concerned about hate. Well, it's an interesting way to
fight hate when you kill someone in cold blood doesn't
(22:36):
make a lot of sense to me. So I want
to ask a couple of questions, and I'm hoping for
some honest answers. One, do you agree with me that
maybe maybe I need to pull the reins in on
some of my callers who want to make speeches as
(22:57):
opposed to get into a conversation. So that's amber one. Okay,
I've decided that I want I will do that whatever
you say about it. But if there's an argument against it,
you know, since you're the night side audience, like to
hear that argument against it. I would also like to
know within your own family, within your immediate family, and
(23:18):
within however you describe your larger family, whether it includes
a group of cousins who live around the corner, across
the street, or whatever, or within your immediate neighborhood. Do
you socialize with people with whom you disagree politically or
have you tightened the circle of your friends and family
(23:39):
so that you never have an opportunity to hear a
discordant point of view, Because if you're doing that, and
if you are eliminating people from your circle of friends
because they disagree with you. I think that's a huge mistake.
This is a country that traditionally, traditionally has been a
(24:02):
fifty to fifty country. We've had close presidential elections in
this country and an equal membership of the House in
the Senate for years and years and years. Okay, we're
a country of two major parties. Third parties haven't worked.
I know many of you are out there, my libertarian friends,
(24:22):
all of that, but that just hasn't worked at this point.
We're two major parties, unlike a lot of the countries
in Europe, also democracies in Israel, which are multi party governments.
Then the other question which I want to address with
you is be a people in your immediate family who
are not willing to have a conversation because it sounds
(24:47):
to me like this guy, Tyler Robinson spent a lot
of time on the internet. I can figure out probably
where he was on the internet. But that is dangerous
when you do not absorb different points of view, whether
it's reading newspapers or listening to different channels. I call
(25:12):
it the silo effect. So having thrown those generally general
ideas out there which which deal with all of us
in some form of fashion. Are the members of your
family or within your circle of friends who either you
don't tolerate or they don't tolerate your points of view.
(25:32):
If you're the one who's intolerant, I think you have
an obligation to reach out and say to your family
members or friends, Look, I know we can disagree, but
let's do it like they do it on night side,
and let's disagree reasonably. You express your opinion, I'll express
my opinion. We don't have to think that that we're
(25:54):
each a bad person. It's often said that when you
know Ronald Reagan and Tip O'Neil would have drinks at
the end of the day in Washington, they could agree
to put the politics aside and have pleasant conversations about
other things. Maybe they're the fact that they both were
Irish Americans doesn't have to be, but maybe they were
(26:17):
talking sports or whatever. We are in a situation. I
think that it truly is a turning point. Now, there
were some statements made today in Utah, including statements by
the governor that I have and we're going to play
a little bit of those for you at some point.
(26:38):
But I would much prefer to just light this up
and hear from you. There are people on both sides
of the political divide who are intolerant. And I have
two sound bites which we're going to play for you
at some point before eleven o'clock tonight, one of Elizabeth
Warren and one of Bernie Sanders. Which one of them
(27:00):
do you think is going to sound more rational? I'll
give you a hint. He's from Vermont. We'll talk about that.
Six one, seven, two, five, four ten thirty six one seven,
nine three one ten thirty. If some of you have
breached that divide politically with a family member or family members,
(27:20):
I love to know what technique you used. Remember, back
in the early days of COVID and the Hillary Clinton
even before that she had lost the election of Donald Trump,
I joked and kidded and said, hey, show up at
at your Thanksgiving dinner. If you're a big Trump supporter,
where your red hat? And if you're a Hillary supporter,
(27:41):
wear that big wide brimm straw hat. Make a statement
by the hats that you would that you would wear
going to Thanksgiving dinner. And I was joking about it.
I was joking about it. Then I came to realize that, hey,
people didn't want to talk to each other, which I
think was sad. It really is six one seven, two
ten thirty six one seven, nine three one ten thirty.
(28:03):
I pledge to you, I pledge to you Light Side
listeners that I want more points of view on this program,
and I also want people who want to try to
use my program for their they're crazy ideas. I've been
very liberal in that regard. I'm going to get a
(28:26):
little more restrictive. Let me put it like that. We're
coming back on Night Side. Let's get it going. We're
going to talk about this for the next hour until eleven,
and in the meantime I'll figure out what we're going
to talk about in the twentieth hour of the week,
beginning at eleven o'clock. Six one seven, two five four
to ten thirty six one seven, nine three one ten thirty.
I have thrown out a number of lines that you
(28:48):
can respond to. I'd love to hear your point of
view on this. Don't be a coward, be brave, be strong,
Uh really be as and his strong m as the
gentleman that we lost this week. Sadly, I'm Charlie Kirk.
(29:10):
He marched into many cases the lions Den. You don't
have to agree with them, but you have to look
at how he approached life, and he approached it. I
think the way we should approach it, and that is
open minded. Keep to your opinions, hold on to your opinions,
but don't be afraid to share them with others, and
don't be afraid to listen to the opinions of others.
(29:32):
We'll be back on Nightside.
Speaker 1 (29:34):
You're on Night Side with Dan Ray on wz Boston's
news radio.
Speaker 2 (29:40):
Let us proceed. Who would be first up? It's going
to be John in Marshfield. John, you are first night
on Nightside. Welcome sir. What's on your mind?
Speaker 4 (29:49):
Yeah, I mean you raise a really interesting topic tonight, Dan.
I've had three points that I wanted to make. One
is an answer to your question there. I don't think
I've lost friends over politics, but I've got to a
point where, like we recognize we probably don't want to
talk about issues. So there's like this. I guess there's
(30:10):
a silence or lack of communication because I kind of
know where we're going in my experiences this And tell
me if you agree with this. I feel like a
lot of these conversations denigrate into what I call selective outrage.
Let's say objectively, there's ten truly outrageous things in the world.
(30:33):
One side recognizes five of them, and the other side
recognizes the other five, and they disagree. And the fact
is like, they're all outrageous. But yet through our prism,
our view, we don't see the outrage of the other side,
but the other side sees the outrage that we believe.
Speaker 2 (30:53):
Well, you have I mean, you have a business, you
have issues for example, like abortion for example, and if
you or someone who is pro life and pro choice
in the same room, this little ground, there's little ground
to agree upon. But why can't they at least respect
the other person's point of view and say, okay, look,
I understand where you're coming from. I disagree with you,
(31:17):
and leave it at that. If there is no way. Now,
if let us say, on an issue like immigration, you
have somebody who says, oh, I want the borders of
wide open, I don't care who's coming in here America,
you know whatever, and then you have someone says, no,
I don't want anybody to come in the country. There
has to be some way in which one of them
could say, well, you know, maybe can we filter out
the bad people who are coming in? Do you really
(31:39):
want more? I mean, and can you allow you your
full I mean, it just seems to me that this
conversation is the key to this.
Speaker 4 (31:48):
In my opinion, And I believe that you know, it's
I thing. I believe. I believe that there's someone there's
many people who are smarter than I am, who are
better than I am sure, who are better than me
in every respect, who think that everything I think is wrong.
(32:09):
I want to meet that person.
Speaker 2 (32:13):
Yeah, right, Dan, I'm sure.
Speaker 4 (32:15):
Look there's someone out there who disagrees with everything you say,
who's a better person than Dan Ray in every respect
there is. Wouldn't you want to meet that person?
Speaker 2 (32:27):
Yeah? I would, now. I mean, I don't know if
maybe you're.
Speaker 4 (32:30):
Talking right, I mean, I met billion people, Dan, there's
someone better than you you?
Speaker 5 (32:40):
Oh?
Speaker 2 (32:40):
Sure, sure? But I don't think I think that the
disagreements are We both want to get to the same point.
Meaning I might be someone who wants to give more
opportunity to people. I want everyone to have opportunity. I
want everyone to be the best that they can be.
Someone else's going to say, well, there's some people who
(33:02):
need help and I agree with that. I think that
I think that these conversations, if you listen to the
other person, there's there's more room for agreement than we realize,
and that we have to we have to be able
to agree with agree, you know, reasonable people have to
agree reasonably. That's where I'm where I'm coming from, and
(33:24):
I'm going to tell you in terms.
Speaker 4 (33:25):
Of debate, I think one of the great minds of
the last hundred years is the late Charlie Munger, you know,
the smarter half of the Berkshire Hathaway group with Warren Buffett.
And Charlie's opinion was that he would never engage in
an argument with anyone with whom he could not make
their argument as well or better than they do. And
(33:49):
if you take that approach, you're going to, by definition,
find that middle ground and it's going to temper the
anger that you have. And the other thing I've noticed,
Stan is people, everyone who's angry and the political extremes,
the source of their anger is legitimate, real issues, and
(34:14):
it's incoming upon us to try to understand what that
issue is and how we can address it.
Speaker 2 (34:22):
And I try, in my opinion, and I know there
will be some who will disagree with me. That is
what Charlie Kirk was trying to do. I mean, he
was going out in college campuses where there's a lot
of young people whose opinions are still being formed, but
they have strong opinions, and he was trying to persuade them.
Speaker 4 (34:42):
And he at the end of the day, man, I
do believe that eighty percent of us agree on eighty
percent of the things, and I believe that social media
is being dominated by the ten percent of the opposite
extremes who frankly are allowed and attract more attention. And
you know, if you're going to sit there and like
I do and say, you know, we need to talk
(35:03):
and find middle ground, it's just not very exciting.
Speaker 2 (35:07):
Well I think it may not be exciting, but I
think it's it's our hope, and it's so great is
my hope. John, great call to get us going. Thank
you so much. We'll talk soon. Thanks, good night. Let
me go to Brent up in Maine. Brent, you're next
on Night's side. Get you in here before the ten
o'clock news. Go ahead, Brent.
Speaker 6 (35:24):
Okay, I just want to say a few things. Briefly.
We've talked about people who don't seem to want to
have a conversation. I think you've handled them very well
in the path where you just said, okay, talk for
thirty seconds and then you move on to the next guy.
I think that's a great way of handling that. Another
thing about Michelle, why are there no It seems rare
(35:48):
to have a time when it's just no directed conversation,
no particular topic, just open mic. Anyone calls in about we.
Speaker 2 (35:55):
Do we do? We do open probably, Brent, we do
open lines less frequently than any show that I know of.
You think we do open that we do open lines
a lot. Is that what you're saying?
Speaker 6 (36:11):
No? I no, I said just the opposite.
Speaker 2 (36:13):
Oh okay, good. Well, that that observation I will agree with.
We can do it. I'm not opposed to it, that's
for sure. But when there is a subject that we
need to talk about, I want to try to drive
people towards that topic. So maybe what I need to do,
and maybe your suggestion is a good one, what I
maybe need to do is to give people more of
(36:37):
an opportunity. I will take that into consideration. I'll take
that as a positive suggestion. What would you want to
talk about tonight or is there something you want to
talk about tonight that that you're afraid to bring up.
Speaker 6 (36:51):
No, there's nothing more. That's only one little thing, one
little detail I would like to bring up mentioned last
week off all the Gang on the September twenty first.
It's actually going to begin on Zeptember twenty second at
fourteen nineteen or to nineteen pm.
Speaker 2 (37:08):
Yeah, in different years. It's all of the equinox dates.
Whether it's March twenty first, March twentieth, it bounces back
and forth. But thank you very much for bringing that
to our attention. Okay, thanks Brent.
Speaker 6 (37:23):
Okay, greatness, that's about all I wanted to say.
Speaker 2 (37:26):
Nice, that's okay, you got it all in all right,
let's keep rolling here. Let me go to I'm going
to get Lola in here. Lola, I'm going to get
you in before the newscast. But I will tell you
if I have to hold you over, I will go ahead.
Speaker 3 (37:39):
Okay.
Speaker 5 (37:40):
So, in my experience, since I started doing yoga, there's
less drama in my life. I don't put attachments on
anything like you know. I had a friend I lost
as a friend in the first Trump era, and he
he didn't.
Speaker 3 (38:00):
Want to talk to me. I was I was having.
Speaker 5 (38:04):
A conversation and like you said, you know, share and
let's discuss it. But he was in he was in
a state of mind that it was his way by
the highway. And I'm like, okay, see you, I'm not
going to go beg somebody to be my friend because
I have a different opinion.
Speaker 2 (38:23):
If that person doesn't want to be your friend, because
you have a different opinion in my opinion, whether it's
a conservative or a liberal, uh, you know, a right
when you're a left ing or whatever you to call him, Uh,
probably not worth your friendship. Probably not worth your time exactly.
Speaker 5 (38:39):
So that's what's. That's kind of what's. I have a
different group of friends and we don't discuss politics. We
just that's not part of our conversation. We have deep
conversations about other things.
Speaker 2 (38:56):
Okay.
Speaker 5 (38:56):
I have never had an argument.
Speaker 6 (38:59):
He did.
Speaker 5 (38:59):
I mint with somebody because oh I want to do
this yoga post on that point.
Speaker 2 (39:06):
On that point, I'm going to hold you over. I
gave you the warning. I'm going to hold you over.
You stay there, we'll pick it up on the other side.
Will we come back after the when we hold it, Lola,
when we come back after the ten o'clock news. I'm
now am going to ask you to make a pledge.
You don't have to tell me who, but I want
you to make a pledge that you will reach out
(39:27):
to a friend this weekend who you're not talking to
or you have have lost friendship with over politics. I
will amplify on that right after the ten o'clock news
It's night Side with Dan Ray on WBS Boston's news radio.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
Just bring up the date in the Red Sox and
the Yankees score at Fenway Park. The Yankees in the
top of the seventh lead two to nothing. So far
the there's only six hits in the game, all of
them by the Yankees. The Yankee pitcher has had his
way for six innings, so there's still some time left here.
(00:30):
But Aaron Judge it is three hundred and sixty second
home run. He's now fourth on the Yankee all time
home run list. So lots going off, Lots going on
on the Yankee side of the allegedd tonight. But it's
a quiet night for the Bosox. Up until now, they've
only had four base runners, all by walks. As you
(00:55):
can tell if you're a baseball fan. I'm someone who
does believe in jinxes, and so I don't want to
be I'm not rooting for the Yankee pitcher. But I'm
going to have told you now in two different ways,
what's going on at the candle ball game? All right,
we know what is going on out in Utah. It
has been a horrific week out there. Charlie Kirk, a
(01:16):
conservative activist who is really become a bit of a
folk hero. A brutal, a brutal assassination on Wednesday at
the midday hour on the campus of this college in
Utah Utah Valley University. If you've seen the kill shot,
(01:43):
and it was just one kill shot, it's a brutal
piece of video. And I would not advise anyone to
seek it out or or search it because it is
really a brutal piece of video and it took law
enforcement out there. Initially it looked as if this guy
might have made a getaway, clean getaway, but it didn't
(02:04):
have he was I thought it might have been had
some may marks of a professional hit. It did not.
It turns out to be a I think a pretty
confused young man. Twenty two year old Tyler Robinson with
us on tonight, and I'm delighted to be joined again
by Eric O'Neil. He's a former FBI operative who played
a key role in the capture of Robert Hanson, considered
(02:26):
to be the most critical spy for Russia in history.
Eric's been a guest before and welcome back to night'sid
Eric O'Neil, How.
Speaker 3 (02:39):
Are you tonight, Dan it's good to be back on
night sun.
Speaker 2 (02:43):
Yeah. So, I'm just curious. I really thought when this
story first broke on Wednesday, and it looked as if
the authorities were really flommacks, they didn't have much of
a lead. I thought, you know, the distance of this shot,
the accuracy of the single shot, it seemed to me
(03:06):
to be the earmarks of maybe a professional hit squad. Obviously,
I was dead wrong on that. Did that thought ever
cross your mind anytime on Wednesday? I'm sure you followed
this story closely.
Speaker 3 (03:19):
I followed it very closely. You know, I didn't quite
think it was a professional hit squad. That area that
Charlie Kirk was in, in the courtyard of that school
is very hard to defend. You would need essentially Trump's
secret service team, and even they didn't do a great
job in Butler in order to protect that area. Now,
(03:43):
I will say that the shooter, who you know, thank goodness,
has been arrested, did plan this very well. And that's
why you might you might suspect this was a very experienced,
you know, professional you know, he had a change of clothes,
he changed his look as he walked onto the campus,
(04:04):
as he did the shooting, and then as he departed,
he certainly had plotted out where he was going to
shoot from his vantage point. And that Mauser thirty out
six bolt action rifle, you know, has a scope on it,
but it's not just buy it and go shoot. You
need to sight in your scope and he knew how
(04:25):
to do that. Apparently the family had gone shooting as
a family, and he had sighted it in for the
for the two hundred meters to fire down to where
Charlie was going to be, So he had certainly planned
that as well. Now, that shot, if you've never shot before,
it's very difficult. If you've ever been deer hunting or
(04:45):
have just recreationally shot long guns, it's not the hardest
shot in the world. But that ulti action rifle, he
had one shot to make it's tip. He was not
going to get a chance to chamber another round, to
work the ball, chamber another round and shoot twice. Charlie
kurst Closs protection would have taken him to safety by then.
(05:07):
You know, we had that one shot and he made
a count.
Speaker 2 (05:09):
When I heard it was a mouser. I think that's
very similar to the to the weapon that Lee Harvey
Oswald used when he got three shots off at President
Kennedy in nineteen sixty three.
Speaker 3 (05:22):
Yeah, I'm not sure what he used, what Lee Harvey
Oswald used there, But I did talk to a friend
who's a very experience shooter about that particular gun, and
his first thought was absolute overkill for that distance. That
that caliver is huge. You could kill an elephant with it.
(05:44):
So he certainly was was going for the kill there.
That that was a very intentional assassination.
Speaker 2 (05:52):
Yeah, And of course what's come out now is that
this is a young kid, pretty confused. It's scary to
think that that there are that many young people in
our country. I was reminded when I saw him, and
I saw the looks of him of another obviously troubled
young man, Luigi MANGIONI uh, the uh, the shooter who
(06:16):
last last winter, last December, had taken out the the
shot him in the back from very close range.
Speaker 3 (06:23):
By the way, the CEO of United Health.
Speaker 2 (06:27):
Brian and my suspicion, and I was really troubled by
some people around the country who seem to take some glee.
There's been a lot of people who have lost their
jobs by having taken glee in the in the murder
of this young guy who probably they must have disagreed
(06:50):
with politically. But but I was stunned that so many
people would would take to you know, you know, the
the internet and post horrific stuff about the death of
a young thirty one year old man who was married
and had two kids. What's that saying about our society
(07:11):
these days?
Speaker 3 (07:13):
Yeah, it suggests that we're not going the right direction.
I found many of those comments repugnant. And I don't
blame any employer that fired someone or for cheering the
incredibly public execution of someone who was sitting in an
open floor for them and inviting people to exercise their
(07:36):
freedom of speech. So I, you know, I and I
think that if you look at the shooter, if you
look at the shooter who killed the Sea of United Health,
if you look at the school shooters, these tend to
be young men who are radicalized and then they have
(07:57):
their psychotic break and they they take it to an extreme.
Speaker 4 (08:02):
Uh.
Speaker 3 (08:03):
And this new thing that's happening now we saw it
in the in the recent church shooting, right, and now
with with this individual etching or painting UH little slogans
on you know, hear the shooter on his on the
shell casings and then the shooter at the church recently
on the different clips. Uh, you know, almost to get
(08:26):
their message across, to let it survive into perpetuity. And
and and there's something very deranged about that.
Speaker 2 (08:33):
Do you think you know again you you basically caught
Robert Hanson in the act of handing over materials to
to you know, to Russia, very dangerous FBI agent who
kind of lived a double life. Do you think that
these shooters MANNGIONI obviously had an escape plan. Uh, this
(08:58):
guy was able to get away from the campus without
being apprehended or he was gone. And I mean he
could have if he had had thought it beyond you know,
just going to his home. Right, do these guys you
said that they have this psychotic break and they then
(09:18):
do this thing which is somewhat out of character to
say the least. But not only did he did he
kill Charlie Kirk, but he basically, if it's proven, may
have signed his own death warrant.
Speaker 3 (09:35):
Well, that's true. He Uh, what I think what happens
is it's our young young people are too online. Parents
are allowing their children to go online far too young
there have been studies that show that the children who
start with social media as young at seven can have serious,
(09:57):
uh you know, mental issues in life and everything from
depression and onward. It's just not something that is particularly
good for society in the way that it is presented,
with the constant streaming and doom scrolling and the algorithms
(10:18):
that will will note that you're interested in something and
then continue to feed it to you over and over again.
And you know, I was talking earlier about the fact
that not too long ago, at least when I grew up,
which really isn't that long ago, I'm not battled before
the advent of the of social media. You know, you
(10:39):
knew the people in your neighborhood, you you know, and
and everyone else you knew was maybe a drive away,
and those are the people you saw. And you had
your you know, the small place you lived or the
city that you lived in. But but if you had
some predilection to do this sort of violence, if you
were the sort of person who could be radicalized, you didn't.
(11:02):
You didn't live in an online collective of people that
are spread all over that can reinforce this idea for you.
Speaker 2 (11:10):
Yeah, I mean here he was on one of the platforms,
I guess talking to one of his buddies about where
he hid the gun. You know, the gun I saw
the terrain was very close to the to the road
by the university, right, And what did he expect the
buddy to go pick up the gun and get it
(11:30):
out of there?
Speaker 3 (11:31):
I just maybe, I, I mean, it may It doesn't
make a lot of sense. He, you know, decided that
he was going to be decided he didn't like Charlie Kirk,
was probably listening and consuming content from radical people who
didn't like Charlie Kirk and had to reinforce over and
over again, and then decided that he was going to
(11:51):
go change the world. There's this idea that that I
find very troublesome that speech is violence, and it's not.
You know, it's the way that we share ideas. It's
the way that we debate ideas. It's the brilliant way
that we bring ideas to the front so that we
(12:14):
can discuss them and find which is the best. And
when people say speech is violent, and young people believe it,
then the counter effect is violence because if someone's doing
violence to you, you can you know, some people think
you can do it back absolutely.
Speaker 2 (12:31):
Eric, I want to take a quick break, and I
just want to, on the other side, talk briefly about
the role of the FBI here, because there was a
lot of pressure on the FBI to conclude this and
to find that person. And as I said on Wednesday night,
when they hadn't found him, I thought to myself, hmm,
and it looks as if it was the video and
(12:53):
the photographs, which were very critical. I kind of curious,
and I'm going to ask you why they did pop
those out earlier. I think they had them, but they
kind of waited. I'd love to know from an investigator's
point of view, why they took that length of time,
because my fear with these guys disappearing ala Eric Rudolph
into the hills of Montana or Idaho or wherever and
(13:16):
just disappearing. My guest is Eric O'Neal, former FBI operative.
We if you if you want to ask Eric a question,
feel free to give me a yell. We're going to
change the focus a little bit after we conclude with Eric,
and I'm going to have to talk to you kind
of seriously about what is your relationships with your family
(13:40):
members and what is it like around your dinner table?
Do people still talk to each other? Do they do
they tolerate different viewpoints? We'll get to all of that.
I promise Eric will be back with you in just
a moment. Hang tight, Thanks so much for being with us.
Coming right back on Nightside.
Speaker 1 (14:00):
It's Night Side with Dan Ray on Boston's news Radio.
Speaker 2 (14:05):
Back with Eric o'nil, former FBI operative. How much pressure
was in the FBI when this case came. I mean,
here you have Charlie Kirk, who many felt was one
of the key elements the number of young people who
he activated politically for Donald Trump in twenty twenty four.
This was a close friend of the president, an advisor
(14:28):
to the president, and a political operative of the president
who was assassinated in front of four thousand people at
this college. Had to have been immense pressure on the FBI.
You've been inside the FBI. What do you think it
was like in those first few hours leading up to
the hours leading up to the arrest.
Speaker 3 (14:46):
I can guarantee you it was incredible pressure on the FBI.
You might also recall that Charlie Kirk was very good
friends with J. D. Bance, our Vice president, and that's
how he was brought to Trump. How Vance was brought
to Trump in the first place was by Charlie Kirk.
He's also he also was good friends with Cash Pattel,
(15:09):
the director of the FBI. So it's uh, you know,
a lot of pressure was coming down from the top
to say, we need to find the shooter right away.
And you saw one of the most immense rapid manhunts
I think I've ever seen, uh come into play there
in Utah. You had the FBI, you had legions of
(15:31):
local police, you had agent FBI agents from other field
offices coming into the country. Yeah, the marshals right, it
was an immense manhunt. It was it was only a
matter of time until they found the shooter.
Speaker 2 (15:47):
So let me ask you this question.
Speaker 3 (15:49):
Pressure was huge.
Speaker 2 (15:50):
Yeah, let me ask you this question. If you're the
fact that pressure was that huge, they must have had
a pretty good idea literally from Jump Street that the
guy who was up the roof and who was scurrying
around to the roof once they started to look at
some of the video, the video from the university, that
that was the guy. Why did it take him so
(16:10):
long to put the picture out there? What advantage was
there in not putting.
Speaker 4 (16:15):
Well.
Speaker 3 (16:16):
I think initially they did have a wealth of forensic evidence.
They had a handprint, they had his arm print, they
had his footprint. It turns out they had other pictures
and videos that we didn't know about. Contemporaneously, they had
an idea and an image of who this person was.
They just didn't know where he had gone or his
precise identity. And I think the FBI thought in the
(16:39):
immediate instance that they would catch him rather quickly, that
they knew his point of egress from the college, that
they had found the weapon, that they knew the way
he was moving, and that it was only a matter
of time. And when that didn't happen, because he had
jumped in the car and made it home and gone
to ground, they started putting out more information to try
(17:02):
to get help from the population, which was more than
happy to help. My understanding is there were over seven
thousand tips that came into the tip line, more than
any other investigation.
Speaker 2 (17:13):
So why then did delay There was a similar delay
up here in the Boston bomber case. They had pictures
of the suspects and they held off releasing those. I'm
just wondering what that strategy is is it.
Speaker 3 (17:27):
Well, there's a couple of reasons. You know, when you
release those pictures, and especially those grainy pictures that could
be many different people, you run the risk of false accusations.
You run the risk of vigilanteism. You're also going to
get that immense number of tips right away, and you
need to be prepared for that. Yeah, and I truly
(17:50):
think they thought that they were right on his tail
and they would have them very soon, okay.
Speaker 2 (17:54):
And I also assume that when you get those many
tips and someone says, I know that's my cousin, I
know that's the guy that lives down the street, all
of those tips really followed saying yeah, they got to
be So you're following, you're chasing your tail maybe, Okay,
So that makes sense. Eric O'Neil, you gave us some
really good insight here tonight, and I do appreciate it
(18:15):
very much, and thank goodness that this crime appears to
be solved again. He enjoys the presumption of innocence, at
least within the context of the court system, not necessarily
in the context of public opinion. Once you look at
those pictures, and you'll look at him as always, Eric
I appreciate you taking the time, particularly on Friday night,
(18:35):
to help us out. Thank you so much. Thank you.
Speaker 3 (18:38):
It's great to be back on Night's side, and we'll
talk again later.
Speaker 2 (18:41):
Absolutely, Thank you very much. Eric. Now we get back,
what I want to do right after the news is
I want to issue a challenge to every one in
my audience, whether you are a conservative, a liberal, flaming
or raging moderate, a right wing, a left winger, however
you describe yourself, I think it is time for us
(19:05):
to take a good look in the mirror at all
of ourselves and realize that we will not be able
to survive as a country if we do not just
tone down this violence. And I have a couple of ideas,
and I'd like to hear your ideas as well. Back
on Nightside, right after the news at the bottom of
(19:25):
the hours.
Speaker 1 (19:26):
With Dan Ray on Boston's News Radio.
Speaker 2 (19:31):
Okay, I think it's time for all of us to
take a deep breath here, and I would ask you
just to give me a moment to set this question
before you, and I hope many of you will join
the conversation. We have an hour and twenty minutes left
until we get to the twentieth hour of the week.
I have no idea what I'm going to do in
the twentieth hour of the week tonight, but I would
(19:53):
like to make it maybe a little lighter so we
can end the week in a good fashion anyway. I
have been doing this program now for eighteen years. Formally,
we do not begin on nineteenth year until October first,
but I was doing this show through most of the
summer of two thousand and seven before it was named
(20:15):
Nightside formally. And I made a decision a long time
ago based upon some thoughts that I had advice that
people gave me. I wanted to do a talk show
that was different. I wanted to do a talk show
that gave everybody an opportunity to speak. I'm a big
believer in First Amendment, and I think talk shows are
(20:39):
the best way that you can one participate or oil
simply listen. I prefer you to participate then simply listen,
but put that aside. It is an opportunity. We called
Nightside a metaphorical North America's back porch, the idea of
a back porch in a neighborhood that you might have
grown up in when you were younger. And people sitting
(21:02):
on the back porch on a summer night sharing information
and observations, comments and opinions, and people in neighborhoods, they
tend to be more tolerant of one another's opinion. But
obviously there's there's a variety of opinions. I would hope
in every neighborhood in America. I have tried to run
(21:24):
this show in that way. However, I think that I
am going to tighten up the rules a little bit.
I don't care what opinion you might express, but I
want you to understand that there's going to be more
people walking the playing here on nightside, that all opinions,
(21:50):
in my opinion, in my mind, are not equal, and
if it has nothing to do with you the the ideology,
there are conservative opinions, liberal opinions, middle of the road opinions, whatever.
When you get off into the fringes where this guy
Tyler Robinson lived and where I think Luigi Mangioni lived
(22:11):
for a while, and you just listen to the same
thing day after day after day, you almost brainwash yourself
and you therefore can justify someone said that this guy
was concerned about hate. Well, it's an interesting way to
fight hate when you kill someone in cold blood doesn't
(22:36):
make a lot of sense to me. So I want
to ask a couple of questions, and I'm hoping for
some honest answers. One, do you agree with me that
maybe maybe I need to pull the reins in on
some of my callers who want to make speeches as
(22:57):
opposed to get into a conversation. So that's amber one. Okay,
I've decided that I want I will do that whatever
you say about it. But if there's an argument against it,
you know, since you're the night side audience, like to
hear that argument against it. I would also like to
know within your own family, within your immediate family, and
(23:18):
within however you describe your larger family, whether it includes
a group of cousins who live around the corner, across
the street, or whatever, or within your immediate neighborhood. Do
you socialize with people with whom you disagree politically or
have you tightened the circle of your friends and family
(23:39):
so that you never have an opportunity to hear a
discordant point of view, Because if you're doing that, and
if you are eliminating people from your circle of friends
because they disagree with you. I think that's a huge mistake.
This is a country that traditionally, traditionally has been a
(24:02):
fifty to fifty country. We've had close presidential elections in
this country and an equal membership of the House in
the Senate for years and years and years. Okay, we're
a country of two major parties. Third parties haven't worked.
I know many of you are out there, my libertarian friends,
(24:22):
all of that, but that just hasn't worked at this point.
We're two major parties, unlike a lot of the countries
in Europe, also democracies in Israel, which are multi party governments.
Then the other question which I want to address with
you is be a people in your immediate family who
are not willing to have a conversation because it sounds
(24:47):
to me like this guy, Tyler Robinson spent a lot
of time on the internet. I can figure out probably
where he was on the internet. But that is dangerous
when you do not absorb different points of view, whether
it's reading newspapers or listening to different channels. I call
(25:12):
it the silo effect. So having thrown those generally general
ideas out there which which deal with all of us
in some form of fashion. Are the members of your
family or within your circle of friends who either you
don't tolerate or they don't tolerate your points of view.
(25:32):
If you're the one who's intolerant, I think you have
an obligation to reach out and say to your family
members or friends, Look, I know we can disagree, but
let's do it like they do it on night side,
and let's disagree reasonably. You express your opinion, I'll express
my opinion. We don't have to think that that we're
(25:54):
each a bad person. It's often said that when you
know Ronald Reagan and Tip O'Neil would have drinks at
the end of the day in Washington, they could agree
to put the politics aside and have pleasant conversations about
other things. Maybe they're the fact that they both were
Irish Americans doesn't have to be, but maybe they were
(26:17):
talking sports or whatever. We are in a situation. I
think that it truly is a turning point. Now, there
were some statements made today in Utah, including statements by
the governor that I have and we're going to play
a little bit of those for you at some point.
(26:38):
But I would much prefer to just light this up
and hear from you. There are people on both sides
of the political divide who are intolerant. And I have
two sound bites which we're going to play for you
at some point before eleven o'clock tonight, one of Elizabeth
Warren and one of Bernie Sanders. Which one of them
(27:00):
do you think is going to sound more rational? I'll
give you a hint. He's from Vermont. We'll talk about that.
Six one, seven, two, five, four ten thirty six one seven,
nine three one ten thirty. If some of you have
breached that divide politically with a family member or family members,
(27:20):
I love to know what technique you used. Remember, back
in the early days of COVID and the Hillary Clinton
even before that she had lost the election of Donald Trump,
I joked and kidded and said, hey, show up at
at your Thanksgiving dinner. If you're a big Trump supporter,
where your red hat? And if you're a Hillary supporter,
(27:41):
wear that big wide brimm straw hat. Make a statement
by the hats that you would that you would wear
going to Thanksgiving dinner. And I was joking about it.
I was joking about it. Then I came to realize that, hey,
people didn't want to talk to each other, which I
think was sad. It really is six one seven, two
ten thirty six one seven, nine three one ten thirty.
(28:03):
I pledge to you, I pledge to you Light Side
listeners that I want more points of view on this program,
and I also want people who want to try to
use my program for their they're crazy ideas. I've been
very liberal in that regard. I'm going to get a
(28:26):
little more restrictive. Let me put it like that. We're
coming back on Night Side. Let's get it going. We're
going to talk about this for the next hour until eleven,
and in the meantime I'll figure out what we're going
to talk about in the twentieth hour of the week,
beginning at eleven o'clock. Six one seven, two five four
to ten thirty six one seven, nine three one ten thirty.
I have thrown out a number of lines that you
(28:48):
can respond to. I'd love to hear your point of
view on this. Don't be a coward, be brave, be strong,
Uh really be as and his strong m as the
gentleman that we lost this week. Sadly, I'm Charlie Kirk.
(29:10):
He marched into many cases the lions Den. You don't
have to agree with them, but you have to look
at how he approached life, and he approached it. I
think the way we should approach it, and that is
open minded. Keep to your opinions, hold on to your opinions,
but don't be afraid to share them with others, and
don't be afraid to listen to the opinions of others.
(29:32):
We'll be back on Nightside.
Speaker 1 (29:34):
You're on Night Side with Dan Ray on wz Boston's
news radio.
Speaker 2 (29:40):
Let us proceed. Who would be first up? It's going
to be John in Marshfield. John, you are first night
on Nightside. Welcome sir. What's on your mind?
Speaker 4 (29:49):
Yeah, I mean you raise a really interesting topic tonight, Dan.
I've had three points that I wanted to make. One
is an answer to your question there. I don't think
I've lost friends over politics, but I've got to a
point where, like we recognize we probably don't want to
talk about issues. So there's like this. I guess there's
(30:10):
a silence or lack of communication because I kind of
know where we're going in my experiences this And tell
me if you agree with this. I feel like a
lot of these conversations denigrate into what I call selective outrage.
Let's say objectively, there's ten truly outrageous things in the world.
(30:33):
One side recognizes five of them, and the other side
recognizes the other five, and they disagree. And the fact
is like, they're all outrageous. But yet through our prism,
our view, we don't see the outrage of the other side,
but the other side sees the outrage that we believe.
Speaker 2 (30:53):
Well, you have I mean, you have a business, you
have issues for example, like abortion for example, and if
you or someone who is pro life and pro choice
in the same room, this little ground, there's little ground
to agree upon. But why can't they at least respect
the other person's point of view and say, okay, look,
I understand where you're coming from. I disagree with you,
(31:17):
and leave it at that. If there is no way. Now,
if let us say, on an issue like immigration, you
have somebody who says, oh, I want the borders of
wide open, I don't care who's coming in here America,
you know whatever, and then you have someone says, no,
I don't want anybody to come in the country. There
has to be some way in which one of them
could say, well, you know, maybe can we filter out
the bad people who are coming in? Do you really
(31:39):
want more? I mean, and can you allow you your
full I mean, it just seems to me that this
conversation is the key to this.
Speaker 4 (31:48):
In my opinion, And I believe that you know, it's
I thing. I believe. I believe that there's someone there's
many people who are smarter than I am, who are
better than I am sure, who are better than me
in every respect, who think that everything I think is wrong.
(32:09):
I want to meet that person.
Speaker 2 (32:13):
Yeah, right, Dan, I'm sure.
Speaker 4 (32:15):
Look there's someone out there who disagrees with everything you say,
who's a better person than Dan Ray in every respect
there is. Wouldn't you want to meet that person?
Speaker 2 (32:27):
Yeah? I would, now. I mean, I don't know if
maybe you're.
Speaker 4 (32:30):
Talking right, I mean, I met billion people, Dan, there's
someone better than you you?
Speaker 5 (32:40):
Oh?
Speaker 2 (32:40):
Sure, sure? But I don't think I think that the
disagreements are We both want to get to the same point.
Meaning I might be someone who wants to give more
opportunity to people. I want everyone to have opportunity. I
want everyone to be the best that they can be.
Someone else's going to say, well, there's some people who
(33:02):
need help and I agree with that. I think that
I think that these conversations, if you listen to the
other person, there's there's more room for agreement than we realize,
and that we have to we have to be able
to agree with agree, you know, reasonable people have to
agree reasonably. That's where I'm where I'm coming from, and
(33:24):
I'm going to tell you in terms.
Speaker 4 (33:25):
Of debate, I think one of the great minds of
the last hundred years is the late Charlie Munger, you know,
the smarter half of the Berkshire Hathaway group with Warren Buffett.
And Charlie's opinion was that he would never engage in
an argument with anyone with whom he could not make
their argument as well or better than they do. And
(33:49):
if you take that approach, you're going to, by definition,
find that middle ground and it's going to temper the
anger that you have. And the other thing I've noticed,
Stan is people, everyone who's angry and the political extremes,
the source of their anger is legitimate, real issues, and
(34:14):
it's incoming upon us to try to understand what that
issue is and how we can address it.
Speaker 2 (34:22):
And I try, in my opinion, and I know there
will be some who will disagree with me. That is
what Charlie Kirk was trying to do. I mean, he
was going out in college campuses where there's a lot
of young people whose opinions are still being formed, but
they have strong opinions, and he was trying to persuade them.
Speaker 4 (34:42):
And he at the end of the day, man, I
do believe that eighty percent of us agree on eighty
percent of the things, and I believe that social media
is being dominated by the ten percent of the opposite
extremes who frankly are allowed and attract more attention. And
you know, if you're going to sit there and like
I do and say, you know, we need to talk
(35:03):
and find middle ground, it's just not very exciting.
Speaker 2 (35:07):
Well I think it may not be exciting, but I
think it's it's our hope, and it's so great is
my hope. John, great call to get us going. Thank
you so much. We'll talk soon. Thanks, good night. Let
me go to Brent up in Maine. Brent, you're next
on Night's side. Get you in here before the ten
o'clock news. Go ahead, Brent.
Speaker 6 (35:24):
Okay, I just want to say a few things. Briefly.
We've talked about people who don't seem to want to
have a conversation. I think you've handled them very well
in the path where you just said, okay, talk for
thirty seconds and then you move on to the next guy.
I think that's a great way of handling that. Another
thing about Michelle, why are there no It seems rare
(35:48):
to have a time when it's just no directed conversation,
no particular topic, just open mic. Anyone calls in about we.
Speaker 2 (35:55):
Do we do? We do open probably, Brent, we do
open lines less frequently than any show that I know of.
You think we do open that we do open lines
a lot. Is that what you're saying?
Speaker 6 (36:11):
No? I no, I said just the opposite.
Speaker 2 (36:13):
Oh okay, good. Well, that that observation I will agree with.
We can do it. I'm not opposed to it, that's
for sure. But when there is a subject that we
need to talk about, I want to try to drive
people towards that topic. So maybe what I need to do,
and maybe your suggestion is a good one, what I
maybe need to do is to give people more of
(36:37):
an opportunity. I will take that into consideration. I'll take
that as a positive suggestion. What would you want to
talk about tonight or is there something you want to
talk about tonight that that you're afraid to bring up.
Speaker 6 (36:51):
No, there's nothing more. That's only one little thing, one
little detail I would like to bring up mentioned last
week off all the Gang on the September twenty first.
It's actually going to begin on Zeptember twenty second at
fourteen nineteen or to nineteen pm.
Speaker 2 (37:08):
Yeah, in different years. It's all of the equinox dates.
Whether it's March twenty first, March twentieth, it bounces back
and forth. But thank you very much for bringing that
to our attention. Okay, thanks Brent.
Speaker 6 (37:23):
Okay, greatness, that's about all I wanted to say.
Speaker 2 (37:26):
Nice, that's okay, you got it all in all right,
let's keep rolling here. Let me go to I'm going
to get Lola in here. Lola, I'm going to get
you in before the newscast. But I will tell you
if I have to hold you over, I will go ahead.
Speaker 3 (37:39):
Okay.
Speaker 5 (37:40):
So, in my experience, since I started doing yoga, there's
less drama in my life. I don't put attachments on
anything like you know. I had a friend I lost
as a friend in the first Trump era, and he
he didn't.
Speaker 3 (38:00):
Want to talk to me. I was I was having.
Speaker 5 (38:04):
A conversation and like you said, you know, share and
let's discuss it. But he was in he was in
a state of mind that it was his way by
the highway. And I'm like, okay, see you, I'm not
going to go beg somebody to be my friend because
I have a different opinion.
Speaker 2 (38:23):
If that person doesn't want to be your friend, because
you have a different opinion in my opinion, whether it's
a conservative or a liberal, uh, you know, a right
when you're a left ing or whatever you to call him, Uh,
probably not worth your friendship. Probably not worth your time exactly.
Speaker 5 (38:39):
So that's what's. That's kind of what's. I have a
different group of friends and we don't discuss politics. We
just that's not part of our conversation. We have deep
conversations about other things.
Speaker 2 (38:56):
Okay.
Speaker 5 (38:56):
I have never had an argument.
Speaker 6 (38:59):
He did.
Speaker 5 (38:59):
I mint with somebody because oh I want to do
this yoga post on that point.
Speaker 2 (39:06):
On that point, I'm going to hold you over. I
gave you the warning. I'm going to hold you over.
You stay there, we'll pick it up on the other side.
Will we come back after the when we hold it, Lola,
when we come back after the ten o'clock news. I'm
now am going to ask you to make a pledge.
You don't have to tell me who, but I want
you to make a pledge that you will reach out
(39:27):
to a friend this weekend who you're not talking to
or you have have lost friendship with over politics. I
will amplify on that right after the ten o'clock news
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