'You're Wrong' With Mollie Hemingway And David Harsanyi, Ep. 167: Charlie Kirk

Join Washington Examiner Senior Writer David Harsanyi and Federalist Editor-In-Chief Mollie Hemingway as they discuss what made Turning Point USA Founder Charlie Kirk effective, explain what his death and the response to it mean for the future of the nation, and debunk the both-sides-ism plaguing conversations about political violence.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:16):
Welcome back, everyone to a new episode of You're Wrong
with Molly Hemingway, editor in chief of the Federalist and
David Harsani, senior writer at The Washington Examiner. Just as
a reminder, you can email the show at radio at
the Federalist dot com. We love to hear from you. So, Mollie,
we were taping our show last week. Right after we

(00:38):
were done taping, like right after, I think, I, you know,
I saw the horrible news that Charlie Kirk has been
assassinated at Utah Valley College University. But yeah, university, and
I don't know, this is a tough one. What was
your which how'd you find out? What was your reaction?

Speaker 2 (00:59):
I was I was on a phone call with someone
who said that Charlie had been shot, and I, you know,
sometimes these reports come out and this is you know,
I sometimes way too skeptical of everything. So my first
thing was to assume that it wasn't true. Not assume
that it wasn't true, but hope it wasn't true, you know.
Started seeing that it was being reported all over the place,

(01:21):
immediately got off the phone, dropped to my knees in
prayer and just prayed and I knew at that point
that it was very unlikely that he would survive, but
I also knew that a miracle could happen, and so
I was just praying that somehow God would preserve his

(01:41):
life and that he wouldn't die. I mean, I don't, yeah,
how about you.

Speaker 1 (01:51):
I I since I didn't really know Charlie Kirk. I
met him a few times. I wouldn't say that he
probably even you know who I was or anything, but
I was hit really hard by it. And so there's
kind of an immediacy because of the Internet and social
media and everyone's cameras that you were like almost there

(02:12):
for it in a way, And it was just horrifying
to hear the shots, to see him there honestly, to
witness the death, you know, and the shooting in a
way that I don't think people ever have before unless
they were there. So all of that's terrible. It's just
thinking about his family. It was just it hit me
very hard, even though I didn't really know him in

(02:34):
any sort of you know, we're in friends or anything.
And I know that a lot of people who knew him,
like you know, had just great things to say about
him and how he conducted himself.

Speaker 2 (02:47):
Yeah, it's really interesting. I have known him for so
long that I literally don't remember when I met him.
I mean, I do know that he he had become
so we had become much closer in recent years, and
I'd been doing his show quite a bit in recent

(03:08):
years because when he started, it just kind of wasn't
my jam. I am not saying anything like against what
he was doing, but he seemed like really into fiscal
conservatism on college campuses and talking a lot, and that's
just I know we talk a lot too, but it
just wasn't my thing, and it wasn't what I was doing,

(03:30):
you know, in the media space. And in recent years,
I think people are starting to get a feel for this.
He had become quite influential and important to the movement
he had. He was only thirty one, but he was
really wise beyond his years on big picture things. I
know these are all not things that you love, David,

(03:53):
but I think you would recognize that they're important, like
how he brought RFK and on Trump together for a
very powerful, like political moment. In that moment at a
talking sorry, my abbreviation for TP is talking points like
on Fox. They'll be like, what are your tps? So

(04:16):
I keep on saying that right turning point USA. That
happened at a turning point USA event. You know, it
was so cinematic. It was not just the importance of
what was happening, but how it happened was iconic. And
he had been really important at showing a way for

(04:38):
the conservative movement to go forward in a way that
is both principled and popular. And sometimes people are way
too much on one side or the other, and he
understood that you don't change things if you don't win elections,
and you don't win elections by going into crazy little

(05:00):
niches or cutting people out of the movement. Kind of
like the opposite of a gatekeeper, like a shepherd, who
was trying to help people get in the right direction
overall while keeping the movement strong. Sorry, I'm kind of babbling,
and I probably will babble for the rest of this podcast.
But everyone's noticing how much he did for college kids

(05:24):
and young people, and that is very true, but it's
also really important what he was doing on the big
picture stuff as well.

Speaker 1 (05:33):
Yeah I am when I say, you know that I
kind of personalized it in a way. Don't mean to
say that I was in that of any kind of activists,
like like, I don't even think we were like I
do anything like he did again, and he did it
in a very influential and widespread way, and I do
it in a very small way. But I'm I think
of myself as a writer in pundant. He's an activist

(05:55):
from the beginning. He wants to convince people to vote
a certain way, to move a certain way, and both.
I think both those things are important in society, you know.
And when I met him, I think I don't exactly
remember where and stuff, and I think I met him
like two three times. He wasn't like this influential yet,
you know, he was just at conferences. And I have

(06:16):
to say that my view of him has changed after
his death. And it's sad to say this because you
don't have the time sometimes to delve into everything a
person is doing out there. But if you just followed
him on Twitter or just so snippets of him speaking
and his podcast, I don't think you would be as

(06:38):
impressed as if you watched him debating students on campuses.
To me, that's the most impressive thing that he did.
A bunch of people have sent me emails and tweets
where they're like, is this you know, where I'm disagreeing
with Charlie Kirk about something And it makes me laugh
because it seems to me like Charlie Kirk was really
into debating issues and having disagreements with people, right, And

(07:04):
I don't think the idea that you have to agree
with someone all the time, but still you know that
something happens to them like it's on you, or that
you're not still impressed by what they accomplished, or you're
not or you'd want anything bad to happen to them.
I think speaks to kind of a little bit of
what's wrong in society, you know, where people think words
are violence, where people think, you know, if you disagree

(07:26):
with someone, you hate them. I didn't, you know, before
his death, have very much. You know, I didn't form
an opinion about Charlie Kirk as a person because I
didn't really know him. But seeing him in those videos
debating all comers at college campuses, it's like, exactly, it
exemplifies the best of what our country's supposed to be about.

(07:48):
As far as the political space, right of discourse. It's
not to say, oh, we're all unified, or he agreed
with everyone, but he took on everyone and you may
disagree with us. I don't know, but Georgia will compare
him to William Buckley in a way, who also began
his career like on a college camp, is debating a
massive people who disagreed with him. And I actually think that,
looking back now, that their reach is in a sense

(08:11):
kind of comparable. I mean, in very different ways and
with very different styles.

Speaker 2 (08:14):
I don't think it's comparable. Really really well, maybe that's
not fair. I think.

Speaker 1 (08:25):
I don't know.

Speaker 2 (08:26):
We're too close to the moment to really know, but
I think you get killed when you're really important. Not always,
but you know, it's a it's a risk that increases
with the more import that you have, you know, JFK, MLK, Charlie.

(08:49):
I know they were all killed by individuals or possibly networks,
you know, depending on how you look at it. But
they were very important people for the country, and they
were disruptive individuals. Not that all disruptive individuals get killed.

(09:09):
But there is something I wanted to say that's like
tangentially related, which is that I saw a bunch of
people on Twitter saying and maybe you did this too,
and I don't have a problem with it, but I
just wanted to explain something about it. You'd see people
say I didn't agree with Charlie Kirk, but it's wrong

(09:30):
that he got murdered. You know. It's like, Okay, well,
I'm glad you needed to clear your throat there to
say that you didn't agree with him. It's actually not necessary.
But that's not my point. What I want people to
think about is what this was like for those of
us who actually did agree with him, you know, broadly.

(09:50):
I'm sure there are individual things maybe out there, but
this sorts a lot more for just like the tens
of millions of people who say, yeah, I also do
not believe men can become women, or I also am
a Bible believing Christian and that is the root of

(10:10):
everything that I do, and that's what motivates me in
every way. I mean, this is a massive issue for
those of us who know not just that there are
people out there who want to kill us for our viewpoints,

(10:31):
but also, like you know, there are ways in which
the response to Charlie Kirk's assassination have been as horrifying
as the assassination itself. So for a lot of Americans,
we're seeing our neighbors, our supposed friends, sometimes family members,

(10:51):
like cheering on the assassination, celebrating it, mocking it down,
playing it. Very It's that response that I think is
almost going to be more. It's going to do more
about what happens next than the actual assassination itself. Does
that make sense at all?

Speaker 1 (11:12):
Yeah, Well, it's it's terrible in a different way. Obviously,
there's a personal toll that's just terrible, obviously if you're
family and people who knew him, and then there's a
political toll or cultural toll. I think I would say this,
I don't love the thorough clearing. Don't appreciate that you
assume that I had done it, or maybe it had
done it.

Speaker 2 (11:32):
I don't. I'm just I'm not I'm trying to say
I'm not I'm not bashing people who did it. I
just wanted to explain that it's worse for those who
do agree.

Speaker 1 (11:41):
I don't love it, but also I do understand that
there I do understand and actually kind of appreciate when
someone says that it's kind of ham fisted, But what
they're saying is that it's not okay. You know, even
if you disagree with someone like I did, I still
think this is terrible. I don't know there's a better
way to express that I avoided it on purpose because

(12:03):
so many people did it, and I do think a
lot of the condemnations by a lot of the political
people on the left were perfunctory. Now, there's no way
I can prove that they were earnest about it, you know,
very much, or that it didn't mean that much to them,
But it had that feel to me, and maybe I
was just angry about it. But yeah, let's talk about

(12:24):
the reaction now, before we even get to what a
lot of Democrats immedia did trying to paint the killer
as some kind of you know, right wing nut or whatever.
All of that would have been irrelevant considering we saw
thousands and thousands, I would say, right, I don't know,
I'm exaggerating people online.

Speaker 2 (12:46):
Hundreds of thousands. I'm not saying we saw it all,
but we do have a list of tens of thousands.

Speaker 1 (12:50):
Yes, and I, on a personal level know people that
I would never have imagined would kind of be So
I wouldn't say celebrating about nonchalant about something like this.
I just want to quickly say, I think Charlie Kirk.
I won't call him moderate, but I call him right
in sort of the on most things, right in the
center of where the Republican Party is, which let's say

(13:13):
is around fifty percent of the country. It's not like
he was some kind of extremist. I don't care what
anyone says. I haven't heard him. Listen, there's always hyperabolean politics,
and it happens. I'm not saying everything he said was
perfectly crafted. The guy probably spoke all day every day
about politics, right, But in general I would say he
was a pretty I don't like the word moderate, but

(13:33):
just a mainstream person who is a Trump voter. Right.
But a lot of people, especially young people, have been
conditioned to believe that people who disagree with them are evil.
I think it has something to do with social media,
something to do with ideology. It has something to do
with the continuum of politics on the left that goes

(13:56):
back a very long time where violence and again no
one has a man on it, but the violence of
the left is ingrained in the ideas of the progressive left.
I will just I mentioned this on Twitter and people
got angry about it, but I just was thinking out loud.
I used to go to Seapack every year, right, I
never saw anyone wearing a T shirt or selling a

(14:17):
book celebrating a murder or any kind of terrorism or
anything of that nature. And then I went to the
Socialism conference in Chicago and there were tablefulls of books
from terrorists and murderers, and Angela Davis and Chay Guvera.
You know what I mean, Like id is ingrained in
the progressive left, the violence just generally speaking. You did

(14:39):
a poll and some people said this was good news
that only twenty five percent, you know, of very liberal
people thought that violence was justified in American politics. A
quarter of very liberal First of all, you're not liberal.
If you shut someone down with violence, you're the opposite
of that. But very conservative people only three percent said

(14:59):
that was okay. So clearly this is something that's happening
on the left, especially among the young. I think around
one of the polls I forgot who it was, maybe
fire Haad of Colleges showed that I think a third
of students stud violence was acceptable to stop campus speech.
And Molly, you know this very well. I mean, you know,

(15:22):
we've been around campus speech problems like this, people shutting
down conservatives. It's not like a maga thing. They've been
doing this since the Bush administration. They've probably been doing
this since the sixties, you know, or even before. It's
not like some new problem that a conservative can't speak
at a college campus where it's supposed to be a
place where ideas are exchanged. So you have to give

(15:43):
Kirk so much credit for just showing up all the
time in front of a very big crowd, taking on
anyone on any question they had. I just think it
really exemplified the best.

Speaker 2 (15:55):
This is a bit of a tangent, of course. Yeah.
I was never the type of person on the right
who fit in very well. Like I knew I was
on the right, I tended to vote Republican. I am
deeply socially conservative, but my philosophy, such as it was,

(16:16):
was libertarian. But the Libertarians knew I was not one
of them and sort of treated me that way. But
I hated the Republicans and I thought they were so awful.
And I just remember reading different things where I would
feel like I am not at home, you know, here,
and I wish I could find it there's no way
to find it. But do you remember how National Review

(16:38):
Online used to have the Corner, which was like a
place where people would, you know, put in little snippets
of things.

Speaker 1 (16:47):
And I think it was I wrote for the corner.

Speaker 2 (16:49):
Okay, sorry. I saw someone in there talking about a
poll showing that this is a long time ago, but
it was a poll showing that very few college students
believed in free speech. And someone was pooh poohing the poll.
You know, someone's like, this is a problem. I think

(17:10):
it was like Stanley Kurtz is like this is not good,
and someone else was like, I don't know. You know,
when people are in college, they believe all sorts of
silly things, and then they get out into the real
world and then they become more conservative, so it's okay.
And I remember thinking like, that doesn't sound like the
right response to this horrific number of college students opposing

(17:33):
freedom of speech. And it's just a reminder of how
poorly people handled everything that has led us to this moment.
I was at the vigil for Charlie at the Kennedy
Center on Sunday, and I was talking to some friends
who are just older and they were saying we should

(17:57):
have done more to stop the less left in the sixties.
And that's kind of what I'm just realizing when you
see these large numbers of people celebrating or large percentages.
You know, Rasmusen had a poll showing fifteen percent of
the country thinks it's better for the country that Charlie
Kirk was assassinated for being a conservative, Like, that's a

(18:23):
it should be zero, and fifteen is a crazy high number. Right.

Speaker 1 (18:29):
Also, I always think with these polls that there are
there has to be a percentage that doesn't give their
true views because they understand that socially, it sounds terrible
to say that violence is okay. Still, you know what
I mean, I still think there's a percentage there that's
not being captured by those polls. I'm not a big
believer in polls, but you know, it gives you a
trend or an idea of where people are right well,

(18:49):
and it's not. I just don't know what you think
people should have done in the sixties to stop violence.
I mean, on campuses, what can you do within the
confines of I mean, you can ye go on no, thanks.

Speaker 2 (19:00):
For because I think that part of this has been
about there are some systematic weaknesses in the conservative ethos,
like we tend to be minding our own business, we

(19:25):
tend to avoid conflict, we flee from conflict, actually, I
think would be the thing. And so I think that
when people just uttered things in their day to day lives,
like family members and friends, that conservatives should have spoken
up much more and said that's actually that's a very

(19:46):
bad thing, and you shouldn't say that, rather than being like, oh,
live and let live, you know which, of course you
could you live and let live, but to actually make
the case against some of what was being said, to
definitely hold our media more to account.

Speaker 1 (20:03):
I just don't think it's liver let live. I don't
you know that that that like liber let live makes
it sound like it was a libertarian problem. But how
many people are libertarian in world? Very few? Really, I
think conservative if you're dispositionally conservativeative problem, I know, I know,
but I just think you're my You don't want to

(20:23):
involve yourself in any kind of radicalism, or you don't
want to be on war footing constantly against your fellow citizen, right,
and I don't really think that I want that in
this country. Either I don't really have I'm going to
have zero answers for any of this, or most almost zero.
But it's very difficult for normal people who want to
live in a civilized society to constantly be on a

(20:44):
war footing against this faction of people who live by
Sololenski's rules all the time. You know, demonize, and you
know your your opponent, you know, destroy them, And we've
largely avoided that. Even in the sixties, the vast mage
already people weren't that way. In seventy two, Nixon ran
away with the election against the left wing candidate because

(21:05):
most people were not that way. It was like confined
to college campuses. But now these people run all our
media organizations, they run our government, a lot of places.
They are have like filtered into the world in a way.
I think that that that's the real danger. More people
go to college, more people have stupid degrees, right, more
people have stupid ideas. We have I'm all over the place.

(21:27):
I'm sorry, and honestly, I'll tell you I feel a
little bit helpless. You have this, this person, this killer,
who grew up in a conservative environment, right with conservative parents.
So something else is rotting away at our culture. Maybe
it's social media, maybe it's the schools, maybe you know,
or maybe it's all It's probably all those things. I

(21:48):
don't know.

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Speaker 2 (22:25):
It's one of the things that I've found so wonderful
about the response to Charlie's assassination, that people are understanding
that he was completely motivated by his faith in Christ,
and he would you know, he himself did say this

(22:45):
a ton When people would be like, you're really good
at pre speech events and things like that, He's like, well,
you know, my main thing is that I want to
share the gospel, and my main thing is I want
people to know that we are all sinners and that
we are saved by Jesus. And that's like the whole thing.
And you see it in some of these clips where
people will come up and they're just clearly hurting individuals,
you know, either it just they seem to be messed up,

(23:09):
and he they ask a political question and he responds
by talking to them about Jesus. And I also think
a lot of people recognize that our problems are not
going to be solved politically.

Speaker 1 (23:25):
Well, yeah, that this.

Speaker 2 (23:27):
Is a much deeper issue and this is a spiritual battle.
And so when you say, like all these different things
that played a role here for this guy, clearly he
was heavily influenced by left wing ideology. He's very open
about that. One d percent of the insights about him
are all that way.

Speaker 1 (23:51):
But also it.

Speaker 2 (23:54):
Seems there's sexual perversion in play. The sexual perversion is serious,
you know, and I think people should be careful when
they play around with stuff like that that it allows
really dark things to enter in and we've just like

(24:15):
lost all the guardrails for how to not go into
the completely demonic in our society, and he is a
good example of that. I think, I don't know, we
don't know everything that we'll find out here.

Speaker 1 (24:29):
Well, we just one last thing on that is that
obviously there's a decline in religious faith. There has been
over the decade decades, and there's a decline in the
belief that America stands for things or that we share
find foundational ideals about the world. And when that's a vacuum,

(24:50):
you're going to have radical and transgressive and perverted ideas
filling that vacuum and lifted up to right meaning rite
like I did up to kind of almost really like
people talk about transgender genderism is almost like a religious quality.

Speaker 2 (25:07):
Is a religion de so and one that is practiced
like the high priests of it are in our media
and are like the enforcers the inquisition is in our
censorship tools. But it's totally religious. So there are many
things in play here. And now, obviously political violence is

(25:28):
not new in this country or anywhere else. It's it's
going to occasionally happen. The scarier part to me, as
you mentioned, is not that there's an act of political violence,
but that there's a celebration of that act and acceptance
of that act, justifications of that act. I guess you

(25:49):
should talk about the media coverage, you know, right off
the bat, I noticed this right off the bat.

Speaker 1 (25:55):
What's his name, Matthew Dowd was on MSNBC. He was fired.
He basically said that, basically said Kirk Kirk had it
coming or that, or that, you know, his hatred would
blow back at him or in a way in violence.
But Katie Tour is that a tour was on there
and she and many others immediately described Kirk as divisive,

(26:20):
you know, controversial. These are words that are almost always
used when you're talking about a conservative and never used
when you're talking about someone on the on the left.
And this is you know, how they the left talks
about othering. This is what I feel like they're doing,

(26:40):
because anyone who makes a political statement in the world
is immediately divisive. That's why we have politics, that's where
we discuss those things. But for the liberal they think
their ideas are sort of ground zero common sense. Any
deviation from that is controversial. And this is part of
kind of the framing of American politics that they've been
involved and for decades now, and Kirk was no more

(27:03):
controversial than you know, Bernie Sanders, who never gets that label,
or you know whoever on the left. So I don't know,
there's so many facets to it, but I think this
has been like a slow boil in making it seem
like conservative people are just Unamerican or out of touch
or weirdos, or you know, divisive in a way that

(27:23):
is Unamerican, when I don't. I don't think any of
those things are true, even when I disagree with them.

Speaker 2 (27:27):
So back in twenty sixteen, the media strongly believed that
there was zero chance that Hillary Clinton would be defeated.
They mocked the idea. They never spent any time interrogating
the ideas of Donald Trump or even like remotely attempting
to understand his appeal. They claimed that his appeal was

(27:49):
entirely based on his personality because they were so consumed
with hatred for his ideas and he has this outlandish
personality that they found that like any easy way to
attack him, and they failed. They failed to even spend
a minute trying to understand why Donald Trump actually had
a chance at winning. And if you go back and

(28:11):
you look at the polls, contrary to the media coverage
that made it seem like a foregone conclusion and that
only complete idiots would vote for him. He always had
a shot at not always, but he was like he
was building in momentum and he had a shot. Or
even understanding why he won the Republican primary would have
been a start instead of the mocking and the derision

(28:34):
and after he wins. It was a humiliating experience for
the media because they and their wisdom and their control,
they had told everybody that there was no need to
worry and that Donald Trump couldn't possibly win. They had
just parroted their fellow Democrats who are elected leaders, saying that.

(28:58):
And what should have happened when they were shown to
be so wrong was an immediate repentance. No repent means
to turn away from your sin, not just to be
sorry for it, but to turn away from it. They
should have said, Wow, we are evil and we're awful
at our jobs, and so we're going to make major changes.

(29:20):
We are going to first of all quit and go
into a different line of work because we couldn't even
accurately cover the biggest story of the year, and we've
been having trouble prior to twenty sixteen, or you know,
if they didn't want to go to that extreme, they
could say, what if we hired like a single conservative,
would that help us? No, you know, not just a

(29:42):
single They should have hired a majority, and they should
have elevated anybody who had spoken out against them, and
they should have demoted anyone who created this like really
weird environment in twenty sixteen. And instead what they did
was say Donald Trump was a Russian asset who stole
the election, and we cannot normalize Republicans, and we're going

(30:06):
to increase our calls of him as Hitler and a fascist.
And by the way, did you know you're supposed to
kill Hitler and fascists? Right, So they created the entire
environment where people were afraid to put out yard signs,
where they were afraid to wear paraphernalia showing their own hats.
This gave a permission structure to prominent Democrats to get

(30:29):
out there and say, any time you see a Republican
in public, beat him, make him feel unwelcome, go to
their homes, make their lives miserable, which created like bigger
permission structures for actually trying to assault or successfully assaulting
Republicans and their voters. And this has been going on

(30:51):
for years, leading to the worst thing of the assassination
attempt on Donald Trump, and even and I was sort
of like, you know, just like I'm thinking of all
these different things. Joe Biden gave his blood red fascistic
speech saying that half the country is a threat, like

(31:12):
it's amazing that more left wingers have not followed their
leader's call to engage in widespread violence. And then we
get this assassination, and we get the media saying, read,
you probably man bou shades. There's not a problem on
both sides. It's not to say that there isn't political
violence across the spectrum throughout history. Of course there is.

(31:34):
Human nature is sinful, but it's a lie to say, well,
we can point to I mean, like, if you're gonna
be really honest about it, the like the clear cut
example of right wing violence would be the guy who

(31:56):
killed someone in Charlottesville, right, Like, you can't say because
everyone was like, well, nobody seemed to care when Melissa
Homan or what was her name, sorry, in Minnesota.

Speaker 1 (32:08):
I think that's the name. But I'm not about one
hundred percent sure.

Speaker 2 (32:11):
Okay, so she was assassinated along with her husband, and
they're like, what, there wasn't this big thing?

Speaker 1 (32:15):
Okay.

Speaker 2 (32:16):
First off, literally zero people on earth celebrated it. Literally zero.
I mean, to my knowledge, nothing rose to the point
of detection in terms of celebrating the assassination of a
woman and her husband. Secondly, the dude was clearly in

(32:36):
the midst of a psychotic break right. He was a
Waltz appointee. Waltz is the Democrat governor. He also had
some conservative stuff in his past, but he also had
no kings flyers, which was like the protest the Soros
fundid whatever or left wing donor funded protest movement of
the day. And again, nobody celebrated it. There's just no comparison,

(33:01):
and it's a lie, and people need to stop lying
at a time like this, like the country must unite
against the very serious and long standing problem of left
wing violence.

Speaker 1 (33:15):
Obviously a lot of violent people engage in criminal behavior
against some well known politician, don't you know, are not well,
don't have coherent political philosophies. They are always just immediately
thrown in with the right wing if they say anything
remotely right wing. But this murder is so clearly political.
Someone online I wish I could have remember, made the

(33:37):
you know, offered the example. It's like comparing John Hinckley
Junior or shooting Reagan to the murder of MLK junior.
One is clearly a political act driven by the mood
of a you know, a certain faction in the country,
and the other was just a crazy person, let's be honest.
So that that is for sure. And I'm going to
write about this, but there are several I've never written

(34:00):
about it in the past, but there are several studies
that people will throw at you to prove that left
right wingers are far more prone to violence than left
wingers virtually. I mean, I haven't seen every one of these,
these alleged studies, but the ADL and others that I
have looked at are complete garbage. Okay, It's like they

(34:21):
count virtually. I'll give you an example. God, I can't
remember the name of the which study this was, but
one of the studies they take the Las Vegas mass
shooter killed fifty some odd people, and they put him
in as an anti government nut and they make him
right wing right. They make the killer at the Pulse
nightclub in Florida, A right, you know, it's like a

(34:43):
social conservative killer or whatever it is. They take gang
violence between two gangs of white supremacist over drugs and
claim that it's political violence. So those if you throw
those at me, I'm just telling you, I don't buy
them at all. When you look at yesterday in the news,
I had three stories come into my feed almost at

(35:05):
the same time. When was about the would be assassin
of Donald Trump. One obviously he's a Charlie Kirk killer,
and then there was a story about a judge downgrading
the charges against the killer of a healthcare ceo insurance ceo.
The same day those three high profile assassination attempts and attempts.

Speaker 2 (35:24):
The Luigi Mangioni assassination of a citizen who he chose
as a symbolic target of capitalism or something or corporations,
who has a massive following on the left, including prominent
members of the media, like, I'm just sick of the lies.

(35:50):
I don't know what to do. It actually makes me
feel extremely frustrated to the point that's unhealthy. And I
saw a very prominent member of Congress last night give
a speech he was so nice, and he's like Charlie,
cared about free speech and free speech is good. And

(36:13):
he's in a position of immense authority, and it actually
terrified me to see that he was in He had
no desire to save the country none, or it was
like he was living in nineteen fifty six or something.
He just had no clue what was going on and
what would be needed to deal with it, like total

(36:37):
bearing head in the sand kind of speech. It made
me scared. Actually, I just want these Republicans to understand
when they go out there and they say, well, oh,
I actually heard Steve Deese say this. Another thing recently,
he referred to James Langford, the Senator of Oklahoma, as

(37:00):
genuflecting before CNN instead of going to church on Sunday,
a reference to how James Langford went on corrupt, disgusting,
lying propaganda network CNN and agreed with them that that
both sides have a political violence problem and both sides this,
and we've got big problems on the right too. And

(37:25):
I'm sure it felt good for him to not get
yelled at by the CNN activists and left wing propagandists
and liars. I'm sure that felt good, but back in Oklahoma,
he let down his entire state, he let down the
entire country, And it's terrifying. If you don't do what
you need to do to take down left wing violence,

(37:46):
you're going to have a very bad situation. And I
don't want to say, you know, like I hope they understand.
You don't want a hot war, and there is risks
of that if you do not do what needs to
be done to address left wing violence. Like we're all

(38:06):
unified in general on right wing violence being bad, we're
not unified on left wing violence being bad.

Speaker 1 (38:12):
We need to be, yes, we do need to be
We need to stop excusing it, we need to stop well,
the left needs to stop doing that. But the problem
is that I saw a poll again it's a poll,
but whatever that was taken and only about the ideological

(38:36):
you know, ideas of the shooter, and only eight percent
of Democrats knew that he was, you know, he had
left wing ideas. So they live in a bubble. And
maybe we all live in a little bit of a bubble,
but that's a hermetically sealed bubble over there, because there
is there is it. This was clearly from all the evidence,

(38:58):
this was a political.

Speaker 2 (39:00):
What's the piece of evidence that the assassin targeted Charlie Kirk.
I mean, like, it's not even it's not like a
huge mystery. It's not surprising that the family and friends
are all like, yeah, he was going down a spiral
of left wing activism. That's not surprising because he killed

(39:22):
Charlie Kirk. But what you saw. I actually went over
to Blue Sky, which is this like terror cell social
media place for the left, and on blue Sky, prominent
people were saying that the guy who did it was
a groper, which I actually don't I should know more
about what precisely makes a groper, but I think it's
like a racist follower, or it's a nick point to

(39:45):
this follower or something like that, and that's not true obviously.
And they had these like elaborate conspiracy theories they were
constructing in real time to say that it was someone
you know, supposedly on the like real far right who
murdered Charlie c for not being far right enough. It
was insane.

Speaker 1 (40:03):
I mean, listen, I'm not saying that that's implausible that
at something like that can happen, but it didn't happen.
And also there was never any evidence that that was true,
never any evidence. But right away I have to say that, Well,
I want to say one thing about the media. I
forgot to say, so everyone, I think there were some

(40:24):
voices out there that were, at least to me listen.
I just think we need to leave a window, some
kind of window that allows people on the left to
decide with the angels, do you know what I mean?
Like I think Ezra Kline column, you know, it was okay.
His idea that Charlie Kirk was a person who practiced

(40:46):
politics as it should be is something that should that
the left should embrace. But who did he worked for
the New York Times, Who did they lift up? Who
did they give an opinion piece, the key opinion piece
to talk about this? That's on Piper supporter, Yeah, a
terror supporter said we deserve nine to eleven. I can't
even read you the quote here. There's a quote here

(41:06):
where he essentially says, let the streets soak with you know,
affing red blood of the capitalists and stuff like that
more than once. And yet he has, you know, he's
on he's in GQ, you know, and Beefcake poses no
one on the left. I bet I didn't even look.
You know, is he even divisive? Is he controversial? I
don't know. Maybe not. You know, he's just he's just

(41:27):
a well meaning socialist, right And let's be honest once
you are justifying and fine with and I'm not trying
to make this about my own hobby horse political stuff,
but whatever, if you're okay and you're marching and you're
okay with the murder and rape of a thousand, two
hundred people you don't like, you're probably going to be
okay with the murder of one person you don't like here.

(41:49):
And these are the same people, I bet you so
many of them are the same exact people. Oh we
know they are, Yeah, yeah, they are.

Speaker 2 (41:56):
I mean, I actually want to say on that too,
because you saw that what happened in the way of
Charlie's assassination was some immediate outpouring of celebration from people
on the left, and they were putting it under their
own names publicly for everybody to see, like on social media.

(42:16):
And so you started seeing a bunch of people contacting
their employers for the celebration of the assassination of a
citizen who had political views different than their own, and
the media are the authors of trying to get people
fired for political views, right, so they think the standard

(42:38):
for which you should be fired. So like to give
let's give one example. A backbench staffer on Capitol Hill
thought that Obama's daughters were dressed a little inappropriately at
the Easter egg role or something, you know, like that
or the Turkey pardoning or something. And I think that

(43:00):
her parents' home had like seven TV camera vans parked
out front. There were thousands of articles written about her
for daring to criticize the skirt length of the daughters
of Obama. Okay, I mean they tried to destroy her life.

(43:24):
Or you might remember how they tried to destroy the
life of Nick Sandman because he was being assaulted and
attacked by crazy left wingers and he didn't respond, but
they thought that he had a punchable face, and so
they wanted to destroy him and his Catholic high school.
You know, that's their standard. It's like you do literally
nothing wrong, or you maybe say something that you wish

(43:47):
you hadn't said, and your parents should have their lives
gone through where.

Speaker 1 (43:50):
You flash an O or you flash an okay sign
during a Supreme Court hearing, and they try to you know, yeah,
he caught some kind of Yeah.

Speaker 2 (43:59):
A Mexican Jew I wish DOJ staffer gave an okay
sign for saying like she wouldn't she wanted water or
something or everything was going okay, and the Washington Post
tried to destroy her life. They did that actually routinely.
Do you remember like the random truck driver who was

(44:19):
photographed with like his hands possibly in an okay sign. Again,
an okay sign.

Speaker 1 (44:25):
They did cadets at the Army Navy game or whatever
as well. I mean they were doing this to they
were constantly doing.

Speaker 2 (44:31):
This, and so so the words I want to say
I can't say right now to people who say, oh,
you shouldn't cool people or try to get them fired
just for the mere fact that they were saying that
they love political terrorism and might be coming for you next.

Speaker 1 (44:50):
I mean, the.

Speaker 2 (44:51):
Comparison doesn't even fit. But I just want to say,
you know, a lot of people are pointing out, you
don't want to have a public school teacher or a
doctor or a nurse or a member of the military
saying that they think people who are conservative should be killed.
And I get the argument that it's particularly bad when

(45:11):
you're in a position of public trust that you wouldn't
feel safe putting your kid in that second grade classroom
knowing that she wants you dead. I get that, but
it's also true that even if there were no follow
on bad effects, it's just it's just unacceptable in a
civil society to publicly support the assassination of a citizen. Yeah,

(45:34):
it's just unacceptable. First of all, gone, no, I mean
it's like nobody would doubt that if they were like, well, okay,
replace conservatives with say, like black people, Nobody would be like,
I don't think that person should face any repercussions for
saying that they think black people should be killed. Like
why would you Why would that person lose their job
as ceo? Well, of course you're going to lose your job,

(45:56):
you know. It's like stupid.

Speaker 1 (45:58):
Brendan I job giving money, not even in the open
to a cause like traditional marriage in California. You lost
his job as CEO of a major company.

Speaker 2 (46:08):
Like yeah, and again like they were like when people talk,
I hate even pretending like we need to say this
because we all know that they're just lying. But cancel
culture is when you get have your life destroyed because
you said something funny that disagrees with the left, or
you had a inappropriate tweet when you were twelve and

(46:29):
now you're twenty eight, you know, or whatever like that's
cancel culture. Cancel culture is not I think you should
be shot dead in public because you, as a citizen,
don't share my politics. That's not cancel culture. And you
know it, and I know it, and everybody knows it.
And so the way that the media went immediately into
protecting people who were who were celebrating assassinating citizens is

(46:56):
just like on the pile of disgust, another disgusting thing.

Speaker 1 (46:59):
Well, I have never and I went back to make
sure been a big critic of cancel culture just as
a blanket idea, because we also we have freedom of speech,
that's important, but we have freedom of association as well.
I don't believe that a private company should have to

(47:19):
keep someone on their payroll who, for instance, is celebrating
political assassinations, which is distinctly different from you know, even
a slur or a bad joke or you know, saying
something in the heat of the moments. I think those
are instances where you can apologize. I don't think a
private individual, a company has any reason to keep people

(47:43):
employed who wish death upon other people's Never I've never have.
I don't think. Yeah. Now, I'm just saying I just
don't believe that we I think people misunderstand free expression.
That doesn't there are consequences to things you say. We
have freedom to disassociate aid ourselves from you. We have
a freedom to shame you for your beliefs. I don't

(48:06):
even know what I'm yelling about right now, but it's
just the hypocrisy is not a great argument. Just pointing
it out, but it is mind boggling levels of hypocrasy
right now, because honestly, they don't believe in these rights.
They only believe in these rights for themselves. It's the
same thing we were talking about last week when they
talked about they No, they don't believe in censorship. They

(48:27):
only believe in censorship of the things that you say.
It's always selective, and it's because these people don't believe
in free speech. I don't believe progressives believe in free
expression in general. I'm not saying every single one of them,
but in general, especially among young activists, they do not
believe in a neutral idea that everyone should be able
to speak because they believe words are violence. And if
you believe words are violence, you think reacting to those

(48:49):
words with violence is completely justifiable. And that's I think
what happened here.

Speaker 2 (48:56):
I don't even know, Okay I did. Did you see
the email that someone sent about the Kirk assassination to us?

Speaker 1 (49:07):
Yes, I saw that email, and I actually wanted to
ask you because you were angry that people were throwing
around tropes. And before I read this email, I just
want to say, I don't think it's completely crazy to
worry a little bit about the future of free speech
because of what the reaction might be to people who
don't care about free speech, because you can't have two

(49:28):
sets of rules in a country. And I do worry
about that. You know, things BONDI said, for instance, you
walk them back. But I do worry about that, all right,
So am I allowed to give his name. I'll give
his first name.

Speaker 2 (49:42):
I think first name is fine.

Speaker 1 (49:43):
His name is Aaron. It's been several days since the
terrile assassination of Charlie Kirk. As I know there's no
chance of discussing much of anything political aside from this,
I think it's a good time to offer actionable suggestions.
Specifically for a lied journal and reporters, everyone needs to
stop replying or reacting to them as new media. There

(50:07):
should be no more dialogue with any individuals or institution
that made any kind of excuse, deflection, or lie as
to Charlie Kirk's assassination. If you absolutely must reference them
at all, it should always be with extremely negative qualifications.
Think of how Molly always brings up that Philip Bump

(50:28):
doesn't know how babies are made. Do this for literally
every single leftist media personality and so called journalist. In fact,
this all should be extended to all the lies about
Trump and Conservatives over the past ten years. I'm in,
but go on, yeah, I'm not going to do that,
only because it's not I don't think you're wrong to

(50:49):
bring up the Philip Bump doesn't know how babies are made.
I don't think that people take the media that seriously anymore.
If you look at trust levels, they're already Dad below
just said.

Speaker 2 (50:59):
That eight and the left. Only eight percent of the
left knows the ideology of the shooter. You don't think
people take him serious, take them seriously.

Speaker 1 (51:07):
I think that the group of people who are politically
on the very you know progressive listen to them and
are in a bubble there, Okay, don't what about you?

Speaker 2 (51:16):
What about him?

Speaker 1 (51:17):
How was him?

Speaker 2 (51:18):
Was CNN able to get him to bow down before them?
How did that happen?

Speaker 1 (51:24):
I don't know how that happened.

Speaker 2 (51:25):
I mean, I don't know.

Speaker 1 (51:26):
I didn't see an interview you're talking about, so I
can't really.

Speaker 2 (51:29):
But it's also because you have entire architectures set up
to treat like literally.

Speaker 1 (51:34):
I mean, did he say that both that both sides
are a problem? Did he diminish? What happened? I mean,
I don't even know what he said. And you're you're
making me defend the guy. I don't. I'm not defending him.
I'm telling you I.

Speaker 2 (51:44):
Assuming you don't agree with him.

Speaker 1 (51:46):
I I don't know what he is.

Speaker 2 (51:48):
Why does CNN have power? Think about what they've done.
Think about what they've done, Think about how they originated
by working with James Comey and other corrupt deep state people,
the Russia collusion hoax, which was you know, you can

(52:08):
again draw straight line between that and where we are
right now. The CNN also ran campaigns of terror against
private citizens for not accepting left wing ideology on trans
or gay stuff. They they obviously were big, big into
the Nick Sandman hoax and a thousand other hoaxes. They

(52:29):
lied about George Floyd, they lied about Leah Thomas, William Thomas.
They lie about every issue, literally every issue. They lie
about literally everything, and say hold on. When they call
James Langford and they say do you want to come
on and repeat Democrat talking points? He says, oh, I

(52:50):
would love to do that. Please have me come on
so I can help out the Democrat Party. Why is that?
What is the weird thing happening that allows you know,
knowing that CNN could be taken off the board if
Republicans simply did not take them seriously or you know, like,
here's what I think. I actually think Republicans shouldn't go

(53:11):
on there, But if they do, they have to be
armed to remind them of all the lies they've spread constantly, right, Like.

Speaker 1 (53:20):
How hard is this? I have argued with you about
this in the past. I think they should go on there,
and I think they should make their arguments. I don't
think they should be repeating leftist talking points, not defending
what he said. I don't even know what he said.
But my problem with this is you can't ignore the opposition.

(53:43):
It won't make them go away, it won't make them
any less effective. Even though I think CNS of maybe
two hundred thousand people, I don't even know what these
shows get there. They're like a niche publication for the
left right right now, and we shouldn't. In the past,
they were far more powerful. Their role in the Russia
collusion hoax was large. I think they've lost a lot

(54:06):
of credibility since then, and pointing out how bad they are,
I think is much more effective than pretending they don't exist.
Do you disagree with that?

Speaker 2 (54:17):
I think Republicans should stop appearing on propaganda press shows
unless they are in the top five most effective people
at taking on the lies of the media.

Speaker 1 (54:28):
I mean, Scott Jennings is on there right and he
does a good job.

Speaker 2 (54:31):
He does a great job, and he's like, there's one
Scott Jennings in the world. So if you're not at
that level, or you're not working to get there, you
shouldn't be doing it.

Speaker 1 (54:40):
Kiss any I am not at that. I am not
at that level surely as a TV person at all,
because I'm probably not good on TV at all. But
I would love to go on Canna anytime they want
to invite me to talk about things that I have
some expertise in. I would be glad to go on
there and try to debunk what people are saying. I
think it's a worthwhile thing to do to engage people.

Speaker 2 (54:59):
Yeah, I want to keep going with this note because
I thought it was so good. I'm going to read
the next part. Democrat politicians should not be allowed to
discuss anything with any right wing journalist or news outlet
without first being forced to denounce leftist violence. In specificity,
the demand should never stop. If they are forced to

(55:19):
repudiate Charlie Kirk's brutal murder, the demand should move on
to them being forced to denounce those who celebrate it.
If that is done, the recent results of soft on
crime policies, then the mutilation of children, then attempted assassinations
of President Trump, the BLM riots, and the Summer of Love,
the attempted Kavanaugh assassination, go back to the congressional baseball

(55:40):
shooting if you have to. There is no shortage of violence.
They've swept under the rug, and there has never been
a time where January sixth is not constantly brought back up,
and every time a new example comes forth, they should
be made to answer for that too. If they do
not end communication right there and accuse them of supporting
violence and murder, Republican politicians should likewise be held to account.

(56:03):
It is absolutely insane to see so many Republicans show
that they care more about what CNN says than their
own voters. Anybody who does this should receive no positive coverage,
and their primary opponents should be contacted immediately. If they
never less, nevertheless win their primary, it doesn't matter, no endorsements,

(56:23):
no positive coverage.

Speaker 1 (56:28):
That's for activists. That's for activists to do. And I'm
you know, if I had a podcast right like this
and we brought on some Democrat, I would challenge them
on all the notes that he brings up here. I
think they're all fair, but asking them to denounce, denounce
this or that before we'll talk about it's just not

(56:51):
how the real world works. This is just this is
for I'm not saying that political activists shouldn't do this,
but I don't think people who are in the business
of arguing about idea and that policy should act that way.
That's just me. I think it's kind of cowardly, honestly,
and that you know, to try to go into a
bubble yourself and that challenge the other side.

Speaker 2 (57:12):
Don't you think I have no idea where you got
that from? This?

Speaker 1 (57:15):
So well, so you can only talk, he says in
the beginning, you can only a right wing journalist can
only talk to a left wing politician, correct if they
were do this ABCD and whatever? Right?

Speaker 2 (57:27):
I think, I think this reader or listener Aaron understands
that we're in an information war, that the left uses
these tactics, and that the right has used zero tactics
in response, other than to bow down and pleasure the
media in response. So I mean, you either acknowledge that

(57:48):
we're in an information war where the propaganda press is
destroying the country, or you say we should go back
to nineteen eighty in our approach and act like we
don't know what they've done.

Speaker 1 (57:58):
No, those are not the two choices. Nineteen eighty seems
to be the big year for everyone on the right
right now. I would tell you that at that time
there was the media had a maybe a bigger monopoly.
I don't think they were as corrupt and that people
let's say like Reagan were much were challenged the media
narratives is what and media themselves that made them kind

(58:19):
of successful. Donald Trump goes and talks to the New
York Times. Donald Trump goes on CNN. Donald Trump is
obviously the president. He does a good job of not
giving in. I have no I don't even know. I'm
not you know, do you want to be a propagandist
or do you want to make arguments or not? You know,

(58:40):
I'm sick of people like, oh, you're such a week
and it's not in nineteen eighty because I don't think,
because I want to have debates with people who disagree
with me.

Speaker 2 (58:50):
What are I to do to stop the killing and
the support of the killing?

Speaker 1 (58:54):
How do we stop it? I want to know, I
want to be helpful.

Speaker 2 (58:57):
Okay, So I would just want to say, like, in
the big I have some thoughts here, but I just
want to say, in the big picture, have you ever
had that where you're having I think this might be
more of a female thing that we deal with, but
like you're having a fight with someone and they tell
you to calm down or that it's not a big deal.

Speaker 1 (59:15):
Yes, I've been, I've been. I've been in trouble for
doing that quite a bit.

Speaker 2 (59:19):
Well, it can be a really alarming thing when you
realize that the person you're talking to does not actually
recognize the significance of the problem. This is what I
was saying about seeing the high level person in Congress
being like kumbaya free speech. You know, a person who's
an actual position of authority to investigate left wing terror

(59:41):
networks saying I think the big lesson is free speech.
When we're in an environment we're getting killed for your
free speech is a live possibility, right, not a probability
at this point, but a live possibility, and to have
someone not taking it seriously is bad. Basically, I feel
like we're in the idea phase right now of what

(01:00:03):
can we do to save the country? You know, you
were like, are you a pundit or a propagandist or something.
I mean to me, it's like so much bigger than that.
Are we going to have a country? Are we going
to have a country?

Speaker 1 (01:00:16):
Like? No, we will not do to.

Speaker 2 (01:00:18):
Have a country here when we've had a breakdown of
the social compact about how we exist with each other.
And so for me, like when I think of college campuses,
I think what they should do is it's kind of
different for private versus public. The public universities, particularly in

(01:00:40):
Red States, must immediately be rescued from Marxist ideology with
every power that the state has, like, do not employ
with taxpayer funds people who seek the destruction of your
children and the country, and do whatever it takes to
gain control and turn them into actual institutions of higher

(01:01:04):
education and not like factories for destruction of Western civilization.
And then private universities obviously have different rights and roles here,
but they have been probably even more a problem in
terms of destroying the country, and they have a lot
of protections and a lot of privileges, and those should
be looked at to see how they can do something

(01:01:27):
to turn these horrible places into real places of higher education.
So one of my ideas would be that they immediately
guarantee the protection of speech on their campus and speakers,
including visiting speakers. And I'm sure you visit college campuses,
but I certainly do, and I'm headed to one next week,

(01:01:48):
so this is a live issue for me. And if
they and they should do it with like three percent
of their endowment or something, you know, some like real
allocation of funds, and if they fail to protect speech,
they lose all federal backing for their you know, financial aid,
all of it, like give them an incentive. So some
people are like, I have an idea, what if we

(01:02:08):
got conservative donors to put up funds to protect people
who go on college campuses? And like, wait, the solution
is to have our people take money that could be
used for real activism and use it to just like
maybe not get assassinated on campus. No, the schools need
to protect speech, and they need to do it immediately.

Speaker 3 (01:02:30):
You know.

Speaker 1 (01:02:32):
Well, I don't disagree with any of that. In fact,
I'm probably more radical on the question. I don't think
that schools, especially any kind of private institutions, should get
any kind of money anymore from the government. Public schools
in states are also a problem. I mean, I just
don't think there's a future in this country if the
school systems remain the same. I don't know if you

(01:02:55):
remember years ago Colorado University, see you had a chain
of like conservative studies. I don't even know if they
still have it. Maybe they do. I forgot who I
think maybe.

Speaker 2 (01:03:04):
I forget now downgraded it so you like you only
get in if you're like Bill Crystal Republican.

Speaker 1 (01:03:10):
So I understand the inclination behind it, but it was
a terrible idea because essentially you're making it something that's
weird and that you you know that is not ingrained,
because conservative ideas are ingrained in the American from the
American founding in many ways onwards. Like it's it's part
of what we should be learning anyway, just as like

(01:03:32):
everyone who graduates school should have some knowledge of Christianity
and Judaism frankly, but Christianity is obviously especially not because
you know, we're trying to proselyze people. Not that that
would be terrible, you know, or anything, but I don't
think the state should do that, but that you should
understand your culture and where you come from and why

(01:03:52):
these rights matter. None of that is part of what
we're doing. I get that. I guess this is my concern.
You saw Pam BONDI say, you know they were going
to prosecute hate speech and this, and that. I think
that there is an inclination among some people, especially on
this sort of post liberal right, that might is right

(01:04:14):
and there are going to use power on ways. I
think that our problem now that's not my biggest concern
right now. My biggest concern right now is left wing
violence and progressivism, which I think is destroying this country.
But I don't want to do away with things I
actually do care about. So you can make fun of
people who mentioned free speech. I don't think it's wrong
to mention the importance of free speech as long as

(01:04:34):
you're doing the other things that you talk about and
calling them out on their whitewashing of left wing violence.
I don't know if that makes sense.

Speaker 2 (01:04:41):
No, And I hope, like, obviously I care about free speech,
it's not that obvious with some people you have free
speech if you don't have like free speech isn't just
something that you get to say you have. You actually
have to have the society that protects it, understands it,
and it's like practiced.

Speaker 1 (01:05:00):
And I'm worried that they're going I'm sorry to interrupt,
but I'm worried that now conservative speakers are going to
have a harder time going to colleges because colleges will say,
we can't afford to protect you. You know, we're going
we can't get more this or that.

Speaker 2 (01:05:12):
So I'm worried that when they say that that Speaker
of the House, Mike Johnson, is like, well, at least
you tried. Thanks for trying, you know, instead of thinking
how can we make sure using the tools that we have,
that there's broad federal involvement in all universities and colleges

(01:05:33):
with the exception of Hillsdale College and maybe like literally
four or five others, there's broad involvement already. Like they
already showed that if you don't protect Jewish speech, they're
willing to use those powers to come after you. So
maybe they should also care about conservative speech when it

(01:05:55):
was all.

Speaker 1 (01:05:55):
Kabuki theater though, because in the end they got their money.
In the end, you know, Judge will step in and say, no,
you can't do that. I don't even understand why.

Speaker 2 (01:06:04):
I'm not think for is Congress to care, you know,
at least as much.

Speaker 1 (01:06:10):
It's like after a mass shooting in a school or something,
people are looking for ways to stop it, and there's
a do something is an element to it. Sometimes I
see out there, not with what you're saying right now,
that's like we just need to do like a Rico
investigation into everyone. Well, it's not that simple. These killers

(01:06:30):
are part of a movement, but they're not explicitly part
of some kind of network. So now the things that
you're going to want to do can be used against
anyone essentially in politics if there's violence, Oh.

Speaker 2 (01:06:43):
They could be Do you mean like how Chuck Grassley
yesterday released documents showing that in response to January sixth,
a riot that resulted in only the killing of one
of the rioters and nobody else, they launched an investigation
into hundreds of groups, including conservative think tanks and TPUSA

(01:07:04):
Charlie Kirk's groups.

Speaker 1 (01:07:05):
But you think that's wrong, right, You think that that's
an abusive power.

Speaker 2 (01:07:08):
What I'm saying is like I'm thinking of people being like, oh,
if you use your power to help things, then maybe
the left will use their power to come after your people.
And it's like you don't have welcome to nineteen sixty
eight people, Like it's been happening forever. That's why the
left is so dominant over the right, because the right
has had all of its institutions, whether it's the Irs

(01:07:30):
targeting tea party groups or Christopher Ray going to war
against the entire conservative movement and having a bunch of
Republicans being like, I think he's a pretty good guy.

Speaker 1 (01:07:41):
You know.

Speaker 2 (01:07:41):
Like the issue here is we've already established this is
not like a both sides issue. We have Antifa that
did things like terrorized the mark O Hatfield Federal Courthouse
for months in twenty twenty and had no investigation into it.
And now we've got Antie going after ice people and

(01:08:02):
there is an investigation now finally, but we have like
decades to make up for. I'm not opposed to investigating
terror groups, and there are terror groups on the left.
Am I opposed to investigating Roman Catholics or pro lifers
for praying? Yes, because they're not terror groups? But do
I want terror groups investigated? Yes, there's no hypocrisy there,

(01:08:22):
you know.

Speaker 1 (01:08:23):
I want terror groups investigated as well. In fact, I
think we should be coming down hard on any I
mean allowing, for instance, during the COVID years, to allow
these like rogue cities to pop up in places like
Seattle and Portland and just function on their own and
have all kinds of terrible things happen. I'm just saying

(01:08:46):
that I also think it's important, and it's not one
is not in conflict with the other to also stress
the value of free expression you're saying, oh, yeah, we
know that. I don't know that people know that as
well as you think. That's all I'm saying. With beyond that,
I don't even know what to say. I mean, it
was just it was it really hit me in a

(01:09:08):
personal way that that other deaths having And you know,
I'm not saying those deaths aren't important, but how far
he was, how there were kids there, how was families there.
Just the whole whole thing was just so horrifying. I
don't know if if I made sense at all this episode, but.

Speaker 2 (01:09:26):
I feel like each day I wake up and I'm like,
I think I was still in shock yesterday and I'm
just what And I've been even today. I'm like, I'm
definitely still in shock, Like I keep on having it
hit me, like it just does not seem right that
Charlie's dead and it's such a horrifying thing. I mentioned.

(01:09:47):
I went to the vigil. I will be going to
the funeral also in the memorial service, I guess it
is in Phoenix on Sunday, and I'm hoping for a
good word there.

Speaker 1 (01:10:01):
It feels weird. But you want to talk about culture.

Speaker 2 (01:10:03):
I mean, I don't know not really all.

Speaker 1 (01:10:06):
Right, we could skip it this week. Yeah, I don't
have anything get to say anyway. All right, Well, it's
been a few downers. I have to say. It's it's
a it's a rough time in America right now. But
we will come out at the other end, and I
think things are going to be okay at least, I say.
That's what that's what I need to say. Yeah, okay.

Speaker 2 (01:10:27):
Well, also, just we do appreciate the emails. I love
how many people email us. It's wonderful. And so if
you have more, I'm sure there's a lot more on this,
but radio at the Federalist dot Com.

Speaker 1 (01:10:39):
I feel like the mail's not going to be good
for me this week. We'll see. That's okay. That's what
I like.

Speaker 2 (01:10:46):
I feel like everyone's pretty great, even when they're not
everything you or I say.

Speaker 1 (01:10:51):
I'm just you, I'm just I'm just generally cranky.

Speaker 2 (01:10:54):
But I also like how people say, David, I love
this thing, and that Molly, I like you too.

Speaker 1 (01:11:00):
That's just not how those emails go. There's now I
actually do appreciate the feedback. And this is so weird
and I'm going to be making everything about Charlie Kirk
but you know, watching him interact with people he disagreed
with in that way. Again, I think it just exemplifies
the best of what our political debate's supposed to be

(01:11:20):
like and about. I think I'm going to be Oh,
I quickly say one quick thing. So I went out
there this week because of Charlie Kirk, and I've been
very angry on Twitter before that happened, and always sarcastic
and always mean. I try to be have good faith
debates with people, so with known people, you know, and
not listen. I don't have a million followers, but I'm

(01:11:41):
not nobody on there. And I think six times or
something like that, people were saying things about Charlie Kirk.
I approached them in good faith and ask them a
real question so we could talk about it. Not one
of those people answered me. You know. So I'm constantly
talking about how the left wants to debate, but maybe
they don't want a debate or talk about these things
at all reality and I think that that's something that's

(01:12:02):
troublesome as well.

Speaker 2 (01:12:04):
So I have something to add to that, which is
that I would say, like the best, the vast majority
of my friends throughout my life have been people on
the left just because of where my interests lie in
music and otherwise. And I never say anything on social
media other than Twitter, which is a place where I
say a lot, obviously, but I don't think my friends
follow me there. You know. The friend places are elsewhere.

(01:12:27):
And some of people, you know, including old old friends,
had said things that I didn't like, and so I engaged.
And it was interesting that some of the responses were
some of them didn't respond, some of the responses were inadequate,
but some of the responses were great, including like a

(01:12:47):
real conversation starting. And my pastor at art we did
a service on Friday at my church for to commemorate
Charlie as a martyr, you know, separate from the assassination
for politics for Christian he was martyred for the faith
because that was the that was the main thing he
was doing, was was sharing the faith. And so we
did a commemoration for him as a martyr. And in

(01:13:09):
my pastor's sermon he mentioned that he had gotten some
pushback from some people over doing this, and he said,
you know, normally he might have just moved it to
archive or something, and instead he was thinking about how
Charlie would take on all comers and cheerfully engage them.
And Pastor mentioned the verse from scripture from Isaiah. You know,

(01:13:31):
come let us reason together, and there is you know,
there's this very long tradition in Western civilization in favor
of rational debate and conversation, and it is one of
the great things that we have, and we should make
sure we keep it going.

Speaker 1 (01:13:50):
Well. So the quick mention before we go, you know,
I watched his his impressive wife's speech, which seems like
a a very good person herself, and think of her,
think of his children. We'll be back next week. Until

(01:14:11):
them be lovers of freedom and anxious full of friend