September 10, 2025 • 43 mins
The nation is reeling after the tragic death of Charlie Kirk, conservative political activist and co-founder of Turning Point USA, who was killed after being shot at an event at Utah Valley University. His passing has sent shockwaves far beyond political lines, drawing an outpouring of grief and condemnation from leaders across the aisle. President Donald Trump called him “loved and admired by ALL, especially me,” and ordered flags to fly at half-staff in his honor.
In this heartfelt episode, hosts Billy Dees and Cynthia Elliott discuss the profound impact of this loss. Together, they reflect on Charlie Kirk’s legacy, the intensity of today’s political climate, and what moments like this mean for the future of public discourse in America.
In this heartfelt episode, hosts Billy Dees and Cynthia Elliott discuss the profound impact of this loss. Together, they reflect on Charlie Kirk’s legacy, the intensity of today’s political climate, and what moments like this mean for the future of public discourse in America.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
You are listening to the Billy D's Podcast.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
All right, well, hello everyone, and welcome to the program.
As always, I'm absolutely thrilled that you are here. My
name is Billy D's. If you've never checked us out before,
we are primarily an interview and a commentary based podcast.
We often go live with commentary. We're going to do
that right now with me is Cynthia Elliott. Cynthia, thank
you for being here.
Speaker 1 (00:32):
Hello, Billy.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
Unfortunate circumstances I'm coming on today. This is in regard
to what happened to Charlie Kirk. And unless you've been
totally under a rock or something, he was assassinated today.
He was assassinated at Utah Valley University and he was
(00:57):
shot from some distance. It's the exact circumstances of where
the shot came from are is not known at this time.
I just watched a press conference before we came on,
and as it stands right now, and this is a
very fluid situation, they do have a person of interest.
(01:19):
Some of you may have seen an older gentleman in
cuffs online earlier. That person has been ruled out, although
they have been detained for obstruction of justice. In the
wide the spectrum of things. It's not confirmed that they
have the shooter, but they do have a person of interest.
(01:41):
Charlie was giving a presentation at Utah Valley University. The
we're not going to play the tape, but he was
sitting in a chair under a little you know, sun tent,
you know, just to provide some shade, and was hit
very violently. His his body jerked upward, a huge gush
of blood out the side. It certainly did not appear
(02:04):
to something that could be survivable, but you never know.
There was glimmers of a hope in the following hour
because there were reports that he had a pulse on
the way to the hospital and things like that, and
that's often the case. They do everything they can to
give a person that's been inflicted with that kind of
a wound every chance for survival. There was optimistic reports,
(02:28):
for example when JFK was hit, and here again they
do that in the first minutes, only to give the
body any possible chance to recover as much help as
they can. But typically when there's a two catastrophic of
an injury, that's just something that can't be done. The
(02:49):
reason that we're going live today is not to hop
on a news cycle. That is not my intention, but
I do feel that at a time like this, you
want to hear like minded comments. It's very comforting to
hear people discussing going through the same thing that you
(03:10):
are going through, and it's good for I would believe
I'll speak for shaman, and it's good to talk some
of these things out. And so I thought it was
a good idea to come on, come on just for
a little bit and talk about this. I'm not going
to get into too much more detail about what's happening,
(03:30):
because if you're watching the replay or anything like that,
this is very fluid. Things I just mentioned could change,
but I think the wider impact of this is kind
of what we want to cover. Cynthia. Your first reactions
when you got the news.
Speaker 1 (03:48):
Well, like a lot of other people, I got the
optimistic part of it, and they didn't mention that he
was shot in the next so I didn't think that
much of it. And then I heard it was his
next and I knew immediately that the chances of him
surviving a neck a serious neck wound, are pretty pretty uncommon.
(04:09):
And of course I've seen the video since and it's shocking.
It's not something I would play either. But I'm honestly
not surprised. There's a lot of fear right now in
this country because there's a dramatic amount of change that
we're all undergoing at the same time, no matter who's
it's not even about politics. The world is dramatically changing.
(04:30):
Artificial intelligence is changing everything. It's got a lot of
people on pins and needles. We've got a lot of
serious social issues that are hot topics and getting really
beaten around in dramatic ways in the news media. And
then you've got you know, Charlie who incredible, incredible guy.
Who did you know? You've got to give him a
lot of credit for standing up for whatever he believed
in and that's his right, and he did it beautifully
(04:50):
and very like powerfully, And I'm not honestly surprised at
this point, given the temperature and the fear around, that
somebody would actually take him out. And that's that's where
we're at. To me, the most important thing for this
country and his family is healing has to place.
Speaker 2 (05:06):
One of the things I would say is at this
time here again, it's too early to tell. This seemed
like a very planned assassination by somebody who is to
some degree capable. A lot of times people that do
these things, quite frankly, are lunatics, and they don't do
they don't do well. They make too many mistakes and
things like that. But this seemed like it was very
(05:28):
well planned and executed professional.
Speaker 1 (05:31):
It felt professional, and.
Speaker 2 (05:34):
We don't know that here. Again, it's too early to tell.
But what I can to you, I think the nature
of having him get shot in front of a crowd
on TV being taped and I'm maybe live in some cases,
I'm not sure what was going on out there. I'm
sure it was being streamed by a lot of people.
The second thing that actually shocked me is mostly on
(05:58):
the left, the celebrate online.
Speaker 1 (06:02):
Speechless. I can't even if you'd asked me five years ago,
I would have found that hard to believe that people
would actually do this. But I'm seeing people gleefully dance around.
Speaker 2 (06:12):
It is shocking, yes, and it's something that you know,
I said a long time ago, I mean not a
long time ago, months ago, weeks ago, that the the
sensibilities of the public now are really starting to become uncertain.
And I like, for example, in my wildest day, I
(06:34):
would never have celebrated someone getting killed. I don't care
who they are today. Somebody like that I despise, like
Gavin Newsom. Okay, I if somebody like that, somebody I
detest on that level, I'm not making out about him.
If somebody I detest politically on that level, would have
something like this happened to him, I would never, in
(06:55):
a million years gleefully talk about it. And I'll say this, Shaman,
I know you're from New York. You know New York
very well. If nine to eleven were to happen today,
I honestly believe that there would be people Americans celebrating it.
Speaker 1 (07:14):
That is just how divided we've become. That that's actually
something you and I can both see. But you know,
this violence, like I've heard people saying, oh my goodness,
the violence, this violence that we have now, And it's
like the violence caused by the rhetoric that's been going
on and the fear mongering, which is really ultimately at
the end of the day, these people are using fear
(07:34):
and people's most most base way of being manipulated. They're
using that to create conversation and just distract from whatever's
going on, and since before Trump was even shot. Yes,
you could feel that kind of violence rising. So there's
this This violence has been going on for over a
(07:55):
year now.
Speaker 2 (07:56):
Yes, you know, we've had a couple of attempts on
Governor's We've numerous attempts on the president when he was
a candidate. We could go on. People are getting threatened
all the time.
Speaker 1 (08:06):
Now, the two wasn't it two congress people that were
the congresswoman who was murdered in her home with her husband. Yeah,
that was somebody who was mad at them for.
Speaker 2 (08:16):
Yeah, I yes, absolutely, I think that was Michigan somewhere around.
Speaker 1 (08:21):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, Okay, a.
Speaker 2 (08:24):
Memory might be wrong on that, but suffice it to
say public officials now are constantly being threatened. And here's
the thing. We talk a lot about free speech, and
I think free speech it's misunderstood. Somebody like Charlie Kirk
(08:45):
did what you're supposed to do with free speech. He
spoke and he engaged the opposition. Now this isn't a
matter of do you like Charlie Kirk or not, or
if you're upset about this or not. I am, and
I'm I'm quite frankly taken back by anybody getting taken
before their time. He had a wife, children, all these
(09:08):
other things. So, yes, this is horrible, But there's a
couple of layers to this that I don't know that
are being touched on. And the first one is the
person who took that shot. And this was a political assassination,
because even though he didn't have a political position a
formal like you know, senator or whatever, he was a
(09:31):
political figure and this was an assassination absolutely. And what
this is about in regard to free speech is the
person who took that shot not only killed a human being,
but they told everybody there and anybody who has any
interest in hearing what Charlie Kirk had to say, whether
(09:54):
they were with him or against him, they made a
decision for everyone who wanted to hear him, and that
you don't need to listen to this person. It was
a silencing of someone, okay, And that is the layer
that we sometimes forget. And no matter what side of
the political spectrum you were on. And that's why I
(10:14):
wouldn't want some of the politicians that I don't like,
that I detest, have anything harm come to them. Is
I don't want people who want to listen to them,
have that opportunity taken from them by someone who is
going to go on a murderous mission. And they're not
only trying to kill a person, but they're trying to
(10:36):
kill the idea that there's people who want to hear
that person. They are silencing the voice that people want
to hear. And when you start to recognize that, and
quite frankly, if you just go to one of these
events to cause a disruption, that's not exercising your right
(10:57):
to free speech. I know people go there to heckle
and everything and they say, well I can speak to
That's not what free speech is. You know, when people
have a designated event, people come there to listen to them,
whether they support them or not, they just might want
to hear what they have to say. When somebody comes
and disrupts that, what they're really doing there's not just
shutting that person up there telling everybody there you don't
(11:18):
need to listen to this person, where we're going to
make that decision for you now someone.
Speaker 1 (11:23):
They're ultimately trying to silence the other side. They're ultimately
trying to remove the freedom of speech of the people
that they that disagree with them.
Speaker 2 (11:32):
Yes, and this is where all the death threats and
everything come from. They try to create an environment. It's
a terroristic act, and that they want to create an
environment where people are afraid to speak. And Charlie had
death threats, he had security with him. But like I said,
(11:52):
I think what happened with the local police from what
I can gather from the press conference that I just
took in, is that they had the main perimeter pretty secure.
But in this case, they don't have the resources that
the Secret Service had and something, let's say on a
rooftop that's who knows how many feet or yards away,
(12:14):
you know, a football field or two away on that level,
Nobody considered that there would be an assassin of that
type on the roof. And quite frankly, it would be
hard to protect everybody who's got something to say in
a public situation all the time. It would be almost impossible,
you know, when you consider all the political pundits there
(12:36):
are on both sides of the aisle, all of the
people that are involved in speaking, all the politicians, all
the local politicians, all the city politicians, all the county politicians,
it would be impossible to give everybody the same level
of protection that the President of the United States gets.
So I'm sure they thought under most circumstances that this
(12:56):
was adequate. But here again, coming up to an assassin
of this type, it just wasn't anticipated. Now that's one
of the first one of the first things I wanted
to point out. One of the layers that you have
to consider is this assassin is trying to silence someone,
(13:17):
and not just the person, but he's making the decision
for in this case, probably millions of people that you
don't need to listen to this person. The other layer
to this, if you will, is is this is coming
on as you intimated. We talked about already that what's
happened to other politicians, what's happened to a lot of
(13:38):
just people who want to speak having their lives threatened.
This is coming on the heels of a pretty violent
couple weeks. You had the young lady who is horribly
murdered on the light train, and the videos of that
are just I'll say this, the last week between that
(13:59):
video of that woman getting stabbed and just leaning over
and bleeding out and having to watch what happened with
Charlie Kirk, this is awful. I mean this is some
of the most gruesome things that you can imagine, some
of the most violent, gruesome things that you can possibly imagine,
(14:19):
that are becoming all too common. I've run across a
lot of people online and in life on the phone
before I got on here, saying that they are physically
ill by what's going on. There was the young young
professor I at fifty nine years old, that was hacked
to death. And you had this young another young woman
(14:45):
who was thrown off of a bridge here recently. And
these horrific acts are they're mounting, and I think, what
the other layer this is where I was going to this.
I think that people are reaching a threshold now on
(15:05):
the other side of the spectrum that you haven't had
before for the most part. And I'm not advocating for
conservatives or liberals. I'm just saying in general the extremes
of those two. I think now the idea of what
was once an extreme right wing person is the moderates
(15:28):
now are becoming radicalized by what's happening in the news,
by what's happening in our society. People who were always
willing to make the exception always say, well, this is
an isolated evanist. There's a feeling in the country now
that they've had enough, and this is coming on the
heels of police being villainized. Not that there haven't been
(15:51):
bad police, but this idea that we have to get
rid of the police. That compassion comes in trying to
understand and why a violent criminal does what he does.
There's always a million excuses that come out. I'm all
for I'm an advocate, as you well know, for mental health,
(16:13):
but I think that in some cases what happens now
is that term is used as an excuse to behave
badly and do awful things. And what happened on the
light train with that woman being stabbed, that person was
(16:35):
reportedly released fourteen times times fourteen This.
Speaker 1 (16:41):
Is a woman. This doesn't surprise me because most people
don't actually know that most men who get accused of
rapeer convicted of rate never spend any time in jail.
So the fact that this guy got out fourteen times
is certainly not a surprise to me.
Speaker 2 (16:53):
And there's somebody somewhere, you know, they let him out
for an evaluation. Somebody somewhere decided that this was good,
a good idea. Yeah, And I never understood the tolerance
that we have for violent crime in the United States.
I never understood it, But during the nineteen seventies or
the nineteen eighties, it wasn't quite as bad. Now it's
(17:17):
off the charts. People who commit violent crimes get go fundmes.
They kill somebody and they get go fundmes now, and
they don't just get some some trivial amount of money
that they get tens of thousands of dollars, half a
million in some cases. Are these the people that we
(17:38):
need to be helping? Are these the people that we
need to be catering to? I believe during the nineteen
sixties is when a lot of this bullshit started, and
it kind of got nipped in the bud by what
happened with Charles Manson. Charles chars Manson got held up
(18:01):
as this is what drugs and being a hippie will
do to you. Now, Charles Manson was never really a hippie.
He was somebody who manipulated those people.
Speaker 1 (18:12):
Yeah, he used it as a costume.
Speaker 2 (18:14):
Yeah, he used it to get those people to love
him and to follow him and to do bad things
for him. He manipulated that culture. But the perception was
this is this guy with long hair on drugs. This
is what and we're worried about that. We're done dealing
with these people's rights. So the Manson murders actually put
(18:36):
the conservative path of crime and punishment on the right
track for about ten or fifteen years, and then all
of a sudden, these liberal ideals started to creep in
the nineteen nineties and they just have gone off the
charts here in the last ten or fifteen years. This
idea we have to defund the police, this idea that
(18:56):
you know, these people who commit viole in crimes, assault
police officers and everything else just get let right out
within hours with some five hundred dollars bail. And if
you say anything bad about them, you're a hater. If
you say anything bad about them, you're intolerant. If you
say anything bad about them, you're a racist. There's always
(19:18):
some label that gets put on you when you say,
we don't want this happening in our society. And they
have villainized so many people who champion law and order,
and Charlie Kirk is one of them. Now, I didn't
agree with a lot. I was never a big Charlie
Kirk person. I couldn't tell you his position on everything.
(19:38):
I didn't follow him as much as I follow some
other people.
Speaker 1 (19:41):
I disagreed with him on a lot of things.
Speaker 2 (19:43):
Yes, it's a little too far, So.
Speaker 1 (19:46):
It never never occurred to me to turn that into
a seat of hatred. You know, Billy, We're America is
at this incredibly important turning point. You know. I wrote
a New American Dream last year, and that book was
about I mean, I was so distressed over the state
of America that I helped stopped everything and just wrote
a book about the fact that the American Dream was
(20:07):
dead and that there was only one way to fix it,
and that we needed to deal with the mental health
issue in this country. We needed to structure things to
be able to succeed in the age of AI. But
the whole book's about saving the American Dream. And the
reason I bring that up as a purpose, I think
the biggest difference between what I see going on with
conservatives and the liberals is that a lot of the
conservatives understand that this country needs saving, not in just
(20:31):
that those ways, but in many ways. And we're over
here trying to put it on life support, and we've
got the Democrats throwing rocks at the people trying to
give aid to a really serious We're actually in a
very serious situation as a country, and we need healing.
We do not need more division. And they have absolutely
(20:52):
exhausted they've exhausted the American people with the constant whining,
complaining and making things about issues that really in the
realm of the world, they keep pointing to get the freckles,
and where are we here trying to fix the cancer.
It's like guys like focus, and I think this is
just where we've been headed for for a while now,
but particularly in this last year because they were so
(21:12):
freaked out by Trump that they've just they've steeped. They're
using fear to keep themselves in the media because they're
party such a mess and something has to give.
Speaker 2 (21:21):
Yeah, well, you look at at how illegal immigration was handled.
You know my position on that is John Kennedy from Louisiana.
You know, he made an excellent analogy. You know, you
lock your doors at night, not because you hate the world,
not because you hate everybody that's outside, but you just
don't want to let anybody in until you know who
(21:42):
they are. That's really what it's about. And somehow the left,
you know, when you talk about first of all, they
take away the distinction between they say conservatives are anti immigration.
They take away the distinction between coming here and going
through the rule of law and play by the rules
and doing what everybody's grandfather did years ago when they
(22:04):
came to this country. They take they just running across
the border. They differentiate those two things. They don't, I
should say, they just mix those together. So you're anti immigration,
you're a hater for anybody that comes across the you know,
you're all this other stuff. And they took the common
sense approach to securing the border out of the equation.
(22:27):
For the most part. I don't know why Joe Biden.
It's almost like he deliberately let the floodgates open.
Speaker 1 (22:34):
They did well. The people who were really running the
White House deliberately let and the Democratic Party let us.
Speaker 2 (22:40):
And what happened is is you had this influx of
the FBI estimates something like twelve thirteen thousand people that
are known violent criminals in and that's only what we
know about for what reason? And then when they do
commit crimes, if you pointed out, says, well, you're a
(23:00):
racist for pointing that out. People here to commit crimes to.
It's that same old it's that same old straw man argument.
I got to tell you it's getting old. Now. I'm
going to tell people on the left right now, these
straw man arguments, well, well, it's not everybody, it's not this.
It's starting to get old. It's starting to sound like bullshit.
I don't care how eloquent Rachel Mattow is. I don't
(23:22):
care how many adjectives she throws into it. I don't
care how many logic if then therefore she puts into
this eloquent or not, it's starting to sound like bullshit.
Speaker 1 (23:35):
And she sounded like bullshit for a couple of years. Now, yes,
I mean, she's just like it's like she's lost the plot.
I mean, if you listen to some did you see
some of the news coverage, some of the bizarre things
that they were saying, like, oh, it appears as though
a person in the audience may have shot up a
shot off a congratulator.
Speaker 2 (23:54):
Solitibatory firing around you.
Speaker 1 (23:57):
Did you even get that.
Speaker 2 (24:00):
The only explanation I have for that is that's somebody
to hit on the phone. That's somebody that had on
the line. I saw the clip that person was being
piped in. It sounded like by a phone or something,
and maybe just wasn't aware of the tape, wasn't aware
of what happened.
Speaker 1 (24:14):
You're doing on National TV in an interview if you
don't know what the hell happened like, That's another one.
I keep hearing, you keep I keep seeing. I don't
watch mainstream media, but when I get forced to, it
amazes me the people that they will have on there
as guests who I know little to no experience, where
they may be telligenic, but half the time they're not
even prepared for the Internet.
Speaker 2 (24:32):
No they're not. And so I don't know what this
person's excuse was, but it was absolutely ridiculous, you know,
to go on National TV and be speculating about something
that's in playing view for the world to see something
horribly in plain view for the world to see is outrageous.
And I will say this, I haven't had a chance
to investigate all these clips. There's there was a clip
(24:53):
of somebody I believe it was on MSNBC or CNN,
one of those saying that well, Charlie Kirk has you know,
so caused a lot of divisiveness. I mean, you cause
a lot of divisiveness, this is what you get. It
was almost like saying he got what he deserved. It
was damn close to saying that chickens coming home to roost.
And you know, in this day and age, a divisive
(25:15):
statement is just saying anything that somebody else doesn't agree with.
What I was getting at was I don't know Charlie
Kirk's every talking point. I know who he is from.
You know, obviously during the campaigns when there was a
big news event going on, you know, I would check
in to him and like I do with so many others,
(25:36):
and just to hear what he had to say. I
didn't necessarily follow him all the time. So I don't
know what all of his talking points are, but I
will say this, during moments of crisis that he commented
on whether they were being perceived as something that the
left was going to run with or the right was
going to run with. He never celebrated a tragedy. I
(25:57):
don't know of him inciting something. I don't know of
him smirking at something horrible, whereas I've on cable news,
yes it's happened.
Speaker 1 (26:10):
And in the video when you add to the cable news,
like half of them are smirking, especially when it wasn't
clear that he was dead yet. But I saw videos
of people on social media celebrating, and I have to ask,
because you know, they used to say Trump derangement syndrome.
But this kind of lunacy where people are literally jumping
(26:30):
up and down, physically throwing their arms in the air, applauding, laughing,
giving signs to the camera, and posting it on social
media for everybody in the world to see. What kind
of mental illness is that? Because I know a lot
about mental health and mental illness, and I'm not making fun,
I'm being dead serious. There has to be something other
(26:51):
than just Trump derangement syndrome to explain how I in
my lifetime, I've never lived at a time where people
thought it was okay to celebrate somebody else's murder.
Speaker 2 (27:00):
No, No, I don't care how much I despise the
political figure. I would never celebrate something like this. I
don't care who it is or what they stood for.
The idea that you know, this is where I'm going
to talk about mental health again. I hear again. I'm
a mental health advocate. We have a problem in this country.
We need more. We've got to stop the stigma of
(27:21):
mental health. I can't say it enough. If you're suffering
from mental health issues, you are far more likely to
become a victim than you are to become a perpetrator.
With that being said, you know there are Norman Bateses
in the world. Okay, but I don't even think that
this is psycho I think this is even worse. I
(27:43):
think we now have a population that's celebrating this. This
is beyond mental health. This is something at the core
of whatever you believe in terms of what makes a
human being a human, whether you believe you know, religious,
spiritual people going to say it's a soul.
Speaker 1 (28:00):
Demonic being, demonic behavior.
Speaker 2 (28:03):
Yeah, I'm sure the scientific people are going to say,
it's the will, the will that exists inside you, whatever
you subscribe to, whatever notion you believe in, whether it's
the will, whether it's the soul, there's something very sinister
happening in somebody that this is beyond mental health. If
you can laugh at someone getting shot in the throat
(28:26):
or the top of the chest wherever he was hit
and a stream of blood spew out of him and
he rolls over, if you somehow think that is funny.
I don't even have an intellectual response for that. I
don't know what to say about it.
Speaker 1 (28:44):
It's demonic, whether you believe that's goind of thing to
do with religion or even I mean, if you believe
that people can get into such unhealthy places that they
are in that what you call it's like it's the
opposite of that really joyful, beautiful, wonderful person that you know.
It's like when somebody there there's something demonic to that behavior.
Dancing and plotting and throwing your arms up in the
(29:04):
air to celebrate somebody else's murder. That's that's evil.
Speaker 2 (29:09):
Yeah, And I gotta say, we get there were people
that didn't like JFK. Okay, and when he got assassinated,
I'm sure there were some people who were more upset
about it than others. But I don't remember, and I've
gone through I'm kind of a history buff, especially the
nineteen you know, post World War Two. I never remember
seeing tapes of people celebrating in the street the assassination
(29:33):
of JFK or the assassination of Martin Luther King. I'm
going to say it didn't happen. If it did happen.
It was so isolated. It was like one or two kooks.
But now it's thousands, tens of thousands, and it's all
over social media. It's being celebrated like it's the fourth
of July. I don't like I said, I don't have
(29:56):
words for it. There's no way to debate this. You know,
I'm he used to I'm kind of like Charlie Kirk,
whether you like him or not. He did try to
approach things from intellectual fashion. He tried to debate people.
He called up people that didn't agree with him first.
He tried to face things point on point. There's no
way to approach the idea that there's these dumb punks
(30:20):
on the social media, on TikTok doing these dances. Let's
have one. I ran across one and said, let's have
a moment of silence for Charlie Kirk. And they blasted
all this music and that's supposed to be funny. How
do you debate that? Is there an intellectual way to
(30:42):
confront that.
Speaker 1 (30:44):
I found it interesting that Obama commented so quickly because
Charlie Kirk wasn't a Democrat and he wasn't an actual politician.
It was unusual, and I knew immediately that he's commenting.
This is my opinion that Obama knows that it looks really, really,
really bad. I mean, there's so many people that I
know who are Democrats who can't even like look at
(31:05):
their party anymore. They can't take any of them any seriously.
But there's just this, it's like this fringe element of
a thousand people still running the Democratic Party right into
the ground, and they seem to be oblivious. But Obama's
been around long enough to know, you know, something had
to be said. But otherwise I don't think he would
have said anything.
Speaker 2 (31:22):
One of the things that I did notice Laura Logan,
I caught her feed on X and now one of
the things that she was talking about is don't let
yourself fall into the trap of letting this become a
catalyst for more violence. You know, it's like they stoked
(31:45):
the left, they stoked the right, and with violent X
and with the horrible media coverage, and they're trying to
get everybody riled up to the point to where there's
going to be even more And I really do think
I hope I'm wrong. You know, I'm not a spring chicken. Anymore.
(32:05):
I've been around a long time. I remember all the
scary rhetoric about Ronald Reagan, and I remember, you know, oh,
he's going to cause World War three, He's going to
go to war the Russia ends at all. And I
always knew that, you know, nothing was ever going to happen. Okay,
this is the first time in my years that I
honestly am unsure that we are going to remain a
(32:30):
stable nation for much longer. I really am unsure of that.
I wish I wouldn't have to say things, and I
can't imagine that I would ever say something like that
about the United States, because we've always had a collective
wisdom through our hardest times that kept the glue. The
(32:53):
glue was there that kept us together, you know, all
through the sixties and and other things that happened, there
was always a convey wisdom that you could trust in
the American people that there is going to be a
certain man of stability. I'm not sure I trust in
that anymore.
Speaker 1 (33:11):
I'm hopeful, and I think that's what I think, that
that sentiment that you just shared, that is where we're at.
We're in the battle for saving this country. We can
do it. But we need the Democrats to stop getting
in the way of everything just because it gives them
attention or gives them headlines. They're literally taking every single
(33:34):
thing that's that It's just it's vampire.
Speaker 2 (33:36):
You know.
Speaker 1 (33:36):
It reminds me of a vampire. I feel like that's
really what they've turned into. And they're feasting off of
the energy of this country and injecting the country full
of negativity, and it's poisoning us at a time when
we're trying to save the country, Like, do they actually
you know? And when you look at them letting everybody
in the world, including a bunch of criminals, into the country,
just to win the White House again, it's like, well, really,
(33:56):
is it that much of a surprise, But come on, guys,
we're trying to save the country here. You got to
stop the hatred, the divisiveness. Really, it's to the point
where you're killing all the mainstream media because they're right
there with you sharing the same nonsense.
Speaker 2 (34:12):
Yeah, like I said, I've always felt good about the
collective wisdom of the country. And here's the thing. The
founding fathers knew that that was an issue. That's why
you know, when you talk about the the electoral college.
(34:32):
People say, well, it's not fair, and it does compensate.
Let's say, if you're a big state versus a small state,
and make sure that the small states, who may only
have a handful of votes, still have a voice in
the election. That is true, it does do that, and
that's important, and that's one of the reasons why I
don't want to mess with the electoral college. But the
bigger issue is the real reason that it's in place
(34:54):
is because the founding fathers knew you could not trust
the collective wisdom of the country. That's why it's there.
That's the safety valve. Okay, that's for when you know,
Vlad the Impaler starts to win primaries. That is why
the electoral college is there. And it's one of the
(35:19):
reasons why a pure democracy does not work. Okay, because
there's too many stupid people in a large population. I'm
being totally serious.
Speaker 1 (35:28):
No, it's actually true. It was just just thinking that yesterday.
I'm like, oh, we got a lot of stupid people, don't.
Speaker 2 (35:33):
We Yes, and the funding fathers knew that. Can you
imagine something like civil rights being put to a vote
in the nineteen thirties it wouldn't have flown. And you
could go on and on with these things. So that's
why you don't have a pure democracy, okay, because in
a pure democracy there are no lines between voting what
(35:57):
the masses want and mob rule. Those two things get
mixed together. You have a mob that's ruling in a
pure democracy. So that's why we are a constitutional republic.
We have little safeguards. There's little areas that are non negotiable, okay,
And that's why we have a representative government. Okay. They
(36:19):
knew that sooner or later the collective wisdom of the
country was going to start to come and glued. That's
why the safeguards are there. And that's why a free
press was so important, okay, because they never wanted a
narrative to be guided by the government to where you
could mold that ignorance. You know, like the Romans said,
(36:42):
we can do anything we want as long as we
give them bread and circuses. That's why the colosseum is there.
You all you got to do is give the stupid
people something to watch, okay, and you'll be fine. And unfortunately,
the safeguards that have been in place can't control everything.
(37:02):
It can't control the damn starting to crack. And I
just really hope that the collective wisdom of this country
starts to come around. Common sense has to come back,
and I think way too much. I'm basically conservative, but
I'm not conservative on everything. I really think the prism
(37:24):
the filter now that we have, everything has to go
through a lens that you view from the right or
from the left. We don't have somebody go three hundred
and sixty degrees around the whole thing. We examine that
there's a statue there, Cynthia, Okay, there's this beautiful statue,
and I'm going to look at it from the right, okay,
(37:45):
and somebody else is going to look at it from
the left. Okay. Now, there's still three hundred and sixty
three other degrees that we should be examining this statue
from and appreciating it. But we don't have time for that.
We don't have time for that anymore. That's why the
founding fathers were so concerned about an educated populace. And
I didn't necessarily mean school. Yeah, they thought everybody should
(38:09):
know how the government works, they should know all, you know,
certain things about the economy, and they were all for that,
because the more you knew about these things, the more
you can examine them.
Speaker 1 (38:19):
We don't involved there. Yeah, you know it's interesting. So
as a spiritual teacher and social theoris, I've studied our
population quite a bit, and the demise of religion without
something healthier taking its place has really been a has
(38:44):
really pushed the mental health crisis into new levels, and
I believe it's actually going to get worse because the
Age of AI is going to take away a lot
of people's purpose because we've been taught to make our
job our purpose instead of living is living a good life,
simple life where we love ourselves. Anyway, when you take
away religion and you start to confuse people about the world.
(39:07):
In the Democrats case, I think they sort of leaned
into turning their being a member of that party into
their entire identity and the reason that they fight so
voraciously and they get so upset about things where you're like,
can you just have a rational conversation about this? And
it's delusional, angry even you know, there's that violence underlying that,
(39:28):
the desire to shove the opinion down your throat, and
that's because it's the new you know, identity politics. It's
the new religion, and they really see their beliefs is
their religion and they take them as seriously. Like we
have wars all over this planet over people having competing
ideas of the way life should be lived religiously. And
I think when you look at the way the Democrats behave,
(39:50):
it reminds me a lot of terrorists who are trying
to support the way they believe that people should live.
And that's what they've done. They've turned their democratic ideas
into every meaning everything to them. And they need to
really go get a life and get on board with
America just as a collective to help us move forward.
Speaker 2 (40:10):
Yes, sad Day, Seaman. I know we're not promoting anything,
just to let people know where they can find you
if they like you, sumber Day, but just let let
people know who you are.
Speaker 1 (40:25):
Yeah. Absolutely, I did have a short prayer with me
that guess, for Charlie's family, for healing for the country.
Is it okay to read? Absolutely all right, Divine Spirit
of love and unity, We lift our hearts in prayer
for America, asking for healing where there is division, compassion
where there is anger, and understanding where there is fear.
(40:49):
Today we especially grieve the senseless loss of Charlie Kirk.
May his family and loved ones be wrapped in comfort, strength,
and peace during this time of deep sorrow. Let his
passing remind us of the sank sacredness of every human life,
and may it call us to build bridges of kindness, respect,
(41:10):
and hope across our nation. We ask for grace to
guide us forward together in love and unity. Amen.
Speaker 2 (41:18):
Yes, a lot of bad things happening, you know, the
murder on the on the railcar, very graphic, brutal video,
and today with Charlie Kirk, the graphic nature of violence
(41:40):
has been put in our face like never at a
time that I can remember. And the idea that there's
people celebrating this, I think really twists the blade in
terms of the sorrow that you're feeling for Charlie Kirk.
To know that there's people out there there who are
(42:02):
celebrating the violent loss of human life like it's some
kind of a spectacle to cheer for is very disturbing
to me, and I can only hope that we find
our way. That we can find our way, because human
life should never the human life should never be used
(42:24):
for that purpose to celebrate the end of it like
it's you know, my life, like it's you know, winning
some kind of a game. Life has value, and everybody
has meaning to their lives. Everybody has people that they
cherish and their their spirit, whether you want to call it,
(42:46):
you know, whether you want to call it a soul
or whether you want to call it the will. We
all have that, and we all want to retain it
for as long as possible and enjoy life for as
much as possible. And very sad, so I'll leave that
their money abillit D's. You can find me on X
at Billy D's. And thank you very much for listening.
(43:08):
I hope that this little talk vented some things for
the listeners, and I hope that the coming week is
the in the coming days are better for everyone. Do
you have any closing words India.
Speaker 1 (43:25):
Nope, just sending love to everybody, to all the listeners.
Speaker 2 (43:29):
Yes, thank you very much for listening, and we will
be talking to you again about this and so many
other things very very soon. Thank you.
You are listening to the Billy D's Podcast.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
All right, well, hello everyone, and welcome to the program.
As always, I'm absolutely thrilled that you are here. My
name is Billy D's. If you've never checked us out before,
we are primarily an interview and a commentary based podcast.
We often go live with commentary. We're going to do
that right now with me is Cynthia Elliott. Cynthia, thank
you for being here.
Speaker 1 (00:32):
Hello, Billy.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
Unfortunate circumstances I'm coming on today. This is in regard
to what happened to Charlie Kirk. And unless you've been
totally under a rock or something, he was assassinated today.
He was assassinated at Utah Valley University and he was
(00:57):
shot from some distance. It's the exact circumstances of where
the shot came from are is not known at this time.
I just watched a press conference before we came on,
and as it stands right now, and this is a
very fluid situation, they do have a person of interest.
(01:19):
Some of you may have seen an older gentleman in
cuffs online earlier. That person has been ruled out, although
they have been detained for obstruction of justice. In the
wide the spectrum of things. It's not confirmed that they
have the shooter, but they do have a person of interest.
(01:41):
Charlie was giving a presentation at Utah Valley University. The
we're not going to play the tape, but he was
sitting in a chair under a little you know, sun tent,
you know, just to provide some shade, and was hit
very violently. His his body jerked upward, a huge gush
of blood out the side. It certainly did not appear
(02:04):
to something that could be survivable, but you never know.
There was glimmers of a hope in the following hour
because there were reports that he had a pulse on
the way to the hospital and things like that, and
that's often the case. They do everything they can to
give a person that's been inflicted with that kind of
a wound every chance for survival. There was optimistic reports,
(02:28):
for example when JFK was hit, and here again they
do that in the first minutes, only to give the
body any possible chance to recover as much help as
they can. But typically when there's a two catastrophic of
an injury, that's just something that can't be done. The
(02:49):
reason that we're going live today is not to hop
on a news cycle. That is not my intention, but
I do feel that at a time like this, you
want to hear like minded comments. It's very comforting to
hear people discussing going through the same thing that you
(03:10):
are going through, and it's good for I would believe
I'll speak for shaman, and it's good to talk some
of these things out. And so I thought it was
a good idea to come on, come on just for
a little bit and talk about this. I'm not going
to get into too much more detail about what's happening,
(03:30):
because if you're watching the replay or anything like that,
this is very fluid. Things I just mentioned could change,
but I think the wider impact of this is kind
of what we want to cover. Cynthia. Your first reactions
when you got the news.
Speaker 1 (03:48):
Well, like a lot of other people, I got the
optimistic part of it, and they didn't mention that he
was shot in the next so I didn't think that
much of it. And then I heard it was his
next and I knew immediately that the chances of him
surviving a neck a serious neck wound, are pretty pretty uncommon.
(04:09):
And of course I've seen the video since and it's shocking.
It's not something I would play either. But I'm honestly
not surprised. There's a lot of fear right now in
this country because there's a dramatic amount of change that
we're all undergoing at the same time, no matter who's
it's not even about politics. The world is dramatically changing.
(04:30):
Artificial intelligence is changing everything. It's got a lot of
people on pins and needles. We've got a lot of
serious social issues that are hot topics and getting really
beaten around in dramatic ways in the news media. And
then you've got you know, Charlie who incredible, incredible guy.
Who did you know? You've got to give him a
lot of credit for standing up for whatever he believed
in and that's his right, and he did it beautifully
(04:50):
and very like powerfully, And I'm not honestly surprised at
this point, given the temperature and the fear around, that
somebody would actually take him out. And that's that's where
we're at. To me, the most important thing for this
country and his family is healing has to place.
Speaker 2 (05:06):
One of the things I would say is at this
time here again, it's too early to tell. This seemed
like a very planned assassination by somebody who is to
some degree capable. A lot of times people that do
these things, quite frankly, are lunatics, and they don't do
they don't do well. They make too many mistakes and
things like that. But this seemed like it was very
(05:28):
well planned and executed professional.
Speaker 1 (05:31):
It felt professional, and.
Speaker 2 (05:34):
We don't know that here. Again, it's too early to tell.
But what I can to you, I think the nature
of having him get shot in front of a crowd
on TV being taped and I'm maybe live in some cases,
I'm not sure what was going on out there. I'm
sure it was being streamed by a lot of people.
The second thing that actually shocked me is mostly on
(05:58):
the left, the celebrate online.
Speaker 1 (06:02):
Speechless. I can't even if you'd asked me five years ago,
I would have found that hard to believe that people
would actually do this. But I'm seeing people gleefully dance around.
Speaker 2 (06:12):
It is shocking, yes, and it's something that you know,
I said a long time ago, I mean not a
long time ago, months ago, weeks ago, that the the
sensibilities of the public now are really starting to become uncertain.
And I like, for example, in my wildest day, I
(06:34):
would never have celebrated someone getting killed. I don't care
who they are today. Somebody like that I despise, like
Gavin Newsom. Okay, I if somebody like that, somebody I
detest on that level, I'm not making out about him.
If somebody I detest politically on that level, would have
something like this happened to him, I would never, in
(06:55):
a million years gleefully talk about it. And I'll say this, Shaman,
I know you're from New York. You know New York
very well. If nine to eleven were to happen today,
I honestly believe that there would be people Americans celebrating it.
Speaker 1 (07:14):
That is just how divided we've become. That that's actually
something you and I can both see. But you know,
this violence, like I've heard people saying, oh my goodness,
the violence, this violence that we have now, And it's
like the violence caused by the rhetoric that's been going
on and the fear mongering, which is really ultimately at
the end of the day, these people are using fear
(07:34):
and people's most most base way of being manipulated. They're
using that to create conversation and just distract from whatever's
going on, and since before Trump was even shot. Yes,
you could feel that kind of violence rising. So there's
this This violence has been going on for over a
(07:55):
year now.
Speaker 2 (07:56):
Yes, you know, we've had a couple of attempts on
Governor's We've numerous attempts on the president when he was
a candidate. We could go on. People are getting threatened
all the time.
Speaker 1 (08:06):
Now, the two wasn't it two congress people that were
the congresswoman who was murdered in her home with her husband. Yeah,
that was somebody who was mad at them for.
Speaker 2 (08:16):
Yeah, I yes, absolutely, I think that was Michigan somewhere around.
Speaker 1 (08:21):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, Okay, a.
Speaker 2 (08:24):
Memory might be wrong on that, but suffice it to
say public officials now are constantly being threatened. And here's
the thing. We talk a lot about free speech, and
I think free speech it's misunderstood. Somebody like Charlie Kirk
(08:45):
did what you're supposed to do with free speech. He
spoke and he engaged the opposition. Now this isn't a
matter of do you like Charlie Kirk or not, or
if you're upset about this or not. I am, and
I'm I'm quite frankly taken back by anybody getting taken
before their time. He had a wife, children, all these
(09:08):
other things. So, yes, this is horrible, But there's a
couple of layers to this that I don't know that
are being touched on. And the first one is the
person who took that shot. And this was a political assassination,
because even though he didn't have a political position a
formal like you know, senator or whatever, he was a
(09:31):
political figure and this was an assassination absolutely. And what
this is about in regard to free speech is the
person who took that shot not only killed a human being,
but they told everybody there and anybody who has any
interest in hearing what Charlie Kirk had to say, whether
(09:54):
they were with him or against him, they made a
decision for everyone who wanted to hear him, and that
you don't need to listen to this person. It was
a silencing of someone, okay, And that is the layer
that we sometimes forget. And no matter what side of
the political spectrum you were on. And that's why I
(10:14):
wouldn't want some of the politicians that I don't like,
that I detest, have anything harm come to them. Is
I don't want people who want to listen to them,
have that opportunity taken from them by someone who is
going to go on a murderous mission. And they're not
only trying to kill a person, but they're trying to
(10:36):
kill the idea that there's people who want to hear
that person. They are silencing the voice that people want
to hear. And when you start to recognize that, and
quite frankly, if you just go to one of these
events to cause a disruption, that's not exercising your right
(10:57):
to free speech. I know people go there to heckle
and everything and they say, well I can speak to
That's not what free speech is. You know, when people
have a designated event, people come there to listen to them,
whether they support them or not, they just might want
to hear what they have to say. When somebody comes
and disrupts that, what they're really doing there's not just
shutting that person up there telling everybody there you don't
(11:18):
need to listen to this person, where we're going to
make that decision for you now someone.
Speaker 1 (11:23):
They're ultimately trying to silence the other side. They're ultimately
trying to remove the freedom of speech of the people
that they that disagree with them.
Speaker 2 (11:32):
Yes, and this is where all the death threats and
everything come from. They try to create an environment. It's
a terroristic act, and that they want to create an
environment where people are afraid to speak. And Charlie had
death threats, he had security with him. But like I said,
(11:52):
I think what happened with the local police from what
I can gather from the press conference that I just
took in, is that they had the main perimeter pretty secure.
But in this case, they don't have the resources that
the Secret Service had and something, let's say on a
rooftop that's who knows how many feet or yards away,
(12:14):
you know, a football field or two away on that level,
Nobody considered that there would be an assassin of that
type on the roof. And quite frankly, it would be
hard to protect everybody who's got something to say in
a public situation all the time. It would be almost impossible,
you know, when you consider all the political pundits there
(12:36):
are on both sides of the aisle, all of the
people that are involved in speaking, all the politicians, all
the local politicians, all the city politicians, all the county politicians,
it would be impossible to give everybody the same level
of protection that the President of the United States gets.
So I'm sure they thought under most circumstances that this
(12:56):
was adequate. But here again, coming up to an assassin
of this type, it just wasn't anticipated. Now that's one
of the first one of the first things I wanted
to point out. One of the layers that you have
to consider is this assassin is trying to silence someone,
(13:17):
and not just the person, but he's making the decision
for in this case, probably millions of people that you
don't need to listen to this person. The other layer
to this, if you will, is is this is coming
on as you intimated. We talked about already that what's
happened to other politicians, what's happened to a lot of
(13:38):
just people who want to speak having their lives threatened.
This is coming on the heels of a pretty violent
couple weeks. You had the young lady who is horribly
murdered on the light train, and the videos of that
are just I'll say this, the last week between that
(13:59):
video of that woman getting stabbed and just leaning over
and bleeding out and having to watch what happened with
Charlie Kirk, this is awful. I mean this is some
of the most gruesome things that you can imagine, some
of the most violent, gruesome things that you can possibly imagine,
(14:19):
that are becoming all too common. I've run across a
lot of people online and in life on the phone
before I got on here, saying that they are physically
ill by what's going on. There was the young young
professor I at fifty nine years old, that was hacked
to death. And you had this young another young woman
(14:45):
who was thrown off of a bridge here recently. And
these horrific acts are they're mounting, and I think, what
the other layer this is where I was going to this.
I think that people are reaching a threshold now on
(15:05):
the other side of the spectrum that you haven't had
before for the most part. And I'm not advocating for
conservatives or liberals. I'm just saying in general the extremes
of those two. I think now the idea of what
was once an extreme right wing person is the moderates
(15:28):
now are becoming radicalized by what's happening in the news,
by what's happening in our society. People who were always
willing to make the exception always say, well, this is
an isolated evanist. There's a feeling in the country now
that they've had enough, and this is coming on the
heels of police being villainized. Not that there haven't been
(15:51):
bad police, but this idea that we have to get
rid of the police. That compassion comes in trying to
understand and why a violent criminal does what he does.
There's always a million excuses that come out. I'm all
for I'm an advocate, as you well know, for mental health,
(16:13):
but I think that in some cases what happens now
is that term is used as an excuse to behave
badly and do awful things. And what happened on the
light train with that woman being stabbed, that person was
(16:35):
reportedly released fourteen times times fourteen This.
Speaker 1 (16:41):
Is a woman. This doesn't surprise me because most people
don't actually know that most men who get accused of
rapeer convicted of rate never spend any time in jail.
So the fact that this guy got out fourteen times
is certainly not a surprise to me.
Speaker 2 (16:53):
And there's somebody somewhere, you know, they let him out
for an evaluation. Somebody somewhere decided that this was good,
a good idea. Yeah, And I never understood the tolerance
that we have for violent crime in the United States.
I never understood it, But during the nineteen seventies or
the nineteen eighties, it wasn't quite as bad. Now it's
(17:17):
off the charts. People who commit violent crimes get go fundmes.
They kill somebody and they get go fundmes now, and
they don't just get some some trivial amount of money
that they get tens of thousands of dollars, half a
million in some cases. Are these the people that we
(17:38):
need to be helping? Are these the people that we
need to be catering to? I believe during the nineteen
sixties is when a lot of this bullshit started, and
it kind of got nipped in the bud by what
happened with Charles Manson. Charles chars Manson got held up
(18:01):
as this is what drugs and being a hippie will
do to you. Now, Charles Manson was never really a hippie.
He was somebody who manipulated those people.
Speaker 1 (18:12):
Yeah, he used it as a costume.
Speaker 2 (18:14):
Yeah, he used it to get those people to love
him and to follow him and to do bad things
for him. He manipulated that culture. But the perception was
this is this guy with long hair on drugs. This
is what and we're worried about that. We're done dealing
with these people's rights. So the Manson murders actually put
(18:36):
the conservative path of crime and punishment on the right
track for about ten or fifteen years, and then all
of a sudden, these liberal ideals started to creep in
the nineteen nineties and they just have gone off the
charts here in the last ten or fifteen years. This
idea we have to defund the police, this idea that
(18:56):
you know, these people who commit viole in crimes, assault
police officers and everything else just get let right out
within hours with some five hundred dollars bail. And if
you say anything bad about them, you're a hater. If
you say anything bad about them, you're intolerant. If you
say anything bad about them, you're a racist. There's always
(19:18):
some label that gets put on you when you say,
we don't want this happening in our society. And they
have villainized so many people who champion law and order,
and Charlie Kirk is one of them. Now, I didn't
agree with a lot. I was never a big Charlie
Kirk person. I couldn't tell you his position on everything.
(19:38):
I didn't follow him as much as I follow some
other people.
Speaker 1 (19:41):
I disagreed with him on a lot of things.
Speaker 2 (19:43):
Yes, it's a little too far, So.
Speaker 1 (19:46):
It never never occurred to me to turn that into
a seat of hatred. You know, Billy, We're America is
at this incredibly important turning point. You know. I wrote
a New American Dream last year, and that book was
about I mean, I was so distressed over the state
of America that I helped stopped everything and just wrote
a book about the fact that the American Dream was
(20:07):
dead and that there was only one way to fix it,
and that we needed to deal with the mental health
issue in this country. We needed to structure things to
be able to succeed in the age of AI. But
the whole book's about saving the American Dream. And the
reason I bring that up as a purpose, I think
the biggest difference between what I see going on with
conservatives and the liberals is that a lot of the
conservatives understand that this country needs saving, not in just
(20:31):
that those ways, but in many ways. And we're over
here trying to put it on life support, and we've
got the Democrats throwing rocks at the people trying to
give aid to a really serious We're actually in a
very serious situation as a country, and we need healing.
We do not need more division. And they have absolutely
(20:52):
exhausted they've exhausted the American people with the constant whining,
complaining and making things about issues that really in the
realm of the world, they keep pointing to get the freckles,
and where are we here trying to fix the cancer.
It's like guys like focus, and I think this is
just where we've been headed for for a while now,
but particularly in this last year because they were so
(21:12):
freaked out by Trump that they've just they've steeped. They're
using fear to keep themselves in the media because they're
party such a mess and something has to give.
Speaker 2 (21:21):
Yeah, well, you look at at how illegal immigration was handled.
You know my position on that is John Kennedy from Louisiana.
You know, he made an excellent analogy. You know, you
lock your doors at night, not because you hate the world,
not because you hate everybody that's outside, but you just
don't want to let anybody in until you know who
(21:42):
they are. That's really what it's about. And somehow the left,
you know, when you talk about first of all, they
take away the distinction between they say conservatives are anti immigration.
They take away the distinction between coming here and going
through the rule of law and play by the rules
and doing what everybody's grandfather did years ago when they
(22:04):
came to this country. They take they just running across
the border. They differentiate those two things. They don't, I
should say, they just mix those together. So you're anti immigration,
you're a hater for anybody that comes across the you know,
you're all this other stuff. And they took the common
sense approach to securing the border out of the equation.
(22:27):
For the most part. I don't know why Joe Biden.
It's almost like he deliberately let the floodgates open.
Speaker 1 (22:34):
They did well. The people who were really running the
White House deliberately let and the Democratic Party let us.
Speaker 2 (22:40):
And what happened is is you had this influx of
the FBI estimates something like twelve thirteen thousand people that
are known violent criminals in and that's only what we
know about for what reason? And then when they do
commit crimes, if you pointed out, says, well, you're a
(23:00):
racist for pointing that out. People here to commit crimes to.
It's that same old it's that same old straw man argument.
I got to tell you it's getting old. Now. I'm
going to tell people on the left right now, these
straw man arguments, well, well, it's not everybody, it's not this.
It's starting to get old. It's starting to sound like bullshit.
I don't care how eloquent Rachel Mattow is. I don't
(23:22):
care how many adjectives she throws into it. I don't
care how many logic if then therefore she puts into
this eloquent or not, it's starting to sound like bullshit.
Speaker 1 (23:35):
And she sounded like bullshit for a couple of years. Now, yes,
I mean, she's just like it's like she's lost the plot.
I mean, if you listen to some did you see
some of the news coverage, some of the bizarre things
that they were saying, like, oh, it appears as though
a person in the audience may have shot up a
shot off a congratulator.
Speaker 2 (23:54):
Solitibatory firing around you.
Speaker 1 (23:57):
Did you even get that.
Speaker 2 (24:00):
The only explanation I have for that is that's somebody
to hit on the phone. That's somebody that had on
the line. I saw the clip that person was being
piped in. It sounded like by a phone or something,
and maybe just wasn't aware of the tape, wasn't aware
of what happened.
Speaker 1 (24:14):
You're doing on National TV in an interview if you
don't know what the hell happened like, That's another one.
I keep hearing, you keep I keep seeing. I don't
watch mainstream media, but when I get forced to, it
amazes me the people that they will have on there
as guests who I know little to no experience, where
they may be telligenic, but half the time they're not
even prepared for the Internet.
Speaker 2 (24:32):
No they're not. And so I don't know what this
person's excuse was, but it was absolutely ridiculous, you know,
to go on National TV and be speculating about something
that's in playing view for the world to see something
horribly in plain view for the world to see is outrageous.
And I will say this, I haven't had a chance
to investigate all these clips. There's there was a clip
(24:53):
of somebody I believe it was on MSNBC or CNN,
one of those saying that well, Charlie Kirk has you know,
so caused a lot of divisiveness. I mean, you cause
a lot of divisiveness, this is what you get. It
was almost like saying he got what he deserved. It
was damn close to saying that chickens coming home to roost.
And you know, in this day and age, a divisive
(25:15):
statement is just saying anything that somebody else doesn't agree with.
What I was getting at was I don't know Charlie
Kirk's every talking point. I know who he is from.
You know, obviously during the campaigns when there was a
big news event going on, you know, I would check
in to him and like I do with so many others,
(25:36):
and just to hear what he had to say. I
didn't necessarily follow him all the time. So I don't
know what all of his talking points are, but I
will say this, during moments of crisis that he commented
on whether they were being perceived as something that the
left was going to run with or the right was
going to run with. He never celebrated a tragedy. I
(25:57):
don't know of him inciting something. I don't know of
him smirking at something horrible, whereas I've on cable news,
yes it's happened.
Speaker 1 (26:10):
And in the video when you add to the cable news,
like half of them are smirking, especially when it wasn't
clear that he was dead yet. But I saw videos
of people on social media celebrating, and I have to ask,
because you know, they used to say Trump derangement syndrome.
But this kind of lunacy where people are literally jumping
(26:30):
up and down, physically throwing their arms in the air, applauding, laughing,
giving signs to the camera, and posting it on social
media for everybody in the world to see. What kind
of mental illness is that? Because I know a lot
about mental health and mental illness, and I'm not making fun,
I'm being dead serious. There has to be something other
(26:51):
than just Trump derangement syndrome to explain how I in
my lifetime, I've never lived at a time where people
thought it was okay to celebrate somebody else's murder.
Speaker 2 (27:00):
No, No, I don't care how much I despise the
political figure. I would never celebrate something like this. I
don't care who it is or what they stood for.
The idea that you know, this is where I'm going
to talk about mental health again. I hear again. I'm
a mental health advocate. We have a problem in this country.
We need more. We've got to stop the stigma of
(27:21):
mental health. I can't say it enough. If you're suffering
from mental health issues, you are far more likely to
become a victim than you are to become a perpetrator.
With that being said, you know there are Norman Bateses
in the world. Okay, but I don't even think that
this is psycho I think this is even worse. I
(27:43):
think we now have a population that's celebrating this. This
is beyond mental health. This is something at the core
of whatever you believe in terms of what makes a
human being a human, whether you believe you know, religious,
spiritual people going to say it's a soul.
Speaker 1 (28:00):
Demonic being, demonic behavior.
Speaker 2 (28:03):
Yeah, I'm sure the scientific people are going to say,
it's the will, the will that exists inside you, whatever
you subscribe to, whatever notion you believe in, whether it's
the will, whether it's the soul, there's something very sinister
happening in somebody that this is beyond mental health. If
you can laugh at someone getting shot in the throat
(28:26):
or the top of the chest wherever he was hit
and a stream of blood spew out of him and
he rolls over, if you somehow think that is funny.
I don't even have an intellectual response for that. I
don't know what to say about it.
Speaker 1 (28:44):
It's demonic, whether you believe that's goind of thing to
do with religion or even I mean, if you believe
that people can get into such unhealthy places that they
are in that what you call it's like it's the
opposite of that really joyful, beautiful, wonderful person that you know.
It's like when somebody there there's something demonic to that behavior.
Dancing and plotting and throwing your arms up in the
(29:04):
air to celebrate somebody else's murder. That's that's evil.
Speaker 2 (29:09):
Yeah, And I gotta say, we get there were people
that didn't like JFK. Okay, and when he got assassinated,
I'm sure there were some people who were more upset
about it than others. But I don't remember, and I've
gone through I'm kind of a history buff, especially the
nineteen you know, post World War Two. I never remember
seeing tapes of people celebrating in the street the assassination
(29:33):
of JFK or the assassination of Martin Luther King. I'm
going to say it didn't happen. If it did happen.
It was so isolated. It was like one or two kooks.
But now it's thousands, tens of thousands, and it's all
over social media. It's being celebrated like it's the fourth
of July. I don't like I said, I don't have
(29:56):
words for it. There's no way to debate this. You know,
I'm he used to I'm kind of like Charlie Kirk,
whether you like him or not. He did try to
approach things from intellectual fashion. He tried to debate people.
He called up people that didn't agree with him first.
He tried to face things point on point. There's no
way to approach the idea that there's these dumb punks
(30:20):
on the social media, on TikTok doing these dances. Let's
have one. I ran across one and said, let's have
a moment of silence for Charlie Kirk. And they blasted
all this music and that's supposed to be funny. How
do you debate that? Is there an intellectual way to
(30:42):
confront that.
Speaker 1 (30:44):
I found it interesting that Obama commented so quickly because
Charlie Kirk wasn't a Democrat and he wasn't an actual politician.
It was unusual, and I knew immediately that he's commenting.
This is my opinion that Obama knows that it looks really, really,
really bad. I mean, there's so many people that I
know who are Democrats who can't even like look at
(31:05):
their party anymore. They can't take any of them any seriously.
But there's just this, it's like this fringe element of
a thousand people still running the Democratic Party right into
the ground, and they seem to be oblivious. But Obama's
been around long enough to know, you know, something had
to be said. But otherwise I don't think he would
have said anything.
Speaker 2 (31:22):
One of the things that I did notice Laura Logan,
I caught her feed on X and now one of
the things that she was talking about is don't let
yourself fall into the trap of letting this become a
catalyst for more violence. You know, it's like they stoked
(31:45):
the left, they stoked the right, and with violent X
and with the horrible media coverage, and they're trying to
get everybody riled up to the point to where there's
going to be even more And I really do think
I hope I'm wrong. You know, I'm not a spring chicken. Anymore.
(32:05):
I've been around a long time. I remember all the
scary rhetoric about Ronald Reagan, and I remember, you know, oh,
he's going to cause World War three, He's going to
go to war the Russia ends at all. And I
always knew that, you know, nothing was ever going to happen. Okay,
this is the first time in my years that I
honestly am unsure that we are going to remain a
(32:30):
stable nation for much longer. I really am unsure of that.
I wish I wouldn't have to say things, and I
can't imagine that I would ever say something like that
about the United States, because we've always had a collective
wisdom through our hardest times that kept the glue. The
(32:53):
glue was there that kept us together, you know, all
through the sixties and and other things that happened, there
was always a convey wisdom that you could trust in
the American people that there is going to be a
certain man of stability. I'm not sure I trust in
that anymore.
Speaker 1 (33:11):
I'm hopeful, and I think that's what I think, that
that sentiment that you just shared, that is where we're at.
We're in the battle for saving this country. We can
do it. But we need the Democrats to stop getting
in the way of everything just because it gives them
attention or gives them headlines. They're literally taking every single
(33:34):
thing that's that It's just it's vampire.
Speaker 2 (33:36):
You know.
Speaker 1 (33:36):
It reminds me of a vampire. I feel like that's
really what they've turned into. And they're feasting off of
the energy of this country and injecting the country full
of negativity, and it's poisoning us at a time when
we're trying to save the country, Like, do they actually
you know? And when you look at them letting everybody
in the world, including a bunch of criminals, into the country,
just to win the White House again, it's like, well, really,
(33:56):
is it that much of a surprise, But come on, guys,
we're trying to save the country here. You got to
stop the hatred, the divisiveness. Really, it's to the point
where you're killing all the mainstream media because they're right
there with you sharing the same nonsense.
Speaker 2 (34:12):
Yeah, like I said, I've always felt good about the
collective wisdom of the country. And here's the thing. The
founding fathers knew that that was an issue. That's why
you know, when you talk about the the electoral college.
(34:32):
People say, well, it's not fair, and it does compensate.
Let's say, if you're a big state versus a small state,
and make sure that the small states, who may only
have a handful of votes, still have a voice in
the election. That is true, it does do that, and
that's important, and that's one of the reasons why I
don't want to mess with the electoral college. But the
bigger issue is the real reason that it's in place
(34:54):
is because the founding fathers knew you could not trust
the collective wisdom of the country. That's why it's there.
That's the safety valve. Okay, that's for when you know,
Vlad the Impaler starts to win primaries. That is why
the electoral college is there. And it's one of the
(35:19):
reasons why a pure democracy does not work. Okay, because
there's too many stupid people in a large population. I'm
being totally serious.
Speaker 1 (35:28):
No, it's actually true. It was just just thinking that yesterday.
I'm like, oh, we got a lot of stupid people, don't.
Speaker 2 (35:33):
We Yes, and the funding fathers knew that. Can you
imagine something like civil rights being put to a vote
in the nineteen thirties it wouldn't have flown. And you
could go on and on with these things. So that's
why you don't have a pure democracy, okay, because in
a pure democracy there are no lines between voting what
(35:57):
the masses want and mob rule. Those two things get
mixed together. You have a mob that's ruling in a
pure democracy. So that's why we are a constitutional republic.
We have little safeguards. There's little areas that are non negotiable, okay,
And that's why we have a representative government. Okay. They
(36:19):
knew that sooner or later the collective wisdom of the
country was going to start to come and glued. That's
why the safeguards are there. And that's why a free
press was so important, okay, because they never wanted a
narrative to be guided by the government to where you
could mold that ignorance. You know, like the Romans said,
(36:42):
we can do anything we want as long as we
give them bread and circuses. That's why the colosseum is there.
You all you got to do is give the stupid
people something to watch, okay, and you'll be fine. And unfortunately,
the safeguards that have been in place can't control everything.
(37:02):
It can't control the damn starting to crack. And I
just really hope that the collective wisdom of this country
starts to come around. Common sense has to come back,
and I think way too much. I'm basically conservative, but
I'm not conservative on everything. I really think the prism
(37:24):
the filter now that we have, everything has to go
through a lens that you view from the right or
from the left. We don't have somebody go three hundred
and sixty degrees around the whole thing. We examine that
there's a statue there, Cynthia, Okay, there's this beautiful statue,
and I'm going to look at it from the right, okay,
(37:45):
and somebody else is going to look at it from
the left. Okay. Now, there's still three hundred and sixty
three other degrees that we should be examining this statue
from and appreciating it. But we don't have time for that.
We don't have time for that anymore. That's why the
founding fathers were so concerned about an educated populace. And
I didn't necessarily mean school. Yeah, they thought everybody should
(38:09):
know how the government works, they should know all, you know,
certain things about the economy, and they were all for that,
because the more you knew about these things, the more
you can examine them.
Speaker 1 (38:19):
We don't involved there. Yeah, you know it's interesting. So
as a spiritual teacher and social theoris, I've studied our
population quite a bit, and the demise of religion without
something healthier taking its place has really been a has
(38:44):
really pushed the mental health crisis into new levels, and
I believe it's actually going to get worse because the
Age of AI is going to take away a lot
of people's purpose because we've been taught to make our
job our purpose instead of living is living a good life,
simple life where we love ourselves. Anyway, when you take
away religion and you start to confuse people about the world.
(39:07):
In the Democrats case, I think they sort of leaned
into turning their being a member of that party into
their entire identity and the reason that they fight so
voraciously and they get so upset about things where you're like,
can you just have a rational conversation about this? And
it's delusional, angry even you know, there's that violence underlying that,
(39:28):
the desire to shove the opinion down your throat, and
that's because it's the new you know, identity politics. It's
the new religion, and they really see their beliefs is
their religion and they take them as seriously. Like we
have wars all over this planet over people having competing
ideas of the way life should be lived religiously. And
I think when you look at the way the Democrats behave,
(39:50):
it reminds me a lot of terrorists who are trying
to support the way they believe that people should live.
And that's what they've done. They've turned their democratic ideas
into every meaning everything to them. And they need to
really go get a life and get on board with
America just as a collective to help us move forward.
Speaker 2 (40:10):
Yes, sad Day, Seaman. I know we're not promoting anything,
just to let people know where they can find you
if they like you, sumber Day, but just let let
people know who you are.
Speaker 1 (40:25):
Yeah. Absolutely, I did have a short prayer with me
that guess, for Charlie's family, for healing for the country.
Is it okay to read? Absolutely all right, Divine Spirit
of love and unity, We lift our hearts in prayer
for America, asking for healing where there is division, compassion
where there is anger, and understanding where there is fear.
(40:49):
Today we especially grieve the senseless loss of Charlie Kirk.
May his family and loved ones be wrapped in comfort, strength,
and peace during this time of deep sorrow. Let his
passing remind us of the sank sacredness of every human life,
and may it call us to build bridges of kindness, respect,
(41:10):
and hope across our nation. We ask for grace to
guide us forward together in love and unity. Amen.
Speaker 2 (41:18):
Yes, a lot of bad things happening, you know, the
murder on the on the railcar, very graphic, brutal video,
and today with Charlie Kirk, the graphic nature of violence
(41:40):
has been put in our face like never at a
time that I can remember. And the idea that there's
people celebrating this, I think really twists the blade in
terms of the sorrow that you're feeling for Charlie Kirk.
To know that there's people out there there who are
(42:02):
celebrating the violent loss of human life like it's some
kind of a spectacle to cheer for is very disturbing
to me, and I can only hope that we find
our way. That we can find our way, because human
life should never the human life should never be used
(42:24):
for that purpose to celebrate the end of it like
it's you know, my life, like it's you know, winning
some kind of a game. Life has value, and everybody
has meaning to their lives. Everybody has people that they
cherish and their their spirit, whether you want to call it,
(42:46):
you know, whether you want to call it a soul
or whether you want to call it the will. We
all have that, and we all want to retain it
for as long as possible and enjoy life for as
much as possible. And very sad, so I'll leave that
their money abillit D's. You can find me on X
at Billy D's. And thank you very much for listening.
(43:08):
I hope that this little talk vented some things for
the listeners, and I hope that the coming week is
the in the coming days are better for everyone. Do
you have any closing words India.
Speaker 1 (43:25):
Nope, just sending love to everybody, to all the listeners.
Speaker 2 (43:29):
Yes, thank you very much for listening, and we will
be talking to you again about this and so many
other things very very soon. Thank you.
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