September 12, 2025 • 55 mins
Jeff Charles, News Editor at Townhall, joins the show and has a conversation with Darvio about the assassination of Charlie Kirk, today's political climate, social media's role in it and where we go from here.
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
This is the FCB Podcast Network. Great job boot change
at don we don't listen to y'all this, We don't
listen to y'all. This the hold make them scream out
down that gota sound because the.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
Rockets in the crowd.
Speaker 1 (00:24):
Tune in the charge for the outdaw tune in the
charge for the Outlaw. Welcome to a special edition of
The Outlaws. This is darb O King tomorrow. Uh, don't
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slash the Outlaws Radio, follow us on Instagram and x
(00:44):
at the Outlaws Radio. I have a very special interview
that's gonna be for the full hour, for the full
episode with my buddy Jeff Charles, who's the news editor
of town Hall and host of Fresh Respect with Jeff
Charles the podcast. It's been a crazy few days. Obviously
(01:10):
most of you who are listening are aware of the
murder of conservative activists Charlie Kirk. I would say this upfront,
and I've said this on social media, uh several times.
I was not a fan of Charlie Kirk. I was
a vociferous, vocal critic of many of the things that
(01:33):
Charlie Kirk said. But this was unacceptable. Political violence is
a scourge. It is corrosive, It destroys societies, and no
(01:54):
one is immune to it, you know. I, Like I said,
I've criticized many of the things that Charlie Kirkin said.
I am pretty middle of the road in my temperament.
But there are people who don't like what I say either.
There are people who hate the things that I say
(02:15):
as well. And so we cannot be in an environment
in a situation where political political violence is accepted is
the norm, Like, we just can't live like that. So
Jeff and I are going to tackle that subject and
(02:40):
a lot more in a responsible way. I do think
it's important that everybody turned the temperature down. We've said this,
I don't know how many times when all of these
different tragedies and atrocities happen, everybody always calls to turn
the temperature down, and then they turn it right back up.
(03:01):
We have to get serious as a country about turning
the temperature down. Which is why I wanted Jeff to
come on, because he's someone that I know to be
responsible with his words and not sensationalistic or bombastic, and
I wanted to be able to have a conversation with
someone like that on this topic. So we're gonna get
(03:24):
to that interview right now. All right, on this somber occasion,
I have a very special guest on the show today.
He is a news editor at Townhall dot com. He's
also the host of the podcast A Fresh Perspective with
Jeff Charles, which is part of the FCV podcast Network,
(03:46):
which we will be returning very shortly. Jeff Charles, Welcome, man.
How you doing.
Speaker 3 (03:53):
Hey, I'm doing alright, man, like just taking this all in.
But I'm glad to be able to talk with somebody
about it who, you know, is more rational, like we've
talked about before, So I think this will be a
good conversation.
Speaker 1 (04:07):
Yeah. You know, you're the one that told me I
was I was at I was actually in the parking
lot at WOVU and I was getting ready to leave
and I got a text from you. It's like Charlie
Kirk just got shot. I'm like what And it just
seemed surreal, bizarre. So walk me through kind of obviously
(04:34):
you had the news before I did, Like how walk
me through, like how you found out and like how
you were processing that because it was crazy to me.
Speaker 3 (04:46):
Yeah, so I tend to catch a lot of these
type of things because the main thing that I do
at Talent Hall is cover breaking news. So I have
my ex pro used to be called tweet deck set
up to be able to get me breaking news as
it happens, and I have other ways that I can
be notified when something big or something crazy happens. And
(05:08):
I saw I saw the chatter chatter almost immediately. I
mean I had already been working on other articles, but
when I saw this, everything everything stopped. And you know,
I didn't I hadn't seen the footage yet, but I
just knew that he had been shot. There was there
was no announcement of his death at that time, but
I didn't know how bad it was quite just yet
(05:31):
I saw some people talking about it. And then eventually
I saw the footage And when I texted you was
before we knew whether he was still alive or not.
But when I saw the footage, and I think I
may have even said this to you, like I saw that,
I don't think there was any way he was going
(05:52):
to be able to.
Speaker 2 (05:52):
Survive that unless there was some kind of miracle.
Speaker 3 (05:55):
So I mean, you were actually I think you were
probably the first person I texted when I saw that.
Speaker 1 (06:00):
Yeah, yeah, man, it just kind of it sent you know,
things kind of almost into like a whirlwind, like a tailspin.
And let me explain why for people who don't know,
and you know, I was not a fan of Charlie Kirk.
I was very critical publicly about many of the things
(06:23):
that he said. But to see that this is not
someone who was violent, This was someone who was having
a conversation, and to see him, you know, shot in
the neck with his wife and kids, they're like, from
(06:46):
a human standpoint, first and foremost a humanity standpoint, it's
it's horrific. And also like we do this for a living,
Like we're we're both in the what I call the
First Amendment business, right, So when you're in the.
Speaker 4 (07:08):
First Amendment business, seeing someone executed for exercising his First Amendment.
Speaker 1 (07:18):
Rights is very bizarre and and jarring, I think to everybody,
because I've gotten death threats before. I'm sure you've gotten
death threats before. Like we all kind of live in
this reality. And so to see that happened to him,
(07:42):
Like I said, even though I was someone who was
very critical of some of the things that he has said,
in the past. It was. It was painful, man. It
was painful to.
Speaker 2 (07:53):
See that, you know.
Speaker 3 (07:55):
And I think the word painful is a really good
way to describe it, because because I mean I disagreed
with Charlie on a lot of things, just like I
disagree with a lot of people on the left and
the right. I mean that that's just the way it is.
I mean, when you're in political discourse, there are gonna
be people who you disagree with. I still could never
(08:16):
wrap my mind around the notion that somebody who says
some things that I might disagree with should be killed
for it. And when I saw what happened to him,
I mean, he was doing what he always does. He's
going he was going to compass college campuses. This was
the first step on his new tour. But he's been
(08:36):
doing this for years, not just him, but a lot
of others. And there's something about this particular situation, you know,
with Trump's attempt at assassination, that I don't think it
was as bad as Charlie Kirk's. Like even if Charlie
Cook had lived, I still would consider his situation worse
(08:57):
than President Trump. And it's gonna sound bad, but because
Trump was a former president, he was running for president again.
He was a politician, and he was controversial. The only
thing surprising about that was that it didn't happen sooner. Right,
We've also seen other politicians be targets for violence. It's
I hate to say it, but it's kind of normal.
And this isn't new. I mean, you know what happened
(09:18):
with JFK. I mean, presidents have been assassinated, you know,
throughout history. But Charlie Kirk was not a politician. He
was not a government official. He had he didn't have
say over policy. He had influenced most definitely, but he
wasn't setting policy or anything like that. He was just
speaking his mind. And one thing I'm gonna say about
(09:39):
Charlie Kirk is that he has never incited violence. He
has never even insinuated that we should resort to physical
force to enforce our beliefs on others. He was all
about civil discourse. And to see him get gunned down
like that, and I saw the video multiple times from
different angles it Honestly, I think we crossed a rubicon,
(10:04):
and I'm sure we'll be talking about that. I think
a seal is broken, and this is something that I've
been expecting for a while, not Charlie Kirks specifically, but
somebody like him and others who would fall victim to
violence that would just send us into a different era
in our politics, one that is a lot more dangerous.
Speaker 1 (10:24):
We're talking with Jeff Charles, news editor at town hall
dot com, host of a Fresh Perspective with Jeff Charles,
and I mean, that is one of the things that
is just concerning to me. I don't think the country
can continue on like this. This is not sustainable. I
think we're on an unsustainable path. And so, for example,
(10:47):
when we talk about Charlie Kirk's rhetoric, which I have
deem passionately vociferously disagreed with him on numerous occasions, as
have you, none of us, like you said earlier, ever thought, hey,
I want to see this dude dead, and to see
(11:08):
that it was just it was it was awful. Because
here's the other thing, and I said this on social media,
because you do see some people that are almost making
excuses for his assassination based on his rhetoric, which again
I disagreed with a lot of his rhetoric, and I
(11:28):
said so very passionately numerous times publicly on social media.
But like I said on social media today, I'm probably
as middle of the road as you're gonna get from
a political commentator standpoint, and people hate me too. So, yes,
(11:50):
rhetoric is a problem. Yes we need to turn the
temperature down, but we also have a hatred problem in
the country that needs to be addressed, because at the
end of the day, you don't you match words with words.
You don't match words with bullets. You have thoughts.
Speaker 3 (12:09):
Yeah, and that's traditionally how it's been for the most part.
I mean, I'm not going to say there's never been
political violence. I mean, we all know those stories about
lawmakers fighting on the House floor way back in the day,
but but it wasn't quite the same thing. And I
think I just over the past decade, we have seen
(12:31):
the polarization grow worse and worse and worse and worse.
I remember, you know, a long time ago, a few
years ago, you and I had a conversation like this
when the FBI rated President Donald Trump's home at mar
A Lago. I remember we were we were saying, this
is going to take us to a really bad place.
(12:51):
And it wasn't just that one incident. It was just
it was just one of many that were indicative of
where we're going as a country. And I don't see
a way out of this because you know, I wrote
a post on X last night, which was the night
of Kirk's death, and you know, I don't think that
(13:14):
this is going to have anything good come of it.
But it's not like nine to eleven. Ironically enough, you know,
we're on nine to eleven right now. After nine eleven happened,
there was a lot of unity. People rallied behind each other,
rallied behind the nation, and I would hope that something
like this would prompt people to say, you know what,
maybe this has gotten out of hand. Somebody has died
(13:37):
because of political debate. That's what should happen. But I
don't see that happening. Like I said, I think we've
crossed the rubicon here, and I think this moment is
the what's the word I want to use, it's the
launching point. I think there's gonna be more political violence.
And I've been predicting it for a while. And I'm
not one of those who's always like, yeah, civil war,
(13:58):
yeah yah yah, yeah. I'm sure anybody listening knows who
I'm talking about. But it's not just him that There's
a lot of influencers who won't outright call for civil war,
but you can tell that they're trying to push us
more towards that. But to me, the only way this
ends is for people to for it's for enough people
(14:20):
to get sick of it to the point to where
they're willing to do things to dial things down. But
I think it's going to get worse before it gets better.
And God, I hope I'm wrong about that.
Speaker 1 (14:29):
Yeah, I hope you're wrong about it too. I fear
that as well. And when you live in a society,
if we live in a society where people are afraid
to speak like that. The First Amendment is the first
Amendment for a reason, and we're exercising it right now.
We're like, like I said, like I said on Twitter
(14:52):
the night and that it happened or x the night
that it happened. My entire career, my entire business, my
entire life is built on the First Amendment. And if
we're all in a place now where exercising that could
(15:13):
mean could risk your life, that's a problem. And again,
I don't want people to just think, oh, whoa, whoa.
It was about his rhetoric. I've gotten death threats, You've
gotten death threats, and neither one of us use the
same type of rhetoric that Charlie Kirk did. So the issue.
I'm not trying to diminish the importance of words. I
(15:33):
know that words matter, but we're also in a situation
where the country does not have the mental and emotional
maturity to be able to disagree even vociferously without resorting
to violence. And to me, that's a dangerous place to
be in.
Speaker 3 (15:53):
Yeah, and it goes back to what you were saying
about humanity. I mean that word was ringing in my
head all day yesterday because we have lost a lot
of our humanity in America. You know, I prefer humanity
over politics, and a lot of people don't. And you know,
I will say, maybe there is a silver lining because
(16:13):
a lot of this stuff is still very online. It's
very you know, on the airwaves and the interwebs. You know,
whether it's racial strife or class strife or what have you.
You know, you go outside, you go into town or whatever.
You see people getting getting along in general, and you
know they don't all vote for the same party right.
(16:33):
My fear is that, you know, one day, real life
will look more like Twitter. And I think there are
people who are actively invested in making that happen. And
this is not just a left wing thing. I know,
we're talking about you know, political violence, and a lot
of that has come from the left over the past
few years. This does not mean that it has not
come from the from the right as well. It also
(16:55):
doesn't mean that there couldn't be something retaliatory done by
somebody on the right. And that's where I'm afraid people
talk about civil war. If we're going to get into
a situation something like that, that's what it's going to
look like. It's not going to look like California's military
and Texas military fighting each other. That's not what's going
to happen. It's going to be acts like this where
people are killed for expressing political views. I mean in Boulder, Colorado,
(17:19):
you had that group of pro Israel Jewish people and
a guy lobbed you know, molotov cocktails at them just
for expressing their viewpoints. I mean that there was even
shortly after October seventh, twenty twenty three, you had a
guy kill a Palestinian American child over a war that
is happening thousands and thousands of miles away. That this
(17:41):
can't become the new normal, but I think it is,
and I think the only way we can weather this
storm is to remember that real life doesn't necessarily reflect
what's happening on the screen, whether it's your television screen
or your iPad screen or.
Speaker 2 (17:57):
Your smartphone screen.
Speaker 3 (17:59):
But even still, there's gonna be more people being radicalized.
And I've actually been working on an article for the
past month or so on political violence, because there has
been a fourteen percent increase at least, and I've been
speaking with different experts and they're all saying the same thing.
They're not very optimistic.
Speaker 1 (18:18):
No, no, I understand. We're talking with Jeff Charles, editor
at town Hall dot com, host of a Fresh Perspective
with Jeff Charles podcast. You know, it's like, as you
were talking and you were going on with the different
(18:39):
incidents of political violence that have occurred, you know, I
started thinking about even more that has happened, so like
when Gabby Gifford's got shot, when Steve Scalice got shot,
the mother Emanual church shooting, the Buffalo Supermarket shooting all
It's like, man, these things, It's like it's been building
(19:01):
and building and building and building, and just year after
year after year, we've gotten to this point and this
feels different to me. The Charlie Kirk shooting does feel
like it's crossed the rubicon. And you mentioned that twice
in an interview, So talk a little bit about what
(19:23):
you mean by that. Why do you believe that this
is a watershed moment. I share that belief, but tell
the audience why you think that this is different.
Speaker 3 (19:33):
Yeah, the main reasoning is something that I alluded to earlier.
I mean the article that I'm working on. I've spoken
to different experts and we've been talking mainly about political
violence against government officials and politicians, because that has been
on the rise as well. But I've also been asking them,
you know, how long before this really starts to spill
(19:54):
over into the civilian world. You know, when President Trump
was selected, there was violence between civilians, but they were
fist fights. There was Antifa shown up at Trump Rowley's
target to starting trouble. It was a proud boys having
fist fights of Antifa. Not good but not a huge deal, right.
I mean, you know, people get into fights, whatever. But
(20:17):
for somebody like Charlie Kirk to be targeted and in
such a gruesome way, I mean when you watch that footage,
I mean I was heartbroken. I was completely heartbroken for him,
for his wife, for his children, and also for the country. Yeah,
that's different. That is different. I mean, we don't have
a lot of instances where a journalist or a pot well,
(20:39):
I mean, podcasting has only been around for so long,
but still like a radio, you know, a radio personality,
there haven't been a lot of instances of those people
being targeted for death. And you know, even though a
lot of these events have security, although I don't think
Kirk's really had that much security. I mean, I know
going forward, probably most conservative events will have some type
(21:02):
of security, but I think but even then, I mean,
they can still get you when you walk out. They
can get you, you know, if you're just at a rally.
And I think it does. It is having a chilling
effect on people like you and I who do this
for a living. But it's not gonna stop with us,
it'll stop, It'll continue even with regular people. And to me,
(21:25):
it's just it's very, very difficult, and I think that
is the rubicon that we've crossed, like what was off
limits before is gradually becoming less off limits. And you know,
I think that we're going to see more of this,
and people don't really understand what this impact will be.
(21:50):
I think a lot of it, like I said, is
being fueled by our quote unquote leaders, politicians, members of
the media, social media influencers who won't be affected when
this stuff happens most likely.
Speaker 2 (22:02):
But at the.
Speaker 3 (22:02):
Same time, it's just we're being pushed in a very
scary direction, and I think people don't really realize it yet.
Speaker 1 (22:14):
No. I think people are playing games like you're playing
with fire. I don't know how we get out of this.
I do obviously believe that we have to turn the
temperature down. I do not believe that the country is
sustainable at this level. I just don't think that this
(22:39):
country is so big and so diverse that you're going
to have political disagreements. That's going to happen, And the
whole point of our political system is to address our
issues at the ballot box and not through the cartridge box.
(23:03):
That's the point, that's the reason why we have this
system of government. Without that, the system doesn't work. The
country doesn't work. The whole thing falls apart. And the
thing that I'm concerned about is we have so few
(23:24):
shared touch points anymore. We don't listen to the same things,
we don't watch the same things, we don't consume the
same news, we don't consume the same content. We don't
live next to each other anymore. Where in all of
these different places where we used to come together, those
things don't exist anymore. Everybody's in their own silos now,
(23:47):
and you have to work hard to have a diverse
circle around you. You have to work hard to get
viewpoints that may not necessarily be yours. Everybody is in
the silos, and I think that these silos are what's
killing us, because when you're in a silo, it makes
(24:07):
it so much easier for you to be able to
dehumanize somebody who doesn't think like you.
Speaker 3 (24:16):
Yeah, you know, And I'm even gonna push back a
little bit on something you said, and I think you're
gonna agree with me. You know, you said that this
isn't working, this doesn't work, and in the way that
you mean it, you're right, but it is working for somebody.
And I'm not putting on a hit. I'm not putting
on a tinfoil hat here. I mean, this isn't really
even all that all that occult or esoteric. I think
(24:36):
a lot of people see this, but they can't get
themselves out of it. There are people in this country
who are very much invested in putting each other and
putting us at each other's throats. They want black versus white,
Republican versus Democrat, straight versus LGBTQ. The list goes on
and on and on. There's a reason that this division
(24:58):
is happening. And some of it is organic and some
of it is not. Some of it is being manufactured.
And what you just said about us being in silos
is very much a part of this. I mean, you
and I didn't create that. It was created for us.
We're being pushed into these silos, and people like you
and I are resisting that. Like like you have done
an excellent job of being able to speak with people
(25:21):
who don't agree with you and still being civil.
Speaker 2 (25:24):
And you know, you and I don't agree on everything.
Speaker 3 (25:26):
We disagree that, yeah we don't, and but at the
end of the day, you're still my brother, and we
can't we can't let go of that. And the other
issue is that there's there's not as much money and
nuance as there is in polarization and hyper partisanship. You know,
this team sports mentality that you and I have been
(25:48):
railing against for years, for years, and it's like you
and I have been sounding the clearing and call and
other people, not just us, plenty of other people, black, white, otherwise,
Republican Democrat, and that some people are catching on to it.
I hate to be you know, doom and gloom, because
there are positive signs, there are people. I have gotten
(26:09):
people responding to me saying, you know what, I used
to be very hyperpartisan, but then when I started seeing
the things that you were pointing out, I'm not as
hyperpartisan anymore. And I've seen people say that to you too.
So there is hope, but it's just it's not easy.
I mean, we don't have the billions and trillions of
dollars to fun anti division, if that's even the thing.
Speaker 2 (26:32):
Yeah, but something has to happen. It's either you know,
people like us.
Speaker 3 (26:36):
Are gonna end up end up winning out in the end.
But is it going to be because it just gets
so horrible that people finally get sick of it, or
will it be because people because an awakening happens and
people stop listening to the narratives that they're being fed
and start actually looking at things through a deeper and
more nuanced lens.
Speaker 1 (26:58):
Yeah, and and I mean that's a very good point.
And also you have to be willing to take the
slings and arrows from both sides when you do what
we do, and some people aren't willing to take that
because it's a harder road to take. You and I
both get hit by the left and the right because
we'll call bs on either side. And I think sometimes
(27:23):
and it's almost it almost may be psychological at this point,
where there are people who social media has allowed them
to become addicted to that dopamine hit that comes from
people who tell you what you want to hear, and
they just feed it to you over and over and
over and over and over again, whether it's true or not,
(27:45):
whether it's real or not, they just continue to give
you another hitter at dopamine. And I think people are
addicted to it now and you have to almost like
detox people from being, you know, addicted to that dopamine
hit because there's so many We got a bunch of
(28:08):
intellectual drug dealers on social media that are just feeding
people what they want to hear. And it does come
to a point where it becomes psychological at that point
where it becomes biological at that point because people get
addicted and they get keep getting hit with that dopamine
and it's and it's very lucrative. It's you and I
(28:32):
talk about this all the time. If we wanted to
be on the extreme left or the extreme right, we
know exactly what to do. You know exactly what to say,
exactly how to act, like we could do it tomorrow
if we wanted to. We choose not to because we
have a conscience and a soul and we have to
(28:53):
be able to sleep at night. But there we know
what the blueprint is, we know what the formula is.
It is very easy to be divisive and what I
call the equivalent of standing in the middle of the
street with your hair on fire, like you're gonna get
if you go out right now and go set your
hair on fire and standing in the middle of the street,
(29:13):
I guarantee you're gonna get attention. And so social media
is like that, and it rewards that. It pays people,
literally pays people for that and now, I think you
have an entire entire groups of people who their only
experience in political discourse is that and they don't know
(29:37):
anything else. And that's a problem.
Speaker 3 (29:41):
Yeah, yeah, it is. I mean, and I think the
drug addiction analogy is perfect, and we've made that analogy
many times. I mean, it reminds me of that song
pusher Man by Curtis Mayfield, where he's basically playing the
part of of the drug dealer getting you hooked on
certain substances and now you basically own even if you
know it's not right, that's happening. That's exactly what's happening here.
(30:05):
I mean, we I think there was Glenn Beck who
wrote a book called Addicted to Outrage, and I remember
reading that and and I know some people don't like
Glenn Beck.
Speaker 2 (30:15):
I I have a soft spot for him. I like
Glenn Beck.
Speaker 3 (30:18):
I think he's sincere, even though I might disagree with
him on a bunch of different things. But he even
acknowledged that he was part of this a long time ago.
And you know, back when he you know, back in
the day, during the Bush years, Obama years, all of that,
and it hasn't gotten better. And I don't really know
what to do about it other than what you and
(30:39):
I are already doing. And it's I have to remind
myself for every negative comment I get from the left
or the right, because I get it from both, just
like you. You know, there are people who may not
say anything, but they're getting it. And every now and
then I'll get a DM or somebody commenting saying, you
know what, I'm I follow you because you don't just
(31:00):
just subscribe to whatever the prevailing narrative is on either side.
And you know, I just I just I feel it's
just hard because it's like, is there something more that
I could be doing to help fix this problem? And
I think that just doing what we're doing. I mean,
(31:21):
even with Charlie Kirk, he was very adamant about civil discourse.
He abhorred violence, and again I think that that was
great about him, like he was very much and he
put that into action too. He didn't just say we
shouldn't have violence and we should just do more free
speech and discourse.
Speaker 2 (31:37):
He actually went out and did it.
Speaker 3 (31:39):
He actually went out and did it and conversed with
people who disagreed with him, not just on college college campuses.
I mean, he would have debates with Chank Wiger. He
was like Gavin Newsom's first guest on his podcast, if
I remember correctly, and conservatives hate Gavin Newsome. But I mean,
but and even when South Park made fun of him,
I'm seeing a lot of people saying, oh, Charlie Kirk's
(32:01):
blood is on your hands. No, Charlie Kirk leaned into
that because he thought it was funny when they made
fun of him, and he understood how comedy works. He
doesn't have to he didn't have to agree with it,
but he was okay with it. And if anything, if
you're on the right listening to this, and your first
instinct is you know, you know, we got to demonize
(32:23):
the left, demonize people on the left, I don't think
that's what Charlie Kirk would want you to do. I mean,
at least not in the way that people are talking about.
I mean, there are forces on the left, in the
white right who want us divided, but not all of them.
Speaker 1 (32:37):
Do.
Speaker 3 (32:38):
Your neighbor who voted for Kamala Harris doesn't hate you
for the most part. I mean, yes, are there are
people out there like that, yes, of course, But in general,
I mean, people aren't going at each other's throats over
this stuff, at least just yet. But we have to
recognize the syop. I keep telling people stop falling for
the syof whether it's racial or whatever.
Speaker 2 (32:59):
Point of division. It's not.
Speaker 3 (33:01):
It may feel good that dopamine hit feels good, but
just like crack, it's gonna rot you from inside. It's
going to destroy your life, and in this case, it
can destroy an entire country. While the people who are
fomenting this division are the only ones benefiting from it.
Speaker 1 (33:16):
Yeah, they're the ones getting rich. They're they're literally the
intellectual drug dealers. Because they're the ones getting rich. Why
everyone else suffers because it's very lucrative. Stay tuned more
to come here on the Outlaws. Tell Alexa to play
the Outlaws radio show. Here.
Speaker 5 (33:31):
It is from my Heart Radio.
Speaker 1 (33:45):
True Sir, out, pray out, Welcome back and listening to
the Outlaws. Make sure that you subscribe to the show
on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeart, or wherever you get your podcasts.
And if you listen to this show on Apple or Spotify,
please make sure you leave us a five star review.
It's very important for the algorithm and for those of
you that have already done so thank you also very much,
(34:08):
and now let's get to the conclusion of our interview
with Jeff Charles. And I mean, when you think about
where we're at, and you talked about you know, your neighbor,
most your neighbor who voted for Kamala Hair. If you're
a Republican, your neighbor who voted for Kamala Hairs probably
doesn't hate you. I said this on social media. I
(34:30):
say this all the time. I live in a blue city,
in a blue county, in a red state. I see
people interacting and working with each other from different sides
of the political aisle all the time. It is a
fact of life when you live in a politically diverse environment,
(34:52):
like you don't have a choice, and so you see
on a regular basis well being normal. And then you
get to social media and you see folks making complete
asses out of themselves on a regular basis and thinking
that there's like, there's no cost to this. And I
(35:17):
do agree with the point that you said earlier that
a lot of this is online, But my concern is
always that eventually what's online does eventually move offline, and
you do end up with a situation where it spills
over if I'm not mistaken. We've seen some of these shooters,
like the Buffalo shooter was radicalized online, you know what
(35:40):
I mean. You see what I'm saying, So like there
is a concern with that, Like this stuff, this stuff
matters because crazy people do crazy things and we can't
be in an environment. I don't care how much you
disagreed with Charlie Kirk. I disagreed with Charlie Kirk a
lot and was not afraid to tell them either. You
(36:03):
know what I'm saying. But it can't end like this.
It can't all end like this because if it can
happen to him, it can happen to you, It can
happen to me, It can happen to anybody. Because there's
a lot of people that don't like what we have
to say.
Speaker 3 (36:13):
Either yeah, yeah, and you're absolutely right, and you know,
and I live in a blue town in a rural area,
or I'm sorry, well the town is probably red and
I live in a red state Louisiana. Everybody on my
street is black, and their families go back for years
and years and years, you know, back back to the
(36:33):
days of reconstruction, slavery, all of that when we go
into town, we see a lot of white people and
a lot of black people, high black populations. You don't
it doesn't look anything like online. I mean, black people
are hanging out with white people. They're they're chilling here
in the in the in the Deep South. Nobody cares.
It's it's not a thing. And you know they didn't
vote for the same people. So but to speak to
(36:56):
your point, you're right. All pretty much everything that we've
seen as far as political violence or even mass shootings,
they weren't radicalized in their own communities. They were radicalized online.
And I think that's why it's important. So while I
do look at the difference between online life and real
life as a silver lining to keep me sane, I
(37:17):
still recognize that there's just way too many situations where
this vitriol that's being perpetuated online is seeping into the
real world, and it's doing it more and more and
more that we've seen this. We've seen this happen increasingly
over over the over recent years. And I and like
I was saying before, my fears that real life does
(37:39):
become more like online. But I think that there has
to be some type of tipping point where people just
don't want to do this anymore. You know, one of
the experts I spoke with for the article I'm working on,
he brought up an example of a guy who had
(37:59):
run his car into a crowd of people, and that
crowd of people beat the crap out of the guy.
That's what's gonna have to happen, so some version. I'm
not talking about physical violence here, unless you know, if
it's in defense or something like that. But we're basically
gonna have to do that online and in real life
because realistically, the people who are decent, normal and rational
(38:22):
we far outnumber those who aren't, so they shouldn't be.
They just happen to have the loudest microphones. They get
amplified more on social media. I know Elon Musk was
talking about a while ago, is that he wants people
to be content creators, to be more rewarded for providing
educational or informational posts and not so much division. And
I was like, yeah, right, dude, Like even if you
(38:44):
are serious, that's not gonna happen unless you really take
some drastic steps, because at the end of the day,
this is what people want. This is that intellectual drug dealing,
This is what happens. People are hooked on this stuff.
So if you do want to facilitate and move away
from that, I have to understand there's gonna be some withdrawals,
there's gonna be there's gonna have to be some rehab,
and honestly, people like Elon Musk are in a position
(39:07):
to be able to maybe facilitate some of that. I
would love to see him do that, to actually put
that into action, knowing it's not gonna happen overnight, but
maybe gradually he can change some things to shift more
in a direction where people can get their dopamine hits
from interacting with somebody who they don't agree with. Maybe
they get their dopamine hits from saying, you know, I know,
I had a really great I'm a Republican, but I
(39:29):
had a really great conversation with a Democrat. We found
a lot of common ground. We didn't agree on this,
but we did agree on this, and I feel good
about that. That's what has to happen instead of I
just own the LIBS. Today, I just own the Libs,
and I feel great about it. There's a difference. One
is dangerous in damaging, the other is productive.
Speaker 1 (39:48):
We're talking with Jeff Charles, our news editor at townhall
dot com and host of the Fresh Perspective with Jeff
Charles podcast. In the wake of all this, man, have
you thought about you? Have you thought about what you
do and being in this space and how you moves
(40:09):
has just given you any pause?
Speaker 2 (40:12):
Not yet, but I am concerned.
Speaker 3 (40:16):
I don't think I'm famous famous enough yet I don't
know if I ever will be. And I also I
don't travel as much as I used to. I mean,
I was going to Seepac quite a bit and stuff
like that, which at a lot of those events, I
was actually armed, and you know a lot of us were.
But it does gives me some pause in that if
(40:36):
I ever participate in those things again, or even if
there's events here, like whether there's a protest against something
a local government is doing or or something like that,
or speaking at a city council meeting, because of whatever,
it does give me pause. I'm going to make sure
I'm able to protect myself. But I'm also going to
be a lot more aware of my surroundings just in case,
(40:57):
because even though I'm not on Charlie Kirk's level as
far as fame, goes. You never know, there could be
somebody out there who doesn't like you and is wanting
to do something about it to make an example of you.
I mean even just having a position at town Hall.
Town Hall is a very conservative outlet, Salem Communications, which
(41:19):
owns town Hall. Charlie Kirk was part of Salem Communications, right,
So it could just be that somebody wants to target
somebody from a conservative network and it doesn't matter who
they are. So yeah, though those things are going through
my head where I live, it's just not as likely.
I don't live in a major city, but it doesn't
mean I'm not going to visit major cities in the future.
(41:40):
So yeah, I mean it does not to an extreme level.
Speaker 2 (41:43):
I'm not.
Speaker 3 (41:43):
I haven't become paranoid, but it does make me. It
does put things into perspective in a way that would
prompt me to be more aware of what's going on
around me, especially if I'm in an area where something
is more likely to jump off.
Speaker 1 (42:00):
Yeah, I mean, like I've thought about it before this,
and like you can't help but to be taken aback
by it, especially because, like we said, this is you're
talking about someone who was using words. This is not
someone who was using violence or even advocating for violence.
(42:22):
He was using words like we all use words, you know.
I remember having a conversation recently, probably about a month ago,
with a good friend of mine who was very distraught
because there was someone who this person was friends with
who attacked her for being friends with me. And I
(42:45):
have no idea who this person is. They know me
from my work in the public, they know me from
my position, they know me from social media. And this
is a person who hates my guts, largely because I identify
as an evenge of the college that I got my
(43:09):
bachelor's degree from, like things that, you know what I mean,
Like I have. So there is somebody who I don't know,
who's walking around here, who's in my city somewhere, who
hates my guts because of my interactions in the public
and because of what of my religious beliefs, you know
(43:30):
what I mean. Like, So we live in that like
it's a reality. It's an absolute reality. And I think
the one thing is political violence is designed to chill speech,
So we can't allow it to do that because that's
what it's designed to do, is designed to make us
all shut up. And the best way, one of the
(43:54):
best ways to combat that is to continue to talk.
So we can't allow a political violence to do what
it's designed to do. But yeah, I'd be lying if
I didn't say, hey, you know, yeah, you think about it,
You think about it, like, man, that man, that man
was murdered in front of his family, like that's awful.
(44:15):
And then to see some people online saying he deserved it,
like man, it's horrible.
Speaker 2 (44:25):
Yeah, and see, and that's the thing.
Speaker 3 (44:26):
The act itself was bad enough, but what even showed
me more that we've crossed the rubicon is when people
celebrate it. And this isn't the first time. I mean,
you know, you had the Democrats in Minnesota who got murdered.
We've had other politicians who get murdered, and people will
celebrate it. And sometimes it's just a few people. And
I still think most people in Charlie Kirk's situation, left
(44:47):
and right are condemning it. But just but I can't
ignore the fact that there is like an overwhelming outpouring
of joy among some people on the left because this
man was killed, and that even just let me further
know how far we're going. Because I can't say it
would have been different if it would have been Chank
(45:07):
Weager from the young Turks who got assassinated. I mean,
I know people on the right light to say that
they don't do that stuff, but they do. We've all
seen them do it. And you know, and none of
those people represent the party that they identify with, because
most people in that party are going to condemn it.
But still it just seems like it's getting worse. This
stuff is becoming a lot more acceptable, and we just
(45:30):
we can't allow this to continue. And I think realistically,
like you said, this is meant to have a chilling effect.
Like this guy whoever did this to Kirk obviously had
a political motive, but he also may have had a
personal motive, like maybe he felt like Charlie was personally
attacking him. And to me, the people who want us
to shut up, this is what they're going to do.
(45:52):
They're going to radicalize people like this individual or others
or do or take it upon themselves. One of the
best ways we fight back is by not being afraid
to speak. And I honestly, I think that's one thing
that Charlie would definitely say. Don't let this, don't let
this call you into silence. Don't let these people intimidate
you into silence. We still have to keep speaking the truth.
(46:14):
We still have to keep telling people what the right
way is. We still have to keep fighting for liberty
in the way that in the way that we know
how and the way that we can. Because if we
allow these people to silence us and to keep us
in our in our silos, this country is going to devolve.
It's going to evolve into either left wing authoritarianism or
(46:35):
right wing authoritarianism, or some hybrid of both. And none
of us want to live under that. I don't care
who you vote for, nobody wants to live under that.
But this is kind of how it starts.
Speaker 1 (46:46):
Yeah, absolutely, And if we don't get a handle on
this quick, you know this, this this can become an
uncontrolled fire because political violence begets political violence like it
calls is retaliation and all sorts of things, and where
the society just completely and totally devolves, and nobody wants
(47:09):
to live like that. We're talking with Jeff Charles, news
editor at town hall dot com and host of A
Fresh Perspective with Jeff Charles. As we you're ready to
wind down things here, one of the things I was
just thinking about as you were speaking, is the kids
that were in the crowd that like, these are college students, right,
(47:33):
They were definitely, you know, younger than our old buds.
So what do you I'm concerned about how they react
to this. He had a following, you know, Charlie. I'm
thirty eight, Charlie's thirty one, so he seven years younger
(47:53):
than me. Charlie had a very young following. I'm concerned
about them being radical from seeing, you know, one of
their heroes, no matter how you felt about him, whether
you like him or not. Anybody who's under the sound
of my voice, whether you like him or not, he
was one of their heroes for for millions of people.
(48:14):
And you know, social media has been playing him being
murdered on a loop over and over and over and
over and over again. What does that do. I'm concerned
that it doesn't radicalize his followers.
Speaker 3 (48:32):
Yet, you know, I think you know, what I'm gonna
say is gonna sound maybe kind of what's the word
I want to use. It's gonna sound kind of I
wish you wash or what have you. But I truly
believe what I'm about to say and what I'm about
to say, is that what happened to Charlie Kirk and
(48:53):
seeing that footage for the people who are people who
were there, and for people who who saw those videos
on repeat, that's traumatizing that you experienced trauma. When you
see these things, we don't recognize it because in a
lot of ways we've become desensitized to it. But when
you and I were younger, I mean, I'm about to
turn forty five next week, and you know you would
(49:16):
hear about these things, but you do. We never saw them.
We didn't see footage of it. It wasn't circulating freely
on any kind of social media because social media wasn't
as much of a thing then. But I remember when
nine to eleven happened, and the day after I went
to class in college, and I remember the professor saying,
(49:39):
you know, we didn't even do coursework. We just talked
about what happened. And he was saying, we may not
realize that, but everybody in America has been traumatized. This
is trauma that we're going through right now. Even though
we weren't there, we know what happened, and we know
what you know that three thousand people died and I
hadn't thought of it that way, And I'm like, how
can I be traumatized when I'm like, way on the
(50:01):
West coast, this happened on the East coast. But then
I was like, you know, he's right because it hit
me hard, and it hit all of us hard. Same
thing is true of Charlie Kirk. I mean, you see
somebody get a bullet in their throat and the blood
coming out, And I'm not saying that to be you know, sensationalistic.
That's what happened, and we've all seen it. People can
(50:25):
can just easily pull that up and watch it. For
the younger generation, especially those who looked up to him
as a hero, there is a risk of that. There
is a risk of them thinking, you know, they gunned
him down when he just wanted to talk about free speech.
This isn't going to work. Talking doesn't work. We need
(50:45):
to be more radical. That's where this could easily lead.
And this is something that Charlie Kirk would not want.
Like I've said that a few times in this conversation,
that is something that he would argue against. So I
think as the older people or at forget it, we're
not old yet we ain't old yet.
Speaker 1 (51:03):
No, we not we approach an unk. We're not quite
a unk. Were big bro right now we're at.
Speaker 3 (51:10):
Yeah I like that, but yeah, but this is where
people like us need to be the adults in the room,
the big bros in the room, and helped to steer
them in the right direction, because I mean, the ramifications
of this aren't just what's going to happen. You know
in a few weeks next month, a few months from now,
this could reverberate for years as this younger generation starts
(51:32):
coming up and they saw what happened to one of
their heroes. And you know, I'll even I don't want
people to take this the wrong way, but I can
even relate it to the civil rights movement when MLKA
was shot, when members of the Black Panthers were killed,
Fred Hampton, I'm not saying that the same thing. I'm
just saying it can have the same impact because the
people who followed them, the people who looked up to them,
(51:54):
the people who felt like these people were leading them
in the right directions, were just suddenly gunned down by
people who didn't like them because of their viewpoints. That
radicalize a lot of people. And then a lot of
other people want the other direction. We need to make
sure in this case that we are encouraging younger people
to go in the right direction. We got to continue talking.
(52:14):
Don't let a bullet make you afraid to speak, or
don't make don't let a bullet prompt you to shoot
a bullet back, unless it's in self defense, that's different.
But I'm talking about actually engaging in political violence. That's
not what this country was supposed to be. That's not
what that's not the society that we want to live in,
(52:34):
and especially not with each other, because you know, people
who vote Democrat and Republican are going through a lot
of the same stuff. The Republicans aren't your enemy. Democrats
are not your enemy. Black people are not your enemy.
White people are not your enemy. LGBTQ people are not
your enemy. Straight people are not your enemy. But we
do have an enemy. We have two enemies. We've got
(52:55):
one that is not a flesh and blood, which you know,
being an event evangelical and a lot of your listeners
know this too, is the enemy is not made of
flesh and blood. We're talking about principalities. We're talking about
spiritual issues that we're up against, but we're also against
the people who follow those principalities, the people who are
(53:18):
in power. I'm not talking about every single person who
is in a position of power. I'm just saying, by
and large, the system that we live under. I'll just
say this, it's not Christian, it's not christ Like, it
doesn't represent Christ. Those are the real enemies, that's what
we should be united against. But yet this division that
we have going on, that is what prevents us from
(53:39):
actually going after the actual enemy.
Speaker 1 (53:42):
And as we close, I mean, I don't want to
take it take it to church here, but I believe
that that's what the devil wants. I believe that if
we stay divided amongst ourselves, then we're not focused on
the things that you talked about that we actually need
to be fighting against. That has been the history of
this nation. This nation is always at its strongest when
(54:05):
we're united, and it's always at its weakest when we're divided.
Let everybody know how to follow you, sir.
Speaker 3 (54:13):
Yes, you can read my work on townhall dot com.
You can check out my podcast called A Fresh Perspective
with Jeff Charles on the FCB podcast Network, and you
can follow me on Twitter at Jeff Charles Junior.
Speaker 1 (54:28):
All Right, man, thanks for coming on. Man. I wanted
to have a responsible conversation about this. I know that
there's been a lot of vitriol being thrown on both sides, man,
so I thought it was very important to have an
adult in the room to talk about this. So thanks
for coming on the show.
Speaker 2 (54:47):
Brother, you got it. Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1 (54:50):
All Right, one more time, shout out to Jeff Charles
for coming on the show. I really appreciate it. We
are out here. We'll see you next week. Peace. This
was produced by f CVM HM
This is the FCB Podcast Network. Great job boot change
at don we don't listen to y'all this, We don't
listen to y'all. This the hold make them scream out
down that gota sound because the.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
Rockets in the crowd.
Speaker 1 (00:24):
Tune in the charge for the outdaw tune in the
charge for the Outlaw. Welcome to a special edition of
The Outlaws. This is darb O King tomorrow. Uh, don't
forget too Like us on Facebook at facebook dot com,
slash the Outlaws Radio, follow us on Instagram and x
(00:44):
at the Outlaws Radio. I have a very special interview
that's gonna be for the full hour, for the full
episode with my buddy Jeff Charles, who's the news editor
of town Hall and host of Fresh Respect with Jeff
Charles the podcast. It's been a crazy few days. Obviously
(01:10):
most of you who are listening are aware of the
murder of conservative activists Charlie Kirk. I would say this upfront,
and I've said this on social media, uh several times.
I was not a fan of Charlie Kirk. I was
a vociferous, vocal critic of many of the things that
(01:33):
Charlie Kirk said. But this was unacceptable. Political violence is
a scourge. It is corrosive, It destroys societies, and no
(01:54):
one is immune to it, you know. I, Like I said,
I've criticized many of the things that Charlie Kirkin said.
I am pretty middle of the road in my temperament.
But there are people who don't like what I say either.
There are people who hate the things that I say
(02:15):
as well. And so we cannot be in an environment
in a situation where political political violence is accepted is
the norm, Like, we just can't live like that. So
Jeff and I are going to tackle that subject and
(02:40):
a lot more in a responsible way. I do think
it's important that everybody turned the temperature down. We've said this,
I don't know how many times when all of these
different tragedies and atrocities happen, everybody always calls to turn
the temperature down, and then they turn it right back up.
(03:01):
We have to get serious as a country about turning
the temperature down. Which is why I wanted Jeff to
come on, because he's someone that I know to be
responsible with his words and not sensationalistic or bombastic, and
I wanted to be able to have a conversation with
someone like that on this topic. So we're gonna get
(03:24):
to that interview right now. All right, on this somber occasion,
I have a very special guest on the show today.
He is a news editor at Townhall dot com. He's
also the host of the podcast A Fresh Perspective with
Jeff Charles, which is part of the FCV podcast Network,
(03:46):
which we will be returning very shortly. Jeff Charles, Welcome, man.
How you doing.
Speaker 3 (03:53):
Hey, I'm doing alright, man, like just taking this all in.
But I'm glad to be able to talk with somebody
about it who, you know, is more rational, like we've
talked about before, So I think this will be a
good conversation.
Speaker 1 (04:07):
Yeah. You know, you're the one that told me I
was I was at I was actually in the parking
lot at WOVU and I was getting ready to leave
and I got a text from you. It's like Charlie
Kirk just got shot. I'm like what And it just
seemed surreal, bizarre. So walk me through kind of obviously
(04:34):
you had the news before I did, Like how walk
me through, like how you found out and like how
you were processing that because it was crazy to me.
Speaker 3 (04:46):
Yeah, so I tend to catch a lot of these
type of things because the main thing that I do
at Talent Hall is cover breaking news. So I have
my ex pro used to be called tweet deck set
up to be able to get me breaking news as
it happens, and I have other ways that I can
be notified when something big or something crazy happens. And
(05:08):
I saw I saw the chatter chatter almost immediately. I
mean I had already been working on other articles, but
when I saw this, everything everything stopped. And you know,
I didn't I hadn't seen the footage yet, but I
just knew that he had been shot. There was there
was no announcement of his death at that time, but
I didn't know how bad it was quite just yet
(05:31):
I saw some people talking about it. And then eventually
I saw the footage And when I texted you was
before we knew whether he was still alive or not.
But when I saw the footage, and I think I
may have even said this to you, like I saw that,
I don't think there was any way he was going
(05:52):
to be able to.
Speaker 2 (05:52):
Survive that unless there was some kind of miracle.
Speaker 3 (05:55):
So I mean, you were actually I think you were
probably the first person I texted when I saw that.
Speaker 1 (06:00):
Yeah, yeah, man, it just kind of it sent you know,
things kind of almost into like a whirlwind, like a tailspin.
And let me explain why for people who don't know,
and you know, I was not a fan of Charlie Kirk.
I was very critical publicly about many of the things
(06:23):
that he said. But to see that this is not
someone who was violent, This was someone who was having
a conversation, and to see him, you know, shot in
the neck with his wife and kids, they're like, from
(06:46):
a human standpoint, first and foremost a humanity standpoint, it's
it's horrific. And also like we do this for a living,
Like we're we're both in the what I call the
First Amendment business, right, So when you're in the.
Speaker 4 (07:08):
First Amendment business, seeing someone executed for exercising his First Amendment.
Speaker 1 (07:18):
Rights is very bizarre and and jarring, I think to everybody,
because I've gotten death threats before. I'm sure you've gotten
death threats before. Like we all kind of live in
this reality. And so to see that happened to him,
(07:42):
Like I said, even though I was someone who was
very critical of some of the things that he has said,
in the past. It was. It was painful, man. It
was painful to.
Speaker 2 (07:53):
See that, you know.
Speaker 3 (07:55):
And I think the word painful is a really good
way to describe it, because because I mean I disagreed
with Charlie on a lot of things, just like I
disagree with a lot of people on the left and
the right. I mean that that's just the way it is.
I mean, when you're in political discourse, there are gonna
be people who you disagree with. I still could never
(08:16):
wrap my mind around the notion that somebody who says
some things that I might disagree with should be killed
for it. And when I saw what happened to him,
I mean, he was doing what he always does. He's
going he was going to compass college campuses. This was
the first step on his new tour. But he's been
(08:36):
doing this for years, not just him, but a lot
of others. And there's something about this particular situation, you know,
with Trump's attempt at assassination, that I don't think it
was as bad as Charlie Kirk's. Like even if Charlie
Cook had lived, I still would consider his situation worse
(08:57):
than President Trump. And it's gonna sound bad, but because
Trump was a former president, he was running for president again.
He was a politician, and he was controversial. The only
thing surprising about that was that it didn't happen sooner. Right,
We've also seen other politicians be targets for violence. It's
I hate to say it, but it's kind of normal.
And this isn't new. I mean, you know what happened
(09:18):
with JFK. I mean, presidents have been assassinated, you know,
throughout history. But Charlie Kirk was not a politician. He
was not a government official. He had he didn't have
say over policy. He had influenced most definitely, but he
wasn't setting policy or anything like that. He was just
speaking his mind. And one thing I'm gonna say about
(09:39):
Charlie Kirk is that he has never incited violence. He
has never even insinuated that we should resort to physical
force to enforce our beliefs on others. He was all
about civil discourse. And to see him get gunned down
like that, and I saw the video multiple times from
different angles it Honestly, I think we crossed a rubicon,
(10:04):
and I'm sure we'll be talking about that. I think
a seal is broken, and this is something that I've
been expecting for a while, not Charlie Kirks specifically, but
somebody like him and others who would fall victim to
violence that would just send us into a different era
in our politics, one that is a lot more dangerous.
Speaker 1 (10:24):
We're talking with Jeff Charles, news editor at town hall
dot com, host of a Fresh Perspective with Jeff Charles,
and I mean, that is one of the things that
is just concerning to me. I don't think the country
can continue on like this. This is not sustainable. I
think we're on an unsustainable path. And so, for example,
(10:47):
when we talk about Charlie Kirk's rhetoric, which I have
deem passionately vociferously disagreed with him on numerous occasions, as
have you, none of us, like you said earlier, ever thought, hey,
I want to see this dude dead, and to see
(11:08):
that it was just it was it was awful. Because
here's the other thing, and I said this on social media,
because you do see some people that are almost making
excuses for his assassination based on his rhetoric, which again
I disagreed with a lot of his rhetoric, and I
(11:28):
said so very passionately numerous times publicly on social media.
But like I said on social media today, I'm probably
as middle of the road as you're gonna get from
a political commentator standpoint, and people hate me too. So, yes,
(11:50):
rhetoric is a problem. Yes we need to turn the
temperature down, but we also have a hatred problem in
the country that needs to be addressed, because at the
end of the day, you don't you match words with words.
You don't match words with bullets. You have thoughts.
Speaker 3 (12:09):
Yeah, and that's traditionally how it's been for the most part.
I mean, I'm not going to say there's never been
political violence. I mean, we all know those stories about
lawmakers fighting on the House floor way back in the day,
but but it wasn't quite the same thing. And I
think I just over the past decade, we have seen
(12:31):
the polarization grow worse and worse and worse and worse.
I remember, you know, a long time ago, a few
years ago, you and I had a conversation like this
when the FBI rated President Donald Trump's home at mar
A Lago. I remember we were we were saying, this
is going to take us to a really bad place.
(12:51):
And it wasn't just that one incident. It was just
it was just one of many that were indicative of
where we're going as a country. And I don't see
a way out of this because you know, I wrote
a post on X last night, which was the night
of Kirk's death, and you know, I don't think that
(13:14):
this is going to have anything good come of it.
But it's not like nine to eleven. Ironically enough, you know,
we're on nine to eleven right now. After nine eleven happened,
there was a lot of unity. People rallied behind each other,
rallied behind the nation, and I would hope that something
like this would prompt people to say, you know what,
maybe this has gotten out of hand. Somebody has died
(13:37):
because of political debate. That's what should happen. But I
don't see that happening. Like I said, I think we've
crossed the rubicon here, and I think this moment is
the what's the word I want to use, it's the
launching point. I think there's gonna be more political violence.
And I've been predicting it for a while. And I'm
not one of those who's always like, yeah, civil war,
(13:58):
yeah yah yah, yeah. I'm sure anybody listening knows who
I'm talking about. But it's not just him that There's
a lot of influencers who won't outright call for civil war,
but you can tell that they're trying to push us
more towards that. But to me, the only way this
ends is for people to for it's for enough people
(14:20):
to get sick of it to the point to where
they're willing to do things to dial things down. But
I think it's going to get worse before it gets better.
And God, I hope I'm wrong about that.
Speaker 1 (14:29):
Yeah, I hope you're wrong about it too. I fear
that as well. And when you live in a society,
if we live in a society where people are afraid
to speak like that. The First Amendment is the first
Amendment for a reason, and we're exercising it right now.
We're like, like I said, like I said on Twitter
(14:52):
the night and that it happened or x the night
that it happened. My entire career, my entire business, my
entire life is built on the First Amendment. And if
we're all in a place now where exercising that could
(15:13):
mean could risk your life, that's a problem. And again,
I don't want people to just think, oh, whoa, whoa.
It was about his rhetoric. I've gotten death threats, You've
gotten death threats, and neither one of us use the
same type of rhetoric that Charlie Kirk did. So the issue.
I'm not trying to diminish the importance of words. I
(15:33):
know that words matter, but we're also in a situation
where the country does not have the mental and emotional
maturity to be able to disagree even vociferously without resorting
to violence. And to me, that's a dangerous place to
be in.
Speaker 3 (15:53):
Yeah, and it goes back to what you were saying
about humanity. I mean that word was ringing in my
head all day yesterday because we have lost a lot
of our humanity in America. You know, I prefer humanity
over politics, and a lot of people don't. And you know,
I will say, maybe there is a silver lining because
(16:13):
a lot of this stuff is still very online. It's
very you know, on the airwaves and the interwebs. You know,
whether it's racial strife or class strife or what have you.
You know, you go outside, you go into town or whatever.
You see people getting getting along in general, and you
know they don't all vote for the same party right.
(16:33):
My fear is that, you know, one day, real life
will look more like Twitter. And I think there are
people who are actively invested in making that happen. And
this is not just a left wing thing. I know,
we're talking about you know, political violence, and a lot
of that has come from the left over the past
few years. This does not mean that it has not
come from the from the right as well. It also
(16:55):
doesn't mean that there couldn't be something retaliatory done by
somebody on the right. And that's where I'm afraid people
talk about civil war. If we're going to get into
a situation something like that, that's what it's going to
look like. It's not going to look like California's military
and Texas military fighting each other. That's not what's going
to happen. It's going to be acts like this where
people are killed for expressing political views. I mean in Boulder, Colorado,
(17:19):
you had that group of pro Israel Jewish people and
a guy lobbed you know, molotov cocktails at them just
for expressing their viewpoints. I mean that there was even
shortly after October seventh, twenty twenty three, you had a
guy kill a Palestinian American child over a war that
is happening thousands and thousands of miles away. That this
(17:41):
can't become the new normal, but I think it is,
and I think the only way we can weather this
storm is to remember that real life doesn't necessarily reflect
what's happening on the screen, whether it's your television screen
or your iPad screen or.
Speaker 2 (17:57):
Your smartphone screen.
Speaker 3 (17:59):
But even still, there's gonna be more people being radicalized.
And I've actually been working on an article for the
past month or so on political violence, because there has
been a fourteen percent increase at least, and I've been
speaking with different experts and they're all saying the same thing.
They're not very optimistic.
Speaker 1 (18:18):
No, no, I understand. We're talking with Jeff Charles, editor
at town Hall dot com, host of a Fresh Perspective
with Jeff Charles podcast. You know, it's like, as you
were talking and you were going on with the different
(18:39):
incidents of political violence that have occurred, you know, I
started thinking about even more that has happened, so like
when Gabby Gifford's got shot, when Steve Scalice got shot,
the mother Emanual church shooting, the Buffalo Supermarket shooting all
It's like, man, these things, It's like it's been building
(19:01):
and building and building and building, and just year after
year after year, we've gotten to this point and this
feels different to me. The Charlie Kirk shooting does feel
like it's crossed the rubicon. And you mentioned that twice
in an interview, So talk a little bit about what
(19:23):
you mean by that. Why do you believe that this
is a watershed moment. I share that belief, but tell
the audience why you think that this is different.
Speaker 3 (19:33):
Yeah, the main reasoning is something that I alluded to earlier.
I mean the article that I'm working on. I've spoken
to different experts and we've been talking mainly about political
violence against government officials and politicians, because that has been
on the rise as well. But I've also been asking them,
you know, how long before this really starts to spill
(19:54):
over into the civilian world. You know, when President Trump
was selected, there was violence between civilians, but they were
fist fights. There was Antifa shown up at Trump Rowley's
target to starting trouble. It was a proud boys having
fist fights of Antifa. Not good but not a huge deal, right.
I mean, you know, people get into fights, whatever. But
(20:17):
for somebody like Charlie Kirk to be targeted and in
such a gruesome way, I mean when you watch that footage,
I mean I was heartbroken. I was completely heartbroken for him,
for his wife, for his children, and also for the country. Yeah,
that's different. That is different. I mean, we don't have
a lot of instances where a journalist or a pot well,
(20:39):
I mean, podcasting has only been around for so long,
but still like a radio, you know, a radio personality,
there haven't been a lot of instances of those people
being targeted for death. And you know, even though a
lot of these events have security, although I don't think
Kirk's really had that much security. I mean, I know
going forward, probably most conservative events will have some type
(21:02):
of security, but I think but even then, I mean,
they can still get you when you walk out. They
can get you, you know, if you're just at a rally.
And I think it does. It is having a chilling
effect on people like you and I who do this
for a living. But it's not gonna stop with us,
it'll stop, It'll continue even with regular people. And to me,
(21:25):
it's just it's very, very difficult, and I think that
is the rubicon that we've crossed, like what was off
limits before is gradually becoming less off limits. And you know,
I think that we're going to see more of this,
and people don't really understand what this impact will be.
(21:50):
I think a lot of it, like I said, is
being fueled by our quote unquote leaders, politicians, members of
the media, social media influencers who won't be affected when
this stuff happens most likely.
Speaker 2 (22:02):
But at the.
Speaker 3 (22:02):
Same time, it's just we're being pushed in a very
scary direction, and I think people don't really realize it yet.
Speaker 1 (22:14):
No. I think people are playing games like you're playing
with fire. I don't know how we get out of this.
I do obviously believe that we have to turn the
temperature down. I do not believe that the country is
sustainable at this level. I just don't think that this
(22:39):
country is so big and so diverse that you're going
to have political disagreements. That's going to happen, And the
whole point of our political system is to address our
issues at the ballot box and not through the cartridge box.
(23:03):
That's the point, that's the reason why we have this
system of government. Without that, the system doesn't work. The
country doesn't work. The whole thing falls apart. And the
thing that I'm concerned about is we have so few
(23:24):
shared touch points anymore. We don't listen to the same things,
we don't watch the same things, we don't consume the
same news, we don't consume the same content. We don't
live next to each other anymore. Where in all of
these different places where we used to come together, those
things don't exist anymore. Everybody's in their own silos now,
(23:47):
and you have to work hard to have a diverse
circle around you. You have to work hard to get
viewpoints that may not necessarily be yours. Everybody is in
the silos, and I think that these silos are what's
killing us, because when you're in a silo, it makes
(24:07):
it so much easier for you to be able to
dehumanize somebody who doesn't think like you.
Speaker 3 (24:16):
Yeah, you know, And I'm even gonna push back a
little bit on something you said, and I think you're
gonna agree with me. You know, you said that this
isn't working, this doesn't work, and in the way that
you mean it, you're right, but it is working for somebody.
And I'm not putting on a hit. I'm not putting
on a tinfoil hat here. I mean, this isn't really
even all that all that occult or esoteric. I think
(24:36):
a lot of people see this, but they can't get
themselves out of it. There are people in this country
who are very much invested in putting each other and
putting us at each other's throats. They want black versus white,
Republican versus Democrat, straight versus LGBTQ. The list goes on
and on and on. There's a reason that this division
(24:58):
is happening. And some of it is organic and some
of it is not. Some of it is being manufactured.
And what you just said about us being in silos
is very much a part of this. I mean, you
and I didn't create that. It was created for us.
We're being pushed into these silos, and people like you
and I are resisting that. Like like you have done
an excellent job of being able to speak with people
(25:21):
who don't agree with you and still being civil.
Speaker 2 (25:24):
And you know, you and I don't agree on everything.
Speaker 3 (25:26):
We disagree that, yeah we don't, and but at the
end of the day, you're still my brother, and we
can't we can't let go of that. And the other
issue is that there's there's not as much money and
nuance as there is in polarization and hyper partisanship. You know,
this team sports mentality that you and I have been
(25:48):
railing against for years, for years, and it's like you
and I have been sounding the clearing and call and
other people, not just us, plenty of other people, black, white, otherwise,
Republican Democrat, and that some people are catching on to it.
I hate to be you know, doom and gloom, because
there are positive signs, there are people. I have gotten
(26:09):
people responding to me saying, you know what, I used
to be very hyperpartisan, but then when I started seeing
the things that you were pointing out, I'm not as
hyperpartisan anymore. And I've seen people say that to you too.
So there is hope, but it's just it's not easy.
I mean, we don't have the billions and trillions of
dollars to fun anti division, if that's even the thing.
Speaker 2 (26:32):
Yeah, but something has to happen. It's either you know,
people like us.
Speaker 3 (26:36):
Are gonna end up end up winning out in the end.
But is it going to be because it just gets
so horrible that people finally get sick of it, or
will it be because people because an awakening happens and
people stop listening to the narratives that they're being fed
and start actually looking at things through a deeper and
more nuanced lens.
Speaker 1 (26:58):
Yeah, and and I mean that's a very good point.
And also you have to be willing to take the
slings and arrows from both sides when you do what
we do, and some people aren't willing to take that
because it's a harder road to take. You and I
both get hit by the left and the right because
we'll call bs on either side. And I think sometimes
(27:23):
and it's almost it almost may be psychological at this point,
where there are people who social media has allowed them
to become addicted to that dopamine hit that comes from
people who tell you what you want to hear, and
they just feed it to you over and over and
over and over and over again, whether it's true or not,
(27:45):
whether it's real or not, they just continue to give
you another hitter at dopamine. And I think people are
addicted to it now and you have to almost like
detox people from being, you know, addicted to that dopamine
hit because there's so many We got a bunch of
(28:08):
intellectual drug dealers on social media that are just feeding
people what they want to hear. And it does come
to a point where it becomes psychological at that point
where it becomes biological at that point because people get
addicted and they get keep getting hit with that dopamine
and it's and it's very lucrative. It's you and I
(28:32):
talk about this all the time. If we wanted to
be on the extreme left or the extreme right, we
know exactly what to do. You know exactly what to say,
exactly how to act, like we could do it tomorrow
if we wanted to. We choose not to because we
have a conscience and a soul and we have to
(28:53):
be able to sleep at night. But there we know
what the blueprint is, we know what the formula is.
It is very easy to be divisive and what I
call the equivalent of standing in the middle of the
street with your hair on fire, like you're gonna get
if you go out right now and go set your
hair on fire and standing in the middle of the street,
(29:13):
I guarantee you're gonna get attention. And so social media
is like that, and it rewards that. It pays people,
literally pays people for that and now, I think you
have an entire entire groups of people who their only
experience in political discourse is that and they don't know
(29:37):
anything else. And that's a problem.
Speaker 3 (29:41):
Yeah, yeah, it is. I mean, and I think the
drug addiction analogy is perfect, and we've made that analogy
many times. I mean, it reminds me of that song
pusher Man by Curtis Mayfield, where he's basically playing the
part of of the drug dealer getting you hooked on
certain substances and now you basically own even if you
know it's not right, that's happening. That's exactly what's happening here.
(30:05):
I mean, we I think there was Glenn Beck who
wrote a book called Addicted to Outrage, and I remember
reading that and and I know some people don't like
Glenn Beck.
Speaker 2 (30:15):
I I have a soft spot for him. I like
Glenn Beck.
Speaker 3 (30:18):
I think he's sincere, even though I might disagree with
him on a bunch of different things. But he even
acknowledged that he was part of this a long time ago.
And you know, back when he you know, back in
the day, during the Bush years, Obama years, all of that,
and it hasn't gotten better. And I don't really know
what to do about it other than what you and
(30:39):
I are already doing. And it's I have to remind
myself for every negative comment I get from the left
or the right, because I get it from both, just
like you. You know, there are people who may not
say anything, but they're getting it. And every now and
then I'll get a DM or somebody commenting saying, you
know what, I'm I follow you because you don't just
(31:00):
just subscribe to whatever the prevailing narrative is on either side.
And you know, I just I just I feel it's
just hard because it's like, is there something more that
I could be doing to help fix this problem? And
I think that just doing what we're doing. I mean,
(31:21):
even with Charlie Kirk, he was very adamant about civil discourse.
He abhorred violence, and again I think that that was
great about him, like he was very much and he
put that into action too. He didn't just say we
shouldn't have violence and we should just do more free
speech and discourse.
Speaker 2 (31:37):
He actually went out and did it.
Speaker 3 (31:39):
He actually went out and did it and conversed with
people who disagreed with him, not just on college college campuses.
I mean, he would have debates with Chank Wiger. He
was like Gavin Newsom's first guest on his podcast, if
I remember correctly, and conservatives hate Gavin Newsome. But I mean,
but and even when South Park made fun of him,
I'm seeing a lot of people saying, oh, Charlie Kirk's
(32:01):
blood is on your hands. No, Charlie Kirk leaned into
that because he thought it was funny when they made
fun of him, and he understood how comedy works. He
doesn't have to he didn't have to agree with it,
but he was okay with it. And if anything, if
you're on the right listening to this, and your first
instinct is you know, you know, we got to demonize
(32:23):
the left, demonize people on the left, I don't think
that's what Charlie Kirk would want you to do. I mean,
at least not in the way that people are talking about.
I mean, there are forces on the left, in the
white right who want us divided, but not all of them.
Speaker 1 (32:37):
Do.
Speaker 3 (32:38):
Your neighbor who voted for Kamala Harris doesn't hate you
for the most part. I mean, yes, are there are
people out there like that, yes, of course, But in general,
I mean, people aren't going at each other's throats over
this stuff, at least just yet. But we have to
recognize the syop. I keep telling people stop falling for
the syof whether it's racial or whatever.
Speaker 2 (32:59):
Point of division. It's not.
Speaker 3 (33:01):
It may feel good that dopamine hit feels good, but
just like crack, it's gonna rot you from inside. It's
going to destroy your life, and in this case, it
can destroy an entire country. While the people who are
fomenting this division are the only ones benefiting from it.
Speaker 1 (33:16):
Yeah, they're the ones getting rich. They're they're literally the
intellectual drug dealers. Because they're the ones getting rich. Why
everyone else suffers because it's very lucrative. Stay tuned more
to come here on the Outlaws. Tell Alexa to play
the Outlaws radio show. Here.
Speaker 5 (33:31):
It is from my Heart Radio.
Speaker 1 (33:45):
True Sir, out, pray out, Welcome back and listening to
the Outlaws. Make sure that you subscribe to the show
on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeart, or wherever you get your podcasts.
And if you listen to this show on Apple or Spotify,
please make sure you leave us a five star review.
It's very important for the algorithm and for those of
you that have already done so thank you also very much,
(34:08):
and now let's get to the conclusion of our interview
with Jeff Charles. And I mean, when you think about
where we're at, and you talked about you know, your neighbor,
most your neighbor who voted for Kamala Hair. If you're
a Republican, your neighbor who voted for Kamala Hairs probably
doesn't hate you. I said this on social media. I
(34:30):
say this all the time. I live in a blue city,
in a blue county, in a red state. I see
people interacting and working with each other from different sides
of the political aisle all the time. It is a
fact of life when you live in a politically diverse environment,
(34:52):
like you don't have a choice, and so you see
on a regular basis well being normal. And then you
get to social media and you see folks making complete
asses out of themselves on a regular basis and thinking
that there's like, there's no cost to this. And I
(35:17):
do agree with the point that you said earlier that
a lot of this is online, But my concern is
always that eventually what's online does eventually move offline, and
you do end up with a situation where it spills
over if I'm not mistaken. We've seen some of these shooters,
like the Buffalo shooter was radicalized online, you know what
(35:40):
I mean. You see what I'm saying, So like there
is a concern with that, Like this stuff, this stuff
matters because crazy people do crazy things and we can't
be in an environment. I don't care how much you
disagreed with Charlie Kirk. I disagreed with Charlie Kirk a
lot and was not afraid to tell them either. You
(36:03):
know what I'm saying. But it can't end like this.
It can't all end like this because if it can
happen to him, it can happen to you, It can
happen to me, It can happen to anybody. Because there's
a lot of people that don't like what we have
to say.
Speaker 3 (36:13):
Either yeah, yeah, and you're absolutely right, and you know,
and I live in a blue town in a rural area,
or I'm sorry, well the town is probably red and
I live in a red state Louisiana. Everybody on my
street is black, and their families go back for years
and years and years, you know, back back to the
(36:33):
days of reconstruction, slavery, all of that when we go
into town, we see a lot of white people and
a lot of black people, high black populations. You don't
it doesn't look anything like online. I mean, black people
are hanging out with white people. They're they're chilling here
in the in the in the Deep South. Nobody cares.
It's it's not a thing. And you know they didn't
vote for the same people. So but to speak to
(36:56):
your point, you're right. All pretty much everything that we've
seen as far as political violence or even mass shootings,
they weren't radicalized in their own communities. They were radicalized online.
And I think that's why it's important. So while I
do look at the difference between online life and real
life as a silver lining to keep me sane, I
(37:17):
still recognize that there's just way too many situations where
this vitriol that's being perpetuated online is seeping into the
real world, and it's doing it more and more and
more that we've seen this. We've seen this happen increasingly
over over the over recent years. And I and like
I was saying before, my fears that real life does
(37:39):
become more like online. But I think that there has
to be some type of tipping point where people just
don't want to do this anymore. You know, one of
the experts I spoke with for the article I'm working on,
he brought up an example of a guy who had
(37:59):
run his car into a crowd of people, and that
crowd of people beat the crap out of the guy.
That's what's gonna have to happen, so some version. I'm
not talking about physical violence here, unless you know, if
it's in defense or something like that. But we're basically
gonna have to do that online and in real life
because realistically, the people who are decent, normal and rational
(38:22):
we far outnumber those who aren't, so they shouldn't be.
They just happen to have the loudest microphones. They get
amplified more on social media. I know Elon Musk was
talking about a while ago, is that he wants people
to be content creators, to be more rewarded for providing
educational or informational posts and not so much division. And
I was like, yeah, right, dude, Like even if you
(38:44):
are serious, that's not gonna happen unless you really take
some drastic steps, because at the end of the day,
this is what people want. This is that intellectual drug dealing,
This is what happens. People are hooked on this stuff.
So if you do want to facilitate and move away
from that, I have to understand there's gonna be some withdrawals,
there's gonna be there's gonna have to be some rehab,
and honestly, people like Elon Musk are in a position
(39:07):
to be able to maybe facilitate some of that. I
would love to see him do that, to actually put
that into action, knowing it's not gonna happen overnight, but
maybe gradually he can change some things to shift more
in a direction where people can get their dopamine hits
from interacting with somebody who they don't agree with. Maybe
they get their dopamine hits from saying, you know, I know,
I had a really great I'm a Republican, but I
(39:29):
had a really great conversation with a Democrat. We found
a lot of common ground. We didn't agree on this,
but we did agree on this, and I feel good
about that. That's what has to happen instead of I
just own the LIBS. Today, I just own the Libs,
and I feel great about it. There's a difference. One
is dangerous in damaging, the other is productive.
Speaker 1 (39:48):
We're talking with Jeff Charles, our news editor at townhall
dot com and host of the Fresh Perspective with Jeff
Charles podcast. In the wake of all this, man, have
you thought about you? Have you thought about what you
do and being in this space and how you moves
(40:09):
has just given you any pause?
Speaker 2 (40:12):
Not yet, but I am concerned.
Speaker 3 (40:16):
I don't think I'm famous famous enough yet I don't
know if I ever will be. And I also I
don't travel as much as I used to. I mean,
I was going to Seepac quite a bit and stuff
like that, which at a lot of those events, I
was actually armed, and you know a lot of us were.
But it does gives me some pause in that if
(40:36):
I ever participate in those things again, or even if
there's events here, like whether there's a protest against something
a local government is doing or or something like that,
or speaking at a city council meeting, because of whatever,
it does give me pause. I'm going to make sure
I'm able to protect myself. But I'm also going to
be a lot more aware of my surroundings just in case,
(40:57):
because even though I'm not on Charlie Kirk's level as
far as fame, goes. You never know, there could be
somebody out there who doesn't like you and is wanting
to do something about it to make an example of you.
I mean even just having a position at town Hall.
Town Hall is a very conservative outlet, Salem Communications, which
(41:19):
owns town Hall. Charlie Kirk was part of Salem Communications, right,
So it could just be that somebody wants to target
somebody from a conservative network and it doesn't matter who
they are. So yeah, though those things are going through
my head where I live, it's just not as likely.
I don't live in a major city, but it doesn't
mean I'm not going to visit major cities in the future.
(41:40):
So yeah, I mean it does not to an extreme level.
Speaker 2 (41:43):
I'm not.
Speaker 3 (41:43):
I haven't become paranoid, but it does make me. It
does put things into perspective in a way that would
prompt me to be more aware of what's going on
around me, especially if I'm in an area where something
is more likely to jump off.
Speaker 1 (42:00):
Yeah, I mean, like I've thought about it before this,
and like you can't help but to be taken aback
by it, especially because, like we said, this is you're
talking about someone who was using words. This is not
someone who was using violence or even advocating for violence.
(42:22):
He was using words like we all use words, you know.
I remember having a conversation recently, probably about a month ago,
with a good friend of mine who was very distraught
because there was someone who this person was friends with
who attacked her for being friends with me. And I
(42:45):
have no idea who this person is. They know me
from my work in the public, they know me from
my position, they know me from social media. And this
is a person who hates my guts, largely because I identify
as an evenge of the college that I got my
(43:09):
bachelor's degree from, like things that, you know what I mean,
Like I have. So there is somebody who I don't know,
who's walking around here, who's in my city somewhere, who
hates my guts because of my interactions in the public
and because of what of my religious beliefs, you know
(43:30):
what I mean. Like, So we live in that like
it's a reality. It's an absolute reality. And I think
the one thing is political violence is designed to chill speech,
So we can't allow it to do that because that's
what it's designed to do, is designed to make us
all shut up. And the best way, one of the
(43:54):
best ways to combat that is to continue to talk.
So we can't allow a political violence to do what
it's designed to do. But yeah, I'd be lying if
I didn't say, hey, you know, yeah, you think about it,
You think about it, like, man, that man, that man
was murdered in front of his family, like that's awful.
(44:15):
And then to see some people online saying he deserved it,
like man, it's horrible.
Speaker 2 (44:25):
Yeah, and see, and that's the thing.
Speaker 3 (44:26):
The act itself was bad enough, but what even showed
me more that we've crossed the rubicon is when people
celebrate it. And this isn't the first time. I mean,
you know, you had the Democrats in Minnesota who got murdered.
We've had other politicians who get murdered, and people will
celebrate it. And sometimes it's just a few people. And
I still think most people in Charlie Kirk's situation, left
(44:47):
and right are condemning it. But just but I can't
ignore the fact that there is like an overwhelming outpouring
of joy among some people on the left because this
man was killed, and that even just let me further
know how far we're going. Because I can't say it
would have been different if it would have been Chank
(45:07):
Weager from the young Turks who got assassinated. I mean,
I know people on the right light to say that
they don't do that stuff, but they do. We've all
seen them do it. And you know, and none of
those people represent the party that they identify with, because
most people in that party are going to condemn it.
But still it just seems like it's getting worse. This
stuff is becoming a lot more acceptable, and we just
(45:30):
we can't allow this to continue. And I think realistically,
like you said, this is meant to have a chilling effect.
Like this guy whoever did this to Kirk obviously had
a political motive, but he also may have had a
personal motive, like maybe he felt like Charlie was personally
attacking him. And to me, the people who want us
to shut up, this is what they're going to do.
(45:52):
They're going to radicalize people like this individual or others
or do or take it upon themselves. One of the
best ways we fight back is by not being afraid
to speak. And I honestly, I think that's one thing
that Charlie would definitely say. Don't let this, don't let
this call you into silence. Don't let these people intimidate
you into silence. We still have to keep speaking the truth.
(46:14):
We still have to keep telling people what the right
way is. We still have to keep fighting for liberty
in the way that in the way that we know
how and the way that we can. Because if we
allow these people to silence us and to keep us
in our in our silos, this country is going to devolve.
It's going to evolve into either left wing authoritarianism or
(46:35):
right wing authoritarianism, or some hybrid of both. And none
of us want to live under that. I don't care
who you vote for, nobody wants to live under that.
But this is kind of how it starts.
Speaker 1 (46:46):
Yeah, absolutely, And if we don't get a handle on
this quick, you know this, this this can become an
uncontrolled fire because political violence begets political violence like it
calls is retaliation and all sorts of things, and where
the society just completely and totally devolves, and nobody wants
(47:09):
to live like that. We're talking with Jeff Charles, news
editor at town hall dot com and host of A
Fresh Perspective with Jeff Charles. As we you're ready to
wind down things here, one of the things I was
just thinking about as you were speaking, is the kids
that were in the crowd that like, these are college students, right,
(47:33):
They were definitely, you know, younger than our old buds.
So what do you I'm concerned about how they react
to this. He had a following, you know, Charlie. I'm
thirty eight, Charlie's thirty one, so he seven years younger
(47:53):
than me. Charlie had a very young following. I'm concerned
about them being radical from seeing, you know, one of
their heroes, no matter how you felt about him, whether
you like him or not. Anybody who's under the sound
of my voice, whether you like him or not, he
was one of their heroes for for millions of people.
(48:14):
And you know, social media has been playing him being
murdered on a loop over and over and over and
over and over again. What does that do. I'm concerned
that it doesn't radicalize his followers.
Speaker 3 (48:32):
Yet, you know, I think you know, what I'm gonna
say is gonna sound maybe kind of what's the word
I want to use. It's gonna sound kind of I
wish you wash or what have you. But I truly
believe what I'm about to say and what I'm about
to say, is that what happened to Charlie Kirk and
(48:53):
seeing that footage for the people who are people who
were there, and for people who who saw those videos
on repeat, that's traumatizing that you experienced trauma. When you
see these things, we don't recognize it because in a
lot of ways we've become desensitized to it. But when
you and I were younger, I mean, I'm about to
turn forty five next week, and you know you would
(49:16):
hear about these things, but you do. We never saw them.
We didn't see footage of it. It wasn't circulating freely
on any kind of social media because social media wasn't
as much of a thing then. But I remember when
nine to eleven happened, and the day after I went
to class in college, and I remember the professor saying,
(49:39):
you know, we didn't even do coursework. We just talked
about what happened. And he was saying, we may not
realize that, but everybody in America has been traumatized. This
is trauma that we're going through right now. Even though
we weren't there, we know what happened, and we know
what you know that three thousand people died and I
hadn't thought of it that way, And I'm like, how
can I be traumatized when I'm like, way on the
(50:01):
West coast, this happened on the East coast. But then
I was like, you know, he's right because it hit
me hard, and it hit all of us hard. Same
thing is true of Charlie Kirk. I mean, you see
somebody get a bullet in their throat and the blood
coming out, And I'm not saying that to be you know, sensationalistic.
That's what happened, and we've all seen it. People can
(50:25):
can just easily pull that up and watch it. For
the younger generation, especially those who looked up to him
as a hero, there is a risk of that. There
is a risk of them thinking, you know, they gunned
him down when he just wanted to talk about free speech.
This isn't going to work. Talking doesn't work. We need
(50:45):
to be more radical. That's where this could easily lead.
And this is something that Charlie Kirk would not want.
Like I've said that a few times in this conversation,
that is something that he would argue against. So I
think as the older people or at forget it, we're
not old yet we ain't old yet.
Speaker 1 (51:03):
No, we not we approach an unk. We're not quite
a unk. Were big bro right now we're at.
Speaker 3 (51:10):
Yeah I like that, but yeah, but this is where
people like us need to be the adults in the room,
the big bros in the room, and helped to steer
them in the right direction, because I mean, the ramifications
of this aren't just what's going to happen. You know
in a few weeks next month, a few months from now,
this could reverberate for years as this younger generation starts
(51:32):
coming up and they saw what happened to one of
their heroes. And you know, I'll even I don't want
people to take this the wrong way, but I can
even relate it to the civil rights movement when MLKA
was shot, when members of the Black Panthers were killed,
Fred Hampton, I'm not saying that the same thing. I'm
just saying it can have the same impact because the
people who followed them, the people who looked up to them,
(51:54):
the people who felt like these people were leading them
in the right directions, were just suddenly gunned down by
people who didn't like them because of their viewpoints. That
radicalize a lot of people. And then a lot of
other people want the other direction. We need to make
sure in this case that we are encouraging younger people
to go in the right direction. We got to continue talking.
(52:14):
Don't let a bullet make you afraid to speak, or
don't make don't let a bullet prompt you to shoot
a bullet back, unless it's in self defense, that's different.
But I'm talking about actually engaging in political violence. That's
not what this country was supposed to be. That's not
what that's not the society that we want to live in,
(52:34):
and especially not with each other, because you know, people
who vote Democrat and Republican are going through a lot
of the same stuff. The Republicans aren't your enemy. Democrats
are not your enemy. Black people are not your enemy.
White people are not your enemy. LGBTQ people are not
your enemy. Straight people are not your enemy. But we
do have an enemy. We have two enemies. We've got
(52:55):
one that is not a flesh and blood, which you know,
being an event evangelical and a lot of your listeners
know this too, is the enemy is not made of
flesh and blood. We're talking about principalities. We're talking about
spiritual issues that we're up against, but we're also against
the people who follow those principalities, the people who are
(53:18):
in power. I'm not talking about every single person who
is in a position of power. I'm just saying, by
and large, the system that we live under. I'll just
say this, it's not Christian, it's not christ Like, it
doesn't represent Christ. Those are the real enemies, that's what
we should be united against. But yet this division that
we have going on, that is what prevents us from
(53:39):
actually going after the actual enemy.
Speaker 1 (53:42):
And as we close, I mean, I don't want to
take it take it to church here, but I believe
that that's what the devil wants. I believe that if
we stay divided amongst ourselves, then we're not focused on
the things that you talked about that we actually need
to be fighting against. That has been the history of
this nation. This nation is always at its strongest when
(54:05):
we're united, and it's always at its weakest when we're divided.
Let everybody know how to follow you, sir.
Speaker 3 (54:13):
Yes, you can read my work on townhall dot com.
You can check out my podcast called A Fresh Perspective
with Jeff Charles on the FCB podcast Network, and you
can follow me on Twitter at Jeff Charles Junior.
Speaker 1 (54:28):
All Right, man, thanks for coming on. Man. I wanted
to have a responsible conversation about this. I know that
there's been a lot of vitriol being thrown on both sides, man,
so I thought it was very important to have an
adult in the room to talk about this. So thanks
for coming on the show.
Speaker 2 (54:47):
Brother, you got it. Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1 (54:50):
All Right, one more time, shout out to Jeff Charles
for coming on the show. I really appreciate it. We
are out here. We'll see you next week. Peace. This
was produced by f CVM HM
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