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Episode Two Hundred Fifty Nine: Larger Than Death · The Death Of Journalism

0:00
Speaker 1: Welcomed Episode two hundred and fifty nine of the Death
0:04
Speaker 1: of Journalism podcast.
0:05
Speaker 2: My name is John Zigler. I'm your host on today's show.
0:08
Speaker 1: Obviously, we will have full and truly unique analysis of
0:11
Speaker 1: the assassination of Charlie Kirk, including how nearly everyone has
0:16
Speaker 1: reacted poorly, and how the story has direct and significant
0:20
Speaker 1: connections to the Jerry Sandusky case and the jfk assassination.
0:26
Speaker 1: Plus part two of our interview with Epstein contrarian reporter
0:29
Speaker 1: Michael Tracy, which includes the most heated moment with a
0:33
Speaker 1: guest in the history of this podcast. As you probably
0:39
Speaker 1: are aware, we tape the Death of Journalism podcast every
0:44
Speaker 1: Wednesday morning here on the West Coast, and I have
0:49
Speaker 1: found that, weirdly, whether it's my imagination or bad luck
0:54
Speaker 1: or whatever, that Wednesdays seem to be the busiest news
1:00
Speaker 1: day of the week, which means oftentimes I miss things
1:05
Speaker 1: that occur literally during the taping or just after the taping,
1:10
Speaker 1: and then by the time I get a chance to
1:11
Speaker 1: talk about him, they are dated the next week. Well,
1:15
Speaker 1: we had probably the worst circumstances with regard to timing
1:19
Speaker 1: in our last episode, episode two fifty eight, because that
1:23
Speaker 1: was taped before the assassination of Charlie Kirk, and I
1:30
Speaker 1: taped a very quick, abbreviated, largely ignorant analysis of what
1:36
Speaker 1: we knew at the deadline for this podcast, which was
1:41
Speaker 1: before we knew that Charlie Kirk had in fact officially
1:46
Speaker 1: been assassinated and was dead. So I was really in
1:51
Speaker 1: the probably the worst position possible with regard to the podcast,
1:55
Speaker 1: because I pretty much knew, I mean, anybody who saw
1:59
Speaker 1: the horrific video of Charlie Kirk being shot in Utah
2:04
Speaker 1: knew that the chances of him surviving that were basically zero.
2:08
Speaker 1: But at the time that I was able and basically
2:13
Speaker 1: forced by deadlines to add to the podcast, I didn't
2:18
Speaker 1: know that for sure, and the information I had at
2:21
Speaker 1: the time was incredibly rudimentary and some of it was inaccurate,
2:25
Speaker 1: which is always the case.
2:27
Speaker 2: In the middle of chaos.
2:29
Speaker 1: They had apprehended a suspect that apparently was just a
2:33
Speaker 1: nut job that had nothing to do with it, and
2:36
Speaker 1: they ended up finding another suspect that Cash Mattel, the
2:39
Speaker 1: FBI director, claimed was the guy, and that turned out
2:43
Speaker 1: to be a false alarm. So it was obviously this
2:47
Speaker 1: is pales in comparison to the assassination itself. That goes
2:51
Speaker 1: without saying, but it was just a terrible timing situation
2:56
Speaker 1: with regard to our last episode. So I'm hoping to
2:59
Speaker 1: make up for that in this episode two fifty nine,
3:02
Speaker 1: because I have a lot to say about the horrendous
3:06
Speaker 1: events of last week when it came to the assassination
3:09
Speaker 1: of Charlie Kirk. Now, obviously, once this happened, everyone wanted
3:16
Speaker 1: to know.
3:17
Speaker 2: Okay, so who did it?
3:20
Speaker 1: And as I've already referenced, we had two false alarms
3:23
Speaker 1: when it came to people thinking that we had found
3:27
Speaker 1: who committed this horrific act, And there were a couple
3:31
Speaker 1: of days there where we didn't know for sure who
3:35
Speaker 1: had done this, And I put out a theory on
3:39
Speaker 1: social media that sounded pretty decent to the time. It
3:43
Speaker 1: turned out to be basically one hundred percent wrong, because
3:48
Speaker 1: when I looked at what we knew in the immediate
3:52
Speaker 1: aftermath of the assassination of Charlie Kirk, I was struck
3:57
Speaker 1: by two things. One that there was only one shot
4:02
Speaker 1: fired and that it essentially killed Charlie Kirk instantaneously. And
4:07
Speaker 1: later in the episode, I'm going to get into some
4:10
Speaker 1: analysis of what actually happened logistically and relate that.
4:15
Speaker 2: To the Kennedy assassination. But that's further down the road here.
4:20
Speaker 1: But as someone who has studied assassinations far more than
4:24
Speaker 1: most people, it is highly unusual for an amateur assassin,
4:32
Speaker 1: or really any assassin like that, to fire only one
4:35
Speaker 1: shot and to have it be an instant kill shot. Now,
4:40
Speaker 1: there was a lot of talk about, well, Ziggy Kirk
4:44
Speaker 1: was shot in the neck, and so therefore this couldn't
4:47
Speaker 1: have been a really skilled sniper because that's not where
4:51
Speaker 1: the shot would have landed. I got that, but we're
4:55
Speaker 1: talking about very small differences, a couple of inches here.
5:00
Speaker 2: There.
5:00
Speaker 1: The reality is that the shot killed Kirk instantly, and
5:03
Speaker 1: so I was very impacted by that.
5:07
Speaker 2: From the perspective of who are we looking for here?
5:11
Speaker 1: This was not a scattershot situation like occurred with Trump
5:16
Speaker 1: in Butler, Pennsylvania. There are some similarities obviously, firing from
5:20
Speaker 1: a roof public outside event all that, but that assassin
5:28
Speaker 1: had two very different things than what occurred with Charlie Kirk,
5:31
Speaker 1: now in large part because there was massive secret Service
5:34
Speaker 1: protection and retaliation.
5:37
Speaker 2: But there were many shots.
5:39
Speaker 1: Fired at Trump, which is generally the way that an
5:42
Speaker 1: amateur would do this. Thankfully for Trump, none of them
5:47
Speaker 1: were fatal to him. And then obviously he was killed
5:52
Speaker 1: within seconds of the assassination, not just apprehended. He was
5:56
Speaker 1: killed by the Secret Service or law enforcement that was
6:01
Speaker 1: on the grounds there in Butler. Well, those two things
6:04
Speaker 1: did not happen when it came to Charlie Kirk. One shot,
6:09
Speaker 1: it was a kill shot. And then the assassin was
6:13
Speaker 1: able to escape, and not just escape temporarily like Eli
6:17
Speaker 1: Harvey Oswald did, but escape for an extended period of time,
6:22
Speaker 1: and we would later learn was only was never really apprehended,
6:28
Speaker 1: turned themselves in at the urging of their parents, So
6:33
Speaker 1: it could have easily been.
6:34
Speaker 2: On the lamb for a lot longer than they were.
6:37
Speaker 1: And so before we knew the identity, I'm like, and
6:41
Speaker 1: I made it clear, I don't believe that this was
6:43
Speaker 1: some sort of professional hit hired by a foreign government.
6:46
Speaker 1: I mean, you know Candice Owen's territory craziness, But I
6:51
Speaker 1: did not think that this was an amateur.
6:54
Speaker 2: I did not think that this was a kid.
6:57
Speaker 1: I felt like this was somebody who had done something
7:01
Speaker 1: like this before.
7:03
Speaker 2: And you know that this was not their first rodeo.
7:06
Speaker 1: That's what it felt like based upon what we knew
7:10
Speaker 1: at the time, and that turned out to be basically
7:14
Speaker 1: one hundred percent false.
7:16
Speaker 2: I was totally wrong about that. In fact, there were some.
7:20
Speaker 1: People who speculated, in response to my theory that well,
7:23
Speaker 1: why couldn't this be, you know, a liberal hunter? Uh?
7:28
Speaker 1: And I kind of mocked that, thinking, Okay, well, how
7:31
Speaker 1: many in the.
7:32
Speaker 2: State of Utah.
7:33
Speaker 1: It's a pretty large state geographically, how many super liberal
7:38
Speaker 1: Charlie kirk hating liberal you know, I've always said that
7:43
Speaker 1: hunters who want to give their life up to kill
7:47
Speaker 1: Charlie Kirk Arthur. I mean, that seems like an incredibly
7:50
Speaker 1: small number of people. Well, it may be a small
7:54
Speaker 1: number of people, but it's unfortunately not zero, because that's
7:59
Speaker 1: a factively what we now understand to be the case,
8:03
Speaker 1: that this was a college aged kid who had dropped
8:09
Speaker 1: out of this particular college in Utah. There's definitely signs
8:14
Speaker 1: that they had been radicalized. Maybe that's too strong a word,
8:18
Speaker 1: but they certainly had changed their politics, coming from a
8:20
Speaker 1: conservative family becoming very liberal. It seems very likely that
8:26
Speaker 1: they are gay, or at least think that they might
8:29
Speaker 1: be gay. They're dating a biological male who is transitioning
8:35
Speaker 1: to being a female. And this was somebody who was
8:40
Speaker 1: able to carry out this assassination with that one single
8:44
Speaker 1: shot in devastating fashion and then escape fairly easily. And
8:51
Speaker 1: the video of them jumping off of the building and
8:56
Speaker 1: basically walking away and being able to drive over three
9:00
Speaker 1: hours without anybody stopping them, nothing, and not know still
9:08
Speaker 1: a day and a half two days later, while we
9:12
Speaker 1: had photos of them publicly, and there was certainly people
9:16
Speaker 1: around him who knew that this was the person who
9:19
Speaker 1: did it. You know, as I've already mentioned, it was
9:23
Speaker 1: the parents that caused the shooter to turn himself in.
9:28
Speaker 1: So I'm still amazed that a twenty two year old
9:35
Speaker 1: amateur with some hunting experience under that kind of pressure.
9:40
Speaker 1: And I think this is relevant, not just from the
9:43
Speaker 1: curiosity perspective. I think this is relevant as to what
9:46
Speaker 1: we're dealing with with this new generation Generation X, I'm sorry,
9:52
Speaker 1: Generation Z, whatever you want to call it. It's clear
9:56
Speaker 1: to me that this generation is desensitized, especially in the
10:01
Speaker 1: realm of death, to a frightening degree. Whether it's video games,
10:07
Speaker 1: the internet, this the reality of life in twenty twenty five.
10:13
Speaker 1: You know how obsessed they are with being online. Whatever
10:17
Speaker 1: it is, though, it's probably a combination of factors. To
10:20
Speaker 1: me as someone who grew up in a completely different generation,
10:24
Speaker 1: and this is going to be a weird, ziggular analogy,
10:28
Speaker 1: but I as a golfer, as a tournament golfer, I've
10:32
Speaker 1: seen the same thing. I kind of kicking myself for
10:34
Speaker 1: not extending the analogy that I'm about to make. I've
10:38
Speaker 1: talked all the time about how young kids in today's
10:42
Speaker 1: realm of golf seem to have no fear none. Now,
10:46
Speaker 1: part of that's technology, and part of that's because they're
10:49
Speaker 1: so good, but the highest levels of tournament play when
10:54
Speaker 1: I grew up, kids were frightened.
10:56
Speaker 2: I mean I was frightened.
10:57
Speaker 1: You were very fearful, you know, embarrassing yourself, you were intimidated.
11:03
Speaker 1: Pressure had a lot more impact for a lot of
11:07
Speaker 1: different reasons that are not relevant to this analogy.
11:10
Speaker 2: But kids today they don't feel that in golf. That's good,
11:16
Speaker 2: But it just was stunning to me.
11:18
Speaker 1: And I saw so many people reacting in real time that, well, zig,
11:24
Speaker 1: you know, that was an easy shot. Okay, maybe it's
11:27
Speaker 1: an easy shot if you have some training, But this
11:29
Speaker 1: is in front of three thousand people. You're trying to
11:32
Speaker 1: do it in the clandestine fashion. You are knowing that
11:36
Speaker 1: you're either going to die, if you're at all rational,
11:40
Speaker 1: You're either going to die that day or you're going
11:43
Speaker 1: to spend the rest of your life in prison. And
11:47
Speaker 1: you only have one chance at this, which again is
11:50
Speaker 1: why I'm kind of stunned by the one shot. I mean,
11:53
Speaker 1: you're putting your whole life on the line and you
11:55
Speaker 1: only take one shot That felt quote unquote professional to me,
11:59
Speaker 1: not amateurish.
12:00
Speaker 2: And to be able to.
12:02
Speaker 1: Pull that off using the golf analogy, again, that's a
12:06
Speaker 1: lot of pressure and you know, well it's horrendous.
12:10
Speaker 2: It's also impressive that somebody could do that.
12:14
Speaker 1: And I'm just coming to the conclusion that this generation
12:17
Speaker 1: Z is just made up differently.
12:20
Speaker 2: It's essentially sociopathic, that they.
12:22
Speaker 1: Just don't have any sense of the magnitude of what's
12:26
Speaker 1: happening and they are desensitized to the reality of what
12:32
Speaker 1: they're doing. And there seems to be a lot of
12:35
Speaker 1: evidence to support that when it came to this particular killer.
12:42
Speaker 1: I mean, the brazenness with which this was executed and
12:47
Speaker 1: then spoken about at least in the aftermath, and maybe
12:53
Speaker 1: there's a lot of speculation about this, but we don't
12:55
Speaker 1: have all the facts as of this taping, and maybe
12:59
Speaker 1: Pride to the assassination speaking about this to their friends
13:06
Speaker 1: and boyfriend in text messages that are frankly almost as
13:13
Speaker 1: scary as the assassination itself, because they're joking about it,
13:20
Speaker 1: this discord.
13:22
Speaker 2: Group text exchange.
13:24
Speaker 1: Where they're all joking about how this guy could indeed
13:29
Speaker 1: be the killer, and it's all funny, and I'm not
13:34
Speaker 1: buying that it's because they didn't really believe it was him.
13:39
Speaker 1: They had to at least be highly suspecting that it
13:44
Speaker 1: was him, and none of these young kids seemed to
13:48
Speaker 1: be at all outraged or impacted by this, and that
13:52
Speaker 1: there's no sign, no evidence that they made any effort
13:55
Speaker 1: to turn him in. Now the boyfriend who's transitioning into
14:01
Speaker 1: being a female, allegedly or somehow has apparently been cooperative
14:08
Speaker 1: with authorities, and there's all sorts of analysis of their
14:14
Speaker 1: bizarre text exchange.
14:16
Speaker 2: Which was released earlier this week.
14:20
Speaker 1: Now a lot of people, because everyone's a conspiracy not
14:22
Speaker 1: now mis drives me freaking crazy, are claiming or coming
14:29
Speaker 1: up with this half baked theory that this bizarre text
14:33
Speaker 1: exchange between the killer and their boyfriend is not real.
14:42
Speaker 2: And what I always say in these situations is.
14:45
Speaker 1: Okay, I get that it's super weird, but can you
14:49
Speaker 1: come up with an alternative explanation or scenario here that
14:54
Speaker 1: makes any goddamn sense.
14:55
Speaker 2: So you're saying that the authorities made this up.
14:58
Speaker 1: I mean, in my opinion, and it's too weird to
15:01
Speaker 1: be made up, and there's no risk reward for the
15:04
Speaker 1: authorities making this up. Now, there is some rational theory here,
15:11
Speaker 1: and I don't know if this is true or not,
15:13
Speaker 1: but it's least in the realm of rationality that that
15:17
Speaker 1: text exchange between the killer and the boyfriend slash girlfriend
15:23
Speaker 1: is not authentic in the sense that it was created
15:29
Speaker 1: as a cover to try to protect the boyfriend slash girlfriend.
15:35
Speaker 2: I can see that as possible. In other words, they're.
15:38
Speaker 1: Creating a cover story to try to make it look
15:42
Speaker 1: as if the boyfriend slash girlfriend didn't have prior knowledge
15:47
Speaker 1: and therefore would not be vulnerable to a criminal charge
15:51
Speaker 1: for taking part in the conspiracy to assassinate somebody.
15:57
Speaker 2: That makes some sense.
15:59
Speaker 1: How are there are other elements of this that I
16:02
Speaker 1: think go against that, because that would suggest that the
16:07
Speaker 1: killer was this criminal mastermind genius, and just the existence
16:15
Speaker 1: of the text messages themselves doesn't make any goddamn sense
16:19
Speaker 1: to me.
16:19
Speaker 2: Well, a lot of people have focused on.
16:21
Speaker 1: The you know, my love and you know the flowery
16:27
Speaker 1: language and the weird use of phrases.
16:31
Speaker 2: I was most interested in the fact that.
16:34
Speaker 1: The killer is completely and totally obsessed. Now, if we're
16:39
Speaker 1: to believe that this is a genuine text exchange where
16:43
Speaker 1: and not some sort of attempt to create a cover story,
16:47
Speaker 1: They've just told their love something that is earth shattering,
16:52
Speaker 1: beyond comprehension that will forever change this person's life to
16:56
Speaker 1: the negative. And they basically go right into I don't
17:01
Speaker 1: know where my rifle is. I need to find my rifle.
17:04
Speaker 1: I really need to get the rifle back for Grandpa.
17:06
Speaker 1: I mean, it's all about finding the rifle, which I get.
17:12
Speaker 1: If you think that that's the only piece of evidence
17:17
Speaker 1: that could connect you to this crime, I would get
17:21
Speaker 1: the obsession with the rifle, except if you really are
17:24
Speaker 1: anything close through criminal mastermind, you don't engage in text
17:28
Speaker 1: messages confessing to this crime in such an obvious fashion,
17:34
Speaker 1: So that goes against the entire criminal mastermind narrative.
17:40
Speaker 2: So anybody with half a brain knows you don't.
17:44
Speaker 1: Create electronic messages if you're trying to get away.
17:48
Speaker 2: With a horrific murder.
17:50
Speaker 1: So I interpreted, and other people that I asked about
17:54
Speaker 1: this online I think had similar interpretations that the obsession
17:58
Speaker 1: with the rifle is kind of going back to my
18:02
Speaker 1: whole theory about desensitization and in this case, I think disassociation.
18:08
Speaker 3: This.
18:08
Speaker 1: I read those text messages as clearly somebody who did
18:13
Speaker 1: not believe they had done anything wrong at all, and
18:17
Speaker 1: in fact, they felt as if their greatest mistake or
18:23
Speaker 1: quote unquote crime here was in creating a situation where
18:28
Speaker 1: Grandpa might not get his gun back because this apparently
18:31
Speaker 1: was his grandfather's mouser rifle and that was what he
18:37
Speaker 1: was concerned about, which is it's so bizarre, But to me,
18:41
Speaker 1: I think it is telling when it comes to trying
18:44
Speaker 1: to interpret the psychology of what is.
18:47
Speaker 2: Going on here, and I think it all goes to desensitization.
18:53
Speaker 1: And a scary element of what is happening with our
18:58
Speaker 1: nation's youth and Generation Z and how they're growing up
19:02
Speaker 1: in a completely different reality than any other generation prior
19:06
Speaker 1: to them because of social media and cell fodes and
19:10
Speaker 1: everything else that goes along with modern living. And it's
19:15
Speaker 1: not remotely healthy. And is it the cause for what
19:18
Speaker 1: happened or no? But I do think it's an element
19:22
Speaker 1: of the perfect storm. Now, with regard to whether or
19:26
Speaker 1: not other people had prior knowledge or should have stopped
19:30
Speaker 1: what transpired here, I will not be surprised at all
19:34
Speaker 1: if we eventually find out that that is essentially the case.
19:39
Speaker 2: I don't believe that this was some at least based.
19:42
Speaker 1: Upon what we currently know, underline, that that this was
19:45
Speaker 1: some sort of pro trans conspiracy to kill Charlie Kirk.
19:52
Speaker 2: I get why people are.
19:54
Speaker 1: Going down that rabbit hole. I have not seen evidence
19:58
Speaker 1: that proves that yet. Prior knowledge or theoretical knowledge does
20:03
Speaker 1: not necessarily mean that people were taking part in this.
20:10
Speaker 2: Should it have meant that they were willing to.
20:12
Speaker 1: Come forward and tip off authorities that there was a
20:16
Speaker 1: problem that something like this could happen. Absolutely, But I
20:20
Speaker 1: guess my main point here is that we don't have
20:24
Speaker 1: enough information to make any conclusions about that. But when
20:27
Speaker 1: it came to how easy this was to pull off,
20:32
Speaker 1: obviously there were major problems there, major problems. I mean,
20:37
Speaker 1: we have video of someone wondering, much like what happened
20:40
Speaker 1: with Butler, about why is there somebody dressed in dark
20:45
Speaker 1: clothes on the top of the roof, laying on their
20:49
Speaker 1: stomach and yet nobody sounded a massive alarm for that
20:54
Speaker 1: was remarkably similar to what happened with Butler, And so so.
21:01
Speaker 2: You know, there are always they're always.
21:05
Speaker 1: Twenty twenty hindsight, They're always going to be missed opportunities
21:09
Speaker 1: to stop something.
21:11
Speaker 2: And I think that there were going to find out
21:14
Speaker 2: that that was absolutely the case.
21:15
Speaker 1: Here, both by people who were in the killer's orbit
21:19
Speaker 1: as well as people who were there and the security.
21:22
Speaker 2: Failure that happened.
21:25
Speaker 1: And I want to get to why I think the
21:30
Speaker 1: core reason was for why this was so easy and
21:33
Speaker 1: why Kirk was so vulnerable to this. But before we
21:37
Speaker 1: do that, I feel since this is the depth of
21:38
Speaker 1: journalism podcasts, I feel like I have to play a
21:42
Speaker 1: clip that has gone viral from ABC News reporter Matt
21:47
Speaker 1: Gutman in response to those text messages that I reference
21:52
Speaker 1: between the killer and their love the biological mail roommate
21:58
Speaker 1: slash boyfriend slash girl friend who is transitioning to being
22:02
Speaker 1: a female. And remember, I mean, it's obvious to anybody
22:06
Speaker 1: with any sort of objectivity that perceiving themselves as gay
22:13
Speaker 1: and dating a trans person was clearly, if not at
22:20
Speaker 1: the heart of the motivation for this, it was darn
22:23
Speaker 1: near the heart of the motivation motivation for this. Because
22:28
Speaker 1: we have the shellcasings with all sorts of phrases. The
22:31
Speaker 1: media has tried their best to downplay and ignore and misinterpret,
22:38
Speaker 1: but it's very obvious that that was part of what
22:43
Speaker 1: motivated the killer here. And so when Matt Gutman went
22:49
Speaker 1: on the air and described the text messages that I've
22:53
Speaker 1: discussed already with the killer telling their love that they
22:58
Speaker 1: did this and then being as with trying to get
23:00
Speaker 1: the rifle back, Matt Gutman, rightfully, I think, has received
23:06
Speaker 1: an enormous amount of criticism for the way he described
23:10
Speaker 1: the text messages as being quote very touching, very touching.
23:16
Speaker 1: And I'm just going to play that for you now,
23:19
Speaker 1: because it's under any circumstances, this would.
23:22
Speaker 2: Have been very strange and bizarre.
23:26
Speaker 1: But considering the climate of the last week and how
23:30
Speaker 1: many people are getting punished, something I'm going to discuss
23:33
Speaker 1: in detail a little bit later on for saying incorrect
23:38
Speaker 1: things that are not consistent with what people want to
23:43
Speaker 1: feel in the aftermath of this horrendous event. This was
23:47
Speaker 1: particularly strange coming from ABC's Matt Gutman.
23:51
Speaker 2: And here's what that sounded like.
23:53
Speaker 4: We have seen an alleged murder with such specific text
23:58
Speaker 4: messages about the alleged murder weapon, where it was hidden,
24:02
Speaker 4: how it was placed, what was on it.
24:04
Speaker 3: But also it was very touching in a way that
24:06
Speaker 3: I think many of us didn't expect, a very intimate
24:08
Speaker 3: portrait into this relationship between the suspect's roommate and the
24:14
Speaker 3: suspect himself, with him repeatedly calling his roommate, who was transitioning,
24:19
Speaker 3: calling him my love and I want to protect you.
24:21
Speaker 2: My love.
24:22
Speaker 3: So it was this duality of someone who the attorney said,
24:26
Speaker 3: not only jeopardized the life of Charlie Kirk and the crowd,
24:28
Speaker 3: but was doing it in front of children, which is
24:30
Speaker 3: one of the aggravating circumstances of this case. And on
24:32
Speaker 3: the other hand, he was speaking so lovingly about his partner,
24:36
Speaker 3: so very interesting, as Pierre said riveting press conference.
24:40
Speaker 2: David, it was tough.
24:41
Speaker 1: Now, as I've already said, that would have been very
24:45
Speaker 1: odd under any circumstances. Had this been a killing of
24:50
Speaker 1: any sort in the immediate aftermath, to describe the exchange
24:57
Speaker 1: between the killer and their I guess, for lack of
25:00
Speaker 1: a better term, transslash gay lover as being very touching
25:06
Speaker 1: would have been stupid. But in the current climate, it's
25:13
Speaker 1: so colossally dumb that I don't even know how to
25:17
Speaker 1: interpret it. I mean, if only from the perspective of
25:20
Speaker 1: self preservation. At this point, everybody knows we're in a
25:24
Speaker 1: moral panic, especially everybody in the media, and in my opinion,
25:28
Speaker 1: we've gone too far in many many ways when it
25:31
Speaker 1: comes to this moral panic, and for Gutman to do
25:35
Speaker 1: anything to suggest empathy and affection for the killer is
25:43
Speaker 1: just flat out idiotic. It's just dumb. But what makes
25:50
Speaker 1: it worse is the fact that it's at least I
25:54
Speaker 1: say fact.
25:55
Speaker 2: It certainly seems like a fact. It certainly seems.
25:57
Speaker 1: Obvious that the reason Gutman finds it very touching. I
26:03
Speaker 1: don't think this is a leap, is that this is
26:06
Speaker 1: a relationship between a young man and another biological man
26:11
Speaker 1: who's transitioning to being a female. In the news media,
26:16
Speaker 1: the legacy media's mindset that's inherently something that but their
26:22
Speaker 1: DNA tells them needs to be defended or protected or preserved.
26:28
Speaker 2: That's their mindset.
26:31
Speaker 1: I mean, it's almost a mental illness, as is being
26:36
Speaker 1: trands to begin with, in my opinion, but that's what
26:40
Speaker 1: is going on here. I don't think there's any chance
26:43
Speaker 1: of the world that Gutman says it was very touching
26:49
Speaker 1: if the killer is communicating with their heterosexual female girlfriend.
26:56
Speaker 1: I just don't believe that was that conscious. Maybe not,
27:00
Speaker 1: but that's the mindset. That's the prism through which the
27:04
Speaker 1: legacy media sees this kind of an issue, and it
27:06
Speaker 1: really got exposed there now.
27:08
Speaker 2: As of this taping.
27:09
Speaker 1: I don't know what, if any repercussions they're going to
27:12
Speaker 1: be for Gutman, but based upon the current climate, it
27:15
Speaker 1: wouldn't surprise me if there were some. Now, I want
27:18
Speaker 1: to go back to something I already referenced about how
27:23
Speaker 1: easy this was to pull off, and this is going
27:27
Speaker 1: to be something that I have not heard anybody else say.
27:31
Speaker 2: For better or for worse. This is I think, kind
27:34
Speaker 2: of classic sigular analysis. Although weirdly I was helped.
27:38
Speaker 1: In coming to this conclusion by my thirteen year old
27:41
Speaker 1: daughter Grace, who, as you probably know, is was a
27:45
Speaker 1: big fan of Charlie Kirk. More on that a little
27:48
Speaker 1: bit later on in the podcast. But it struck me
27:53
Speaker 1: odd and strange always has about why Charlie Kirk did
28:00
Speaker 1: these events on campuses outside. I mean because again hindsight
28:07
Speaker 1: is twenty twenty. But when you look at the configuration
28:11
Speaker 1: of what was going on there, I mean this was
28:13
Speaker 1: really almost perfectly designed for the assassin.
28:18
Speaker 2: I mean it was.
28:19
Speaker 1: Just outside, elevated shot, no way to get to that person,
28:25
Speaker 1: easy escape route, you know, pretty short distance between where
28:32
Speaker 1: the assassin was on the roof and where Charlie Kirk was.
28:35
Speaker 2: It's a clear shot downward trajectory.
28:38
Speaker 1: I mean, this was in retrospect, obviously incredibly easy to
28:44
Speaker 1: pull off. Even by this effectively an amateur with just
28:49
Speaker 1: some hunting experience was able to do this.
28:52
Speaker 2: With one shot. So why is it that this was
28:55
Speaker 2: really able to happen.
28:57
Speaker 1: Well, it's because Charlie Kirk does or did his events outside.
29:01
Speaker 1: And why does he do his or did he do
29:04
Speaker 1: his events outside because I've you know, done many speaking
29:08
Speaker 1: engagements in my life, some of which have been outside
29:11
Speaker 1: at rallies, you know, back of the tea party days
29:15
Speaker 1: and back of the COVID days.
29:17
Speaker 2: I've done this many times.
29:19
Speaker 1: And outdoor events for speaking are inherently.
29:24
Speaker 2: Terrible because you've got usually.
29:28
Speaker 1: Terrible audio systems, you've got bad acoustics, you've got wind,
29:34
Speaker 1: you've got planes, you've got cars, you have audience members who,
29:40
Speaker 1: inherently outside don't feel as if they need to keep quiet.
29:45
Speaker 2: It's just human nature.
29:48
Speaker 1: And so from an audience perspective, I can't imagine that
29:53
Speaker 1: these Charlie Kirk events were all that great. I've never
29:56
Speaker 1: attended one, so, but you just to me it felt
30:01
Speaker 1: like it was a venue that was being created for
30:04
Speaker 1: the online video version of the event, that the people
30:09
Speaker 1: there are just essentially a studio audience for Kirk to
30:12
Speaker 1: do his thing. You know, prove me wrong, you liberals,
30:17
Speaker 1: And then all that really matters is the audio that's
30:21
Speaker 1: being recorded and the video close up of Kirk as
30:25
Speaker 1: well as the liberal who's trying to debate him, and
30:30
Speaker 1: the reason why and this I'm not blaming anybody for this, Okay,
30:34
Speaker 1: I'm going to make this clear. I'm just telling you
30:36
Speaker 1: why Charlie Kirk is dead today, because Charlie Kirk would
30:40
Speaker 1: not be dead if these events were done inside because
30:43
Speaker 1: inside you can't get a gun inside. Okay, So if
30:47
Speaker 1: Charlie Kirk had done his on campus events inside, he
30:51
Speaker 1: would still be alive today.
30:53
Speaker 2: He did them outside.
30:54
Speaker 1: Why well, and this is where Grace came and Grace said,
31:00
Speaker 1: because we're talking about this at the dinner table.
31:03
Speaker 2: Grace said, well, if you do it inside, you can't
31:06
Speaker 2: get liberals to just kind of swing by and get
31:12
Speaker 2: to the microphone and debate him.
31:15
Speaker 1: And I thought, that's exactly why this was the case,
31:19
Speaker 1: because I've got enough of these events to know, if
31:23
Speaker 1: Charlie Kirk comes to a university and you know there's
31:27
Speaker 1: a two or three thousand seat theater venue, which most
31:30
Speaker 1: of these places have, maybe you know, smaller, maybe bigger
31:34
Speaker 1: than that, depending on the college, guess what's gonna happen.
31:38
Speaker 1: You're gonna need tickets, right, you need tickets with specific seating,
31:44
Speaker 1: and you need to do that well in advance, because
31:46
Speaker 1: there's gonna be a lot of demand. Well, if you
31:49
Speaker 1: do that, who are going to scoop up all the tickets?
31:53
Speaker 1: Fans of Charlie Kirk? And if you have only fans
31:58
Speaker 1: of Charlie Kirk at an indoor event, it doesn't work
32:05
Speaker 1: because you need the liberals to be able to feel
32:08
Speaker 1: free to swing by and get to the front of
32:11
Speaker 1: the line to debate Charlie Kirk. Now I'm not saying
32:14
Speaker 1: you wouldn't get any but it wouldn't work indoors because of.
32:19
Speaker 2: The logistics of it.
32:20
Speaker 1: But when you do it outside and there're no tickets
32:23
Speaker 1: and people can just literally swing by and see the
32:26
Speaker 1: crowd and go, oh, Charlie Kirk, I'd love to give
32:28
Speaker 1: him a piece of my mind, and you get right
32:31
Speaker 1: to the front of the line because that's what Charlie
32:34
Speaker 1: Kirk and the organizers want, then it works.
32:37
Speaker 2: That's how you get liberals to debate you.
32:41
Speaker 1: Now, there may be other considerations in all this, but
32:43
Speaker 1: I think that was the primary one, and so it
32:47
Speaker 1: was Charlie Kirk's shtick that made him vulnerable to getting
32:53
Speaker 1: assassinated because he has to do the events outside, or
32:59
Speaker 1: at least they're much better for what he's trying to
33:01
Speaker 1: accomplish outside, And in this particular case, outside meant effectively
33:10
Speaker 1: a turkey shoot. I mean, because you could not configure
33:15
Speaker 1: that situation, that atmosphere, that environment worse, especially in retrospect
33:22
Speaker 1: for one that ended up happening, And again I'm not
33:26
Speaker 1: blaming anybody, I'm just explaining why this was able to
33:31
Speaker 1: happen so easily. Now, as far as the media reaction
33:37
Speaker 1: to what happened, there's been a lot of attention, and
33:40
Speaker 1: understandably so to that. And I have a somewhat contrarian
33:45
Speaker 1: view on what transpired in the aftermath of Charlie Kirk's
33:50
Speaker 1: assassination because in my belief, other than MSNBC and maybe TMZ,
33:59
Speaker 1: and by the way, for the record, I.
34:01
Speaker 2: Do not believe, if you're aware of this story.
34:03
Speaker 1: That TMZ is telling the truth that the sounds of
34:07
Speaker 1: cheering and at the exact moment that President Trump announced
34:11
Speaker 1: that Charlie Kirk was dead were somehow unrelated to that news,
34:14
Speaker 1: and then we're instead about a Los Angeles car chase.
34:19
Speaker 1: That the logic doesn't match, the timing doesn't match, the
34:23
Speaker 1: math isn't mathing. I think TMZ is probably lying about that,
34:28
Speaker 1: and that those cheers were in fact for the news that.
34:32
Speaker 2: Charlie kirk was dead.
34:34
Speaker 1: But other than TMZ, which is not really a legitimate
34:39
Speaker 1: news organization, although sometimes is treated as it is, MSNBC,
34:44
Speaker 1: which I barely put into the realm of a legitimate
34:47
Speaker 1: news organization was absolutely, as you might expect, awful. I mean,
34:52
Speaker 1: they had one of the dumbest things ever said on
34:55
Speaker 1: cable news television, which is a very very high bar,
34:58
Speaker 1: where almost immediately one of their own air people speculated
35:03
Speaker 1: that Kirk may have been killed by a right winger
35:06
Speaker 1: firing off a gun, by accidents or in celebration. I mean,
35:10
Speaker 1: what kind of an imbecile do you have to be
35:12
Speaker 1: to even speculate about that with absolutely not a shred
35:14
Speaker 1: of logic evidence. But that's MSNBC. And MSNBC also had
35:22
Speaker 1: a commentator, former Republican Matthew Dowd, eventually get fired for
35:28
Speaker 1: and I'm paraphrasing here, essentially saying that Kirk may have
35:33
Speaker 1: maybe I don't think you said, deserved what he got,
35:35
Speaker 1: but he certainly should have expected what he got given
35:38
Speaker 1: the kind of speech that he engaged in.
35:40
Speaker 2: Again, that's a rudimentary paraphrase.
35:44
Speaker 1: But Dowd ended up getting fired from MSNBC, which was
35:47
Speaker 1: rarely when the floodgates opened for all the firings and
35:51
Speaker 1: all sorts of walks of life in reaction to the
35:54
Speaker 1: assassination of Charlie Kirk, because we're living in a very
35:58
Speaker 1: strange time where all of a sudden, right wingers have
36:01
Speaker 1: the power and left wingers are on.
36:04
Speaker 2: The defensive, and they don't seem to have realized.
36:07
Speaker 1: That they've lost their PC protection, that they've lost their powers.
36:11
Speaker 1: They've been so used to for so long, being able
36:14
Speaker 1: to get away with saying anything they want about right wingers,
36:18
Speaker 1: and then all of a sudden, boom, those powers were revoked,
36:22
Speaker 1: that force field protection was revoked, and Matthew Dowd was
36:26
Speaker 1: really just the first shoe to drop. And those were
36:31
Speaker 1: obviously terrible examples of medium olpractice in the immediate aftermath
36:36
Speaker 1: of the assassination, But I have to say that in general,
36:41
Speaker 1: the media coverage was pretty decent and the most important part.
36:47
Speaker 1: And this is something that I'm not sure that even
36:51
Speaker 1: conservatives fully appreciate, because conservatives generally had a lot more
36:57
Speaker 1: knowledge of who Charlie Kirk was then certainly the average
37:01
Speaker 1: liberal or the average nonpartisan person, and so I'm not
37:06
Speaker 1: sure people on the right fully appreciate or understand how
37:10
Speaker 1: extraordinary it is that in the big picture, Charlie Kirk's
37:16
Speaker 1: assassination was treated almost as if it was maybe not
37:22
Speaker 1: a presidential assassination, but maybe a vice presidential assassination. I mean,
37:27
Speaker 1: it was treated with enormous magnitude, enormous magnitude, and you know,
37:36
Speaker 1: especially in the mainstream, I'm not sure that they at
37:42
Speaker 1: first were one hundred percent certain that they had to
37:45
Speaker 1: do it that way. I mean, let me play a little,
37:50
Speaker 1: you know, theoretical game here. Let's pretend, and I hope
37:55
Speaker 1: this will make my point about the news media giving
37:59
Speaker 1: the Kirk assassin nation the magnitude that it deserved in
38:02
Speaker 1: a way that I thought was actually in keeping with
38:07
Speaker 1: journalistic ethics, which didn't have to be the case.
38:10
Speaker 2: So here's my.
38:12
Speaker 1: Thought experiment. Let's pretend two things. Let's pretend that the
38:17
Speaker 1: South Park depiction of Charlie Kirk had never happened, where
38:23
Speaker 1: Cartman depicts Charlie Kirk in a couple different episodes. Now
38:28
Speaker 1: apparently those have now been taken down, and it's uncertain
38:32
Speaker 1: to me as to whether that South Park had future
38:35
Speaker 1: plans to have Cartman continue.
38:38
Speaker 2: To play Charlie Kirk.
38:39
Speaker 1: But that is obviously not going to happen, at least
38:43
Speaker 1: not anytime soon. I have questions as to whether or not,
38:48
Speaker 1: even subconsciously Charlie Kirk being featured on south Park may
38:52
Speaker 1: have influenced the killer. I have no knowledge or evidence
38:56
Speaker 1: that the killer was a south Park viewer. It wouldn't
39:01
Speaker 1: be unusual for a twenty two year old to be
39:03
Speaker 1: a south Park viewer. The timing here, I do think
39:07
Speaker 1: is interesting because it may not have had any impact
39:12
Speaker 1: on conservatives or Magaworld, but having Cartman a cultural icon
39:19
Speaker 1: on south Park depict Charlie Kirk, in my view, put
39:25
Speaker 1: him in a completely different place in our culture. And
39:29
Speaker 1: I praised Charlie Kirk on this podcast for turning into
39:35
Speaker 1: the curve on that. You know a lot of conservatives
39:39
Speaker 1: might have been outraged that he was mocked as Cartman,
39:43
Speaker 1: or may have tried to ignore it because it didn't
39:46
Speaker 1: depict him in a positive fashion. Charlie Kirk embraced it.
39:50
Speaker 1: He laughed about it. He even praised some of their comedy.
39:54
Speaker 1: He used that as his avatar for a while on
39:58
Speaker 1: social media, so I thought he handled that whole.
40:00
Speaker 2: Situation great But possibly.
40:04
Speaker 1: And I underlined possibly three times from the perspective of
40:08
Speaker 1: the killer, either consciously or subconsciously, the South Park depiction
40:14
Speaker 1: of Charlie Kirk or Cartman as Charlie Kirk may have
40:17
Speaker 1: elevated Kirk to a status that ended up making him
40:22
Speaker 1: more vulnerable to this assassination. We don't know that yet,
40:27
Speaker 1: we may never know that, but it also elevated him
40:31
Speaker 1: in the minds of the mainstream news media.
40:35
Speaker 2: So here's my thought experiment.
40:37
Speaker 1: If south Park never does Charlie Kirk as Cartman or
40:42
Speaker 1: vice versa, and let's say that Charlie Kirk is assassinated
40:47
Speaker 1: at an event that is not public for which there
40:52
Speaker 1: is no video. All right, somebody just sees him coming
40:56
Speaker 1: out of a restaurant, shoots.
40:58
Speaker 2: And kills him. All right, it's the same result.
41:02
Speaker 1: It's a political assassination and he's dead. But if those
41:06
Speaker 1: two things replace the reality that actually occurred, it is
41:13
Speaker 1: my strong belief that the mainstream news media at least tries.
41:17
Speaker 2: And maybe even is able to get away with not.
41:21
Speaker 1: Providing wall to wall coverage of this assassination because in
41:28
Speaker 1: their minds, Charlie Kirk is not that big a figure,
41:31
Speaker 1: especially without the Cartman south Park deal.
41:34
Speaker 2: He's a right wing podcaster.
41:37
Speaker 1: Activist who's very popular, but he's not really even at
41:42
Speaker 1: the level of a Rush Limbaugh.
41:44
Speaker 2: You could argue that you know as the height of
41:47
Speaker 2: Rush Limbaugh.
41:48
Speaker 1: But to them in the mainStreet news media, I could
41:51
Speaker 1: see under the scenariotist outline them reporting this is a
41:55
Speaker 1: big story, but nowhere near the magnitude that it was
42:00
Speaker 1: because Kirk had been elevated, and because the event was
42:05
Speaker 1: so public the video, I mean, we're living in the
42:09
Speaker 1: video age, right, and even without the video of the
42:12
Speaker 1: actual assassination, there was tons of compelling video because you
42:18
Speaker 1: have a crowd of several thousand people there and it's
42:21
Speaker 1: a public event. So whether I'm right or wrong is
42:27
Speaker 1: somewhat irrelevant to the larger point, and that is you
42:30
Speaker 1: cannot argue that the mainstream media didn't give Charlie Kirk's
42:37
Speaker 1: death it's due. I mean, this thing has been probably
42:41
Speaker 1: the biggest news story of it's kind of the year,
42:46
Speaker 1: and I mean, I think you could actually make an
42:49
Speaker 1: argument that they've kind of overdone it a little bit.
42:52
Speaker 1: Now I would push back on that argument. I'm not
42:55
Speaker 1: actually making that argument. I'm saying you could make that
42:57
Speaker 1: argument based upon Charlie Kirk's actual stature at the time
43:04
Speaker 1: of his death. But I think his assassination has actually
43:09
Speaker 1: elevated him, and it has said a lot about our culture.
43:13
Speaker 1: It has created a lot of questions. The reaction to it,
43:15
Speaker 1: I think is newsworthy in and of itself on both sides,
43:19
Speaker 1: with the left wing absolutely being insane in their reaction
43:24
Speaker 1: to this and the right wing, in my opinion, overreacting
43:26
Speaker 1: with cancel culture. And so, you know, I think now
43:32
Speaker 1: it's obviously a huge story and it deserves to be
43:35
Speaker 1: covered in a very very significant way. But you cannot
43:38
Speaker 1: argue that the mainstream news media tried to downplay his
43:45
Speaker 1: significance or the relevance of his death. And maybe I
43:51
Speaker 1: come at this from a weird perspective because I remember
43:54
Speaker 1: when Andrew Breitbart died and you may or may not know,
43:58
Speaker 1: but Andrew Brightbart and I were very very close for
44:01
Speaker 1: a long period of time. We had a falling out
44:03
Speaker 1: just before his death. And you know, Andrew Breitbart was
44:08
Speaker 1: similar to Charlie Kirk in a lot of ways, where
44:12
Speaker 1: if you were a right winger, if you were someone
44:15
Speaker 1: who concerned consumed a lot of conservative media, you knew
44:18
Speaker 1: who Andrew Breitbart was. If you went to the Drudge Report,
44:21
Speaker 1: you knew who Andrew Breitbart and bredbart dot com were.
44:24
Speaker 1: But if you were not within that demographic, you probably
44:28
Speaker 1: had no idea who Andrew Bridbart was and when he died.
44:33
Speaker 2: I'll never forget it.
44:34
Speaker 1: I was watching the NBC Nightly News back when the
44:37
Speaker 1: nightly News actually mattered, and Brian Williams was the anchor,
44:40
Speaker 1: and I was completely stunned that the very first story
44:44
Speaker 1: that night, the lead story, was the death of Andrew Breitbart.
44:48
Speaker 2: This was the day after he had died the night.
44:51
Speaker 1: Prior, and I'm like, my first reaction was, Wow, Andrew
44:54
Speaker 1: would have loved this. Well, he would have been stunned,
44:58
Speaker 1: and he would have loved it. But I was shocked
45:00
Speaker 1: because I'm like NBC Nightly News and other mainstream outlets
45:05
Speaker 1: that similar coverage are telling an audience that they have
45:10
Speaker 1: never mentioned Andrew Breitbart too previously, that his death is
45:16
Speaker 1: the most important thing that has happened in the last
45:18
Speaker 1: twenty four hours. By the way, I had no problem
45:22
Speaker 1: with them doing it. I just thought it was incredibly
45:24
Speaker 1: odd because they've tried desperately for years to ignore Andrew
45:29
Speaker 1: Breitbart because they don't want to have elevated.
45:31
Speaker 2: Him to a statue or where he has more power.
45:34
Speaker 1: I mean, that was the environment back then where the
45:40
Speaker 1: left wing media They really didn't even try to destroy you.
45:44
Speaker 1: Their greatest weapon was to ignore you because they viewed
45:49
Speaker 1: any coverage by them as giving you credibility. I mean,
45:54
Speaker 1: I experienced this in all sorts of ways. I mean,
45:58
Speaker 1: back with the Today Show was a really big deal,
46:00
Speaker 1: by far the number one morning news show, and I
46:03
Speaker 1: went on there the first time to talk about my
46:07
Speaker 1: medium Malpractice documentary about the two thousand and eight presidential
46:10
Speaker 1: election in my exclusive interview with Sarah Palin in the
46:13
Speaker 1: aftermath of that election. It was extremely unusual for a
46:19
Speaker 1: non celebrity. It made me been unprecedented for a non celebrity,
46:25
Speaker 1: full on conservative filmmaker to be on The Today Show
46:29
Speaker 1: Live with Matt Lauer in the primetime slot. I mean,
46:32
Speaker 1: it was highly unusual, if not unprecedented, because their major
46:38
Speaker 1: tactic was to ignore you and not give you a
46:42
Speaker 1: platform and not give you credibility. Well, you know, maybe
46:47
Speaker 1: the legacy media couldn't have gotten away with it with
46:49
Speaker 1: regard to Kirk because the story was just so compelling
46:54
Speaker 1: and horrific and the video was was so dramatic and
46:59
Speaker 1: I do thing because of the South Park cartman issue.
47:04
Speaker 2: But they didn't even try. And I think they deserve
47:07
Speaker 2: at least a little bit of credit for that.
47:10
Speaker 1: But so by and large, with some exceptions, and we've
47:14
Speaker 1: already played one for Matt Gutman, and I've referenced TMC
47:18
Speaker 1: and MSNBC, by and large, I actually think that, if anything,
47:23
Speaker 1: the Kirk story might be slightly might be slightly overblown,
47:27
Speaker 1: because it is being treated, as I've already said, essentially
47:31
Speaker 1: like a vice presidential assassination, when you know, Charlie Kirk
47:35
Speaker 1: never had any official position in government or being a politician,
47:39
Speaker 1: and I don't know what his name recognition was before
47:44
Speaker 1: the assassination, but it certainly was nowhere to be here
47:47
Speaker 1: over fifty percent of the country. And yet it has
47:52
Speaker 1: been treated, for understandable reasons, as if it is a
47:57
Speaker 1: incredibly important deal, which will now Part of what made
48:02
Speaker 1: it impossible for them to ignore is all the machinations
48:06
Speaker 1: that have occurred in the aftermath of the assassination. Plus
48:10
Speaker 1: they love a great manhunt, right, I mean, a good
48:14
Speaker 1: man hunt is irresistible for the legacy news media.
48:18
Speaker 2: And for about two days.
48:20
Speaker 1: We had a really good man hunt before the FBI
48:23
Speaker 1: and Cash Bettel got lucky and the parents, you know,
48:27
Speaker 1: just what had to be an absolutely heart crushing series
48:31
Speaker 1: of events. This conservative family realizes that their son is
48:35
Speaker 1: the person that had to have done this, and they
48:38
Speaker 1: end up a guest convincing him to turn himself in
48:42
Speaker 1: or force him to turn himself in. Now, part of
48:45
Speaker 1: what occurred in the aftermath of this was on social media,
48:51
Speaker 1: liberals and on some legacy media. Liberals lost their fucking
48:56
Speaker 1: minds and exposed themselves in many cases as being absolutely
49:01
Speaker 1: awful people. And I don't want to downplay this in
49:04
Speaker 1: any way, shape or form, even I have been stunned
49:08
Speaker 1: by just how horrendous many and we're talking about hundreds,
49:14
Speaker 1: if not thousands of social media posts and videos of
49:20
Speaker 1: people who are openly celebrating the assassination of an innocent man,
49:25
Speaker 1: who are mocking the assassination, who are saying all sorts
49:31
Speaker 1: of outrageous and horrendous things. Now, the vast majority of
49:35
Speaker 1: these people are not in the news media or any
49:37
Speaker 1: semblance of media, but a lot of them are being punished.
49:43
Speaker 1: And some of them are being punished from the standpoint
49:47
Speaker 1: of losing their jobs or their visas, or they're getting
49:51
Speaker 1: kicked out of school. There's been all sorts of repercussions
49:57
Speaker 1: for these expressions of disdain for Charlie Kirk and approval
50:05
Speaker 1: of his assassination. And I understand the right wing outrage
50:11
Speaker 1: about this. I get it. It feels good to get
50:17
Speaker 1: retribution on people who are exposing themselves as evil.
50:24
Speaker 2: I get it.
50:25
Speaker 1: I especially get it when we're coming off of a
50:28
Speaker 1: time period from two thousand until basically the second Trump administration,
50:36
Speaker 1: when you have the George Floyd situation and the COVID
50:39
Speaker 1: panic and all of the situations that resulted in essentially
50:45
Speaker 1: conservatives being canceled for expressing opinions, many of which turned
50:50
Speaker 1: out to be true, and the liberal media didn't give
50:54
Speaker 1: a shit, and the Democratic Party didn't give a shit.
50:58
Speaker 1: They were all promoting this culture of fear, fear of
51:02
Speaker 1: expressing legitimate opinions about George Floyd and the COVID panic.
51:08
Speaker 1: And for a lot of people, what has happened in
51:11
Speaker 1: the aftermath of the Charlie Kirk assassination is retribution. It's revenge.
51:17
Speaker 1: It's an eye for an eye and a tooth for
51:20
Speaker 1: a tooth. And I understand that. I get it. I
51:27
Speaker 1: also am warning everyone i possibly can that this is
51:32
Speaker 1: incredibly dangerous and it will almost certainly backfire on all
51:38
Speaker 1: of us, maybe very soon, but certainly into the not
51:45
Speaker 1: too distant future. And I have to say, as somebody
51:49
Speaker 1: who has studied the issue of free speech punishment, both
51:54
Speaker 1: in my personal life as well as my professional existence
51:57
Speaker 1: for about forty years, we have never seen anything close
52:04
Speaker 1: to what has occurred in the aftermath of the Charlie
52:07
Speaker 1: Kirk assassination. I think part of that is because social
52:10
Speaker 1: media has become so ubiquitous now, and it's so much
52:14
Speaker 1: easier to prove when people have said things that appear
52:18
Speaker 1: to be outrageous, and it's so much easier to organize
52:22
Speaker 1: and attack, for instance, that person or their employer when
52:28
Speaker 1: something seemingly outrageous has been said about a very very
52:32
Speaker 1: hot button and emotional topic like the assassination of Charlie Kirk.
52:38
Speaker 1: But I've never seen anything like this. I've always said,
52:41
Speaker 1: it's not really a big story in this country until
52:44
Speaker 1: at least somebody is fired for talking about it, and
52:48
Speaker 1: that's intended to be somewhat amusing or humorous.
52:52
Speaker 2: But it's also true, well that bar got jumped over.
52:57
Speaker 1: With the Matthew Dowd situation at msn SEE, but that
53:00
Speaker 1: just opened up the floodgates. I have no idea what
53:04
Speaker 1: the numbers are now, but we have to be in
53:07
Speaker 1: the hundreds, if not more than that, of people who
53:11
Speaker 1: have been severely punished in all sorts of different ways
53:16
Speaker 1: for public comments that they have made regarding Charlie Kirk's assassination.
53:22
Speaker 2: And I have to.
53:22
Speaker 1: Say maybe the most shocking part of this as someone
53:27
Speaker 1: who has followed us for a very long time and
53:29
Speaker 1: wrote a book called the Death of Free Speech in
53:31
Speaker 1: two thousand and five, which I have to tell you
53:34
Speaker 1: might be the most Prussian thing I've ever done in
53:36
Speaker 1: my entire career, a book that went absolutely nowhere. But
53:39
Speaker 1: that book has been vindicated in almost every possible way.
53:43
Speaker 1: Twenty years later, things are worse than I even would
53:46
Speaker 1: have predicted in that book, the death.
53:49
Speaker 2: Of free speech.
53:50
Speaker 1: But the part of this equation that has really stunned
53:55
Speaker 1: me is how many people of color, or specifically the
54:00
Speaker 1: black people, have been punished because of their expressions of
54:08
Speaker 1: whatever I mean, whether it's celebrating the assassination or condemning
54:13
Speaker 1: Charlie Kirk, or urging violence against other people like Charlie Kirk,
54:19
Speaker 1: whatever it is. And there's been a lot of conflation
54:21
Speaker 1: here which is one of my problems.
54:23
Speaker 2: You know, the.
54:24
Speaker 1: Words celebrate has really been I think bastardized to encapsulate
54:30
Speaker 1: anything we don't like that somebody has said in the
54:33
Speaker 1: aftermath of Charlie Kirk's assassination. But I even wrote in
54:38
Speaker 1: the Death of Free Speech about how we have this
54:41
Speaker 1: unofficial force field system or political correctness points that the
54:48
Speaker 1: media and the liberal elites generally use when deciding whether
54:53
Speaker 1: or not the punished speech. And what I mean by
54:56
Speaker 1: that is it's not really what you say. There's no
55:00
Speaker 1: objective authority about you know, the specifics of what you say,
55:04
Speaker 1: and we have a some sort of panel that decides
55:08
Speaker 1: objectively and with some rationality. Okay, this has crossed the line.
55:13
Speaker 1: You need to be punished in this sort of way.
55:15
Speaker 1: It's all very subjective, it's all very arbitrary, and a
55:19
Speaker 1: lot of it is dependent on what your demographics are,
55:22
Speaker 1: how many PC points you have at your disposal, how
55:26
Speaker 1: strong your political correctness force field is, and generally if
55:32
Speaker 1: you're a black person, especially if you're a black female,
55:37
Speaker 1: I mean that's been force field protection. It is almost impenetrable. Well,
55:43
Speaker 1: that force field protection has suddenly been revoked and a
55:49
Speaker 1: small part of me has a little bit of empathy
55:52
Speaker 1: for some of these people because it almost feels like
55:56
Speaker 1: the rules got changed after the game on them. Now,
56:01
Speaker 1: the rules were unfair to begin with, they should never
56:03
Speaker 1: have had the PC force field protection, but to have
56:05
Speaker 1: it revoked without anyone telling them has to be quite shocking.
56:11
Speaker 1: And these people are living in such a bubble.
56:13
Speaker 2: They don't realize how.
56:14
Speaker 1: Insane some of the things that they're saying are, and
56:18
Speaker 1: they have no expectation of punishment because, especially if you
56:22
Speaker 1: are a minority, and especially if you're a minority female,
56:26
Speaker 1: you can basically get away with anything you want, especially
56:28
Speaker 1: in academia. Well that's not been the case over the
56:34
Speaker 1: last week, because there's been all sorts of people that
56:38
Speaker 1: have been punished, and some of them deserved it. Okay,
56:43
Speaker 1: I want to make that clear. Some people deserved it. However,
56:48
Speaker 1: there have been other people who have been attacked by
56:51
Speaker 1: the right wing, by maggot social media that I don't
56:55
Speaker 1: think deserved it. And there's been a lot of inflation,
57:00
Speaker 1: there's been a lot of cancel culture, there's been a
57:02
Speaker 1: lot of punishment of free speech.
57:05
Speaker 2: A lot of this has been very subjective. A lot
57:08
Speaker 2: of this I.
57:09
Speaker 1: Think has created a very very dangerous slippery slope. And look,
57:15
Speaker 1: this is not an easy issue. It's not a simple issue.
57:19
Speaker 1: As I wrote about in my book The Death of
57:21
Speaker 1: Free Speech. There is cultural free speech and then there
57:26
Speaker 1: is the First Amendment. And I get I get it
57:30
Speaker 1: more than anybody that there is a difference that companies
57:35
Speaker 1: and I guess universities.
57:37
Speaker 2: Of course, some of these lands.
57:39
Speaker 1: Get blurred because is it a public university, is it
57:41
Speaker 1: a private university?
57:43
Speaker 2: Is the government somewhat involved?
57:46
Speaker 1: You know?
57:46
Speaker 2: There?
57:47
Speaker 1: So the lines are really really getting blurred almost on
57:50
Speaker 1: a daily basis here. But in theory, there's cultural free speech,
57:54
Speaker 1: which is what our society deems is appropriate free speech
57:57
Speaker 1: to where you wouldn't get punished by losing your job
58:00
Speaker 1: or getting kicked out of school or whatever. And then
58:04
Speaker 1: there's First Amendment rights, which deals with whether or not
58:07
Speaker 1: the government can punish you for things that you have said.
58:12
Speaker 1: Now to me, these two concepts are directly related, and
58:16
Speaker 1: I think the last week has proven that in spades,
58:20
Speaker 1: in spades, because the erosion of our cultural free speech
58:26
Speaker 1: is clearly impacting the erosion of our First Amendment rights.
58:30
Speaker 1: Because we're seeing all sorts of examples of where government
58:35
Speaker 1: entities are either directly or indirectly punishing people or enabling
58:43
Speaker 1: or facilitating the punishment of people for things that they
58:47
Speaker 1: have said. Thanks for listening to today's free drop of
58:50
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58:53
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59:18
Speaker 1: of Journalism with John Ziggler.
59:22
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