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Sept. 12, 2025 - The Muckrake Political Podcast
12:17
Soft Targets, Hard Narratives

This is a free preview of our Weekender. Get the full episode, every Weekender, special live shows, and our community Discord by supporting us here: http://patreon.com/muckrakepodcast. Co-hosts Jared Yates Sexton and Nick Hauselman pick up after their emergency pod on the assassination of Charlie Kirk, sorting what’s real from what’s useful to the people in power. Jared digs into accelerationist chatter, the leaky “shells with slogans” narrative, and how a soft target + a gutted FBI creates perfect conditions for chaos. Nick pushes back on the “pro hit” talk (and why a neck shot doesn’t scream sniper), while they break down Trump’s response—an uncanny video wrapped around a ready-made storyline that instantly deputizes repression against political enemies. They also call out the liberal media’s rush to launder Kirk’s record, talk Groypers vs. Kirk, and why “thoughts and prayers” gave way to weaponized certainty in minutes. If it feels like reality is being edited in real time… that’s the point. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Time Text
Hey everybody.
Welcome to the weekend or edition of the Mutcrack Podcast.
I'm Jared H. Sexton.
My voice is kind of going because I have a cold and I've been talking way too much about what's been going on, including the emergency pod from last night.
I'm here with Nick Halsman.
Nick, how are you doing, bud?
I'm good.
I got my voice is feeling good.
I actually was in rare form last night singing uh um Baker Street with the uh neighborhood band.
Uh that was exciting.
Oh, oh, okay.
So you had a you had a much different evening.
You know, I will say that I I was trying to hang out with people and and sort of enjoy the evening, and it's just it was very difficult.
And there's the the it's a lot, it's a lot.
A lot is going on.
I think we need to discuss.
And um a lot is going on.
And if you haven't already, please go back.
Uh on Wednesday night, we did record an emergency podcast talking about the assassination of Charlie Kirk.
We have more information about that today and more analysis.
A reminder if you want to listen to this whole show, and listen, there's a lot to discuss here.
There really, really truly is.
Head over to Patreon.com slash my crate podcast, become a patron, support the show, gain access to the weekender, all that good stuff.
Um, Nick, since we recorded that emergency podcast, um it feels like the some things have come out while other things have gotten murkier and stranger uh in the investigation into the assassination of Charlie Kirk.
Uh, we have seen today information that was first leaked from the FBI to right wing personality Steven Crowder, and eventually came out to the Wall Street Journal that in the in from the scene of the crime, that reportedly shells were recovered that had quote unquote transgender antifa anti-fascist ideology scrawled on them.
Uh, there's still not been anyone captured for this crime.
Um, this for me is starting to take on some weird tones.
Uh, the research I've been doing into it has me feeling uh a different way than I was yesterday.
Nick, can you give me your opinion as as I sort of get ready to uh get into that more in depth?
Yeah, I mean, the the I know that you you were um trying to say that like this was a it could be a professional hit uh and a professional shooter.
And the more I which it certainly seems like that's becoming the the sort of view of this.
Yeah, but I'm gonna I'll push back on that more.
The more I've been uh sort of examining this, and you know, 200 yards with a long gun and a scope um is not long for someone who's a pro.
And I I as far as I can tell, I'm going to aver uh that he that if that was a pro, they missed by several inches, which shouldn't have happened.
Uh that no sniper would aim for the neck.
Um, so it was either a head or a body shot, and they were way off.
So that leads to me like it might not have been any kind of a pro professional sniper person.
Now, the fact that they got away is something worthy of a professional because generally they don't.
Um, but uh I'm just telling you from that range with that, you know, kind of um training, you wouldn't expect the the where the the bullet to hit where it hit from what I am.
I didn't, you know, I spent a lot of time the other day uh last night going through this.
Well, I mean, the man was wearing a bulletproof vest under his t-shirt and they hit him in one of the most vulnerable parts of the body.
I wouldn't necessarily say that this had to be a professional.
I think anyone who has gone hunting, and I've certainly gone hunting, that this is the type of thing that like people would aim for and look for, and someone with a little bit of training would be able to do.
I think now the components of it, the way that the person like escaped, I think says that this was it, this wasn't just somebody, you know, on a on a lark getting up on a roof and carrying this thing out.
I also want to go ahead, I want to talk about this rifle shell thing, because there has been immediately, by the way, when this information was leaked, uh, the right wing just went after this.
And Nick, I know you're going to be shocked, but a large section of the right wing sort of encompassing the rift and the schism that you and I have have been covering over the last few months.
Uh, blame the Jews.
Obviously, Charlie Kirk, who was an ally of Israel and spoke out for them.
Obviously, they were the ones who orchestrated this, which just shows that they immediately jumped to their own conclusions and went their own directions, which is what I want to talk about a little bit more in here in just a second.
But there have been conflicting reports about whether or not these things were actually scrawled on the rifle shells.
Who even knows what transgender anti fascist ideology even means?
Conflicting reports have now said that that was misreported or uh miscommunicated or whatever.
Nick, the more that I look at this thing, the more that my attention is moving towards the concept of accelerationism, which for people who aren't aware, this is where extremists or domestic terrorists are very interested in taking advantage of tensions and conditions, trying to make them worse because they know that they can't convince people, they can't win elections, whatever it is.
There are so many men in America, particularly young men who've been radicalized in social media and in these online spaces.
And part of my job is to look at this, and part of my job is to research what it is that they're saying, how they're reacting, how like what is happening in these sort of groups.
And I'm not telling you that that's what happened here, but I'm telling you that their reaction to it is cheering it on.
They recognize that there are openings to do things like mass shootings, assassinations, terror attacks, whatever it is, in order to take the decline of America and escalating tensions and try and bring the entire thing down so that they can carry out neo-Nazi, nihilistic anarchist stuff.
And this isn't just a condition that we we're in right now.
The 20th century was largely shaped by anarchist and other extremists who set off bombs, who carried out terrorist attacks, who carried out assassinations.
And looking at this right now, if if I were an accelerationist, it would be the easiest thing in the world to hit a soft target like Charlie Kirk at this thing with a lack of security, with you know open vulnerability, and to go ahead and blame it on a group like transgendered people or liberals or leftist or whatever it is, Jews, whoever it is, to blame it on somebody else in order to set off the right.
And Nick, what have we seen?
They are already calling for violence and oppression.
We'll talk more about Trump here in just a few minutes.
But if this is an instance of accelerationists carrying out an assassination in order to inflame tensions, if that is what happened here, then they they they got what they wanted, period.
Right.
Um a few things uh as well.
You might be surprised to find out that the uh that Cash Patel had fired the head of the FBI office of that area um soon after they took over.
Um, would you be surprised if I told you the name of that officer or the FBI agent who was in charge was named as Mitsab Sayed, uh, who was born in Pakistan and it was a woman.
Uh, does that surprise you, Jared?
No, it does not.
No, and so you what here's what you might see that that adds to what you just said is that as they dismantle and they fired on uh untold amount of FBI agents now, all because of ideology and and gender.
Um perceived ideology, yeah.
See by yeah, because remember, uh this uh agent had been uh a member of the FBI for 20 years and had a sterling record and certainly deserved to be the head of the FI FBI office there.
So what the concern for me now is as they dismantled this, uh, you'll see more of these because we don't have agents on the ground doing their job.
You know, uh the church shooting we saw uh the other last month, you know, what was there moments where they could have been more on top of these things to try and stop it before it happens, and that's really uh real concern.
And again, that they're doing it all on purpose.
Then again, this feeds more into that narrative.
Uh, I I will say that the shooter uh of Charlie Kirk uh wasn't really concerned, he blended in looking like a college student, and they now release photos of him, but uh didn't have a mask, had glass had sunglasses on and a hat, but like, you know, that's awful easy.
I I I don't I would be surprised if that was really like a professional MO.
Uh, because you could still wear a mask around, you know, uh around you know, certainly a campus like that, and not attention, not gather much attention.
So uh I'm I'm just really curious about how that's all gonna play out.
Well, I my first instinct when they release this photo, and Nick, um, you know me, you know what my work is, you know what my specialty is.
I spend a lot of time researching extremism.
I my first instinct immediately was this is a griper.
And for people who don't know what gripers are, they're online, neo-Nazis, they're very, very interested in people like Nick Fuentes.
Um, also, by the way, I I I think it is interesting that the entire right-wing commentariat, like all the people like Charlie Kirk, who are like on the inside of this thing, have basically been at war with Nick Fuentes as he has been bringing himself more and more to the forefront.
And this has been a giant, giant battle between these people.
And there are certainly followers of everyone from Alex Jones to Nick Fuentes who believe what these people say, and they're more than willing to commit violence because they believe they're in the middle of a war.
My first instinct was oh my God, this is a griper.
That that was immediately where my mind went when this person's photo got brought out.
And when it comes to how this person was able to get away, what you brought up here is really, really important because not only has the FBI, DOJ, whatever, have they been weaponized by the Trump administration, they have also been made more and more incompetent.
Like they completely botched this thing.
And Cash Patel, as director of the FBI, last night we got two tweets from Cash Patel is like, we've got a suspect.
Thank you, everybody, for your hard work here.
We're gonna take care of this.
Two hours later, the suspect has been released.
We're looking again.
That's fucked up.
But I'll tell you the more fucked up thing that no one's talking about in all this, Nick, which is white domestic terrorists have been the main threat in the United States for decades now.
And people don't want to deal with white supremacy.
They don't want to deal with domestic terrorism.
It's uncomfortable.
It would mean that we would have to take a look at our culture and and our weapons and all of it.
So what has happened is that federal law enforcement in this country has dropped the ball.
And not only did they drop the ball, the Trump administration basically told everybody, don't even worry about this.
This isn't the important thing.
It's immigrants, right?
Or it's left-wing activists or it's professors or whatever it is.
And so what has actually occurred here is that there's a great untold story over the last few decades, Nick.
We have groups like Adam Waffen, which have been plotting big giant terrorist attacks involving things like nuclear weapons or the kidnapping of public officials, uh, you know, mass assassinations.
We're not too far away from uh a couple of Minnesota lawmakers, who one of which was killed and another was shot.
We've seen these attacks happen over and over again.
And we can talk all day about the left, right, center paradigm all day long.
These people are so far right that they're out of that paradigm, but they have been allowed to grow and gain purchase and gain influence, and they have radicalized so many people.
This is where a lot of our mass shootings are coming from.
This is where a lot of these like one off kills are coming from.
And I don't think it's outside the realm of possibility that what we're dealing with here is not what we're being given in the media or being given by our political leaders, but that we're looking at a much larger problem that this country doesn't even recognize as a problem.
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