Liv, Travis, and Jake discuss the continuing fallout from Charlie Kirk's assassination and new details from Tyler Robinson's charging document.
Thanks for subscribing to QAA on patreon.
Check out our new podcast series network Cursed Media and binge the entirety of our new show Science in Transition by Liv Agar and Spencer Barrows: https://cursedmedia.net
Editing by Corey Klotz. Theme by Nick Sena. Additional music by Pontus Berghe. Theme Vocals by THEY/LIVE (https://instagram.com/theyylivve / https://sptfy.com/QrDm). Cover Art by Pedro Correa: (https://pedrocorrea.com)
https://qaapodcast.com
QAA was known as the QAnon Anonymous podcast.
You know, to go on a research trip that I uh for a project I'm very excited about, which I had been, you know, planning for months.
And then this happens.
I'm of course speaking of the horrifying assassination of uh right wing activist, pundit, and podcaster, Charlie Kirk.
And of course, all the subsequent fallout from it, uh, which includes the uh Trump administration using the murder as a pretext to tighten their grasp on uh mass media, the right discovering their own love for cancel culture, and the FBI director uh Cash Patel making this bizarre comment at a press conference.
Lastly to my friend Charlie Kirk.
Rest now, brother.
We have the watch.
And I'll see you in Valhalla.
Also, we have the watch.
Is this like a game of thrones?
Game of Thrones.
Oh.
Is it like where's that from?
It's like you can be the FBI director and still want to be like a cold prisoner on top of like a ancient wall.
Just, you know, it's it's cool to be the FBI director, but even he's like, ah, we've we have the watch.
The walker, the walkers uh draw near.
I do feel like the FBI is now night's watch coded, given that it's like Cash Patel is running it.
Like Night's Watch.
There's a type of guy who's like in the night's watch.
Yeah, somebody who gets stuck there as punishment.
Yeah.
He tried to get out of it.
He was like, he was like, can't I run the FBI like from my bedroom?
Instead, they were like, no, you gotta come into work.
Yeah, you know, I think I it's I think it's usually used to like communicate like uh like change in guard or like for like in like retirement ceremonies.
You know, they say like, you know, it's like all right, well, you know, their idea is like after a long period of standing the watch, then uh like someone else.
Yeah, that was it's like the the responsibility is carried on, then we have the watch, which I don't know, I think that was like it's bizarre for him to say it because they didn't do the same thing.
He was like like he was like a right-wing, like pundit and and and propagandist, and Cash Patel is the FBI director.
These are not overlapping roles, even if they may be ideologically aligned.
What the fuck are they talking about?
I mean, maybe it's very revealing of like now it's time for us to like villainize trans people, like you've you've had your role doing this.
Yeah, I mean, I I shudder to imagine if the roles were reversed, and let's say what what they would, you know, what we would call a far left, you know, you know, somebody far left uh in the eyes of Republicans uh was assassinated, and like uh, you know, if the FBI, like Andy McCabe or whatever, or James Comey got up and was like, we've got the watch, like we'll see you at Pride or whatever.
You know, like if you imagine like how many fucking people would lose their fucking minds.
See you in gay heaven.
Yes, you in gay see you in gay heaven, they would be like, ah, they would lose their fucking minds.
Especially is this, I mean, it's like what like Charlie Kirk famously very Christian, and like he's saying, like, I'll see you in like the Viking afterlife.
I think this has to be, to me, this has to be a Mad Max thing that they both loved, they both love Fury Road, and it's it's like uh, you know, because uh I'll see, you know, the war boys when they would sacrifice themselves, they they believed that they were going to Valhalla.
They were excited to get there.
Uh that's that's my my take on it.
I could be wrong.
Probably, yeah.
They just like movies together.
They both liked Mad Max Fury Road, which is understandable.
It's a fucking fantastic movie.
Yeah.
I do just think it's very revealing, like the FBI director is just overtly being partisan in this respect.
Like it's our time.
It's our time to put cultural political pressure on the American liberal, like and left.
Hey man, everything you stood for, everything you believe in, like me, the FBI director, I've got that now.
I'm going to carry the torch.
I was thinking this past week, like, just given all of this insane reaction and sort of like repercussions of this murder.
this almost happened to Trump.
Like, I think about that, like this almost happened to Trump.
Like, oh, I can't even begin to fathom like how tenfold like the uh the fascism would accelerate had that been the case.
It is a different type of guy though.
Like if if you had like a crooks killing Kirk and he was like a vaguely Republican, yeah, I I wonder how how much like less hard it would have hit culturally speaking.
Because it seems like ostensibly like at least like left liberal motivation according to those logs of like he's hateful.
Like if tra I mean if someone killed Trump and was like, it it's time to stop the the right wing hate or whatever, that would have been profoundly have profoundly affected the country.
Sure, forever.
Much like the JFK assassination, which is still a part of our culture.
Yeah.
Yeah, one of the uh I guess one of the strangest sort of like uh reactions came when a bunch of NFL teams, not everyone, but a lot of them had like moments of silence or uh I guess special recognitions for the death of Charlie Kirk during the games.
I mean, I got a list of them here.
It was Green Bay Packers, New York Jets, Dallas Cowboys, Miami Dolphins, New Orleans Saints, Kansas City Chiefs, the Pittsburgh Steelers, the Tennessee Titans, and the Arizona Cardinals.
Like for like a I mean it's not the Bears, baby.
What's the what I can I it's like, is there any, you know, uh if like Rachel Maddow got got or something, do you think there would be like NFL games or of recommence of silence?
What the fuck's going on?
They fired they fired Colin Kaepernick for taking a knee for black people murdered by police.
Of course not.
But it's like, oh well, Charlie Kirk, like we're gonna do a fucking blue angel uh uh flyover.
Yeah.
It's so fascinating to me to see this man instantly be, you know, glued with patriotism and America and all of this stuff.
It's like if I had to pick a shining uh symbol, you know, of America, it wouldn't be Charlie Kirk.
Yeah.
It was like I I like again, I I was very I was very busy in the the days after it happened, but when I was like sort of like catching up on the commentary and uh the news, I was very sort of like bewildered by the characterization of his uh his career and his beliefs.
And like, you know, there's a lot on the right, was like, oh, he was just uh he was just like just uh just a like a normie Republican, just a real kind of like, you know, just a meat potatoes conservative, not a far right guy.
Oh god, not extreme at all.
I'm like, what the f I was like, what the f because like I give I've I've been familiar with him for years.
I was like, what are you t uh talking about?
I remember when people were like, get politics out of football.
They were like, we don't want to see it.
Dude, we just want to show up and watch a game.
And now it's flip it it is so funny to watch it's almost like monkey see monkey do.
It feels like the right wing right now, they've got something that could be like, C, we are oppressed, see, they are after us, see we're not the fucking majority and have been winning for you know two thousand however many years.
They're trying to make this almost like an apolitical death, insofar as it's like regardless of what partisan slant you have, you should agree.
Like our Charlie Kirk was a good man.
The Nick Fuentes line on this was like, you know, like if they'll kill Charlie Kirk, the moderate, imagine what they'll do to you.
It's like this guy was not a moderate.
Like, I don't know.
I wanna know, I want to know what football stadiums are doing uh to honor like all of the children who are murdered by gun violence every year, the the dozens and dozens of the school shooting that happened on the same day.
Same day.
I've never seen did any of the NFL stadiums do like a moment of silence for Sandy Hook.
Yeah.
It is wild to think that if the gunmen had instead simply murdered 10 random people from the crowd, no one would talk about it.
It was it would be it would be out of the news cycle in a weekend.
It really does seem like the right is trying to make this like their George Floyd, insofar as it's like a death they can use to fundamentally or to put pressure to like fundamentally change American society.
Oh like this happened, so now you can't yell at us.
Like you will your job will get uh taken and yeah, it's not good.
Yeah, it is not good.
I mean, the truth is is that like I have to admit, I've I have a special relationship with Charlie Kirk because he uh he actually was it was it was a Charlie Kirk tweet that uh set me on the path that may uh led me to uh you hearing my voice today because it was back in 2018.
I was like, I was kind of like vaguely familiar with QAnon.
I was like, oh, it's like interesting little kooky thing, but you know, I was then pay too strong attention to it.
It's like I it's like it's just like little look, kind of like the interesting little weird curiosity.
But then I noticed uh a tweet from Charlie Kirk that said that sounded very, very strange to me.
It includes some statistics about like arrests for like uh human trafficking for child sex trafficking, implying that like Trump is like arresting so many more people for this crime than the uh than the Obama administration ever did.
And so it seemed wrong to me.
And so I fact checked it and I I realized that the statistics that Charlie Kirk was getting that was basically the source for the numbers that Charlie Kirk was was getting from was um basically a QAnon meme of this this sort of like this weird image that was that was posted to Reddit, and it was like all it's like, whoa shit, this is crazy.
Like this Charlie Kirk, he's not he's not some sort of like fringe figure.
He's like, you know, he like talks to the president, he's on Fox News.
He's amplifying like the craziest most unhinged bullshit from like, you know, 4 Chan and 8 Chan.
This is again the why I'm like I'm not I was like I'm baffled by the portrayal him as sort of like some sort of like moderate Republican.
I think I think most moderate Republicans don't just fucking like copy and paste QAnon memes from Reddit onto their Twitter account.
So that's uh that's just very, very strange.
But yeah, yeah.
And then uh like the the the other time I met I well, I saw Charlie Kirk was uh in uh Arizona in the immediate aftermath of the uh 2020 election.
There was the like the rally to count the votes in uh Maricopa County, uh whereas like there were all lots of lots of right-wing figures appeared, like Alex Jones.
But yeah, Charlie Kirk, he showed up and then he gave a rousing sort of little talk, implying that the people who are counting the votes in the sort of the voting facility were corrupt.
His exact words, I think is roughly were like, oh, like people like Lisa Page and people like Peter Strzok are like counting your votes right now.
Like the idea is that like like there's like the the whole election uh process CI lovers.
Yes, yes, the hill the whole election process is just helplessly corrupt and um and therefore you should not trust the outcome.
Ugh, it was like, yeah, that is again, that's the the idea that like this guy was like some sort of like moderate.
I don't just like that that that was very strange to me.
Yeah, it seems like Kirk really served as like a bow weather for Trump style Republican politics, which like has become the Republican Party, and like in a sense, relatively speaking, the moderate position between like, you know, a Fuentes or someone who's like much further to the right, who's like flanking Trump on the right, and then like, you know, uh a Democrat.
Like that's what American politics is now.
That the quote unquote which isn't a representation of the electorate necessarily, because there are still, of course, like actual moderate Republicans out there.
They still vote Trump anyways.
Yeah.
Yeah, you know, yeah, he I suppose he he's a guy who like really I mean it was coalition building, uh building the bridge to like, I guess like the wealthy donors who just want a tax cut.
Are they like the Christian nationalists who like you know just want uh, you know, just uh you know, uh sort of like religious values to take over everything and also just batshit insane people who uh who for whatever reason are attracted to the Republican Party.
He was able to like, you know, be at the intersection of all of that.
Yeah, and it's like a person who's like first and foremost cares about the kind of political consequences of his speech and where it aligns him and just like he wants to stay in the middle, which is why like the the Groper the Gripers did a really good job at like pushing him to the right on like Israel.
And then he realized, like, well, I have to respond to that because that's kind of where the center of gravity of the party is moving, is that there's like some components of it who are kind of anti-Israeli, even if you know he's affirming the kind of Zionist general talking points, which is ironically, like you know, all the Israeli conspiracy theories that it's like oh it's like Nanyahu who killed him.
Right.
It's like no no no, he's just following the center of gravity in the party.
Yeah, the the Overton window has shifted so far that like I think people really do believe that like Charlie is a moderate within their party because like essentially to the right of Charlie is you know, like QAnon, and you could make the argument is as Travis, you know, just said, like, you know, Charlie was sharing QAnon talking points, like, you know, seven, eight years ago.
So by the way, I took so much shit from people, by the way, in that in Collins documentary where when he asked what you know, what was going on, you know, what do you what did I think was gonna happen with QAnon?
And I said, QAnon is so extreme, it's gonna pull everything right, like it's gonna be, you know, Republicans will be QAnon, Democrats will be like old school Republicans, and everything is gonna shift.
And people got so mad at me, but I was fucking right.
Not to I told uh not to I Totosa, like to everybody, but I mean like I think that like uh Charlie Kirk.
He also basically he like he followed, I mean, he ran um, you know, an organization that relied on fundraising from people who had a lot of money, and I think he really followed the interests of that.
And I think you can see that in the evolution of Turning Point USA.
It was like I was thinking about the what's really crazy to me about Charlie Kirk is that he did not live, he has he never lived a single year of his adult life in which he expressed a like a value and or an opinion or uh like a stance or whatever that was not um somehow under the influence of like donor money.
Cause when he was like like 18 years old, this is like how he got started.
He attended like a conservative conference.
He got in because he wrote like a Bright Bard article that went viral and everyone liked, and then he attended that yeah, he attended the conservative conference, and he like memorized the the like the names and photos of like the top 25 uh conservative donors so he could like walk up to them and make his pitch.
Like this, I mean this this I will say I'll say something about Charlie Kirk.
Natural born hustler.
Like this is a guy who really had the ability to figure out like what he wanted to do, figure out who can help him do it, and then get in front of the uh the people who can do it so he can make his pitch.
So I guess if there's I guess suppose if there's any compliment I could offer, uh, it would be like, boy, this man was uh was uh uh stone cold hustler since the cradle.
This was like I knew a guy at a acquaintance in high school, uh named Sam, and um I remember one time he showed up to school and he had like a really dope car, and everybody was like, Oh shit, like what you would like where'd you get this and all the stuff?
And I found out that he like had been going door to door, like selling knives, like he worked for it was like you know, kind of like one of those ads that like you see in the paper and everybody's like, Oh, this is some fucking like skin scam or bullshit or pyramid scheme.
But he was like such a young hustler that he was like, Fuck, I yeah, I could go sell these knives.
He went door to door, and I was it was the first time I was like, whoa, like you know, I at 17, I was like just discovering pot for the first time.
The idea of like enterprising in any kind of meaningful way, you know, I I I wouldn't get there till my mid to late thirties.
Yeah, so like yeah, what happened was is that like at this conference, uh he managed to get in front of a uh this this uh this mega donor multimillionaire named Foster Freeze, and he was he was so Wait a minute, sorry, sorry to interrupt Foster's freeze like the foster's freeze, like custard and burgers, like on the corner, like near my house.
The Batman villain.
Mr. Freeze is yeah, Travis chill.
No, it's it's spelled F-R-I-E-S-S, foster friss freeze, something like that.
Okay, so not like the beloved kind of like backyard custard burger joint.
No, not like that.
More like the uh the the Christian right omega donor.
Oh everything opposite of what I just listed.
Yeah.
So like Foster was like so impressed by this 18-year-old kid who's like who was like making this pitch that he offered him like 10 grand on the spot.
And that was I don't know, man.
That's like so that's crazy.
I how do you how are you 18 years old and you like immediately you go, I want money for for organizing expressing my opinion.
It's like I'm gonna go to the the billionaires who sort of like really kind of like shovel money through to various elements of the conservative movement and ask for money.
It's like I don't know, it's like 18.
Aren't you a little curious what it would be like to express an opinion, express whatever it is you believe totally uninfluenced for millionaire money, don't or billionaire money.
Aren't you like just aren't you just a little wondering what's inside of you?
What would what would come out if he was just purely authentic and unmotivated by financial uh realities of the fact that if you say the wrong thing that you know the money's gonna dry up?
I don't know, man fucking it's like again, it's like crazy.
He didn't live a single year of his adult life in which he knew what it was like to express himself outside the influence of millionaire And billionaire money.
I think it's just like an incredibly cynical view.
And seeing America in a lot of ways for what it is and believing that if you tap into that resource before anything else, that you can become powerful and wealthy, which he did.
Well, yeah, well, yeah, well, fuck yeah, yeah, this piece has played out.
It's very zoomer coded to me.
Like it's like it's a type of behavior from an area or from a period where selling out isn't real anymore.
Yeah.
And you like wouldn't expect he's a little bit older.
You wouldn't expect like like seeing that now, like an 18-year-old today doing that, it's like, sure.
It's like you you were in a society that is like fundamentally broken in a way that it wasn't in previous generations.
Yeah, like figure out Amazon drop shipping like yesterday.
You know, uh sign up for the AI courses, sign up for the AI um retreat where they teach you like 27 AI apps to like manage your finance and become like rich.
This is like the kind of targeted ads that I get that it's like, you don't know jack shit about AI, you fucking old man.
Come to my fucking retreat.
We got 27 courses in three days, you're gonna have four different AIs that are like running your life for you.
Yeah, it just feels like he was in on something early before like the rat race has gotten bad enough that like a much higher portion of the population is just like, well, what do I believe?
I don't know, which which what thing can I believe that will make like a billionaire donor give me 10,000 dollars, just like off of a pitch.
I mean, I'm curious about his upbringing.
I don't know if you if you know anything, Travis, but to me, this feels like a rich person's thing.
Somebody that knows that a billionaires exist too, that they'll give you your money if you come up with a decent enough pitch form and if you toe the line in what they want to say.
Like that's somebody who grows up with people who are talking about politics, who are talking about money, who are, you know, they're aware of these people.
To me, like I wouldn't even, you know, as far as I was concerned, if I asked my parents for like, I don't know, like 350 dollars for rollerblades, like it wasn't even worth asking.
Because the answer was gonna be no.
It's very like petty bourgeois huckster to me, like very American spirit Protestant sort of like knowledge is only useful insofar as it can gain you something, objectively speaking.
Yeah.
And I mean, you can take a look at sort of like the the shifting priorities in the history of uh TP USA, and you kind of see how it sort of like changes with its donor base.
For in his like very earliest conception, like back in like like 2012 to 2016, you know, like there was a big issue around deficit spending and uh, you know, the the national debt, you know, it's all the n there was there is this big on the TPUSA website, there was like all here is each young student's share of the national debt.
You know, the government is spending too much money.
Like, why do they think like young Charlie Kirk was like deeply invested in this?
I mean, I know that one of his some of his big earliest donors, like the Coke Network, they were deeply invested in it because they were worried that like big deficit spending would lead to higher taxes on uh high net worth individuals like themselves.
So the idea that there's like they need to they need to teach the government some fiscal responsibility so they're not like shoved with uh some sort of like big tax bill in order to but that slowly that slowly uh went away.
It went into like sort of like the at best a sort of like a back burner issue because he started getting a broader network of of donors and like who had different priorities than like the didn't give a shit about like deficit spending.
They didn't really think it would lead to like higher taxes.
And you know, that's and the the same thing with like immigration, like in the in the beginning, like the first few years, it was like immigration was like all like you know, the whole thing was like, oh, obviously immigration is fine, but no illegal immigration.
That's like that's the distinction.
And like the reason why this wasn't a big issue is guess because like the Koch brothers, like they're at very least, they're they're actually a pretty pro-immigration, sort of like libertarian types.
And so it wasn't sort of like a major issue for them.
But then he started getting some new donors, like Richard and Elizabeth Uleen.
These are like a couple that that like really use a lot of like immigrant invasion rhetoric.
So this led to TP USA and Charlie Kirk's rhetoric changing on immigration.
You know, it's interesting, like like back in like 2019, there was like what the Groper War, the sort of like Nix Fuentes types attacking Charlie Kirk for being too squishy on immigration for not being a hardliner, like they didn't want to like, you know, uh that kind of thing, because he was kind of like a little bit more like you know, libertarian squish, I guess that would say on immigration.
But then after like 2020, that that changed real quick.
He's all talking about like putting a total more moratorium on all immigration.
Like what what the hell changed?
Well, the change is that he started getting donor money from different sources that had different priorities, and all of a sudden his rhetoric changed.
I mean, this is why I feel like when we're talking about Charlie Kirk's legacy, is uh challenging to like really talk about like what he believed, right?
And some of some ways I don't know what he like really believed or what he really thought was important.
I think he was like uh obviously an authentic right winger, but like he what he what he said, the words that came out of his mouth and now the like you know, the the sort of TPUSA's publications was ultimately dictated by the people who were funneling his organization millions of dollars.
Well, I think I I think he believed in in uh America's uh true God, uh, which is money.
And you know, I think a lot of these people, like, you know, just anecdotally, the the religious stuff comes because it's like, oh, I'm so grateful.
It's not that I am the cynical person that instantly recognized the quickest and easiest way to to amass wealth and power.
No, it's not that it's like I'm on this divine path and I'm humble.
It's the same thing we've always been doing.
What do they f manifest destiny, you know?
And and it's I think it's cloth in the religion.
I think these it makes these guys feel better.
That's the problem that when you have a country and a culture in America where you know, gaining wealth and having more than or or you know, enough to protect you and your family and stockpile, you know, stockpile wealth because you never know who's gonna try to take it for you.
Then there's no such thing really as beliefs, because whatever's going to net you the most uh, you know, financial gain is where you're going to, you know, sort of tune your your efforts and your focus and your beliefs.
I think that's why it's so easy for people like us and you know, other sort of like political analysts to just go like, oh, you fucking hypocrites.
Look at that, look, they said this one thing, but like now look at them, they're doing something completely different.
It's because well, nobody actually really has any other beliefs other than trying to not become poor.
You know, that's like the American fucking dream is like don't be, you know, that sad sack with no roof over their head, no fucking uh, you know, big phone in your pocket, you know, no fast, you know, high speed internet.
I don't know.
It's just like it's very, very, very depressing.
I'm sure Charlie Kirk believed in like the movement that he was a part of and his ability to ingratiate himself off of it.
It's like as long as it's here and I have a big institution within it, you know, donors are giving me money.
I'm like the guy who organizes college campuses for you know, among conservatives, you know, then he was fine, you know, which is it's a very good summary, I think, of a lot of American conservativism.
It's just like a little bit more overtly cynical because he's like an ideologue.
But like they they do just believe like in I guess the violence of American institutions and their position at the top of them.
And it's like whatever allows or facilitates that to continue, like that's what they believe.
That's what's that's what is useful.
And I'm like, I'm guilty of the same shit.
I didn't start this podcast with Julian because I was worried about conspiracy culture, you know, uh severing, you know, a decent portion of the population's uh connection with reality.
I wasn't like, I gotta do a podcast to warn the people about QAnon.
I was like, I'm working this like shitty fucking assistant job, and Julie and I are doing this other podcast, like I guess maybe it's another piece of shit to throw on the wall.
Maybe, you know, maybe something will come of it, and I'll be able to quit my like shitty day job, you know, that's you know, fucking driving me insane.
You know, I didn't start this because I was like, ah, my don't you I truly believe.
You know, it was not that.
It was out of like uh necessity to survive in in a system where you know, a creative brain like mine was was having uh difficulty uh adapting, I guess.
Yeah, I mean yeah, I I was I was just tweeting about uh a thing I thought was like really interesting and happened to align with like some of my amateur interests.
And like, you know, whenever I got some downtime at work, you know, I sort of like was reading through uh wherever the QAnon community was gathering and sort of like, you know, uh figuring out the narratives and the the cue drops and all that stuff.
I just I just thought it was like super fascinating.
And it's like, oh, but also super concerning.
And like, yeah, I I I I I definitely had this fantasy that like, you know, like tweet about it enough and then like, you know, someone someone would take care of it, I guess.
I don't know.
And then I can I would like go back to like shit posting.
Just didn't just didn't happen like that.
Let's talk a little bit about the fallout of the assassination.
The Washington Post, they fired uh their columnist Karen Atya After 11 years at the paper over some blue sky post she made.
And uh yeah, boy.
I think you said live uh this may be the very first uh blue sky post firing ever.
It's very possible.
I think so.
Yeah.
This particular post isn't why she was fired, but she uh included uh like a Charlie Kirk quote that I would characterize as lightly paraphrased.
So this this led to a whole like kind of like battle online.
Here's the actual clip of what Charlie Kirk said.
Joy Reed and Michelle Obama and Sheila Jackson Lee and Katanji Brown Jackson were affirmative action picks.
We would have been called the brrrrrr racist.
But now they're coming out and they're saying it for us.
They're coming out and they're saying, I'm only here because of affirmative action.
Yeah, we know you do not have the brain processing power to otherwise be taken really seriously.
I see.
And then she characterized that as Kirk saying that that black women don't have the brain processing power, those positions.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, he he actually was just saying it about Michelle Obama who was a lawyer, right?
And well, yeah, and and Kotenji Jackson Brown who's a Supreme Court judge, right?
He's just saying those specific black women are DEI hires.
At like the highest level just power.
Incredible.
It's like yeah, it's like no, that's like it's not like it's oh, she's just he just happens to be listing like four of the most like you know, uh politically uh influential black women.
He's not it's not saying all black women, just the ones who have influence and power, those ones.
Like, I guess it's not a a direct quote to say that he said black women exactly, but Jesus.
And it's like is he's just he was talking about four black women in explicitly racial terms when discussing about affirmative action.
Yeah.
This really does feel like it's probably not quite as bad, but like, you know, right after 9-11, like there was like Bill Maher got fired for saying that like the people who'd flew the planes into the buildings weren't cowards.
Cause he was like, that's not a very cowardly thing to do.
And then he got fired.
Like it feels like we're in that period politically.
Yeah, and the right knows it, and they're like, we have to use we have to get as many people fired as possible.
Of course.
Yeah, we gotta get them fired.
They got us fired.
Yeah, it's only fair.
I I saw that a lot on like our slash conservativism on Reddit, where they were comparing like the Jimmy Kimmel stuff we'll talk about later to like Trump getting deplatformed after January 6th.
And it's like he tried to take over the country.
It's not the same.
Like Bolsonaro got like 30 years in jail in Brazil in a country that apparently has actually functioning legal institutions for like just copying what Trump did.
He's like, I'm going to do the thing Trump did.
And then a real court system that actually works gave him like his life in prison.
It's so fun.
I know I'm stating the obvious here, but it feels like we're all just so cooked because everybody's like holding like an apple and an orange, you know, in front of our faces and being like, no, it's the same fruit.
It's the same thing, you idiot.
You can't see this, you fucking idiot.
Like, and I think people just have like lost their minds, like you know, over the last like decade or so of this of this going on.
Yeah.
There is a part of me that doesn't like comparing it to cancel culture because it feels like just obviously much worse.
Like it's like McCarthyism.
Like it's like it's good to like highlight the hypocrisy.
Although, like, they don't cause don't give a shit.
They're it's so clear that they they don't care about cancel culture.
They cared about like who is being canceled.
It's like it's the Star Wars lady shouldn't be canceled for saying QAnon is real because like they believe in QAnon.
Whereas like Jimmy Camel should be canceled or should be fired because like he's he doesn't believe the things they do.
They're just very overt about it.
I you know what?
He's like, I always thought, like, yeah, this the rhetoric about like just general uh a culture of free speech and no cancellations, no shaming anyone for their beliefs or anything.
This struck me as the kind of like the slave morality of a group of people who do not feel confident in their cultural clout.
Like, like there's a universal rule that you gotta be nice to everyone, which consequently means you gotta be nice to me.
Especially me.
But like once once they felt like the tide was turning, once like, okay, we got the government power and like we're like we're turning that into cultural power.
We was like almost fucking owing everything.
All right, never mind.
Fuck this like we're gonna take PeiPay back.
We're gonna get them, we're gonna get them fired.
You know what's really yeah, it's really surprising to me wasn't that the right didn't actually have like a kind of like principled objection to getting people fired over their zesty tweets or whatever.
I thought that was pretty obvious.
I thought it was like, well, obviously, if they if they if they could, they would.
Uh, but it's striking to me that they didn't really believe that such an attitude or such a culture was politically costly.
Because like this whole attitude is like your your desire to be uh the censor people, desire to be so like smug and above people and like you know, sort of like shame people for for not having the right opinions.
That's gonna cost you power, and that's why like Trump won.
It's like, well, if you believe that, you wouldn't do it and like threaten the power you have now.
Yeah, we're entering this like horrifying era where the right is now like we are the morally superior uh, you know, political party, but like they're still doing fascism, like they haven't changed at all.
They just are like, oh, they're like, we have a manifest destiny now to like snuff out basically like whoever we want and what you know, whatever way we find, you know, fit.
Yeah, maybe this is overly confident, but I do think woke two is gonna be so awesome.
Like when woke comes back, they're cultural reaction.
Repackage, repackage for them.
I'm honestly I am surprised the extent of the kind of cultural momentum they've been allowed to use because it does feel like the vibe shift, like the vibe shift towards Trump has really like kind of waned in the last couple months.
This feels like it's a weird kind of like last stand of that, because the Trump Trump's approval was like going down quite a bit.
Yeah, it felt like the cultural like the cultural dominance at the start of the year when conservatives were being like, oh, we're back to like, you know, Reagan cultural hegemony for the right, was just like immediately had like immediately vanished.
It seems like they're they are just maybe maybe a part of this is that they feel that it's slipping away.
And they're like, we're gonna use as much as we have until you know woke two comes back, I guess.
I don't know.
There's an anxiety among the right though that I've seen recently, or just like felt to do like some affect theory.
Yeah, which is interesting.
And I mean, I think this is part of like their scramble to do like a redistricting in Texas and something.
That's not the move of a party that's confident about their like midterm chances.
Yeah, like oh, it's like oh fuck, we're you know, a year and a half out, we gotta fucking change the rules because it's it's not looking good for them.
But it's like, but yeah, I mean it's like again, maybe the maybe this is uh uh overly optimistic, but it seems like they are doing some things in order to counteract the kind of like you know, the the sort of like the the drawbacks uh of their success.
Yeah, and it and and meanwhile, I think you know, if you're like terminally online, you know, on the left or center left, like following politics, like you have no choice to become a conspiracy theorist.
Like I was talking to a friend the other day about these this, you know, about Charlie Kirk's murder, and I was just kind of like, What what do you what do you think happen what do you think happened?
And he was like, Oh, he was like, Well, um, did you see how the t-shirt was hanging off of him?
He was clearly wearing a vest.
He was like, I think it was, you know, obviously a staged assassination, and uh the kid the kid just fucked up the shot.
Kid just fucked up the shot.
And he was so confident, and I was like, wow, and and I I understood in a lot of ways, like what so many of our listeners have gone, you know, have gone through when they have a parent or a friend or you know, family member, like say something totally kind of you're like, oh, you're oh, that's like a pretty okay, so that's like a conspiracy theory, but you're like, I can't I'm not gonna like argue with this.
What am I gonna say?
Like, there's a lot of ways that you could stage an assassination without using like a real bullet and and leaving leaving up to chance, like wind resistance positioning and the talents of like a 22-year-old kid using an old hunting rifle.
Like if you're gonna stage an assassin, but he was so confident about it, and I was just like, wow, we really like you have if you're on l I was talking about this with my therapist, like the uh just yesterday that like if you're online termally and you are following politics like terminally, you have no choice essentially but to become a conspiracy theorist.
Yeah, it's ugly.
Yeah, this one really did break a lot of people on the left's brains where it's like this the the official thing that's happening can't happen.
Like, we need some sort of conspiracy of like what if the moon was made of cheese actually, and so it was so it didn't happen like those.
Yeah, I saw a lot of desperate Groper baking, which is like oh yeah, yeah, you know, it's like because of the rivalry between the Groipers and Charlie Kirk, I think is a worthwhile consideration, it's just that's just no real evidence.
Yeah, it's like oh Bella Chow is on a fucking Groiper playlist on Spotify.
It must be a Gruper coded.
It's like that's the stupidest fucking thing I've heard in my life.
Yeah, like oh he did he did the Slav squat, which as we all know, us fellow Zoomers, that is a Groiper meme.
It's not a thing I've just learned about fucking yesterday, and someone posted a photo of a Gruper Slav squat.
It made me lose my fucking mind, dude.
People, yeah.
The cope was insane.
It's just let's let's how about we like begin in reality first and foremost, and then we can set our messaging from there.
They can't.
Neither side can because they've positioned themselves as good versus evil, dark versus light.
Everything is Q and on.
It's like the best thing that this podcast has done for me is it's like it's taken me off of the team.
You know what I mean?
Like I'm like in the bleachers watching both teams to a certain degree, and like I don't have this sense that like, you know, this is good and this is you know, this is evil.
But when you think of pol, you know, your political party and turn like whether you're you know, you're red or blue or whatever, then you can't, then you can't learn that you're somebody that is shares your ideas has done something violent.
And like the right has gotten really good at compartmentalizing this because they've had to deal with so many far right people committing horrible acts of violence.
But I think liberals are just start, it's just like it's uncomfortable for us.
You know, we're new, we're new here.
Um, we're new at being like nasty online, we're new at like finding the peipes and doing the 4chan lingo and imitating Trump.
It's all new because like we saw it work for them and we think it's gonna work for us.
You know, for whatever reason, like politics is kind of like boiled, at least online.
So I totally get it.
I get it.
It it fucking sucks.
Fucking sucks to learn that like politics aren't so easy and that and that like mass you know, people who are violent can't always just be like placed into a certain basket to make things easy.
It's just we're so far beyond that.
And yet every time you one of these things fucking goes off, the question is now who does he belong to?
Who do they belong to?
Who does she belong to?
Who can we pin this on?
What basket can we put him in?
Like we're not even talking about guns anymore.
Yeah, it is crazy that like every single like high profile shooting immediately sparks a narrative war to figure out like how to real vulture activity where the people are like, okay, how can I make this politically advantageous for me and disadvantageous for for these other people?
Mm-hmm.
And it seemed to have worked.
Like I saw some poll where like a plurality of people thought it was a right-wing guy.
Oh my god.
So maybe it's just like let's just do inf disinformation.
Like, like for our politics, it doesn't matter what actually happens anymore, especially with these like contingent events where like it could be a couple things.
You just like it was the other, it was the other side.
No, no, no.
This this Spotify playlist indicates it was the other side.
Um, and then it's just who cares, like who cares about the truth anymore?
It doesn't matter.
I saw I saw a handful of people, uh, you know, a handful of people online live when you were, you know, posting about this, being like, oh, she oh, she thinks the shooter like wasn't a griper or wasn't far right, like next.
Yeah, it's yeah, and that's us now.
Like, we're doing that.
We're going, ooh, this feels like uncomfortable.
Next.
Why should we have to, right?
Why should we have to?
The Republicans, MAGA people get to live in like a total fucking fantasy world.
Just like they want to do cancel.
Why can't we live in the fantasy world?
They're having so much fun.
We want to have fun.
Yeah, no one's doing like real politics anyways.
It's all just like online pretend world.
So it's like, yeah, the being beholden to the truth is I guess a liability in that context.
Yes, and QAA, we're skulls.
I mean, as far as I'm concerned.
Unfortunately.
Like, we saw, like, it sucks to be in our position.
We were in a very like, we were in the majority five six years ago, even three, three, four years ago, we were in the majority, but now we're in the minority and horrible scolds that are gonna be like, well, sorry, like you might have to have like a couple, like a an uncomfortable thought or or an uncomfortable uh realization.
I wanted it to be a grouper so badly, like it was gonna be so funny.
And then it's just like, I don't, there's just no indication, there was just never any real indication of that, unfortunately.
Anyway.
So another uh very strange fallout from this is that uh attorney general Pam Bondy used the event as an opportunity to float the idea during an appearance on the Katie Miller podcast of cracking down on hate speech.
There's free speech and then there's hate speech.
And there is no place, especially now, especially after what happened To Charlie in our society.
Do you see more law enforcement going after these groups who are using hate speech and putting cuffs on people so we show them that some action is better than no action?
We will absolutely target you.
Go after you if you are targeting anyone with hate speech, anything.
And that's across the aisle.
Oh my god.
It's the fucking soy right is ascendant.
They're talking, they're yelling about seed oils and have everything in their food being natural.
And no.
Now they're doing the thing of like, you know, some speech cancels out other speech.
So that sort of speech we we have to cancel out to live in a free society.
And the the speech you're canceling out is like saying that Charlie Kirk was on the right.
Or just like, I think he sucked.
There's this weird conflation with like, you know, expressing not an approving attitude towards the work of Charlie Kirk and acting as if you are celebrating his death.
But those are two different things.
I think, you know, uh it's like a sport uh a feature of like I guess liberal society, he's supposed to think that you can think someone sucks really hard, but still does not deserve to be murdered.
Someone's gonna lose their job because of a joke they made about it, and like a right wing person's gonna post that meme that's like satire requires a clarity of purpose, lest it be mistaken for which is attempting to criticize.
Well, and also it's like cancel villain origin stories because there's so many people who got cancelled, you know, right wing people got canceled, like the announcer, the tennis announcer comes to mind, the guy who who was calling uh uh one of the Williams sisters matches and said that she's using gorilla tactics, and you know, he he meant obviously like gorilla war, you know, guerrilla warfare, but he got fired and he got so much hate online that he got had like a heart attack.
And everybody who has like been canceled by you know the quote unquote left, you know, like that's somebody who's become a right wing person for life now.
If you, you know, you know, if they believe that one political side took away their livelihood or threatened their health or their family, like the you know, why wouldn't they want to be like, I'm coming for all your jobs?
It's only fair.
It's only fair because nothing else is fair.
Like the system isn't fair.
And so this is this is where we find our fairness in it.
And unfortunately, it's with it's with our hands wrapped around each other's throats.
Yeah, it's like getting your pound of flesh.
Yeah.
Everybody's just a fucking big monster.
Yeah, there's this, I think there's this weird um like envy of of their political opponents.
There's this there's this consistent belief that the only possible way your political opponents can actually gain power is through playing dirty or through some sort of illegitimate means or like taking some kind of low blow that you are too principled to take.
And so there's this idea of like, no, well, well, fuck, is like if if like canceling and like I guess like talking about hate speech works for the fork for the left, it's gonna work for us too.
So after Pam Bondi uh like talked about this hate speech, she actually got a lot of backlash in MAGA world because like a like hole is like, no, you can't like prosecute people for hate speech.
But when when Trump was asked about it, he seemed to like the idea, even threatening the journalists who asked him about it.
And what do you make Pam Bondi saying she's gonna go after hate speech?
Uh is that I mean, a lot of people, a lot of your allies say hate speech is free speech.
You'll probably go after people like you because you treat me so unfairly.
It's hate you have a lot of hate in your heart.
Maybe they'll come after ABC.
Well, ABC paid me 16 million dollars recently for a form of hate speech, right?
Your company paid me 16 million dollars for a form of hate speech.
So maybe they'll have to go after you.
What is he talking about?
I mean, that is basically what Pam Bondi means, I assume, by hate speech.
Like they are they're intentionally doing the soy right thing of like this worked for the left, we'll just steal it exactly.
I I do like that Trump's brain is like broken enough that the only thing that he can go to is just like petty grievance he has.
He's like, this is perfect.
Yeah, no, I would love to use this to silence my opposition.
Yeah, yeah.
It's like I mean, yeah, obviously, he's like he's so excited about the idea.
It's like, hey, uh, I mean, this is a great opportunity to like, you know, to hurt you.
You ask me questions.
It was like, I love how much of a bitch he is.
This is like the birth to the person asking him the question.
He's so messy.
Now, the funniest response from Trump on this issue actually came when he was like uh interviewed about it recently on Fox News.
Charlie said, you know, that there was no such thing as hate speech.
Um he obviously, you know, no one anticipated what would happen to Charlie, but you have always been Might not be saying that now.
Oh man.
That's so funny.
It's so cool how like completely explicitly unaffected Trump has been by this.
Like he did not give a fuck about Charlie Kirk.
He's like, oh well, I guess that's not good for mobilization of the youth or whatever.
But he just did not care at all.
Yeah, pretty indifferent.
I love I love how he it was like allegedly his is like, you know, uh like a real real friend to uh I guess himself and lots of other people to write immediately after his death, he shoves words in his mouth.
He animates Charlie Kirk's corpse to make him say something that he would probably never actually say.
That is the funny thing about like a couple like Stephen Miller did this about Charlie Kirk where he was like, you know, the last thing that he said to me was like, you know, fight on or whatever.
I feel like that's usually in bad taste, but like you just know that like that's exactly what Charlie Kirk would have wanted about his death is like use this to hurt the left, and as as regardless of how shameless it is.
Like, you know that he's looking up and like saluting right now.
Absolutely all that.
I feel like yeah, in life, even as a a very young man, he felt like he looked at like, yeah, the the the right wing network and said, I it's like I know I have some certain talents, use me.
He's like a reverse Pinocchio.
You know, he was born with no strings, and he like he went to all the people who handle the strings and says, Please use me.
Use my use my uh use my abilities for uh your ends for your agenda.
And so I'm sure he would be very happy to know that that is not ended just because his life has.
Another strange consequence is that ABC pulled the late night show Jimmy Kimmel Live off of its schedule indefinitely.
Uh this came after Kimmel's uh September 15th monologue about uh the killing of Charlie Kirk.
So ABC confirmed the show is on an open-ended hiatus, not officially cancelled.
They I don't know, maybe they're like, okay, we're just gonna take him off the air and wait them until this blows over and then put him back.
That might be what's happening.
Hello, this is Travis from the future of when we recorded this episode.
Since then, ABC has returned Julian's favorite TV show, Jimmy Kimmel Live to the air.
In the statement, ABC said, quote, we have spent the last days having thoughtful conversations with Jimmy, and after those conversations, we reached the decision to return the show on Tuesday.
However, the local station networks next star in Sinclair, which own more than 20% of ABC affiliate stations, said that they would continue to not air the show.
And that way, the free speech battle of the sidekick on Ben Stein's game show rages on.
In the September 15th monologue, Kimmel criticized how some MAGA figures were responding to Kirk's killing.
And then two days later, ABC yanked the show.
So here is the clip of Jimmy Kimmel.
We had some new lows over the weekend with the MAGA gang desperately trying to characterize this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them, and doing everything they can to score political points from it.
In between the finger pointing, there was uh grieving on Friday, the White House flew the flags at half staff, which got some criticism.
But on a human level, you can see how hard the president is taking this.
I condoles to download your friend Charlie or Kirk.
May I ask her personally?
How are you holding up over the last day and a half, sir?
I think very good.
And by the way, right there, you see all the trucks.
They just started construction of the new ball room for the White House, which is something they've been trying to get, as you know, for about 150 years.
And it's gonna be a beauty.
Yes, he's at the fourth stage of grief, construction.
Demolition.
Construction.
This is not how an adult grieves the murder of someone he called a friend.
This is how a four-year-old mourns a goldfish.
It's a good joke.
Honestly, I'm I'm I'm impressed.
I'm surprised by that camo punchline.
Yeah, that's yeah, that punchline is pretty good.
But like what what a lot of people objected to was the line, the MAGA gang desperately trying to characterize this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them and doing everything they can to score political points from it.
Just objectively correct thing.
Yeah.
It's it's yeah, it's like one of those things where when you actually like learn you actually read and understand the meaning of the words he said, you're right, is absolutely correct.
Of course, but you know, in fairness, like everyone was doing this as sort of like they were online trying to characterize with his beliefs as uh as politically advantageous as I can.
But they interpreted it as Kimmel implying that the alleged shooter, Tyler Robinson is MAGA or Trump supporter, which is not the case.
But it's still like, I don't know, like every person on the left on Twitter was saying that as well.
And it doesn't, it seems like he I don't know, has anyone lost their job other than Kimmel for making that observation?
That that just seems like as like they were polling like a plurality of people's takeaway from the shooting is that it's a right wing guy.
Uh yeah.
And that like, you know, Kirk helped participate or produce the kind of environment of violence that led to his own death.
Like I don't know.
It it does seem like Kimmel getting punished for this is like a much more extreme, I think, version of or will produce a much more extreme version of the backlash to like cancel culture against the right after January 6th.
Because it seems like a lot more people in American society agree with and not only agree with, but think that Kimmel's take is like lukewarm compared to like you know, the all the QAn people who were banned five years ago.
Well, and also didn't Jimmy like tweet like right after it happened, like he was like, uh, you know, I'm thinking about Charlie and his family.
Like he tweeted something like nice, like afterwards.
I think you know, the right wing is just mad that they're like, no, it wasn't one of us killing one of us.
No, this time it was you.
Now this monologue seemed to inspire uh FCC chair uh Brendan Carr to threaten the use of his agency's regulatory powers while speaking on the Benny Johnson show on the 17th.
But frankly, when you see stuff like this, I mean, look, we can do this the easy way or the hard way.
These companies can find ways to change conduct to take action, frankly, uh on Kimmel, or you know, there's gonna be additional work for the FCC.
Again, there's actions that we can take on licensed broadcasters, and frankly, I think that it's it's it's really sort of past time that a lot of these licensed broadcasters themselves push back on Comcast and Disney and say, listen, we are going to preempt, we're not gonna run Kimmel anymore until you straighten this out because we we licensed broadcaster are running the possibility of fines or license revocation from the FCC if we continue to run content that ends up being a pattern of news distortion.
So yeah, I mean, like, yeah, we can either do this the easy way or the hard way.
I mean, that's some real gangster language.
Yeah, does not seem good for the future of American public life.
Yeah, so on the evening of the same day, so what happened was like Nextstar, which is like the largest US like individual like station owner, announces ABC affiliates would preempt Kimmel for the uh foreseeable future.
Then Sinclair claimed it would replace the show with a Kirk tribute, and then demanded Kimmel apologize and make donations to Kirk's family and turning point USA before airing him again.
Donations to Turning Point USA as if it's like donating to charity.
It's like donating to this poor widow, and she she just lost her f and she will be using the money to make it illegal to be transgender, by the way.
That is no more immigrants, no transgender anymore.
And honestly, kind of problematic of you to not give her all your money after making an objectively correct statement about Yeah.
Next star for their part actually denied that uh they acted because of Carr, saying its executives made the call independently, which is hell no.
If that's true, then Carr did a very stupid thing by uh speaking that way.
So uh FCC chair Carr's statement was so brazen that even Senator Ted Cruz made a rare break from the Trump administration to condemn the comments on his podcast.
No, no, no, no, no.
Look, look, I like Brendan Carr.
He's a good guy, he's the chairman of the FCC.
I work closely with him.
But what he said there is dangerous as hell.
And so he threatens explicitly.
We're gonna cancel ABC's license.
We're gonna take him off the air.
So ABC cannot broadcast anymore.
And and I gotta say, he he he he threatens it.
He says, We can do this the easy way, but we can do this the hard way.
Yeah.
And and I gotta say, that's right out of Goodfellas.
That the the the that's right out of a mafioso coming into a bar going, nice ba you have here.
It'd be a shame if something happened to it.
It's a killer accent, by the way.
Uh yeah, I know.
Boy, yeah.
He he he committed to that.
He's like he immediately went to imitate the most annoying, like the shortest gangster that's like, hey, what are you doing around?
Hey, you get it got a shotgun behind the block, do you?
But yeah, yeah, it was funny.
It was like it was not a lot of people Claiming that, like, you know, FCC did I was like, it was like a lot, like I characterize like, well, this is obviously naked abuse of powers.
Like, you know, someone says something I don't like is sort of like politically nasty or whatever, and so I'm gonna use what federal power I have to threaten and punish them or and um and get them to behave as I like.
And then people were like, no, it's like they were they thought it was a ludicrous thing to suggest.
But even fucking like Ted Cruz.
He's like, he's like, no, obviously.
Obviously, this is uh this is a veiled threat.
Yeah.
It's I mean, it's interesting about this has been a tendency in like I don't even know if Ted Cruz is a moderate Republican, but moderate Republicans in general, of like you know, hand waving about the more authoritarian components of like the Trump Republican Party, but then obviously like just not doing actually anything about it, like falling in line eventually, because they like enough of what Trump is doing that they don't care about the fascism part.
It's true.
He might be uh just thinking long term and having this objection in his back pocket for when uh if uh Republicans fall out of power, so he can sort of like claim no no.
I I uh I always objected to uh the FCC being used in this way.
Yeah, I wonder, I uh I mean, this is a very lib statement, but I do wonder how like these sort of decision is polling.
Like I'm assuming a plurality are like or majority are like I don't think the Kimmel should lose his job for that.
I think that's crazy.
Yeah, that that might be it too.
He's just looking at the numbers.
Did you guys happen to see um that there were uh protests uh outside of the Jimmy Kimmel building?
Uh, you know, Hollywood sort of came out to support uh uh Jimmy after after the the suspension of his show.
No, no, I did not see that.
Woke is still back, it's not gone.
We still have woke.
Yeah, so I was just I was watching this, and I and obviously that's awesome.
Like it's a it was a bunch of writers and stuff, and like of course, of course, like Hollywood is going to come out, especially, you know, to to push back against the Trump administration and you know, protect comedians and screenwriters uh from persecution over uh you know something they say in their content.
But I did think it was funny.
I was like, well, we've certainly come full circle.
You know, I I have now seen two sets of Americans protest outside of Jimmy Kimmel.
One one to, you know, to stop uh the believed uh human trafficking that he and his crew were complicit in, and now to to protest his firing after a uh very lukewarm, uh almost tepid indignation of Charlie Kirk.
I just think it's funny.
No matter what side you're on, you go you'll you'll eventually end up in front of the Kimmel building.
It's like it's like the um it's like the museum and Ghostbusters 2.
Like there's a river of slime, and it's always back to like a you know, the the the sewer beneath El Capitan.
Which is so funny because like Kimmel is not a divisive figure.
No, not as well lukewarm.
He's just kind of a guy who shows up and he's like, hey, I'm a liberal.
Isn't that crazy what Donald Trump's doing?
Yeah, yeah.
That is the real like the Nick Fuentes thing where he was like, you know, they kill Charlie Kirk the modern.
Imagine what they they do to you.
That's that's me about Kimmel.
Like they did this to Kimmel.
Like, imagine what's the yeah.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly.
What are they gonna do to the QAA podcast?
We constantly have to bleep one of the hosts for making violent threats.
Yeah, sometimes two hosts.
Yeah, yeah, sometimes two.
Yeah, sometimes too.
We've added a second host uh who also likes to make violent threats every now and again.
Not so much as the one guy, but um, but you know, never nevertheless.
Yeah, what are they gonna what are they gonna do to us?
Is QAA gonna become like underground radio?
I do kind of fancy myself as some kind of Kyle Reese figure.
That would be cool.
That'd be really cool, actually.
That would lend even more to our street cred.
Well, Travis has been preparing up in the mountains there.
We've we've got a uh an HQ.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Well, yeah, I'm gonna shit hits the fan, I'm just gonna disappear into these mountains.
Live will be trapped in the uh in the Coachella Valley.
But it's okay, it's okay.
They're building Disney Cotino there, which is um a storybook living community by Disney, and they're building like a fake man-made lagoon, so we can like escape to the um to like the Disney neighborhood and live off the lagoon as like the the rest of the world turns into Mad Max around us.
It's a woke safe haven.
That's actually a good idea for a movie or a show.
I should write that down.
You should.
Let's get end of the world, like the retired community at Disney's Cotino In the middle of the palm desert has to like fend off their their like shopping mall neighborhood, essentially from like, you know, war boys and like Mad Max goons.
That's fucking awesome.
We're doing that.
Curse media.
It's coming.
So uh yeah, I want to end this episode with uh some more information we got about uh the I guess the possible motive in the killing, because um the the charging documents include a dialogue between uh Robinson and his roommate with whom he had a romantic relationship.
And this is the the way that they communicate with each other, I have to confess, is a little strange to me.
It is so strange that some people were claiming that the whole thing is made up, which is I mean, the government is going to have to make their case in court to a judge and a jury.
So I that seems extremely unlikely.
The thing about it for me is like Ken Klippenstein has Discord logs of Robinson's account in his like Discord group chat being like, sorry guys, I did it, I'm gonna turn myself in.
And so it's like, why the fuck would they fake these?
Why the fuck would they fake these if they had those?
It's like I don't Did they hack his Discord before he turned himself in?
Yeah.
To like get a fake admission.
It just like it's also just like it's so funny seeing like people like Brooklyn dad defiant being like, I understand like Reddit furry bisexual chasers really well.
And this just doesn't work for me.
I just I guess someone as someone who is slept with like cringe reddit bisexual men.
This this works completely to me.
There's nothing about this that feels like you know, maybe he's implicating himself at an absurd level.
I understand that skepticism, but the the actual way that this guy talks, like, no, absolutely.
I absolutely buy those.
Go back.
Everybody, I want you to, after the episode is is over and you've listened to all the plugs, go to your phones and go to your, you know, last messages with your partner.
Scroll through, you know, and now imagine that you're a stranger looking at it.
We all sound weird and fake and in our text message conversations.
My wife and I'll often have like, you know, seven one-word, you know, one-word, two-word, three-word exchanges.
It's just everybody when they text, you know, it's like reading Calvin and Hobbes and trying to imagine how Calvin sounds.
You know what I mean?
It's like everybody types different than the you know.
Of course, we're all gonna sound weird and stilted while we're texting, especially if we've just murdered somebody, you know.
It's sort of like how like everyone, whenever anyone's sex get revealed, it's always embarrassing.
Like there's no non-embarrassing way.
Yeah, of course.
We all use too many.
I use too many exclamation points or emojis than I would like to admit.
I do find it interesting that like there was less skepticism around the Manchone manifesto than this.
I wonder why, like, because there's a I I've noticed at least a very in like market increase where like Manjion in that letter like implicates himself.
And like it's a letter addressed to the feds where he's like implicating himself.
And there were people who were skeptical, but like you didn't get shit for being like, here's the letter that Manchin said that the police found.
I think it's like in some ways, maybe like liberals' own sort of like, I don't know, like phobias coming through.
Because they're like, oh no, well, if these text messages are real, then that means he did have a trans partner.
And if he did if he had a trans partner, he must be left.
You know what I mean?
It's like if there aren't like, you know, many, many right wing people, I'm sure.
Yeah, no, I know.
You yeah, absolutely.
Yeah, because I mean that is just a terrible result.
The fact that there's a trans partner of the killer.
Although I again I don't understand why the feds would fake a conversation where she's like not liable at all and had no clue that it happened.
Yeah, like while simultaneously trying to have like a campaign against trans people and being like, this is this happened because of the trans roommate, but also here are these faked logs where like she has nothing to do with it.
No, she is a fucking patriot who turned in uh who turned in the murderer of Charlie Kirk.
She has been cooperating with federal law enforcement, and she's gonna give them everything she needs.
She's a fucking patriot.
She's gonna her evidence that she's supplying is gonna get this guy the fucking firing squad, like you all want.
Exactly.
So that's facts.
Drop what you're doing, look under my keyboard.
There's a note that says, When the roommate looked under the keyboard, there was a note that allegedly read, I had the opportunity to take out Charlie Kirk, and I'm going to take it.
Roommate says, What?
A bunch of question marks.
You're joking, right?
Now that's a real what with that many question marks, that's real surprise.
It's a real surprise.
Yeah.
Robinson, I am still okay, my love, but I'm stuck in Orim for a little while longer yet.
Shouldn't be long until I can come Home, but I gotta grab my rifle still.
To be honest, I'd hope to keep this secret till I died of old age.
I am sorry to involve you.
You weren't the one who did it, right?
I am.
I'm sorry.
I thought they caught the person.
No, they grabbed some crazy old dude, then interrogated someone in similar clothing.
I'd plan to grab my rifle from my drop point shortly after, but most of that side of town got locked down.
It's quiet almost enough to get out, but there's one vehicle lingering.
Why?
Why did I do it?
Yeah.
I had enough of his hatred.
Some hate can't be negotiated out.
If I am able to grab my rifle unseen, I will have left no evidence.
Going to attempt to retrieve it again.
Hopefully they have moved on.
I haven't seen anything about them finding it.
How long have you been planning this?
She's still like, wait, what?
Yeah.
How long like what?
How long have you been planning?
Robinson.
Bit over a week, I believe.
I can get close to it, but there's a squad car parked right by it.
I think they already swept that spot, but I don't want to chance it.
I'm wishing I had circled back and grabbed it as soon as I got to my vehicle.
I'm worried what my old man would do if I didn't bring back grandpa's rifle.
I don't even know if it had a serial number, but it wouldn't trace to me.
I worry about prints.
I had to leave it in a bush where I changed outfits.
Didn't have the ability or time to bring it with.
I might have to abandon it and hope they don't find Prince.
How the fuck will I explain losing it to my old man?
Only thing I left was the rifle wrapped in a towel.
Remember how I was engraving bullets?
The messages are mostly a big meme.
If I see notices bulge, ooh-woo on Fox New, I might have a stroke.
Alright, I'm gonna have to leave it.
That really fucking sucks.
Judging from today, I'd say grandpa's gun does just fine.
I don't know.
I think that was a $2,000 scope.
Delete this exchange.
My dad wants photos of the rifle.
He says grandpa wants to know who has what.
The feds released a photo of the rifle, and it is very unique.
He's calling me right now, not answering.
Since Trump got into office, my dad has been pretty diehard MAGA.
I'm gonna turn myself in willingly.
One of my neighbors here is a deputy for the sheriff.
You are all I worry about, love.
I'm much more worried about you.
Don't talk to the media, please.
Don't take any interviews or make any comments.
If any police ask you questions, ask for a lawyer and stay silent.
It's so like such a profoundly careless and evil thing to do to your partner.
Oh my god.
And then tell him like delete these messages.
And then she didn't, and she like handed them over to the feds.
Oh my god.
I mean, i it well, like one of the reasons people thought this was uh fake is that it is a little strange that like if someone is like so like, you know, uh cautious, they're able to like get a shot off and like you know, do the deed, and then leave the scene without being caught,
but then they're just that then in the text exchange, they detail everything their motive, their procedures, where they left the rifle, like you know, like just spill it all out, like like just on a silver platter for prosecutors.
That is that is quite convenient.
Yeah, there were like six police officers on campus when it happened.
It was not a very well guarded area.
Yeah.
I mean, I guess I guess Cash Patel could be lying about the DNA thing.
Although I mean he shouldn't have mentioned that in general, because he's like sabotaging the case.
But it's it seems like they've found his DNA on the gun.
Um, he was not using gloves.
And also, criminals are dumb.
That's why you don't have to be that smart to be a police officer.
You know what I mean?
Like, people fuck up.
It is profoundly it's a profoundly stupid exchange.
Like, no, I mean, and here's the thing.
He I mean, like, I feel like he like I mean, like, fuck, he did a stupid thing.
He made the world as bad as Charlie Kirk uh was.
I feel like you're like this really is going to make the world worse.
Yeah, he turned up the pressure.
He turned he gave the right an excuse for in their minds, I think, to do violence and have it be justified.
That is one more notch.
That's one more engraving on their bullet, you know.
People can literally justify any action when they think the uh alternative is being murdered publicly.
So just it's uh it's it's not a good situation.
I do like the people who were baking, like, oh, it's a 200 yard shot.
That's like these a crack killer or whatever.
And then it's like you see how he jumped off the roof, and it was like the worst, like he almost like broke his legs jumping off like a 10-foot roof or whatever.
From what I've been reading on Reddit, so take that with like a huge handful of salt and throw it over your shoulder for good luck.
Like, people were saying that with that kind of scope and 200 yards and the rifle, they're like, eh, it's like not that crazy a shot to pull off.
Like that the People who are like this is Leon the professional.
And they're like, that's not that's not realistic.
Yeah, the it's fascinating to me that the Israel conspiracy has like become like nonpartisan now.
It's like I don't know, I guess Israel was giving him like a like a boy motor, like girlfriend as like a reward for killing I don't know why they would hire like him of all people to do this.
Yeah, yeah.
Why would they hire this very stupid person who like leaves documentation of their step-by-step process?
No, I and he, you know, I uh from what I read also in the conversation with his father once confronted, you know, his initial reaction was that he was like, I'd rather commit suicide, you know, than um then turn myself into the cops.
Uh so I don't know.
I think we're looking if you're if you're wanting to go out and you're you like and you're political and you're like, you know what, fuck it, I'm gonna try like that's a viable thing now that has been demonstrated and put on the front page of every digital newspaper, you know, over the last however many years.
I think that's like, you know, that's something that people do now.
It's like Julian was saying, it's like political assassination.
You know what?
That's like on the menu now.
That's that's on the menu of something that can get you a lot of attention.
It could possibly be a way to go out in a blaze of glory and I don't know.
Yeah, it is interesting how people were baking, like, oh, he's like an incel, you know, like you don't even understand the life that he was living.
It's like based on the Ken Clippinson account of like him talking to some of Tyler Robinson's friends, like he seemed like he had a pretty normal life.
It's like generally well liked, he had you know friends he gamed with, he went outside, a partner.
It's just like, yeah, people like that.
American society is fundamentally violent.
Like people, I don't think I think it's scary for people to think about the idea that just like anyone who is, you know, you just like grew up around gun culture, like is able to shoot, could just like go out and kill someone for political violence.
It has to be this crazy violent ex like nihilist, um, which is just not true in American society.
Yeah, I think uh well, I think part of the reason why uh this was hitting so hard is that I think there was a kind of like assumption that like if you acquire a certain degree of like wealth and clout, you're obviously gonna be protected somehow from like, you know, the random violence that so many people have to suffer every single fucking day in this country.
But like he wasn't, you know, he was doing his his job as he normally does, and he was just uh did not see uh the sunset that day.
Yeah, I think it's incredibly frightening for people to like to see how easy it is, actually.
You know that if somebody you know remotely puts their mind to it that they can do an insanely significant act of political violence.
I think that's really scary.
Uh scary for me, you know.
Hey, we did live shows, like I never ever felt in danger, but I imagine that there are some people who are, you know, unstable who are big QAnon fans who are not fans of us.
I don't know, like how far does this go?
I think it it just you know it turns up the pressure a little bit, and like that's the last thing that we need.
Yeah, what's making this sort of like uh I guess like further frustrating, I guess for a lot of like you know, conspiracy theorists is that this seems like yet another just lone actor who like and there's there's simply no evidence of kind of like any kind of collaboration, even with uh a single other person.
There's a uh so there's a recent uh NBC news report that said that uh investigators haven't been able to link Robinson to any like left-wing organizations, and they're struggling to find a way to uh charge him with a federal crime.
So the uh yeah, the report says uh the federal investigation into the assassination of a conservative activist Charlie Kirk has yet to find a link between the alleged shooter, 22-year-old Tyler Robinson, and left-wing groups on which president Donald Trump and his administration have pledged to crack down after the killing.
Three sources familiar with a probe told NBC News.
One person familiar with the federal investigation said that, quote, thus far there's no evidence connecting the suspect with any left-wing groups.
Also, I'm sorry to like circle back to this point.
It's clear I'm like fixated on it, but like why the fuck would they fake the logs and then also make him a lone killer?
You'd think it'd be like, I'm also a member of the DSA.
Yeah, sure.
And right, it just doesn't make sense.
Sorry.
No, they would say, like, no, I am an agent of the Democratic Party.
Like Soros himself.
He touched my shoulder with his sword.
So uh the source continued, every indication so far is that this was one guy who did one really bad thing because he found Kirk's ideology personally offensive.
In addition, two of the people familiar with the probe said it may be difficult to charge Robinson at the federal level for Kirk's killing, while the third source said there's still an expectation that some kind of federal charge is filed against Robinson.
Factors that have complicated the effort to bring charges at the federal level include that Robinson, a Utah resident, did not travel from out of state.
Kirk was shot during an open campus debate at Utah Valley University.
Additionally, Kirk himself is not a federal officer or elected official.
What is the maybe I'm like not American, I don't understand.
What is the desire the desire to like charge him federally?
Because they're they're hitting him with the death penalty, are they not?
Hey, it's it's uh yes, they they are.
I I don't know.
I imagine, I imagine just the administration wants uh wants there to be federal charges just so they the DOJ can have a hand in in prosecuting.
I see.
So if it's just a state, then like Pam Bondi, like the rest of the DOJ, they're gonna be like hands off.
They're just gonna be watching uh story ends for them.
Yeah, it's like, okay, well, I guess this is a state matter, and you handle it now.
But this is such a big deal, and I mean, it's also like probably, you know, very good for publicity.
This is such a sort of like an image focused kind of like department of justice.
They want to be the guys like we're the guys who is also bringing them down.
But it's like, yeah, they they they want to be involved in prosecuting them, and like yeah, they don't want to hand it off to the state.
Yeah, I see.
I don't understand why they don't turn on the Discord log faking machine.
Right.
Just get a couple.
Yeah, just include a line that said, like, oh, by the way, I actually uh crossover from Arizona to I went and got a McDonald's burger in Arizona came back.
Thanks for listening to another episode of the QAA podcast.
You can go to Patreon.com slash QAA and subscribe for five bucks a month to get a whole second episode every single week, plus access to our entire archive of premium episodes.
Live uh where can people find more content from you?
I have a Twitch stream.
You can watch me stream on Twitch and yell about the things, probably exactly the things that I've been yelling about on this episode for the next little while at twitch.tv slash live acar.
Travis, uh, where can people find more content from you?
Well, you know, uh, I'm on I I haven't been tweeting recently because I've been I've been digging into documents.
But uh yeah, I can be found on uh Blue Sky, which I was like honestly is not as bad as people say.
People say is this kooky live fest.
I don't know, it's it's uh not my experience.
You know, you you get out of it what you put into it.
I do think I just like how toxic Twitter is, if I'm being honest with myself.
That's that's that is perfectly valid.
But it's like, yeah, it's like if you really like the muck, if you really like straight up like fucking like race realists occasionally popping on your for you page, Twitter is it's it's edgy.
Uh I'll give them that.
Uh but yeah, Blue Sky is uh is uh a little nicer.
Listener, until next week.
May the deep dish bless you and keep you.
Thank you.
We have auto-keyed content based on your performances.
And we are gonna do that under President Trump's leadership.
I don't care how, it could be a Rico charge, a conspiracy charge, conspiracy against the United States, insurrection, but we are going to do what it takes to dismantle the organizations and the entities that are fomenting riots, that are doxing, that are trying to inspire terrorism, and that are committing acts of wanton violence.
It has to stop.
And my message is to all of the domestic terrorists in this country spreading this evil hate.
You want us to live in fear?
We will not live in fear, but you will live in exile because the power of law enforcement under President Trump's leadership will be used to find you.
