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10 Minute Drill
Charlie Kirk, the left’s trickle-down radicalism, TikTok Deal, Shutdown Drama & Emmy Politics
00:14:59
In this episode of 10 Minute Drill (September 16), we break down the top stories shaping politics, culture, and the world in just 10 minutes: Charlie Kirk Assassination Fallout: Updates on the investigation, the hunt for justice, Erika Kirk’s...
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- [00:00]
Host
The latest on Charlie Kirk's assassination, the efforts to bring his shooter to justice, and the national conversation that's coming from that. President Trump has announced a TikTok deal. We're going to talk about what to look for with that. And we are two weeks from a government shutdown. We'll cover that and so much more today on 10 Minute Drill.
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Co-host
Everybody get up. Get up.
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Host
The story of America is the story of an adventure.
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Co-host
I can hear you. The rest of the world hears you. We are a nation under God, and I believe God intended for us to be free.
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Host
On Friday, Utah Governor Spencer Cox, flanked by FBI Director Kash Patel, other FBI personnel, and a range of Utah law enforcement officials, announced that they had caught the assassin who shot Charlie Kirk.
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Co-host
Good morning, ladies and gentlemen.
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Host
We got him. That came after days of a massive manhunt and a major effort between both Utah officials and federal government officials on the ground, following every lead possible. But in the end, the final tip came in from people who knew the shooter himself. We'll continue to learn more about the shooter, his motivations and everything that went into the effort to catch him on Friday and how they're gonna charge him going forward. Obviously, a lot of law enforcement involved there, and there's a lot of different equities. But as Spencer Cox, the governor of Utah, said, the goal is the death penalty, and we will hold you accountable to the furthest extent of the law. And I just want to remind people that we still have the death penalty here in the state of Utah. Meanwhile, tributes rolled in from around the world. Here is the Turning Point. Headquarters in Phoenix. Here's an impromptu memorial in London. And here in Washington, D.C. this is the Kennedy center, where thousands showed up to pay tribute to Charlie. Then on Friday evening, Charlie's widow, Erica Kirk, spoke out to the world. They killed Charlie because he preached a message of patriotism, faith, and of God's merciful love. One thing we talked about last week, both on Thursday and Friday, was the disturbing nature of seeing so many people online, both in my own circles, but also in national conversation, celebrating this assassination in some suggestion that it was acceptable for political violence to be carried out if you disagreed with someone's message. And one of the most jarring elements of this going into the weekend was how many of those prominent voices celebrating the political assassination were among teachers, were among healthcare officials, were among school administrators. One prominent one that got a lot of attention was Michael Mann, who is the director of the center for Science, Sustainability and the Media at the University of Pennsylvania. Fox News reported Professor slammed for despicable behavior with controversial reposts on Charlie Kirk. Now, Michael Mann, who is widely seen as a climate alarmist whose work has largely been discredited, part posted a number of things attacking Charlie, including the mention that he was the head of Donald Trump's Hitler Youth. Now, University of Pennsylvania has been slow to respond to this crisis, but we expect the pressure is mounting for somebody in that prominent of a role who is endorsing domestic terrorism and political violence. That fallout will continue. And a lot of people have tried to say this is something like cancel culture. This is something like what conservatives used to attack when the left or media tried to cancel somebody. But this is a lot different because what's happening here is when people celebrate the assassination of Charlie Kirk, they're suggesting that political violence like this is justified. And anytime after someone is murdered, you talk about the reasons they might have had it coming, any kind of justification. You're making a justification for domestic terrorism and political violence which is unacceptable. And the fallout for this will continue. But this did not begin overnight. This, this is a trend that has been building for quite some time. Charlie himself warned about the rise of assassination culture on the left. You'll remember earlier this year when there were a number of domestic terrorist acts against, for example, Tesla dealerships in protest of Elon Musk and Doge. A group called the Network Contagion Institute did some polling in April. The Network Contagion Institute, along with Rutgers University found that 55% of self identified left of center respondents said that it was at least somewhat justified to murder President Trump. 48% said the same of Elon Musk. And 40% of respondents, including 59.6% of left of center respondents, said it was at least somewhat acceptable to destroy a Tesla dealership in protest. The larger point there is if you call someone Hitler or a fascist or a threat to democracy and their lives, enough times, people are going to believe you. Let's go all the way back to Joe Biden. You'll remember in 2022, gearing up for the midterms, Joe Biden made a big show of announcing that he would be referring to Donald Trump as a semi fascist. And you'll remember that he followed that up with a speech that many of us refer to as the Death Star speech. Donald Trump and the MAGA Republicans represent an extremism that threatens the very foundations of our republic. Now, just to remind you, as you see Joe Biden there flanked with the US military carrying guns in the all black background with that red lighting he was calling half of the country a threat. That was a massive beginning of this escalation. And other Democrats followed suit. Let me ask you tonight, do you.
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Co-host
Think Donald Trump is a fascist? Yes, I do. Yes, I do.
- [05:54]
Host
And he is a fascist to his core as a fascist dictator, a fascist political party. Timu Hitler, or to become an Adolf Hitler or a Kim Jong Un. Every down ballot, race matters. This fascist administration didn't come from anywhere. They have planted the seeds for years. And then of course, you have people like Chris Murphy, who very chillingly said this the day before Charlie's assassination, like, we're in a war right now to save this country. And so you have to be willing to do whatever is necessary in order to save the country. I consider this to be like resistance. Methamphetamine, this is a drug. People get hooked on this resistance idea that Donald Trump is Hitler destroying the country, and it's all they can think about. I have so many friends in my own life who have been completely radicalized, both by the lawmakers who say things like this, but also the Instagram influencers they follow who have made an entire cottage out of warning the world that everything Donald Trump does is a sign of fascism, even if it's things like fixing mistakes on displays in the Smithsonian Museum. And so again, it's not at all a coincidence that the shooter in this case wrote on his shell casings, hey, fascist catch and Bella Chow, which is a song that is frequently cited by the online anti fascist movement that again, believes that everything Donald Trump does is a sign of fasc. We will never understand these things better until we get to the root causes of this resistance, methamphetamine, that is poisoning so many minds and radicalizing people into believing political violence is an acceptable outcome. As of today, we are about two weeks from a government shutdown. Over the weekend, House Speaker Mike Johnson spoke about this upcoming fight.
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Co-host
Democrats currently are playing games with this government funding idea. They're trying to bring in extraneous issues. We've been working towards getting the government funding appropriations bills done in the House. Our Appropriations Committee has worked, by the way, in bipartisan fashion to get all 12 appropriations bills through the committee. So if there's anyone, any Democrats who are trying to suggest that they want to shut the government down, we're going to do everything possible to prevent that from happening. It does not behoove the country.
- [08:14]
Host
Now, Speaker Johnson recognizes the fact that Democrats, particularly in the Senate, are willing to do whatever they can to resist and try and gum up the works for President Trump. But if Republicans have a united front in the House and Senate, they are hopeful they'll be able to pass a continuing resolution to fund the government for several months and then work on a bigger spending package going forward. President Trump has continued to put pressure on Russian President Vladimir Putin to come to the table to talk about peace with Ukraine. And then last week he posted this on Truth Social, a letter sent by President Donald J. Trump to all NATO nations and the world. I'm ready to do major sanctions on Russia when all NATO nations have agreed and started to do the same thing, and when all NATO nations stop buying oil from Russia. As you know, NATO's commitment to win has been far less than 100%. And the purchase of Russian oil by some has been shocking. It greatly weakens your negotiating position and bargaining power over Russia. Anyway, I'm ready to quote, go when you are. Just say when we've Talked before on 10 Minute Drill about the absurdity of the European Union and NATO countries buying so much Russian oil and natural gas while attempting to support Ukraine in their fight against Russia and the fact that in 2024 the European Union spent more on Russian oil and gas than they spent in aid to Ukraine. We will see if they answer President Trump's call to stop that support. On Monday, Treasury Secretary Scott Besant announced that there was a deal on TikTok. We have a framework for a TikTok deal. The two leaders, President Trump and Party Chair Xi, will speak on Friday to complete the deal. But we do have a framework for a deal with TikTok. Now, this has been a moving target ever since President Trump came back to office. You'll remember that Congress, with overwhelming majorities, passed a bill to ban TikTok if the Chinese Communist Party would not give up their ownership, particularly over the algorithm that controls what users see on TikTok. Congress passed a bill to do that. President Biden signed it into law, and the Supreme Court upheld that law by a nine to nothing majority. But President Trump has wanted to find a way to to salvage use of the app in the United States as they worked on a way to extricate TikTok from Chinese Communist Party ownership. They've been working on that for quite a long time, even outside the bounds of the law that Congress passed. This deal will raise a lot of questions, but as we get into it, I want to point out a few things that you should be looking at as this deal comes about. There have been a number of studies about the problems with TikTok, and as we evaluate any deal with will want to consider whether that deal addresses these concerns we have about the algorithm and the way that the Chinese Communist Party has used the algorithm here in America. First, an MIT study released just a week ago towards an automated framework to audit Youth Safety on TikTok collected 7,000 videos and used youth accounts, sock puppets with different age settings to test how often harmful content appears. They found minimal differences between exposure for adult versus youth accounts, suggesting the platform's age based moderation doesn't sufficiently protect younger users. And then another study out of Dublin from May, protecting Young Users on Social Media, evaluating the effectiveness of content moderation and legal safeguards on video sharing platforms, compared YouTube, Instagram and TikTok. They found that age 13 test accounts face far more frequent harm in passive scrolling or search compared to older accounts. Another study found in the National Library of Medicine Scrolling Through Adolescence A Systematic review of the impact of TikTok on adolescent mental health while TikTok offers creative opportunities for self expression and peer connection, the literature raises concerns about its potential negative effects on teens, lower life satisfaction, increased risk of contagion of certain psychiatric symptoms and problematic usage patterns. So as we've talked about the role of social media in radicalizing people, whether it's these pipeline of those who are getting information from the left about how Donald Trump is a fascist, things like that, TikTok is actively radicalizing people and there's research and studies to show how it works, to show how it's indoctrinating young people, desensitizing them to violent content and teaching them things like Donald Trump is going to destroy their lives. So as President Trump works on a deal on the path forward for TikTok. We are hopeful that they will take into account what the CCP, the Chinese Communist Party, has used TikTok to do to Americans and ensuring ensuring that they no longer have the ability to carry out those kind of actions. On Sunday, comedian Nate Bargazzi hosted the Emmy Awards and he had a very clever idea for keeping acceptance speeches short, which is every host's biggest challenge. He promised 100,000 doll to the boys and Girls Club and he even brought a young boy and girl from the Boys and Girls Club to put a face on this. And for every second over the 45 second allotted speaking time, everyone received $1,000 would be taken from that $100,000. So if a speaker went 10 seconds over their 45 second limit, $10,000 would be taken out of that $100,000 potential. Enter liberal activist actors. Finally, I just want to say, I just want to say finally, go birds and free Palestine. Thank you. That is Hannah Einbinder from the show Hacks. And it's incredible to see that ticker taking dollars away from the Boys and Girls Club as she continues with her very hateful political message about F ice Immigration and Customs Enforcement and free Palestine, which is a clear message against Israel. Her message is so important to her that she's willing to take dollars away from the Boys and Girls Club of America. I'd like to quote the famous theologian Ricky Gervais. You're in no position to lecture the public about anything. You know nothing about the real world.
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Co-host
Most of you spent less time in.
- [14:42]
Host
School than Greta Thunberg. That is all the time we have for today. Thank you so much for joining us here at 10 Minute Drill. Please, like, subscribe, tell your friends, leave us a review, give us some feedback. Thanks again.