Loading summary
Transcript42 lines
- [00:00]
A
Hey everybody, it's Cam Caskey.
- [00:02]
B
And I'm Tim Miller. And this is a, I guess bonus extra edition of FYPOD this week in reaction to the Charlie Kirk assassination in Utah. As we are taping this on Thursday morning, the shooter is still at large, so we don't know the motive. There was just a press conference saying they do have, I've identified a person on video and have handprints and footprints and a gun, but they haven't released the person's name or the video. So obviously by the time this is up, maybe there'll be developments on that front. But that's, that's where we are now. Cam, I wanted to get on with you for a couple of reasons. One was we were texting last night about how we were both kind of shook by this and I just wanted to hear why from you.
- [00:47]
A
Well, first I want to point out that Charlie Kirk's shooting was not the only school shooting yesterday. There was one at Evergreen High School in Colorado, not far out of Denver. This is the same state, of course, where the Aurora shooting happened, where Columbine happened. Colorado is no stranger to shootings like this. Multiple people were injured from what I have been able to pull and I don't know if there's newer information than this. One student remains in critical condition. The shooter is dead from a self inflicted gun wound. And that is an important thing to talk about because this happened about a half hour after Charlie Kirk school shooting.
- [01:28]
B
I'm interesting that you said that and I meant to ask you that actually right off the top, you were the only, in addition to texting me about how you were shook in your public commentary, I think you're the only person I saw yesterday that was calling the Charlie Kirk shooting a school shooting, which is true, which is obviously technically true. And so I want to hear more about why you're kind of making that parallel.
- [01:49]
A
Totally. I think it's important to highlight these things because school shootings happen all the time and they don't all look like parkland and Sandy Hook. Anytime an individual gets shot at a school, it is a school shooting. It doesn't need to be 12, 20 people getting murdered with an AR. 15 people bring handguns to school. Very, very often individuals are shot and not killed. And therefore it leaves the news cycle very quickly because normally the body count needs to be fairly high for it to remain in the news cycle. There was a school shooting in Minnesota or a mass shooting in Minnesota at a school like what, a week ago, two weeks ago. That's already out. And we need to highlight these things because people need to understand that school is not a safe place to be in America. And when you send your children to school in America, you do not have any guarantees that they will be alive by the time the last bell of the day rings. So it's as simple as when somebody gets shot at a school, you have to call it a school shooting. That. That's what it is. It isn't much more complicated than that. But Charlie Kirk's assassination was, in fact, a school shooting, and it was a very complicated one. And it looked a lot more like the assassination attempt on Trump, seeing as the shooter was apparently over 200 yards away. This is someone who knows how to shoot a gun. This is premeditated murder. It was not an accident, as certain pundits might have suggested, to the terrible detriment of their careers. But that's my opinion on the matter in regards to that. But again, Charlie Kirk was not the only school shooting yesterday, and he was also not the only political assassination of the past 12 weeks. Melissa Hortman, a Democratic lawmaker in Minnesota, as well as her husband were shot dead in their house by somebody impersonating a police officer. And multiple other people were shot in that same situation as well. Only two were killed. Donald Trump did not attend the funeral. While Donald Trump and the right are ramping up the messaging that there is some sort of civil war happening and everybody needs to get as aggressive as possible. Donald Trump did not attend the funeral of a Democratic lawmaker who was politically assassinated. And there's a lot going on. And I think we can all recognize that there's been more political violence in the past five years than in the past, what, five decades combined?
- [04:25]
B
Yeah, I mean, going back to the late 60s, 70s, maybe up through, I guess the early 80s was kind of the last spate like this. That's a long period. So we might have a long period ahead of us. Also, in addition to the one you mentioned, I mean, there was the shooting at the CDC, which gets lost, and that guy fired 500 bullets or whatever. A security guard died. But just because he was ineffective doesn't mean that that was not also politically motivated violence. It's easy to immediately slide into the meta narrative about this and about, you know, whatever about the. Our culture war that is ongoing. We can talk about that more. But I'm just wondering, like, what. As somebody who was very. A very prominent. I hate to compare you to Charlie Kirk, but a very prominent young person, you know, who is in the news, who is advocating for their political beliefs, who was public. Like, I have to imagine that this has a little bit of a different valence for you than maybe, you know, these. These other examples, which obviously are also tragic.
- [05:26]
A
I mean, it was definitely very triggering to see the video of somebody getting shot in the neck up close. It reminded me of how I felt when I was watching footage of the Hamas terror attack on October 7. I saw a lot of footage of that on the Internet. And before it was able to be scrubbed off, it brought to mind when I was seeing footage of the people at my school getting killed. Because while we were hiding, Snapchat videos were going around of people we knew just getting massacred. And it was. It was very numbing. And it's. I don't know what was more numbing about yesterday, how triggered I got by the video of Charlie Kirk getting shot in the neck, or how much it made me realize that I was not that affected by the stories of hearing 15 children being murdered somewhere or other things like that. But, you know, it's a video and you're seeing it with your eyes. I think with the Charlie situation, it's something that ought to make everybody very, very concerned, because it's just situations like this foster an environment where this is the norm and this is something that can happen to people who are espousing their beliefs, regardless of how violent or inflammatory or dangerous those beliefs are. Matter of fact, my buddy Hasan Piker, was talking about just how scary this is for people who publicly speak about this yesterday. And I wanted to play a clip.
- [06:54]
C
Before people say, wear a bulletproof vest again. He got shot in the neck. A bulletproof vest would not have saved Charlie Kirk. Okay? Security did not save Charlie Kirk. The only thing that could have potentially saved Charlie Kirk from getting shot in the neck was if our administrations prior to this one and this one as well, actually had reasonable gun control as a policy provision in the immediate aftermath of, I don't know, 100 other school shootings that took place. This is why I keep responding over and over again to people that go, hey, man, why don't you get security? Hey, man, why don't you get a vest? There's nothing. None of those things, none of those things will save you.
- [07:33]
A
On our March for Our Lives tour around the country, when we were registering voters in different states, we had a team of security guards who were definitely very pro gun, like the people who were protecting us while we were going around telling everybody we were taking their guns. If you met those guys, immediately, the vibe is like, check out my safe, in my garage, we had security guards. I remember when I went up to speak at the March for Our Lives event in Washington, D.C. i was kind of like, am I going to get shot right now? Which was. Felt like a dumb thing to think at the time. It was. It was a different political environment.
- [08:12]
B
Passing thought or like a real. Like, were you like, no.
- [08:15]
A
I had a letter. I wrote a letter to people that I love in case I did get killed. And I kept it in my. In, like, the inside pocket of my jacket. And I was like, you know, if somebody takes me out right now and this emotional letter is found with, like, a little blood on it, that'll be very emotionally resonant with the people that I know. But I kind of thought I was getting get shot. It was a very dramatic time. We were getting a lot of death threats. We were getting so many death threats. So many death threats. But again, no matter how many death threats we were getting, it was still just an interesting thought to have because it was a different political environment. Now if somebody was doing this and they thought they were going to get shot, I would be like, yeah, it's a completely reasonable thing to think. I didn't tell my fellow March for Our Lives people because I didn't want to scare them. But I told a couple of my personal friends, like, the day before the speech, I'm about to go up in front of what could very well be like, a million people and tell everyone that I'm gonna come for their guns. I was the first speaker. Like, there was nobody who went up before me. I went up to introduce the whole thing. Like, maybe somebody's gonna knock me out, mind you, that would have martyred me for gun control and made my argument for me, but it was very scary. Now I'm just like, you make that.
- [09:30]
B
Point kind of like, in passing as, like. And you chuckle when you say it, but, like, I just think it's a real point that's worth sitting on, number one. Do you still have the letter? I guess, actually, I want to go back to that. Do you still have the letter?
- [09:41]
A
No, no, I kept it, but then I brought it to my college dorm and lost it when I was moving out.
- [09:48]
B
Anyway. I don't know. I was getting feelings over here about the letter story, so I was just wondering. But your point about how you would have been martyred, not that you wanted that, right, obviously, or that would have been horrific. But that's an important statement just to put on its inverse about what we saw yesterday, because I really I don't watch all of Hassan's stream. I don't know exactly what he said. That clip right there. I mean, Hassan disagree on a lot of stuff, but I think he's absolutely right on about that. I'm fully with him and radicalized on the gun thing. And I also was on eight texts yesterday about people asking me about my security protocols, where I'm like, okay, well, what are we going to do? I mean, like, that's a silly thing. I mean, whatever. We should. We should do due diligence. But like, Charlie Kirk had security. But your point about, like, some people in the left world were responding to this with kind of like fascists. Whatever. Like these are, you know, whatever, like some negative thoughts about. About Charlie and fascism. And it's like he was martyred yesterday. Like, what you just said, like, hypothetically, would have been true about you is true in the inverse. And I think that, like, what happened yesterday, we'll find out what the shooter's motive was or whatever. But regardless of what it was, like, they're gonna use it to martyr him and his. You can already see it online. Like, the shit that he was advancing is probably gonna become stronger. You know, I think. I mean, at least in the short term. And I just think that is among the millions of reasons to condemn the shooting. Just like the fact that you said that in passing. I just think it's an important thing to sit on because I think that that is gonna happen to Charlie and that sucks.
- [11:26]
A
This political violence is reprehensible and has no place not only in a democracy, but also anywhere in the world. I'm not. I'm not crying. Rip Angel King. Bless you. Bless your heart. But it's. It's a terrible situation because everything that Charlie Kirk has built his career trying to characterize people who believe in equity and positive social values and empathy, all he ever did was try to paint people who wanted expanded DEI programs as someone who would do something like that. And it brings to mind just a serious issue in terms of faith in our institutions right now, where when something like this happens, when there's a domestic shooting like this that was very obviously premeditated and very likely because of somebody who was radicalized in one way or another. Online we currently are pulling grants from domestic terror monitoring programs like the. Our government is making it harder to find shooters like this before these shootings happen. They are finding, like, we're in a situation where a lot of the systems that exist to prevent things like this are being dismantled. And it is extremely concerning for. And it should be concerning for people everywhere.
- [12:39]
B
They are clowns, the people in charge of the FBI. And it's a big, it's a big problem. I guess my last thing I was just curious to pick your brain on obviously, you know, with Charlie's organization Turning Point USA was really focused on campuses of college kids and you know, whatever. I'm seeing the videos that are coming into my feed but it's hard for me to kind of navigate like you know, whatever, like what is what, what your median 20 year old is getting. But like to me it feels like he's like extremely well known net demo, maybe the most well known like non politician in that demo.
- [13:15]
A
I mean he's. They literally have a whole south park arc about him right now.
- [13:19]
B
Right. So anyway, I'm just kind of curious what you think about like about the turning point of it all and like what the people and the degree to which you're concerned or think about that becoming a flashpoint among kind of the Gen Z set.
- [13:41]
A
Young conservatives that I follow online were very clear in their messaging yesterday. Like this is a huge career moment for all of them. All of them are preparing to tell their, you know, here's why I am standing up bolder than ever now in the face of the radical left wing violence which has not been confirmed in terms of political motivation in any way, shape or form. It's important for us to highlight at least at the time of recording this video, he's totally this martyr for them now. They're totally like they've been looking for a moment like this to be this inflection point. And I don't want to say Turning Point because I don't want to point out the irony in that. But like they've been looking for this turning Point in the USA and it's horrifying. I know a lot of kids who get involved with programs like this. I actually went to a Turning Point event like seven years ago. I was curious and I got an opportunity to meet Charlie Kirk and Candace Owens.
- [14:37]
B
Was this before when, where was this in the timeline of March for our.
- [14:40]
A
Lives, this was like probably eight months after the march. They weren't inviting random drama kids from.
- [14:50]
B
I didn't think so. But I don't know. You've got a weird Cameron like you know, we've known each other for a year and every once in a while like we'll be watching T, you know, you'll send me a clip from TV and just be like, you know, I was in grammar school with that girl or Whatever, you know, you go. You go deep. You have a lot of stuff.
- [15:05]
A
There's some very strange lore. 1. One day all will be revealed. But no, I was at this Turning Point event and I didn't want. And at the time, I was a bit more recognizable a person, and young conservatives were definitely going to know me. So I wore. I'll see if I could find a picture for Dante to throw on screen. I wore a fake mustache so I could blend in. It was not very convincing, but nobody recognized me, probably because the mustache, the disguise worked. And I met Charlie and I met Candace. And it was very interesting. Charlie was very charismatic. Candace was very robotic, like very Teflon. Could have been an AI. She was. There was something very uncanny about Candace. But I spoke to Charlie. I have his phone number. We had a nice conversation. He was one of those Republicans that kind of fit my nicest, different than good narrative where you meet some conservatives who have built an entire career targeting minorities and they're just like the nicest person in the world, right? Like, Ben Shapiro is the nicest guy you ever meet. Ben Shapiro. He is a guy you can just chill with. Like, he's a vibe lord. I had a great time when I. When I hung out with Ben Shapiro. It was the same situation with Charlie. He was very affable, very fun, and he was a guy that. You understand why young people were able to rally behind him because he was telling young people what they wanted to hear and he was doing so in a way that felt he. He was able to seem like a leader and he was able to have that charisma that could rally people behind you. Have you ever met Charlie?
- [16:45]
B
Met Charlie several times. Yeah. I used to go. I go to America Fest every year at the end of the year. I don't. I don't know if I'm going to be able to do it this year, but. So I've met him at there briefly all the times, but he always let me come again. I think your nice is different than good point is true. It also is just objectively, there's something to be said for the fact that, like, he wanted people to come that disagreed and, and debate and like, he was fine with that. Like there are, you know, and that's. There are worse traits to have than that. And that was true about what he was doing yesterday. Like, he goes to colleges and have people argue with him. Just in itself, I think that there's something about that that is better than the alternative. And we might be heading towards a world where the Alternative is more ascendant. And I think people will maybe miss what we had, but, you know. Yeah, no, he's. He was affable. He was affable. He was easy. He was easy to talk to.
- [17:43]
A
And then you see him open his mouth and say that, and I quote, jew money is ruining politics. And you're like, yeah, you know, not my kind of guy.
- [17:51]
B
Yeah. And I shit on him a lot. And I get texts from his people who would invite me to the thing and push back and whatever. But yeah, no, he said a lot of really terrible things. I'm just saying there's something. He also wanted to engage and was definitely affable. And the Turning Point Kids, the other thing I'd say about the Turning Point Kids, a lot of this is for ill for sure. But you talk a lot about the isolation of young conservatives and how they're drawn to it because of their isolation. And I think that you're smart when you talk about that. But it's also true that it provided people a community. And I sensed that and I felt that there were a lot of kids there, young guys there, men in particular, that that was a thing for them, for them to be able to gather at. And again, for ill in a lot of ways, but it's not a huge.
- [18:44]
A
Part of why people do shit like that. And this happened when I was working with young liberal organizers as well. Like, a lot of the people who are there at the stuff where it's political are there because they like, want friends and who are generally like minded. And it's not always kids who have the firmest political beliefs. Like if you went to a March for Our Lives or Sunrise movement, which was a climate prominent, I would say young climate change organization. Like if you went to those meetings and you, and you pulled every kid aside and started asking them about the issue, some of them would only know like two or three things about it, but they wanted to meet and socialize with people who shared relatively similar values. There's like people with the Bernie campaign and the Zoran campaign. There's like young people who get involved with this stuff where they just have a vibe that this is kind of their thing and that they kind of understand this, but more than anything, they just want to share space with people and have something to talk about. And what better than something like a political event where people are looking to have conversations with each other about this type of thing, to do that and it's easy to fit in and it's easy to meet other people because you know what to say to get them to nod their heads.
- [20:01]
B
And I would just say, this is a good lesson. There's a lesson of that, that the left should learn and liberals should learn and whatever you define yourself as should learn is that, like, you guys were pretty good at this at March. Zoran was really good at this. Some of the other left groups aren't like Sunrise. Like, Sunrise sometimes I feel like repels people.
- [20:21]
A
Sunrise was like the parody of March, like the year. March for Sunrise was the answer to us. That was like the comedy episode and.
- [20:29]
B
Like, again, about Charlie and allowing me to go at those events. They wanted people to come. They wanted it to get big. And it did get big. And he got influenced because of it. And it was not. And obviously they were very nasty at times to liberals on stage and stuff. Of course. Um, but they want like the vibe there was of like, yeah, you know, if you mostly agree with us or if you think those guys are a little bit crazy. Come on. You know what I mean? Like, we're gonna do fellowship, we're gonna do party. Maybe you can meet some cute girls, right? Like, that was kind of like the energy that they put off.
- [21:02]
A
And that, that is such an important point. That is such an important.
- [21:05]
B
That is, that's. That is sm, nothing else. It's smart politics. And, And I do think it. That people found meaning in it.
- [21:12]
A
No, but dude, I so fucking get this, right? Like, I. I am a person of the Turning Point USA age group who was involved with politics before March for Our Lives even happened. Like, I am exactly the Turning point demographic. And I also, like, flirted with right wing politics as a teenager because of some grievances that I had that I didn't understand how to navigate. And I remember what worked on me, which was like, I generally held liberal, like, you know, left wing views, but this thing about the right was like, I was so enamored by the fact that they wanted, like you just said, they wanted to talk to people who disagreed with them. And I felt as though people on the left, if you didn't completely align with what they wanted, if you weren't exactly who they wanted you to be, you were not invited to the party. And the right, oh, my God, they were like, oh, we love it when liberals who disagree with us come to talk because we're all about fostering a healthy conversation and everything. And. And in my head I was like, oh, my God, like, these guys have the right idea. They get it.
- [22:19]
B
He gained power that way. It worked. It worked. What he was doing worked. So, yeah, anyway. All right, Cameron, thank you for sharing your feelings with me and thoughts.
- [22:29]
A
Oh, wait, I have a plea. I have a plea for everybody. Everybody. If you see a video of somebody getting shot, don't share it.
- [22:36]
B
Don't share it.
- [22:36]
A
Don't share videos of people getting shot. It is. It is something that spreads violence. It is something that horrifies people. It is something that traumatizes people, even people who do not have a background like mine, even people who have never seen these types of things before. It can traumatize. There is nothing at all, nothing at all that is positive that comes from sharing a video of somebody getting murdered.
- [23:02]
B
Can I add one more thing on this? I'm not a words or violence guy, but, like, the other thing is that I'm asking people not to say is, even if you think dark thoughts about anybody, about like, I wish they had died or this is good, don't share that either. Because here's the other thing about it. I mean, I just. As a moral matter, I disagree with that. But even if. If you disagree with my morality that all humans have value, then, you know, that's something for you. But there were a lot of other people. Like, not only did people see the video as you're mentioning, Cameron, and that traumatized them, there were, what, a couple hundred kids there that sat and had to watch that. A couple kids in the front row. I mean, there were liberal, like, there were people of all political stripes there because that's who were invited. And they watched him get shot in the neck and assassinated.
- [23:47]
A
And those are school shooting survivors. Now those are hundreds of new school shooting survivors.
- [23:52]
B
They don't deserve it either. They didn't deserve to have to go through that either. So, anyway. All right, thank you, Cameron. I agree with that. I appreciate you very much. Everybody else, subscribe to the feed. If you don't hate us, try to. Try to comment something nice. How about that? Try to come in something nice. That'd be good.
- [24:06]
A
By the way, this Saturday's FYpod episode is so uplifting.
- [24:09]
B
Oh, it is good. It is uplifting. It's a big contrast from this. We've already taped it. All right, we'll see you all soon.