The Charlie Kirk Murder Hearings Circus feat. Abner Hauge and Haley Orion (E382)

Summary

QAA Podcast – Episode 382 "The Charlie Kirk Murder Hearings Circus feat. Abner Hauge and Haley Orion"
Date: July 23, 2026

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Main Theme & Purpose

This episode explores the chaos, conspiracy theories, and toxic legacy surrounding the high-profile preliminary hearings for the alleged murder of Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk. Featuring on-the-ground reporting and analysis from Abner Hauge (Left Coast Right Watch) and Haley O’Ryan (Arizona Right Watch), the QAA crew dissects the circus-like atmosphere outside the courthouse, the power struggle over Kirk’s legacy, and how both mainstream and fringe media are failing to confront the reality of far-right extremism, transphobia, and anti-Semitism swirling around the case.

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Key Topics & Discussion Points

1. The Hearings: Chaos & Conspiracies (03:47–09:24)

• Overview of the Case:
  The episode centers on the preliminary hearings for Tyler Robinson, the 23-year-old accused of killing Charlie Kirk. The hearings determine if there’s enough evidence to go to trial and potentially seek the death penalty (03:47).
• Conspiracy Theory Frenzy:
  Outside the courthouse, a parallel spectacle emerges, with podcasters, influencers, and Kirk’s fans inundated by wild theories. Candace Owens propagates outlandish claims attributing Kirk’s death to Mossad, “exploding microphones,” and more, while his widow is subjected to suspicion from conspiracy-pilled attendees (05:03).
• Quote:
  “Podcasters and Owens fans camped out in front of the courthouse overnight hoping to get one of the 14 seats… because they didn’t believe what’s being reported about Kirk’s murder.” – Abner Hauge (05:11)

2. The On-the-Ground Atmosphere (07:31–15:45)

• Courthouse Access & Media Framing:
  Access to observer seats is highly limited; many seats are filled by conspiracist media, right-wing outlets, or diehard fans, with mainstream outlets largely out of their depth (10:48).
• Camps of Fandom & Conspiracy:
  Some, like “Candace Owens operatives,” stay overnight just for the chance to witness the trial, underscoring how profoundly people are swept up in these narratives (12:44).
• Turning Point’s Internal Split:
  TPUSA itself is wracked with division as some, like Jack Posobiec, desperately beg their audience to “stick to the facts” and reject Candace Owens' wild stories, while others veer further into Nick Fuentes/“Israel did it” territory (13:06).

3. The Right’s Power Struggle & Legacy Spin (15:45–22:42)

• Nick Fuentes’ Ascendance:
  Nick Fuentes is gaining mainstream legitimacy, symbolizing the further radicalization of the youth-oriented far right (15:06).
• Kirk’s Social Media Used for the Trial Livestream:
  After Kirk’s death, his social media assets are cynically used to stream the hearings, highlighting how the movement depends on his “engagement corpse” (19:10).
• Quote:
  “They’re using [Kirk’s social media] this way because in a way they have to. And they’re completely cynical about it. It’s completely ghoulish.” – Abner Hauge (19:10)
• Kirk’s Place in Conservative Ecosystem:
  Kirk is depicted as a figure shamelessly shifting with donor priorities, always a puppet for billionaire financiers, and whose “legacy” now is shaped by survivors who know “all they really have is the lies Kirk used to sell himself to old right wingers with money.” (53:54)
• Quote:
  “What Kirk’s real legacy was, was building Turning Point, which is essentially a front for a kind of older conservative media and propaganda outlet mill, but with a lot of young people in it… all the young people who would even put up with being part of Turning Point are Nazis who are smart enough to know that I get a lot of money and a lot of networking done out of this.” – Abner Hauge (58:24)

4. Weaponized Bigotry & Media Failure (24:11–39:38)

• Misgendering & Transphobia:
  Media and right-wing narratives maliciously deadname and misgender “Twigs,” Robinson’s trans roommate and key witness, while stirring up both anti-Semitic and anti-trans conspiracy theories — yet many on the right avoid publicly mentioning the specifics (24:21, 36:06).
• Quote:
  “The conspiracy angle…the Turning Point people are trying to keep their audience engaged…is that they’re really leaning into…this is because of transgender radicalism, you know, and the whole case with Robinson…he's fucked in several different ways, but also partially because he allegedly confessed…to their roommate who is trans.” – Haley O’Ryan (24:21)
• Right-wing Conflation & Bad Faith:
  There is a “double sixes” attempt to blame both Israel and trans people, reflecting shifting and contradictory right-wing messaging (33:25).
• Mainstream Media’s Abdication:
  Most outlets refuse to dig into the case’s realities, or even defend Twigs from smear campaigns, contributing to their ongoing harassment (29:24).

5. Firsthand Harassment: Victims of Conspiracism (41:08–47:49)

• Interview with Hunter Kozak:
  Hunter Kozak, the last person to ask Kirk a question before the shooting, is subjected to instant, intense harassment and doxxing — even as he cares for his newborn in the hospital (41:49–44:12).
• Reflections on Empathy and Grief:
  Both Hunter and Abner reflect on how conspiracy culture reduces real people to “characters,” making it impossible for victims and witnesses to grieve or process trauma (45:04, 46:19).
• Quote:
  “Imagine seeing somebody get shot in front of you and then having to deal not only with the trauma of that, but the trauma of people saying you were involved. …he didn’t get to grieve properly.” – Abner Hauge (42:49) “You shouldn’t be shocked if you accuse someone of being complicit in the murder, that they’re going to suffer some sort of harassment online. But these people, they treat everything online as if it’s just a fiction, just playing dolls.” – Host (46:19)

6. Outlandish Theories & Collateral Harms (48:00–52:05)

• The Maroon Shirt Boys:
  Candace Owens whip-ups the “Maroon Shirt Boys” conspiracy, where anyone wearing a maroon shirt at the shooting is blamed for orchestrating the event (48:00).
• Collateral Victims:
  Adam Bartholomew’s teenage son becomes a target just for wearing a maroon shirt and gets accused of being a “crisis actor” — harassment that continues for months (49:16).
• Empathy Gap:
  Abner and others note that only when conspiracy theorists themselves or their families are targeted do they grasp the real-world harm (51:45).

7. Kirk’s Legacy & Right-Wing Youth Politics (53:03–61:47)

• Empty Vessel, Puppet for Power:
  The hosts argue that Kirk’s entire persona and activism were shaped to please donors, not principles, and his legacy is now waged over in a sanitized PR war by both loyalists and critics (53:54).
• Quote:
  “All they really have is the lies that Kirk used to sell himself to old right wingers with money…at the end of the day…people who admire Charlie Kirk know damn well what his bigotry was, and they agree with it.” – Abner Hauge (53:54)
• Turning Point’s Corrosive Impact:
  Haley O’Ryan describes the institutionalization of TPUSA bigotry in Arizona politics, the dangerous empowerment of local far-right actors, and how Kirk’s death spurred a new rush of influence and cash (59:02–61:47).
• Quote:
  “[Turning Point] is just like a gathering of the worst bigots in your state, in your school, in your church network, little things in the community that they have absorbed. And in Arizona, I don’t think it’s shocking that…one of them literally gay bashed a queer professor…after that attack happened and…admitted guilt, Charlie was still doubling down on his social media… further putting their fucking life at risk.” – Haley O’Ryan (59:02)

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Memorable Quotes & Moments

• On Exploiting Kirk’s Social Media:
  “It’s completely ghoulish. And no one’s pointing out the fact that…they’re being completely disrespectful to the man’s corpse.” – Abner Hauge (19:10)
• Media Deadnaming & Misgendering:
  “The media is specifically using their dead name, specifically kind of characterizing it in a way that is just, like, not correct whatsoever.”— Haley O’Ryan (24:21)
• On Legacy:
  “This guy was a joke while he was alive…what Kirk’s real legacy was, was building Turning Point…a front for a kind of older conservative media and propaganda outlet mill, but with a lot of young people in it.” – Abner Hauge (58:24)
• Local Impact:
  “They really have absorbed the Arizona Republican Party, and it’s just filled with the most worst, vicious, mass bigots imaginable.” – Haley O’Ryan (59:17)

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Notable Segments & Timestamps

• Cold Open: Abner’s Surreal Road Trip (00:03–01:42)
• Introduction & Setup (03:03–04:18)
• Outside the Courtroom and Wild Theories (07:31–15:06)
• The Weaponization of Identity – Twigs, Transphobia, and Conspiracy (24:21–39:38)
• Victims of Harassment: Hunter Kozak’s Story (41:08–47:49)
• The Maroon Shirt Boys Conspiracy and Its Collateral Damage (48:00–52:05)
• Legacy, Empowerment, and Enduring Harm (53:54–61:47)
• Outro & Closing Remarks (61:47–63:39)

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Tone & Language

• Conversational, irreverent, and deeply critical of right-wing media.
• Abner and Haley bring on-the-ground intensity and sharp analysis, alternating between damning summaries, dark humor, and empathetic storytelling.
• Frequent asides and banter, especially around media absurdity and the grotesque commodification of Kirk’s memory.

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Conclusion

This episode is a powerful, raw autopsy of both the far-right’s tactics and America’s ever-increasing appetite for conspiracist spectacle. Hauge and O’Ryan’s reporting exposes what national media and political mainstream won’t confront: the dangerous, organized bigotry of TPUSA, how movement players are waging a posthumous PR war over Kirk’s memory, and how real people are left to pick up the violent and psychological debris. The circus around the murder trial’s hearings serves as a lens into the collapse of consensus reality and the thriving fringe media ecosystem that exploits tragedy for profit, attention, and ideological escalation.

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Transcript

[Abner Hauge]

Clouds above the 80s slowly drift white and golden like the backdrop for a painted cowboy. On my car speakers, the voices of a defense attorney and an FBI forensics expert go back and forth. They quibble about the reliability of DNA found on a dirty towel. The clouds get darker until their gray thonic masses which with strange tendrils snaking down into the distant hills, I pass Elko, fearing a tornado will form and pull me up to some nameless place above the sky. The voices in the courtroom say they're adjourning for the day. Then the clouds part. The white salt flats spread out before me, bright under parting skies. In the shafts of golden sunlight, I see a tiny smiling face. And here in angel's chorus, it sings.

[Jake]

We are Charlie Kerk. We carry the flame.

[Abner Hauge]

Hello, habibis. You're in Utah now. We are Chalikirk.

[Julian Field]

Oh, God. Oh, my God.

[Abner Hauge]

I don't like this.

[Jake]

I don't know any. I don't know any of the other.

[Travis View]

He doesn't know the rest.

[Jake]

Wait. Now I'll do it like Michael Buble.

[Julian Field]

See, this is. He has us hostage because he has

[Abner Hauge]

to start the script after the R.

[Jake]

Charlie Kirk will carry the flame.

[Abner Hauge]

Okay.

[Julian Field]

Can't do anything about it.

[Jake]

Can't do anything about it.

[Haley O'Ryan]

That's right.

[Jake]

Cause I got a. If you're hearing this, well done. You found a way to connect to the Internet. Welcome to the QAA podcast, episode three. Sorry, I kicked a garbage can. Welcome to the qa. Fuck. Welcome. Shit.

[Abner Hauge]

This is taken from the talk.

[Jake]

God damn it. No, we'll leave all this in. This is. This is where we are at 382, the Charlie Kirk murder Hearings is the name. No, this is where we are now.

[Julian Field]

Okay.

[Jake]

Episode 382, the Charlie Kirk Murder Hearing Circus featuring. Oh, Jesus. My fucking alarm's going off. What a mess.

[Haley O'Ryan]

What the hell is going on?

[Jake]

Yeah, Julian, I'm carrying 12 grocery bags. The bottoms have fallen out.

[Abner Hauge]

The Twinkie.

[Jake]

It's 12 packs of Hostess snacks. And I'm fucking red handed in the parking lot.

[Julian Field]

There's no food.

[Jake]

Let's just start the whole fucking. This is the. This can be all part of the cold open. And now the real show starts.

[Julian Field]

Okay, that's weird.

[Jake]

If you're hearing this, well done. You found a way to connect to the Internet. Welcome to the qaa podcast, episode 380. 82, the Charlie Kirk Murder Hearing Circus featuring Abner Hauge and Haley o'. Ryan. As always, we are your host, Jake

[Interviewer/Host]

Rockatanski, Julian Field, Liv Agar and Travis View. So, yes, today we are joined by investigative journalists Abner Hauge and Haley o' Ryan from left coast right watch. And Arizona right watch. Thank you so much for joining. It's been too long. It's been years.

[Abner Hauge]

We're back, baby.

[Interviewer/Host]

It back. Yeah, boy.

[Jake]

Great to see you guys.

[Interviewer/Host]

Yeah.

[Abner Hauge]

Oh, great to see all your beautiful faces.

[Haley O'Ryan]

I think the last time I saw you, Travis, you were getting harassed by Jim Watkins.

[Interviewer/Host]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, that sounds accurate. It was hell of an experience.

[Abner Hauge]

Now, that's a name I've not heard

[Julian Field]

in a long time from another world.

[Interviewer/Host]

I still get his newsletters.

[Jake]

Yeah, Haley, I think last time I saw I saw you was at the live show in Arizona like 100 years ago, right?

[Interviewer/Host]

That is more recent. So earlier this month, they braved the heat of Provo, Utah to cover the pre trial surrounding TPUSA founder Charlie Kirk's alleged killer. And what they found was, you know, unsurprisingly, lots of chaos and nonsense.

[Julian Field]

Hey, real quick, everybody. I've got a solo project with comedian John Gabris. It's called Superstructure and it's a weekly podcast covering the power of political repression, propaganda, and revolutionary struggles the world over. You can go listen for [e-mail] I'm

[Abner Hauge]

good into that later.

[Julian Field]

That's what I like to hear. That's the whole purpose.

[Travis View]

That's what it's for.

[Julian Field]

That's what power means.

[Abner Hauge]

The week after the fourth of July, LCRW covered the first round of preliminary hearings for the case of Tyler Robinson. Robinson is the 23 year old accused of killing TPOSA founder Charlie Kirk on September 10th last year. Robinson has not yet entered his plea. The purpose of these hearings is to determine whether there is enough evidence for Robinson to stand trial and if there is enough evidence to ask for the death penalty. LCRW was not able to get into the courtroom, but we witnessed a parallel story play out under its columns. Pizzagate promoter Jack Posovic, now working for tpusa, urged people not to give in to the conspiracy theories surrounding Kirk's murder. Candace Owens, a former TPUSA employee who went her own way, has been spreading any conspiracy theory that'll stick to the wall. Since Kirk's death, she's claimed everything from Mossad to maroon shirt wearing audience members to an exploding microphone probably planted by Egyptian spies, killed Kirk and people showed up to the courthouse believing her pilled. Podcasters and Owens fans camped out in front of the courthouse overnight hoping to get one of the 14 seats to observe the trial in person. Because they didn't believe what's being reported about Kirk's murder. One Owens peeled woman even sat behind Erica Kirk the last day of the hearings and said she was less suspicious of the widow afterwards.

[Julian Field]

Once I got a good whiff of her, once I got the smell of her, then I know that. I know that I can trust her.

[Abner Hauge]

Yeah, her tears seemed real. That's all right. What we saw play out was a contest between Kirk survivors and colleagues and fans over his legacy, over who gets to carry the flame of his bigotry and how.

[Jake]

You mean who gets to carry the flame and fight for the gospel.

[Julian Field]

Expect Jake to come into the top of every single segment, and every single time is to disrupt it.

[Jake]

I'm like, wait a minute. I got a new musical theater bit. Four of our listeners are going to be squealing with delight.

[Julian Field]

I've got a new musical theater bit. I mean, just the cursed words I wish I could execute.

[Travis View]

You have to be grateful. He only knows two lines from the song.

[Julian Field]

Thank God.

[Haley O'Ryan]

Thank God.

[Abner Hauge]

Yeah.

[Julian Field]

If he was. If he wasn't such a dilettante, he'd be much more of a man.

[Jake]

Are you sure that's a. That you should be thankful for that? It might be a curse later on.

[Abner Hauge]

Oh, my monkey's paws curling already two fingers down.

[Interviewer/Host]

So, yeah, these were just. Yeah, like you mentioned, preliminary hearings. Not even the proper trial, Assuming he's going to. If he. If he pleads not guilty. But, I mean, it was already turning into, like, quite a, you know, quite a chaotic circus. Lots of, like, you know, people trying to, I guess, spin their own conspiracy theories or, you know, support tpo, say. So what did you find? Actually, outside of the courthouse?

[Abner Hauge]

I think the most notable thing was that there are TPUSA influencers pleading with people to stick to the facts of the case instead of listening to Candace Owens.

[Interviewer/Host]

Oh, how. How the tables have turned.

[Abner Hauge]

Yeah, These people, Jack Posobic and this guy, Brandon Tatum, who I'm sure Haley can explain in more detail about his deal, but these folks wouldn't mention them by name, and they winced. And Jack Posobic side very angrily before he answered my question about Candace Owens. So they didn't want to mention her at all. What we found was, you know, those folks were outside of the courtroom giving interviews. Most of the questions were pretty insipid, like, what kind of memorial do you want for Charlie Kirk? Do you want a big golden statue for your special boy, or do you want, like, a road named after him that's got, like, an indigenous person burial ground? Under the road, something like that. What do you want for your special boy? But, you know, the questions were insipid. The media really didn't. Other than maybe Brandy Zadrozny, who was there to kind of analyze the conspiracy theories, pretty much nobody was equipped to deal with these people. And they took them seriously.

[Jake]

Their first mistake.

[Abner Hauge]

Yeah, their first mistake. You know, like they were asking the pizza gate guy, like, oh, how do you feel about all of these people spreading all these conspiracy theories? Do you think that, you know, they're going to. They're going to stop when they see the evidence and it's just, you know, insipid shit like that?

[Jake]

Yeah.

[Haley O'Ryan]

They honestly reminded me of Mary Sunshine from the musical Chicago. If anybody gets that reference, it's just like the kiss ass journalist that's like an idiot. And every single person there reminded me of either Kari Lake or Mary Sunshine from Chicago. There's one listener that's going to get that reference and fucking love it.

[Jake]

They will. They will.

[Interviewer/Host]

For my part, I.

[Jake]

Actually, the only thing that I know of Mary Sunshine is Little Mary Sunshine, which is a musical and I don't think related in any way. So I too, I'm not that listener, unfortunately.

[Julian Field]

Hayley, when you said that, I was thinking that this, this other thing is not what you said at all. This is not that at all.

[Jake]

Well, you gotta. But you gotta. Julian, you have to fill stuff in. You can't just say. You can't just be vague and general about it. You gotta fill in the details of what's not it.

[Haley O'Ryan]

Yeah.

[Jake]

What it isn't.

[Julian Field]

Yeah, listen, it's like when you. It's like when you carve away what doesn't look like an elephant, then an elephant remains, you know, in the statue. It's the same thing. Yeah. If you say enough things that aren't. What is that at topic? Then eventually you get exactly to the topic. You're a genius.

[Abner Hauge]

Actually, it's a fine art concept called negative space. Maybe you should look it up. Look it up.

[Julian Field]

I stand humbled.

[Interviewer/Host]

Yeah, I mean, there was like, you know, a finite space, I guess, around the courthouse, inside the courthouse. So, like, how did. How did people actually get these privileged kind of positions?

[Abner Hauge]

So we're not privy to how the courtroom, I mean, the courthouse decided who got in and who didn't. But we suspect very strongly that, like, Turning Point had a say in it. There was a media list that you had to apply for two weeks before the trial started. And, you know, mostly it's just big national outlets who got in and you know, of course, turning points, fake media outlet and News Nation, a couple of other of these, you know, kind of right wing outlets got in Mormon media.

[Haley O'Ryan]

Deseret is there, right?

[Abner Hauge]

Deseret's there. I mean, they're local, so you'd expect them to be there, I think.

[Haley O'Ryan]

And they were one of the only media outlets that were actually covering the day of.

[Abner Hauge]

Right, yeah.

[Jake]

Mormon media.

[Haley O'Ryan]

Mormon media.

[Jake]

It sounds like a Power Rangers village.

[Abner Hauge]

But if you didn't get on that list, what you had to do was wait for the seats that are open to the public. They're, I think, called the observer seats. There are 14 of those a day for whatever reason. I guess it was fire safety and, you know, courtroom size and all that. But there were 14 seats and people were camping out overn to get them. I've got some health issues, so that wasn't viable for me. And we felt that, you know, the real stories outside of the courtroom, we could comfortably cover it outside of the court because everybody could see what was going on through the live stream. But the people we saw outside of the courtroom at night, we interviewed a few of those folks. They were for the most part, they were either conspiracy theorists, conspiracy theorist, podcasters, or Charlie Kirk mega fans, which I'm sorry to say, exist.

[Travis View]

Yeah, it's like how like Justin Bieber mega fans will like, like run up to be at the front to see Justin Bieber at Coachella. It's like the equivalent.

[Julian Field]

Yeah. Except this one. This one. Not as many people want the front of the front.

[Abner Hauge]

Well, I mean, maybe not in public.

[Haley O'Ryan]

One woman, though, that was like, she's kind of like a Candace Owens operative. And she's been on like a few other people that are toe in the like Israel did it line, including Stu Peters. She camped out for like 33 hours. Jesus.

[Julian Field]

Wow.

[Travis View]

Really shows how compelling some people find like the story that Owens has been weaving. And it's like I want to see those characters in real life, presumably.

[Abner Hauge]

Yeah, I think that's what it was. I mean, she's spent all of this time kind of just nitpicking all of these things and kind of playing to the more openly anti Semitic branch of the right wing. Now that anybody who wants a taste of that kind of pill. But there's kind of in this like socially acceptable turning point sphere of influence, you know, that's. That's their drug now. And a few of these people showed up. There was this woman, Brandy Zadrozny, actually over at Ms. Now, actually got a little bit more out of her than we were able to. Her name was Brooke Johnson. She kept telling me in her interview, well, I just hope they get the right person or the right people who did this. And there's all of these questions about it. And we interviewed her at about. On Thursday that week at about like maybe 9:30, 10 o', clock o' clock at night. Brandy came back at about 2 in the morning after. I was just too exhausted to, you know, go back and try to get these people at their weird and vulnerable hours. So props to her. She basically said, yeah, I'm a Candace Owen fan. I'm. I believe all these things that Candace is saying about her, about this trial. And yeah, that's basically what it was, was a lot of people, ordinary, kind of on the right people believe more of this kind of stuff. And the consequences, folks at Turning Point are kind of in the crosshairs of all of these conspiracy theories now, frankly, because I think there's a contest of power over who gets to lead the direction that the right wings going in. Like, who gets to be the talking heads, who gets to be the people who go on TV and make the case for all these extremist right wing policies. And before, it was kind of Charlie Kirk and his wing. And a lot of these people are more aligned with Nick Fuentes now. Like, Nick Fuentes is becoming somebody who's socially acceptable to be on TV now. That's what they're trying to push for.

[Jake]

Yeah, I saw. Oh my. I saw some. He was like on some interview like that. It was like kind of a mainstream channel. Nick Fuentes was. And I couldn't believe it. I couldn't believe that we've stooped so low as to include this guy in any kind of conversation whatsoever. It really shows you how far the Overton window has shifted since 2016. What a shame.

[Abner Hauge]

It's really horrifying. Yeah, I mean, the guy's a neo Nazi, and I guess neo Nazis are okay to be on TV now. You know, it's basically the dream of guys like George Lincoln Rockwell, guys like Thomas Metzger. This is their dream.

[Jake]

Total. Absolutely. And he's like a whiny, you know, he's like a. He's not even like a charismatic guy, you know, who's got, you know, who can like, I don't know, like a failed actor or painter or something, you know, who can like, rile people, you know, get people riled up. He's just like complainer. I don't know though. The whole thing is just, gosh, bad content.

[Haley O'Ryan]

Also, like, people Within Turning Point have kind of. They've broken away from Turning Point because they believe that, like, Israel did it or they believe that even people within Turning Point did it. Like, Charlie Kirk's cameraman, one of his cameramen has, like, kind of radicalized to the, like, more Nick Fuentes and, like, Stu Peters crowd. He was recently on Stu Peters, and they're, like, talking about how, like, Israel and Turning Point did it. His mic exploded and actually killed him kind of shit. I literally got a tattoo in Provo and the guy that did my tattoo was like, oh, my brother was there. I think he exploded. So, like, it's everywhere out there.

[Interviewer/Host]

Ugh.

[Jake]

I feel like I swallowed a peach pit. You know what I mean? Like, it's just everybody is so pilled. And who. Yeah, of course. Why not? Why not? Yeah, it's. His shirt exploded. You know what? I saw a video a couple days ago on Twitter where I was like, you know what? It does look weird the way that bullet fucking is going through his neck. Like, I'm not even thinking about the fact that I watched a live execution. Totally desensitized to that already. I've gone beyond to, like, be looking at different pieces of his body, to be like, is this. Is this what it looks like when a guy gets ex. I don't know. Is. Are all the pieces in place here?

[Abner Hauge]

Well, there is something I told a journalist who I was talking to there. I won't name this person because I don't want to embarrass them, this decent person, but somebody I was talking to is a photojournalist on the ground. He said, you know, even I've got my doubts about this thing. Like, you know, they said there's bullet fragments in his neck, and how could it be that way if he was killed by a 30 06? That's for hunting deer. Isn't it supposed to go straight through you? And all of this, and here's all these other little things that don't make sense. And I had to tell him, look, in any kind of case like this, there's hundreds and hundreds and thousands even of all of these little complicated, tiny factors. Some of the evidence won't add up. It always has. There's always evidence that doesn't add up. There's always things that don't make sense that you never really find the full story about.

[Jake]

Why?

[Abner Hauge]

Because that's the nature of reality. We don't get the full picture ever. Even if we're right there and then, you know, we've only got two eyes in front of us and our other four senses, and that's okay. Our job is to try to take a look at the whole picture and be as grounded as possible. And unfortunately, a lot of media is weaponized against people being grounded and taking a look at the whole picture. Thus you get conspiracy theories.

[Jake]

Well, that was perfect. Thanks for listening to another episode of the QAA podcast. That about sums it up. Yep.

[Interviewer/Host]

Yeah, I mean, I always think it's like really telling whenever you go into a scene like this that's being heavily covered elsewhere because you kind of like see some, some kind of disconnect between what you see with your own eyes and what's being portrayed in more mainstream media sources. So what would you say was like, perhaps maybe the more strange or revealing moments that didn't make it into like, the ordinary national coverage?

[Abner Hauge]

I'd say the most revealing thing, and perhaps the strangest thing was the way every outlet was too afraid to say what a vile person Kirk was or what a pack of liars and bigots his successors are. I mean, when I was driving up Highway 80, I spent eight hours, you know, glancing between the road and Charlie Kirk's personal Twitter account where the live stream of his murderer's trial was. And why did they stream it on his account? Because none of these people have enough clout and they don't have the followers, they don't have the engagement that Charlie Kirk built up in his own life by himself. So even though they've said on record, we're not going to use his social media this way, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, they're using it this way because in a way they have to. And they're completely cynical about it. It's completely ghoulish. And no one's pointing out the fact that in all of these very sometimes subtle and sometimes you kind of have to logic it out and think about it ways, they're being completely disrespectful to the man's corpse. I mean, say what you will about him, but, but I mean, doesn't that kind of shock the senses? Just, we don't have enough engagement on our own, so we're going to use our dead boss's social media corpse to livestream his own murderer's trial or alleged murderer's trial.

[Interviewer/Host]

You know, I always thought, you know, when looking back at the. The career of Charlie Kirk, he was someone who always, essentially, since he was 18 years old, basically sought out conservative right wing multimillionaires and billionaires to finance his operations and his message. And he Was. Was a happy puppet for that class. He went out and when he was told to focus on taxes and national debt, he talked about taxes and national debt. We is told instead the big focus is immigration. He talked about immigration. When he said the big focus is religion, they pivoted to religion. And so in that way, I mean, I feel like the people who really benefited the most from Charlie Kirk's activism and message have always treated him as someone to put out in front of the public and hopefully in their vision, connect with the youth. And that way he's always been kind of like a puppet. So it's not shocking to me that they would puppeteer his corpse even afterwards, because he was still. They're doing the exact same thing to him that he does with his life. I think he was a happy puppet. I think he was genuinely right wing. He was happy to be used this way by his donors. But I really think that they really don't see any difference between how useful he was to their movement when he was alive than after, when he was dead.

[Haley O'Ryan]

That's why I think it's so funny that a lot of liberals have latched onto this he was about to turn on Trump kind of narrative and he, he got taken out by Trump kind of conspiracy. And they kind of point to this like, quote that he had about the Epstein files. But then you listen to him like the other eight hours of the day that he's recording and it's like he was basically always enthusiastically supporting the Trump administration and MAGA and the right in every way that he could. So I do find that conspiracy to be funny. Like he was about to flip on him.

[Travis View]

Yeah, it's funny cause he's a person who is like so good at playing the center, like where exactly he needs to be to make the most money. And then you have a clip of like where it's like, oh, he's clearly in the center. He's dealing with like the Nick Fuentes fallout and the broader kind of like younger right wing negative reaction to Epstein files in Israel. And it's like, oh, yeah, he was clearly about to become independent. He was about to develop an independent thought for the first time in his adult life. Right there.

[Abner Hauge]

Yeah. And no, he was a cynical operative. He didn't care.

[Interviewer/Host]

I mean, yeah, it's like his way of operating, being so cynical built well, it was like a nine figure operation. So it's like, like he's like, he wasn't. He was about to derail that by like going against the grain.

[Travis View]

I have to imagine One of the reasons why people. I mean, one of the reasons why people care less about, like, them, like, Weekend at Bernie's in him, basically, it's because, like, people are just, like, more cynical and depraved, especially with the stuff going on with Candace Owens, how she's been using. It seemed to be like, a close personal friend of hers in. In such a bizarre way, and. And like, the widow of a close personal friend in such a. Such a horrible way. I think it's also just like. It seems like something he probably would have wanted. It's harder to react negatively to Kirk stuff when it's like, you could tell he's, like, looking up and applauding what's going on.

[Jake]

You know, I don't know if when you die, you become a ghost and, like, you can decide either to step through or a ring. Well, in his case, like, maybe you don't have a choice, like, where you go, but let's say. Let's just say for argument's sake, you can kind of linger around and you gain ultimate knowledge. Like, he knows who killed him. He knows what happened and everything. If he sees, like, oh, the guy that killed me is Tyler Robertson, and they got him, they arrested him, and he's on trial, and then he watches everybody else be like, wait a minute. I don't think it's this guy. Like, I don't know, maybe as a ghost. That would be infuriating.

[Julian Field]

Okay, yeah. Ghost theory. Ghost theory explored.

[Jake]

Yeah. So check mark. Ghost theory explored.

[Abner Hauge]

Well, you know, to your question, there is one other thing I. I kind of wanted to point to, which was maybe you can take this, Haley. It's just about how Twigs was reported on.

[Haley O'Ryan]

Oh, yeah. This is, like, an ongoing odd situation, in my opinion, just because it's like, the conspiracy angle that the turning point people are trying to keep their audience engaged with the case on and, like, have the narrative that Robinson did it is that they're really leaning into. Like, this is because of transgender radicalism, you know, and the whole case with Robinson, like, he's fucked in several different ways, but also partially because he allegedly confessed, allegedly in multiple different ways to their roommate who is trans. And, like, in their interview with, like, the Utah county attorney talked about this a little bit and, like, said they did use the name Luna, which with only people close in their life who were, like, friends with them, and in that interview did say they use, at least in that interview, she, her pronouns. But, like, trying to talk to their rep has been impossible to get kind of more information. Right but the media is specifically using their dead name, specifically kind of characterizing it in a way that is just like, not correct whatsoever. You know, calling them he, him and not getting into the details of this, which I think is interesting. When the. The turning point folks are basically. They would like twigs to be fried similarly to Robinson because they in some ways hate twigs, even though they are a central part of this case and a pretty big reason why Robinson will probably, you know, it's not looking so good.

[Jake]

Thought you were gonna say, like, go to the chair. And I was like, ah, but we're not really, like, we pretend not to be like that anymore.

[Haley O'Ryan]

So, like, the conspiracies that, like, turning point's going with is that they're trying to make it like this is transferry radicalism and like, even their aud kind of doesn't care because so many people are like, Israel did it. But that is kind of how like, posobiek and people are trying to keep their audience engaged. I feel like by like, just anti trans hate.

[Travis View]

Yeah, I've definitely seen like an optic. I feel like my. My mentions are just like the canary and the Colbyn for this. And I see an uptick in references to her just in like, as non sequiturs, which I think you can tell is kind of. It's become like a focal point, despite, as far as I'm aware, there being no evidence whatsoever for involvement in any way. Right. That's why they're not charging her for anything.

[Haley O'Ryan]

Exactly.

[Travis View]

Yeah.

[Abner Hauge]

We wrote a whole graph about this in the article. Is our outlet's policy is we try not to deadname somebody as best as we can and we try not to misgender them as best as we can. So since we're unable to get into contact, we were using the last name Twigs and they. Them pronouns only just for the time being.

[Haley O'Ryan]

And in the interview, they were kind of adamant, like, I only use this with friends, so I don't know.

[Travis View]

Yeah, it's privacy.

[Abner Hauge]

Right. Specifically, they got immunity for whatever they said in their interview with law enforcement. That means anything that could implicate them as far as, like, helping cover up evidence, stuff like that. They just have immunity for. As far as, like, the testimony they already gave on video goes. Right. That doesn't mean that they're out of the woods completely. There may be some prosecutor decides to say, hey, you know, Twitch, Twigs helped Robinson cover up some evidence. Twigs destroyed some kind of communications, things like that. But I personally don't think that's very likely since they've been cooperating.

[Haley O'Ryan]

Yeah. You know, it all happened so quick. Robinson turned himself in within like 48 hours, basically. And the confession to Twigs, allegedly, which is a letter under Robinson's keyboard and also a pre scheduled text message and a message in their shared discord chat with friends. And some of them were pre scheduled. So Twigs didn't learn about this till late the first night of September 10th, the day he was shot. And then the next day when Robinson was back at the apartment and they confronted them, Robinson said that he was gonna turn himself in and that's how it all happened. So it's like, you know, and then they were completely, as far as evidence in court showed, were cooperative. They said they took a photo of the letter and that's the last time they ever physically saw that letter before it got taken in the evidence. And they willingly turned over their phone to the police. So couldn't have been more cooperative. But they are the villain and have been like stalked to the point where they had to relocate, but then they got discovered at their new place. So it's like an ongoing thing. And the media does refuse to cover this, like at all. They just like completely. Not even like, want to explain any of this.

[Travis View]

Yeah. Has the choice just basically been like, if we don't talk about it, it'll go away? Like, I'm surprised. I'm surprised there's been. I mean, I guess I'm not surprised that the media is not protecting a trans person in any way.

[Abner Hauge]

I think it goes a little bit deeper than that. And this is, in a way, this is my speculation, but something that I tried to say in kind of an op ed at the end of our long article about this was, I think a lot of people don't want to talk about Robinson's alleged motive. I think a lot of people. People don't want to talk about that because for years, if you think about a lot of right wing grievance and how it manufactures stochastic terror, it is the terror of people who are aggrieved, but they have some kind of advantage over other people in society. Right. This is a little bit more complicated than just that. You know, this isn't the Order who are a bunch of white guys who robbed banks and murdered a Jewish radio host because they thought the Jewish controlled the world back in the 70s or 80s. You know, if it turns out that the confession is real and if his motive is what the state claims it is, then Robinson was somebody who felt profoundly isolated in the place that he was living. He was somebody who felt that this was his only recourse. And that lines up more with people who do acts of terrorism because they're acts of desperation, real desperation, because they don't see any other way for their grievances to be aired. Now, obviously, if Robinson's motive turns out to be what the state claims it is, there's. As Liv, you've said before on this podcast, there's a very horrible and important unanswered question about, you know, the violence towards twigs here. You know, Robinson should have to answer for putting twigs in the position Robinson put twigs in.

[Travis View]

Is the state alleging the motive relates to the roommate in any way?

[Abner Hauge]

Well, what we know about Robinson's motive is essentially the quote. I'm paraphrasing a little bit. The quote is, I've had enough of his hate. Some hate can't be negotiated out. And what we know about Robinson is Robinson was in a romantic relationship with somebody who's trans.

[Haley O'Ryan]

And also, the court did allow for the prosecutors to submit evidence that Kirk was a Christian and targeted for his beliefs in a way which I thought was really kind of weird, because the judge was actually like, I feel like trying their best to kind of give Robinson. He's not getting a fair trial in, like, the legal sense. Like, they film him in his shackles constantly, even though that's against the court order. The prosecutor has gone and blabbed a TMZ against the gag order. That letter wasn't supposed to be public. The camera caught it, and that's why they were. They got reprimanded and cameras were banned on the final day because of that. So it's like the judge is trying to kind of, like, do their best. I feel like, to pretend like they're doing a fair trial for Robinson, even though he's. I don't know.

[Julian Field]

Do you feel he's being railroaded or.

[Haley O'Ryan]

Well, you know, it's like US Senator Mike Lee was there, and he was basically talking about how he wants to see Robinson. Robinson executed, like, in public. And, you know, Posobiek and former Tucson police officer turned turning Point USA influencer Brandon Tatum was saying the same thing. Like, this should have been done within 30 minutes. He should be executed. After the hearing, Erica's lawyers filed a motion to try to get this thing sped up, and they said basically, like, it's been long enough. Kind of like, make a decision already. So it's like, he's not. He was never gonna get a fair trial. It's a very public case, and the biggest lying fuckers in the country are involved. But I did think it was interesting that the stuff about Kirk's kind of beliefs got submitted into court.

[Travis View]

It seems like there's like, two competing narratives on the right. It's like, how do we. How can we be anti Semitic about this? And how can we be transphobic about this?

[Abner Hauge]

This.

[Haley O'Ryan]

Right, yes, exactly.

[Jake]

Can we and can we roll both? Can we get double sixes?

[Haley O'Ryan]

Well.

[Abner Hauge]

Well, my thesis is that a lot of the conspiracy theories and a lot of the anti Semitism is a veil because they don't know how to deal with what may very well be the reality of it, which is, you know, there's been a incredibly violent oppression against trans people in this country that's escalated so intensely over the last ten years or so. And I'm not surprised that somebody whose life was deeply affected by a trans person, if this turns out to be the motive, is that this happened.

[Haley O'Ryan]

Yeah, it's not supporting it. It's just like, hello, we're just saying the facts of the case kind of, and like the situation that they were living in, because they don't seem like too. They weren't part of any org. They never voted either way. This wasn't someone that was, like, super hyper into politics, but they did have a life that they lived that was real, even.

[Travis View]

Even if the decision was incredibly stupid, given what he wanted to produce. Allegedly, you know. Yeah, no, it makes sense, and it

[Haley O'Ryan]

arguably is gonna hurt trans people in the long run even more because the Trump administration has weaponized this so much to, like, issue anti trans rhetoric in general.

[Abner Hauge]

Yeah, but that's basically what acts like this often are. These are often violent. Acts like this are often acts of personal despair. They're done by people who are in some ways ungrounded from reality, personally in the psychological sense, and they feel overwhelmed by some awful political reality, and they feel, I can't do anything but take matters into my own hands. Hands in this way and hope that my pain is seen by a bunch of other people. And that's been the personal motive for a lot of attackers on the far right. And this was a guy who grew up in a very conservative LDS family. This was a guy whose dad took him out shooting. And so those were the tools that his imagination allowed him to have. Should the. Should the state's case be proven in court? I should say, yeah.

[Travis View]

How much? How much? Did you notice that, I guess the tension between the transphobia and anti Semitism among the people outside the courtroom or how explicit were those prejudices? I guess talking to the People who were like lining up to try to get into the court, they didn't want

[Abner Hauge]

to mention the word trans in my experience.

[Travis View]

Interesting.

[Abner Hauge]

They referred to Twigs as Robinson's boyfriend. They wouldn't acknowledge that Twigs was trans. They wouldn't even acknowledge that, you know, they basically did the same facile. Oh, well, well, Charlie Kirk was killed because he was conservative and he spoke the truth about all of these things and blah, blah, blah. But they wouldn't get very specific about anything. And that's why I feel very strongly that they don't want to talk about the motive. They really don't.

[Haley O'Ryan]

I did hear Israel thrown out.

[Travis View]

Right. That makes sense. Yeah.

[Haley O'Ryan]

Yeah.

[Travis View]

So maybe a lot of the anti trans stuff is particularly like immediate, a position that like at least has been internalized by the people on the ground a little bit differently than the messaging has been put out.

[Abner Hauge]

Well, I think that a lot of the anti trans rhetoric, which I'm sure everyone who's speaking here today knows this, a lot of the anti trans rhetoric is people like Charlie Kirk were trying to spin every mass shooting on in the country on a trans person. Right. They're trying to say that, oh, it's all of these hormones and things make you crazy and you go on these violent rampages and you know, all of that kind of nonsense.

[Jake]

Yeah.

[Abner Hauge]

And I think what they're scared of really gets to the core of conservative ideology, which is one, your children are your property until they become adults. And so the idea that your kid could decide, hey, I got assigned the wrong gender, I've just realized this and I need to make some decisions for myself about my own body, body that infuriates them on that level. There's this idea that, you know, other people besides them have a monopoly on violence and that people who, you know, could be their family members and know how to use guns and know how to do all of these things could just say, well, I'm trans and I'm a leftist now. Fuck all of you. And also I have a gun.

[Jake]

It's so funny that like for decades and decades, you know, the majority of what you would consider like mass shooters, you know, were, you know, major, you know, majority had extreme right wing, you know, politics. And then like one trans person comes along and shoots a couple people and maybe they aren't, they weren't actually even. I can't even remember what case it was that sort of set off this whole thing. And they literally became the like wojack pointing me being like all, shoot, don't you see? All it's it. To me, this feels like such playground politics. And the fact that this is, you know, has even become a national conversation because of people like Charlie Kirk is so far.

[Abner Hauge]

Well, think about it this way. You know, when you're otherizing immigrants or whether you're otherizing black people, if you feel kind of an internal sense of security, of, okay, we're all white, we're all Christian, we're all this. That we can feel secure, that we have a class and race solidarity and interest with ourselves and each other. And none of us are going to turn on each other like that. All we have to do is fear this other. That's a different skin color. But I think they're so deeply affected and so deeply troubled by the idea that people can be gay or trans because they realize that could be any of them. And all anyone has to do is turn inward and say, well, I need to examine these deeply held personal things about myself, which is this idea of what my gender is. I did it myself. Like, I thought I was a guy for the longest time. I'm non binary marry. Like, you know, anybody can realize that about themselves at any time, at any time, any time of their lives. I've known people who've transitioned in their 30s and 40s. I've known people who, you know, didn't transition until they've been married for like 20 or 30 years.

[Jake]

Yeah.

[Abner Hauge]

Later in their lives.

[Jake]

One of my best buddies, his dad, his dad is like a tough Italian guy. And he came. He came out in like his, like mid-50s, you know.

[Abner Hauge]

Hell, yeah.

[Jake]

And still is a tough Italian, you know, a tough Italian guy, but gay also.

[Haley O'Ryan]

When Kirk was shot, this is what he was getting questioned about. Hunter Kak, who we interviewed, he is a liberal content creator and he had gone viral because Charlie was in the middle of this kind of like, all trans people are responsible for the mass shootings kind of narrative. And Hunter did a video kind of like refuting it with data because he's a math major and is totally analytical like that. And it went viral. And then Charlie was coming to his campus and he wanted to kind of like take that video question into the real world. And was the person asking him the question about mass shootings and like, how many are trans? And then the shot happened and they had their conversation interrupted about a minute in.

[Travis View]

So, yeah, counting or not counting gang violence. Famous last words.

[Haley O'Ryan]

Beat drop.

[Interviewer/Host]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Just today. Yeah, you published a really fascinating interview with Hunter Kozak. It was like you mentioned the man who asked Charlie Kirk the last Question before he was. He was shot. I thought this was really a very Dale interesting and intimate peek into the kinds of harassment that people suffer when they're targeted by conspiracy theorists. Like, this guy was. Thought he was going there to, like, engage in, like, you know, discourse with Charlie Kirk and challenging him on some points. But, you know, within hours, you know, he was subjected to some, you know, really nasty trolling online. So, like, what exactly happened to him, like, in the hours and days after the shooting?

[Abner Hauge]

I think one of the lines that really struck to me was we asked him how soon did the harassment start? And he was checking on his newborn baby, who was in, like, the. Whatever the ward is called for, you know, newborns who need to be in care for. For a little while after they're born. And he looked at his phone really briefly, he told us, and he said, oh, there was already messages there. And he went to this hospital right after the shoot. Shooting. I thought that was one of the most disturbing things I've ever heard someone say. But, you know, somebody came up to his door pretending to be a reporter, and they didn't know what the hell they were doing. They didn't know what the hell to do once they'd finally, you know, knocked on his door and opened it. He just got all of the kinds of harassment that you'd expect, you know, doxing harassment, people following him. There was somebody associated with the Turning Point chapter on the UVU campus. Even who. Who was harassing him. He didn't go into much detail about it. I don't think he wanted us to name the person, but that's what he told us. But, yeah, people looked at him funny and, you know, imagine seeing somebody get shot in front of you and then having to deal not only with the trauma of that, but the trauma of people saying you were involved. I mean, that's got. That's a very complicated psychological problem to untamed. You know, I think more than anything, the way this affected this poor man was he didn't get to grieve properly.

[Haley O'Ryan]

He was like a new dad, and he had two children under one. The day that Kirk was shot, and his firstborn turned one, like, two days later, and he said he totally forgot about it. And then his newborn was in the intensive care unit. And he said he was just basically describing the mental breakdown that he was going through during this, like, week, this first week. And then, like, school starts back up, because he goes immediately to school, because he just said he needed, like, the human interaction as he's, like, going through this trauma. And like, he said he had some really great teachers, but then a lot of teachers were just like, they didn't even say anything. They didn't act like there was just like a school shooting on campus and we're just like, we're just gonna go right back in class, like. And he kind of had to push his way to get like, mental health care from the school, which is just like, you would think in this day and age with so many fucking school shootings, we would maybe have a little bit of. Better handle this by now, but guess not.

[Abner Hauge]

Yeah, he told us that he went into his. He's a math major, right? So he went into his non Euclidean geometry class that he skipped the previous week to go ask this question of Charlie Kirk. And the professor just says, oh, all right, well, let's move on to the lesson. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And he just kind of goes, well, what the man? Like, do I get anything for this? Do I get any kind of recognition for this? And he said two months later, he asked this professor for an accommodation. And. And the professor says, oh, yeah, well, considering what you went through. And he just had this moment where he goes, oh, well, so you did know that that was me who was there talking to him when he got shot.

[Travis View]

You.

[Abner Hauge]

And I mean, I think the thing that we as human beings. Again, I'm. I'm going to therapy, so I have to talk about my therapist all the time.

[Jake]

Man, I get my mail there.

[Abner Hauge]

Yeah, yeah. No, it. But the thing that my therapist told me, we have this deep need as human beings to have our experiences reflected back to us by other people. And when you kind of see that as a filter for how people grieve, how people do and don't handle these kinds of situations, it makes sense, right?

[Haley O'Ryan]

Yeah. He literally said, like, some of the. Like, he's just formed so many friendships during this period because it was like people who actually, like, went to the effort to take that step to reach out, which he was like. He realized in this trauma that a lot of people are kind of scared to reach out to somebody who's experienced something because they don't know how to

[Abner Hauge]

process it and they don't want to think about it.

[Haley O'Ryan]

Yeah, they don't want to think about it.

[Jake]

They don't want to get dirty. Yeah.

[Haley O'Ryan]

And he did say that, like, one of the just moments that made him, like, basically just like such a human interaction that he had was that it was a guy that didn't know he was the person who asked the question and when he told him, he said, like, the empathy that the guy felt for him was just. It impacted him so much. Cause he needed to know that, like other people understood that it was like a fucked up situation. He's not just a character, you know, he's a person.

[Interviewer/Host]

I mean, this is something else I think you addressed in that interview. The strange distancing effect that happens when people create content about conspiracy theories that involve real people. Like, you shouldn't be shocked if you accuse someone of being complicit in the murder, that they're going to suffer some sort of harassment online. That's just a serious accusation. But these people, they treat everything online as if it's just a fiction just playing dolls, you know?

[Abner Hauge]

Right. They do. And I think a lot of it is a serious mental health thing. Like, a lot of these people aren't very grounded in reality. These conspiracy theorists and conspiracy theory consumers, they feel like it's a quick way to get a psychological need met to have other people say, hey, this is how the world really is. You know, here's how the world works. I've got the secret secrets. I can tell you what's really going on. And so you don't feel as not in control. You don't feel as uncertain about everything. Right. And when you have that kind of fix, it's like, you know, talking to a chatbot. You know, it's not a real human being. It can't feel what you feel. And so what you get is something that flattens everything to just the two senses of your eyes and your ears. And if you step out into the real world without really being grounded, that's kind of all you have is just this perverted sense of reality.

[Interviewer/Host]

Speaking of innocent people who are targeted with conspiracy theories, there's another incident involving a conspiracy theory that I guess Candace Owens calls the Maroon Shirt Boys. Can you tell us what this is about?

[Haley O'Ryan]

So I watch too much Candace Owens, unfortunately, and she did have a conspiracy about cause Robinson changed his shirt and his shirt was like maroon that he changed into. And so basically everybody that is wearing every piece of the set in the moment that Kirk died has been baked into oblivion. So everybody wearing a red shirt that day has been accused in some way of being in on the plot. And there is even a conspiracy that they were all in on it. So, yeah, that's kind of the basis of it.

[Travis View]

I see. You like to help Tyler Robinson get away, I guess, or obscure who the real killer was. Something like this. I see.

[Interviewer/Host]

Yeah, I see. So like, people all Donning V for Vendetta masks or something to make themselves indistinguishable and anonymous. Except it's maroon shirts.

[Travis View]

Yeah, just a really crazy disguise. A maroon shirt. It's really impossible to tell.

[Julian Field]

Well, you can go stealth. If you approach a group of people with the same color shirt, you go stealth.

[Abner Hauge]

Yeah, it's like faction armor and fallout or something.

[Interviewer/Host]

You mentioned you also discussed someone who got caught up in this bizarre conspiracy theory. There was a man named Adam Bartholomew whose teenage son was branded one of these suspicious maroon shirt boys. So what happened there?

[Abner Hauge]

So Adam Bartholomew is this guy who's, you know, I think he works at a car dealership or something in his day job, but he works with and for some, I think, Utah based right wing media outlet, he goes to different kinds of protests, you know, more left wing ones. Like the Chop Chaz back in Seattle in 2020. He told me he was there. He goes to like a bunch of no Kings protests and he just livestreams them and he talks a lot to the protesters there. I didn't really view much of his streams personally, but my sense is he's a little bit more respectful than the usual gacha guys that, you know, go and do this kind of idiocy. Right. But he was there that day. He's filmed about an hour and nine minutes, I think he said, of the direct aftermath of Kirk's murder and just, you know, everybody scrambling around the UVU campus after that. And his son was there with him. His son was wearing a maroon shirt, just happened to be wearing a long sleeve maroon shirt because his dad said, hey, we don't want you to get sunburned. And that's just what happened to be in his closet. Closet. So Candace Owens put him on her show three times, put his face on her show three times, and he got the kind of harassment that you'd predict. What Bartholomew told me was, you know, the whole family got doxed and harassed and even people at his son's high school were accusing this poor kid of killing Kirk Bartholomew told me that recently, maybe about a month and a half before we talked to him, there was this video his son showed him on Facebook that was like, you know, kind of a game of telephone. This one guy recorded a thing, made content of it. But the original video was from some creator on Twitter who went and looked at his son's high school's website, found that this poor kid had gotten some kind of accolade for theater and then said, aha, this guy's a crisis actor. Here's the primary proof so that it's ongoing to this day. And I mean, this is a guy who was and still is kind of an Alex Jones fan and an Alex Jones defender, which I thought was really disturbing and fascinating. You know, this was a guy who told me, well, yeah, I used to be a big Alex Jones fan. And I still think that the billion dollar judgment for Sandy Hook is too much. But I can kind of sympathize now with how all these, the Sandy Hook families feel.

[Interviewer/Host]

It's like these, these people, you don't think, like, yeah, the, the targets of these conspiracy theories are like real people. There's this bizarre empathy gap where it's like, oh, well, you know, if you're suspicious then, like, you know, then I can treat you however I like online. They can't wrap their heads around how, you know, how damaging and painful that is until they're the targets of it.

[Abner Hauge]

Yeah. And I mean, I think that's a lot of people. I think that's, you know, know it's an ugly thing to say and it's an ugly thing to think, but you know, how many of us are really thinking every day about genocide in the Congo, right? We don't confront problems and we don't think about problems until they affect us personally most of the time. And if we did go out of our way to confront problems that don't affect us, it could drive us mad. Like, I regularly talk to anti fascist researchers and they've told me, well, you know, I have all these friends who are like saying, me, oh, did you see this video from Gaza? Did you see that video from Gaza? Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And they'll go, dude, don't show me this stuff. I don't have time for this. I know it's horrible, I know it's happening, but if I keep looking at it, I'm going to go crazy. Because we've got to pick our battles. One human mind just doesn't have enough capacity for all of that right now.

[Interviewer/Host]

I'm also curious what you think about, I guess, the legacy of Charlie Kirk, because I, I already spoke about, like, what I think he really was. I think he was really an empty vessel who was willingly empty vessel who funneled him millions and millions of dollars through himself to build a big organization and push the agenda of whatever his donor said to. But, you know, there's an interesting online battle to try and, you know, shape what to make of his shortened life. Like, the admirers that you spoke to outside the hearing described Kirk as kind, non, Insulting and, like, devoted to open debate. And this is sort of the sort of the image that they're trying to shape for his legacy. Like, I mean, I can't imagine he was, you know, better than most how incredibly vicious this guy was. I mean, like, how. I mean, how sustainable do you think this sort of, this image shaping is going to be for Kirk's legacy?

[Abner Hauge]

So let me tell you just why do these people who were Kirk's admirers talk about them in these kind of vague terms? Right, yeah. Why do they always just say, oh, he was such a great debater, oh, he was such a impassioned orator, and he was just a defender of Christianity and he didn't insult people, he didn't do this. Which is all bullshit, right? You know, he was a vile, vicious bigot. But what do these people have now that he's dead? All they really have is the lies that Kirk used to sell himself to old right wingers with money. Because at the end of the day, that's the only thing that you can use in polite society to describe this man, are the lies he told about himself while he was alive. When we wrote our article in the aftermath of Kirk's shooting, we had a long discussion about what the title came, should be, and what we settled on was Violent Man Dies Violent Death, More Violence Follows. Which was the most accurate thing, in my opinion, that we could have settled on. I mean, at the end of the day, people who admire Charlie Kirk know damn well what his bigotry was, and they agree with it. And the kind of bigotry that he fomented during his life has no place in a decent society. And these people know that in their core, core, they know that there are millions of people in the United States who, if they said what they really think, to them, they'd be run the fuck out of town. And rightly so. So, you know, what kind of legacy can you leave when that's your, you know, the reality of your politics? But you want to present yourself as this, you know, kind of person who deserves to be part of civil society and this person who deserves all of this respect and accolades and to be this, you know, US historical figure. All you have is the lies. So, you know, what we got right after Charlie Kirk's death was really indicative of where things were going to go. Immediately after he died, his supporters went on this incredibly vicious witch hunt. They overextended their reach. They tried to get, and successfully got a lot of people fired just for saying something mean about the guy. Guy just for using their free speech. And it immediately backfired on them and Kirk became a laughingstock. I mean, have any of you heard the song that goes make her squirt like Charlie Kirk?

[Julian Field]

No.

[Jake]

Yeah.

[Abner Hauge]

No. This guy was a joke while he was alive. You know, what was it that Charlie Kerr actually did with his life? You know, like there's this mythology that he would go around and debating people, but what he was doing was he was putting on these political stunts where he would have all of these gotchas that would make his shareholders holders and his donors happy, where he would say, oh, here's the, you know, here's the snotty blue haired college lib that I'm going to humiliate publicly in front of you with my logic, facts and reason and all of that. You know, it was, it was completely asinine. And what he was doing behind the scenes was building a conservative youth organization which was basically just, let's put a bunch of kids in front of a camera and then get a bunch of old people to say, oh, all these youngsters love our ideas and our bigoted bullshit. You know, let's give this young whippersnapper Charlie Kirk a bunch of our fucking money. And they did. And the entire point of that was just, you know, grifting money off of this dying racist ideology. But you can't do that without consequences. So what Kirk's real legacy was was building Turning Point, which is essentially a front for a kind of older conservative, you know, media and propaganda outlet mill, but with a lot of young people in it. And a lot of the young people who would even put up with being part of Turning Point are Nazis who are smart enough to know that I get a lot of money and a lot of networking done out of this. So every single year I think that Turning Point has amer had America Fest. There was a parallel conference by a bunch of white national nationalists at another hotel a few blocks away. They'd have to kick people out constantly over racist remarks, over just Nazi behavior. And the entire thing was just, let's mine, you know, let's scrape all this money barnacles off of the dying old conservative whales corpse. And all the remorse around it were just these little groiper Nazi shitheads who were just feeding off of it. And of course, when you know, the Turning Point whale fight finally, you know, meets its untimely end, like what's taking his place is Nick Fuentes. Because of course it was always going to be Nick Fuentes. Charlie Kirk spent his entire adult life trying to balance the most extreme people on the right and corral them into turning points, stupid talking points, and keep them from going any further. And he'd have to make constant concessions, constantly appeal to them so that they would turn up and be these young, bright people in front of the camera so that he could make money. That's his legacy.

[Haley O'Ryan]

And, you know, I'm from Arizona, where Turning Point is headquartered. And we still have to deal with their horseshit because, like, a flood of money did come in after he died. Especially, like, merch sales. And, you know, a lot of politicians, like, in Texas did like these shows of, like, we're giving them a million dollars. And a lot of that blows back into Arizona politics. They really have absorbed the Arizona Republican Party, and it's just filled with the most worst vicious mass bigots imaginable. The Turning Point action COO, during the days of the preliminary hearing, was going on this racist tirade against a fellow Republican in the Arizona legislature because he's Asian, he's from Vietnam, and he literally, when the media reached out to him about it, about, like, how fucking racist he was being, he was like, well, I'm going through trauma. Cause it's Charlie's week because of the trial. Like, he's like, I'm being racist because I'm dealing with trauma right now. Right now, essentially. And it's like, that's. That's what I view the legacy of Turning Point USA is that it's just like a gathering of the worst bigots in your state, in your school, in your church network, little things in the community that they have absorbed. And in Arizona, I don't think it's shocking that, like, one of the most violent incidents from a Turning Point USA employee, where one of them literally gay bashed a queer professor at Arizona State University and cracked his fucking head over open, happened here because Charlie was going on a tirade about how because they are in the drag community, they are a pedophile. And it's like after that attack happened and that Turning Point employee admitted guilt, Charlie was still doubling down on his social media and on their professor watch list that that professor's a pedophile, further putting their fucking life, you know, at risk, in my opinion. And that's so common here because the. All the Turning Point people, they fled to Arizona to make their fucking careers off of their little influence network. And they want to work at the big headquarters they have in Phoenix that's been expanding every year since the 12 years they've been around. And they have that big America Fest here at our convention center where every fucking asshole in right wing media comes here and films content and you can always tell when it's happening because like when they're going through the airports, they're complaining about the fucking brown people that they see some of them go down to the border and go harass who they can down there, the humanitarian groups. So that's kind of what I view. Charlie Kirk's legacy. I spit on his legacy. There's a reason that Erica will not share where his grave is because she knows that it would become the biggest fucking urinal in this country. So that's my opinion of him.

[Julian Field]

Yes, sir.

[Interviewer/Host]

Well, the big top for this particular circus isn't coming down anytime soon. The pre trial hearings for Robinson's case are set to resume on September 1st. And of course Left coast right watch will be there. Where can people go to assist and support your coverage?

[Abner Hauge]

Yeah, so the hearings closing arguments are going to be happening starting September 1st. We're going to be there come hell or high water. I'll walk across the desert singing the Fallout, New Vegas, the like soundtrack or whatever if I have to to get there. But we are launching a fundraiser. Nudge, nudge, wink, wink. If anybody wants to help us get out there, I'm sure there will be a link to that in the episode description and all that. Yeah. So what we're expecting to happen is the closing arguments and we may expect to hear Tyler Robinson enter his plea. I'm not sure personally if that will happen or not this round, but we'll see.

[Jake]

Keep it tuned to LCR CRW for future updates.

[Interviewer/Host]

All right.

[Jake]

And stay right here with lcrw.

[Julian Field]

Okay.

[Jake]

The watch.

[Abner Hauge]

Oh, that's so good. We're using that.

[Jake]

Wait, that's so good. Wait, no, you. Yeah, I'll do it better for you later.

[Abner Hauge]

Thank you.

[Interviewer/Host]

Abner. Haley, thank you so much for. Yeah, again, braving the, you know, the heat and the chaos and the ugliness that's going on outside because. Yeah, like I said, I think, I think this kind of on the ground coverage, it's something you just don't get with a lot of mainstream sources. And it's something that's really, really valuable to have like a real full perspective of what this trial is doing and sort of like how these bad faith actors are trying to exploit it.

[Abner Hauge]

Well, thank you for letting us reflect our experience back onto other human beings.

[Haley O'Ryan]

Yeah, thanks for letting me rage. Our pleasure.

[Jake]

Always a safe space for that. Thanks for listening to another episode of the QAA podcast. You can go to patreon patreon.comqaa and subscribe for 5 bucks a month to get a whole second premium episode for every regular episode, plus access to our entire archive of premium episodes. For everything else, we've got a website, qaapodcast.com listener until next week. May the deep dish bless you and keep.

[Haley O'Ryan]

We have auto queued content based on your preferences.

[Abner Hauge]

Hey, Jack.

[Julian Field]

Hey.

[Travis View]

Hey.

[Julian Field]

How are you?

[Abner Hauge]

Not too bad.

[Julian Field]

How you doing, man?

[Travis View]

Hey. Good.

[Interviewer/Host]

How are you?

[Abner Hauge]

Not too bad. Abner Hauge, Left Coast Riot Watch. Okay. I just had a quick. Oh, Antifa.

[Haley O'Ryan]

Cool.

[Abner Hauge]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So a lot of people online I've been seeing or criticizing y' all for, like, users using Charlie Kurt's account to broadcast the trial. How do you feel about that?

[Interviewer/Host]

Well, I mean, you guys murdered him, so you. You might as well have to watch it on his. On his feet.

[Abner Hauge]

Yeah, well, I've seen some statements from Turning Point that said we're not going to use his account for other things.

[Interviewer/Host]

Well, I can imagine why Antifa would

[Jake]

be upset because we're using his account to expose your crimes.

[Abner Hauge]

Well, no, what I mean is, like.

[Jake]

No, I mean, the Belichick cow, which was written on the bullets is the anthem of Antifa.

[Abner Hauge]

Well, it's an old one, sure. Yeah. I mean. And no, what I'm saying is that it feels a little bit ghoulish to use a dead man's account to stream his own.

[Interviewer/Host]

So you guys kill somebody and then

[Jake]

you criticize people for using his account, but you don't.

[Travis View]

You're not upset.

[Jake]

So he used the Antiva anthem.

[Interviewer/Host]

He said, hey, fascist, catch.

[Jake]

But which are your slogans? Which are.

[Interviewer/Host]

Which is your.

[Abner Hauge]

I've never said.

[Jake]

Which is your.

[Interviewer/Host]

An.

[Abner Hauge]

Never said that.

[Interviewer/Host]

And yet.

[Abner Hauge]

But.

[Interviewer/Host]

But that's not foolish.

[Jake]

But that's. That's no problem.

[Interviewer/Host]

You don't have any problem with that.

[Jake]

You just have a problem.

[Abner Hauge]

People tweeting about it. No, no, no. I'm just saying that, like, that feels pretty ghoulish.

[Jake]

So do you feel that murdering Charlie is ghoulish?

[Abner Hauge]

Oh, totally. Yeah. That's horrible.

[Jake]

Okay, so.

[Interviewer/Host]

So do you feel that what Tyler

[Jake]

Robinson did is g. Yeah, of course.

[Interviewer/Host]

Okay.

[Abner Hauge]

I mean, no, that's a horrible thing to do. The guy's, like, dead. He's got two horses.

[Julian Field]

Not like that.

[Jake]

He is dead.

[Abner Hauge]

No. Yeah. You know, California verbal tape, man. You know how it is.

[Jake]

Well, we are in court.

[Abner Hauge]

Ain't we, though? No, but. Yeah, that was my question.

[Interviewer/Host]

Thank you for.

[Abner Hauge]

Thank you for your time. Yeah. Thank you for your time. Thank you, Jack. Thanks anyways.

[Interviewer/Host]

Are you good?