← The David Pakman Show
The David Pakman Show
9/11/25: Charlie Kirk assassinated and all hell breaks loose
00:54:19
-- On the Show: -- Charlie Kirk is assassinated at a Utah college event and his death sparks fears of escalating political violence -- The FBI under Kash Patel mishandles the Charlie Kirk shooter case, announcing a suspect was in custody and then...
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- [00:08]
David Pakman
Charlie Kirk from Turning Point USA was assassinated yesterday in plain sight of thousands of people and tens of millions, hundreds of millions because of the video recordings. This was during an event at a Utah college during which he debates college students. As of this moment, the killer who shot him from a rooftop several hundred feet away is still on the loose. We're going to talk more about that today. The Trump FBI under Cash Patel appears to have completely botched the investigation. We're going to get to that. MAGA is declaring open season on liberals and the left, even though as of this moment, we know nothing about the shooter and motivations or anything about that. We're going to get to that as well. But we really have to start with the core basic takeaways here. And I really struggled with how to sort of arrange today's show. There are so many different angles and elements to this story. Gun violence, society, this debate, bro, culture. I'm doing the best I can. And I think the place to start here is aside from being disgusted and appalled and terrified by this, this does feel like a potential inflection point in this country and a bad one. I don't see violence declining after this incident. I hate to say that. Now, I have heard from some, well, you know, Charlie Kirk said horrible things. Charlie Kirk said some gun deaths are an acceptable price to pay for having the Second Amendment, which he felt was so important. That's a boneheaded thing to say, but I want to be better than that. I don't hear that and go, cool, well, I'm glad he got shot. And fortunately, I'm not really seeing that. I know that the MAGA right, is activated and said they're cheering his death. I'm not seeing that. Now, of course, anecdotally, you see everything if you go on Twitter, if you go on Reddit, but I am seeing widespread condemnation of this. If you support ending gun violence, you can't support any instances of it. You can't say, well, there are some instances of gun violence that feel morally justified. There are some instances of gun violence that feel pleasingly ironic. Now, sorry, guys, you can't. If you want to get to an end point of no more gun violence, then we have to condemn every single instance of it, even if the victims are those who advocated for more guns in more places. You don't have to happy be happy that he died. However, to recognize that this is the sort of violence that MAGA has been inciting and fomenting for years and that the culture of guns that was supported by. By Kirk is part of the problem. But you can't say we're moving towards a solution when two little kids have lost their dad. You just can't. We also don't want Charlie Kirk to become some kind of martyr. That then leads to more people encouraging this type of violence. And I'm going to show you some disgusting videos of MAGA people doing exactly that, which then leads to more people getting guns and using them. Charlie Kirk said the Civil Rights act of 1964 was a mistake. That's disgusting. Charlie Kirk said when he gets on a plane and he sees a black pilot, he's worried that it's not really someone who's there because they're qualified, but it's someone who's there because they're black. Here is the clip, the famous clip of Kirk talking about the second amendment and some gun deaths. I think it's worth to have a cost of unfortunately some gun deaths every single year so that we can have the second amendment to protect our other God given rights. That is a prudent deal. It is rational. Nobody talks like this. They live in a complete alternate universe. So then how do you reduce. Very simple. People say, oh, Charlie, how do you stop school shootings? I don't know. You know, I wonder if someone in the audience had said, by the way, people cheered that, right? If someone had stood up on that day and said to Charlie Kirk, you know, on September 10, 2025, you will be the cost. A shooter will kill you. That's worth it, right? By your standards, that's worth it. I don't know what he would have said, but I don't care. The world doesn't improve when assassins kill people. And he is now one of those truly tragic deaths. So it can simultaneously be true that Kirk believed and said some disgusting things and that there is no place for violence of this kind and that we have to condemn it. Ezra Klein had a good tweet about this where he said, quote, in the last few years, we've seen the plot to kidnap Gretchen Whitmer, the storming of the Capitol and pipe bombs left at the RNC and dnc. The break in to kidnap Nancy Pelosi and the brutal, I assume he meant attack on Paul Pelosi. Multiple assassination attempts against Trump. The assassination of Minnesota House Speaker Melissa Hortman and her husband, and the shooting of State Senator John Hoffman and his wife. Luigi Mangione's assassination of Brian Thompson. The assassination of Charlie Kirk. Political violence is contagious. It is spreading. It is not confined to one side or belief system. It should terrify us all. The foundation of a free society is the ability to participate in it without fear of violence. Political violence is always an attack against us all. You have to be so blind not to see that. Now, that's true. It does happen on both sides, but it's happening much more on one side. And we're going to talk about that as well, because that's become a part of this story. So unfortunately, I wish it were different. I wish I could say this will be the awakening. We will now all see what needs to be done and that the scourge of political violence must end. I would be lying to you if I said that. I think unfortunately, and what we're seeing in the first however many hours, it's been 18 hours, something like that, this will deepen polarization. This will probably empower authoritarians like Trump. And I am afraid that it will fuel a dangerous cycle of more of these events. This is bad in all ways. Even if you don't personally care about Charlie Kirk himself being gone, this is still a disgusting tragedy. And what an indictment on the culture that has developed here in the United States of America. Now let's talk about the investigation into the killer of Charlie Kirk. The FBI is in shambles and the FBI, of course, is led by a guy named Cash Patel. When you put a 45 year old conspiracy theorist in charge of the FBI, it's not likely that good things are going to happen. And this is one of those stories that I hope is outdated by the time we publish this. I hope that by the time you hear me saying these words, they've gotten the guy. Cash Patel put out a tweet yesterday where he said, quote, the subject for the horrific shooting today that took the life of Charlie Kirk is now in custody. Thank you to the local and state authorities in Utah for your partnership with the FBI. We will provide updates when able and not that much later. We realized that this wasn't true and that the director of the FBI put out a statement that was completely wrong. And Cash Patel updated it and said the subject in custody has been released. After an interrogation by law enforcement, our investigation continues and we will continue to release information in interest of transparency. Let me translate that. They got it wrong. They didn't have anybody. They didn't have anybody. Now, in the aftermath of this video has come out where you do see the alleged shooter leaving a rooftop nearby. The shooter has been with. With basically with CCTV and surveillance footage, they've built the trajectory of and path of the shooter before and to a degree after the shooting. But what a mistake by the FBI. And there are real questions here about FBI leadership. Now, we did hear from Beau Mason, the commissioner of the Utah Department of Public Safety, who said we really don't have that much information. This is what, this is what we Knew yesterday around 7:00pm we.
- [08:45]
Beau Mason
Did. You want to talk about what we know there? Yeah. The only information we have on, on the suspect, the possible shooter, is taken from closed circuit TV here on campus. We do have that. We're analyzing it, but it is security camera footage. So you can, you can kind of guess what the, what the quality of that is. But we do know dressed in all dark clothing, but we don't have a much better description other than that.
- [09:12]
David Pakman
And then we also heard last night about a little more of what the FBI says. And remember, this is hours after Kash Patel said, we've got the suspect in.
- [09:22]
Beau Mason
Custody and we all lost the no matter what side of the political aisle you're on table, we lost something important in America today. But the case goes on, the investigation goes on. There's a lot of piecing of evidence together. We don't have a shooter tonight. We have a couple leads, a couple of people that were released that probably aren't the shooter. There's a couple hot leads. There's a little bit of foreign intelligence and I think over the next couple of days we will learn a lot more and hopefully we will bring to justice the evil person who did what they did to Charlie today.
- [09:52]
David Pakman
Raising a lot of questions. The mention there of foreign intelligence and I'm not even going to speculate on that. You know, I have a bunch of personal friends who have theories about this foreign intelligence element of it. I'm not going to fuel the fire with any unproven stuff. So real questions here about what the hell is going on at the FBI. And unfortunately, you know, there is very good investigative work being done on the ground by FBI agents as well as local police. In Utah, the leadership of the FBI under Cash Patel and Dan Bongino. Just exactly what you would expect if you put a couple of podcaster and conspiracy theorist types in charge of the Federal Bureau of Investigations. Donald Trump put out a disgusting message about the death of Charlie Kirk. You know, I was worried when this happened. We are now going to see these MAGA types declare open season on the left. Even at this point, we don't even know anything about the shooter or the motivations of the shooter. Doesn't matter if the motivations were left wing or right wing. I will condemn it exactly the same way, no matter what. But there was a fear I had that, oh, this is now going to become a tit for tat. And unfortunately, Donald Trump went on TV and absent any information at all about the situation, rather than dampening down the rhetoric and saying, this is a time for us to come together. Trump says, the radical left are the cause of this, and we are going to go after them. It comes from the top, and this is going in a very dangerous direction.
- [11:34]
Donald Trump
For years, those on the radical left have compared wonderful Americans like Charlie to Nazis and the world, world's worst mass murderers and criminals. This kind of rhetoric is directly responsible for the terrorism that we're seeing in our country today, and it must stop right now. My administration will find each and every one of those who contributed to this atrocity.
- [12:02]
David Pakman
Now, what does that even mean? What is Trump alluding to? People who contributed to it? What?
- [12:09]
Donald Trump
And to other political violence, including the organizations that fund it and support it, as well as those who go after our judges, law enforcement officials, and everyone else who brings order to our country. From the attack on my life in Butler, Pennsylvania, last year, which killed a husband and father, to the attacks on ICE agents, to the vicious murder of a health care executive in the street streets of New York, to the shooting of House Majority Leader Steve Scalise and three others, radical left political violence has hurt too many innocent people and taken too many lives. Tonight, I ask all Americans to commit themselves to the American values for which Charlie Kirk lived and died.
- [12:56]
David Pakman
Well, you know, a lot of people don't agree with those values. Right? His. A lot of people find its values disgusting. What we need to rally around is that people shouldn't be killed for their political opinions, that no developed Western country can point and say, things are going fine. But by the way, this is a feature of our society, and this statement from Trump is not going to reduce the temperature. You know, there is a moment that we're talking about this week that I believe is Trump's most presidential moment that he's ever had. This is one of his least presidential moments. And case in point, we are now seeing MAGA people announce, we're coming for the liberals. We are coming for anyone we think is a part of this. And the reality is that Trump himself and Charlie Kirk contributed to this environment. They didn't. Trump didn't deserve to be shot. Charlie Kirk didn't deserve to be killed. I deplore any of that violence. But when you look and say, see that? Donald Trump is starting to repeat the exact same sorts of incitements and agitations that led to the January 20, January 6, 2021 riot and insurrection. And you see that this is the rhetoric that caused the problem in the first place. You know that this is not going in a good direction. Now I do want to mention some of you wrote to me and said, David, this Trump video seems to be AI. There's a weird moment where something really strange happens with Trump's hand and shirt. There is so much to talk about that I'm not going to devote an entire segment to that. What I've been told is that it's a morph cut is what was done. It's not that the entire video is AI. This really is Trump, but there was something done called the morph cut. Anyway, it really is beyond the scope of of what's important here to discuss. But it's not lost on me that that is a topic of discussion with this video. I'm more concerned with the substance of it and the substance is completely disgusting. So after the break, are we finally ready to deal with the guns? What is the reaction from the MAGA people to this assassination? It's not good. And a lot more I'm really glad you're with us today. We're going to take a quick break and be right back. Let's be honest, when it is hot outside, the way it's been, bad underwear makes it really much worse. Our sponsor, Sheath Underwear has completely rethought how men's underwear should function in the heat. Sheath's boxer briefs are designed with a dual pouch system keeping everything in place separate ventilated. This means less sweat, less sticking, less of that awkward adjusting. And if you're not using the pouches, the fabric alone is a game changer. Soft, stretchy, moisture wicking now available in cooling materials like bamboo and mesh. I wear these at the gym during long work days, especially when I know it's going to be hot outside. It just keeps you dry and comfortable and they've really raised my expectations about how good good underwear can be. Wearing sheath is like having built in climate control for the lower half of your body. Everything stays cool, dry and and where it should be. If you've never thought much about your underwear, this is the one brand that might make you start. Go to sheath underwear.com/pacman. Use the code PACMAN for 20% off. The link is in the description. Are we finally ready to deal with the guns? You know, every time we have a shooting, school shooting, mass shooting, assassination, every time we hear the Same thing from some people. Now isn't the time. It's too soon to talk about the guns. Talking about the guns politicizes things. We shouldn't talk about how easy it is to get guns. We shouldn't talk about how a person with a firearm can end a human life from hundreds of feet away in a matter of seconds. Has happened to Charlie Kirk yesterday and then nothing happens. We wait until the headlines fade and the vigils are over and some of the shock wears off. Although that's going to be different when there's video floating around of your assassination. We'll talk about the impact of that a little bit later and then the conversation is gone. Until next time. Charlie Kirk has been assassinated in broad daylight at a public event. And if now is too soon, tell me when the right time is. Because if after this happens, we can't talk about the guns. If after the Sandy hook shooting of 2012, we can't even get universal background checks passed. I don't know, guys, I don't know. We keep waiting and all we can count on is that there's going to be a next time. Now, this is not a story about hunting. You can talk about hunting, but this is not a story about hunting. This is not a story about self defense in the abstract. This is not a philosophical debate over the second Amendment. This is simply, will political violence become a bigger part of public life in the United States of America where disagreements rather than being settled at the ballot box and through activism are settled with bullets? Or are we finally going to talk about the damn guns now, every single time this happens, and I'm going to be totally upfront with you, I have no interest in hiding anything as of the moment I'm recording this, we don't know the identity of the shooter. We don't know the gun that was used. We don't know how it was obtained. We don't know any of that. And every single time this happens, and I give you a list of 10 to 12 things that we could do to reduce gun violence. The common reaction from the more guns in more places people is, you know, David, in this particular case, the background checks wouldn't have changed anything. Or you know, David, in this particular scenario, a red flag law to take guns away from people who are psychiatrically unstable wouldn't have made a difference because nobody knew that the shooter was psychiatrically unstable. As I've said before, no one changed will prevent every shooting. But we know that this level of, of, of shootings isn't necessary because many Other countries don't have this level of shootings. Even some countries that the gun ownership rate is relatively high. Switzerland is often mentioned. Well, a lot of the people in Switzerland that own guns don't have them at home. A lot of them that do. You know, it's a rifle that's up on a wall and it's not something anyone would even think of culturally, of saying, I might solve a personal problem with the gun. So the point here is no one rule, no one law will solve everything. And mental health and other issues are factors. But we've still got to talk about the damn guns. We have to admit that the system is broken, right? I mean, in this case, okay, it's a shooter with a long range weapon, takes aim from a distance, ends a life before anybody could react. Charlie Kirk had security. It's not really a security failure. It's a society where the tools of assassination are unfortunately, in some places easier to get than mental health care. Okay, so that's an aspect of it, the violent rhetoric, right? There is a cultural issue here. When political leaders, media figures, Trump himself, influencers, when there is this environment of talking about how great gun ownership is, alluding to violence, it starts to become stochastic terrorism, something we've talked about before. It's more than just riling up the base. You're creating the conditions for people to see killing as justified. We have to get to a point where action is really demanded. And I don't know if the country is there yet. Obviously, universal background checks, of course, limits on weapons designed for mass killing. If you're into hunting, well, then focus on the weapons that make sense for hunting. But we need real enforcement here on what's available. The thoughts and prayers stuff and, you know, from, from the politicians taking NRA blood money. We just can't do it. And then we also have to answer the question, is this a country where you can give your political views and be safe? And there are lots of countries where that's the case. I know more people than I would like to admit who have moved to the uk, Italy, Spain, Colombia and other places and they go Denmark. And they say, you know, there's culture shock, there's language issues, there's immigration issues, there's work issues. But when I drop my kid off at daycare, it doesn't even enter my mind that somehow a gun might end up here, they might end up being targeted. And that is a pretty important difference between what's going on in the United States and what's going on elsewhere. You know, Here we're talking about bulletproof backpacks and active shooter drills. And I know people personally, nine, ten families, couples that have gone to places and they go. You don't know the relief that it is when I just don't have to think about the school shootings and the guns. And I just don't have to think about it. I don't have to wonder, does, does little Sally's new friend have guns in her house? Do I have to check with the parents? Do you own firearms? And that, that is a really big source of relief. So the whole it's too soon thing has gotten us where we are. And I've already addressed the deplorable political views of Charlie Kirk. That's not what this is about. And every time we delay after a tragedy, it's just an invitation, the next one. So we shouldn't wait, we shouldn't pretend that mourning and prevention and, and all of it have to happen in separate seasons. We can try to stop the next one while we are still mourning this one. We can grieve what happened to Charlie Kirk and decide we don't want to have a country that's like this anymore. I don't know that we're going to do it. And one of the aspects of this that I think is important to talk about is the public nature of this assassination. Public assassinations aren't new. What has changed is how we experience them, how we process them, and how they are replayed. The killing of Charlie Kirk was not just another headline because within minutes of that assassination, there was video. It wasn't just one shaky clip from far away, multiple angles, some of them in gruesome, gory, zoomed in detail. The sound, the chaos, it was captured. I mean, I think these phones are high definition at this point, right? And uploaded globally almost instantly. And it was not just people going to search for it. I mean, the clips were showing up on Twitter algorithmically in the for you feed without warning. A gruesome assassination with a, a long gun from hundreds of feet away. The closest recent comparison in the US Was the attempted assassination of Trump. Now, that was also shocking because it happened in public. It happened in full view of cameras. Trump survived. And with Charlie Kirk, the footage shows the moment that he was killed. And for a lot of people, it was the first thing they saw when they heard the news. This is a big difference from how earlier generations experience these moments. You know, we go back to the JFK assassination in 1963. It was captured, right? There's this famous Zapruder Film. The footage is grainy, the footage is blurry. Most Americans didn't see it right away. It wasn't playing endlessly on a device in their pocket. We now, with Charlie Kirk, have this clear, close up, instantly accessible footage. And it's not just live on tv, it's on Tik tok, it's on Instagram group chats, before the body was even moved, before we even knew he was dead. The speed of this really changes things. And the real time video kind of collapses the gap between the event and the reaction. And so it also, aside from being sort of traumatizing to see these videos. You get an instant flood of hot takes, misinformation, conspiracy theories. There's no cooling off period. There's no time for verification. There is this raw shock. It's immediately politicized. It's reframed by whoever can get their version out first. And it also creates a generational split in how these events are experienced. You know, older Americans remember a time where it was rare to see this sort of gruesome, gory, real violence. And it often was days removed from the event. For younger people, the footage is often the first thing they see. After the news alert I was on, I'm in a bunch of different groups and in a men's group that I'm in, messages were going back and forth about how the ones with kids in middle school and high school obviously, but even middle school they were saying the videos are every. Are what's being watched in my kids middle school right now. Every kid is crowded around a smartphone watching a Charlie Kirk die on screen. That's not good for society. That is a level of exposure and a speed of exposure that is new. It didn't exist even 15 years ago. And so as a society, we need to think about what is the public nature of these killings do. And it does make it. Gun violence is a problem and it's a major problem in and of itself. But the speed with which the videos are now spreading makes this very different from just an issue of gun violence. It is right there in front of you. It's, it's intimate almost in a, in a way. The person on camera is someone you've seen and heard before and now you're watching their final moment. I mean, it's almost unimaginable. And this is part of why the discussion around Charlie Kirk's killing has gone so mainstream. Now, I'm going to talk to you in a moment about the fact that Charlie Kirk's shooting wasn't even close to the only shooting yesterday in the United States, not even remotely close. This is not the Charlie Kirk shooting is not more important than the school shooting that happened yesterday or the mass shooting in a random public place. But it's the combination of the victim is a known person, but the images and the video and the audio are saturating every corner of the Internet. And that is a new thing. We are, Society is changing right now about that. And so we have not only the assassination itself covered by the news cycle. Our experience of watching it becomes part of the news cycle. And so it's. We don't know. But it's totally plausible that Charlie Kirk's assassination will be remembered as one of these major assassinations, a major media event, because of the widespread video footage and availability, Availability of that audio and video. So I don't have the answer as to how this is going to affect society. I doubt it's going to be good. But this is the reality now of public assassinations in the smartphone era. And you know, what happened yesterday is also a reminder of the fact that the same thing almost happened to Trump, right by a couple of inches. It didn't happen to Donald Trump. But let's also now contextualize this because there were a lot of shootings yesterday. If you turned on cable news yesterday or looked at your smartphone or went near the political corners of social media, you saw wall to, wall to ceiling to floor coverage of Charlie Kirk's death. Every outlet, every panel, every pundit, it is newsworthy when a high profile political figure is killed on camera at a sort of political event. But what barely broke through the noise is that while cameras were replaying the Charlie Kirk footage on a loop, there was another shooting at Evergreen High School in Colorado where a kid, a student, opened fire. Two students were shot, one in critical condition. Dozens of others ran for their lives. Police say the shooter then turned the gun on himself. Parents were texting kids. They were trying to get, is my kid okay? People were hiking through woods to get close to the school and it was an absolute and complete nightmare. Right in the backyard of Columbine, as one parent put it. They felt it was a matter of when and not if. That story didn't get a lot of coverage. It didn't get the live blog treatment. It didn't get hours of breaking news graphics. And what Charlie Kirk got, why not? Well, there was no dramatic broadcast, broadcast clip of the shooting. The victims weren't famous. It was in a sick and depraved way, just another school shooting, one in a long line that I guess we absorb without blinking now. Is that what happens now in the country? And, and in fact, there were many shootings yesterday. Charlie Kirk was shot and killed yesterday. But also there were shootings in, in Augusta, Georgia, Savannah, Georgia, Atlanta, Georgia, Toledo, Ohio. Three shootings in Baltimore, Maryland, one in Los Angeles, one in Detroit, Michigan, one in Durham, North Carolina, one in Brooklyn, one in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, one in St. Louis, Missouri, one in St. Joseph, Missouri, one in. One in Elkhart, Indiana, Orlando, Florida, Sacramento, California, Austin, Texas, St. Augustine, Florida, Heartland, Maine, Denver, Colorado, and about 10 others. OK, that was yesterday. And the one that got coverage was the Charlie Kirk one. This is not about downplaying the Charlie Kirk story. In fact, we're spending most of the show today talking about it. I'm not downplaying it. This is about media priorities, the way that news spreads. And it means that when a famous political figure is killed on camera, it becomes almost like this once in a generation tragedy. And then you've got wounded teenagers, a traumatized school one, two people killed at some of these other incidents. It's not even at the bottom of the screen. Like, it didn't. A lot of most of these shootings didn't even scroll by at the bottom while the coverage was of Charlie Kirk. So the ugly truth is, until we stop deciding which shootings matter based on whether the victim's a celebrity or there is video footage, the ones that don't fit the right criteria to be covered are just going to kind of evaporate into the background and any sense of urgency to stop them also will. So there's about 10 or 12 different issues here. The, the presence of cameras at some of these assassinations, the fact that we seem unable or unwilling to build the political will to actually do stuff to stop this and all of this other stuff. But just remember, every time you hear six hours of coverage about one shooting, almost certainly more shootings have happened during that time. And that's just what can you say? I've been tracking my family tree for a long time now, and the service I've always relied on is MyHeritage, which I started using long before they became a sponsor. Trusted by over 90 million users. MyHeritage makes it easy and fun to build your family tree with a range of powerful genealogy tools at your fingertips. One of my favorite features lets you quickly find new family members and add entire new branches to your tree. It's always a good time to sit down with my family, show them what I found. For example, the other day I found a scan of an immigration document from when my mother's uncle's aunt arrived at Ellis island, or this document from the US Canada border for my relative who was born in 1895. This is remarkable stuff and really interesting artifacts that are part of the puzzle of my family's past. MyHeritage gives you access to over 19 billion records like this, making it easier than ever for you to uncover amazing new pieces of your family's history. You can try my Heritage completely free for 14 days when you go to David pakman.com/myheritage. The link is in the description I was worried after the assassination of Charlie Kirk that there was going to be some sort of violent purge against the left declared by the MAGA people. And unfortunately it seems to be exactly what is going on. I start with Congresswoman Nancy Mace, whose very first words about this terrifying assassination was Democrats owned this. Now reporter Ryan Nobles followed up with her and said, well, what about Republicans owning the killing of the Democratic lawmakers in Minnesota? Nancy Mace didn't want to hear it. Take a listen.
- [33:56]
Nancy Mace
I'm going to say this. Democrats own what happened today. I am devastated. My kids have called panicking. They probably all the kids of every conservative in the country called panicking. Just because you speak your mind on an issue doesn't mean you get shot.
- [34:14]
Beau Mason
Then do.
- [34:15]
David Pakman
By that logic, do Republicans own the shooting of the two Democratic lawmakers in Minnesota? Isn't this on both sides?
- [34:22]
Nancy Mace
Are you kidding me?
- [34:23]
David Pakman
No, I'm asking.
- [34:24]
Nancy Mace
We don't know what condition Charlie Kirk is in right now. Some raging leftist lunatic put a bullet through his neck and you want to talk about Republicans right now?
- [34:33]
David Pakman
No, no, I'm asking.
- [34:34]
Nancy Mace
Not at all. You said the Democrats on but Democrats own this.
- [34:37]
David Pakman
But Democrats. She is a vile, vile woman. And of course she says there are things we don't even know about this. But that doesn't stop her from speculating about things we don't even know about this. Now you look at Twitter, our friends over at Midas Touch put together sort of a montage of all of the different reactions and they are vile and disgusting. Libs of TikTok said this is war. A guy named Joey Mannarino said the Democrat Party must be classified as a domestic terror organization and their members leaders treated accordingly. That's like saying kill the leaders of the Democratic Party. Brian Eastwood said Charlie Kirk getting shot is the shot heard around the country. I'm ready for civil war. You want to fight and you're going to get it. Other account, I don't want The National Guard sent to Democrat cities anymore. I want the Air Force sent. When Democrats lose elections they couldn't steal, they murder the people they were unable to defeat. There's the statement from Trump, of course, which was violent in of itself. They've declared war. There's no going back. There's no more words to be said. The only way this ends is the complete annihilation of the Democratic Party. Charlie Kirk being assassinated is the American Reichstag fire. It's time for a complete crackdown on the left. Every Democratic politician must be arrested and the party banned under rico. Every libtard commentator must be shut down. Stochastic terrorism. They caused this. It's time to bring the hammer down on the left. Okay, I'm not going to read all of them, but you see where this is going. And then chillingly, chillingly, this video, this video is in regards to Charlie, Kurt. And this video is for the fucking liberals.
- [36:20]
MAGA Supporter
It's war, motherfuckers.
- [36:21]
David Pakman
We're coming for you. We're coming for you. And spare me your self righteous lectures, I don't give a fuck.
- [36:28]
Beau Mason
We're coming for you.
- [36:31]
David Pakman
This is exactly, this is exactly what I feared was going to happen. And there are sort of two sides to this, right? On the one hand, there's a lot of people on the left who have made comments that don't really resonate with me about how Charlie Kirk deserved it. And listen, he wanted more guns in more places. Well, he got him and stuff like that. It's absolutely correct that Charlie Kirk said all that stuff. But I'm not going to stoop to their level by celebrating this death. And as someone who wants to end gun violence, we don't get any closer to doing that if we say we're against gun violence, but like in some cases it's justified. If the people want more guns in more places now, it's still a tragedy. But then the other side of this is that you've got these MAGA people that are taking this absolutely disgusting and dangerous approach. And when even Donald Trump joins in on it and says we're going to go after the radical left for their role in this entire thing going in a very bad direction. I've received about, take a look, couple dozen, I guess I would say, emails over the last 18 hours since this assassination took place from viewers saying, you know, I never seriously thought about leaving the country, but now I actually am. Now I know most of them won't do it. It's expensive, it's complicated, people's families are here but the sentiment that this is an inflection point and that this is going to send these MAGA people completely off the rails unfortunately seems to be plausible. And even over on Fox News, they're not exactly turning down the temperature. Jesse Watters on Fox News said that they are going to avenge Charlie Kirk's death. I can't think of a worse, less productive reaction to what took place, but this is what we expected.
- [38:22]
MAGA Supporter
Trump gets hit in the ear. Charlie gets shot dead. They came after Kavanaugh with a rifle to his neighborhood. They went after Musk's cars. They just shot two Jews outside the embassy. Think about it. Scalise got shot, barely survived. It's happening. Got trans shooters, you got riots in L. A. They are at war with us. Whether we want to accept it or not, they are at war with us.
- [38:52]
David Pakman
Now, of course, you've got trans shooters. Trans shooters are underrepresented among all shooters relative to their share of the population. Like, why is he even mentioning that? This is already sick. You've got riots in L. A. The mayor and the governor said we don't need federal troops in L. A. Trump is the one who escalated the problem in L. A, so he's building scaffolding here that is extremely shaky.
- [39:15]
MAGA Supporter
What are we going to do about it? How much political violence are we going to tolerate? And that's the question we're just going to have to ask ourselves now. Charlie would want us to put as much pressure on these people as possible. Dana Nailed it. This is unacceptable and has to stop and it has to stop now. And everybody's accountable. And we're watching what they're saying on television. And who's saying what? The politicians, the media, and all these rats out there. This can never happen again. It ends now. Greg's right again. This is a turning point and we know which direction we're going to.
- [39:57]
David Pakman
I don't see how what Jesse Watters is saying and what Trump said and what the guy whose video just said saying, we're coming for the liberals. I don't see how that ends. This talk of avenging is kind of how we got here in the first place. We don't reduce violence by doing more violence. That doesn't make any sense. The shooter must be found and brought to justice. I hope by the time you listen to this clip, they've gotten the shooter. As of this moment, they don't. They haven't even released information about him. But the idea of avenging and adding more violence to this tragedy is just going to make it Worse. And even in this wet dream they have where they get rid of all the liberals by one way or another, however they do it, do they even think that will end the violence? Because if they somehow in this disgusting genocidal way managed to get rid of all the liberals, they would obviously then just start turning the guns on each other over small differences. They would go, well, we got out the people we really disagreed with, but you're okay with abortion up until six weeks. Well, now I'm going after you. So the idea of more violence as a way to end this problem, we got to deal with the guns, deal with the mental health, deal with the cultures, a whole bunch of things we've got to deal with. But Jesse Waters, much like Trump and much like a lot of the people that have reacted to this, just fanning the flames, you know, I don't care who does political violence, I'm against it. Whether the motivations are that you do or don't like abortion, that you do or don't like gay people, that you do or don't support Ukraine or what, I don't care what your issue is, I'm against all of it. But I'm also against lying about the origins of it. And as we have studied deeply before, CSIS has the data, the Brookings Institute has the data, Reuters has the data. Unfortunately, the overwhelming political violence in this country comes from the right. But a streamer that I'm not super familiar with, but he's got a huge audience. A streamer that goes by the name asmongold in the wake of the Charlie Kirk assassination Yesterday said that 90% of the political violence in the United States is left wing. Take a listen. Necessarily a one sided thing. I think that in the last five years or so, especially since BLM, it's been a like 90% left wing thing. But that doesn't mean that the 10% right when people are right either. It's been a 90% left wing thing. Again, I'm against all of the political violence. If it turns out that the Kirk shooter was a leftist, I will denounce him and say this is sick. Prosecute him to the fullest extent of the law, lock him up and never let him see the light of day. If it's someone from the right, I will say the same thing. Of course, if prosecuted and found guilty, right. We don't just lock people up without due process. But the claim that 90% of political violence in the US is from the left couldn't be more wrong. You've got studies from the center for Strategic and International Studies, the Brookings Institution, Reuters. For decades the far right is overwhelmingly responsible for the majority of political violence. And especially if you just look at deadly attacks. You just look at deadly attacks. Now the 90% talking point, when you hear it, it comes from know cherry picking incidents, lumping like all protest related property damage as left wing violence and calling each an individual incident. You know this really weird stuff, mislabeling counter protest activity, ignoring right wing attacks. Like there's no sensible way you can get to that number. It also is usually leaning on a really vague definition of political violence. Like if a window is broken, is that political violence? Well, depending on which window breaks you count, you can start kind of messing with the numbers. This is not how serious researchers treat what is going on. And when you use a consistent definition, you look at the full picture, the numbers are really clear. The far right has committed way more political violence, caused way more deaths and posed the greater threat in recent American history going back decades. And so I want to end all of this stuff, but lying about what's going on isn't going to help us get there. And just as much as I've said that the left shouldn't take any pleasure in this assassination because it makes the country worse. No matter who's getting assassinated, it makes the country worse. That, that that's not the way to do it. I guess. This guy Aspen Gold is on the right. I gather lying about the origins of political violence in general is also not going to get us anywhere disturbing stuff to see it. But unfortunately this guy's got a big audience and my guess is a lot of people will uncritically start repeating that and it's only going to make the problem worse. Support our show by checking out our sponsor Brain FM Focus Music. They're giving you free access to their app for a whole month@brain.fm. slash pacman. Once you try Brain FM, you'll quickly understand why this has become my go to music app when I just want to focus on work. In addition to music. From focusing on work, they have modes specially designed for sleep, relaxation, meditation, all created by musicians working with neuroscientists. A peer reviewed study showed that Brain FM's music boosts attention, especially for people with adhd tendencies. Brain FM's Focus Music is the only music made to support ADHD. Brains Brain FM is the only music app funded by the National Science Foundation. Because of their unique audio technology that changes the patterns in your brain. Brain FM has been an amazing tool when I just want to focus on work. In the past, I've tried Spotify or YouTube. I end up distracted or can't find exactly what would be most useful for me. So at a certain point, I figured silence must be the solution. Until I discovered this. Brain FM is personalized, depending on your brain type. So if you want to improve your focus or relax, give Brain FM a try for 30 days, totally free. Go to Brain FM pacman. The link is in the description. In the aftermath of the assassination of Charlie Kirk, Fox News host Greg Gutfeld had an idea, and he said that this feels professional. He acknowledges, we don't really know anything about who did this or why, but it feels professional. I want to play this clip for you and then talk about it. It's interesting. You know, we don't know who did this, but I do know it doesn't help the left, which makes me think, is it the left? I don't know. I don't know. We don't know. But it feels professional. That's all it feels to me. You know, I appreciate that Gutfeld recognizes it certainly doesn't help the left to go and assassinate Charlie Kirk. And of course, I would argue it doesn't help anybody. But Gutfeld is right, and you just have to look on Twitter to recognize that. Now MAGA is declaring open season on the left, even at this point, before we know anything about the shooter, the motives of the shooter, or anything about it. But I want to talk a little bit about Gutfeld's idea that this feels professional. Obviously, this is just like a vibe. There's no evidence here. There's nothing about that. But a number of personal contacts texted me about this and said, there's, you know, the shooter, such a perfect shot from so far away, and then immediately blended in and just kind of like, disappeared. It feels professional. I think the first thing to say is, like, it's not that rare in the sense that the Trump shooter, right, I mean, he was off by a couple inches in terms of killing Trump, but he got Trump in the ear from a similar distance, and that guy was not a professional. And so, first and foremost, like, what do we. What do we really mean by that? Is it because of what happened after the shooting, or is it like the gunshot itself? I don't know. Professional can mean a lot of different things. And I think professional starts to get conspiratorial in the sense of, I have one friend who said, I believe X Country orchestrated this and they hired a hit person and they did it for this reason. I'm not even going to repeat it because I don't want to put that out there. There's no evidence of it. But that's what some people think when they mean professional, it's a hitman. Professional can also just mean like this is a person who. I'm not even going to mention what their job would be, but maybe they were trained in long distance firearms in their former profession or something like that. And so it technically would make them a professional at shooting because. But that doesn't mean that they were hired or it's a hitman or whatever. I do find it interesting that Gutfeld hesitated on the blame the left stuff. By identifying that it doesn't really serve the left and I think that that's interesting. But what I think this is a broader preview of is this kind of early evidence based theorizing and my prediction. I'm going to double check right now just to see if as of this moment we know anything. We have just found out that the ammunition was engraved with transgender antifascist ideology. Ok, so it's looking more like we are zeroing in on the political orientation of the perpetrator. I expect that even after we get a full official story and accounting of what happened here, I expect that the conspiracy theorizing is going to continue. I want to take a break from the Charlie Kirk assassination to do just a little more generic political discussion. Kamala Harris has finally thrown Joe Biden under the bus. In her new memoir, 107 Days, she argues that Joe Biden being allowed to decide for himself to run for reelection was a political malpractice. She says Joe and Jill's decision was political malpractice. And she argues, Kamala Harris does, that the stakes are just too high to leave it to an individual's ego. And that Joe Biden's team not only failed to back her Kamala Harris, they actively undercut her even when her popularity could have helped him. Now Biden's biggest mistake was running for reelection at all. I've said that already. He refused to do what he suggested he would do, which was be a transitional president. He claimed that it was because he came to believe he was the only one who could beat Donald Trump. But putting Kamala Harris on the ticket is also questionable if we're honest, right? I mean, she didn't do well in the primaries. She was less popular than Biden at a time when it was becoming increasingly clear that Biden couldn't win. And so I think it's perfectly fair to say with hindsight, there could have been a much smarter approach here. My instinct is Harris shouldn't have been the nominee and Biden should never have run for reelection. What I don't think is accurate from how Kamala Harris is laying this all out is that Biden and Jill just, like, made the decision on their own. We now have pretty widespread and good reporting that a lot of people were in there with Biden, that Biden's pollsters and inner circle came to believe that he couldn't win and that that was a big factor. There is a scene described where Senator Chuck Schumer goes to Biden's house and explains to him, listen, Biden's house in Delaware, this is not the White House. Explains to him, it's terrible, but I think you got to get out. I don't think you'll win, and you're going to hurt Democrats. Chuck Schumer reportedly left crying, and that event had a big influence on Joe Biden. So I don't really know if it's accurate to say that it was just Biden deciding by himself with no other information. But Kamala Harris does point out some things that that did seem to happen. I mean, there is the belief that by not immediately endorsing Harris, and it was not a big delay right the same afternoon Biden endorsed her. There are some who say by not immediately endorsing Harris in his message about getting out that that hurt Kamala Harris. There was drama related to Barack Obama, who was sort of feeling around to see, could we get a mini primary instead of just handing this thing over to Kamala Harris. There are arguments that making Harris the border czar was like a political suicide because she could never succeed with that. And her role ended up being misrepresented gave her too much. Gave her too much credit and ultimately blame for not getting the border under control. You can go back and say a lot of these different things, but I do think it is interesting and not completely surprising that eventually, eventually Kamala Harris is coming out and saying, I don't really think I got what I needed. They didn't really set me up to win. They set me up to fail. Now, Kamala Harris, in her book, is still insisting that Biden was more capable than Trump on his worst day, but does admit that at Biden's age, he tired easily and that it was showing. And she says she would have spoken up if she thought Biden was incapable. She saw that he was diminished and slowing down. Diminished is my word. She saw that he was tired and slowing down, but that she did not believe that he was incapable of doing the job and still thought that he was better than Donald Trump. Now, the book, interestingly, makes me feel more that Harris may be done with politics. Now, tomorrow on the show, I'm going to address that. Some of you said it's offensive for me to say Harris shouldn't run. I'm going to deal with that tomorrow. My instinct, based on what's in the book increasingly, is that Kamala Harris may indeed be done with politics. But I think the days of Harris shielding Biden are definitely over. And the always blame Biden meme has definitely gotten a little bit of an injection of fuel here. Let me know what you think about this and whether you respect what Harris is doing or whether you don't.