Trump White House Targets "Leftist" Groups But Fox Gets Away with Everything. Juliet Jeske with Decoding Fox News and Charlie Sykes discuss.

Summary

---

The Jim Acosta Show

Episode Title: Trump White House Targets "Leftist" Groups But Fox Gets Away with Everything
Date: September 15, 2025
Host: Jim Acosta
Guests: Juliet Jeske (Decoding Fox News), Charlie Sykes

Episode Overview

In this urgent and highly charged episode, Jim Acosta tackles the latest wave of inflammatory rhetoric and double standards in right-wing media, with a focus on Fox News’s conduct following the assassination of activist Charlie Kirk.
Acosta and guests Juliet Jeske and Charlie Sykes explore the dangerous synergy between Fox News and the Trump White House, the escalation of threats against left-leaning organizations, and the glaring lack of accountability for extreme rhetoric from prominent conservative media figures.

---

Key Topics and Discussion Points

1. Fox News’s Dangerous Rhetoric and the Kilmeade Controversy

• Initial Focus: The episode opens by highlighting Brian Kilmeade’s shocking comments about homeless people, suggesting involuntary lethal injection, and the lack of consequences for Fox personalities compared to mainstream media.
• Context: These comments came amid Fox’s coverage of a Ukrainian immigrant’s murder in North Carolina and the political and media fallout after Charlie Kirk’s assassination.
• Juliet Jeske’s Analysis: She provides a meticulous breakdown of what was actually said on Fox and the right’s attempts to downplay or distort Kilmeade’s remarks.

Notable Quotes:

• Jim Acosta [00:12]:
  "There appear to be no consequences for these radicals on the right...there is a double standard."
• Juliet Jeske [01:27]:
  "It's been a really rough week...probably the worst week other than Trump's inauguration that I've ever had to watch Fox."
• Jim Acosta [06:06]:
  "At Fox, your career is not over, even when you say that homeless people should be euthanized."

Key Segment:

• Kilmeade Incident Breakdown [03:33–06:48]:
  Kilmeade's controversial comments (played with tapes), followed by his apologetic statement, which Jeske describes as looking like a “hostage video”.

---

2. Patterns of Extremism and Absence of Accountability at Fox

• Other Incidents Discussed:
  • Jesse Watters’s past “joke” about sabotage for romantic gain.
  • Greg Gutfeld’s Holocaust-related outburst and subsequent backlash.
• Fox Anchors’ Lack of Consequence:
  • Acosta and Jeske reflect on Fox's culture of impunity, where even the most egregiously inflammatory statements rarely result in disciplinary action.
  • Waters’s recent statements about “MAGA at war” and vows of revenge following Kirk’s assassination are played and dissected.

Notable Quotes:

• Jim Acosta [08:37]:
  "Fox is very much a source, if not the source, of radicalism in America right now on the right."
• Jesse Watters [10:10]:
  "They are at war with us. Whether we want to accept it or not, they are at war with us."
• Juliet Jeske [10:39]:
  "Fox altered that video...they covered the screen with an image of Charlie Kirk while keeping the audio."

---

3. Weaponization of Grief and Threats Against Progressive Groups

• Trump Administration’s Response:
  • Acosta highlights reporting that Trump officials and surrogates, such as Stephen Miller, are explicitly threatening “leftist” groups under the pretense of a crackdown on “terrorism.”
  • Juliet Jeske details how Miller escalated rhetoric to the point of threatening to “dismantle” and financially destroy progressive organizations on Fox.
• Guests note: These threats are not idle rhetoric, but signal a real intention to use the federal government as a political weapon.

Notable Quotes:

• Juliet Jeske [13:45]:
  "[Stephen Miller] basically said, we will hunt you down, we will find you, we will take your money, we will freeze your money, we will destroy your organizations."
• Charlie Sykes [29:39]:
  "What they are trying to do is to weaponize the anger and the grief of the murder of Charlie Kirk...they are being very direct now."

Key Segment:

• The Fox–White House Feedback Loop [16:15–16:51]:
  Discussion of the unprecedented, symbiotic relationship where Fox sets the White House agenda, and vice versa:
  "It’s a historically unprecedented symbiotic relationship, it's hard to separate who's the organ grinder and who's the monkey here." —Jim Acosta

---

4. Media Double Standards and Suppression of Criticism

• Contrasts Drawn:
  • Acosta points to Washington Post columnist Karen Attia’s firing for accurately quoting Kirk’s past inflammatory statements, while Fox personalities who incite on-air face no such sanctions.
  • Jeske critiques Fox’s targeted attacks on Black women and the network’s victim narrative about discrimination against whites.
• Acosta’s Broader Argument:
  • There is deep asymmetry in American media: mainstream outlets police their own, while right-wing media shields their stars regardless of conduct.

Notable Quotes:

• Jim Acosta [21:28]:
  "You see people getting canned at mainstream news organizations for stuff that is nowhere near what Kilmeade and Jesse Watters do."

---

5. The Ecosystem of Radicalization and Fox’s Outsized Influence

• Role of New Media:
  • Sykes adds that Fox is just one part of a vast right-wing media ecosystem, amplified by social media offshoots, which constantly drives the movement further right.
  • The episode covers how figures like Charlie Kirk and, increasingly, even more extreme personalities like Nick Fuentes, wield disproportionate influence.
• Jeske’s Methodology:
  • Describes her process of monitoring Fox and comparing its content with neutral sources like PBS NewsHour to quantitatively show the extremism.

Notable Quotes:

• Charlie Sykes [47:17]:
  "It is a universe that continues to grow and metastasize...millions are getting their dopamine hits from this network."
• Juliet Jeske [26:31]:
  "Every week, I compare high quality nonpartisan news with garbage. It helps me give perspective of how terrible Fox is."

---

6. Political and Societal Implications: Escalation, Division, and Danger

• Shift from Rhetoric to Action:
  • Sykes sees a major shift post–Charlie Kirk assassination, with explicit threats against “the left” no longer confined to Fox broadcasts, but echoed by senior officials like Stephen Miller and Trump himself.
• Acosta and Sykes on What’s At Stake:
  • Both express grave concern that this is not just talk—the rule of law, free expression, and democracy itself are threatened.
  • The deliberate creation of an “us vs. them” dynamic, appeals to vengeance, and the stifling of dissent are identified as classic authoritarian warning signs.

Notable Quotes:

• Charlie Sykes [37:28]:
  "We pivoted so quickly from grief to this agenda of anger, retaliation, and vengeance, and that's a very potent force."
• Jim Acosta [39:10]:
  "The consequences are again, asymmetrical...where are the voices saying, 'the worst thing we can do is take this act of political violence and use it as an excuse to shut down political speech?'"
• Charlie Sykes [43:44]:
  "I'm not optimistic, but it's hard to kind of cling to that hope that we're not on some sort of a toboggan ride to the bottom."

---

7. Call to Action and Final Thoughts

• Engagement Needed:
  • Acosta, Sykes, and Jeske all stress the necessity of continued vigilance, active participation, and speaking the truth in the face of a growing wave of dangerous rhetoric and anti-democratic initiatives.
• The Stakes:
  • Acosta concludes with an impassioned statement on the normalization of radical, violent talk in mainstream media, and the urgency to reject it at every turn.

Notable Quotes:

• Jim Acosta [55:59]:
  "We can't let our sense of normalcy get tossed out the window...it is not normal for the President or people around him to say they're going to go after what they deem to be leftist organizations in this country. That is stifling free speech. That is stifling free expression. The Constitution has to mean something."
• Jim Acosta [end]:
  "How is this normal? How is this allowed? How is this acceptable?...Apparently, you can do it. You can do it, as Donald Trump would say, when you're a celebrity, they let you get away with it and it doesn't make it right."

---

Timestamps for Key Segments

• 00:05 – Opening critique of Fox's double standards; Kilmeade controversy and context
• 03:33–06:48 – Kilmeade’s remarks and apology; Jeske’s analysis
• 08:37 – Acosta on Fox as source of right-wing radicalism
• 10:10–11:34 – Jesse Watters’s “at war” statements and Fox’s manipulation of footage
• 13:45–16:51 – Stephen Miller’s threats against the left on Fox; symbiotic Fox–White House relationship
• 21:28 – Karen Attia's firing vs. Fox impunity
• 26:29 – Jeske describes her methodology and why it matters
• 29:39–31:19 – Charlie Sykes on the real and menacing nature of threats and the government's role
• 35:42–37:28 – Escalation of rhetoric, loss of national unity and pivot to vengeance
• 39:10–40:38 – Dangers of silencing dissent and the right’s attempts to stigmatize criticism
• 43:44–45:56 – Sykes on the lack of optimism and the perilous place America finds itself
• 47:12–48:17 – The scope of the right-wing media ecosystem as a radicalizing force
• 54:10–55:46 – Acosta and Sykes on Ezra Klein’s take, normalization, and the windows of acceptability shifting
• Final 5 min – Acosta’s final call to action and passionate summary of the stakes

---

Episode Summary: Tone and Conclusion

This episode maintains a sober, at times urgent tone—punctuated by moments of exasperation, incredulity, and dark humor—as Acosta and guests drive home the gravity of escalating right-wing rhetoric, the normalization of violence, and the need for resilience and vigilance.
Acosta closes with a forceful condemnation of Fox News’s double standards and an appeal for accountability, insisting that truth, hope, and engagement must not become casualties of the current media and political climate.

Transcript

[Juliet Jeske]

Foreign.

[Jim Acosta]

Welcome to the Jim Acosta show. And it's another day that ends in Y and the far right's assault on democracy in America. The New York Times reporting that Trump administration officials are responding to the activist Charlie Kirk's assassination by threatening to bring the weight of the federal government down on what they allege was a left wing network that funds and incites violence. That's just one of several headlines coming at us today. Joining me first this hour is Juliet Jeske, who is with decoding of Fox News, that brilliant citizen journalist project. And Juliet, the reason why I wanted to have you on today is because there appear to be no consequences for the actions of these radicals on the right. In fact, there is a double standard. Case in point, Fox anchor Brian Kilmeade's horrendous comments stating that homeless people should be euthanized in this country. He had to apologize, but at this moment, he, he still has a job. And, and this just follows one of a number of, of just really horrendous comments that were uttered on Fox over the last several days since Charlie Kirk's killing. And as a matter of, we should point out that Kilmeade made these comments about homeless people even before gunned down Juliet, you're pretty busy these days staying on top of all this stuff.

[Juliet Jeske]

It's been a really rough week. It's probably the worst week other than Trump's inauguration that I've ever had to watch Fox. It's very disturbing. And what happened on Wednesday morning is they were talking about the brutal murder of a Ukrainian immigrant on a light rail train in North Carolina. And in the discussion they started talking more about, and this was on Fox and Friends. So this was Lawrence Jones, Ansley Einhardt and Brian Kilmeade. And they start talking more generally about like, what do we do about mentally ill homeless people who are violent. And they were speaking in general terms. They were definitely not talking about this one individual who committed, who allegedly committed this crime. They said, well, you know, we should just force them to go to mental institutions. That's what Lawrence Jones said. And then in the back and forth, Brian Kilmeade said, well, we should just give them involuntary lethal injection. We should kill him. And that's what he said. And it was as if I was recording at the time. So I didn't see it. And I caught it later. Somebody else posted it. And I went, oh, oh, I'm gonna have to go back and get that. And then everybody else was posting it. I thought, oh, I don't, I Don't need to post it because it's already out there. And then I noticed that people on the right were saying, oh, he was misquoted. He's talking about this murderer. And I'm like, no, he wasn't. And I watched the whole segment. And so then I made a video along with, you know, just about everybody else who covers FOX made a video about it. And I specifically said, well, they're talking about a collective group of people. He says them, and the pronoun is them. And then in Brian Kilmeade's kind of, it looked like hostage type, you know, like a joking hostage, but it looked like somebody was forcing him to make this apology. He again used the plural. He said, you know, I never meant to say that they should be put, you know, I said that. He didn't actually say that. He said, I said what I said was callous, that they should be killed. And of course they shouldn't be killed because they're people. And, you know, any.

[Jim Acosta]

Yeah, let's unpack this because we actually have the video. Let's, let's play the initial comment from Brian Kilmeade on Fox and Friends that started this. And I mean, for folks who have not seen this, I know a lot of folks have seen it, but for folks who haven't seen it is, it's extraordinary and it's unique and just how awful it is. Let's watch this.

[Brian Kilmeade]

Put them in a mental institution, put them in a jail, and you guys figure it out. But people having to duck and dive on the trains and the buses, walking through the street. This is one case. But this is happening all across the country and it's not a money issue. They have given billions of dollars to mental health and the homeless population. A lot of them don't want to take the programs. A lot of them don't want to get the help that is necessary. You can't give them a choice. Either you take the resources that we're going to give you and or you decide that you're going to be locked up in jail. That's the way it has to be now.

[Jesse Watters]

Or involuntary lethal injection or something. Just kill them.

[Juliet Jeske]

Brian, why did it have to get to this point?

[Jim Acosta]

Right.

[Jesse Watters]

I would say this. We're not voting for the right people in North Carolina. Wake up. You can't keep putting these people in power.

[Jim Acosta]

Yeah, I mean, there's just, there's no taking it out of context, Juliet. I mean, it's stunning to hear him say it. And they just sort of keep going. Ainsley Is that her name? The, the other co anchor on the show. She just kind of keeps going after. I mean, I, if somebody said that next to me, I would, I think my head would pop off. I don't know how I would react. Honestly. It's just such an insane comment. And then over the weekend, he, like you said, he apologized on Sunday, but it was, it was a forced apology. We should. The Washington Post reported that, I guess spokespeople for Fox News sent out Kilme's apology on Sunday, which they said also serves as the network's response. So Brian Kilmeade had to apologize on behalf of himself and Fox. Let's watch his apology in the morning.

[Jesse Watters]

We were discussing the murder of Irina Zaruska in Charlotte, North Carolina. How to stop these kinds of attacks by homeless mentally ill assailants, including institutionalizing or jailing such people so they cannot attack again. Now, during that discussion, I wrongly said they should get lethal objections. I apologize for that extremely callous remark. I'm obviously aware that not all mentally ill homeless people act as the perpetrator did in North Carolina and that so many homeless people deserve our empathy and compassion.

[Jim Acosta]

So, I mean, Juliet, it sounds as though, I mean, you, first of all, like you were saying earlier, it does look like a hostage video. I mean, he looks like he had been up all night and did not get much sleep, which I can understand. He probably was thinking, okay, maybe his career is over. But at Fox, your career is not over. Even when you say that homeless people should be euthanized, I mean, it's, it's pretty unreal. And I, I am shocked that he has not been fired. I mean, he should be fired. There's, there's no question about it. I mean, Brian Kilmeade should be out of a job right now. And the fact that he can say these things again, this is another example where you can say things on Fox that you can say on no other network, I think, anywhere in the world, probably in a free democratic society.

[Juliet Jeske]

Yeah, I mean, there's been so many examples. There was, the first one was that I clipped when I was brand new. It was like two months. Like two months. Yeah. About two months into my gig at decoding FOX News, I clipped Jesse Waters, saying he was, I'm going to put this in air quotes, joking that he let the air out of the tires of his, you know, then producer who was much younger than him when he was married. He was a married man with twin girls. And he, he claimed you joked I let the air out of her tires. So she would go out on a date with me. And then his. The entire cast of the five start yelling at him, going, no, no, no, no, no, no. Take that back. And he didn't. He smugly said, yeah, yeah, I did. I clipped that. That went viral. Like, it got global attention. Nobody cared. And then there was another incident where Greg Gutfeld yelling at Jessica Tarloff, who is Jewish, when they were having discussion and the Holocaust came up. And he said, those who, you know, were useful survived. And he was quoting a book, but he did so very poorly. And that got so crazy that the Auschwitz museum weighed in, the White House weighed in, and he attacked me, thinking he could silence me. He claimed he was taken out of context. I'm like, no, you weren't. I put the entire. It was like seven minutes. I, like, linked the videos on Twitter. I said, how is that taken out of context? You said what you said. If you want to clarify it, it's up to you, not me. I can't read your mind. I have no idea what your subtext was. Yeah, he tried to harass me online. He tried to harass me on his show. I just. I'm not gonna blink. And then the Daily Beast did an article about it. They requested to talk to Fox, and that was. Oh, then it went away because I think somebody at Fox found out about it, and they're like, what are you doing, you idiot? Because he was bringing more attention to his horrible comment.

[Jim Acosta]

Yeah. And one of the reasons. I mean, one of the reasons why I bring this. This Kill Meat episode up, and I do want to talk about Jesse Waters and what he said after Charlie Kirk was. Was killed is that Fox is very much a. A source, if not the source of radicalism in America right now on the right. And you can just about say anything over there and get away with it as long as you're one of their popular anchors. And kill Mead's on Fox and Friends, it's a big money maker for Fox. But in no. I mean, in no other place could you say something like this. And the other thing we have talked about, Juliet, is. I mean, this was before Charlie Kirk died, and in the aftermath of his death, the. They were cranking up the. The craziness over at Fox yet again. And. And Jesse Waters, we should say, said this in response to what happened to Charlie Kirk. He basically said that MAGA is at war with the rest of the country or the political opponents of maga. Let's watch that. One of us. And 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. You've got trans shooters, you got riots in la. They are at war with us.

[Jesse Watters]

Whether we want to accept it or.

[Jim Acosta]

Not, they are at war with us. And I do, I enjoy playing these clips. I know you don't enjoy researching these clips, but this, this is what is consumed by millions of people in this country. I mean, the 5 is a wildly popular show on Fox. And Jesse, of course, is not going to get punished. Nothing's going to happen to him for saying these sorts of things. But I mean, this is, I mean, this is incitement. This is dangerous stuff.

[Juliet Jeske]

Well, it's interesting because I, I captured it a little late because again, I was, I was working the whole day on my newsletter podcast on Wednesday. So I got that after it aired and I got it on YouTube TV, which is like a cable provider. Fox altered that video. What? They did. The audio is the same. Oh yeah. Oh yeah, the audio is the same. But instead of showing Jesse Waters saying that, they covered the screen with an image of Charlie Kirk and gave the, you know, it was like a memorial of the day, the year he was born and the year he died. And it was just a wow. Yeah. And the audio was still there. Audio was still there. But they didn't show Jesse Waters face saying it. He also said, we will avenge Charlie's death. Like, how on earth do you say that with a, you know, knowing that somebody out there could hear that and go, yeah, I'm gonna avenge Charlie's death. And they also use the pronoun they again. And they killed him.

[Jim Acosta]

Yeah, a viewer just made that comment. We put it up on screen. Who's they?

[Juliet Jeske]

Who's they? Because again, who is they? It was one person who did this. We're still confused on exactly what the motives were for this individual. Very young, typical shooter, young online. Too much confused politics. So far we're not sure what happened, but it was definitely one human being. No group, no coordination, but yet it's they. We all get blamed for the actions of one person.

[Jim Acosta]

And Jesse Waters does not bring up what took place in Minnesota. Minnesota lawmaker there and her husband who was killed and by a, a right wing gunman. And we should note in, in, in Utah where this took place. This is according to the Independent, the grandmother of Tyler Robinson, the 22 year old who allegedly shot Charlie Kirk, of course, we think he is the person spoke out for the first time claiming there's no way her quiet and reserved grandson killed the conservative activist. She went on to say, my son, his dad. This is. The grandmother is a Republican for Trump. Most of my family members are Republican. I don't know any single one who is a Democrat. I'm just so confused. This is what I mean, this is what the grandmother was saying. And Spencer Cox, the governor of Utah, was saying that Tyler Robinson had a leftist ideology, but that it's still under investigation. But the shell casings, to your point, Juliet had, they had gaming, online gaming references engraved into. I mean, so it's, it's just a jumbled mess. And so it gets back to this question of who Jesse Waters is talking about this day that he's talking about. And the reason why I bring this up is it ties, it dovetails perfectly with what's being reported in the New York Times today, what JD Vance was saying on Charlie Kirk's show earlier today, that they are gearing up inside the Trump administration for some sort of concerted effort to go after what they believe to be leftist opponents of Donald Trump and the administration in the far right.

[Juliet Jeske]

Yeah, it's, it's a little terrifying. And what Stephen Miller said when he was on Hannity of like, basically, I'm going to, I'm paraphrasing him.

[Jim Acosta]

Yeah.

[Juliet Jeske]

He did say dismantle left wing organizations. Rico charge. Well, good luck with that. Those are really difficult to prosecute. Evil. He used the term evil, terrorism, hate. And then he basically said that. He didn't quite say this, but he basically said, we will hunt you down, we will find you, we will take your money, we will freeze your money, we will destroy your organizations. And I'm like, what organizations? Like most people aren't in an organization. Like, what are you talking about? It's, it's, it's.

[Jim Acosta]

They frequently claim Stephen Miller was saying this on Fox.

[Juliet Jeske]

On Fox.

[Jim Acosta]

You're saying this on Hannity on Friday night. I saw this and I just couldn't believe my ears. I mean, it's Stephen Miller, but even Stephen Miller can out. Stephen Miller. Stephen Miller. Yeah, one of those moments.

[Juliet Jeske]

It was really outrageous because they, it wasn't, there's no sense of maybe we should pull back a little bit. Maybe we shouldn't. Because again, it's like Tucker Carlson was really bad about doing this when he was still on the network. And we were all like, you know, breathed a sigh of relief when he got fired because we like the Worst one had this huge platform and now he's gone. And, you know, they've, they filled that void because they just don't care. And it was like the type of thing where I'm writing down some of the words, I wrote down some of the words of how they described Kirk. And of course, this is to be expected. This is, I mean, it's a tragedy what happened. Even though you can disagree with everything that man promoted. Nobody should get shot for their beliefs in this country. But they were literally calling him, you know, the next president. They said that multiple times. And I'm like, that seems a bit extreme because.

[Jim Acosta]

Right.

[Juliet Jeske]

You know, I, I get it, but that's not incitement. But Stephen Miller's comments were absolutely reckless. Absolutely reckless. And he doesn't care. He doesn't care. They also frequently say every time they show a protest on the left, all those people are paid. And we have proof that they're paid. They don't produce the proof. It's just.

[Jim Acosta]

That's right.

[Juliet Jeske]

All those people are paid. And that's got to be Soros money. And we're going to go after Soros. They've said that a few times.

[Jim Acosta]

Yeah, Trump has said that himself. I mean, he was on. Trump was on Fox and Friends on Friday saying this kind of stuff on Friday. And I, you know, I noticed it was, I think it was Friday evening, I believe I was trending on X, because there was somebody who said that I had accused the far right of trying to weaponize or the right of weaponizing what took place with Charlie Kirk. And I did say that. I mean, that's what I said. I said it because it's true.

[Juliet Jeske]

Yeah.

[Jim Acosta]

And that's what they're doing. And Donald Trump is doing it. Jesse Watters is doing it. Stephen Miller is doing it. I mean, and a lot of this, you and I were talking about this before we got going. A lot of this gets started. Sometimes I wonder, is it the Trump White House doing the talking points first, or is it Fox News doing the talking points first and then the Trump people pick up on it. It's this. And I'm, we talked about this a million times. It's a tremendously, In a historically unprecedented symbiotic relationship, it's hard to separate who's the organ grinder and who's the monkey here. I mean, it's, yeah.

[Juliet Jeske]

On this, the Friday, they were even saying, like, well, we have, they even brought that up. They go, well, you know, so many people who used to work at Fox work in the White House now. And so, you know, they openly are loving that sort of the chain between. Here's our propaganda machine, here's the White House, and we're, you know, we're in constant contact. They don't even, you know, and I do think there's also that sort of super far right, the Reddit, the discord, some of these. And there are normal people on discord and Reddit. I don't mean to say assume, because sure, I get, I get quoted on Reddit all the time. So it's. But you can find extremists on some of these platforms. And there's this sort of through line that goes from the extreme right onto Fox into the White House. Sometimes it's the White House onto Fox into the exchange. Just it's all one big ecosystem of voices ramping each other up. And once it gets on Fox, and I've tried to express this to people who don't. Some folks don't understand why I even do what I do because they go, well, who watches Fox anyway? And I'm like, yeah.

[Jim Acosta]

And Juliet, explain what you. Just for the folks who missed you the last time or are seeing this for the first time, because this is going on on YouTube and Apple Podcasts, everything else. So who knows? They may, may or may not be familiar with your work, although your work is. Everybody, everybody loves it. You basically watch hours and hours of Fox, their most popular shows, and you find these trend lines and it's just sort of staring in the face. It's, it's, it's not like you have to go there with a magnifying glass and a fine tooth comb. Right?

[Juliet Jeske]

No, it's, it's, it's overwhelming. And like I said, last week was probably the worst, one of the worst weeks I've ever sat through because it was not great to see them because that horrible murder on the train in North Carolina and Charlotte, North Carolina, was a major story. It was like half their airtime. And, you know, normally they act like, why isn't the rest of the media reporting on this? I'm like, because it's not really. It shouldn't get. I mean, I get that you're putting some.

[Jim Acosta]

It's a big story, but not 50 coverage.

[Juliet Jeske]

Yeah, it's not 50% of your coverage. You know, there's wars going on, there's other things going on.

[Jim Acosta]

Chooses cultural pressure point, hot button stories that they think will juice their audience.

[Juliet Jeske]

Exactly. So they had spent a lot of time on that story and then immediately just went right into Kirk and I Just was like, this is the worst because it's not pleasant to sit through that. And I, I do feel terrible for Kirk's family. I, I do feel terrible of this poor Ukrainian. My cat almost got on the computer. This poor Ukrainian. What are you gonna do? They're live animals. But my, that's Odin. My, my. You know, I feel sorry for the Ukrainian woman's family.

[Jim Acosta]

Absolutely.

[Juliet Jeske]

It's always. And I also feel sorry for the, the, the alleged killer of that Ukrainian woman because he was suffering from major severe mental illness. And they are crushed by this because they were trying to get him help. So it's, there's just so many layers of sorrow and sadness and tragedy and, and, you know, Fox is more than happy to just lean in as much.

[Charlie Sykes]

Yeah.

[Jim Acosta]

They're not treating it with any kind of care, like, let's get to the heart of this or solve these issues. It's. How do we neatly package these cultural hot button issues that push people's buttons, and how do we package them in a way that maximizes the incitement of our audience.

[Juliet Jeske]

Yeah.

[Jim Acosta]

And drives them to MAGA and the conservative viewpoint. The other thing that needs to be pointed out is, is that there's a Washington Post columnist today. I hope to have her on tomorrow. Karen Attia. She was fired over at the Washington Post, she says, for basically putting her viewpoints out on what happened with Charlie Kirk and what he had said about black women.

[Juliet Jeske]

Yeah.

[Jim Acosta]

And I guess the people over at the Washington Post didn't like that. She was also raising a good point that, you know, there was also this school shooting in Colorado that got very little attention. Apparently there was a radical white supremacist who was behind that. And you know, she is, she is fired over at the Washington Post, the Jeff Bezos Washington Post, for basically just putting the facts out there. And she's an opinion columnist, so it's not, you know, she was doing her job as an opinion columnist putting this stuff out there. And Brian Kilmeade can say, you can kill homeless people. We should kill homeless people. He doesn't get fired. That's the other thing that's going on in our country right now is that you see people getting canned at, at mainstream news organizations for stuff that is nowhere near what Kill Me and Jesse Waters do.

[Juliet Jeske]

Yeah, I saw some of what she posted and it was. She was just accurately quoting Charlie Kirk. And I thought, I'm sorry, we can't accurately. She didn't even put anything on top of it. She just said, yeah, she showed a quote where he said black women did not have the brain capacity or mental capacity, something like that. And I've seen him say that.

[Jim Acosta]

I've seen, yes, he said that. It's one of the many horrible things that he said. You know, this is what he did. He was, he was one of those provocateurs on the far right, you know.

[Juliet Jeske]

And I would say too that Fox specifically, Tucker Carlson was really bad about this when he was still on the network. But the network in general specifically goes after black women more than just the black community. It's, I don't know why, I guess.

[Jim Acosta]

The double Obama, she did that. I mean, that was one of their favorite targets for years over.

[Juliet Jeske]

Any accomplished black woman on Fox gets attacked mercilessly to the point that it's like it doesn't even make sense. Like, what are you doing? Like, it's like. And it's always, oh, she must have gotten some sort of edge because she was a black woman. And I'm like, do you have any idea? Like they don't even, you know, they act as if racism doesn't exist and that, that there's no barriers to anything and that we just, if you just work hard enough, you'll get there. And I'm like, are you kidding me?

[Jim Acosta]

Well, they also, they also push this narrative that it's white people who are primarily discriminated against.

[Juliet Jeske]

Oh yeah, yeah.

[Jim Acosta]

Which is absurd. An insane, it's an absurd thing to say. Do you ever get the sense, you mentioned Tucker Carlson's firing earlier, that that is one of the rare moments where there was, and it was almost like the straw that broke the camel's back after, I mean, after a mountain of straws, you know, were piled up on top of the camel's back. But there aren't that many instances where Fox cleans house. Yeah, it, they really cling to. I mean, Hannity's been there for years. Laura Ingram got moved from 10 to 7 and Gutfeld got, you know, for all of his ridiculous stuff, he got rewarded with a ten o' clock slot. So they don't really push people out like in Brian Kilmeade's case, unless it's absolutely necessary for them.

[Juliet Jeske]

Well, and Kilmeade is sort of their workhorse. He does Fox and Friends and he does a three hour radio show and then he has a show on the weekends and he's the one. And they openly joke about it. They openly joke about it whenever anybody's sick or out of town at last minute, Kill Me is the one hosting. And he's like, yeah, I never stop working. I always do his voice. But anyway, yeah, Dippy kind of like, I, you know, he's, he will do whatever they tell him to do, and that's why. And he's been there for, I think, 26 years because he was, he was part of the original cast of Fox and Friends. And I, I do think Steve Doocy kept him in check a little bit. And now Steve Doocy is, like, semi retired.

[Jim Acosta]

Yeah, you don't see Steve Doocy as much, but he would from time to time. As a matter of fact, if Steve Doocy had been on the, on the show that morning, he might have said something. Maybe he would have said something.

[Juliet Jeske]

Yeah, I, I do think he would have. Because in the past couple years, Juicy started to push back a little bit when they would say something completely insane. And I don't. I don't really know why. I don't know his motivation, can't read his mind. But there were multiple instances of Steve Ducey correcting his co workers.

[Jim Acosta]

And yes, there have been instances of that. Yes, he's sort of like the disapproving father who's there. And occasionally, when he's paying attention, chimes in. And so maybe I shouldn't say that.

[Juliet Jeske]

Yeah.

[Jim Acosta]

But, you know, to me, what is so important about what you do? And for folks out there who are wondering how you can help Julia continue to do this, she runs a substack. You can help her do this work. It's so vitally important because there aren't a lot of people who do what you do. I mean, I sort of think of it. When I worked at the White House, we had Mark Noeller, the CBS legendary CBS News radio correspondent, God rest his soul. He passed away recently. Lovely man. And he used to record the daily activities of the President better than the White House did. And so it got to the point where the White House would rely on Mark Knoller to know, where did the President go here? Did the President go there? How many minutes was he in the Oval? And so on. And I think you sort of do that with Fox. And I don't really know of anybody else who does this with Fox.

[Juliet Jeske]

I'm just. I'm kind of an. I'm a nerd. So I was a data. My focus in grad school was data journalism. And then I weirdly ended up in business, which is a total other story, but so business concentration with data journalism. And I approach it a little bit more analytically because that's the way I think. So I love looking at, like, percentages and how many times you use a word in a given week. And that's something that other. Some other people who. Who cover Fox do. But it's something kind of unique to my project. And the other thing that I do that I don't think anybody does is I use a control. So I compare FOX every single week to the PBS NewsHour, and I pick PBS because it's straight down the middle.

[Jim Acosta]

They're the best because they're not.

[Juliet Jeske]

They're not corporate. So they. And because of the way they. I mean, it's unfortunate what's going on with public broadcasting right now and funding, but because they do get. They used to get some public funding, they're very careful about going straight down the middle and not showing any bias and being very, very careful about that. And so that's why I picked them. So every week, I compare, like, high quality nonpartisan news with garbage. And I do that because it helps me and my brain bounce off. Like, it helps me give perspective of how terrible FOX is. Rather than just being immersed in Fox, I get to come out of it and go, oh, there's other things going on in the world.

[Jim Acosta]

No, it's great work, and we appreciate what you do. And I will. And I've said this before on my show when I. When I go overseas. I was in Norway earlier this year. When you go to various countries over in Europe and so on, they don't have anything that's even close to the equivalent of FOX in America. And if you're wondering why things are so deeply polarized and out of control in this country, I will argue that one of the top things that is wrong with this country is Fox.

[Juliet Jeske]

I'd agree.

[Jim Acosta]

Kill Me is not, maybe not Exhibit A, but pretty damn close to Exhibit A. Jesse Waters is probably Exhibit A. Yeah. And that Kill me thing, it's just. It's just unbelievable that he still has job. Julia, thank you so much. Great to see you.

[Juliet Jeske]

Thanks for having me.

[Jim Acosta]

And say hi to the kitty cats, was it?

[Juliet Jeske]

Oh, yeah, it's Odin and Thor. And just like, you have a dog on your mug. Yes, Odin. It's not actually Odin, but, yeah, close enough.

[Jim Acosta]

That's a pretty darn. Almost like the same kind of mug, too, which I like.

[Juliet Jeske]

Total dork.

[Jim Acosta]

We are dork.

[Juliet Jeske]

Having me.

[Jim Acosta]

Good to see you. I'm the dork. You're not. Julia, great to see you.

[Juliet Jeske]

Thanks for having me.

[Jim Acosta]

Thanks a lot. Great job. I want to go to Charlie Sykes, who is standing by as well. Charlie, great to see you, as always.

[Charlie Sykes]

Thank you.

[Jim Acosta]

I was just talking with Juliet Jeske about the work that she does decoding Fox News, as she calls it. And I do want to talk about that in a little bit. But I was telling folks at the top of the show, at top of the hour that to me, the lead story, and there's a lot of different ways we could go, is the New York Times reporting that Trump administration officials are responding to Kirk's assassination by threatening to bring the weight of the federal government down on what they allege was a left wing network that funds and incites violence. Stephen Miller has been talking about this for several days. I know you wrote a sub stack about this. You highlighted what Laura Loomer, who is one of Trump's acolytes, one of his favorites, she was saying stuff on, I guess it was on X that was just totally out of control. You know, you wrote, here's Trump's BFF Laura Loomer, declaring that she wants Trump to be the dictator of the left thinks he is. And I want the right to be as devoted to locking up and silencing our violent political enemies as they pretend we are. This is dangerous stuff. And it feels like, Charlie, it's going beyond just rhetoric now. It now feels like maybe it's a little more real and menacing.

[Charlie Sykes]

Oh, it's very real, very menacing. It's intended to be. What they are trying to do is to, is to weaponize the anger and the grief of the murder of Charlie Kirk. And what's striking to me is how unsubtle they're being, how direct they're being, whether you're talking about Laura Loomer or Stephen Miller, who again, is very explicit about using the power of the government to strip, you know, progressive organizations of their, of their money and of their resources, throw people in jail. And it needs to be taken seriously because Donald Trump is listening to these folks and again, making no secret about it, using words like rico, using the law to go after George Soros, saying we should put him in jail because he's a bad guy. This is the President of the United States. So, yeah, do this.

[Jim Acosta]

Yeah. And, you know, to me, it's, it's kind of leaving the universe of people just popping off on Fox. I mean, it's, it's Stephen Miller going on Hannity. It was on Friday when he was saying a lot of this stuff. And I thought about engaging and retweeting it and saying, look, it's. And I, I feel like I should highlight it. I mean, this is a Senior White House official. This is basically Trump's brain, for lack of a better way of putting it. I mean, sort of in the way that Karl Rove was Bush's brain, but totally different universe. But Stephen Miller really kind of drives the train over there ideologically and sort of in the nutty way that he does, in the extremist way that he does. And for him to be saying that, he was kind of Saying it again, J.D. vance was. Was guest hosting Charlie Kirk's show earlier today, and Miller was saying this stuff.

[Charlie Sykes]

Well, Miller is saying this stuff, and Trump is saying this stuff. And I think the key thing is. And again, you're absolutely right. I mean, Stephen Miller, you need to take him seriously because he is the chief ideologue and the architect of many of Trump's draconian policies. I mean, we've seen them go from concept to reality over and over again. The important thing to recognize, though, is the fact that they wanted to do this for a very, very long time. It was last month, before the murder of Charlie Kirk, that. That President Trump was, you know, bleeding out, that he wanted to go after George Soros.

[Jim Acosta]

Right.

[Charlie Sykes]

It was Stephen Miller, who, throughout the year has been labeling political opponents as terrorists, as people who are basically a criminal organization. I mean, do you remember when he gave that one interview on Fox News? Of course, Fox News, where he said, the Democratic Party is not a political party, it's a criminal enterprise. It's a terrorist organization? Well, Jim, if the Democratic Party is not a real political party, if it really is a terrorist organization, how do you deal with it? Do you treat them as a rival in a democratic system, or do you use the full power of the federal government, including lethal force, against those enemies? And I think that you're seeing this rhetorical shift. But again, the Charlie Kirk moment is, and I'm sorry to use this business overused term, but it's an inflection point where it's gone from just sort of rhetoric to, they're serious, they're going to be doing things. We've seen Trump's willingness to use the Department of Justice, to use the FBI as his own personal instrument and weapon of retaliation and revenge. And I think we can see, you know, you know, buckle up, this is coming.

[Jim Acosta]

There's no question about it. And, and to me, Charlie, I don't know about what you think, but when it became a little murky on Friday as to what the motivations were of the suspect, it was sort of a hodgepodge all over the place. We're not really? Sure. I know Spencer Cox, the governor of Utah, was saying he came from a leftist ideology on Meet the Press, but this, this young man's own grandmother apparently was telling the Daily Mail, we don't have any Democrats in the family. We don't know any Democrats. You know, my son, the young man's father, the suspect's father is, is a Trump Republican. I mean, you know, and then there's just all the weird, nutty engravings on the shell casings referring to online gaming and so on. And I don't know, I feel like I'm a reasonable, rational person. I'm wondering what you think. It's not really clear where this kid was coming from. And yet Trump and the right and Stephen Miller and all these folks, they're gonna, they're gonna drive that square peg into the round hole hole no matter what. And they want this to be a trans killer or whatever, leftist killer, what have you, because it fits their narrative and what in their agenda.

[Charlie Sykes]

Yeah, I mean, two things. Number one, we don't know. We don't know what we don't know. And, and I think that the answer in the end is going to be that this is a very confusing and very muddled picture. I was reading somebody earlier today who said that, you know, no journalist who's over the age of 50 is going to be able to understand that weird world of gaming and all memes and the irony on irony and the coded words and all of this stuff. So it's going to be a very confusing picture except on the right, non Fox News and through the administration, because they have their narrative and they're going to stick with that narrative and they're going to drive that narrative. There are just too many incentives. There's too much ideological investment in all of this. And it is there it again is their pretext to do what they have been wanting to do for some time. And you see this. Whether It's Trump or J.D. vance or Stephen Miller or Laura Loomer, they are at full cry. And, you know, look, I guess, you know, you and I are both old enough to remember when the President of the United States would be the comforter in chief. Yeah, of course, Donald Trump was never gonna be the comforter in chief. But right now the inciter and inflamer in chief is sitting in the Oval Office and he has the largest possible megaphone and he's going to be driving this narrative of division and this story that only the left engages in political violence. So we're seeing this selective Orwellian History that just pretends that what happened in Minnesota didn't happen.

[Jim Acosta]

It's like the rewriting of January 6.

[Charlie Sykes]

Which he successfully has done for his base.

[Jim Acosta]

That's right, yes. And he's rewritten. He's tried to rewrite the history of January 6th for his base. You're absolutely. That's such a great observation, Charlie. The thing, though, that, I mean, that worries me is, I mean, first of all, just to hit the pause button on what I was about to say, we should point out on Friday, and I'm sure you saw this video when Donald Trump was asked, how are you holding up, sir? Oh, in, in relation to Charlie Kirk. And he started talking about the ball. He said, well, I'm fine. And then he started talking about the ballroom that's under construction over the White House. So to me, that was one of those telling moments that perhaps he and others had felt like, well, this. This wasn't exactly what we thought it was going to be. And I guess now we need to start moving on to other things. And then something happened over the weekend where they're back at it. They are back at. They're determined on this one.

[Charlie Sykes]

They are determined on it. And I think people need to take that seriously. Look, I mean, Donald Trump, you know, may. I mean, his prefrontal cortex may be unripe bananas, but there are people around him who have a very, very, you know, focused agenda, and they are going to do whatever possible to. To maximize the reaction to all of this. And I do think that it's interesting. Look, I want to make it very clear that I was. I met. Have met Charlie Kirk. I won't say that we were. We knew one another at all, but I was served on panels with him. Yeah. You know, and I was horrified by his murder. I mean, he's a human being. He's a father. He's, He's, He's. He's a husband. I mean, this stuff should never happen. On the other hand, what is interesting is the way in which this has pivoted so quickly in our country from grief. I mean, do you remember we've gone so far since 9 11, when a tragedy like this would unite people.

[Jim Acosta]

Yes.

[Charlie Sykes]

We pivoted so quickly to this. To this agenda of anger and retaliation and vengeance, and that's a very, very potent force. And I think historians, particularly, you know, historians of authoritarianism have seen where this leads, and it generally does not lead to a good place.

[Jim Acosta]

It doesn't lead to a good place. And I'm right there with you. And I You know, we were saying this on my show. I had Harry Dunn on Olivia Troy, you know, Senator Doug Jones in the immediate aftermath of this. And we were all saying this is a moment for the country to try to come together and, and try to turn down the temperature and, and don't have a rush to judgment, don't have a rush to draw any conclusions before the facts come in. But Charlie, I think the world that we live in now is that only one half of the equation is willing to do that. And in the MAGA universe, they, they just, they're just hell bent on this. And Charlie Kirk's death, however tragic as it was, and it certainly was extremely tragic, it's just awful. I, and, and this sounds, I, I hate even saying it in this fashion, but it's, it seems to me they, they view this as, as something that they want to use to try to stir up more division and discord in this country. And, and, well, you're still going to do that. And we're seeing them do that.

[Charlie Sykes]

No, and there's the tremendous asymmetry where.

[Jim Acosta]

You know, Democratic governors and so on, it came out, you know, Gavin Newsom, Kamala Harris, they're all coming. This is, you know, this is a moment we should turn down the temperature. Even Spencer Cox, I will say, was saying all the right things. But on the far right, this is not the case.

[Charlie Sykes]

No, it's, it's not, it's not the case. And, and the consequences are again, asymmetrical so that somebody on the left will say something perhaps, you know, in poor taste or in bad timing. And yet look at the rhetoric that you're getting. The, the people who are stoking civil war, the people who are talking about shutting down their political opposition. So where are the voices saying, hey, you know, the worst thing we can do is to take this act of political violence and use this now as an excuse to shut down political speech. And I think that's one of the key things, is there is now an attempt to stigmatize the kind of commentary that you and I engage in, talking about the threats to democracy, talking about the possibility of incipient fascism. And as I wrote on my substack today, this is exactly the moment not to go silent because, you know, not to go silent because the threat is right now right in front of us, and it's worse than ever. And I think that what you have is you have this effort to really shut down dissent, to use it to quash dissent, to say that anybody that says that Donald Trump or The right is a threat to democracy. You know, that this incites violence. Well, what does that mean? I mean, it means that a lot of the commentary that we engage in is now being stigmatized as they redefine opposition as some sort of a dangerous, seditious, perhaps act of domestic terrorism. And where that leads, I think historically we know how dangerous it can be.

[Jim Acosta]

Yeah, we were just showing your substack a few moments ago. Call fascism. Fascism. Call hate. Hey, don't stop doing that. Because people on the far right are beating everybody down and saying, you know, you can't. You can't call them like you see them. And I, you know Karen Attia, who's the columnist over the Washington Post, she was fired by the Washington Post, she says, for basically saying that what Charlie Kirk said was wrong about black women, and it was wrong what he said about black women. He shouldn't have said things like that. But that was the kind of politics he was engaged in. But, you know, the asymmetry here, Charlie, is pretty startling. When you have somebody like Jesse Waters, you know, last week saying, we're at war, they're at war with us. He keeps referring to this they.

[Charlie Sykes]

That was they.

[Jim Acosta]

That's dangerous stuff.

[Charlie Sykes]

It is dangerous stuff, and it is going to become more dangerous. Look, I mean, there's two things. We need to make distinctions. The people who actually celebrated the murder of Charlie Kirk, that is just completely unacceptable. Run this completely. But what's happening is, you notice that it's starting to morph, that if you now criticize Charlie Kirk or things that he said or did, then that is also considered part of the right wing cancel culture, that they're coming after you. And the reality is that you can balance these things in your head that I disagree fundamentally. Much of what he said I think was dangerous and damaging, but that is in no way suggesting that that is why he was assassinated or a justification for his assassination. But again, one of the ironies, at the same time, they're saying that Charlie Kirk was a champion for free speech, but if you criticize him, we're going to get you fired. So there's a little bit of cognitive dissonance there, isn't there?

[Jim Acosta]

Yeah, just a little bit of a disconnect, no question about it. And, you know, I mean, we thought that this, this month of September was going to be, you know, all about Jeffrey Epstein and maybe a government shutdown. But here we are smack dab in the middle of a, I think, a very consequential discussion about this country and how we emerge from this, what took place last week with the killing of Charlie Kirk. When I read what you're saying, Charlie, and you have a, you know, you've been in this business for a long time, you were conservative broadcaster for many years, and then said, you know what? I'm, I'm not on this. I'm not on this Trump train, that's for darn sure. I get the sense for you, and I get the sense from talking to a lot of people. I was talking to somebody earlier today about this prominent voice. I shouldn't name check him because I don't have his permission to do it, but people who are just really worried about the future of this country right now, really worried. How do we unravel this? How do we get out of this with Donald Trump in the White House? It just seems to me there's just no people can say, turn down the temperature. Trump's cranking it all the way up to 85. You know what I mean? How do you turn. You can't turn it down 95, 95.

[Charlie Sykes]

Well, you can't. How can you not be worried about the state of the country right now? How can you not think that this inflection point is more likely the beginning of something than the end of something? How can you not have the sense that, you know, this country, this great experiment, is right now in the midst of a massive nervous breakdown every single day, with the pace of things that are going on and with the determination of the people who are in power, in absolute power, really, at this point, and are prepared to use that power as a cudgel against their enemies. So, yes, I actually liked what Spencer Cox said. And as I've made the similar distinction between optimism and hope, I'm not optimistic. Optimism is the belief things are just going to get better. Hope is the belief that if you work very, very hard, you can turn things around. So I'm not optimistic, but it's hard to kind of cling to that hope that we're not on some sort of a toboggan ride to the bottom.

[Jim Acosta]

Yeah.

[Charlie Sykes]

And because. Because Donald Trump clearly is not. When we say that he's not the comforter in chief, he's not the uniter in chief, he makes no pretense of being the president of all Americans.

[Jim Acosta]

That's right.

[Charlie Sykes]

Which also means that we have a president who is not putting some. This national purpose, this national interest as his priority, that his personal vendettas, his personal, you know, IDS that he scratches has eclipsed all of that. And that's the world we're living in. So America right now is at a very, very dangerous place. And unfortunately, I, I'd be naive if I said that a year from now we will be in a less dangerous place. So what are the implications for the future of, you know, the rule of law, for the rule, for the future of democracy? What is the status of the Constitution? Will the Supreme Court actually stand up and be a guardrail? Will Congress actually decide that it doesn't want to be potted plants? Or are we on this, this inexorable slide that so many other democracies and Republicans and republics have been on going into the next two elections? So, I mean, it is a scary time.

[Jim Acosta]

It's going to take engagement, I think on everybody's part. Anybody who cares about democracy, there is no losing to the couch in the next two cycles. If you're on the couch, then you basically raise the white flag. And, and I think that that's just unacceptable at this point. But it seems to me that, you know, when we look at the big picture here, and I was talking about this with Julia Jeske, who does decoding Fox News, it's hard to take the Fox News component out of this. I mean, this is a major state media tool, that state media like tool that Donald Trump has at his disposal now. I mean, he was on Fox and Friends on Friday stoking this news stuff. Stephen Miller was on Fox. He's on Hannity's Friday night. Jesse Waters was using that war rhetoric. And before even any of this got started, Brian Kilmeade was saying you can euthanize homeless people. And he just had to give an apology over the weekend without even getting fired, which is just extraordinary to me. And I'm just wondering, Charlie, as somebody who came out of broadcasting, I know I came out of broadcasting and I can say with authority that if this had happened, happened anywhere else, that person would have been shit canned in a heartbeat. Jesse Waters shit canned a long time ago.

[Charlie Sykes]

No. Generally going on the air and saying that homeless people should be involuntarily euthanized, just kill them, would seem to be, yeah, that's a career ending kind of comment, especially in the environment where we're in right now. So what does it take to get fired from Fox? But also I do have to just, you know, think what was going through his mind, what made him think a guy who's a professional broadcaster knows he's on, on television. Look, you and I both know that being on live television is a little bit, you know, like like being on a tightrope. You're. It's always dangerous.

[Jim Acosta]

Oh, yeah.

[Charlie Sykes]

Especially when you have breaking news. But he's sitting there on the couch and they have plenty of time. They've been talking about this story about what happened in Charlotte over and over and over again. And so when you think about that mentality, it is extremely extraordinary that he would just get off by saying, yes. I apologize for making a callous comment. No, Fox News is an important component here and I don't want to downplay in any way, but I also think that we need to understand how vast this whole right wing media ecosystem has become. Charlie Kirk was part of it.

[Jim Acosta]

He was so.

[Charlie Sykes]

He was a big part of it. And it is a universe that, you know, continues to grow and metastasize. There are the offshoots, there are the gripers, there are the, you know, the people that used to be on 4chan message boards, right? And millions of people are getting their information and getting their dopamine hits from this network. Fox News may be the most visible, but it's out there. And unfortunately, and this is again, you know, Charlie Kirk talking about Charlie Kirk, he understood, I think, this ecosystem and was in many ways a product of that ecosystem. But that ecosystem has its own incentives, its own reward structure. And it is driving us right now to this moment that you and I have been talking about this increasing anger and the potential of more political violence because that's what it feeds on. It feeds on that sense of grievance and anger and conspiracy and us versus them. And it's interesting because I was at a conference just a little while ago and they were talking about, you know, the future of the right. And I was in the audience and I wanted to ask a question. And the question that I wanted to ask, I didn't have a chance to ask it, but was tell me how the rivalry on the right, the emerging rivalry between Charlie Kirk and Nick Fuentes, who's an actual neo Nazi, how that's going to play out? Because on the right, because of this new ecosystem, there's this constant incentive to keep moving more and more extreme.

[Jim Acosta]

Exactly.

[Charlie Sykes]

The fact that, that right now, one of the rising figures on the right, who's going to be competing for, you know, to be the next Charlie Kirk, is a guy so far out there that I, I still find it almost, you know, I find it mind blowing to think that, that there would be any young people that would be, would, would follow someone like a Nick Fuentes, a holocaust denier, outright, you know, anti semitic bigot like Nick Fuentes. But this is the world we live in where they are fed by this and they feed it and it becomes this, this self perpetuating instrument of extremism.

[Jim Acosta]

Yeah, it's such a good point because I mean, if you look at the video of what happened to Charlie Crook, there was a huge crowd for him and he has these, he had these huge crowds going on wherever he went. And you know, it goes to the kind of power and influence that he had inside the MAGA movement, in particular with young people, gen zers. And I don't see any kind of counterbalance to that on the left that's even remotely close to that kind of power and influence that he had over there on the right. And you're absolutely right. It does feel as though the Nick Fuentes of the world are pulling MAGA even further to the right, to the. I mean, and this has been going on for some time. I mean, Donald Trump, what, had lunch or he, he dined with him at Mar a Lago. At lunch or dinner?

[Charlie Sykes]

Dinner.

[Jim Acosta]

He met with him at Mar a Lago, the, the guy who is now the President of the United States. And it just goes to show you, they feel that there is some currency to playing footsie with outright just bigots and anti Semites and neo Nazis and proud boys and extremists and so on. And it's the window, it moves the.

[Charlie Sykes]

Window of what is acceptable. And you know, on the right, the one thing is, you don't want to be outflanked by somebody who's cooler, younger and more extreme than you are. And you've seen this on talk radio, you see it on Fox News, you see it on all of this. And this is part of the story. So if people think, well, this is pretty bad, I mean, I, I actually think that it's one of those moments people should say, again, setting aside the unacceptability of political violence, why are so many of the things that Charlie Kirk said, why are they considered to be acceptable? Why would Ezra Klein write that he did politics the right way when he.

[Jim Acosta]

Said he said exactly the right way? I saw that. I saw that. So why would he say that?

[Charlie Sykes]

Exactly. So I think that we need to understand that we. There is this constant, I've described it as a vortex moving people. And there are people in the Trump administration who do listen to what people like Nick Fuentes are saying right now. And so yes, again, this is one. Until somebody stands up with credibility and says, hey, enough, let's stop this. But that has not happened in the last decade and I'm not optimistic it's going to happen now.

[Jim Acosta]

Yeah, and you brought up as recline. And I wish I had brought him up sooner so we could have this in a more fulsome way in terms of a discussion. But when he said that he, that he practiced, that Charlie Kirk practiced politics exactly the right way, I think is the way he phrased it. I couldn't believe it because to me that's, I mean Charlie Kirk, he was a provocateur and he said things that were bigoted and were really ugly. I mean he talked about black women in a way that, I mean it's just, it's just absolutely shameful. And I, and I don't like to talk about the recently departed in that fashion. I, you know, I don't. That's just not, I'm old fashioned. I don't love to do that, but it's true. These are the things that he said and so I don't understand. But to me, Ezra Klein's take on it represents sort of an, I don't know what it is on, on the center left in the pro democracy side of things that I think to the point you were talking about the vortex and the window moving more and more to the right. There's almost an acceptance in corporate media among some people in the, in the center, thought leaders and so on. Who, who accept this stuff and, and are. They've had their outrage sensors numbed.

[Charlie Sykes]

Yeah, maybe, maybe I should cut him some more slack because I, I think I understood, I understand why he was saying it again. He's trying to lower the temperature, make it very, very clear, make the distinction between politics and as debate as opposed to politics as violence. I mean, Charlie Kirk was not organizing the proud Boys, although he did play a significant role on January 6th. But, and I do think this is the, one of the things that, that we need to talk about is that, that Charlie Kirk would go to college campuses and said prove me wrong. He would engage in debate. And I think that's what Ezra Klein now. But having said that, what he's also introduced into the body politic is something that we're having a very hard time dealing with. How do you deal with, you know, things that, you know, were clearly meant to demonize others, the kind of rhetoric. And again, I, you know, as somebody who has been part of the conservative movement, remembering not that long ago when there was a considerable effort to sort of police conservatism to keep the extremists, the mouth breathers, the bigots out. I mean, this is part of that story of William F. Buckley Jr. In, in the 1960s saying conservatism has no future if we don't get rid of the anti Semites, don't we get rid of the John Birchers and the Ku Klux Klanners? And he succeeded, at least in part for a time. Unfortunately. Feels like all of that has come back and is now considered acceptable.

[Jim Acosta]

Yeah, no, the barbarians are through the gate. There's no question about it.

[Charlie Sykes]

The fact that Nick Fuentes is even in the conversation is an indication of that.

[Jim Acosta]

It is, it's extraordinary. Charlie, great to see you. Thanks so much. Really appreciate it. We'll keep having this conversation and continue it and it's so important. But Charlie, always great to talk to you. Thank. Giving us a lot to think about. Thanks so much.

[Charlie Sykes]

Thank you so much.

[Jim Acosta]

Jim and I, you know, it's hard to top a lot of what Charlie was saying there. I think he's just right on the money in terms of how the goalposts have been moved, I guess. Is it going to be acceptable for some people in corporate media and in the center and, you know, people who say they care about democracy to be okay with the Trump White House signaling that they're going to now go after people they deem to be on the left, organizations they deem to be on the left, and accuse them of having some kind of association with what took place with Charlie Kirk? I mean, I just, I find that to be absolutely outrageous. And we can't let our sense of normalcy get tossed out the window, get tossed aside here. It is not normal. It is not normal for the President of the United States or people who are around him to say that they're going to go after what they deem to be leftist organizations in this country. That is stifling free speech. That is stifling free expression. The Constitution has to mean something. And I think it is incumbent upon the Supreme Court. I think the Supreme Court is. This is a moment for the Supreme Court. Come on. Is it just going to be carte blanche for Donald Trump? Blank check, do whatever he wants from here to kingdom come. It's outrageous. It's outrageous and it, it has no place in our politics. But apparently this is where we are right now. And I just want to say one last thing. I mean, folks might have been wondering, oh, why'd you start the show talking about Fox? Why'd you start the show talking about Brian Kilmeade? And I'm going to say this is why Brian Kilmeade should be fired. Brian Kilmeade has, has no business being on television anymore after what he said, that homeless people should be euthanized. That should, they should be injected involuntarily, lethally. That, that is absolutely beyond the pale. That that's, that's going, that's going so far that there's no turning back. But it ties into the discussion that we're having because for some reason in our country, if you're on the right and you work at Fox or you're in one of these MAGA friendly organizations, you can say just about anything now. You can say that it's okay to euthanize human beings and you still get to keep your job. Can somebody explain to me how that is normal in America? What are we doing here? What are we doing here? When a, when a host of a morning show, I mean, my God, were the kids getting ready for school? Were they putting their jackets on and their booties? When Brian Kilmeade is on Fox and Friends talking about euthanizing homeless people, Was grandma pouring the cornflakes in her bowl and pouring herself a cup of joe? When Brian Kilmeade is talking about lethally injecting homeless people. And all Fox can do is to prop up Brian Kilmeade in front of a camera on Sunday and have him apologize on behalf of the network and the network has nothing else to say about it. Come on Fox. Come on. How is this normal? How is this allowed? How is this acceptable? And you have the corporate media, the non Fox corporate media tossing people overboard left and right for a fraction of nothing compared to what Brian Kilmeade said. If Brian Kilmeade said that on any other news network, he would be gone. He would be gone. He would have been gone that morning at the end of Fox and Friends, at the end of that morning show. On any other network he would have been tossed out the door. They would have been waiting for him off the set with the in his office in boxes and they would have said get the out of here. But over at Fox News you can say it. You can say you can euthanize homeless people and then still collect your multi million dollar paycheck. Can somebody tell me what the hell is going on in this country when that is allowed? It's totally insane. And it's totally insane that Jesse Waters over on the 5 is saying that we're at war in this country. We're not at war. But somehow you can say these things over at Fox and get away with it. And it's totally nuts. It's totally not who we should be as a country. But apparently you could do it. You can do it, as Donald Trump would say, as when you're a celebrity, they let you get away with it and it doesn't make it right. And I, you know, I, I, I will say for all of the talk inside the White House, Donald Trump, Stephen Miller, J.D. vance, all these types saying they're going to go after people on the left, watch what you say. Be careful what you say. I, the rest of us have to watch what we say. But on Fox, you can talk about euthanizing homeless people and still keep your multimillion dollar paycheck. How do you like them apples, America? How do you like them apples? I want to thank Julia Jeske, who does an amazing job over at Decoding Fox, and my friend Charlie Sykes, as always, for joining the program. Really appreciate everybody tuning in. We had a fantastic show last Friday with Joe Walsh and Tara Settmeier. Did extremely well on YouTube. So for the folks who are watching this on YouTube, really appreciate the support. Keep supporting us by clicking that subscribe button, clicking that like button if you're our friends on substack, so thankful for what you do and really appreciate all the comments, the Substack viewers who are commenting, we try to put those comments up on screen. They're, they're, they're just terrific comments and it just shows you how engaged this audience is. But really appreciate everybody tuning in day in and day out and, and my thanks again to the guests today for another fantastic show. In the meantime, still reporting from Washington, I'm Jim Acosta. Have a good evening. Take care. Good night.