Breaking News from Pod Save America - The Political Violence Has To Stop

Episode Date: September 11, 2025

Jon Favreau, Jon Lovett and Tommy Vietor react to the murder of Charlie Kirk. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

All right, so Charlie Kirk was shot and killed today. Many of you probably already know. He was doing an event at Utah Valley University. About 3,000 people were there, and he was shot. He was taken to the hospital where he was pronounced dead. And Spencer Cox, who is the governor of Utah, gave an update. It appears that they do have a person in custody. And we're just going to throw to the Spencer Cox clip now.

Our nation is broken. We've had political assassinations recently in Minnesota. We had an attempted assassination on the governor of Pennsylvania, and we had an attempted assassination on a presidential candidate and former president of the United States and now current president of the United States. nothing I say can unite us as a country. Nothing I can say right now can fix what is broken. Nothing I can say can bring back Charlie Kirk.

Our hearts are broken. We mourn with his wife, his children, his family, his friends. We mourn as a nation. If anyone in the sound of my voice celebrated even a little bit at the news of this shooting. I would beg you to look in the mirror and to see if you can find a better angel in there somewhere. I don't care what his politics are. I care that he was an American. We desperately need our country. We desperately need leaders in our country, but more than the leaders, we just need every single person in this country to think about where we are and where we want to be.

to ask ourselves, is this it? Is this what 250 years has wrought on us? I pray that that's not the case. I pray that those who hated what Charlie Cook stood for will put down their social media and their pens and pray for his family, and that all of us, all of us, we'll try to find a way to stop painting our fellow Americans.

I thought that was quite moving. Yeah. And I very much agree. And I'm thinking about Charlie Kirk's family. And we've been talking about this today. But, you know, he's got two young kids that are like around my kid's age or kids' age. And it's fucking gutting. Yeah.

It's just an unspeakable, inexcusable, horrific act of violence. And yeah, I've never, I don't know Charlie personally. I've never met him. but I just I saw these pictures of his kids and his wife today and these kids are exactly the same age and genders his mind there's video of his daughter running to him on the set and it's just like it's impossible not to imagine

like kind of being in the shoes and the loss and the devastation those little kids feel and so I don't mean to make it about me or personal but it's just like our the political debates were so far away from each other physically and politically and so vicious and cruel and dehumanizing often in the political rhetoric and just to like see those kids and to know what this means for them.

It's just, it's like, it's gutting. Yeah, I hadn't seen what Cox had said until now. And he is someone like kind of modeling the kind of leadership you want to see in the wake of something like this. Because, you know, this is a depraved moment in American politics. We see that. that in the political violence, he runs through some of them. He can't run through all of them.

There was the shooting at the CDC. There have been so many, by the way, not included in his litany are mass shootings, which often have at times incomprehensible political motivations, but have political motivations nonetheless. And then these shootings happen, and you end up in this sort of strange and glib cycle of people kind of clamoring for evidence to prove that they can lay the blame at the feet of their political. opponents of one kind or another, or you see people decrying all Democrats for this person's

act of terrible violence, even as Democrats elected leaders are all denouncing it, horrified, I think genuinely shocked and sickened and filled with dread about the kind of downward cycle that this could lead to. Yeah, I mean, you know, we all learn the news here at the office. and it is, you know, maybe some people on the right don't think this would be the case, but it's been a pretty somber day here because I think, in some ways for me personally, like this hits closer to home than, and is more, I'm more shaken by this than I was a Trump assassination attempt, and not just because it was Trump, but like if it would have been a Democratic politician, right, because there's now been several elected officials

who've had assassination attempts or been assassinated. And I think it's because, Now we have political violence in this country that has moved off just elected officials. And now we're getting into people who are activists, who are organizers who are doing this. And I know that has happened before. And I know, like you said, there's been political motivations. But it is terrifying. And I think we have to decide, like, before you go on social media and see all the horrific things there, like, do you want to be part of that? Do you want to add to that?

Do you want to make it better? Or do you want to make it worse? because we all able, we all have the agency to choose our words carefully and to decide how we're going to deal with us and to decide how we're going to respond. And if someone responds in a way that's fucking horrific, we can say, okay, I can either engage or I could say like, all right, that's going to be a horrific response and I'm going to just do something different. Right, or choose to just ignore that person's comment or to lift it up. I mean, look, political violence is a cancer and it will feed off itself and it will spread and it will destroy this country if we're not careful. And

And once, and once, like, political violence starts, it is very difficult to put that toothpaste back in the tube and stop, especially when there's reprisals. And so I do think it's why it's incumbent on everyone just to try to calm things down. And that's like, it's a tall order. It can't just be something, a responsibility we heap on the Democratic Party right now, although it's nice to see Democrats, like, trying to fill that space. I had the same reaction to Governor Cox's speech. Like, that was the kind of unifying message we're all used to seeing from a president. unfortunately Trump's instinct is not usually to strike that tone. So I'm kind of fearful for where he goes with this.

But man, it's scary. I mean, I'm just, it's, it's really scary. Yeah, I was thinking about Trump too. And just it's, you have to separate out the fact that you need sort of universal condemnation and that it is very good that Democrats of all stripes are coming out and saying that this is wrong. And that we denounce violence against Republicans of any kind. and that there's no justification for any kind of political violence. While at the same time, being aware that in our politics,

we have a president who stirs up people and stirs violence and does the exact opposite of what someone like Cox does and kind of fans the flames of this. So even as we say, like, we have to like take politics out of it. Like it is an unfortunate part of it that like that even today, like when I frowned out about this, I saw that Ted Cruz posted a video of people. running or be any and inside of his post it said that he was quoting some right wing aggregator that said democrat shoots charlie kirk like we don't know that we don't know the motivations maybe it will turn out to be a democrat who knows we don't know yet but and then i see Elon must saying the left is the

party of murder right and i just it is so hard that we have to figure out a way to create a universal condemnation of this kind of violence and understanding that it is dangerous for everybody for Republicans, for Democrats, for everybody, while also knowing that this, that there are the leaders that are supposed to show some kind of wisdom, some kind of responsibility and forbearance that we're just going to have to do this without. Yeah. And I, and I also think we have to decide, like, they're going to do that. They're going to say that. And we have to figure out what we do about that and how we respond to it. And I think part of, you know, what do we stand for? What does our movement stand for? Are we just in opposition to Trump? Or it was like, you,

we have to model what a different country and a different kind of politics sounds like and looks like. And, you know, it is very tempting to be like, oh, well, you said that we did that. Well, you did this. And it's not our fault, but you don't remember when you said this and like that that's going to happen. But at some point, we all have to persuade each other to like live peacefully with one another. And, you know, like I said, every single person has agency to do that. And we've all said things and tweeted things where we're like, oh, I wish I shouldn't send that.

I wish I, yeah, take that back. But like, we have to figure out a way to forcefully defend our beliefs, right? Oppose Trump and what he stands for because we genuinely believe it without like, I don't understand like becoming them because that sounds cheesy, but like by really offering an alternative that is an alternative in style and an alternative in like how we practice politics. Yeah, I just think like social media. It just shrinks the time that we are given to process events and then react to them in a way that is so unhelpful. Because, you know, you're seeing people saying some scary stuff.

You're seeing people calling for, like, crackdown on free speech or like, we need to arrest every liberal group or, you know, this was an orchestrated wave of leftist terror. And like, that is scary, insightful rhetoric, like incitement. But at the same time, I do want to just like take a beat and have some empathy and imagine that I sort of was in this conservative. world and my friend was just assassinated in cold blood. And we don't know who did it yet. We don't know the motivation, the murderer that we all assume it was political violence. It's not a crazy assumption. But like, you know, it is just worth imagining, like, how you would feel after your friend

was killed and after you watched the Trump assassination. And I'm well aware that there has been, you know, scary incidents of political violence and assassination on both sides. It's not a partisan thing. But like, man, we all just need to take a beat and just like let people process stuff. and work through it and then kind of go from there. And I will say on the social media point, and it's the media too, and it's going to be on cable.

It's everywhere, right? We say social media, but it's sort of, that drives the whole conversation. Like, you don't have to look at the horrible comments on social media and tell yourself that that represents anything but, like, one percent of the population, right? And we just, we don't have to do it. Nor do you even have to tell yourself that it represents a real person.

tweeting that. There's a lot of bots these days. There's a lot of AI. There's people, you know, some could be some Rando in Serbia tweeting it just to stir stuff up, right? Like, we just don't know. And I would urge everyone, and it happens to me,

so I'm talking to myself too, but you read it and you're like, what has the country come to? And then we're all reading it, and it's all rage bait. And I bet if you went out, if you walked out onto the street and started talking to people,

they'd be like, oh, that's fucking horrific. And I don't care what persuasion he was. I think that's horrific. I think political violence is bad. It's also just so, like, Just the fact that the videos of this. I know. I can't. What happened are just all over Twitter.

And Elon Musk, like, shut that stuff down. Like, we should, people shouldn't be watching these snuff videos on your platform. Like, Charlie Kirk's friends and family shouldn't have to think that that's going to get tweeted into their feed. And like these disgusting influencers doing this for a cloud. Like, that is just such a broken platform. Well, just it manages to do two things. And by the way, Elon, forget. taking it down like he's been one of the people sharing images of that of the murder of the

ukrainian uh refugee and over and over again and it manages to do two things at once which is it manages sort of incite the kind of the the reaction over and over again in people of how horrific it is and of how could this happen who could do this right it like kind of animates that but at the same time it it inures us to it as well it desensitizes us somehow it manages to do both and i feel like that's what social media does in total right like kind of somehow manages to keep everybody angry but also quite comfortable with it and used to it at the same time, which is why, like, you see kind of, on the one end, you see some voice, some voice on the right using this as a pretext for a crackdown, right? And I think that is going to be very serious. And I don't think that

is just people venting spleen because last week you had Stephen Miller talking about the Democratic Party as a terrorist, a domestic extremist organization. And now, like, that is going to become part of their, like I'm very worried about what they are cooking up in response to this. And we should all be worried about that. But at the same time and for that reason, it is part of the same kind of rot that you also see people kind of performatively displaying indifference, right? And trying to kind of prove their political, I don't know, righteousness or bona fides or what, or I don't know what by kind of logically explaining why they, don't feel compassion in this circumstances because of the implication of his politics. And I'm not

equating those two things, right? I'm not equating people in power using this as a justification for targeting their enemies or people who feel outside of politics kind of poking at power and kind of, you know, being angry and cynical and kind of being unafraid of expressing that insensitivity. Those are not the same things. But it all comes from a similar place, which is a kind of sense that like American stability is like permanent and natural, right? And that it can all come crashing down, that these things aren't built and unstable. And that if you tear at the foundations,

it could fall apart. And that was my feeling. I felt the same after the Trump assassination attempt, this feeling. Like we are so cavalier and glib about the stability we all had the luxury of growing up under. And that's partly why universal condemnation is so important because it has to be.

It's part of the way you kind of figure out, how to step back from this. China Ling, who hosts a great podcast. He tweeted conversation or violence. That's the ultimate choice. You can't have both. And you first read that and you're like, oh, is that too simple?

No, no, that is actually what the whole thing boils down to in this country. That is politics in a democratic system. You either change people's minds by having conversations and debating and doing that and doing it peacefully, even if you're yelling at someone, even if you're calling them all kinds of horrible names, or you resort to violence. That's it. And the other half of his tweet is anyone who celebrates violence, has no idea what it's like to live in real political disorder.

And that ignorance is a luxury of having lived this, you know, privileged life in a stable system. And that is true. And when you hear people talking about like life in countries that descend into ethnic or political violence, it's like one day your neighbor is friendly to you and the next day you're an armed conflict. Yes. It's just something to like, I'm not saying we're close to that, but it's just worth remembering that like once you start this stuff, it is not easy to stop it or control it. And it's why like, you know. I was talking about January 6th on another pod today. And, you know, talking about it is like just some trespassers and stuff like that.

No, no, no. Violence was committed against law enforcement. And there was an attention to commit violence against others. Maybe not everyone there, but a good amount of people there. And the same thing, we've had this conversation, sort of the, like, I don't know if it's glorification or justification of Luigi Mangione, assassinating a health care CEO. it's the same idea, right? But you have to say political violence, bad, no matter what.

Whether it's someone on your side, someone on the other side, it is just fucking bad. It is because it's not just bad because it's good to be like, you know, I'm going to be, you know, I'm going to talk about the other side. I'm going to bring everyone together. It's not if you want to live in a free society and you want to live in some place where people are not killing each other all the time, then you have to fucking model that behavior as well. And particularly, like, if you are someone that that, that, that, that, that, that, that, you are someone that, that, that, that, that, that, that, you know, cares about building a society that's more progressive, right? Like, you don't have to like Charlie Kirk. And I hope your humanity leaves you sad and upset by the violence in and of itself on its own terms.

But if not, understand that a chaotic and disordered society is one that feeds the project of people who promise control and order. It feeds people who do well when people feel unsafe, when they feel like they can't trust their neighbor. when they feel like the world is falling apart, that does not reward a generous and capacious and progressive kind of politics. It rewards people who are going to feed off of that anger and mistrust. Yeah, no one's asking you to like Charlie Kirk's politics, but my God, just think about his kids and his wife

and what they're going through now and it's just, you know, find some fucking empathy. Also, it's worth just pointing out that there was a shooting just hours later at a high school in Colorado. And, you know, like what, there's been like 46, some of mass shootings is here or something like that and you know we'll figure out what gun was used in this shooting but my god it would be nice to see some sort of action on gun control yeah thank you guys at least we just stop the political violence at this point um all right i think that's we'll have more to say but we just wanted to jump on here and chat a little bit about this while it was

uh all it was happening today so thanks everyone