Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - 9/11/25: Charlie Kirk Assassinated In Utah

Episode Date: September 11, 2025

Krystal and Saagar discuss the aftermath of Charlie Kirk's assassination in Utah.     To become a Breaking Points Premium Member and watch/listen to the show AD FREE, uncut and 1 hour early visit: www.breakingpoints.comMerch Store: https://shop.breakingpoints.com/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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We're going to add this to the very top. So I'm just going to go ahead and share some of the latest from law enforcement. This is from the law enforcement press conference. This is at 926 a.m. Eastern time just for dating purposes. I'm going to go ahead and play this about what they know. about the individual. We were able to track the movements of the shooter. Starting at 11.52 a.m., the subject arrived on campus shortly away from campus.

We have tracked his movements onto the campus, through the stairwells, up to the roof, across the roof to a shooting location. After the shooting, we were able to track his movements as he moved to the other side of the building, jumped off of the building, and fled off of the campus. of the campus and into a neighborhood. Our investigators have worked through those neighborhoods, contacting anybody they can with doorbell cameras, witnesses, and have thoroughly worked through those communities trying to identify any leads. We do have good video footage of this individual. We are not going to release that at this time. We are working through some technologies and

and some ways to identify this individual. If we are unsuccessful, we will reach out to you as the media and we will push that publicly to help us identify them. But we are confident in our abilities right now, and we would like to move forward in a manner that keeps everyone safe and moves this process appropriately. So that's big news they do have. We discussed in our segment about how it was pretty shocking

that they had not released any information or video there. We do have one more thing. that we can play here about the rifle, which the weapon they believe that they've discovered. I'm going to go ahead and play that as well. This morning, I can tell you that we have recovered what we believe is the weapon that was used in yesterday's shooting. It's a high-powered bolt-action rifle. That rifle was recovered in a wooded area where the shooter had fled. So the FBI laboratory will be analyzing this weapon.

Investigators have also collected footwear impression of palm print and forearm imprints for analysis. I understand there are a lot of questions about motive. I assure you that all leads, tips, and tips are being fully investigated. As of this morning, we have received more than 130 tips. We thank the community for that. This morning, I can tell you that we have recovered. So there you go. They've recovered a high-powered rifle.

So those are the two kind of addums that just to add into that, keep that in context. Anything else you want to add, Crystal, before we throw to our original comments? No, I think that's it. Yeah, just as we record a whole thing, and then right afterwards, there's this press conference. So, you know, just take that additional information in as you're listening to our commentary. Obviously, some of the specifics have changed about what we know about the potential suspect. But I think all the overall commentary on what it means for the country, et cetera, continues to stand.

So all right, guys, we'll keep you updated best we can. And Ryan, Emily, and I will be doing a Friday show tomorrow as well. Hello, everybody. It is Thursday. And we had to do a little bit of special programming today because conservative activist Charlie Kirk was shot and murdered yesterday in Utah. So we're coming in from home. I think people can hear, you know, it's a very difficult story.

to cover and we're going to take everybody through it and we're going to talk a little bit about kind of what it means, you know, to us and kind of what I think we means, you know, to the mission of the show and just generally about the country and all of that. But we do think, you know, this is a place where we have to show up. We've got to do the news. So Crystal, why don't we just go ahead and start, you know, with everything that we know. Crazily enough, it was literally happened as we were planning the show. That's right. For the next day. and we all found out in real time. Yeah, Emily started sending us messages and none of us could believe it.

And before we get into what we know, which frankly, I mean, we waited to put anything out last night because there's always, you know, misdirection and things that are wrong, et cetera. And usually things shake out and you get a clear picture of what the hell happened. And I can't say that we know that much more this morning than we did yesterday. from everybody at breaking points from me, Sagar, Ryan and Emily also wanted us to convey our horror at the whole thing and our deepest consultances to Charlie's family, his wife, his two kids who were there on the scene when he was shot and murdered in this political assassination that happened in broad daylight. So here's what we know. Let me go ahead and set the scene a little bit. This was, you know, Charlie is known for his. college tours. This was the first stop of a college tour. This was in Utah at Utah Valley University. And, you know, it looked like a normal day. He was out. He was throwing hats into the crowd and then suddenly gunfire erupts. And you can see everybody's scattering and screams and chaos. You guys have probably seen the actual video of his murder, which was captured on camera. And if you haven't seen it, I recommend you don't watch it because the image will haunt you for the rest of your life.

Yeah. Absolute horror single shot to the neck. Um, and he instantly collapses. Uh, the students, of course, flee as we showed you there. And what we have come to find out from video and, um, you know, from what we've learned at the scene is that the shooter was apparently on a nearby roof. let me go ahead and share this piece so you can see a little bit of, you know, what this look like. So can see this image here appears to be the shooter. And Sager, you know, as we're putting the pieces of this together, and Charlie was taken to the hospital and then, you know, later died while he was there receiving medical care.

And anyone who saw that wound, I think, was pretty convinced pretty quickly that he wasn't going to be able to make it. But the shooter was quite a distance away. Immediately the police arrested an older man who was in the crowd. There were some eyewitnesses who said that he had claimed responsibility, this old man that was in the crowd, even though he was unarmed. There's video also of him being dragged off where he's saying, shoot me, shoot me, acting very strange. Meanwhile, the actual gunman was on this roof. Estimates are some 200 yards away. I'm not an expert on guns, but, you know, we've all sort of spoken to people in our lives that we know who say this, you know, this would be a difficult shot.

And it was a single shot and obviously, you know, shot to kill. And so far has successfully evaded capture. Yeah, the circumstances beyond the sheer horror of the actual murder, the circumstances of this assassination are really honestly shocking. So I'm going to go ahead and put this map up here on the screen just so that people can see. So this was, if you're watching, exactly where Charlie was shot, kind of in a lawn, you know, almost auditorium style place at the Utah Valley University campus. And a video showed a person on the roof before the shooting about 430 feet away. So if you're looking at this diagram, you can actually see the rooftop where some of the video actually captured, you know, this individual or suspected individual. Part of the crazy thing is, you know, we really don't still know a lot.

right now. You had that initial suspect, it's not even suspect. You had a person who was taken into custody who faced questioning and definitely was acting very strangely. That was followed by the FBI director, Cash Patel, who said that there was a subject in custody. That was a second subject actually in custody. I can go ahead and put that up there on the screen as well because it just shows the chaotic nature so far of a lot of the communication from law enforcement. They say that the subject in custody has been released after an interrogation by law enforcement. Our investigation continues and we will continue to release information in the interest of transparency. But that is the last communication that we have gotten from the FBI director so far and the manhunt remains underway.

And incredibly irresponsible, frankly, to put out such a, you know, his initial statement, people really felt like, oh, they got the guy, right? there was a press conference with, you know, law enforcement and other electeds that they were contradicting each other at that point, whether they had a suspect in custody or not, whether there was an ongoing manhunt or not. In addition to the old man that was seemingly acting very bizarre at the scene, but has now been released, there was another guy that they arrested. I think that actually is the subject that Cash was, Cash Tell was referring to. here also turned out to be uninvolved. He'd been like a heritage foundation staffers. So just, you know, part of this sort of conservative firmament. I don't know why they picked him up at all. But extremely bizarre. You know, at this point, basically the only thing that we have heard definitively about the appearance of this, you know, of this individual, the assassin, is that they

were dressed all in black. There was some audio released from a police scanner that, you know, said, we're looking for a subject who's dressed all in black. That's basically it. We don't have any photos of any suspects. We haven't heard anything about any tips or intelligence now. Maybe there are things going on behind the scenes. But the fact they had two separate individuals in custody that they questioned and released and have not put out any information to the public to try to apprehend anyone. I mean, it's deeply concerning. And all the experts who've looked at this say, this looked like an extremely professional job. You know, the shot itself would be, would be difficult and, you know, single shot, single kill shot. Then he's able to seemingly,

flawlessly escape and escape justice at least up to up to this point in the day. You know, Sagar, can you, do you mind putting that map back up on the screen if you have it? Because if you look at that building, there is a parking lot, too, that is right behind the building. You know, that, you know, that the shooter was alleged, you know, that we think that the shooter was on when he murdered Charlie Kirk. And so the thought is that he was able to, you know, escape from this building while the crowd is fleeing while they're bothered, you know, busy arresting this old man who has apparently nothing to do with it. He's able to probably go to this parking lot and escape and vanish so far into thin air. So from the difficulty of the shot, the execution of

that to the ability to get away from the scene and, you know, and take advantage of these, you know, diversions makes it seem like it was intentional. I guess that's not completely on the question, but take advantage of this chaos to be able to exit. This was someone who knew what they were doing. This was not some random radicalized in cell on the internet or whatever. This was someone who, you know, someone who had a lot of experience in marksmanship and who had a plan and was able to execute it. What I heard from a few gun experts is they were like, look, it's not that 200 yards is a difficult shot. It's they're like, you know, somebody could do it.

They would have to know some familiarity generally. Laying in the prone makes it a lot easier in terms of the sniping direction. But I think actually you have to combine it with the totality of what we've seen in the execution so far, wearing black, also, you know, laying in the prone, finding a position, planning the attack, having a way of egress evading capture some 13 hours. Keep in mind, everybody, we're recording this around 8.30 a.m. Eastern time. So people should just remember that, you know, information can break very quickly. But this is largely not just our, you know, assessment. It's also the assessment of some law enforcement experts. You know, CNN actually had a guest on who made this very point. So I'm going to go ahead and play a little bit from what they were saying. In a case like this, you're looking for someone who has detachment and a lack of empathy who likes to be in control. The offender characteristics of the assassin sniper are something that's been studied very closely, especially by the Secret Service. And it's someone who's methodical and patient, self-reliant.

In other words, Caitlin, this is the kind of person who would have planned to get in, silently try to be invisible, take this shot, accomplish the mission, take the gun with them and leave little evidence behind, which is why I think they're having a very difficult time getting started on this. This is someone who was a planner. And John, also what stood out to me from what we heard from officials earlier was they said it was a single shot that was fired. It wasn't multiple shots in Charlie Kirk's direction. They said it was about 200 yards away from where he was sitting under that tent. What does that tell you about the person's familiarity with firearms?

That tells you that the person is not new to shooting, that they understood exactly what type of long rifle to bring, what kind of optics in terms of scopes and sights to have on that, what the windage was that might affect a shot from that distance. This is someone who knew exactly what they were doing and is probably known to others, and this may be working to the advantage of law enforcement as someone who has a long history in shooting, this wasn't an amateur. So I think that that's very important to keep in mind here.

That's what they're saying now so far, you know, in terms of the initial assessment. And I think, you know, again, combining the totality of the shot of the execution of getting out, if we think a little bit more recently, one of the more high profile assessments, that we saw with Luigi Mangione, there's a couple of differences because Mangione, you know, came up very close to the United Healthcare CEO. And of course, you know, he was able to escape. But he also was, you know, he made a couple of mistakes there with security camera footage. They were releasing images. Law enforcement, again, to this point, has not released any image at all of the suspect. In fact, the press conference that they gave said that the CCTV footage was great. and it just simply showed a person in black. Presumably also the FBI is going to be doing like a cell phone location ping, which they're able to do and they've done in high profile investigations as well to try and narrow all of the individuals who were there. I was looking at some maps of the area. There was a freeway very close by and obviously was a very chaotic situation, you know,

to be able to go away and get in. There were some 3,000 people who actually attended the event. But broadly, you know, at this point, the fact that you've evaded capture for some 12, more than 12 hours now since this attack does show. And also the release of two suspects says this is a difficult investigation right now for the FBI. And it does tell us also, you know, with the information, the conflicting information and all the stuff that came out, it is, it's pretty shocking. And it does, I think also what we can focus on is this. You know, if we look at some of the, you were talking about the crazed lunatic attacks, very. Often those lead in suicide. They are martyrs who immediately are identified, confronted by law enforcement. In this particular case, I think the fact that the shooter fled had a plan in the very beginning that there's been no claim, manifesto, et cetera, actually is a message in and of itself that this person at the very least, you know, wanted to evade capture. Now, again, keep in mind, that could be still a single individual. The D.C. sniper case. If we originally think back to that, there was a lot of speculation to the planned nature of it. It was, you know, it's crazy. Actually, we're talking on the day of 9-11, the 24th anniversary since the 9-11 attacks that happened in the wake of that. There was a lot of worry about terrorism, et cetera. Obviously it turned out to be, you know, a crazy guy and his son. But he did have military training. And they certainly did, you know, plan a lot of this round. Louisiana, again, similar situations to somebody who conducted.

an assassination, high-profile assassination, was able to flee of their own accord, got away for a couple of days. So it is certainly within the realm of possibility. But the nature, the political assassin nature of this is so extraordinary. And it really doesn't have a lot of parallels in modern American history, which we can return to. But, you know, there's also some pretty kind of crazy information now that's coming out. I want to keep in mind, it's speculation, but there was John Solomon over at who works for I think Real America's voice was recently reporting here on Fox News that there was actually some foreign intelligence lead involved in Charlie Kirk's assassination. Keep in mind, look, Solomon, you know, he is his own track record. You can go and look for yourself. I will say he's the person who broke the Charlie Kirk's death story. He was the first person to report it actually over at Real America's Voice, which was the outlet, which hosts the Charlie Kirk program. but here's what he had to say late last night and that we all lost and no matter what side of the political aisle you're on tape we lost something important in america today but uh the case goes on

the investigation goes on there's a lot of piecing of evidence together we don't have a shooter tonight we have a couple leads a couple of people that were released that probably aren't the shooter there's a couple hot leads there's a little bit of foreign intelligence and i think over the next couple of days we'll learn a lot more and hopefully we will bring to justice this is an iHeart Podcast. Every case that is a cold case that has DNA, right now in a backlog, will be identified in our lifetime. On the new podcast, America's Crime Lab, every case has a story to tell, and the DNA holds the truth. He never thought he was going to get caught, and I just looked at my computer screen. I was just like, ah, gotcha. This technology is already solving so many cases.

Listen to America's Crime Lab on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, it's Jemma Spag, host of the Psychology of Your 20s. This September at the Psychology of Your 20s, we're breaking down the very interesting ways psychology applies to real life, like why we crave external validation. I find it so interesting that we are so quick to believe others' judgments of us and not our own judgment of ourselves. So according to this study, not being liked actually creates similar pain levels as real life physical pain. Learn more about the psychology of everyday life and, of course, your 20s this September. Listen to the psychology of your 20s on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. What would you do if one bad decision forced you to choose between a maximum security prison

or the most brutal boot camp designed to be hell on earth? Unfortunately for Mark Lombardo, this was the choice he faced. He said, you are a number, a New York State number, and we own you. Listen to shock incarceration on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. The evil person who did what they did to Charlie today. Yeah, I hope. So John Solomon's there saying a little bit of foreign intelligence. Look, it's not deniable.

He's got a lot of sources in the Trump administration. He's one of the favorite journalists of Donald Trump himself. And we know that Donald Trump has actually spent a lot of time actually. on the phone. There is, let's see, I'm, I'm, Crystal, if you just want to talk, there's some new information. I'm just going to review it. Okay, yeah, go ahead and take a look at that. So, Sager and I also actually, actually both have personal experience with John Solomon. He worked, he was our boss effectively at the Hill when we both started there. I will say he is not always the most reliable character. But as soccer said, he is very well sourced in the Trump

administration. He's close to Trump. He's close to Charlie. He, you know, is, I'm sure, close with people in the FBI, probably Cash Patel himself. So, you know, that's why it's worth paying attention to what he says there. To go back to what Sagar was saying about, okay, well, what is the, what is the profile? What do we know of this individual and what they wanted to accomplish? Unlike we can compare to the recent school shooting in Minnesota, you know, that person posted long video, there were long journals. They wanted people to know about them and their psychology and what they were doing and why with all this symbology, they also intended to be killed and killed themselves on the scene. You know, that is a typical trait oftentimes is you'll

see, you know, you'll see a manifesto. You'll see someone who either dies by their own hands or intends to be killed by the cops. There's a desire for sort of infamy and notoriety. You also have, you know, the desire to make some specific political point and make it really clear. or an apparent to the public. In this instance, you know, you have two things that you can say for sure. This person wanted a public execution. They wanted it to be on camera. They wanted all of us to be scrolling through our Twitter and seeing the gore and the horror, the absolute horror of this.

That was the message they wanted to send. They wanted all of us to see it. They wanted everyone, certainly who's a public fee, they wanted every one, certainly it. They wanted everyone to feel unsafe and know that even if you're, you know, Charlie Kirk and you've got the president's ear and you've got a security team around you that no one is safe. And we also know that they wanted not to be found, right? They wanted to do this from a distance. They did not want to be captured. They wanted to evade justice.

They wanted to get away. As far as we know at this point, we haven't found or located any sort of specific manifesto. Now, that doesn't mean that this was. wasn't ideological. I think, I think, you know, it's very likely ideological, although, you know, you can't rule out. There's all sorts of types of people that this could be. But I, and I think that the third thing we can say for certain is this was someone who planned and had some level of experience. You know, again, it looks like it was a professional job. Now, maybe they just got lucky. You know, maybe this was someone who was a hunter and a pretty good shot and had an idea of how to

get away and was able to pull it off, you know, without some sort of, like, people are speculating this could be a government, this could be terrorists, this could be foreign intel. I think all those things are on the table without going too far down the speculative rabbit hole. But I think those are the pieces we know at this point. This was someone who wanted a spectacle of gore and assassination to haunt all of us and someone who wanted to get away and be elusive and evade capture. That's right. And that's, again, that is a message in and of itself. It kind of does rule out some of the more traditional, not traditional, but some of the other high profile incidents that we may have all witnessed very, you know, recently we had the school shooting in Minneapolis. Often, you know, those lead to murder suicide. We've seen attempted assassinate or even in terrorism, right? You know, it's very often that that will be conducted and then claimed and or, you know, you want to create the spectacle there. immediately make sure that your ideology is felt. The very fact that that hasn't happened is certainly an indication, again, of something. And eventually, if the case does get resolved,

we'll learn a little bit why. My only caution is, Louisiana Mangione very likely conducted a political or, you know, some ideological assassination, at least in his own mind. And he still fled, right? So the D.C. sniper, very similar. I mean, he was obviously just deeply, mentally ill. But, I mean, everything is on the table because we don't know anything. That's kind of what's so shocking. I'm not going to share the information. It's not credible for me to be able to bring anything. Yeah. Let me just pick up on the Luigi point because just as a reminder, and I'd have to go back and look at the timeline, but it was pretty quickly that we were starting to get information about, oh, he stayed at this hostel. Oh, he ate at this location. Oh, here's the surveillance photo of him

at the hostel. Here's the surveillance photo of him here. There were very quickly, there were some pieces. You know, he was able to get out of the city, but there was some information. that they were, in fact, working with. And, you know, pretty quickly you knew a significant amount about this individual and they were able to chase down leads. Again, maybe they have something that's not public, but typically, you know, in these early days, if they have an image, they usually put it out so that people can be on the lookout. I mean, you remember how Luigi was apprehended.

Right, the mask photo. Right. Well, and somebody at a McDonald's in Pennsylvania saw him and said, hey, that looks like. the photo that I saw circulating and called the cops. At least that's the official story of how that all went down. So they like to get the public involved if they don't have a suspect in custody so that people all over the place can be looking and calling in tips and trying to assist in this investigation. Right now, as far as we know, there is nothing to go on.

Yeah, I just saw it took about 12 to 24 hours for some of that information. So we're still, you know, in that in that time frame, obviously. But I mean, I think, again, it's just, it's extraordinary. And it does tell us at least something that the person wanted to create this high profile spectacle. They wanted to get away. And, you know, I've been thinking, kind of racking my brain for comparisons. And in modern American history, it's there really are none. I mean, you know, Charlie, and you could kind of call him whatever you want.

conservative activist. He was an influencer. He's a YouTuber, you know, and that's part of why I think, you know, so many of us who also do very similar jobs and participate some similar events are so shaken and, like, struck by it. And it's because everyone has participated, at least in some form, you know, in something like this, you know, for more modern comparisons. I mean, I'm not saying that they're one to one, but obviously we had in the 1960s, we had the assassinations of people like Malcolm X or MLK Jr. You did have a period of a lot of violence, political violence in the 1970s, the weather underground, you know, the Symbudsese Liberation Army, the kidnapping of Patty Hearst.

I mean, it was a crazy time. And we have talked a lot about on the show over the years about the comparison to the 1970s. And that's actually almost immediately what I came to. But there's some really darker ones as well that actually Ryan was reminding of. And I had to go back and really to look because I'd only read about them in passing, but probably, you know, maybe the more one-to-one comparison would be a guy like Elijah Lovejoy. He was actually an abolitionist newspaper editor in 1837 who was actually killed by a pro-slavery mob. And it was actually quite common during the Civil War era where pro-ab abolitionist and or anti-secessionists and others in the South journalists, political editors. people who would express those types of opinions were killed for their political beliefs and for putting that out there. But that is how far back I would have to go actually to even find a comparison to keep it in the realm of Luigi Mangione. I've talked about this here on the show also because of Luigi's own predilections for Japanese culture. But in the early 1930s, 20s and 30s, in the rise of the Japanese militarist state, there was a

a concept called Gekoggio, which means kind of like from the bottom to the top. And it entailed high profile assassination. And assassination was not something just limited to the government, although it was largely conducted. It was to target political leaders, opinion leaders, others, for people to create a purpose of kind of moving towards militarism. Again, they're not one to one, but, you know, the same social forces are not all that rare. I could also think to the anarchist movements, of the early 1900s, gilded age, oligarchs were targeted, columnists and others. Again, they weren't assassinated, but that's part of what makes this, I think, so extraordinary, and it's so crazy that we're talking.

I don't know. I mean, it's difficult to describe because it's not the same as 9-11, obviously, but it does just feel like a Rubicon was crossed yesterday. Yeah. I mean, he was murdered and he was assassinated in cold blood in front of thousands of people in 4K HD in front of the world yeah live streamed live streamed and you know for those of us who were in the news business we experienced his death at like a very visceral level and we saw the blood literally and the life like leave his body and uh yeah i don't know for you know it's it's really poignant i think to me that it's 24 years now after 9-11 and it does feel like a very, a very different country. And I hope I'm not exaggerating or overreacting, but, yep, you know, that and we were thinking about Butler, but that's, I mean, I hate to say it, but like, that's part of American political history.

We've had multiple presidents who have been assassinated. We've had the chaining caning of Charles Sumner, you know, legislators. It's not like it was insane, right? to think about, it's not like it was insane to think about the death or the targeting of political legislators. But now it feels like people who engage in American public life itself very recently from Charlie and also these minestate, I mean, these, the recent Minnesota attack that was only a couple of months ago, where these were state legislators. They're not household names. Right. These are not, not even a congressman, not a senator, nothing, right? Right. State reps and state senators. I don't even know who my state senator is, you know, where I live.

And so these are people who are like, you know, no offense, but are like orbiting the political system. And in fact, Charlie was more, Charlie was more influential even than those people, I think, you know, to the national politics. But I don't know. That's part of why it just feels like that. Rubicon really was crossed. I agree. I agree. Sogar. To me, it's like it's a wake-up call of the era that we were already living in, you know, that I think we were in a little bit of denial about, to be honest with you.

Because, I mean, even January 6th, like, that was an extraordinarily violent and, you know, a violent upheaval. Obviously, you had the two assassination attempts on President Trump. But like you said, you know, in a weird way that that, unfortunately, attempted presidential assassinations, there's always going to be someone who wants to kill the president. Right. So it didn't feel like a totally different thing than we've seen or experienced or read about or heard about before, right? Then you get, yeah, these state legislators. You know, you also had the attack on Paul Pelosi, right? Somebody maniac who came in who was trying to get to Nancy Pelosi. Obviously, anyone who is in public life at all. Rational baseball shooting, remember? That's, yeah, that's exactly right. And anyone who's involved in public life at all, it's almost just accepted at this point that you're going to get death rats and that's just like part of the part of the deal.

So, you know, obviously for us on a personal level, like Charlie was more famous than us. He had the ear of the president, more power. You know, he had this whole organization and he was an influencer and a YouTuber and whatever. But, yeah, I mean, this is someone who is in our world, right? And so I think it does change everything in terms of how anyone is thinking about themselves in public life, the type of events they're going to say yes to, the type of availability that they're going to have to the public. And, you know, what can I say? The country's coming apart, right? We're chocked full of guns, you know, nation packed full of guns with mass levels of untreated mental illness. You know, people don't have access to a health care system, rampant inequality and increasing political extremism where people, you know, people are radicalized and they feel that the stakes are existential. And in some, you know, in some instances, the stakes do feel existential. Like there, there are genuine, you know, deep political divides that are very real in the same way that in the buildup to the civil war, like for Southerners, the idea

that like your whole, you know, southern slave owners, the idea that your whole economic model was going to be taken away. That felt existential to them. So, you know, it's a, it's a tinderbox. Like, it's a powder keg. And it's absolutely, it's a terrifying, it's a terrifying moment for those reasons exactly. And to me, that has to be what this assassin wanted us. Like, that's what he wants the nation to take away from this is terror, is fear, is the sense that, you know, you can't speak out. You can't be in a public place. You can't just have political disagreements. And listen, I'm not going to mince words. Like, I genuinely found some of Charlie Kirk's views to be violent and porn. No one, like, that doesn't mean you murder some. I mean, it's horrific because once these things are on the table, that's the thing that's terrifying, too, is like, I was thinking about the epidemic of school shootings, which, by the way, we had a fucking school shooting yesterday, too. Like, this is America now where three, three students were critically injured at, I believe it was, you know, Denver High School. So you had Columbine. Prior to Columbine, there were not school shootings.

And then after Columbine, they're just coming more and more and more and more and more. And that's what's so frightening about. this moment is that once you put this idea out there into the ether, how many other people will be quote unquote inspired by it? How does this transform the way we all relate to each other? And then, you know, we'll talk about the president's response in a moment, which was just pouring gasoline on the fire, which is also what makes this so frightening for all of us. And, you know, I don't think anyone would be surprised if Trump does use this as some further crackdown. on his, what he sees as his political enemies.

Well, that's why it's so poignant to think about it on the anniversary of 9-11. And, you know, 9-11, it was kind of the best and the worst. You know, the day after 9-11, it was a similar, it was a somber moment. People came together. They put the flag in their window from the newspaper. Yeah, it's crazy.

It's 24 years ago. There's probably a decent number of people watching this. don't either weren't alive or don't remember it literally at all. But it was, I was just young enough or just old enough to kind of remember what that experience was like. And it's, I mean, it's why I'm here. It's the only reason I'm even got interested in politics. And yeah, and I think, you know, to that Tinderbox feeling, I think that's what's so really scary. And I do think that's what the assassin wanted. And that's why I think, you know, we really got to try to work against it. It's like you said with Charlie. I mean, look, I like Charlie on a personal level. I was telling you guys of me, I was really shaken up by it. I was literally just talking to him a couple of weeks ago about what it was like to have kids and to have a daughter specifically. He invited me on his show and, you know, honestly, it took courage for him because he actually invited me on specifically to talk about Israel. And, you know, that's part of what's so crazy about it. I knew the guy for years.

We had our disagreements and that's fine. We have our disagreements here every day. you know you and me and we were talking about that you know in the context emily and rind who unfortunately weren't able to join us but they definitely wanted to uh both expressing their horror how disgusted they are really by the whole attack and i just really don't want to go down that path again but i feel like all of the not only is that the assassin want but i also feel like it's to the benefit of a lot of uh entrenched kind of political interests it's also to the you know it's it's it's like the the baseline of engagement for politics for a lot of people

and that doesn't erase the existential feeling because you're right there are look politics is existential is true I'm we're not going to lie to you don't mince words about that the election was insanely important it was doesn't you know not saying that that of course it's not like a gateway to justifying political violence and yeah it's just like dealing in the aftermath of this feeling of public life in the in the in the tinderbox of the country again on the 24th anniversary of 9-11 it all just really kind of comes full circle for what they wanted whoever this person was uh and that you know the the the the the

murdering of someone again there's something so 2025 about the attack you know mac mac was not only the fact that we watched it live, basically, happened, witnessed. I mean, the moment I saw the video, I always said, this guy's dead. It's over. But Mack sent us, our producer, a video, you know, there was, I'm not going to call him out by name, but like a TikToker who was like, yo, TikTok live, like, you know, creating content out of it almost immediately. Yeah, subscribe on Instagram or whatever. And subscribe to me on my channel, right?

And I was like, I can't believe, really, that that's kind of where. things are now and yeah I mean it's a scary time not just for people who are engaged in public life and you know like I said I knew Charlie you know the crazy the last time I talked and we fought actually about something I don't think he would mind me saying that and you know to his credit he really would talk to a lot of people and he had a debate scheduled with Hassan Piker nine days from now, right? And he did change a lot of people's lives and their minds. And I mean, that's part of what made him what he was.

And I think at the very least, like, you know, if there's going to be taken anything from that, that's kind of like the legacy that I would like to look at. But unfortunately, I think things are going in a bad direction. Well, I think he was very, I mean, he was really important in Trump's reelection. I mean, you know, this whole like Gen Z men shift, like Charlie is a very important part of that. It's a big part of it. And a lot of the, you know, a lot of the sort of like, I don't know, like legacy conservative influencers, I don't want you call it, sort of like Trump 1.0, people who got big, like, you know, the Ben Shapiro and Tim Pool and whatever. A lot of them have seen some of their influence and their reviews fall off as people have moved towards like Fuentes and the Groyper's and like some other newer creators.

Asma Gold as another one, Charlie still was, you know, it was like at the peak of his power and combined having this giant network, this, you know, very influential, a lot of Republican influencers too, like their audience or old people like Charlie genuinely had. You could see there were thousands of people who showed up for him for this event, thousands of young people who showed up for him for this event. So it's a very important part of Trump's reelect, obviously was in contact with Trump himself and other people in the administration. on a regular basis. And, you know, this is not to speculate about who or what or whatever, but it is notable, too, that he was in real time really grappling with some of those divisions in the MAGA coalition, what it means to be America First, and probably nowhere, and we covered some of this on the show, was he more sort of like torn and under pressure

than on the issue of Israel? And it makes sense because you have the president who's with Israel 100% of the way and back in the genocide and doing the whole thing. And then you have Charlie's young audience that increasingly has this very different view. And so you could see in real time the way he was struggling to balance those things because, you know, of course he wants to maintain his good relations with the White House. He's trying to keep his base happy and whatever. And so you could see playing out before our eyes like this sort of tug of war for him of how to position himself. And that's the context in which he, you know, had you on his show. So you could

articulate, you know, your views about it. He hosted that focus group of young people that we covered asking them, you know, what they thought about it and sort of letting them talk and also articulate a view that was divergent for the White House. He's been very outspoken on the Epstein files as well. So, you know, he was both kind of at the peak of his power and also really touching on some very sensitive and very controversial issues, not even just with the nation at large, but even within the Republican, the political coalition. That is actually what's so striking to me is that a guy like me knew Charlie and actually had good relations. And then I was watching Fox News and a guy like Mark Levine had new

charlie. I mean, he was, look, he was the consummate politician. Honestly, he might have been president one day, like even just thinking about it, like in the level of fame, the engagement, his ability to kind of navigate all the political coalitions from a very early age, engaged with the political process. He was. basically on a first name basis with like every Republican senator. I would say, you know, outside of Trump, J.D. and Elon, he's one of the most responsible people for the Trump election in 2024. TPSA events, you know, were critical, critical, especially in the Gen Z men swing to the right. And, you know, again, because we don't know the motivation of this shooter or like what they

even want to cause, it's kind of difficult to even speculate as to war. that goes. And I think, you know, broadly, again, with Charlie's murder with his assassination here, I really just think about like the sick nature that, yeah, you said there was a school shooting. And I don't know. I just want to come back to like talking and hashing things out. I know that sounds really trite, but it is, you know, things can be existential and also coexistence, if that makes sense. Yeah. I mean, that's. That's what that's what this country has to be. Yeah, right?

Exactly. We don't really have another choice. And that's what's scary about it. We don't really have another choice other than more of what you saw yesterday of murder and assassination and cold blood and of kind of, you know, and that, you know, again, you can hate the guy, disagree with the guy, whatever. Again, we even add our own disagreement, whatever, fine, you know, I don't have to throw clear about it. I liked him. I did. And to see.

not just the murder but kind of within the context of the broader country and the slide it's funny when you read a history book you see things that are so obvious but now if i you know put my history hat on eight years it's not that long ago that was 2017 we had the baseball shooting right uh from that point forward of steve skilis you know still injured from the attack it's a miracle that he even survived and many of the other individuals. Then we had, I mean, entire summer of insanity, we had BLM, which was then followed by January 6th and then was followed now by, I mean, you know, interim school shootings all up in between, insane ideological attacks, synagogues, churches. I mean, Josh Shapiro, that Arson, there were the embassy staffers who were shot in the Minnesota legislators, Paul Pelosi, like, Paul Pelosi was attacked, you know, and we're at a point now where I can't hold them all in my head. Right. Like I'd have to make a list. Right. That's how many

of these, you know, ideological assassination or attempted assassinations we've seen at this point, just in the past, just even if you narrowed the past couple of years. Right. That's just eight years. Right. And I can't even go, you know, off off of all of them for, I'm sure I'm already missing a bunch within them. And that, and then just in the last six months to see. this kind of explode and this like like you said the tinderbox kind of nature of everything but what it does i think really demonstrate is uh like you said what the intention and i don't think we spent enough time talking about this after 9-11 that's a part of why i wanted to focus on it after 9-11 we did not spend enough time and on talking about what did these people want from murdering

3,000 innocent people on night 11 and what they wanted was what we gave them the invasion of iraq the destruction of our civil liberties you know they said they hate us for our freedom and then we took away our own freedom it everybody turned inward um we millions of people abroad ended up killed we ignited civil wars we you know if you we'd never had a serious reckoning with like why why did the world trade center and it's like to strike at the heart of american capitalism at the strike at the heart of american power at the pentagon and they were also going to hit the legislature and the seat of government and the point or the white house and no one's really still sure to this day but for what purpose and the purpose was basically

basically what we gave them. And I want to sit with that in the wake of the death to say, like, okay, like this, what the person wanted was the fear, not only of people public life, but also just the general chilling effect. But look, we still don't know anything about the shooter. And that's actually still what's so insane, really, about it all. And almost kind of heightens the, like, shocking nature of it, the fact that there's still not a single detail.

I mean, it's 9 a.m. Eastern time that we or are recording, and we don't know anything. Right. And I mean, listen, obviously we've been speculating privately. Unlike others who are extremely irresponsible, we're not going to just like assume that we know that, including the president of the United States, which I'm about to show you. We're not going to assume we know the ideological motivations, even, you know, as you can certainly spin on any number of theories. I also wonder if this person is never caught. Like, there will be no end to the conspiracy. about this. But I think it's probably the right time in the conversation to play the president's response here because it fits very much saga with what you're saying about, you know, we, yeah, we responded to 9-11 in, you know, I don't know, you're probably right that it is

what the terrorists wanted, but it also just even putting aside their desires, it was disastrous for us. It was disastrous for the world. It was certainly disastrous for Iraq. It was disastrous for Afghanistan, you know, the horror and the turmoil of that continues to this day. And, you know, the president here threatening basically to, you know, to go to use this to go to war with his ideological enemies, something. The Super Secret Festi Club podcast season four is here. And we're locked in. That means more juicy chisement. Terrible love advice. Evil spells to cast on your ex. No, no, no, no. We're not doing that this season. Oh, well, this season, we're leveling up. Each episode will feature a special bestie, and you're not going to want to miss it.

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it takes a toll on you. Listen to the new season of Grasasas Come Again as part of my Cultura podcast network on the IHartRadio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. In a lot of ways, he was already doing. So, you know, this is a long, I want to play all of this is four minutes.

I want to go ahead and play all of it so that we can, that we can, that we can fully react to it. To my great fellow Americans, I'm Phil. Are you guys, are you hearing it or no? Yeah, I hear it. Okay. ...filled with grief and anger at the heinous assassination of Charlie Kirk

on a college campus in Utah. Charlie inspired millions in tonight. All who knew him and loved him are united in shock and horror. Charlie was a patriot who devoted his life to the cause of open. debate and the country that he loved so much in the United States of America. He fought for liberty, democracy, justice, and the American people. He's a martyr for truth and freedom, and there's never been anyone who was so respected by youth. Charlie was also a man of deep, deep faith, and we take comfort in the knowledge

that he is now at peace with God in heaven. Our prayers are with his wife. Erica, the two young, beloved children, and his entire family who he loved more than anything in the world. We ask God to watch over them in this terrible hour of heartache and pain. This is a dark moment for America. Charlie Kirk traveled the nation, joyfully engaging with everyone interested in good faith debate. His mission was to bring young people into the political process, which he did. better than anybody ever to share his love of country and to spread the simple words of common sense when campuses nationwide he championed his ideas with courage logic humor and grace

it's a long past time for all americans and the media to confront the fact that violence and murder are the tragic consequence of humanizing those with whom you disagree day after day year after year, in the most hateful and despicable way possible. For years, those on the radical left have compared wonderful Americans like Charlie to Nazis and the world's worst mass murderers and criminals. This kind of rhetoric is directly responsible for the terrorism that we're seeing in our country today, and it must stop right now. My administration will find each and every one of those who contributed to this atrocity

and to other political violence, including the organizations that fund it and support it, as well as those who go after our judges, law enforcement officials, and everyone else who brings order to our country. From the attack on my life in Butler, Pennsylvania last year, which killed a husband and father to the attacks on ice agents, to the vicious murder of a health care executive in the streets of New York, to the shooting of House Majority Leader Steve Scalise and three others. Radical left political violence has hurt too many innocent people and taken too many lives.

Tonight, I ask all Americans to commit themselves to the American values for which Charlie Kirk lived and died, the values of free speech, citizenship, the rule of law, and the patriotic devotion and love of God. Charlie was the best of America, and the monster who attacked him was attacking our whole country. An assassin tried to silence him with a bullet, but he failed because together we will ensure that his voice, his message, and his legacy will live on for countless generations to come. Today, because of this heinous act, Charlie's voice has become bigger and grander than ever before, and it's not even close. May God bless his memory. May God watch over his family.

And may God bless the United States of America. Thank you. Your thoughts, Zagher. Yeah, this is the worst of Trump, right? This is, you take a moment where any of, I mean, look, I know people here, some people don't like J.D. You know what he did afterwards? He put out a remembrance about his interactions with Charlie and he expressed his condolences to his wife.

And that's just what generally normal people do from the entire political spectrum. And what's so, that's what I mean. And to be honest, that encompasses most of the attitude of the response. part of why I'm really despondent today is that literally without knowing anything. And look, it could be. I mean, who's going to put it out of the realm? Of course, it was probably a political assassination for some purpose. We have no idea, really, still. We don't even have any confirmed information or anything. That's what I was looking at earlier. But, you know, I actually thought Henania, Richard Hanania, said this. He says, I don't think individual political assassinations have anything to tell us about our. politics. These are stochastic events. It's a country of 350 million people widely available firearms. Some of our fellow citizens are insane, like in any country. If you're a public figure, one of the risks that you face is an unstable individual might come after you. But what he focuses on and continues is not only that we don't know the identity or the motivation of the shooter,

but also that, you know, focusing in on hot political rhetoric, it's, I hate to sound like a leftist or whatever but it's pretty obvious that it's it's everywhere with you know for both sides I guess and I guess I know that's cringe you know that a lot of right wingers don't want to hear it but it's obviously true like the rhetoric is dialed all the way up and we could blame everybody oh it's their fault they started it it's sort of fine we are where we are and I also will speak up for free speech and this is the other thing outside of the context of 9-11 is part of the overwhelming and crushing environment of that time actually prevented people who are sober minded who are asking questions and yes in some cases we're offensive that's allowed okay yes you can cancel them and all of

that if you wanted to but mono like a monoculture enforcement and just immediately kind of reaching for a political agenda is the absolute worst of 9-11 and well that's the that's why it's so hits me hard today. Yeah. Well, and it's so much worse, frankly, because George Bush, at least right then at the moment, you know, tried to calm the damage. You know, later on, yeah, obviously, like, this is no defense of George W. Bush, but no, you're right. This is, and of everybody on the planet to call out hot political rhetoric, Donald J. Trump, are you kidding me? Like, do you remember the things that he, I mean, even in this little speech where he's castigating, he's calling, you know, radical.

left Marxists and all of that. And this is a man who just used the mugging of big balls as an excuse to, you know, send in the National Guard to Washington, D.C. So what he, his whole thing is to use either real or imagined or invented crises in order to crush political opponents, crush dissent, consolidate power. It's what he does. And so I don't think. think anyone should be, would be surprised by this speech or the very or the likely, you know, actions he's going to take out of it. But yeah, this was this was the line from most people on what I saw coming from the right. I saw this is war. I saw, you know, we need to exact vengeance. Again, before, and even let's say it is someone on the left, very possible, right? Certainly.

There'd be all kinds of ideological motivations there, whatever, to use that to say, that everyone in that political ideology is basically like a terrorist and a murderer is also just disgusting and abhorrent. But especially at a time when we don't even, we have no idea who this person was or what their motivation was. So yeah, I mean, he's, I think it was Zedgelani on Twitter. He's like, he's a narcissist. This is all he knows how to do is pour more gasoline on the flames. That is what he always, always does. And, you know, I think. I think I've always been in the camp. I continue to be in the camp that Trump is a symptom of the underlying problems, that if it wasn't Trump, you'd have someone else likely to come in to fill the role. I don't know that they'd have the same level of like power and charisma and cult of personality that he's been able to accrue. But, you know, he is the, he is the emblem of the like collapsing country in, you know, moral collapse. And in freefall that I think we all have this sense that. that we're living in where nobody knows where the bottom is going to be.

I'm glad that you said that because I was reflecting on because I was watching TV yesterday and I saw Bush and Obama pull out their conciliatory statements. And I think it's really easy to say, wow, that's great. You know, that's a responsible statement. And I, and I can't, I mean, again, I don't, I can't stress the audience enough how formative 9-11 was for me. Like, it's everything. Everything is 9-11. And, and then I started to think, Well, how did we get here? You know, how did this all happen? And it was the collapse of institutional trust and the psychotic behavior of the U.S. government post-9-11 that destroyed trust in the individual state combined with the failure of the post-financial crisis. I mean, look, we could blame each other for the culture war and all of that. I won't even get into that right now. But at the very least, you know, then that starts to dial up in the midst of all this angst and foreign war and abroad. And that leads, and that's why I'm glad you said it as a symptom, because that is downstream of how a lot of people think, right? And I mean, a healthy society does not elect Donald Trump.

I don't think a healthy society. And certainly not twice. And they don't. It's not even just that because it's about the erasure of not even norms, but what those norms were used to perpetuate. under the realm and the administration, the regime of George W. Bush, of Obama, a Biden, Trump one, whatever. Like, this is genuinely is a bipartisan problem. It was a cry for help. And it's saying, like, something is broken. I'm willing to take a chance, whatever. We need to get out of this. And I think that the shooting is also a symptom of that as well. That's why I really do feel as if we're living right back through the 1970s. where we had, I mean, if just think about it, we had Nixon, we had riots, we had the killings of, in the late 60s of MLK of Malcolm X, we had a bottom fallout of any hope. We were in post-Fietnam. We had high inflation. We had political violence. There was a sense in that time that we're never going to get out of this. They're like, this is it. The American Empire has peaked. We have to step back from where things are. Now, luckily, you know, we did get out of it, but all. Although we didn't get out of it with the unscathed. I wouldn't say it all went so well either.

And that's kind of how I'm still fall out from that era. Literally. I mean, we were going to, before this, we were going to cover the Charlotte murder, right? And I was just, and it's so funny because we were going to talk about mental illness and about violence and about the deinstitutionalization moment, movement of the late 70s and 80s, the neoliberal, what the collapse of a high trust society looks like and explosions of. violence and mental illness and murder and public trust. And there's huge debate between you and me about how to even solve that. But, you know, coming from the problem itself and recognizing that is really important. And I'm putting that all together in that context. So. Yeah. I mean, just think like, and it's hard to say when you didn't live through the 70s to know. I can only

like. We can read about it. Right. But I don't really know what it feels like. Right. I don't really know if it feels the same or if this feels not as bad crazy or if it feels way worse. But my suspicion is that it's like the 70s but on algorithms. Yeah. You know, the 70s but on AI fueled, algorithmic driven. Because what you mentioned, this fell so 2025. I mean, in the same way that like the genocide in Gaza is so 2025. Like what is it even doing to us that we see this gore as just like a normal part of our lives every single day like even that what is that doing to us and then all of the incentives for you know the influencer ecosystem is to put out the most inflammatory hot take that you can like if you're if you're that guy who was there at the scene when charlie kirk is murdered and he's like live streaming and hey follow me on ticot like you're the whole ecosystem is built up to say the most irresponsible inflammatory like outrageous thing that's what's rewarded and then you have these structural and and i i sort of feel like those things are also symptoms it's an accelerant right

of what's already there because think of what a powder keg this place is you've got so like just flooded with guns you've got a totally broken healthcare system where millions and millions of people or walk, you know, people walking around with untreated mental illness who don't even, can't even go to a doctor, right? Very little, like, wildly insufficient rehab, wildly insufficient mental health facilities. And then you have this vast inequality where people feel like they're being crushed day after day after day and that their hope for, you know, stable life, their hope for their kids, their hopes are just being like ground up and crushed, where there's a sense that it doesn't matter who you vote for, that's not going to change. And, and, you know, then you

layer on top of it this very, this really heightened political animus. And a president of the United States who's happy to pour fuel on that fire because he thinks it serves his interest, you know? And it's just, it's that mix that makes you feel every day like what is going like up is down left is right this country is going off the rails and um you unlike 9-11 saga like 9-11 really like launched a new era right it was a wake up because these things were happening in the background we didn't really know we were kind of like blind to it but it really did sort of launch us into a new era to me the murder live of charlie kirk that we all witnessed this public execution, it solidifies in our minds the era we already were in, that we already

had lots of indications and years of experience with at this point. And I do think that's not to say that it does put new things on the table, right? The I think, unfortunately, I think we're likely to see more attacks on influencers. And by the way, this is also not the first attack on an influencer. There have been other influencers who have people show up at their doors and try to kill and whatever. But I do think it puts new things on the tip. But it's also like a real reckoning moment with, oh, this is where we are. Like we already were in this era and this is just confirmation of where we are at this point.

That's right. I mean, if you think back to the 1960s, it's like when RFK, the people who saw are, I'm not comparing them. I'm just looking for analogies. When RFK was killed, that's after JFK, MLK. MLK, Malcolm X, and then our, the people who went through that, that's why they gave up. They were like, this is just where we are now. That killed it. That killed it.

It was a huge turning point for the nation. Yeah. And yeah. And the last thing I'll say on the 9-11 comparison is what makes this moment even scarier. And again, just to cover, like, we're not saying that Charlie Kirk. This one individual being killed is equivalent to, you know, 3,000 people being murdered on an island. But we're just trying to think of culturally significant moments.

And that led to a mass crackdown on civil liberties, the fallout of which we still live with that mass surveillance. The tech now is so much more advanced. Yeah. So much more advanced. Things they could never have dreamed of in 2001 are already being implemented in 2025. Like, so that's the other thing that makes this such a frightening moment. I actually record in an episode. I don't know if it's going to air now at this point because it feels very outdated,

but of her take with Anna Casparian and Gillian Michaels and that whole crew. And we're talking about there was a dude who went on Fox News to pitch his like AI, you know, minority report threat detection thing. And that tech is just like widely available now. It's there's Palantier. The AI race is on. So things that were just not technically possible, like the type of sweeps and mass targeting, so not just like an individual, but mass targeting of people for their views and their political beliefs, that's all technologically available to us in a way that it wasn't previously. And, you know, again, we have a administration that has used every excuse they can to try to go after their political enemies and adversaries, whether it's lawyers, whether it's pro-Palestine protesters, whether it's immigrants, whether it's colleges, like, across the board.

And so we can only imagine, I think we can only begin to wrap our head around what the fallout from this is going to be, what the fallout of seeing this kind of gore in our timelines, what the fallout in terms of a crackdown is going to be, with the fallout in terms of how. influencers are going to conduct themselves and what this is going to mean for the world going forward. Yeah. I think that's well said. All right, guys, do you have anything else you want to go over, Crystal? I think that's a, I don't see anything breaking or new. That's worth putting out there. You know, I think as far as we can tell, the search for the gunmen continues. And as far as what's been put out there publicly, there's very, you know, scarce details to go on. But we will say it's very early still. So we'll be on it. And guys, Ryan, Emily and I are going to be doing a Friday show tomorrow.

So we'll hear their thoughts. We'll try to cover some other stories tomorrow as well because, of course, there continue to be important developments happening elsewhere in the world too. Absolutely. All right. Thank you guys for watching. Rest in peace, Charlie. And condolences to the family.

We'll see you guys later. Hi, it's Gemma's Begg, host of the Psychology of Your 20s. This September at the psychology of your 20s, we're breaking down the very interesting ways psychology applies to real life, like why we crave external validation. I find it so interesting that we are so quick to believe others' judgments of us and not our own judgment of ourselves. So according to this study, not being liked actually creates similar pain levels as real life physical pain.

Learn more about the psychology of everyday life and of course, your 20s. This September, listen to the psychology of your 20s on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Every case that is a cold case that has DNA right now in a backlog will be identified in our lifetime. On the new podcast, America's Crime Lab, every case has a story to tell, and the DNA holds the truth. He never thought he was going to get caught, and I just looked at my computer screen. I was just like, ah, gotcha. This technology is already solving so many cases.

Listen to America's Crime Lab on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. What would you do if one bad decision forced you to choose between a maximum security prison or the most brutal boot camp designed to be hell on earth? Unfortunately for Mark Lombardo, this was the choice he faced. He said, you are a number, a New York State number, and we own you. Listen to shock incarceration on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an IHeart podcast.