Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - 9/16/25: Kash Patel Incoherent On Kirk Manifesto, Trump AG Threatens Hate Crime Crackdown, Tucker War On Israel Over Kirk

Episode Date: September 16, 2025

Krystal and Saagar discuss Kash Patel incoherent on Kirk manifesto, Trump AG threatens Kirk hate speech crackdown, Tucker & Candace war with Israel.   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.

This is an I-Heart podcast. On a cold January day in 1995, 18-year-old Krista Pike killed 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer in the woods of Knoxville, Tennessee. Since her conviction, Krista has been sitting on death row. How does someone prove that they deserve to live? We are starting the recording now. Please state your first and last name.

Krista Pike. Listen to Unrestorable Season 2, Proof of Life, on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I just normally do straight stand-up, but this is a bit different. What do you get when a true crime producer walks into a comedy club? Answer, a new podcast called Wisecrack, where a comedian finds himself at the center of a chilling true crime story. Does anyone know what show they've come to see? It's a story. It's about the scariest night of my life.

This is Wisecrack, available now. Listen to Wisecrack on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Just like great shoes, great books take you places. Through unforgettable love stories and into conversations with characters you'll never forget. I think any good romance, it gives me this feeling of, like, butterflies. I'm Danielle Robe, and this is bookmarked by Reese's Book Club. The new podcast from Hello Sunshine and IHeart Podcasts, where we dive into the stories that shape us on the page and off. Each week, I'm joined by authors, celebs, book talk stars, and more for conversations that will make you laugh, cry, and add way too many books to your TVR pile.

Listen to Bookmarked by Reese's Book Club on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Apple Books is the official audiobook and ebook home for Reese's Book Club. Visit apple.co forward slash Reese Apple Books to find out more. Hey guys, Saga and Crystal here. Independent media just played a truly massive role in this election, and we are so excited about what that means for the future of this show. This is the only place where you can find honest perspectives from the left and the right that simply does not exist anywhere else.

So if that is something that's important to you, please go to breakingpoints.com, become a member today, and you'll get access to our full shows, unedited, ad-free, and all put together for you every morning. in your inbox. We need your help to build the future of independent news media, and we hope to see you at breaking points.com. Morning, everybody. Happy Tuesday. Have an amazing show for everybody today. What do we have, Crystal? Indeed, we do. A lot to get to this morning. So we've got the very latest with regard to the investigation into Charlie Kirk's assassin. We're also going to break down this

fight between Candace Owens and Bill Ackman over whether or not pressure was applied to Charlie Kirk towards the end of his life with regard to Israel. There's a lot to get to there. Also, We don't want to miss other news that is breaking the world. Trump blew up another Venezuela boat yesterday as we seemingly edge even closer to a regime change operation there. He also apparently had a heads up about that Israeli strike on Qatar. They're denying it, but Israeli officials leaked to Barack Ravid. And it is very likely, as we said on that day, that Trump would have a heads up with regard to that. So we'll break that down for you.

This also happens as the Gaza City ground invasion has begun. So lots to get to you there. We're also going to take a look at, we didn't get to this yesterday because we talked too much today. We will get to it. Zoran picking up some new endorsers and actually we had some news as well. Andrew Cuomo now trying to distance himself from his previous positions on Israel, which is a pretty interesting turn of events. And I've got a monologue today. I'm going to be taking a look at the rise of the Black Pill killers.

So putting together some of the recent school shootings and what we know about Tyler Robinson and asking if this is a broader societal phenomenon that we now are going to be. dealing with, which is quite terrifying, frankly. I'm looking forward to that. Thank you to everybody who's been supporting the show. It really means a lot in crazy times like this. So let's go ahead and get, as Crystal said, to the Cash Patel latest clown show that we have seen on display. It's absolutely shocking, honestly, to even see the way that this man is conducting himself

in public. And it would all be a joke if it not only was not the top law enforcement officer in the entire country, but his public statements, remember, can all be used at trial, should Tyler Robinson contest his innocence at trial, defense lawyers and others potentially taking advantage of all of the misstatements and some of the timeline and other things that Cash Patel has now laid out that make absolutely no sense. So here is the latest from attorney, sorry, the FBI director, Cash Patel in a Fox News interview yesterday, which was totally all over the map. Let's take a listen. All right, FBI director Cash Patel joins us now. I can't

imagine, Mr. Director, how busy you've been, especially Shirley Kerr. isn't just a impactful person. He's your friend. So I understand that. But having said that, people are looking to you to find out how big this investigation is going to be. Can you tell us the latest? Absolutely. It's so good to be with you. And you're right. My personal feelings and relationship with Charlie, I have a job to do for the American people and I've committed to do it for President Trump. So, yeah, that's the first statement that we have here from Mr. Patel. But the most important stuff that really starts to actually break down are some of the misstatements in particular about the investigation. You'll remember that if you look at this quote unofficial timeline and more

that's been laid out by the government, there really is a lot of stuff, Crystal, which doesn't make sense. So, for example, we have things about the screwdriver and whether Tyler Robinson was able to assemble the rifle up on the roof, desassemble it, take it down while jumping off, reassemble it, it in the woods before it's eventually found. This is also comporting with claims of finding DNA evidence on the said towel, but we don't actually see the towel. We've looked at the video in which it was wrapped up. Remember also, you know, the official narrative is about driving in, changing clothes. We don't have photos specifically about what those clothes look like. I could go on. I mean, there's so many more that he has laid out here. And he has completely unable to lay that

out and answer some of these questions. Take a listen to that. On the ground, around 5 p.m. local on September 11th was walk the entire crime scene, including the foots the suspect himself took. And what we learned was there was evidence, DNA evidence that could be collected and had been collected, including a screwdriver that was found on the rooftop. Also, we went over to the scene in the wooded area where the firearm was discarded and the firearm had a towel wrapped around it. And I can report today that the DNA hits from the towel that was wrapped around the firearm and the DNA on the screwdriver are positively processed for the suspect in custody. Remember about that screwdriver, the fact that it was then reassembled or it was found

assembled in the woods remains highly relevant. Another reason why that initial thing about Cash Patel and his personal relationship with Charlie Kirk is that any defense lawyer could say that there was a personal matter and potentially corrupted the investigation. It is a bit complicated because as of right now, it's not a federal case. It is being handled large by Utah authorities, although they are looking for potential ways for it to go federal. But all of this matters in a court of law. The fact that the timeline does not match up with the, I mean, it just doesn't pass basic muster for, you know, the idea is that you were a chain, you had an outfit of which we have not yet seen and allegedly as which the suspect is identified, this

reassembly is a major question for the investigation. The charging documents have not yet been made public, so we're not yet clear to the official timeline that will be contested in a court of law. And we haven't even yet got to the alleged note that Robinson confessed to. Anything you want to say before we play that? Just on the screwdriver. So what Cash was telling there is a screwdriver was found on the roof, presumably, you know, where the killer was stationed when he took that fatal shot. The reason why there's a lot of questions around this is because they

released that video of him jumping off the roof where, look, it's blurry, it's difficult to tell exactly what's going on there, but you can't visibly see the firearm, so was it disassembled? And then if the screwdriver is on the roof, but the gun is found

reassembled, no one's how did he do that? So those are some of the pieces that raise question marks, that the government's going to have to fill in of exactly, okay, what was he wearing? Where was he wearing? How did he change? How did he assemble? How did he reassemble? Where was the gun? You know, presumably the gun was in that backpack and the stairwell photos. All of those sorts of things, they will have to answer. And any, you know, good defense attorney is going to be asking these same questions and trying to

poke holes in that narrative. And I said this yesterday, but I really like go and watch the OJ documentary if you want to know how this is done and how in, affected defense attorney can pick apart a government's narrative. To your point about the personal relationship, you know, another thing that they'll be arguing is that this was politicized from the beginning, from the beginning. They wanted to pin this on Tyler Robinson, so they were looking to do it. Even the open discussion here of the DNA evidence could be problematic because that type of evidence has to be introduced with an expert. It's not a yes or no. It's his DNA or not. It's a probabilistic question. So even things like that,

can end up coming back to bite you when you're in a court of law. Now, I suspect that they probably are going to have sufficient evidence to be able to convince a jury of his peers, but it's worth raising the question. It's also an indication just that Cash doesn't know what the hell he's doing. He doesn't have any idea the way that he could be screwing over their case here. He shouldn't be involved in evidence collection. You know, he is not the person to be doing that, but he wants to make himself look like he's doing something like he's on the scene, like he's an important part of this so that he can save his own

job, as we discussed yesterday. He is under fire and the knives are out for him within the administration. There are two separate things. First of all, Tyler Robinson's, you know, potential defense. He's not cooperating with authorities. Dan Bongino said that he's currently placed on suicide watch. So obviously, we're all going to be watching that very carefully. There's that. But there's also, look, this was a highly public figure for whom the questions around the assassination, all should be answered specifically if you don't want conspiracy and other questions to arise, and especially if it's going to become a political flagship. And that's especially why this is important here with Cash Patel's latest claim that a note

was found in which Tyler Robinson allegedly confessed that he had murdered Charlie Kirk. However, he now says that that note did not exist, but that they can prove it did exist, or it did exist, but they can prove that it used to exist, even though it doesn't no longer exist right now. See, I'm getting tripped up because his own language is so unclear. It's impossible to even discern what he's actually saying. We'll play it here.

We'll play it here for yourself, and here's your takeaway. Let's take a listen. The written note, we believe, what did exist, and we have evidence to show what was in that note, which is, and I'm going to summarize,

basically saying, the suspect wrote a note saying, I have the opportunity to take out Charlie Kirk, and I'm going to take it. That note was written before the shooting. Evidence of existence, we now have learned, existed before the shooting was in the location in the suspect and partner's home. But we have since learned that the note, even though it has been destroyed, we have found forensic evidence of the note, and we have confirmed what that note says because of

our aggressive interview posture at the FBI. our aggressive interview posture at the FBI. Interview with whom? Where was the note? Who, what are you saying? Did you conduct an interview with the trans boyfriend, with a roommate, with members of the Discord, where did these messages come from?

How was such note, you know, given for? And you're putting this forward before any of the charging documents. I mean, this is the problem with not just the podcaster, FBI, But it really is just the rank incompetence and also just wanting stardom and appearing on Fox News. Nobody asked you to go on Fox News for 15 minutes. Nobody. Absolutely, nobody in the world said that you needed to do that. You are corrupting a law enforcement investigation, dramatically confusing the public and potentially influencing the defense of a killer or alleged killer who we all want to see brought to justice. So everywhere, every single way that you square it, it's nuts.

And again, it just fits not only with the incompetence, but with a lot of the misstatements, which really could come back to haunt them at trial. The latest one also is on Discord. So there's a new claim from the FBI that Tyler Robinson actually did confess. Potentially, this is what Cash meant. We don't know because nobody even asked him that he allegedly confessed to the murder of Charlie Kirk while he was in this discord chat. Here are the details that they said yesterday, but they haven't released said message. just take a listen. About two hours before he was turned into authorities, this according to the

Washington Post, we are working to independently confirm this as well. But the Washington Post says that Tyler Robinson, the 22-year-old suspect charged in Charlie Kirk's murder confessed, and I want to read this according to the Washington Post, writing on Discord, that social media chat group that the FBI says he used, quote, hey guys, I have bad news for you all. It was me at UVU yesterday. I'm sorry. for all of this, this coming from the Washington Post. Now, this comes as DOJ officials began late last week and over the weekend, looking at the potential for at least one federal charge. No guarantee they'll get there. A department spokesperson declined comment, but a source familiar said investigators are not ruling anything out at this time, especially his online gaming

presence, his chats, as we just mentioned. Who was he talking to? The reason why this is very confusing is remember, Discord initially put out a statement that the statements made by the Utah governor that he had helped plan, Tyler Robinson allegedly helped plan the assassination of Charlie Kirk on Discord. Discord put out statements that those messages don't exist. Discord has since put out a statement, Crystal, and said that these messages do appear to be consistent with the account that was linked to Tyler Robinson some two hours before he turned himself in. But again, it remains very unclear what the previous messages that they alluded to even are. And to the full statement, The transcript and all of that has not yet been released.

So, look, I want to be clear. We're not alleging conspiracy or any of that. I want to be absolutely clear about that. What we are showing is the rank incompetence here by the FBI, the lack of communication, the raising of questions here legitimately about Cash Patel and the FBI's own handling of this investigation, and the relevance that that means for law enforcement matters. And obviously, what is a heinous assassination, but also one that is potentially going to be used, as we'll get to just in a little bit, for political purposes.

And so that's why the facts on this stuff really matter. And, you know, if we look at these history of these investigations, every single one is more questions than answers. The Trump assassination, we don't know a goddamn thing about him. Case closed by Cash Patel, by the way, and his FBI. I will remind everybody about Vegas. I mean, I'm sorry, there is not a goddamn thing about the Stephen Paddock case that makes a lick of sense.

If he had been alive and they had to prosecute him, good luck. I mean, things like saying that no video or whatever existed in a Vegas casino, really? I mean, I could go on forever, really, in a lot of these investigations all the way back to Waco and everything. So what I'm telling you is not that there is some grand conspiracy necessarily, but that the screw-ups, the explanations, et cetera, have always been a breeding ground for people to, I think, legitimately say what the hell is going on here, and especially if it's going to be used for political weaponization. Yeah, that's exactly right. I mean, when I was scrolling yesterday on Twitter, practically every post was some new theory of like, oh, look at this guy over here, look at this video, look at how he moves his arm, this is the real killer. I mean, like a hundred different theories that I saw. So this is already going on. So when you have the government,

which first, the Utah governor said that there were discord messages that, you know, where he was effectively planning the shooting, then dissoning, court comes out and says that doesn't happen. Yep. Then Cash Patel says there was a note, but the note was destroyed, but we have evidence of the note, but we got evidence of the note, like, through our aggressive interview techniques, which, by the way, again, a lawyer, what are they going to say? Well, you got this information under duress.

Like, what are we talking about here? What are you saying, exactly? Did you, like, basically torture this person into giving some sort of a false confession? All of these things are going to breed a lot of speculation, and that is exactly what we see unfolding. If I had to guess as to what the hell they're talking about here and how all these wires got crossed, my guess, which is just a guess, because you cannot tell from their statements what the hell they're talking about, is that there was apparently, allegedly, some sort of a note, that there was discussion about that note, not from Tyler, but from some of the people

that he was, you know, maybe the roommates or whoever, some associates with him, there was some discussion of that note on discord. Somebody got rid of the note and the, you know, the revelations about these messages on discord were something that the FBI was able to get through their aggressive interview posh. If I had to try to square this mess, that would be my guess as to what's going on. And that could account for like the confusion of what the governor originally said about there being discord messages, about what he was going to do and why he was going to do it, maybe those didn't come from him. They came from other people in the circle who had seen this note who were talking about

the note. That's the best that I can figure out of what's going on here, but incredibly unclear. Absolutely. You know, incredibly unclear. And it's entirely possible that that's what I just said is not remotely even what they're talking about. Exactly right. We need to see the charging documents.

People need to stop going on Twitter and Fox News. to, I mean, Cash, let's be honest, what's he trying to do? He's trying to reclaim his reputation because everybody knows he's a clown in the way that he's acting. He's going on Fox News because of Trump. Bingo. He wants Trump to see him on there and Trump to feel like he's doing a good job. I mean, the problem is he can't deliver on that ability of, like, seeming like he's

competent and in command here. And Steve Bannon reacted exactly to this, a huge portion of the right going after Cash Patel now. I think very justifiably, let's take a listen. I'm told that the reason that the video on what Michael Savage says and others about jumping off the roof is that he's got a gun in his hand and he drops the gun to the ground, the rifle. That's what when you confront him on that video, it said, oh, you guys are missing it. He actually has the rifle. He hasn't taken it apart.

He drops the rifle down and then goes, hides it. Maybe it is. It's just too fuzzy. I don't know, but the timeline makes no sense. Now they're putting out video that they got the guy walking around his shorts in the, you know, because he had two costumes that walked around or two sets of clothes walking around in the neighborhoods. Yet CNN played today again. CNN played the doorbell video. We saw the other day where he's walking stiff-legged like he's got a rifle or part of a barrel or something in his pants. He's very stiff-legged. They played it again. So clearly that has not been refuted by the authorities. This is why. this morning first off over the weekend shifting this now not to a single murder but actually to an

investigation of a conspiracy and as president trump says many investigations he talked the other day about source in a in an investigation the source involvement all of it i think you're going to see a much more sophisticated much broader investigation into this two thousand times i watched that video i missed it because i'm still missing it and maybe it's accurate but i don't understand the doorbelly, the car wasn't impounded. You haven't rolled up any of the Discord chat. It seems like we're being spoon-fed narrative. There you go. I think, you know, raising some legitimate questions here. Let's put this up here. This is something that was posted by Steve Bannon, just recapping some of the questions, brief recap. Again, you know, this is not all 100% correct.

I'm just showing it to you because this is what was posted by Steve Bannon. As to the level of questions and other things that are now being raised about the FBI and the director's leadership. So the main takeaway for all of this is really, in my opinion, rank incompetence. And, you know, yes, Crystal, as you said, there's potentially explainable many of the things that they have said. But that's not how things need to work at the highest level of American law enforcement. If you're not going to be clear, just don't say anything. Bingo, exactly. I mean, if you, you know, if you watch the governor who has been much more like, even he is said some things that aren't true, but he's getting his information from law enforcement

at the end of the day, he'll get to ask questions where I can't say anything on that. I can't get into that for the integrity of investment. Okay. Great. Okay. You know, I mean, listen, as a journalist, I would like as much disclosure as possible. But what Cash Ritell is doing is not disclosure. It's actually muddling and confusing the picture of what we know here. But, yeah, I mean, Steve Bannon reposted, so we can put that back up on the screen, Steve Bannon reposted this and said, and this is the short list of questions. that we have. They haven't recovered the bullet. We're talking about specifically the bullet, the single shot that murdered Charlie Kirk. They haven't presented any video photographic evidence

of the alleged shooter with the gun. The closest we get is actually that TMZ released doorbell camera where you see him walking stiff leg like he's got a gun down his pants, but you don't actually see the weapon. Led shooter did not confess to law enforcement, which was something we were that was very fuzzy at the beginning. It seemed like he was cooperating. We're all surprised to learn that he was not actually cooperating with law enforcement. They haven't presented any pictures or videos of the alleged shooter changing his clothes on the roof, which is contradicted by the photos that have been released. They don't have any physical evidence of, quote, unquote, the note, where the alleged shooter allegedly claimed he would have a chance to take out Charlie Kirk.

TPSA staff contaminated the crime scene, removed the camera sitting directly behind Charlie immediately after the shooting. Where is that footage? I don't know if you guys have seen this, but this appears to be true. Pretty shortly after the shooting, you see images of them breaking down the tent and, you see images. reclaiming their merch and all of that, well, that's an active crime scene. Like, it's, you know, seems like you would have that cordoned off and you would want to preserve every aspect of that crime scene, but pretty quickly you see staff able to come in and take down a tent.

Discord disputes the FBI's claim the alleged shooter, discussed any plans to assassinate Charlie Kirk. If true, they'd have data to back this up. We might end up seeing all of this eventually, I hope we do. So far, the evidence that's actually been presented is hardly convincing. this, I think, was put out before Discord did confirm that there were these messages not planning the shooting, but apparently confessing to the shooting. So in any case, that's the picture as best as we have it right now. That's all we can really present to you. And the reason why, again,

that we've said that why the questions and all of the, for example, if we think back to the 1960s, if you think about Oliver Stone and actually a really emergence of the anti-war left in the 1960s, it was always underrated how much the Kennedy assassination. I'm not comparing the two. What I'm saying is that it was a clear through line that Stone has always drawn from that assassination and kind of the age of innocence ending to the eventual military adventurism of what ended up happening in Vietnam. 9-11 remains the same.

Look, I mean, it took years, years into the war in Iraq and Afghanistan for the secret pages about Saudi Arabia to be released from the 9-11 Commission. The 9-11 Commission report itself is a joke. I mean, everybody knows that. And then, no, no one's saying Israel did it. Okay, what we're saying is there's a lot of sketchy shit that remains completely unanswered around that entire thing. I mean, I remember last year, new video from 1998 of a Saudi embassy worker. casing out the U.S. Capitol that gets released. It takes 23 years for that to get released. My name is Ed. Everyone say, hello, Ed.

From a very rural background myself, my dad is a farmer, and my mom is a cousin. So, like, it's not, like... What do you get when a true crime producer walks into a comedy club? I know it sounds like the start of a bad joke, but that really was my reality nine years ago. I just normally do straight stand-up, but this is a bit different. On stage stood a comedian with a story that no one expected to hear. Well, 22nd of July 2015, a 23-year-old man had killed his family. And then he came to my house. So what do you get when a true crime producer walks into a comedy club?

A new podcast called Wisecrack, where stand-up comedy and murder takes center stage. Now. Listen to Wisecrack on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is a tape recorder statement. The person being interviewed is Krista Gail Pike. This is in regards to the death of a Colleen slimmer. She started going off on me, and I hit her. I just hit her and hit her and hit her and hit her.

On a cold January day in 1995, 18-year-old Krista Pike killed 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer in the woods of Knoxville, Tennessee. Since her conviction, Krista has been sitting on death row. The state has asked for an execution date for Krista. We let people languish in prison for decades, raising questions about who we consider fundamentally unrestorable. How does someone prove that they deserve to live? We are starting the recording now. Please state your first and last name.

Krista Pike Listen to Unrestorable Season 2, Proof of Life On the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, I'm Janica Lopez, and in the new season of the Overcover podcast, I'm taking you on an exciting journey of self-reflection. Am I ready to enter this new part of my life? Like, am I ready to be in a relationship? Am I ready to have kids and to really just devote myself and my time?

I wanted to be successful on my own, not just because of who my mom is. Like, I felt like I needed to be better or work twice as hard as she did. Join me for conversations about healing and growth. Life is freaking hard. And growth doesn't happen in comfort. It happens in motion, even when you're hurting. All from one of my favorite spaces, The Kitchen. Honestly, these are going to come out so freaking amazing.

Be a part of my new chapter and listen to the new season of the Overcomber. podcast as part of the MyCultura Podcast Network on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. The point is that if it's going to lead to extraordinary action, I would hope that one of the things that actually happens is that all the information gets released. So at the very least, then, all Americans can judge these things for themselves. And instead, it's the opposite where we have law enforcement, incompetence, total incompetence at the very top. Lots of questions that remain unanswered. And now the same. claimed that are basically being used here by members at the highest level of the United States

government are acting in extraordinary ways that even after 9-11 they did not dream of doing. And so here is the latest Pam Bondi, the United States Attorney General, the top lawyer for the United States government now saying that there will be, quote, free speech, then there's hate speech, and there's no place for that and that we will be going after quote, hate speech. I mean, you know, the jokes write themselves, take a listen. There's free speech, and then there's hate speech. And there is no place, especially now, especially after what happened to Charlie, in our society. Do you see more law enforcement going after these groups who are using hate speech and putting cuffs on people? So we show them

that some action is better than no action. We will absolutely target you, go after you, If you are targeting anyone with hate speech, anything, and that's across the aisle. I mean, this is, oh, if you yell fire in a crowded thing, this is woke. I mean, that's, to you, to borrow Gavin's attack, when he's like, you sound woke, that's, that's woke. That's literally what, like, BLM liberals said for the entirety of 2017 to 2021. They're like, well, there's a difference with free speech and hate speech. It's like mis-increment. Word.

You are exactly right. Coming from the Attorney General of the United States on Stephen Miller's wife's podcast on state media. And I want to emphasize that's why it's 10 times worse because there's actually a big difference between some shitlib on Twitter saying that free speech does not give you a license to hate speech and whatever this is where the top, again, top lawyer, attorney general of the United States of America who can direct the FBI and has vast resources at her fingertips saying that effectively we need some sort of hate speech. enforcement. And so I can make all the jokes about being a lib and being woke and all of that, but I will turn to the words of Charlie Kirk. Let's put this up here on the screen. Quote, hate speech does not exist legally in America. There's ugly speech. There's gross speech. There's evil speech. All of it is protected by the First Amendment. Keep America free. And that's exactly it. And the very fact that she uttered those words just demonstrates the level of

hysteria, hypocrisy of all of these people who allegedly were so pearl clutched through the woker. I mean, I was too, okay? Let's be honest. But, you know, I don't think a lot of people signed up for this. And, you know, look, I've been relatively heartened. There's a lot of conservatives and others who have spoken out against this. But the point actually is they want her to rein it in just by saying hate speech. No, guys, the entire point is that from the beginning, the posture has basically been to be a liberal wet dream post-January 6th. Do you remember how many segments we did on our show after January 6th, when, for example, there was an elite, you know, effort to try and crack signal messages?

They destroyed Parlor, unjust, completely unfairly and unjustly. Destroyed that. They banned Trump from Twitter. They wanted to designate Republicans, like, including J-Sixers and others, as state. or as domestic terrorists so they could use Patriot Act designations against them. I mean, we fought like hell against all of this stuff. All of this is part of the same thing. I mean, they wanted hate speech laws at that time.

They wanted mass censorship, and they got some of it to a certain extent. They wanted to use the full force of the government to basically enact the law against half of the country. And now, after revolting against that, talking about its unconstitutionality, about how bad it is, We are right back, literally right back, to where the liberals started on this entire thing. It's just so ironic. It fits, though, with a lot of this pattern. Yeah.

I mean, I would just say, in fairness to us, I think we always recognize that many of the people on the right who were claiming to be such free speech warriors always had a tremendous blind spot. I mean, we always brought up the example of BDS, for example. We talked about, remember Mike Lindell launching his social media platform being like, it's free speech, but no cursing, no this, no that, no that. whatever. And so, you know, I think, I don't think we were so Pollyanna to believe that most of these actors were actually principled and genuine in their concerns over free speech. But it is, it is wild, like, it is wild to see, for example, the Twitter files, what were the Twitter files about? It was all about the government using sort of like soft coercion where they, let's have a meeting and talk about these things. Let me, here's an email of some people. Or flagging tweets.

Let me, why don't you take a look at these sorts of people? Yes, you're right. Okay, that we objected to. You can go back and watch the tape about the way we objected to that, even on issues where, like, you know, COVID denialism, things that I oppose. But listen, they shouldn't be, you shouldn't have the government saying what you can say and what you can't say and putting pressure on these social media companies. And they know what the deal is because the government can come down hard on you and they've got these antitrust investigations. All of that. This is so much worse because it's the attorney general. It's the president of the United States.

It's Stephen Miller. This conversation right here is happening on Stephen Miller's wife's podcast, state media. Similar sentiments expressed from, you know, the Stephen Miller with J.D. Vance hosting Charlie Kirk's podcast. Again, so this, and you have an administration with a track record of crushing civil liberties, of being incredibly heavy-handed in their ability to try to crush dissent. So it is, you know, like the worst of the woke era on. steroids. And it is, it's just crazy to see the, like, the very same language being recycled. We talked about this, too, with regard to, like, the crushing of pro-Palestine descent, you know, all of the people who were, you know, against the safe spaces for college students,

suddenly like, oh, my God, the microaggressions, like, we need, you know, their, their safety, words are literal violence, et cetera, et cetera. So all of that language was repurposed in terms of crushing pro-Palestine descent. And now you see them talking about consequence culture. Again, the exact language that was used by liberals during the peak of, you know, like woke, cancel culture. And now you see this, again, the exact same language that some like, you know, liberal professor or whatever would have used about hate speech being different from free speech. Charlie Kirk's message, and Charlie Kirk also, by the way, wasn't consistent on this in life, but his tweet is 100% correct. Listen, we can have a discussion as we did

yesterday about where to draw the lines in terms of acceptable society and what conflicts with your job and what private companies are going to do, et cetera. We had that conversation. You can watch it yesterday. But when it comes to the government enforcement, the First Amendment is about protecting specifically offensive speech. Because it's not controversial if you're saying just like hugs and kisses and love all around. When it matters is when you're saying something that is provocative, that is controversial, that is potentially offensive, that threatens or offends those in power, that's when the First Amendment matters. And we, I think, have tried to be pretty consistent in the way that we've applied that across the board. Absolutely. I have tried

a lot. And I've always felt as if it was a bit of a joke, but it's especially egg on the face for anybody who spoke out about this and then is not doing so when the top attorney general lawyer person with immense power to ruin any of our lives says that. this stuff publicly. And by the way, it was 10 times worse later on. It's not as if she backtracked all that much because literally hours later, she appeared on Fox News to demand that people, office depot workers, I think, workers who refuse to print posters with Charlie picture for a vigil, she basically said, we can prosecute you for that. Let's take a listen. That's horrific. It's free speech, but you shouldn't be employed anywhere if you're going to say

that. And employers, you have an obligation to get rid of people. You need to look at people who are saying horrible things. And they shouldn't be working with you. Businesses cannot discriminate. If you want to go in and print posters with Charlie's pictures on them for a vigil, you have to let them do that. We can prosecute you for that. I have Harmeet Dillon right now in our civil rights unit looking at that immediately that Office Depot had done that. We're looking at that. Have to print the poster. No, you don't actually. Also, Office Depot fired those people, which they're, you know, I guess that's their right to do. It's a civil rights complaint now?

You have to print the poster. Again, we're going to prosecute. I will not take a lecture. I will not stand for this after watching, I think correctly, and we've debated it before, it's like that masterpiece cake thing. Oh, you got to bake the cake for the gay couple. No, you don't, actually. And they did the exact same thing.

They filed a civil rights complaint, complete bullshit. Any private business has the right to basically do whatever they want, as long as they are not specifically discriminating based upon the code of that civil rights are not. We can all debate the gay thing in particular, but if you held the position, which I absolutely 100% do that the guy did not have to do a goddamn thing for those people,

I would hold the exact same position here. And it's especially galling when the attorney general is basically saying they're going to use the civil rights code to go after to employees for saying that they did not want to print that poster. Now here's the thing. It's very different.

If the company says you violated company policy by refusing to do this, that's actually one thing. And fine, you can be fired for that, of course. If you have internal protocol of we don't have a standard, the only things that we won't print are this, this, and this. You violated that because you brought your personal feelings into our workplace. Get out of here. I don't know a problem with that. I don't think anybody really should. But for the attorney general to basically say we're going to open a civil rights investigation against you for refusing to do this, that is completely

out of bounds. You are literally coming in and telling these businesses and employees what, you know, type of political activity they can or cannot refuse to do. It's preposterous to the nth degree. And this fits with the pattern of this administration. We'll recall you take local and small incidents and you blow them up into the most ludicrous prosecution by the federal government. They opened an investigation when some girl at a Florida university approached, yelled at and touched a guy who was wearing an IDF t-shirt in the gym. Florida expelled her. Okay, fine, whatever.

Maybe she violated the student code of conduct, not an expert or whatever on that. That's a local matter. They opened a civil rights investigation into that. I've talked about the coffee shop case previously where, again, there was some coffee shop in Los Angeles and some shit happened. They were pro-Palestine or whatever, and some people who were there claimed that somebody said something nasty to them about being Jewish. don't support that. I think that's egregious behavior. That's a local matter for Los Angeles

PD and for the state of California. It is not a matter for the Attorney General and Civil Rights Investigating. And it's the same thing with this is the department. You know, I've talked about how the Department of Anti-Racism has become the Department of Antisemitism under this administration. Now it will be the Department of Policing. Everybody in the entire world, if you don't do how we want you to act, we're going to open a civil rights investigation and prosecution against you. It is, I can't, I really, I'm so viscerally angry about it because it's, for me, it's the hypocrisy. You can't, if it, because for the libs, they always believe this stuff, okay? And they were pretty open about it. Nobody lied to you. By the way,

they lost the election in part, I think, because of that. And I think that's a good thing. I think a lot of people stood up and said, no, we're not dealing with this bullshit anymore. But then to run against it and immediately less than nine months or whatever into the, or some, months into the administration to be to repeating i mean can you imagine if obama or any of these other people uh announced this even masterpiece let's say it that was a colorado state case it wasn't federal it wasn't federal it didn't involve eric holder that would have been a whole other ballgame in my opinion so yeah i just i don't know i'm so infuriated it shows i've never believed richard hennanias theory also by the way about elite human capital more he's right i mean you have a bunch of literal

creptness idiots who just mindlessly repeat mantras about Trump. And then they find themselves in these positions of immense power. And look at the consequences. No consistency. It would be a joke, again, if they didn't have literal prosecutorial authority. They could destroy us, Crystal, if they wanted to destroy any of you. By the way, at least we are immediate, we have money, okay? We can, we have insurance and all this other stuff. You're a normal ass office depot employee. You're fucked if they come against you. Even if you win, who cares if you have a million in legal bills. Well, that's exactly right. Because even if, yeah, even if the case is spurious and it gets thrown out, ultimately, meanwhile, you have the whole force of the federal government

and their, you know, legal apparatus coming after you. And if you're a regular person, like your financial and your life in general are going to be destroyed. Destroyed. United States of America versus so-and-so for refusing to print a poster. Even if they investigate you. Do you guys have any ideas how much these types of lawyers cost? I'm talking about. $1,000, $2,000 per hour for expertise in First Amendment law. I'm not joking. The way life is upended, the way that your docs, the way you're put on blast, that, you know, suddenly you are a public figure, whether you wanted to be or not, because you refuse to

print a poster, you know, and by the way, Charlie Kirk fans are not a protected class of people, you know, to apply under civil rights law. Let's be clear about that, too. But the fact that it's ridiculous does not matter. And also, look, the Supreme Court has also given them basically everything that they've wanted. They're on a string of victories through the, by and large, through the shadow docket where they give no reasoning or rationale for their decisions. But clearly, John Roberts either agrees with the direction or has decided that he doesn't want to provoke a conflict with

this administration. And so has basically decided to back down and give them everything that they want. So even if, on its face, you feel like the case has no merit, it doesn't necessarily mean that they're not going to win. And it certainly doesn't mean that they're not going to destroy your life in the process. So, no, it's, I mean, it truly is wild to see. And your point about the way that the Emma of this administration is to use some small incident or to invent an incident and blow it up and use it as an excuse for a power grab and a crackdown is spot on. I mean, look at L.A. Like, L.A. had protests. Yes, there was some violence. Did you need to send in, not only the National Guard, thousands of them, but the, but active duty Marines for that? No, you

didn't. Here in D.C., big balls gets mugged. Next thing you know, you've got National Guard, you've got MRAPs at Union Station. I mean, even we're going to talk about Venezuela. I mean, it's kind of a similar thing. Like, they're inventing the idea that these boats that are coming are drug traffickers. Very little of the drugs that come into this country come from Venezuela, as, you know, Saga actually laid out last time that we covered this. So this is their M.O. Think of the way they've gone after universities, right? Columbia had protest. It was, you know, there was a thing. So basically took over that university, destroyed their Middle Eastern Studies Department, or, you know, stripping them of funding, like forcing them to fire professors,

etc. This is what they do. My name is Ed. Everyone say, hello, Ed. From a very rural background myself, my dad is a farmer and my mom is a cousin. So, like, it's not like, what do you get when a true crime producer walks into a comedy club? I know it sounds like the start of a bad joke, but that really was my reality nine years ago. I'd just normally do straight stand-up, but this is a bit different. On stage stood a comedian with a story

that no one expected to hear. The 22nd of July 2015, a 23-year-old man had killed his family. And then he came to my house. So what do you get when a true crime producer walks

into a comedy club? A new podcast called Wisecrack, where stand-up comedy and murder takes center stage. Available now. Listen to Wisecrack on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is a tape recorder statement. The person being interviewed is Krista Gail Pike. This is in regards to the death of a Colleen slimmer. She started going off on me, and I hit her.

I just hit her, I'm hit her, I'm hit her, I hear. On a cold January day in 1995, 18-year-old Krista Pike killed 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer in the woods of Knoxville, Tennessee. Since her conviction, Krista has been sitting on death row. The state has asked for an execution date for Krista. We let people languish in prison for decades, raising questions about who we consider fundamentally unrestorable.

How does someone prove that they deserve to live? We are starting the recording now. Please state your first and last name. Krista Pike. Listen to Unrestorable Season 2, Proof of Life, on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hola, it's HoneyGerman, and my podcast, Grazacus Come Again, is back.

This season, we're going even deeper into the world music and entertainment, with raw and honest conversations with some of your favorite Latin artists and celebrities. You didn't have to audition? No, I didn't audition. I haven't audition in like over 25 years. Oh, wow. That's a real G-talk right there. Oh, yeah. We've got some of the biggest actors, musicians, content creators, and culture shifters sharing their real stories of failure and success. You were destined to be a start. We talked all about what's viral and trending with a little bit Chisement, a lot of laughs, and those amazing Vibras you've come to expect. And of course, we'll explore deeper topics dealing with identity, struggles, and all the issues affecting our Latin community.

You feel like you get a little whitewash because you have to do the code switching? I won't say whitewash because at the end of the day, you know, I'm me. But the whole pretending and code, you know, 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. Another significant thing that happened yesterday, which they're clearly trying to use Charlie Kirk's murder to paint a portrait of every left-wing organization is basically like violent and out for blood. And we're going to use the excuse of this for a mass crackdown. And Stephen Miller laid this out explicitly when I was talking to J.D. Vance on what was Charlie Kirk's podcast. Let's go ahead and take a listen to this.

Walk me through at a high level, like what you and I have been working on, what the whole administration is. been working on to try to make sure that we don't reward and promote this craziness. So it's an excellent question. I said this before, but it bears repeating. The last message that Charlie sent me was, I think it was just the day before we lost him, which is that we need to have an organized strategy to go after the left-ling organizations that are promoting violence in this country. And I will write those words onto my heart and I will carry them out. We are going to channel all of the anger that we have over the organized campaign that led to this assassination to uproot and dismantle these terrorist networks. With God is my witness, we are going to use every resource we have at the Department of Justice, Homeland Security, and throughout this government to identify, disrupt, dismantle, and destroy these networks and make America safe again for the American people.

It will happen, and we will do it in Charlie's name. Also, by the way, Attorney General Pam Bondi has now tried to clarify her remarks. I think this fits all together. Let's put this up here on the screen just to show you the legalese that is all happening. She says, hate speech that crosses the line into threats of violence is not protected by the First Amendment. It is a crime. Far too long, we've watched the radical left normalized threats call for assassinations, cheer on political violence. That era is over.

Under 18 USC 875C is a federal crime to, quote, transmit any communication containing any threat to kidnap any person or any threat to injure the person or other. or other. Likewise, 18 U.S.C. 876 and 18 U.S.C. 115, make it a felony to threaten public officials, members of Congress, or their families. Free speech protects ideas, debate, even dissent. But it does not and will never protect violence. It is clear that this violent rhetoric is designed to silence others from first voicing conservative ideals. We will never be silenced, not our families, our freedoms. Never for Charlie's legacy will not be erased by fear or intimidation. But to be very, very clear here, she is still using the line, the line.

Hate speech, there is no such thing legally as hate speech, as Charlie himself laid out. And what she's talking about there, the extremely narrow definition under those crimes, which they lay out, any communication containing any threat to kidnap any person or any threat to injure the person or another, even in the egregious examples, which we showed everybody yesterday, where people said, I'm happy that he's dead. that does not fall under that definition. That is a conversation instead for employers, for society, for all of us. And as I said yesterday, I said many of those people I think should absolutely be fired. However, however, it is not the role of the government here in any way to be bringing cases against them and be telling people, specifically employees suing them for civil rights investigation. One of the things, you know, this great irony, Charlie himself spoke at length, and I know a lot of liberals have attacked them about this, about the Civil

Rights Act, and specifically about the overreach and basically the new constitution that was invented after 1964 of an entire new realm of case law, which delves with discrimination and hate speech and going after people for violating this or that. This is exactly the type of overreach which led him and me and many other people to a similar conclusion that, look, at the very least, we have to grapple with the fact that this entire new code of social law began to exist and has since morphed from originally what we thought would be the endpoint of Ibrahim-Mex-Kendi thought into now Department of Anti-Racism, you know, stuff. You talked earlier about the universities.

I have no love for the universities. Columbia, screw you. Harvard, screw you. Why? Not because you're anti-Semitic. It's because you're bilking people. In my opinion, your culture and all of that has done nothing for the elite. of this country. If anything, it's turned them 10 times worse. You're much more socially

destructive than any of some dumbass protest or whatever about Palestine. How should we destroy them if we wanted to? What would that even look like? It would be destroying their endowment hedge fund operations and, you know, the rise of the DEI administrator and all of that, which is bilking the American taxpayer and putting these people horrifically in debt. That applies completely across the board all of us can have an argument about that one way or the other, but the point is not that has anything to the goddamn Middle Eastern

Studies Department. And that is what upsets me the most. It also gets to... Well, they want, they don't want to get rid of the DEI. Yeah, they want to redefine the DEI. Right, DEI now stands for Israel. Yeah. Yeah, diversity equity in Israel. Okay, I mean, I'm not for that, okay? I saw this shit

coming from a mile away ever since October 7th. That's the first time that they turned on cancel culture. this gets to a bigger theory. I forgive me because this stuff gets deep into conservative thought. If you go back to some of my original involvement in the conservative movement, there was this debate between libertarians and national conservatives. It was about this idea of using state power for ends. I still believe that as a principle. And I'll give you an example when I talk about China and I talk about industrial policy, intelligent policy, which is used specifically

to engineer what I think are good ends, tax policy and others, because the alternative is where we are right now, where we already effectively have state industrial policy for the stupidest industries like hedge funds and all this others, we might as well use it for more productive ends. And specifically, socially what I think we could all arrive to, let's say we should prioritize the American family, we should prioritize being able to build a house, we should prioritize having great business and products which are built here in the United States of America. What they have done and what I find so viscerally betrayed on is they have instead said that we must engineer state power to use for our, not even

coalitional interests, but for the interest of a foreign government here in the case of Israel, and now in particular, to actually go after fellow citizens. And that's the preposterous nature. It's also the perversion of the idea. So I'm not a libertarian, and I still believe in the ability of the state to actually use tax policy, industrial policy, to have intelligence, as we did in the lead-up to World War II. But this right here, this is the worst of us. It's exactly what happened after 9-11.

Well, and the part of it that speaks to the sense of betrayal is how much more difficult will it be to make the argument against the libertarians are going to win now. Do you guys understand that? That's what pisses me off. The libertarians will win. Do you know how many Americans now are going to say fuck tariffs? I did an event yesterday with Chris Murphy. And I asked him.

I said, hey, senator, you know, he's much more neoliberal. So I was like, hey, you know, what do you think about tariffs now? No, because from my perspective, I've watched the neoliberals, they're all in on tariffs or attacks. All tariffs are back. They're right back to 2010 thought. And he's like, well, we can say tariff. He didn't answer my question at all. Dodged it completely.

And I was like, oh, no. I was like, when the Dems come back, I don't know how they'll ever be able to do a tariff again. Even on antitrust policy, because if you have a government that you have a semblance of, like, either political neutrality or the policy is going to be used to, you know, don't create American jobs and make sure they're good paying and whatever, then you can feel comfortable having a strong antitrust department that's not going to be just like weaponizing that as a threat to coerce like cultural ends or like to, you know, make sure you're towing the line on Israel. But in fact, what we have is, you know, administration that is using every weapon that they have to coerce on Israel to make sure that their cultural policy is pursued,

to make sure that these businesses are like paying appropriate tribute to Trump. I mean, that's what a lot of it is for is just like, what is it in it, what's in it for B? There's a big corruption scandal with regard to the UAE that the New York Times wrote yesterday that we're going to try to get to this week. But, you know, that, that saps the confidence out of the ability for the government to truly be an actor on behalf of the American people versus in the interest of these particular groups. And it is a good segue into the next conversation about Israel, because while, like Stephen Miller there, he's not only talking about left-wing groups that are pro-Palestine. We know that that will be a lot of where the hammer falls.

I mean, the Democratic Party in general, the left certainly have been the fiercest and the earliest advocates for Palestine. So if you are marshaling the federal government to crush left-wing descent, crush left-wing groups, just by the nature of what you're doing, you are going to be. having a disproportionate impact on the pro-Palestine conversation. Yeah, and I'll even focus on that. I mean, one of the things that J.D. floated in his speech yesterday was like the tax status of the Open Society Foundation. I'm like, okay.

I mean, listen, you're not going to see any crocodile tears from me about the Open Society Foundation. But the point about law is to say what? Is to say, actually, a lot of these nonprofits are basically political money laundering by the billionaire class, right? But instead, it becomes like, oh, these, and by the way, look, yes, it's true. Many of these left-wing billionaires have funded the stupidest shit possible. But the claim that was originally made, actually, about the Nation magazine, does not appear to be correct. And so this also gets to this fantasy, which I have said so many times here, there is a fantasy that people think that this is organized in the same way that the weather underground or the KKK was.

I wish it were so. It would be ten times easier to disrupt and destroy. It would be so much easier. The weather underground was 25 different freaks. Prosecute three, get a few non-prosecution agreements or whatever with the rest. They get plead guilty. A couple of them fled the country and were basically silent, I think, for like 25 years. It disappeared.

No, we're dealing with something 10 times worse, which is this not you're doing your monologue on nihilism and blackbell. That is people sitting at home getting addicted to pornography, weed, to like every degenerate, impulse that the internet can serve you and then taking it out in extreme forces and assassinating Charlie Kirk and or in the case of the Thomas Matthew Crook's person, the school shooter. That's the actual societal problem that we have to deal with. I wish there were easy governments to look. A bunch of young, disaffected men with no sense of meaning or purpose, desperately trying to make their lives matter.

That's what we're talking about. And it is an epidemic, and it is not going to be easily solved, because is there anything on the horizon that you see that's going to create, like, a pathway to a sense of, like, hope and prosperity and meaning and purpose for any of these young men, whatever the ideological valence they hold? No, there's nothing on that horizon. And then the accelerant of those internet spaces is only going to become more and more twisted. So that's part of why the landscape is so dark. My name is Ed. Everyone say, hello, Ed. I'm from a very rural background myself.

My dad is a farmer and my mom is a cousin. So, like, it's not like... What do you get when a true crime producer walks into a comedy club? I know it sounds like the start of a bad joke, but that really was my reality nine years ago. I just normally do straight stand-up, but this is a bit different. On stage stood a comedian with a story that, that no one expected to hear.

The 22nd of July 2015, a 23-year-old man had killed his family. And then he came to my house. So what do you get when a true crime producer walks into a comedy club? A new podcast called Wisecrack, where stand-up comedy and murder takes center stage.

Available now. Listen to Wisecrack, on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is a tape recorder statement. The person being interviewed is Krista Gail Pike. This is in regards to the death of a Colleen Slimmer. She started going off on Eve and I hit her. I just hit her and hit her and hit her.

On a cold January day in 1995, 18-year-old Krista Pike killed 19-year-old Colleen-year-old Colleen Slemmer, in the woods of Knoxville, Tennessee. Since her conviction, Krista has been sitting on death row. The state has asked for an execution date for Krista. We let people languish in prison for decades, raising questions about who we consider fundamentally unrestorable. How does someone prove that they deserve to live? We are starting the recording now.

Please state your first and last name. Krista Pike. Listen to Unrestorable Season 2, Proof of Life, on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. A foot washed up a shoe with some bones in it. They had no idea who it was. Most everything was burned up pretty good from the fire that not a whole lot was salvageable. These are the coldest of cold cases, but everything is about to change. Every case that is a cold case that has DNA right now in a backlog will be identified in our lifetime. A small lab in Texas is cracking the code on DNA.

Using new scientific tools, they're finding clues in evidence so tiny you might just miss it. He never thought he was going to get caught. And I just looked at my computer screen. I was just like, ah, gotcha. On America's Crime Lab, we'll learn about victims and survivors. And you'll meet the team behind the scenes at Othrum. the Houston Lab that takes on the most hopeless cases to finally solve the unsolvable. Listen to America's Crime Lab on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Let's segue to the Israel part here around Charlie. There's been a huge dust up right now very lately after Charlie Kirk's assassination. I want to be clear at the top that some of it is absolutely unhinged. People just outright saying shit. like Israel killed Charlie Kirk. There's not a single scrap of evidence to support that. What I think is a legitimate conversation, which we're all about to have, is about the role that Charlie played in the conservative movement, the questions he was beginning to ask about Israel. He was unambiguously pro-Israel.

Let's be very clear. He also was unambiguously against, like, groipers and, quote, Jew hate, as he even told me, in the segment that we did, you know, a few weeks before that he was murdered. I want to be clear, though, that what has happened since, in my opinion, is disgusting is that the Israeli government, I'm not going to denigrate pro-Israeli forces here in America. They have a right to do so because there's a lot of evidence for that. But the Israeli government itself, Benjamin Netanyahu, has had a concerted effort to claim Charlie

as one of his own and to basically use his death for the political support of his country in our country. That is what I find, absolutely objectionable, and it goes deeper. This flared up and honestly a pretty crazy moment here with Tucker Carlson, who was invited to the White House for part of the tribute segment with J.D. Vance on Charlie Kirk's show, Tucker called out Bibi Netanyahu specifically and many of the donors who pressured Charlie Kirk to actually stop to keep towing the line on Israel. Here's what Tucker had to say. That was the question. If you were good faith, you're on his team. Exactly right. And good faith is the measure. And I, you know, I just, I have to say, I think now is exactly the wrong time to appropriate the memory of someone and the emotion that comes with that, the really intense emotion that all of his feel and his murderer, and use it for your own parochial ends. Like, he stood for this, but I don't think it's helpful to, for people to jump in, particularly foreign heads of state, to say, this is what, you know, he lived for my cause or whatever. That's disgusting, actually. Don't do that. That turns everybody off.

don't help your own cause by doing that. And it's also literally untrue. Did worry me, because I think your description is perfect. He was one of the very few who took that message and stood by it. I mean, right to the very end. This cannot get bigger. We don't want another regime change war. But man, some of the people who send money to turning point, his donors were very tough on him, so tough on him that I could feel it. I talked to him a lot in the last few months, and he was under enormous pressure. He never bent. He never became better. He kept his integrity to the very end. To the very end. Very politically sensitive, I think, for the vice president to have Tucker there saying specifically about B.B. Tentanyahu's basically

claiming of Charlie Kirk's legacy and to bring up this donor piece. Let's stick with the donor piece because this is now exploded into a lot of accusations. Things are flying around here. So there's an allegation now that's been made by the gray zone and by Candace Owens, specifically about Bill Ackman and a recent conference in August in which Ackman gathered with a bunch of influencers, conservative influencers, by Ackman's account. There were approximately people with nearly 100 million followers that were in the room. There were a bunch of different events and conversations that were had at this gathering at Ackman's residence, I believe, in the Hampton. in New York. He gathered them all together for like this confab to kind of talk about. One of the

things that they talked about was Israel. There is an allegation now from the gray zone from Candace Owens that Charlie was berated and lectured about Tucker Carlson's previous presence at the Students for Action Summit previously and about some of the dissident things that Charlie had said about the state of Israel and about specifically U.S. support for Israel. So here's what Candice laid out in her show yesterday. Let's take a listen. in the Hamptons, and he had more than one event, but he had essentially what was staged, an intervention was staged by Bill Ackman, because Charlie's thoughts, Charlie's rational thoughts about Israel were a no-no.

This is not the route that you should be going on. And Charlie was surrounded by his friends, it's quote-unquote friends. Bill Ackman was very upset, and threats were made. I know it went down this way. I'm waiting for one of them to go on record and to say that it didn't go down this way. It was at this time that Bibi Netanyahu was called and Charlie was invited to Israel. This was an under duress situation, I would say, because I've been in these situations before. It felt like a threat, like not like, hey, come here and we can.

educate you because you're my friend, more like, this is your last chance. That's how it felt to me. I can't speak to how it felt of Charlie. And I know that Charlie was offered a ton of money in this moment. A ton of money. Beebe would fund it, you know. Charlie said no to Beebe. Okay. Bill Ackman, if you would like to dispute that, I would love to hear what you say happens because our sources and what we have, it's solid, okay? There were conversations that took place, messages that were sent at that time, and they are solid. But I also went out to two other people who were at this meeting and nobody is willing to go on record. They're all messaging each other trying to figure out a coordinated response to say that, no, this was all quite cordial, but no one wants to go on record. I

describe it as cordial because they know someone's leaking, because someone's got a guilty conscience about what happened at the Hamptons. I am inviting you guys, I will give you my platform, actually, to come clear matters up, but tell us what really happened because, you know, I think Charlie was definitely on the brink

of changing some of his perspectives. Okay, so that's from Candace. I want to be very clear here that Bill Ackman is disputing. A lot of this has put this up here on the screen. Here's what Ackman had to say. He said that this afternoon, Candice no one slandered me

accusing of staging and intervention. He lays out specifically everything that I did about the conference, about the gathering that happened. What he says is that he had an original Zoom with Charlie, the agenda for the meeting that he took place in was the economic future of America, the cultural landscape of dating and marriage, the convergence of East and West, Mamdani, the new threat to America. And what we see, actually, again, with what we see with Bill Ackman's tweet broadly is he's disputing that there was any sort of confrontation, intervention, and all of that. I will also note that Charlie's former producer

has said that he does not believe that the account is accurate. I have that if you want me to read it. So this is former producer, Andrew Colvitt. I've been asked about the Bill Ackman event more than a few times now, so I asked our staff who were traveling with Charlie to find out what's true, what's not.

His team was with him 100% of the time when he wasn't in his hotel room. Here's what they told me, quote, Bill never yelled at Charlie, never pressed him on BV, B, B, never gave him a list of Charlie's offenses against Israel. There was concern raised about having Tucker at SAS. We don't believe this came from Bill. And Charlie's reply was, quote, honestly, people telling me not to have Tucker makes me want to have Tucker and I'm going to lock him in for AM Best, too. Charlie personally told me he had a very

cordial relationship with Bill and the event was productive. Those are the facts. Yes. So he does confirm there was some sort of something said about upset expressed over Tucker being at this previous turning points of that. It fits also with there was a podcast that was recorded with Megan Kelly right around this time where Charlie said effectively something to affect of, I feel like I can criticize my own government with more ease than I can fit the Israeli government. What he said is actually, I misquoted this the other day, what he said is that he feels like Israelis can criticize the Israeli government more than he can. That's right. And that that was crazy to him. That's accurate, by the way. Yeah, that it is accurate. That, you know, he felt this

constrained. And the other thing is, like, I don't know what happened in the Hamptons. There's a couple things I will say when it comes to these type of, like, billionaire donors. It doesn't normally, like, the pressure doesn't have to be so overt. Charlie's a sophisticated actor

in this space. Absolutely. And by the way, he acknowledged so much of this publicly. Right. A big part of his role is fundraising and donor maintenance as the head of a large organization that receives a lot of, like, wealthy, high net worth individual backing. That is large part of what he would be doing. So you don't need them to yell at you to know what they

want you to do. You don't need like direct overt blackmail threats, et cetera. You know, this could have, there could be much more subtle indications of like, oh, you know, if Tucker isn't at the next event, then I think I have some donors I could bring in. I think I have some money that could go. I'm not saying that's what happened. I'm just saying that's the way these typical, these things typically work because everyone knows the game. You don't need. If you're Charlie Kirk, you're smart person, you don't need anyone to blatantly tell you, we want you to be towing the line 100%. You think he doesn't know that? Of course he knew that. Of course he knew that. And then to your point, Saugger, some of, like a good bit of this was out in public.

Laura Lumer was going after Charlie Kirk aggressively. She's now since I think deleted a bunch of her tweets over this. But if you put B7 up on the screen, Laura Lumer was attacking him, there were tons of pro-Israel conservatives who were going after him for hosting not only Tucker, but Dave Smith, for a debate on Zionism there. She said, I don't ever want to hear Charlie Kirk claim. He is pro-Trump ever again after this weekend. I'd say he's revealed himself as a political opportunist. I've had a front-row seat to witness the mental gymnastics these last 10 years.

Lately, Charlie's decided to behave like a charlatan claiming to be pro-Trump one day while he stabs Trump in the back the next. There was a lot of upset about the Dave Smith debate and about Tucker being at that event specifically, and a lot of that was public. So I have zero doubt that he was feeling a squeeze. And we discussed this previously as well, even before he's killing. He was feeling a squeeze between my primary role is to back up this administration. If you doubt that that's the case, just see, you know, J.D. Vance taking over the vice president of the United States taking over his podcast, you know, after he. is killed. His primary role is to, is to back up this administration. However, since he's supposed

to be a voice for these young people, and you see organically young people across the board, including young Republicans, saying, what are we doing? How is this America first? He was feeling very pressured between the support of the administration, the need to keep his donors on board, and being able to keep his, you know, young base from fleeing to other influencers like a Nick Fuentes or like a Candace Owens, he was obviously feeling that pressure and trying to figure out how to navigate that space. So that's why he had you on. That's why he allowed Tucker and Dave Smith to be at his event. He wasn't going to say it. So he's sort of creating plausible deniability for himself, but he would let these other people in to say it. That's why he had that youth focused group

on Israel again, which we covered, which again was a way for him to, he's not going to be the one to say but at least he's allowing these voices to be out there and be given representation on his platform. Exactly, very, very well said. And that's why I started the way that we did, is that a lot of this is being thrown around, always real killed. Listen, the controversy to me is the way

that the Bibi Netanyahu government is trying to claim it Charlie Kirk. And I want to be very clear to the extent that they did. He appeared on Fox News twice, almost in the immediate aftermath of Charlie's death, to celebrate him as a great friend, of Israel. Nobody asked you, by the way. You could have just said our condolences to the family. And instead, it was all about how he was a great warrior for BB's cause. Take a listen to that.

He was a defender of our common Judeo-Christian civilization. He was unbelievably excited to walk at the footsteps of Jesus here. He valued our bond, the bond between America and Israel. He, you know, he did so many things to defend free speech. He had his truth. He stood up for it. But he said, you can come and debate me. He invited that debate. He certainly didn't invite the violence, the horrible violence, that tried to silence him. And, you know, this is a worldwide problem. The people on the, you know, on the extremes, the Islamists, the radical Islamists,

and their union with the ultra-progressives, they often speak about human rights. They speak about free speech, but they use violence to try to take down their own. enemies. Yeah, I mean, this was like non-stop, literally. It was Nibi Nanyahu, Ben-Gavir. These are ministers of Israeli government. And we had- We also tried to assert before we knew anything about anything. That it was a radicalismist. Right. Like, just trying to will that into being, because it serves his ends of making people hate Muslims more. I mean, it's just, like, I want people to really take a second. Imagine it was literally any other foreign head of state. Totally. How bizarre. It's just bizarre. It's inappropriate. It's uncouth. I mean, it's just, it's just gross to, and I've seen people do this with other, you know, figures who have passed away. I've actually seen people do this with regard to, like, Michael Brooks, you know, who obviously is like a much less famous figure who died prematurely. And people will take him, well, Michael Brooks would have said this about X or he thought this about Y. And if you aren't just going based on, like, literally what he said, I find it very,

I just, it's so, it's really gross and uncomfortable when people take a deceased figure and try to use them and weaponize them for their own political cause, let alone when it's a head of state who is perpetrating a genocide and using our taxpayer dollars and, you know, manipulating our government. I mean, not that Trump doesn't have his own agency and all of this as well, but it's so sick and unseemly, especially. And that's why this piece about like the tensions that we're playing out within Charlie. who, you know, you were saying, I think this is the right. Like, you should look at Charlie as sort of like, like a politician trying to manage these various coalitions, right? And so some of this was bubbling to the surface. And for you to dishonestly claim that there was no tension there, that he was just a defender, 100% of everything you're doing, including especially your war on Iran, which he was very public about opposing, you know, that's just, it's just incredibly gross and dishonest and should be absolutely. you know, anyone of good faith should say this is wildly inappropriate.

Yes, that is what I really want to bring this to. And that's what I think that the controversy is about is that after, look, he was the best to do it. He was the coalitional manager. He was the person able to be with the pro-Israel forces and the skeptical Israel forces. Something like that's not going to be seen again. And that's why, to me, the scandal, and to the extent that there should be debate afterwards, It should be about the people who are, quote, trying to claim his legacy.

Now, I wouldn't, you know, I'm not part of it, the institutional writer, any of these people. I'm just an observer. But that's why people are attacking Candace and Tucker and saying, it's disgusting the way that they're trying to use his legacy for their political ends. Look at what you are doing. The Israeli prime minister is on television saying he was one of us. Yeah. Guys, that is the most blatant example of trying to appropriate his death for their domestic political war aims. It's sick.

And it's like the people who object to that are the, oh, they're the troublemakers. It's unbelievable, really, to watch. Also, I want everybody to flag that Bill Ackman just openly admits to a confab of gathering 100 million people. Oh, sorry, influencers with collectively over 100 million followers. Everyone sit with that. And everyone sit with that in particular in who you're getting your news from. And if they're not very explicit about the stuff that they take money from and who they don't. All right?

We are on record of exactly every dollar that comes to this company. Not one of it comes from some Bill Ackman. Neither of us are going on any trips except in free flights. You know, when people invite me in as though, oh, I'll cover your travel. No, no you won't. If I want to go, I'm going to go on my own dime, specifically to avoid this type of stuff. And I admit it, you know, it's sometimes embarrassing. We talk about billionaire.

I'll be like, yeah, I had dinner with them before. I'll tell you that. You know, you think that's to my benefit? You think that it doesn't, you know, lead to conspiracy theory and all that? I say it anyways, specifically to avoid types of conflict of interest. So if people are doing this type of bullshit and they're not disclosing it, you should not trust them for one second. So please, please sit with that. Because it's not just about Israel.

There's a whole bunch of stuff going on behind the scenes. And, yeah, the people who are not being honest with you, they were. rely on not asking questions. On a cold January day in 1995, 18-year-old Krista Pike killed 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer in the woods of Knoxville, Tennessee. Since her conviction, Krista has been sitting on death row. How does someone prove that deserve to live. We are starting the recording now.

Please state your first and last name. Krista Pike. Listen to Unrestorable Season 2, Proof of Life, on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I just normally do straight stand-up, but this is a bit different. What do you get when a true crime producer

walks into a comedy club? Answer, a new podcast called Wisecrack, where a comedian finds himself at the center of a chilling true crime story. Does anyone know what show they've come to see? It's a story. It's about the scariest night of my life. This is Wisecrack, available now. Listen to Wisecrack on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,

or wherever you get your podcasts. Just like great shoes, great books take you places. Through unforgettable love stories and into conversations with characters you'll never forget. Any good romance, it gives me this feeling of, like, butterflies. I'm Danielle Robay, and this is bookmarked by Reese's Book Club, the new podcast from Hello Sunshine and IHeart Podcasts, where we dive into the stories that shape us, on the page and off.

Each week, I'm joined by authors, celebs, book talk stars, and more for conversations that will make you laugh, cry, and add way too many books to your TBR pile. Listen to bookmarked by Reese's Book Club on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts are wherever you get your podcasts. Apple Books is the official audio book and ebook home for Reese's Book Club. Visit apple.co forward slash Reese Apple Books to find out more. This is an IHeart podcast.