Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - 9/19/25: Trump CHEERS Kimmel Shutdown, Late Night RESPONDS

Episode Date: September 19, 2025

The BP team looks at Trump doubling down on the silencing of TV Show criticism after the successful pressure to take Jimmy Kimmel off the air for Charlie Kirk comments, then we look at the reactions from the "anti cancel culture" podcasts. Krystal: https://x.com/krystalball Ryan: https://x.com/ryangrim Emily: https://x.com/emilyjashinsky Griffin: https://x.com/griffinpdavis   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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and we hope to see you at breaking points.com. Hey, everybody. Happy Friday. I didn't know if you were talking to the audience rhetorically or to us, Crystal. It could be either, both all of the above, you know, welcoming people in. Yes. I got us in trouble last Friday, so I'm going to try to be more demure this week. We're tightening it up. We've got a makeup on. We're hair makeup ready. That's right.

Yes. That was the real bummer. Yeah, we're going to calm down and how we objectify our nation's assassins. Our nation's assassins. And Ryan combed his hair. I did. He found a call. Looking good.

Looking good, guys. There was a bunch of reaction last night on the late night shows to the firing of, or indefinite suspension of Jimmy Kimmel. I guess it's not clear that he's canceled for good. So wanted to get into some of that. We got some new Trump comments. We've got updates with regard to Israel, Netanyahu, directly denying that he had anything to do with Charlie Kirk's death. And some new information brought to light by Candice Owens, a new picture that she released that is allegedly of Tyler Robinson hours after the killing occurred. And he's still sort of like hanging around in the area at a Dairy Queen. I don't know. We'll probably get to that in the premium section.

Yeah, really interesting, obviously really interesting story. Yeah, for sure. It shows him wearing like a combination of the outfits that he'd worn previously in the photos that we've seen. And it's just, you know, I mean, whether or not the photo is real or not, I think is a question in of itself. Some people speculate it could be AI. We don't have a timestamp. All of those sorts of things. But anyway, we'll bring you all of the latest with regard to that investigation.

Yep, another fast food killer, apparently, just like Luigi with the McDonald's. So let's start with Trump's comments here about Jimmy Kimmel. Why don't we? Your vice president, Vance, said that free speech is under attack in the UK. Do you agree with him? And the prime minister, we saw dismissal of a very well-known chat show host in America last night, Mr. Kimmel. Is pre-speech more under attack in Britain or America? Well, Jimmy Kimmel was fired because he had bad ratings more than anything else.

And he said a horrible thing about a great gentleman known as Charlie Kirk. And Jimmy Kimmel is not a talented person. He had very bad ratings. And they should have fired him a long time ago. So, you know, you can call that free speech or not. He was fired for lack of talent. Lack of talent. What do we make of this?

Yeah, we haven't gotten you guys take, at least on the air, with regard to the indefinite suspension of Kimmel. So, Emily, what did you make of, all of these developments before I get to the present specific comments there. You know, I probably am in the position of like disagreeing with, I'll probably be the one like odd man out throughout this conversation because I think with Kimmel, the timing is obviously an appearance of conflict of interest and an appearance of conflict of interest is a conflict of interest. But also my position is that the FCC either should not exist or,

this particular power of the FCC certainly should not exist. Actually asked Brendan Carr about thought a couple of months ago about whether the law itself actually needed to be changed. And he said at the time, actually, that's probably a conversation that needs to be entertained, whether the FCC should have any jurisdiction to determine what, quote, public interest is. Because as long as that exists, if you're a, you know, Trump Republican and you see the FCC with this power and you see corporate media going against. you for so long or going against it being like fairly obviously biased in one direction for so long, then the tool gets more and more tempting to use. And the last thing on that point that I'll say is I would not have a problem with the Democratic FCC commissioner. If you see NBC news or wherever lying our way into another Iraq war saying, we could do this the easy way or the

hard way. This is not in the public interest that you are making up intelligence, whatever. I would never support them yanking a broadcast license. I don't think the jaw-boning is that, like, significant. I do think that the merger question is absolutely significant. The next-star merger question is absolutely significant. But my basic point on this is that I think the corporations are opportunistically, opportunistically taking these dust-ups as their, like, their opportunities, the market was catching up with Kimmel, the market was catching up with Colbert. He wasn't turning, Colbert

wasn't turning a profit. I'd be shocked if Kimmel wasn't losing a decent amount of money. And when these things come up, it becomes an opportunity for the networks to be like, we're doing you a favor, Trump. Look what we're doing here. So that's kind of my take overall. all, but I'm sure we'll have other disagreements. What do you think, Ryan? I disagree basically all of that. I don't think we can, I don't think we have any way of knowing whether or not Colbert or any of these people are profitable.

You see this claim made that they're profitable or unprofitable. The way the broadcast networks work is not that you, they make a certain amount of candy and it costs this much to make the candy and then they sell the candy for a higher price and then they have a margin there. it's like it's not like there's so much more to that and it and they're they're part of a giant brand and which involves their connection to their bigger conglomerates and the and the cable revenue that they get and the broadcast revenue through the ads that they get and if you if they have even just 500,000 people who you know are huge fans of Kimmel like that can actually make it worth it to

have the Kimmel so like there's this we're too quick to say that this that that actually these are business decisions they wanted to make, but they were afraid to make, which that I don't understand either. Like, companies are usually fine to fire, you know, to make business decisions that they think are in their own interests. They don't need the government to push them. But I think the bigger disagreement is on the problem with the jawboning. I think jawboning by the government, especially when it is directly connected to an explicit threat, you know, Brennan Carr of the FCC told ABC, you need to take action against Jimmy Kimmel or else.

That is a explicit threat of government action unless they take action. In Missouri versus, you know, the Biden or whatever the case was, where you didn't even have any threat. What you had was members of the government, both Trump administration's DHS and then Biden administration's DHS, going to the platforms and flagging I don't think I don't like this post here about the vaccine or I don't like this about the lab and the platforms are actually like most for the most they're like all right we're taking that down the reason is a problem is not because the

government said take this down or else the fact that they're the government means means that they come with awesome power, enormous power, that has to be kept in check. So the or else is implicit. The or else is just implied. It's much worse when you straight up say or else. Like, that's just gangster stuff. But the awesome power of the federal government needs to be checked by the Constitution. And that's why the FBI cannot even walk in the door and tell you anything about your monologue.

or else you understand that to be an implicit threat big fat, beefy Italian guy comes in It's like when Taibi got a knock from the IRS on his door after the Twitter files

Right yeah, hey he's just knocking on the door here just want to make sure that all your paperwork is in order like they didn't even have to say back off of the Twitter files or else you will get audited that would be horrifying

if they said back off the Twitter files files or else you will get audited. How is this any different? Also, the entire center left thought that the framing of the Twitter files was misinformation. It was poorly constructed and was cherry-picked. So should the FCC or the IRS or the FBI have said, you know what? We didn't like the framing of the way the Twitter files came out. We thought this was wrong. So now you're going, to suffer, you're going to get punished. It's the exact same thing because the conservative argument is that what Kimmel said was misinformation and therefore the threats are justified.

In fact, if you look at exactly what he said, you know, he said MAGA folks are desperately trying to find ways to make it so that this is not one of their guys. Now, to me it turned out it was not one of their guys. He said this on Monday night. It was it was the case. that everybody from every direction was trying to make the case that this was not one of their guys. That's just what they, that's, that's what they were doing. So then come in and say, you have to take action against this guy or else. And then the or else is the dual murders. There's mergers at the Disney level that are needed.

And then Nextstar wants to merge next star is the biggest, you know, which bought Rising. Nextstar is the biggest owner of local television networks. which is trying to buy even more local television networks, which we have said for decades is consolidation that we don't want to see. So they need the law changed, basically. They need an FCC rule changed so that they can buy more local television channels, which are so lucrative. Why?

Because of super PAC and political ads. That's the main revenue source. That's the only reason local television channels are so lucrative. And next are, as we know, because Emily and I worked for them for like five minutes. They're like they're a Trump aligned. freelance. Yeah, we met their leadership. They're Trump aligned.

And so then they operated like they operated on the on the same team and helped effectuate this entire thing. And they also, by the way, Brendan Carr and his comments, I mean, directly name checked like, hey, these, you know, cable affiliate owners, they need to be. looking into this. So he says that and threatens ABC. Next thing, next star says, okay, no problem. We're going to, we're going to preempt Kimmel. And then, and according to the Rolling Stone reporting, the executives who'd been meeting and who'd been like, you know, shitting themselves over this, they did not think what Kimmel said was over the line, nor do. I mean, I think what Kimmel said ended up being obviously incorrect. But it was not like that crazy or wild or insensitive, like insanely out of balance.

thing to say. In any case, the executives didn't have a real problem with what he said, but they explicitly felt that the pressure from the Trump administration was the reason why they had to act. And then on top of all of that, if you had any doubt in mind, then you have Brennan Carr go out and say, hey, maybe the view should be next. You have Trump come out and say effectively, like, you know, you really, you shouldn't be allowed to criticize me or else your license should be revoked. So if there was any doubt whatsoever about the reasoning for the decision making of the ABC and Disney executive team, it should all be put to bed by the chain of events, their own internal deliberations, and then the government basically going out and bragging about the power that they wield and

their ability to coerce news executives to do whatever the hell they want. Griffin, we should get you in on this because comedy is your space. one thing to that point, I don't, I wonder how, because the Wall Street Journal was reporting after it happened that Kimmel, they expect Kimmel to be back in a couple of days. And I actually am curious if he will be back by like Monday. I don't know. I agree with one thing Crystal said on the nature of the line, like the one liner by Kimmel standards was relatively mild. He said, he said some, during COVID, He said some crazy stuff. Like, he's, he's been out there. And my thing with Kimmel, I don't know what you guys think. It's sort of like my thing with Colbert as a big, like, Griffin, we've talked about this. Like, Strangers with Candy era, Colbert fan.

It just feels like a lot of it feels lazy. But anyway, that's beside the point. And one other point, I think what people were really upset about. And then Griffin, who's, if you're in comedy, that means you're an outlaw at this point because comedy is illegal once again. Outlaw! So there were there was two pieces. of the joke. The first part is not even a joke. It's like Mag is trying to out there trying to score political points on this and say that it's not their guy. I don't even actually see how that's funny. It's

just a comment. But the joke was the next one. We're just like, let's see how Trump is responding. And then Trump gets asked, you know, sir, like, how are you holding up personally after the loss of your friend? And Trump responds, great, we're building this. I don't know if we have it handy, But, like, you know, we're building this ballroom. Everybody said we couldn't build the ballroom. It's going to be absolutely fantastic. It's going to be the greatest ballroom in the history of ballrooms. And, you know, it goes on and on and on about the ballroom.

That's it. And so that was his joke. He's like, look at this guy. What a cretan. Like, that was the joke. And I think that's what Trump was actually offended about. But Trump should have not acted like a cretan if he didn't want Jimmy Kimmel to portray him as one. Well, and Trump made it pretty plain that that's what he was upset about since he then went on to say, you're not allowed to criticize me.

Yeah, right. Yeah. Yeah. Go Griffin. If we're to analyze this from a comedy perspective, then Kimmel is guilty and should be fired. But we shouldn't analyze it from a comedy perspective because that's not right. I did have a few questions for, like, Emily, I am curious about this idea that the FCC should be eliminated or what have you. I'm curious about that and, like, what that would mean if it's gone.

But, like, also to the point about money to slightly steal man, Emily's case about views, like, I did read last night that Jimmy Kimmel was averaging in the key demo around 129,000 views, which is about, like, one YouTube clip from us. This clip today will probably do more. Is that real? He's averaging that in the demo? And that's actually down 50% from what it was a couple months ago. So there seems to be like a steady decline there. But like if this were just purely, if Next Star were to try to make this look like purely a financial decision, like, oh, we're just bleeding money on the show. Why wouldn't they just make an announcement being like, hey, we're going to slowly fold this show down at the end of the year as opposed to this super knee jerk reaction from the administration?

And like why would, I'm sorry, yeah, Disney. Like why wouldn't they do similar what they did with Colbert, right? Where they're like slow rolling it out. But this knee-jerk reaction to it seems to be like implicitly a direction from the, from the government. Well, I think because they're trying to please, like I think they're being opportunistic. My honest opinion is that I think they're trying to like exactly what you say. Trump operates like a Roy Cohn trained mafioso. So I think they take these sort of dustups as opportunities to be like, look, we're we're giving you a little.

here like we're we're cooperating we we love trump maybe is what they're saying behind the scenes i don't know if you guys caught sherry redstone uh obviously coming out and saying that this is this is business there were a bunch of anonymous sources who went to puck and then i think the new york post during the colbert dust up that said it was losing around 40 million dollars last year um i don't know i mean like when you have a few anonymous sources it's hard to obviously verify that number without the network going on the record. Those are catastrophically bad numbers for Kimball. Some of this is, anyway, that is, we don't have to get into the market of late night

shows just to say that I think the networks take these opportunities very eagerly to be like, hey, hey, look, we're working with you. Yeah, I'll grant you the shows is done and probably is losing money, but it's just, it's just hard to disentangle it from the entire network. Right. Well, and I just looked it up. So the numbers I'm saying Kimmel was averaging 220,000 viewers in the demo, which is still not great. It's a little better than 100 and whatever.

A couple months ago, a couple months ago, he was. It was what I read. Okay. Well, he and he was ahead of Colbert and Fallon in terms of his numbers. So, you know, in terms, if you look at the genre, he was actually the person who was performing the best. That makes sense. You know, yeah. I mean, I just, listen, I'm, I obviously agree with Ryan. Like, the business thing may be true that it's losing money, but that is not the reason he was suspended right now. Because in fact, I think by doing it in this way, they have put themselves in a much worse position because people are very upset that they made this decision and they have the possibility of strikes from talent. And, you know, obviously there's a giant conglomerate. There's all sorts of ways that talent and producers and actors. and whatever can speak out and be upset.

It's created this whole national cultural moment. Like, I don't think as a business this would have been the way that they would have wanted to go. Instead, they could have done what, for example, like MSNBC did at the beginning of the Trump administration, when they look at around and see the writing on the wall. And they basically offer up joy redistribute. They're like, okay, but you don't even have to say anything. We're going to get rid of this lady and we're going to sell off MSNBC. Are we good now? that in that way there isn't that direct like you're directly threatened and under duress

you intentionally like cave and capitulate in a way that is undeniable and blatantly obvious and also the reason why these shows these late-night shows like in general big picture suck is because they are sycophantic to the Democratic Party and now the Republicans are asking for them to be sycophantic to the Republican Party and like to a certain extent comedy is supposed to be illegal it's supposed to feel illegal it's supposed to feel like oh you're not allowed to say that but the comedian is saying that and that's why it sucks right now when they just you know jerk off the democratic party and it's going to suck when they jerk off the republican party and so it's like the fundamental like identity and core of comedy is going to continue sucking if it's about making comedy feel legal like you're things that you're allowed to say which is the antithesis of the form um Get rid of the FCC, baby. Yeah. That's kind of an interesting comment, though, Griffin, because what Trump is doing accidentally

is making them, like, edgy and subversive. Yes, exactly. He's bringing it bad. You can't do. You're just like standard live thing is now illegal. So it's making it so, because we all watch, I mean, I watched a bunch of the monologues from last night, which were not like particularly spectacular. But now they have this looming interest and, you know, increased interest and scrutiny.

and edge to them simply because of what the Trump administration has, you know, has done here. I'm Jorge Ramos. And I'm Paola Ramos. Together we're launching The Moment, a new podcast about what it means to live through a time, as uncertain as this one. We sit down with politicians.

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There's not a single day that Paola and I don't call or text each other, sharing news and thoughts about what's happening in the country. This new podcast will be a way to make that ongoing intergenerational conversation public. Listen to The Moment with Jorge Ramos and Pairoz. as part of the MyCultura Podcast Network on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. In early 1988, federal agents raced to track down the gang they suspect of importing millions of dollars worth of heroin into New York from Asia.

We had 30 agents ready to go with shotguns and rifles and you name it. But what they find is not what they expected. Basically, your stay-at-home moms were picking up these large amounts of heroin. They go, is this your daughter? I said yes. They go, oh, you may not see her for like 25 years. Caught between a federal investigation and the violent gang who recruited them, the women must decide who they're willing to protect and who they dare to betray. Once I saw the gun, I tried to take his hand, and I saw the flash of light.

Listen to the Chinatown Sting on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or anywhere 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. Shock incarceration, also known as boot camps, are short-term, highly regimented correctional programs that mimic military basic training. These programs aim to provide a shock of prison life, emphasizing strict discipline, physical training, hard labor, and rehabilitation programs. Mark had one chance to complete this program and had no idea of the hell awaiting him the next six months. The first night was so overwhelming.

and you don't know who's next to you. And we didn't know what to expect in the morning. Nobody tells you anything. Listen to shock incarceration on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. We've got new comments here from Trump on the Air Force One about sort of his larger plans or thoughts on TV networks in general. Let's take a listen for him on Air Force One for a second. That's something that should be talked about for licensing too. When you have a network, then you have even.

opening shows and all they do is hit Trump. That's all they do. If you go back, I guess they haven't had a conservative in years or something, somebody said, but when you go back and take a look, all they do is in Trump. They're licensed. They're not allowed to do that. They're an arm of the Democrat Party. Thank you, everybody. Thank you. Fly safely. You know why I say that? Because I'm on the flight. Otherwise, I wouldn't care. He's on the flight or otherwise he wouldn't care.

That would be a good joke, except we know he's on the flight because he's standing right there. And so he kind of stepped on his own punchline with his own presence. Otherwise, that's pretty funny. He also keeps saying from his first post to just that, like, he's absolutely convinced that Kimmel has been fired. And that is not what any of the reporting suggests right now. And it wasn't what any of the reporting suggests when he fired off his true social at 1.30. in the morning UK time. So I don't know if he knows something or if he's trying to manifest.

Maybe they should just not, just bring him back and not announce it. You know what would actually solve? Trump would never notice. He might not never know. And what might solve the entire problem is if they give Trump Kimmel's late night spot and then Trump isn't president anymore, he would love that job. Yeah, but couldn't he do a five-minute monologue or is it just the whole show? just going to be his monologue.

I see. Like, could he contain himself to five minutes? You know, sometimes, you know, if he was not president, I would watch that. I would make that deal. Remember that time on the campaign trail? He, like, they just, like, stood in silence and swayed to Ave Marie or something like that. That was great stuff. That was amazing content.

Some real, surrealist content. I don't know what you call that. But I do want to, I do want to focus in on what he said there, which he specifically said, they hit Trump every night, that's not allowed. It's like literally in America, you are allowed to criticize the president of the United States. That's like kind of the whole deal here. Like, that's a big part of what we're all about. And as I said before, makes it plain. Not only that the real problem he had wasn't, you know, something he said about Charlie Kirk Skiller. It was about the criticism of him, which is why he had previously said, hey, Jimmy Kimmel's next had been calling for

his ouster and also why you've now got, you know, Brendan. And he said, who did he say is next Jimmy Fallon or Stephen Colbert? And Seth and Seth and Seth Meyer. And then, um, and then you have Brendan Carr coming after the view, um, and, you know, putting them in the, in the spotlight. And the view notably, and this is like pretty shameful. They didn't talk about this topic yesterday on their show at all. So, and that's the point. The point isn't just to get a scalp. in terms of Jimmy Kimmel, the point is to send the message out to everyone that you better watch it. You better be careful because you step over wherever that invisible line is. You get a little bit of a, you know, online conservative backlash going and that's it. Your companies, your corporate

executives, they're not going to have your back. They are not going to have your back. You are on your own. And that message, whether or not Kimmel comes back at some point or doesn't come by, whatever, that message has been sent and the fact that the view said nothing about this yesterday, I think shows you the chill that has already been instilled at least in, you know, in many journalists, personalities, comedians across the board. Speaking of comedians across the board, well, go for it, Emily, why I pull this clip up. I do have a Colbert clip I want to pull up next. I was just say if I were, if I were Democrats right now, I would like immediately be looking at ways to defang the FCC. enforce Republicans to defend the power of the FCC because the FCC gives what's called like news exemptions. Howard Stern, for example, got his quote news exemption. So this is like it goes back years and years and it's been used in ways that we've become accustomed to because like many

things before we had this like crazy moment 10 plus years ago, I guess now in the U.S., we didn't think about the tools, or we hadn't thought about the tools in this way for like 20, 30 years. And now Republicans having watched the media, especially with Trump, but like saying going back over the last whatever 30 years, the way that conservatives were covered, are saying, well, hey, there's this public interest tool in the FCC's toolkit. And that's there. So while all of these levers are being pulled, why not take a look at the public interest part of it. Why not say, why not take away the quote news exemption from some of these broadcasters and make it so that they do have to do equal time? Because what Trump said there

where he was like, you have to, it's not allowed to just bash Trump night after night. If they, if they have their news exemption, maybe the FCC takes that away and then says, actually, it's not allowed. You have to do equal time. And all of that, which like as a business model, doesn't really even make sense anymore. So if I were Democrats, I would make Republicans start defending the New Deal FCC because that would get, I mean, I honestly think there's a pretty good case for abolishing the FCC the way that we license broadcast airwaves and all of that. But anyway, beside the point.

I mean, Guttfeld needs equal time. Get me on there, Guttfeld. That doesn't count because it's cable, but like the broadcast networks. Gotcha, gotcha, gotcha. Yeah, which most people I don't think distinguish a difference between. Like the average person just views this as just like a freedom of speech thing without the intricacies of like, oh, that's broadcast. This is cable. Like, you know.

The problem there is that this isn't really on the up and up. It's not as if they have a genuine concern about public interest and they're going to use the remedies existing around the public interest rule. What they're saying is, we don't like what you said and we're going to connect it to this other thing, this merger that you want, that your parent company wants. And we're going to use the threat of blocking this merger, not because we think it's anti-competitive, not because we don't like the merger on the merits, but as power to get you to do what we want. So looking at the rules implies that this is being done on the up and up through the rulebook. And it's not. It's just being done with raw power. So many people are saying, what are Jimmy Kimmel's colleagues going to say?

what is John Stewart? What is John Oliver going to say? So we've got a clip here from Stephen Colbert that would like to play here. See if it met the moment. I'm your host, Stephen Colbert. But tonight, we are all Jimmy Kimmel. I still have a show, though, right? Okay, good. Yesterday, after threats from Trump's FCC chair, A.B.C. yanked Kimmel off the air indefinitely. That is blatant censorship. And it always starts small. You know, remember like in week one of his presidency, Gulf of America. Call it Gulf of America. Sure, it seems harmless. But with an autocrat, you cannot give an inch.

And if ABC thinks, if ABC thinks this is going to satisfy the regime, they are woefully naive. Clearly, they've never read the children's book if you give a mouse a Kimmel. And to Jimmy, and to Jimmy, just let me say, I stand with you and your staff 100%. And also, you couldn't let me enjoy this for like one week. All right. If you give a mouse a Kimmel, Ryan loved that one. That's good stuff. I know.

I appreciate it. I was like, oh, there's the key demo, folks. There's the key demo. Gen X enough. I'm just, I think I am in the demo. now. I need to start watching these late night shows. So did you guys watch these late night reactions? Do we find that this met the moment? Because I was struck by these feeling very similar to other just Trump takedowns in terms of tone and energy. What did you guys make of it? So I think what they were

lacking. I mean, on the one hand, I'm sympathetic because it's hard to make comedy about something that, you know, like to have a topic and be like, I'm going to make a joke about this. And yet they're mandate on the show, obviously, is not just to do political commentary, but to make it funny, and it's a difficult thing to be able to nail. Sympathetic there. It's certainly not something I could pull off. I think what they were all lacking is some sort of a call to action. It's like, okay, you don't like it. And you're saying, oh, this won't affect my performance. Maybe it will. Maybe it won't. I mean, I don't even think, like, as an individual human being, you're not even really fully equipped to assess your own ability to withstand that pressure because you don't know the way things are subtly influencing you, if that makes sense. which is why we've worked hard to insulate ourselves from different pressures that we can anticipate. But there was no like, okay, that's why we need to boycott. That's why we need to boycott. That's why we're going on strike. That's why, you know, that's why Democrats need to break up these giant conglomerates. Like maybe it's too much to put that on them. But I think people are looking at them for like some sort of leadership since this is their industry. And these are really influential, powerful, wealthy people at this point. And there was none of that. It's just so. of like, you know, Republicans are hypocrites. Okay, we can see that. You know, we're not happy about what happened with Kimmel. That's obvious. And I think the other thing that's always difficult

with Trump is because we've had, this is far from the first threat to the First Amendment from this administration, even literally in this week. So when you've talked about these things before, it also becomes difficult to separate from previous concerns from this moment and to really sort of like put a pin in what makes this particular action different, more extraordinary, more troubling, darker, more sinister than previous things that we've thought about and talked about with Trump. Yeah, Jimmy Kimmel and Stephen Colbert are really awful free speech martyrs for like the left in these cases because they're at heart corporate Dems who have coasted on really lazy comedy and started driving some of these formats like into the ground

unnecessarily so and it's like hard to I think it's hard for people like rally around these guys and like company men I agree Emily because also it's like liberals have a lot of times turn the blind eye to other freedom of speech issues over the last two years I mean like have they covered the the crackdowns from both Biden and Trump on Palestine protest freedom of speech? Like, I see so many people in L.A. Has Colbert? Have Colbert and Kimmel talked about that? That's a really good point. I mean, I mean, maybe they've like, yeah, Stuart has for sure. But I don't know. I am a little struck by like a lot of liberals that I see online coming out for the first time about freedom

of speech after two years of disastrous freedom of speech. But it's like all when it's like a multi-millionaire like white host of the late night show. That's when it matters. Obviously, he's a more famous person. It's going to make a bigger impact. But yeah, if you haven't been talking about freedom of speech in a lot of other areas. And let's say a lot of these were front page news stories. You get like to miss Mahmoud Khalil, that's a front page story. Like that's not like, oh, sorry, I didn't turn to the third page to see that. Let me defend not, you know, Colbert and these people who I haven't watched, I genuinely don't know. I don't suspect that they said anything about that, but I don't actually know for sure.

But let me defend the libs a little bit here, which is to say, number one, Democrats over overwhelmingly, you know, oppose what's happening in Gaza, have opposed the crackdown on, you know, on speech on campus. Like that movement comes from the left. And, you know, it's most more leftist, but also left liberal. So there's that. The other thing I would say is, again, like, I was and Ryan was at odds with a lot of liberals in terms of their, you know, ignoring and acceptance and pushing actively cancel culture and trampling under speech and censorship and all of. that, right? So I wasn't on the same page with them there. However, I will say both in terms of the substance and in terms of the state mechanisms, this is different, right? Like with the Twitter file stuff, what the Biden administration was messaging to, you know, these social media companies about was COVID misinformation, that they felt like genuinely was going to cause people

to lose their lives, right? So now, we all felt like, okay, first of all, a lot of these accounts or tiny accounts. Like, it's not going to make that big of a difference. You guys have been wrong about a bunch of stuff with COVID. We don't want a ministry of truth just by sending these messages and having these meetings. You're exerting extraordinary pressure. But I don't want to pretend like the COVID misinformation and this like lame comment from Jimmy Kimmel are remotely the same because they're not. Right. So the content is different. And then as Ryan was laying out before, the government action is different as well. So here you have an explicit threat and it comes in the context of a Trump administration that has used every opportunity, real and imagined

crises to crush dissent, crack down, grab power and has truly, I mean, that truly is an authoritarian threat to the country and to democracy. So I, even as I, again, was not on the same page the rules. You can go and back and look at my support of the Harper's letter and coverage of the Twitter files and all that stuff. Yeah, you guys took a lot of heat. You guys took a lot of heat. Yeah. Even though I wasn't on their side there, like, I think it is fair to say this administration, what they're doing now is genuinely different than what anything we saw under the Biden administration. I don't think it even came close. And that's before we even talk about like scrubbing people's social media and you know, for whether or not they can have a visa and deporting them without due process and, you know,

the massive crackdown over speech on Palestine, et cetera. So that's what I would say in defense of the libs. I think you always have to take what Trump is saying, even if he doesn't mean it, literally, you have to take it seriously because when you have the president of the United States threatening broadcast licenses and even if it's just, quote, jawboning, I think you do have to take it seriously, especially when it comes with threats from the F.C. CC and when you see compliance. So I actually think the way that Trump talks about broadcast licenses is insane. And when they have a track record of weaponizing the government to punish universities, law firms, immigrants, students, anyone that they don't like when he's coming out and issuing a, you know, statement saying, hey, we're going to make Antifa, which is like, you know, an ideology, a terrorist organization and threatening people who, uh, are just pro-Palestine with being, providing material support to terrorism, like, that's the record of this administration. So it's

not an idle threat. We all know that they have weaponized the entire federal government in every way that they can think of in order to coerce and crush dissent and consolidate power. So that is a very different landscape than what we've dealt with before. The other thing I was to say is I do think some moves from Dems in the Biden administration, and this doesn't have to become a tip for tat thing. I do think things like the Global Engagement Center, which it's hypercritical for Marco Rubio to shut it down and act like he's a champion of a free speech, obviously given what's happened with visas and other students. But in that case, the State Department was funding blacklists of conservative media outlets and not even just conservative media outlets, but

like literally unheard, found its way onto a global disinformation index that was funded by the State Department, the Equality Act, which almost every Democrat supports, would have serious ramifications for free speech because of the way that it reads gender identity into sex. And the same thing was true of the way the Obama administrations and the Biden administrations wielded Title IX. So it's some of that stuff I think was was enormously significant in ways that it's frustrating because the Colbert, you know, who's now a free speech martyr and Kimmel is a free speech martyr. Don't give a name about. They don't care. And some of the people who are supporting them don't care and never did. The media barely covered the global engagement center story. Like,

it wasn't really anything. And there are other examples that we could point you to. I actually agree. I don't think the COVID one is apples to apples. I think it's apples to oranges. But I do think there are other ones where we saw both the Obama and Biden administrations weaponizing their power to go after journalists and, you know, or not just journalists, but to go after speech. Actually, Ryan, the James Risen case from the Obama administration and the James Rosen case from the Obama administration are examples of that too. But in those cases, most of the media was pretty defensive of Risen, if I'm remembering correctly. Yeah, and Risen started late Bush and then went into Obama. And so it was this bipartisan attempt to get, he was a New York Times reporter who had exposed some of the NSA spying reporting that was then later confirmed by Edward Snowden's leaks. And they were threatening to put him in prison in order to get him to reveal his sources. And eventually Obama backed off because he was, you know, he was the kind of person that elites could pressure and say, you're a constitutional scholar, bro.

Like, you're a law professor. Like, what are you doing? And I find. And so he never ended up going to prison. But, you know, Kristen and I both warned, you know, throughout the teens and early 20s that what the left was doing might be constitutional because it's private stuff

you know you're just bull you're bullying you're the mob is bullying some private company to fire a person or get rid of them but that it was still a road you know it was still eroding of the first amendment that the first amendment is is has a letter and it has a spirit and it while it might not have been violating the letter of it it was violating the spirit of it. And amendments that are on the books, but that aren't respected by the cultural spirit aren't worth what they're written on. Look at the Fourth Amendment. No illegal search and

seizure. Well, how's that working out for us? It's still written there. But because spiritually we kind of abandon it, then nobody follows it anymore. And so that's why people like Glenn and Crystal and I were all saying, no, you've got to draw the line here and protect it in spirit, it, not just in letter, because you're not always going to be in power. And in a lot of cases, it's like Trump was president at the time. And when you fully lose power, it's going to ratchet further. The most hopeful thing I've seen, which is probably too hopeful, is that the right is going to have its outrageous spasm of cancel culture.

It's going to use the tools and the power of government to censor speech. taking canceled culture on to the next level, but it's going to fall apart because the American people when they vote in elections, a lot of the political science says they're not really actually moved by what the media and and what commercials say. Like that's just that's a that's a fraction of how people vote. What they vote on is the underlying material conditions of their lives, which are rapidly deteriorating under Trump. So. His effort to, like, do a Turkey Erdogan or Hungarian, like, consolidation of the media to hold on to power may not work because we're so federalized and because people vote based on how they, you know, and Democratic Party is the oldest political party in the world history. So people know they don't know what it stands for, but they know it exists. And so if they're not happy with the conditions that they're living in, they know that they can vote for this other party. They, what is that party going to do? God only knows. They're not telling us.

Right. But at least they're not the party in power. So that could still happen. And then at that point, maybe both the left and the right are like, okay, we were wrong. Let's do an amnesty and a truce on this cancel culture stuff. No. Okay. No.

Well, let me just, I mean, let me just say, like, well, and we all pretend like, that's why I said it might be too hopeful. Right. We all pretend like cancel culture started with like, you know, liberals in the like Hillary Clinton era. And that's just not true. Like, think back to the post-2001. I mean, and yeah, go back to McCarthy. Even the early 90s, like all the moral panics about rap lyrics and stuff like that. Actually, it was John Adams throwing French-aligned people.

Oh, so true. In the prison. John Adams was the worst. Original sin on First Amendment there. I mean, it actually started with Jesus. Yep. There you go. Original podcaster.

But, I mean, so, like, I, like, I. have to tell you guys, I feel, I don't feel scared or angry. I actually just feel depressed because I, like, let's play this out a little bit, okay? And let's keep in mind, you guys, Ryan and Emily, you guys covered this week, also this consolidation of media institutions in the hands of Trump aligned figures and Zionists, the Ellicons, you know, so you're going to have CBS, potentially CNN, HBO, you know, Twitter's already owned by Elon, TikTok, companies. coming under that umbrella too. So you have a breakdown of you of these crystal for you while you're talking. Okay. If you want to throw that up on the screen. And so you talk about Auburn. I mean, this is Orban.

This is like a speed run of Orbanism, which from my study took longer to consolidate than, you know, this has in the second Trump administration. And then what do you do with the remaining mainstream, you know, establishment institutions? You do what you did with Jimmy Kimmel. You send out the message. Listen, you better not cross me or else there are going to be consequences. And the corporate executives, you know, as a leftist, I never expected the capitalist to fight back against fascism. But they certainly aren't rising to the occasion. There's no doubt about that. And so that message goes down too. You're going to hurt feelings. Don't don't hurt feelings with the F word. So that goes out, you know, that goes out too to everybody who works there. Like they're not going to, they don't have my back. Nobody has solidarity with me. I am just out here on my own. And do I personally have any ability? to stand up to the entirety of a United States government? Of course not. And neither does

independent, quote unquote, independent media either. Like, if Disney can be crushed like a bug, what do you think we are? Right. So you have, I mean, you have, so you have, that's the media landscape. Okay. And then, okay, we have elections, right? We have midterms. We already know Trump is trying to like, jerry rig the maps to make it as favorable as possible, cast out on mail-in ballots. They're monkeying around with the voter rolls, like all this stuff that they're going to try to do. Not to mention, we've got National Guard already in the streets in multiple cities. Are they going to be there intimidating voters on Election Day? I don't think it's a crazy thing to suggest.

Then let's say that Democrats overcome that. It's too big to rig. They win a majority in the House. They do well in the Senate. Whatever. You think this man is going to accept those election results? Of course he's not. Of course he's not.

We already know his playbook. he's already projecting what he's going to do when he's casting doubt on elections and mail-in ballots and saying, you know, I wish we had the recourse of the ballot box, but, you know, the ballot box in many cases is rigged and it's not sufficient. He's going to go out and say, no, these election results are not legitimate. Democrats did not win these seats. They're incapable of winning these seats. And his base will believe him. So at that point, you have a media ecosystem that is completely compromised that's terrified to tell the truth. about the nature of the elections. You've got, you know, roughly half of the least of the voting public that is going along with, you know, his view that this is all rigged and a sham. Like, where are we then? Because the whole thing, to Ryan's point about like, you know, it's all written down on paper, but it's as good as the paper it's written on if we don't all sort of like buy into the spirit of the project, the whole thing falls apart. If you don't have most of the population sort of routinely just like accepting, okay, these results are more or less correct and we're going to move forward with what we get. So that's where we're headed. And this media consolidation piece is an important part of it because they need to be scared to tell the truth going, you know, when and if that happens about what actually occurred. And so that's why I'm feeling very depressed because I don't see what institution exists or what power structure exists that is capable of like rolling back or resisting any of this. It's certainly not the corporations. It hasn't been the universities. Wasn't

the law firms, you know, it's, labor has already long been defenestrated long ago. They're irrelevant to the conversation, which is sad and pathetic. The court system, like, Trump has realized that, number one, there's this loophole in liberal democracy where if you just do a bunch of shit, it takes a while for the courts to catch up. And number two, the Supreme Court's giving them everything he wants anyway when it gets there. So I don't know, guys, that's where we are. It's pretty ugly. And they're already on Fox News being like, oh, well, the First Amendment, I don't know if Charlie really would have believed in that now. I think Trump said that. And then someone else on Fox News was like, I don't, I don't know if we really, I don't know if we can deal with the First Amendment anymore.

I'm not sure if that's as important as these other things we're dealing with. Literally what every lib said during the Biden administration that sent conservatives through the roof, not every lib, of course, but it was like all of the disinformation libs who were complaining about the First Amendment scope being too broad in the way that it, I mean, it is like, she said the thing that was sending, uh, all of the right onto their moral high horse. And again, like in a good way, right? Like, we should all be against, uh, the government saying, well, maybe that whole First Amendment thing is a little outdated. Um, so yeah, I mean, I, I, yeah, Emily, I'm curious for your, your take on, uh, Crystal scenario,

because it seems pretty dystopian but also fairly realistic. The only thing I would say could change that arc would be a financial crisis, which we do seem like I think that's a matter more of when rather than if that could that basically just flips the table. But outside of that, where do you see e-holes in the kind of arc that she sketched out there? I don't. I mean, I don't. I think, you know, for me, it was also depressing when the Hunter Biden, like, laptop case broke. And I saw the way the media had treated the, like, Russia collusion thing for years. And of course, like, I remember not being able to DM that story after the Politico broke that 51 former intelligence people coming out and saying it had all the hallmarks of Russian disinformation. I remember not being able to send it over a. a DM in private conversation. So that was like, I felt really similarly then. And I think probably the most important reservation that people should have about Trump, even if you're conservative, even if you are ideologically MAGA, but you're not like full

Curtis Jarvin and want just like a monarchy or an American CEO instead of a president, the biggest reservation people should still have is fake claims a fraud. election, in elections, because that is the hallmark of banana republicanism, and we've seen there's precedent for it. So I don't think, like, I actually think a lot of conservatives, if you laid out what Crystal just said, would be like, oh, ha, ha. But no, I think it's completely serious because, again, we have precedent for it. So I've got nothing in response to that.

I'm Jorge Ramos. And I'm Paola Ramos. Together we're launching the moment. a new podcast about what it means to live through a time as uncertain as this one. We sit down with politicians. I would be the first immigrant mayor in generations, but 40% of New Yorkers were born outside of this country. Artists and activists, I mean, do you ever feel demoralized?

I might personally lose hope. This individual might lose the faith. But there's an institution that doesn't lose faith. And that's what I've believed in. To bring you depth and analysis from a unique Latino perspective. There's not a single day that Paola and I don't call or text each other, sharing news and thoughts about what's happening in the country. This new podcast will be a way to make that ongoing intergenerational conversation public. Listen to The Moment with Jorge Ramos and Paola Ramos as part of the MyCultura podcast network on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

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The first night was so overwhelming, and you don't know who's next to you. And we didn't know what to expect in the morning. Nobody tells you anything. Listen to shock incarceration on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Let me ask you guys something, too, about this York County shooting of, you know, there was an ambush. In Pennsylvania. Yeah. The cops.

Five cops were ambushed, three killed, two others wounded. And I'm curious if you think that the climate that we're in explains some of the lack of attention that the media is paying to this. the guy's Matthew Ruth was the is the killer he was he was he was killed or he took his own life it's there's very little information about about this he was stalking his his girlfriend his ex-girlfriend she called the police um they suspected an ambush um and still got ambushed um from a cornfield um and and he's he's a registered libertarian i believe white guy like it's it's it's what people call demographically inconvenient. But even given all those facts,

the killing of the shooting of five police officers and the killing of three usually makes national news, even if the shooter is demographically inconvenient. Yet there's barely been a blip. I wonder if the political climate the media is under right now is influencing decisions by broadcasters to say, you know what, do we need, let's not touch this. This is like, this is just, this looks, this looks like trouble. I mean, the innocent explanation would be there's just so much else going on, you know, with Charlie Kirk just being assassinated and that being the investigation of that being ongoing and the Kimmel censorship and all of those things, right? And to presidents in the UK, like all these things that are going on that it just couldn't quite break through. But what I would say, Ryan, is.

is if the shooter were trans and just murdered three cops, everyone in the fucking country would know about it. And it would be wall-to-wall coverage. So I think there's no doubt that the demographic inconvenience of the shooter is a big part of the reason why networks decide, you know, there's a lot of other stories to cover. We're just not going to touch this. We're just going to put this one on the back burner and we're not going to particularly touch it.

Now, I will say that's nothing new, of course. You know, how many stories do we have of, like, adorable little white girls who get murdered and kidnapped or horrible things and they become national names and stories? And same thing happens to an adorable little black girl and nobody ever knows her name. Like, this is not a new thing in terms of American media presentation. But I think you are correctly touching on the particular political valence that could be influencing, you know, the lack of coverage, the lack of details, the lack of curiosity around this one. Because when I saw this break, I was like, wow, what the hell is going on here? And I'm still in the place of, wow, what the hell is going on here? Because there hasn't been much, if any, significant, like, journalistic inquiry into what exactly unfolded and what the circumstances were.

So Ryan was asking. That's a crazy story. Ryan was searching for hope earlier in this episode. And we were also searching for people that were meeting the moment. And a lot of people have been saying, oh, Oh, what about all these center-right, right-wing podcasters who made free speech and cancel culture a core part of their message, a core part of why they voted for Trump, why they supported Trump and the vibe shift. And a lot of people on the left were saying, oh, these guys are going to duck their heads, not meet the moment. And so let's see what that side of podcasting has been saying first here.

I've got a few different ones. This one here is from Tim Dillon. this is an Instagram story for those just listening it says on his Instagram story FCC commissioner threatening to revoke broadcasting licenses

has chilling effect on free speech AG threatening to go after hate speech is a bad sign when someone has a weapon everyone will use it I continue to unconditionally support Israel

and all of its actions now and forever it's nice to cover your bases there He also announced that I couldn't even tell if he was joking that he'd been fired from the South

From the Riyadh, the Riyadh, the comedy circuit. So I actually think that might be true. But he's keeping the down payment. Yeah. Because he did rip that. I looked at the, I looked at their website for the comedy festival. And I don't see him there anymore. So I think that might have actually been true because he did his whole monologue where, which I covered and did a monologue about, where he was like, you know, they're paying me enough to look away.

But then he said in the monologue, like, if someone's being beaten next to me, I'm going to look away. if there's slave labor, I'm going to look away. So we sort of named the things that Saudi Arabia is doing. So I can't, I couldn't totally tell either, whether he's joking. But I think he may, I think he may have been canceled from the comedy. The funniest thing to do is take the down payment and get fired. Getting fired is the funniest thing you can do always as a comedian. And that's why, like, Tim has been unafraid to kind of like poke all sides, including, like, his friends.

Like, I mean, he's ripped RFK. He ripped Barry all the time. He used to get invited to dinners there. So, you know. He also joked, I'll be taking the down payment and donating it to a foundation that supports. He's like, I'm just kidding. I'm going to buy a car. Yeah.

Another car thing. See you in Montecito. Yeah. But this one I thought was even more interesting. This comes from a barstool sports podcast. Now, the CEO, Dave Portnoy, seemed to support the decision, was kind of gaslighting people and saying, it's not really a big deal. It's all about a business decision.

But here's one of the podcasts under his arm and what. they had to say. No, right now, in 2025, at 1006 on September 18th, the extreme right are the biggest group of cussies that has ever existed in America, a bunch of, because people with green hair at Starbucks, because once in a while a fucking guy swam against girls, you fucking pussies have broken in half. Led in consequence culture, Portnoy, who is just waving his arms at the right to like him again after the thing last week where he said it was Trump's fault, privately and publicly

that Charlie Kirk died. Now he's like, I've got to get them back. I got to get them back. I got to get them back. Typical, I will say, fits the tribe profile. So there's that and, you know, is he getting, is that, is he just getting anti, just getting anti-Semitic at the very end there?

Yeah, the tribe profile. That's, is that he still on barstool? All right. Let's, let's, we'll look into this. Well, we're going to look. I thought he got into a big point. He had me until the end there. Yeah.

Talk about not sticking the landing. Yeah. You know. Is Portnoyish? Yes. He's Jewish. Yes. He's Jewish.

Yeah. So he just wraps it up with some blatant anti-Semitism. No, that was important. But he's talking about Portnoy, wasn't he? He's talking about Portnoy. He's talking about Portnoy and he says typical member of the tribe. He's just basically saying like typical Jew. So, yeah.

All right. Jesus. So we lost that one. Tim distuck the landing far better by hailing Israel. So we're showing the right way and the wrong way of doing this. We've smoked out the true anti-Semite on breaking points, and we all know it's now Griffin. Griffin.

Okay. This is the free half of the show. This is the half the Fox News producers watch, Emily. This is not okay. They watch the whole thing. They absolutely watch the whole thing. They share one premium sub. I'm a defender.

I'm a defender of Jews. people all around the world. We need to check the IPs of their login, yeah. See how many people logged in. They did name drop Starbucks, though. And I had to throw this up here. There's an update here from Starbucks. Update, Starbucks employees must write Charlie Kirk's name.

No matter what your name is. Yes, exactly. In response to some conversations on social media, Starbucks shared the following. There are no restrictions on customers using Charlie Kirk's name on their order, and we are following up with our team, which I just think is, is, such a great, uh, example. It's like, this is the world that they're envisioning, like, that they need a safe space at Starbucks, uh, so that they're what, like, the trans barista can write Charlie Kirk on it. Like, I, I don't know. I do. I want to say, go ahead,

I just, I, when before Starbucks made this decision or whatever, I felt really bad for these baristas who are trying to navigate like this corporate policy against writing anything political on the cups and these customers coming in and like berating. them and recording them and putting them on blast the world. Like I felt I felt very bad for the baristas in that. Right. How is that not political? That is. Yeah. I mean, how do you navigate that? Right. Like your boss is telling you to do one thing. And then you've got this customer who like wants to make a social media moment of it. And then Libs of TikTok is going to send it out to the world and make it out like you're some evil like pro murder lefty or whatever. So I, yeah, the whole thing was. And Portnoy fired some intern. from Barstool because he posted condolences to Charlie Kirk on like the Barstool, Texas

account or something and he fired him saying that you're not allowed to do politics doesn't matter... What? Yeah. You see this? Yeah, I didn't see that either.

I didn't see that. That seems weird. And Portnoy said, I always hated this kid. He knows you're not supposed to do politics on the account. It's not about what he said. it's these are these are accounts it's not his personal account she's not supposed to do politics he had

the kid had posted like basically thoughts and prayers for charlie kirk uh from the texas barstool account um so but they have a very strict rule no politics from the account so to crystal's point if you're a barista and they say no politics on the cup and somebody asked you to do put a political gesture on the cup you say no then you get filmed and now you're on lives of TikTok. And so, yeah, Starbucks kind of put them in a bad situation. I agree with you there. Yeah, I mean, I also just do want to say because I genuinely think this is important

that when something happens to somebody who's in the media space, I think this probably also explains why Dean Wethers, for example, had such a visceral reaction after, but really, though, Griffin, like, after it happened, did you see Wither's video? For those don't know, Dean Wethers. there's as like, Dean Withers is a very young, zoomer, liberal TikTok debater. And he was, I mean, it was, by the way, here's this. Oh, there it is. Okay. Scumbag. Wow. Yeah. It was not.

But anyway, what I was going to say is, for me, like, as someone who did not know Charlie Kirk nearly as well as a lot of people who are in the media who were very, very close with him, like in right wing media, who were like very, very, very close with. him were. This is just all I'm trying to say here is not defending any like censoriousness or whatever, but just to say that I have been trying to extend a lot of grace to people and hopefully people have extended some grace to me because that was like a collective trauma for people on the right who are really close to Charlie Kirk and are now the ones that find themselves in positions to be like in the public space discussing it. So I hope that some of this dies down. I don't think all of it will die down. But I did just want to say that like if something, God forbid, happened to like someone on the left, I do think we would also be seeing some of this like deep

visceral anger that's like feels really raw. And again, I'm not saying that's going to go away. I don't think it is. But I do just want to say like, I just knowing some of these guys what this did to them psychologically was incredibly hard. And I can't imagine, again, I wasn't like a close personal friend of Charlie Kirk's, but a lot of people that I am close friends with were. And it's just, so anyway, just a word to say, I think some of it will go away. I don't think all of it will go away. And it's just been crazy. I think that's a fair point. I don't extend that point to the president of the United States, though. And that's who, you know, is. Because he showed that he had no emotional reaction. But he doesn't care. Yeah. I mean, yeah, he was out. How are you doing? I'm doing great. I'm doing great. My renovation

is going fantastic, you know? So, you know, and I don't know how capable he is of human emotions on the best of days, but whatever. I mean, and so that's like, it's one thing, okay, a cultural phenomenon, random influencers, you know, I still think you're a person with a platform. You still have responsibility. Certainly, I don't think grace would be applied in the other direction, not that that should dictate what you do, whatever, but that's one thing. But the president of United States is a good example. Yeah. President of the United States is using this as a chance to crackdown, right, in any number of ways on media figures, media outlets he doesn't like, on left-wing groups. You've got Stephen Miller, who's like basically the real president of the United

States, who is overtly like we are going to use this aggressively to go after all of our political enemies. And they will. I mean, that's, I believe them when they say that. And they are already taking steps in that direction. So, you know, my, my grace that I can extend to individuals who who directly knew Charlie and are impacted by this on a personal level does not extend to the president of the United States who was supposed to represent all of us and is probably the worst person

I could possibly imagine to be the president at a moment such as this. Yeah, absolutely. And I'm so, before we go to the premium, one other point, I think the audience correctly sussed out that the trauma that Emily is talking about having hit people close to him,

but also people in the, broad kind of ecosystem also does, you know, bleed out into people on the progressive side too. And I think that just, you know, psychically, psychologically, people like me and Crystal and Hassan and anybody who's kind of like a public figure, you know, saw themselves in that. And I, and I think the audience is right to, you know, kind of be to be worry of the, of that fact. like understand that we're that our analysis flows out of out of that bias um and so that that i but i don't think there's you have to be just a you know stone cold non not human person for it to be any different and that's not who we are any either yeah that's a good point

uh well on that note folks we are going to get into a lot of other fun stuff here in the second half. We're going to be analyzing, breaking down, the Candace Owens' new released photo of the shooter, Tyler Robinson, alleged shooter. And we're going to be getting to a few other stories. If you want to see all that and ask us questions in the AMA, you can sign up at breaking points.com to support us in our independent journalism. We don't read ads. We don't take money from anybody. It's all you guys. And we'll see you there on the second half. Hi, it's Honey German, and I'm back with season two of my podcast. Grazias, come again.

We got you when it comes to the latest in music and entertainment with interviews with some of your favorite Latin artists and celebrities. You didn't have to audition? No, I didn't audition. I haven't auditioned in, like, over 25 years. Oh, wow. That's a real G-talk right there. Oh, yeah. We'll talk about all that's viral and trending with a little bit of chisement and a whole lot of laughs.

And, of course, the great bevras you've come to expect. Listen to the new season of Dacias Come Again on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. In early 1988, federal agents raced to track down the gang they suspect of importing millions of dollars worth of heroin into New York from Asia. I had 30 agents ready to go with shotguns and rifles and you name it. Five, six white people pushed me in the car. Basically, your stay-at-home moms were picking up these large amounts of heroin. All you got to do is receive the package. Don't have to open it, just accept it.

She was very upset, crying. Once I saw the gun, I tried to take his hand, and I saw the flash of light. Listen to the Chinatown Stang on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or anywhere you get your podcasts. Hi, it's Gemma 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. I'll 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. This is an IHeart podcast.