Breaking Points with Krystal and Saagar - 9/22/25: Erika Kirk Forgives Assassin, Trantifa Debate, Kash Patel Feeds Conspiracies, Ted Cruz Shreds Trump FCC

Episode Date: September 22, 2025

Krystal and Saagar discuss Erika Kirk's memorial speech, trantifa debate, Kash Patel feeds conspiracies, Ted Cruz shreds Trump FCC abuse.   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. 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, artists, and activists

to bring you death and analysis from a unique Latino perspective. The moment is a space for the conversations we've been having us, father and daughter, for years. Listen to The Moment with Jorge Ramos and Paola Ramos. on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. 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. 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 Monday. Have an amazing show for everybody today. What do we have Crystal? Indeed, we do. Yesterday was a large memorial for Charlie Kirk. Hundreds of thousands of people in attendance. We're going to bring you some of those clips, including an extraordinary

one from his widow, Erica Kirk. This also comes as there are. are continuing to be many questions about the investigation. So we're going to break all of that down for you. You've also got some new reaction to Jimmy Kimmel's suspension that we want to update you on. Alex Acosta continuing to defend that Jeffrey Epstein sweetheart deal. Pretty extraordinary stuff there. Trump publicly pressuring, perhaps accidentally publicly pressuring Pam Bondi, seemed like he posted a DM as an actual truth. Anyway, we'll get into that. And firing a prosecutor because they would not go after his political opponents. Meanwhile, Tom Homan caught taking in an FBI sting, apparently, taking 50K in cash in a Kaba bag.

So got to break that one down for you. And the UK, Canada, and Australia have all decided to recognize a Palestinian state. Is additional pressure being applied to Israel and does any of that matter? So lots to talk about this morning. We've also got the AMA live today. Yes, we have the AMA. Also, do not slander Kava's good name. All right, it is my favorite fast food.

It's not Kava's fault. Keep them out of the headlines. All right. Everybody, protect Kava at all costs. You're talking to a three times a week eater here. With all of that, thank you very much. Breaking Points.com for everybody who's been signing up for this show. It really means a lot. Crazy times, crazy times. I will say, I do think that we've been able to provide a unique and different perspective from a lot of the one-track stuff that you see out there. So thank you to everybody. And, of course, we have the AMA Live coming up for our premium subscribers. There's also a debate that was included in our Friday show for all of our premium subscribers. It's going to post for free later on today, but you could have had access to that.

And, yeah, we'll have another interesting announcement for premium subscribers tomorrow. So let's go ahead and start then with Charlie Kirk's Memorial, hundreds of thousands of people showing up. It was basically like a presidential inauguration and or, you know, Super Bowl-style event down there in Arizona. Let's go ahead and put some of the video that we have up here on the screens. Crowds were gathering at four or five in the morning, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of people. The current estimate is some 300,000 people attended from a crowd. across the United States. You can see a picture here of the stadium.

I mean, again, literally, it's kind of interesting to consider if this was happening at the same time. The NFL and all that was playing on Sunday, and you can see that this is basically an NFL stadium full of people who attended. So it was a very poignant moment there in terms of memory for Charlie Kirk and the memorial, and we're going to separate out,

I think, you know, some of the political and then also the personal, as we said with Erica Kirk, who I thought was just absolutely stunning in her remarks. We'll start here with, there was a dichotomy, I thought, throughout the entire memorial. So if you heard from Charlie and a lot of his staff, or Charlie's staff and the people around him, what they wanted to emphasize is that Charlie's memorial was not just a celebration of life, but of what was very personally important to him, which was spreading the gospel of Jesus and of Christianity. And so there was a major juxtaposition, I thought, from some of the Christian thematics, and particularly with Erica Kirk and her call for forgiveness. for the killer of her husband, but also with Donald Trump, the president, and, of course, Stephen Miller. So just to give you a flavor of what some of that looks like, here's some of Stephen Miller's remarks.

Let's take a listen. We will prevail over the forces of wickedness and evil. They cannot imagine what they have awakened. They cannot conceive of the army that they have arisen in all of us. Because we stand for what is good. what is virtuous, what is noble. And to those trying to incite violence against us, those trying to foment hatred against us,

what do you have? You have nothing. You are nothing. You are wickedness, you are jealousy, you are envy, you are hatred, you are nothing. You can build nothing. You can produce nothing. You can create nothing.

You have no idea. the dragon you have awakened. That put on the full armor of God. Do it now. Now is the time. This is the place. This is the turning point for Charlie. He did not hate his opponents.

He wanted the best for them. That's where I disagreed with Charlie. I hate my opponent. And I don't want the best for them. I'm sorry. I am sorry, Erica. But now Erica can talk to me and the whole group, and maybe they can convince me that that's not right, but I can't stand my opponent. That was Donald Trump there.

He said, Charlie, he did not hate his opponents. He wanted the best for them. That's where I disagree with Charlie. I hate my opponent, and I don't want the best for them. I'm sorry. So hang that out. So a little bit of a juxtaposition there. And, you know, it's interesting.

I saw there's a famous tweet by Ross Dow that who said in 2016, if you don't like the religious right, be careful. for what you be, or you will be amazed at what the post-religious right will look like. And actually, that quote in particular really struck in my head there with Donald Trump's remarks because, I mean, this is one of those times, it was like right after Trump, the Charlie's assassination, any other president, including J.D, the very first thing he did is like, my friend was killed, it's a horrible disaster. And instead, it's just like division, division, division. Now, why? Because, look, that is what he has done, his entire political career,

to great effect. I still remain, I mean, it's open question, you know, at this point to its own political utility, but obviously it's made him president now twice. And so it's one of those where, look, that is all Trump really knows how to do. That is, in a way, I mean, in my opinion, it's one of like the worst things you could do at a memorial. But in my, you know, estimation, that was actually a good juxtaposition of, you know, the current tensions within the American right within America itself. You have, like, older Christian evangelicals or devout Catholics who call for forgiveness, and we'll show you that here in a little bit. And then there was a similar juxtaposition of Stephen Miller and Trump being,

like, no, we don't forgive our enemies. We're going to destroy them. We're going to go after them. And that, like, is the fundamental tension of, like, old right versus new right. And, like, nobody really knows where things are going to go because Trump is such a unique figure in and of itself. Yeah, and blaming anyone who is left of center and opposes Donald Trump for the killing of Charlie. And that's what he said. Of Charlie Kirk. You know, I mean, that's the message coming from Trump. That's the message coming from Stephen Miller.

And it's not just a message either, right? They're trying to use this moment for their own political ends for an authoritarian power grab to further crush dissent and weaponize the government against their political enemies. You know, it's very naked what they're doing here. Stephen Miller is the, I think you would agree, most powerful aid in the White House. Oh, for sure. I think significant amounts of the Trump administration portfolio have been placed. in his hands. So his words to me are almost as important as Trump's words. At this point,

of course, Trump ultimately sets the tone. And, you know, there were many comparisons being made with Stephen Miller's speech, but actually the one that stuck out to be, it sounded very much like a Bibi Netanyahu speech, a Hebrew, one given in Hebrew, where he's talking about Amalek and he's how, we're the children of the light and they're the children of the darkness, et cetera, using the, you know, the barbaric acts of Hamas on October 7th to smear all of the Palestinian people and justify atrocities against them. Now, I'm not saying that Stephen Miller is gearing up for a genocide here. But I am saying that the rhetoric really echoes that we've heard consistently from Netanyahu and other Israeli officials in

this very like, we're the good ones, they're the evil ones, us versus them, divide, divide, to your point. And I think the juxtaposition between Trump and Stephen Miller and Jack Vasovic and others who were there on the stage really like using Charlie Kirk's murder as a battle cry for effectively like a final crushing defeat of the left. Because I do think there is a sense among some like Stephen Miller, some on the right, that they're really going to go for it now and that this is going to be like a final defeat for the left and they've got all the tools at their power and they're really, you know, from the beginning of been all in on that and they planned it with Project 2025 and all of this, which I think is foolish, you know, to act like

there's any sort of like final victory that can be had in our political system. At least I certainly hope that is not the case. But the juxtaposition between that and what Charlie Kirk's widow, Erica Kirk, had to say, I think, you know, it's fair to say is quite stunning, is quite actually shocking. So let's go ahead and play a little bit of what Erica Kirk had to say. This is A4, guys. That young man. That young man, on the cross, our savior said, them, for they not know what they do. That man, that young man, I forgive him. Forgive him because it was what Christ did and is what Charlie would do.

The answer to hate is not hate. The answer we know from the gospel is love and always love. Love for our enemies and love for those who persecute us. Wow. I don't know how she did that. I don't know how she did that. And truly a stunning moment of courage and moral character and leadership of a sort that I use the word shocking intentionally because I think we've forgotten what it looks like to have an example of such moral character and leadership in a moment when the country desperately needs it. So to me, Erica Kirk, I mean, absolutely stole the show and really made those who came out. with vengeance and bitterness and we're going to use this to crush our enemies really made them look small in comparison to what she did right there.

I thought it was heroic. I mean, you know, can't help but get emotional even watching it to say something like that in the midst of, you know, watching your husband get gunned down. It's amazing. And, you know, put A8 up here, please,

on the screen guys, just look at this, you know, just to continue her. And, you know, look, I'm not Christian or any of that, but to me, this just seems like the best example of somebody who really is living,

their faith. She said recently in an interview with the New York Times, Erica Kirk said that she told her attorney she does not want to decide at all whether her husband's killer gets the death penalty and that she wants the state to decide, quote, I do not want that man's blood on my ledger. And she continued that she didn't want her decision in the case to have any say on whether she eventually would be able to see Charlie whenever she died. And so, you know, I just thought incredible amounts of point in. She's a real heroic actor in the midst of this assassination. And day, you know, she was the first person I thought of after Charlie's death, along with his small children. And so I would hope, you know, if anything, that the great takeaways,

there's still a lot of great people left, you know, in the country, regardless of a lot of our divisions. And so I thought broadly, you know, if you put those two things together, like I said, it does kind of show you the different paths that we might take. 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 believe in. To bring you depth and analysis from a unique Latino perspective.

There's not a single day that Paola and I don't. 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 Paula Ramos as part of the MyCultura podcast network on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. 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. 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. 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 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 Slimmer in the woods of Knoxville, Tennessee. Since her conviction, Krista has been sitting on death grow. 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 podcasts. I do want to return to your point about crushing the left because this is a very important conversation. Like, what does it mean? And who was Tyler Robinson? Now, at this current moment of what we know about Tyler Robinson, we'll get to a lot of

things that we don't know about Tyler Robinson. But if you accept that Tyler Robinson was a killer, what are the broad things that we know? Okay, so what we know is that we have a terminally online gamer who dropped out of college after six months in the midst of COVID had weird sexual proclivities including his furry memes and his boyfriend's situation or whatever. What does that situation tell you

about our culture? To me, and this is, you know, I continue to say this, is that a lot of people are really stuck because they recently read the book The Days of Rage, which is, by the way, an incredible book, but their theory of the case

is that this is like organized at a higher level. And that at that time, what a lot of people misunderstand about the 70s is it was not a cultural revolution or any of that. It was extremely small splinter groups like the Sinbanese Liberation Army,

the weather underground, and a few of these. It was like 25, 30, genuine radicals, let's be honest, like actual radical. People, they blew up the capital, not joking. But dismantling that was actually, like, not that difficult. Like, it just took some FBI operation. And by the way, if it happened today,

you know, the only reason they got away with a lot because it was the 1970s, none of it would even happen today, you know, with the Internet and with current. And the problem that we have right now is like an inverse. It's kind of like what we were talking about with lone wolf killers. Remember in the 2010s, whenever we're talking about the rise of ISIS and atomization and people who get inspired, they may never even meet on or Al-Wiki,

but they would watch one of his videos and they would get inspired. And they would use the Inspire magazine at the time to plan attacks. How do you go after that? It's an interesting question. One of the things that the FBI and all of that embraced at that time was they had basically basically in trap, you know, anybody who even came close to the line with al-Qaeda. And everyone was broadly okay with that at the time. I'll be honest. Even at that time, I was like, yeah, good, right? But now you're like, well, you know, the state overreach for that. It leads to things like the Whitmer stat, you know, Whitmer plot, which is bullshit. It was entirely organized by the FBI. It leads to, you know, there's still a lot of questions about January 6th

and those guys who were in the crowd being like, yeah, let's go on in there and who were all the police informants, et cetera. So that's the question. which I think we should all kind of linger on and like, what does it mean? And it gets to the point, too, of like, is this a cultural problem or is it a government problem? I think the government could have some impact. I mean, again, for me personally, my main takeaway is like, no, we need morality police back guys. Like, we need shame. Any parent out there who's letting them out there who's giving them kids computers at age 13, like Robinson's parents, and apparently just letting them game for 12 hours a day, sorry, like you need to be publicly called out. And this happened

in the Mormon community. other thing people need to grapple with. Pornography, TikTok, gaming, all of it. Like, I think there needs to be serious, serious government actual look at all that. I know people get furious because that's what they're, you know, the only thing apparently brings joy in their life. But that's not the same as, like, this is a George Soros funded operation. I think it's fair to say that in the prosecutor's case.

Like, in a lot of these cases, Chesa Boudin or Krasner and these people, like, I actually don't think they would be where they are without George Soros. So, like, that's a different kind of conversation. but specifically around Antifa. Like, Antifa is not the weather underground. Like, it's mostly, like, a bunch of, like, loser kids who are inspired, very Robinson-esque, like, inspired online. They think they're fighting World War II or whatever

and, like, go burn down a police station or outside of Portland Ice Facility because they think they're, like, in the French resistance in 1942. I mean, I think they're idiots, but, like, that's not the same thing as the organized, like, the Boudin family and others, Bill Ayers in the Weather Underground planning bombing plots or the Simbany's Liberation Army,

like, let's kidnap Patty Hearst to start a revolution. I could go on forever, right? You know, with the Black Liberation Army, or some of the Splinteroff groups back in the 70s who were like, we're going to start a race war, or Charlie Manson, you know, another one. Although, you know, the state. Weren't there bombings like every five days

or something crazy like that at the peak? Chrysler, there were over a thousand bombings in the 1970s. Yeah. Everybody's got to go read this. It's an important context, too, because it can feel like we're living through an unprecedentedly, like, volatile and violent time. There were also hijackings. Like, there were, there was, the 70s were wild. They were just hijackings all the time.

There were bombings all the time. They're kidnappings. The crime, if you think crime is bad now, oh, my God, you know, during, at that time from the 70s to the 90s, it was unbelievable. There was leaded gasoline. That was, you know, that's what a lot of the stuff people point to. But my only broad point is, like, it was a different problem. Same with the KKK in the 1950s.

easily infiltrateable, highly organized, the Grand Dragon. You basically make it so that six out of seven Klansmen or FBI informants. It's a joke by the 1960s. It's not even a thing. I don't see that today. I see it very much as like downstream of a lot of culture. And I think culturally we should ask questions, especially about the government, about how to make sure that you don't keep churning out, freaks like Tyler Robinson or the Minnesota killer. I mean, you know, whoever, where was it, Denver? The school shooting on the same day. This is the whole internet problem. Like 100% internet. I'm not saying ban the internet, but listen. I mean, the shooter who got a lot of attention for being trans in Minneapolis and very similar to the details of the Denver school shooter that was on the same day that Tyler Robinson murdered Charlie Kirk. And, you know, I'm still putting the pieces together like everybody else. And it is perplexing because I'm taking, you know, Ken Klippenstein talk to a lot of Tyler's friends. And even the portrait that for me is kind of convenient in my mind of like, oh, he was like just. constantly online and lost touch with reality and radicalizing these spaces. I don't know that that entirely fits because his friends were like, you know, yeah, we talked to him online, but

like we went camping together. We went hunting and fishing. They're like, yeah, had interest outside of just like gaming all day. And then you have the piece of he was apparent, and again, this is based on Ken's reporting. And, you know, I spoke with Ken about what his view of was what was going on. You know, he was struggling with his identity, his sexuality. He was from this extremely religious, very conservative family that did not accept. He's apparently bisexual, did not accept him for that. So you have this like conflict in terms of his identity. And then you have, and a relationship that I think he either hid from his family. That was what his friend said, is that he couldn't even like bring himself to bring up this relationship to his family. So you

have that going on. And then you have rhetoric from Charlie Kirk that's, you know, very hostile towards trans people in particular, and it seems like outside of that, like, LGBTQ issues, the portrait is not someone who was, like, particularly political. Now, more things may emerge, but that's one of the things that is, to me, it would be easier if it was, like, you know, he was in the, on, you know, 4chan, and he was, like, in these Discord servers that were, like, extremely radical, and he was, you know, meaming group or stuff, or whatever, like some kind of political radical, is it, like some sort of ideological thing. But I'm not even sure that totally fits, which is why it's hard for me to really fully wrap

my head around it. See, this is where I disagree, and this is why leftists, I think, always ignore this. Like, you don't just get into furry stuff normally. It's porn. Like, just everyone needs to be out. Like, this is a pornography problem. Yeah, but that's not like, that's, but that's not like, no, no, no, no, no. What I'm going to say is, that is not, like, furrydom is not a leftist ideology.

No, I'm saying, but his sexuality, I absolutely agree, I think was at the heart of whatever happened here. I think, you know, based on what we know at this point. But, you know, I just think if we zoom out and we look not just at him, but we look at the pattern of these school shooter and political assassin types that we're getting now. You know, there's a lot to be said about online culture. There's a lot to be said about like nihilism, a sense of hopelessness that is our culture, especially for young men who feel like they have no sort of like direction and meaning in life. Some of those things are cultural. Some of those things are downstream from policy. But in any case, to your point, there was an NBC News article. We actually didn't

pull it for the show. We probably should have where investigators are saying, like, we're really trying to connect this to some broader left-wing groups, and we can't. Like, he is, it appears, based on where the investigation now, this was one person who decided to commit an absolutely horrific political assassination and murder. And so the efforts by Stephen Miller, Trump, J.D. Vance, et al, to use this, to connect it to some broader, like now we have to crush all of these left-wing groups, there's zero evidence that these things are connected whatsoever. I've been on the record against it because I also don't even think it's really worked. It's not effective. I think it broadly would be, would also backfire. If you actually think

about it, I mean, this is some, a mistake that the right always makes, is that there are some, is that the left is just like them. The right is much more politically organized and connected to money, right? So like there is an entire ecosystem, as long as you're good on Israel, like you're going to have a job in this town for a long time. You'll be just fine. Whereas leftism is broadly the ideology of the politically educated or the college educated and thus like when we say that the left is taking over institutions, it's because of ideology, you know, college education, democratic separation that, you know, you can relatively guess that any project manager at a big technology company is left wing and or a Democrat. You can also guess that in finance or any of these other

places. Now, they may not be the type of Democrat. You are, but they probably voted for Kamala. They're liberal. They're capital L liberal. Let's put it that way. That's important to say. And that's like a cultural distinction. But this kind of gets to my point about Tyler and about from what we know so far. Like you're saying it's not political. I actually would argue that you know, look, we've had endless debates here. Transgenderism and gender ideology itself is obviously a massive social contagion and in and of itself is brought on by the internet and largely the weaponization and, quote, acceptance of this ideology and pervading it throughout the entire nation. Now, this is both sides of that coin because what happens then is that Charlie becomes best known for a lot of these clips that go viral of talking about biological reality or girl. And so that's how Robinson gets to the point where he's like,

Well, because of my own, like, weird sexual proclivities, I'm going to go and murder somebody who speaks against them. I mean, that is, like, really important to internalize. Like, that's how important he thought that his, like, trans furry fetish was to murder someone over. Like, how do you get to that point? Internet. I think, I'm not saying it's not political. Just to be clear, I'm not saying this was, like, divorce from politics. I'm saying there wasn't, like, a consistent, like, coherent ideology.

outside of clearly, I think it is quite clear that this one issue was animating for him. We don't disagree on that. I mean, I do want to point out, like, he's not trans. And from what the government is saying, the, you know, allegedly trans romantic partner has been cooperating and wasn't involved, et cetera. So I just want to put that out there because I know, I know you're not. I know you're not. I just want to clarify because there is an impetus as well, again, from Ken's reporting,

there's an effort now to label like transgender extremism, whatever, and like blame all trans people also for what happens. So I'm just clarifying. So I'm not saying it's not political. I'm saying it is different from a like consistent ideological view. And I don't think we can also divorce out the impact of growing up in this very conservative religious and very repressive culture where he didn't feel accepted from his own family.

And this was a major source of tension for him in his life as well as, you know, his identity is developed. I think that's a, you know, a factor to, to weigh in. as well. See, that's what people blame the Mormons now. They're doing it right. You should shun this stuff. If you're a gamer and you're, you know, porn addict, like that should be shun. I don't agree. I don't agree with that, Tyler, because it's a different thing to say like, you know, a, you know, video game addict or porn addicts or whatever, none of which we know, you're just projecting that. We don't actually know that. We don't know that about Tyler, but I think what we see consistently

is the more repressive a culture is sexually repressive a culture is, the more that you end up with things like, more like fringe sexual views, more of the sort of things that you would be opposed to, more like, things like more domestic violence, like all of those things tend to correlate with more repressive religious cultures. And so I don't think that you can look at the picture of him. The little bits we know, which again, a lot of this is speculation without also taking into effect, part of what he was struggling with was this identity conflict between him and his upbringing and his family and his community. I would say that is, in my opinion, that's a 1990s take,

which potentially had its impact. In the year 2025, I think we have swung so far in the other direction, again, where you have people who are literally have a trans furry fetish. I mean, we have to be real here about what that means. This is a small town in Utah. Yeah, I know. It's like really, really conservative. Like all the things you want it to be, all the things you should want it to be, it was. Yes. Yes, I know. And you end up reading this killer. Right. That's my point. That should tell you that, like, the cultural solutions you want are not a cure, since that's exactly the environment in which he becomes this killer. What I am trying to show is that the Internet and this sexual degeneracy is so powerful that it pervades the entire culture to the point where your own in-person matters, don't even, their own in-person, like, networks, which potentially would have been able to quash a lot of this in the past is gone. That's the power of the Internet.

And also, that's the real, like, cultural supremacy of libertine, like, left-wing sexual ideology. Again, I think you're projecting a lot here because his friends, according to, you know, people who have spoken with him, are like, you know, he wasn't, the thing you're painting him to be, that was not their experience with him whatsoever. Well, I mean, it was his experience in his personal life at the very least. And again, from what we know about writing furry stuff or whatever in his own personal relationship, but zoom out. I mean, we had the trans-Nazi killer in Minneapolis. Like, how does that happen? Like, seriously, how does that happen? Mental illness plus internet plus weed.

It's a very simple thing. Like, was the person really transgender, or were they, like, semi-autistic and then convinced just like Abigail Schreier's book that actually I'm trans, and then you start plugging yourself full of hormones and you go off. Like, this is what I mean. People need to have very serious, whenever we talk about transgender extremism. I want to point out that transgender people make up a disdemeanor. proportionally small number of violent acts. Like if we want to look at a group in society,

if we're going to do like demographic call-ons here, it is overwhelmingly white men who commit these mass acts of violence. But I don't think you want to go down the demographic role in terms of crime. And that's my point. Is that we have to talk about it. No, the only reason I went in that, I don't want to go down the demographic direction in terms of crime. But if you're going to paint trans people as like inherently murderous, then we have to correct the record there because that is the polar opposite of reality. Well, I will say they are inherently, and this is proven out, have the highest depressive rates and suicide rates of most of the general population. It's really hard to be trans in America.

Listen to listen to some of the things you're saying. Listen to the things that Charlie Kirk used to say. It's not easy to be trans in America. If you can't accept that, and you're saying what I'm saying is hate. It's an empirical fact that a lot of these people are very mentally troubled. That doesn't mean that I'm saying that they should not exist or they should be killed. I didn't say any of them. I didn't say that you did.

I didn't say that you did. Right. But I'm saying this conversation matters a lot. trans people as like there's something mentally wrong with them. In some cases, many cases, yes. But also, you have to realize that if you are a transgender person in modern day America, it is a not, it is not an easy experience. I disagree with that.

I mean, if you live in New York City and you're trans, you're going to be celebrated. Like, come on. Like, let's live in reality. Yes, let's live in reality. If you live in Northern Virginia. Look at what Donald Trump says. Look at what's coming down from the federal government. I mean, I don't know if you have any.

trans people in your life, but I do. And I can tell you that they feel like half the country does hate them and wants them dead. It's not an easy thing to live with. So, you know, no one should be surprised that, yeah, there's higher levels of like mental illness and depression that comes along with that. That's not to deny that there may be some that, you know, their transgender is an expression of them, but like, how do you disentangle these things? I mean, you look at social contagion where the vast majority of this is largely social contagion and mental illness. I'm sorry, it's just empirically true. And it's one of those where, yes, yes, it is. No, it's not exactly. Transgenderism went up 2,500% in a decade because of social contagion or because people were, quote, legitimately trans.

Like, come on. Like, this is what I mean about the internet. And this quote acceptance were excusing and basically giving a permission structure for mental illness. I will not deny that there is some level of, like, you know, that part of it is a social phenomenon. Okay, I don't want to put that off the table. Part of it is also that people for the first time feel like there is some level. Now it's not nearly enough, but some sense of, like, I can be myself. I can. There is, you know, more of a community that's more open. And yes, the internet allows them to

connect themselves with other people who are like them. And so, you know, to, like, I just, I don't, I'm not sure why we went down this rabbit hole, but I just want to say Tyler Robinson is not trans. He, you know, the trans romantic partner reportedly according to the government had nothing to do with this. And so I'm not sure why, like, trans people are being thrown under the bus here, because if anything, the way it's being, you know, the story that's coming from the government is that the trans person here was, like, actively shocked by this, had nothing to do with it, and is cooperating with investigators. What I'm trying to say is that it is part of a broader social problem. And I'm not saying that Tyler Robinson is trans. I'm not even making this necessarily

about Tyler Robinson because the Minneapolis shooter, Nashville, all of this stuff has to come together for a serious conversation about the fact that the internet is literally poisoning people and enabling mental illness at vast areas. And by the way, for anybody who thinks I'm, quote, transphobic with these remarks, go and roll the tape about what I said about schizzo. Schizophrenia, schizophrenics are like, compared to Gen Pop are so much more likely to commit violent crime. You can apply my exact language about schizophrenia to transgenderism, gender ideology, etc. What I object to is a broader conversation. Like Ken, for example, I thought, frankly, no offense, Ken, I thought your article was outrageous and ridiculous, because you said,

said, what Ken said was that it was like transgender people are going to be classified as terrorists. No, what is said is that a specific type of, quote, gender ideology extremism will be classified under nihilistic violent extremists. That is an entirely appropriate thing in the world of Minneapolis and in the world of Nashville and particularly in quote, gender ideologically. Sager, in Minneapolis, the person being trans had nothing to do with anything. It was like some part of some weird online neo-Nazi cold. Oh, you think that the mental illness that just happened to a company becoming transgender had nothing? This is what I'm saying. Like, it does have something to do with something. It's just that people want to deny that reality. And this is, this is also.

Again, then let's have a category for white men extremists. Sure. I mean, I don't think you want to go down that road. Again, considering where demographics of crime break down in this country. I think you're seeing things you want, like through a lens of your ideology and what you want to see, especially given that what you can point to, you know, one person who happened to be trans in Minneapolis who had all kinds of weird internet stuff and neo-Nazism and whatever, there's no indication they murdered because of their transgender ideology. Tyler Robinson is not trans. Like, there's nothing illegal about having a transgender relationship. And we know very little, actually, about Tyler Robinson and what he was, where he was, and what he was doing and how he was spending his days, et cetera.

In the case of the Ukrainian girl who gets her neck cut open by the schizophrenic, and he says, got that white B word. Well, now, what does that mean? Do we think that's a racist attack or a schizophrenic attack? It's downstream of what? Schizophrenia. So we can say it's obviously downstream of mental illness. The fact is, is that if you look at the mental illness rates, depression rates, and so much

more in, you know, amongst transgender and gender ideology, and also apparently that Robinson can become so caught up in all this. He literally wants to murder someone else. Yeah, we should have a conversation about that. And, you know, a final thing here, there's this always this word, transgender people, thrown under the bus. What does that mean? Because if it's about reasonable stuff like banning puberty blockers for children under the age of 18, I think that's ridiculous. That is an extremist policy. If it's about Leah Thomas. But what I mean, again, you know, what I would say is that the way

that this conversation started on, on, you know, what's appropriate for kids, what's appropriate, what do we do in sports? Like that's one thing. But very quickly, you now have just all out an attack on trans people coming directly from this. God, But what does that mean? It means outright discrimination against trans people. Like, for example, not being able to change your gender on your passport. Like, for example, increasing laws around the country that are making it difficult even to have health care, you know, gender affirming health care for trans people. See, that's a very dystopian term.

No, it's not. I thought you didn't hate trans people. No, I thought adult trans people, it's fine. I thought they could live their lives. And what's your, well, then you should be thinking on against these laws too. Well, first of all, no, the laws on the books are not banning us. adults, what they're doing is they're banning it for children. No, that is not true.

No, no, no, no. Look at what's going on in Florida as one example. They are making it nearly impossible for adults to seek gender-affirming care. So you want to live in reality. Tell me what this administration thinks about transgender adults. Oh, they love transgender adults? No, I don't think they love transgender adults. No, that's why trans people in this country feel that they are under attack by this administration.

Look at how in the military, trans people were not only. not only not allowed to serve, but if they did serve and they earned a pension, they're having their pension taken away. I think that's disgusting. I agree. So to pretend like there isn't an attack on transgender adults putting aside, you know, however you feel about kids, which I agree is a fraught topic and a difficult one to parse through, there is no doubt that they're under attack and that this administration wants to use this murder and, you

know, the Minneapolis one or whatever else they can cobble together to further target and surveil transgender individuals and paint them like they're murderous, mentally ill extremists. I think the nuance needs to come back. Like, look, I know you're going to object to this, but the transgender and the military thing, it's like, listen, if we're going to talk about mental illness, would you allow a schizophrenic or somebody else like that? I'm not saying all transgender people could not necessarily apply. But that is painting all transgender people like there's something's wrong with them and they're mentally ill. And then in another breath, you'll say, oh, but I love all transgender. I'm not judging them, but not transphobic. I'm not, I don't love

of trans people or hate trans people. You just think they're all mentally ill and need to be kicked down as a polite society. I think that mental illness is pervading a lot of the, quote, trans and gender ideology conversation. And I wish that we were able to talk about that. Seriously, without, frankly, like, immense amounts of social pressure. And that's part of the, I mean, look, this gets to like why we are where we are today, why Trump is even present, why any of this is even being allowed in a polite society. The pension thing, I agree, it's disgusting. Okay. Absolutely. I would never agree to that. In terms of adults being able to do what they want to do. I support that. Now, of course, though, the conversation is also important

in terms of money, insurance, availability, permission structure. This is like abortion. I mean, when people, it's like when Republicans or Democrats, for example, say, around abortion and they want to talk about, you know, third trimester abortion versus late trimester abortion, but they lump all of those things together. I think we can all recognize there's a nuance in between late trimester, six-week abortion in like seventh trimester, right? Because that's the point, is if you try to loop it all together, which a lot of Republicans do when they make the pro-life talking point, it's viewed as disingenuous. I think it's the similar way. And look, it's a hot topic. And I don't really know why it's so religiously like baked into like left-wing current

ideology. I genuinely don't get it. But one of the things that is clear to me is that these sacred cows or whatever actually in the midst of all of this social chaos with the internet have to be discussed. That's really my only point. And I think also, you know, objecting, Ken's reporting, for example, by saying, objecting to the fact that you can't classify gender ideology extremists without, quote, declaring war on trans people, ridiculous. Yeah, but I think it was a different, I think it was a different group, you would see the, you would see it differently. Because we know about the way that the government, you know, abuses these like domestic extremist categories.

Okay. So even if, you know, like, Ken's headline seemed to imply all trans people were going to be, like, deemed extremists. And that was bullshit. It was wrong. But we do know the reality of the way that if you have one of these, you know, domestic extremist categorizations, that the government will then use that as justification to surveil, like, you know, any sort of trans-related group or any sort of, you know, anything that is related to that.

And it will be applied much more broadly than would actually be appropriate for people who are, like, truly radicalized by that ideology. And I think that, I mean, I think you would agree with that, that there's an abuse of these terms. And that that's the fear is that this is going to be a broadening expansion more broadly, not just for people who, like, are truly, you know, trans extremist radicalized or whatever, that's going to be applied too broadly in a way that is oppressive and is, you know, against the rights of these people. And as a group that, I mean, I think you have to acknowledge, like, it is a group. that definitely feels and in reality is under attack and has been, has been otherized by this administration and made to be scapegoats and part of this group of like, you know, like Stephen Miller, we're the good ones and they're the evil ones or whatever. This administration's M.O. is to create categories of groups who fall either on the like

true American good side or on the bad side. And there's no doubt that they put the trans people in like, you know, the evil scapegoat. I'm just not ready to go there. I don't think that's true because I just think like if you're, again, you know, by the way, with the trans, I mean, you know, with the trans people, the trans community, the trans activists and all those people, they're going to call me a Nazi for everything I just said. I'm like, you know what, that's why I don't even not going to take you people serious. Don't react to them. Like, react to them. Like, react to. Don't imagine what people are to say about you. Let's like deal with the argument. I've dealt with them in real life. Deal with the argument at hand, which is, you know, I think to use Tyler Robinson, who against not even trans, to just. To just. justify this targeting more broadly of trans people by the government. I think that's wrong. I think it is a factual. I don't think that there is, you know, any reality to it. And in any case, we can, if you have a last thing to say, I can move on from this. It's entirely appropriate to treat, quote, gender ideology extremism as a subcategory. It is not a war on trans people. You are not a special class of citizen. If there's a higher rate of mental illness and or violence or particular,

like you're talking about white men, it's like, well, if you look at a at the demographics of the country, but white men can be grouped in very specifically to the school shooter manifesto, you know, category. And we can talk about that publicly with no shame or fear. Well, then I'm sorry, you get to be treated like everybody else, which is apparently what you want. So I don't, I just, I think broadly, this conversation, it has ignited in me. Like, I, maybe, I'm trying to find like a secular morality police. Maybe, maybe that's a fool's Aaron, but we need to bring it back. I just, that's my main takeaway from this entire thing. The Internet is poison. They're doing it in Utah.

No, they're not. Not nearly enough. They are. That's the problem. They're not doing it nearly enough. Small town in Utah. I'm sure you'll be feeling that's not so secular morality. If you get their asses off the Internet, then maybe none of this would happen. 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. 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 believe 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. These new podcasts 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. 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'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. On 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 just started going off on me. 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 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. Okay, turning now to Cash Patel and some of the questions about the Charlie Kirk assassination. Our whole debate was predicated that we know everything. But to be honest, you know, after this, I'm not so sure.

So let's go and put this up there on the screen. I got to be honest, this is one of the craziest things I've ever seen from an FBI director. And the reason why is in some ways it legitimates many of the, quote, conspiracy theories around the assassination. And actually makes me think, wow, the fact that they're talking like this means some of this shit may be true. So let me keep it up there, guys, so I can read from it. Quote, as the director of the FBI, I am committed to ensure. ensuring the investigation into Charlie Kirk's assassination is thorough and exhaustive, pursuing every lead to its conclusion. The full weight of America's law enforcement agencies

are actively following the evidence that has emerged, but our efforts extend beyond initial findings. We are examining every facet of this assassination. We are meticulously investigating theories and questions, including the location from where the shot was taken. The possibility of accomplices, the text message confession, and related conversations, discord chats, the angle of the shot and bullet impact, how the weapon was transported, hand gesture, observed as potential signals near Charlie at the time of his assassination and visitors to the alleged shooter residence in the hours and days leading up to September 10th. So he lays out every single question that has been raised, basically, with some currency on the internet. Then he

goes on. Some details are known today. While others are being pursued to ensure every possibility is considered, our primary focus is to complete this investigation and deliver justice. To protect the integrity of the investigation and subsequent prosecution, we cannot release every piece of information we have to the public right now. We will ensure every question is addressed at the appropriate moment. Regarding specific details, such as questions about the plane that allegedly turned off a transmitter after departing from the airport assassination site, we can share updates when the answers are confirmed after interviews with the pilot, consultation with the FAA. We determined transponder was not turned off. Incomplete

flight data in rural areas caused the apparent gap. The entire FBI mourns the loss of Charlie Kirk. It will not rest until justice is served and our investigation into this assassination will continue until every question is answered. And the fact that he laid out every single one of those did not dispute any of them effectively gives them currency and, like I said, legitimates it. And the only one that he can potentially strike down is this one about the plane in the FAA, which by the way was known within, I don't know, hours after the assassination. I saw an aviation expert hours after just come out and be like, guys, it's a typical area. that the transponder wasn't off. It's just that this is like one particular airspace where it will go out

every once in a while. It's don't read too much into it as a result. So I don't know. What did you think? Because there's two options. One is this guy is so chronically online. He wants to ensure that the internet doesn't turn against him. So he's going to list out every single thing and try to take it seriously. I guess slowly try to dispel it in the future. But the counter is like, okay, if these are so legitimate that the FBI is actually investigating it, that really makes my eyebrows raise. especially because if, look, Robinson, as of right now, is not cooperating with authorities, right? So presumably he may plead not guilty. Well, couldn't you use that tweet at trial? I was thinking that too. And being like, hey, look at all of these legitimate questions raised here

about from the defense, from the FBI director. And now all of that, you know, by the way, the FBI will have to make sure that they meticulously go through like he claims and actually provide an explanation for each one of those so that Robinson's defense cannot present that to a jury at trial, presumably, if it goes that direction, I don't know. Yeah. So I thought it was insane. It's basically crazy no matter of it. Absolutely insane.

I mean, I think it definitely has to do with, like, Cash Mattel is an internet influencer. Like, that's what he actually is. And so he's seeing all of these theories floating. And he already knows that people hate him because of how he handled the Epstein stuff. And he doesn't want to catch any more heat from his, like, listening and viewing audience. So he's trying, oh, guys, like, I'm totally, I'm with you on the conspiracies. I'm looking into it, I'm on it. I think that's probably a lot of what's going on.

But to your point, like, dude, we already have a charging document for Tyler Robinson. And it lays it all out. The government has laid out a quite complete and specific theory of the case. And it does not involve like, oh, maybe the shot was taken somewhere else. Maybe there were accomplices. Maybe there was, you know, maybe these text messages. Like, he even seems to allude to the text messages being fake, which is like, this is your evidence. So he's undercutting dramatically the government's story of what happened on that day.

And it's crazy. Another one he mentions here, how the weapon was transported. Again, we're being told from the government, like, here's how the weapon was transported. Here's what the weapon was. Here's where the shot was taken from. And now the FBI director is saying, well, actually, we're not really too sure about any of this. Yeah, it's manna from heaven. For Tyler Robinson's defense team, there's no doubt about it.

And it's completely insane. Like, dude, you're not an influencer at any poor. You are the government. You are in the deep state. Like, that's who you are now. You have asserted a very specific theory of the case. And now you're going in and saying, well, we don't really know. We're still looking into it.

We'll get back to you. Crazy stuff. Absolutely crazy. It fits also with this next part here. Let's put it up here on the screen. There's a new claim from the surgeon, actually, who operated on Charlie in the immediate aftermath of his killing, where they say, quote, Charlie Kirk's body stopped a bullet. that would typically, quote, just go through everything.

And it was, quote, an absolute miracle that nobody else was killed. His surgeon told T.P. USA. So, by the way, this is secondhand information. It's from T.P. USA about the bullet. There have been some questions about the bullet and whether it would have passed through Charlie. I mean, I'm generally open, you know, giving the benefit. I don't see there's any reason TPSA or the surgeon would lie about the situation.

But it's just that when you put the totality, you know, in the fact that cash, legitimated it, and then it's a question here. It just seems all a bit odd. I almost think in that case, it's like it would have been better to just, like, in a way, there's too much transparency right now, you know, from the TPS. And cash and all of them, but they're like, every single claim ever made, whether Charlie made $150 million from Netanyahu or it was offered that or something. It's like, guys, you know, in a certain way, that's why I just, I really felt crushed for

Erica Kirk because she apparently is going to give an interview soon addressing all. let this lady be, please, please. I mean, I don't know. I just think, or for her, like, nobody's saying that she had to come out and do it, but the fact that she feels compelled to, I have complicated feelings about it. Like, I just want this,

I want this woman to have peace. She seems like such a wonderful soul, you know, her and her kids. Like, I just, I don't know. I think it's not good that this amount, apparently, you know, TPSA people, this was a report. I don't, I'm not, never mind, I'm not going to say it.

But my point is just that, I think TPSA people are getting hounded about this. I mean, they just lost their leader, you know, their friend in a lot of cases. So it's difficult. It's difficult a situation. Yeah. And this information from the surgeon originally came from the EP of the Charlie Kirk show. Andrew Colvitt, is that how you say his last name?

And, I mean, they're just, look, they are asking the public to believe a lot. I mean, even Cash apparently recognizes that there's a lot that they're asking the public to believe. And this is one of the things that is extraordinary, you know, if true, that the surgeon said that Charlie's bone was so healthy and the density was so impressive. He's like the man of steel. It should have just gone through and through. It likely would have killed those standing behind him, too. And the end, the coroner did find the bullet just beneath the skin.

Even in death, Charlie managed to save the lives of those around him, remarkable miraculous. And, you know, I don't know anything about, like, the kind of bullets or whatever. I know people are looking at that who do know something are pre-sceptical of this claim. And the other piece that's, you know, again, it's like, where was this information previously? Because previously, it seemed like they didn't have the bullet. And now, you know, here we are a number of days later.

And they're like, oh, no, we do have the bullet. It's beneath his skin. It's just like, miraculously, he's the man of steel. So it didn't go through. Maybe. But it's, again, you're asking people to accept a lot here. The other reason why is that may not have even been the explanation. That may have been what the surgeon told TPSA.

And then let's say something else comes out at trial. Then people will be like, wait, but you said this, right? So that's what I'm saying. There's almost too much right now about people who are coming out. And I mean, look, we do have to be on, it gets a lot of weird stuff. It remains. Even with the official narrative with this. By the way, the outfit change, it seems to have been validated.

Candace released that photo of Robinson at Dairy Queen like 18 minutes after he shot Charlie Kirk. No, it was out of sorry, sorry. Yeah, it was it was like at 30 after Kirk had been shot somewhere in the noon hour. Oh, no, he apparently changed. That's what it was. But he was in that different outfit, you know, in that photo, which psychotic. Well, he was in a mix of the

two outfits. Yeah, yeah. He was in the marooned shirt and the black pants. Yeah, I don't know. And I mean, I'm not even, I can't even say for sure that that photo is real. So you know, it's possible from another day. It looked like, oh, it looked like him. It could be AI. It could be from another day. I don't really know. But, you know, she asserts that it is, but Candace is not also like a

traditional journalist. Yes, that's fair. All right. Last thing we'll put up here, this was a final thing, report from the New York Post, which actually kind of makes sense if you take Robinson's text to be real. It said that the gun that killed Kirk is quote a World War I era rifle that may be untraceable. What they describe in his text, Robinson, called it Grandpa's rifle, in that it's a decades-old German-made gun that was used in both World Wars. But I think the point around it was it may be that he actually did select the rifle either because of the serial number. By the way, they're saying maybe untraceable because we don't know the official model or anything of the weapon. And we still, by the way, one reason why I'm inclined to take this more seriously is remember

they had the rifle very early in the investigation the day of. But they didn't have Robinson in very early. Whereas if it was traceable or if it was easily connectable to the person who bought it, the grandpa, that's not that difficult. Be like, oh, okay, this person, family tree, boom, from public records. Tyler Robinson, that's an easy way to go there. Until Robinson turned himself in after his father basically turned, you know, used him or forced him to with the sheriff or whatever that was, they were family friends with, they were nowhere. The night before Robinson was caught, they literally were nowhere, according to law enforcement. So I'm inclined to take this a little bit seriously, which is part of what makes it weird, because the thing is

with Robinson is, again, if you accept that the texts are in some way real, which I do think they are real, maybe that is cringe of me, but I just not quite at the point where I think we're fabricating stuff in court documents that are eventually going to go to trial. Just me. Maybe I have too much faith in the system. Cash is investigating. I'm just saying, like, I mean, think about that. That means like all of America's jurisprudence is fake, including the state of Utah. I'm like, maybe. It's definitely possible. But if we accept that are real, he did want to get away with it,

which is like, why did he turn himself in at the end of the day? I mean, went to great lengths, you know, from those text messages. Maybe it was planned, you know, in terms of the weird rhetoric and vernacular that he used, which we talked about previously on the show. So there is still a lot of weird stuff. And if you are a conspiracy theorist on this, I don't blame you because the way the government has handled has been a disaster. Yeah, you have no reason to believe this government, especially led by Cash Patel, who, as I've said before, is not only political operatic, but he is.

is also an incompetent fool. So there are any number of reasons why you should, you know, be skeptical of the claims here. And I don't even think, like, I don't think it's fair even to call you conspiracy theorists at this point if you're looking into some of these holes. That's like the job. I mean, I think that's part of the job of the journalist. Oh, absolutely. It's to not just take it face value the government's claims to say, okay, well, these pieces don't really add up. What have you got for me there?

Yeah. How did he transfer the guy? Why don't we see it in any of these photos? those sorts of things, I think are all like reasonable and non-conspiratorial questions to ask. I'll get you an example. Yuvaldei. The first 24 hours, the Yuvalde cops are a hero. The timeline, you know, we were some of the first people to do this. You're putting the timeline together. You're like, wait, the shooting started like this time and they didn't kill them. Hours later. You're like, how does that happen? You're like, so are we understanding?

And then the mom story, remember the mom with the time to get in the car and drive all the way there and get her kid out and take her out all before this happened. Like, that's, like, That only happened because of very critical reporting. I mean, maybe it would have eventually come now, but I'm not so sure, actually, because it took a lot of pressure on the Texas Department of Public Safety and Yuvalda, PD and all that before the full story was eventually. And then by that time, you know, that's a whole different picture, especially with Governor Abbott and his initial press conference and giving all the credit to, you know, the initial response. It's like, that is not what happens. That's a good, that's a good flag. You shouldn't believe it, because a lot of times I do lie, and it did happen.

All right, let's get over to Jimmy Kimmel, shall we? 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 believe 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 My Culture Podcast Network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

My name is Ed. Everyone say, hello, Ed. 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 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. 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 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 90s, 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.

Let's get to the Jimmy Kimmel situation, some escalating stuff here from Donald Trump around the term free speech. Here's what he had to say. I think it's very sad, but I think that reporting has to be at least accurate, at least accurate to an extent. Again, when somebody is given 97% of the stories a bad about a person, that's no longer free speech and no longer. That's just cheating. And they cheat. That's no longer free speech. He also, in an interview, was asked about Charlie, who believed in free speech.

And he was like, well, I'm not sure that he believes it now. So, yeah, really classy stuff there from the president. But it does actually make an interesting question about how the Republicans. are responding to this moment after Jimmy Kimmel. And for a recap, if anybody doesn't know at this point, we have the FCC Commissioner hours before going on the Benny Johnson show saying, quote, we can do this the easy way or the hard way before a merger was up for some ABC affiliates, which are owned by Next Star. And in that moment, that's when Jimmy Kimmel's show is indefinitely suspended by ABC Disney.

It's an open question. There's been some, you know, cope being like ABC was going to indefinitely suspend him anyways, some in-person report or some in-depth reporting from the Hollywood reporter, basically says that Kimmel was going to go on his show and say, screw you to his MAGA critics the day before, which factored into ABC's decision. So, of course, if it was just a business decision, then, you know, it's a little bit different of a free speech conversation. But I do think the very fact that the FCC commissioner said, quote, we can do this the easy way or they're hard way.

It's kind of an open and shut case, right? Because, you know, you can't deny that that's going to be in your head. You know, as people who run businesses, if we got threatened by the government and then there also was like a legitimate business reason, I mean, it'd be pretty convenient to do the legitimate business reason, whereas maybe you would have thought about it a little bit differently. You just can't deny that it wasn't in the heads of Bob Eiger and of the CEO of Disney on top of all of the affiliates who, again, like, they need, let's say even if Brennan Carr didn't say you have to take him off the air, they're like, well, we still want to be on his

good side because we need our damn merger to go through where they literally have to change their own rules so that's what i was yeah and brenn carr not only said we can do this the easier way or the hard way but also specifically shouted on the affiliates and you know so they need to look at what they're doing and whether they should preempt the show and then next star folds and then disney folds and the reporting from inside of disney of disney abc was that what they didn't actually feel like kimmel said anything that was particularly wrong or over the line the thing that caused them to make the decision that they did was the pressure from the government. So in terms of that, it seems pretty clear cut.

And then you also have Trump had already, you know, after Colbert gets cancer, then he had already threatened Jimmy Kimmel. He's now threatening the other late night host. They've also, Brennan Carr has come out and is threatening the view. The view was too terrified to say anything about any of this on their show, which is pathetic, we have to say, on their show on Thursday, I guess, was when this all was going down. So, you know, they're clearly feeling the heat. Well, silencing the view is one where I'm not going to speak out for that way. Have to keep your principles, Saugger.

No, that would be a public service. We have to keep our principles. But in any case, I don't know, we get a lot of content enjoyment and creation off of the view. So you better be careful for what you wish for. In any case, I think that's an example, though, of how it's not just about the direct people who are targeted. It's meant to put a chill in everyone who's a comedian, any sort of critic, any sort of, you know, podcaster, journalist, et cetera, so that they are thinking twice because they know their corporate bosses are not going to stand up for them. They're going to cave because every single time they have

caved. So that's part of what we're talking about here too. Again, everyone keeps going after the corporations. Like what are you supposed to do? You're supposed to make money. Like, you know, at a certain point, like you think ABC Disney ever cared about journalism? It was a money-making endeavor. Well, if they ever had any confusion about that, there is no longer any confusion about that whatsoever. I want that to be baked in for everybody. It's like, what? Oh, CNBC cares a lot about business journalism? Yeah, for sure. It's definitely not about a tool of, you know, Wall Street and the financiers to, like, control the market. It's always been that way. It's just, I guess it's now out in the open, which I appreciate, you know, in the Marxian, you know, heightened the contradiction sense. Let's take a listen then, though, to Ted Cruz, who heavily criticized Brennan Carr and the Trump administration on this. Let's take a listen. I like Brendan Carr. He's a good guy. He's the chairman of the FCC. I work closely with it. But what he said there is dangerous as hell.

For people that are listening, because this is going to be, quote, controversial. So I want to make sure we explain it clearly. When you say no and it's dangerous, explain and run this out, the slippery slope that this can open so that people understand why we're saying it. So the Federal Communication Commission is in charge of granting broadcast licenses. So ABC, NBC, CBS, they have licenses from. the FCC. It is true that under statute, they are required to be in the public interest. What he is saying is Jimmy Kimmel was lying. That's true. He was lying. And his lying to the American people is not in the public interest. And so he threatens explicitly. We're going to cancel

ABC's license. We're going to take him off the air. So ABC cannot broadcast anymore. And I got to say, he threatens it. He says, we can do this the easy way. or we can do this the hard way. Yeah. And I got to say, that's right out of Goodfellas. That's right out of a mafioso coming into a bar going, nice bar you have here. It'd be a shame of something happened to it. Dangerous as hell.

So what's this angle here? What's Ted Cruz's angle? Well, it's definitely not principle in terms of what we know about, about Ted. We do know he has a personal relationship with Kimmel, so that could be it. Yeah. Although, yeah, I don't know. I mean, I was stunned by it, to be honest. I would never, in a million years, I've picked Ted Cruz to go off on this.

Maybe it's a 2028 play. Maybe it's, I don't know. Honestly, maybe it is a principal thing. Like, you know, he was, like, more libertarian in his old days. This is the type of stuff he used to hammer the Obama administration for the OG, you know, Ted Cruz tea party guy. So it's possible. I'll tell you my theory. I think it's a combination of two things.

things. Number one is he knew Jimmy Kimmel personally. So we didn't have this like animus against him that a lot on the right did. He has some sort of personal relationship with him. So I think that does genuinely make it hit different when it's someone you know, et cetera. I think the other thing is like Ted Cruz, he said this on his own podcast, right? He wants to be cool with the podcast bros. That could be it. And we're about to play you. You know, Tim Dillon spoke out on this. I think he feels like, you know, he wanting to be part of the. that club that this is the place to position yourself is my guess of what's going on here because that's who he wants to like be down with and see himself as part of that world.

Yeah, I mean, one of the cultural shifts that has happened in the last eight months is that the scolds are no longer the libs because the libs have been owned literally into the Sunday out of power. You own them. Congratulations, folks. It has literally been total and complete victory. like they're dead. And so then it's a question of do you replace and become the scold? And so in the world of the Jimmy Kimmel, of the snowflakeery, of cancel culture, which we all agreed,

you know, some cancel culture, we all believe in, there should be consequences. In some cases, if you're openly cheering Charlie's death, yes, I think you should be fired. Or at the very least, you know, I'm not going to feel all that bad for you. But if you simply repost something that's critical, I don't know. I think that's definitely more in the BLM Me Too era type of craziness where things have gone. So it becomes like the scold and the cultural domination as well as the government action. And that's where, you know, censoriousness is part of what fueled the liberal left of the 2000s. I'm literally just old enough

to kind of remember that. I grew up in it, you know, these evangelicals and this feeling that if you said anything bad about Bush, you're a traitor, right? Like you're a traitor, you hate the troops. And it's like, no, we love the troops. We don't want them to die abroad, right? And it's like, oh, you can't say that. Oh my God, I can't

flashbacks. You need to support our president. Yeah, literally flashbacks to 2005 here. If you want to, if you're too young, that's how insane things were. Well, you know, we're kind of right back to that. especially in the Charlie Kirk situation. And so that's where, you know, his point about this kind of like social libertarianism, which I think was a huge, huge impact on the Trump administration.

And if you look at a lot of the ways that the Trump two is different than Trump one, a lot of the liberals would say it's more authoritarian. I would say it's a lot more socially libertarian because what people forget is that the first Trump administration was very anti-weed, right, in 2017. Now, the president of the United States himself is like, oh, yeah, we're cool with weed. Why? Because a bunch of bros use it and they want them to vote for it. TikTok, same thing.

For young people, it used to be a China thing. Now we're just selling it for parts to, you know, Rupert Murdoch and these guys and Larry Ellison and those guys. But the broad thing that kind of fuels that is one, which is like much more trying to accommodate really what Charlie was the main organizer for, which was like young men in particular who are right wing. But what are this the one thing that we know? A lot of the reason why these young guys are right wing in the first place is because they don't want to be scolded or told what to think and what to do.

And now the shoe is kind of on the other foot. So in a way, it's a smart bet from Ted. Now, by the way, it's smart only in the sense of, like, grand strategy. Like, he himself will never be that vehicle. But that's a sick of course. Yeah, true. And this is a man who's wanted to be president of the United States, like, since he was born. So I don't put out that he is also trying to, like, find some angle, some 2028 angle.

Also wanted to play for you some pretty extraordinary, I would say, comments from Ty Cobb. The reason why they're really noteworthy is this guy used to be Trump's White House attorney, and he makes some pretty, like I said, pretty extraordinary comments here about this crackdown on the media. Let's go ahead and take a listen to that. Well, I think, Kristen, that it's evocative of what we've seen throughout history. I mean, in 1939, Dr. Goebbels at Hitler's instructor. removed five comedians or witticists, as they were called at the time, from the airways in Germany and for criticizing or making fun of the government in a satire way.

Putin, when he took over in the early 2000s, one of the first things he did was systematically violence critical media outlets and independent TV channels. were bought out or shut down. You know, Trump is waging war on people who offend me. You know, he's all about vengeance. And sadly, his subordinates, like one of the Project 2025 authors, Brandon Kerr of the FCC, are following in line. And, you know, perhaps the Presidential Crimes Commission

that Representative Swalwell called for recently. consider this at the end of this administration. But these people are, you know, abandoning our constitutional rights and our constitutional freedoms. Even Senator Loomis today by saying, you know, she doesn't feel like enforcing the First Amendment at this point, despite having, you know, liked it when it suited her. That's a violation of her oath of office, where she takes an oath to preserve and protect the Constitution. So I think this is really tragic, and I think, as Carr said yesterday, there will be more shoes to drop.

I think we can count on that. This will be three and a half more years of vengeance. Ty Cobb, his famous mustache. The famous, yeah, very, very iconic, we'll say, mustache. But, yeah, I mean, this is the guy used to work for Trump, and he immediately reaches for the Nazi analogy alongside of saying this is what Putin did. And I think we have to put it in the broader context, which we talked about last week just briefly of we're not just talking about Kimmel here. We're talking about a strategy of using

lawsuits to basically, you know, extract, like, concessions from media organizations. And we're talking about a speed run to consolidation of a bunch of media outlets in the hands of explicit Trump allies who also happen to be extremely pro-Israel, specifically the Ellison family. I would flip that around a little bit. It all goes, like, it goes together, right? It all goes together. For now it goes together. Yeah. So you've got, you know, CBS, and then you've got very likely CNN and HBO and Comedy Central, and then you've got Meta is Zuckerberg is like, you know, totally bent the need of Trump and is doing whatever Trump wants.

Elon owns Twitter. By the way, Elon was there sitting next to Trump at Charlie Kirkson Memorial, which was also noteworthy. And then you have, go ahead and, well, we want to, we don't have to play this thought, but we also have TikTok, now part of the group that is taking over TikTok includes Rupert Murdoch and effectively Fox News. So the amount of media consolidation into direct Trump allies hands, and then you're using things like, you know, this Kimmel situation and the lawsuits to put a chill through every

other media organization so they're afraid to be too critical and they immediately capitulate when you, you know, when you're FCC commissioner or you say something about them, it is a, you know, it's a very scary development in terms of freedom of the press. And, you know, for those of you were like, okay, well, that's why we have independent media. Like, you think what we're safe? Are you kidding me? Like we, Disney and these people, they got tons of resources. Any individual, even the biggest, you know, channel that's out there, the biggest streamer, the biggest channel, whatever, isn't, doesn't come close to the amount of power and resources and, you know, ability to fight back that one of these giant corporations

do. So I don't think anyone should be taking comfort in that at this point. Rogan's the biggest in the business, and his deal is 100 to 200 billion, or sorry, 100 to 200 million, right? which is a lot of money. Don't get me wrong. It's like NFL money. Well, Disney fiscal year 2025, revenue was 94 billion. So, and that's what they're up against. Yeah. Yeah. I think that's a very, you know, an important lesson for power and for all of that. Ari, Ty Cobb, I don't know, personal boomer pet peeve is he starts with gerbils and then eventually gets to Putin and Orban, which is, in my opinion, much more analogous. But boomer brain is that everything has to start. with World War II. Let's go ahead, though, and start with Tim Dillon, or get to Tim Dillon,

who has been one of the more outspoken comedians on this. Let's take a listen. You can't think it's a great idea that the FCC, the chairman of the FCC, goes on a podcast and goes, we could do it the easy way, the easy way, we could think about revoking broadcast licenses, and then pressure as affiliates to drop this show. because this guy said something the President of the United States doesn't like. The President of the United States then also follows it up by going,

hey, Seth Myers, you know, Fallon, Seth Myers, you're next. I don't think it was a particularly good thing for Jimmy Kimball to say this guy was MAGA. He wasn't MAGA. By the way, it's easily correctable. You can correct the record without destroying someone's ability to speak. everybody thinking that Jimmy Kimmel being removed and indefinitely suspended from ABC

means that you are winning you're a fool so there's Tim with his take on that there were similar ones the Andrew Schultz who else in Australia spoke out against it Akash Singh on the flagrant podcast as well those are the ones I just immediately off the top of my head at least the ones who were more interested in politics curious to see what Theo Vaughan and them have to say in Rogan they haven't commented yet but I don't think they've had episodes as well. It does show you and demonstrate my Ted Cruz point about this, is that, you know, if you think the podcast constituency is important, which I do, I didn't say it won the whole election, but it was something. It was definitely something. Well, within that

is kind of this, you know, if you think about it, it's like that is an archetypal demographic for whom they don't want to be told what to do. And they don't like government overreach. And one of the ways that they were annoyed with comma or Biden was, let's say, you know, pressuring the meta or all these other people to take down, you know, what they called vaccine misinformation. Some of it was. Some of it was totally true, by the way. But, you know, that kind of gets to the annoyance and the feeling of having rulers over you that you can't speak out against, which is a very American thing to do to say, no, actually,

screw you. And that's where Tim Dillon and the rest of the guys are. I mean, I do have to get my dig in. Like, I don't know why you thought that Trump was going to be. be some beacon of like free speech. Okay, but why should we? See, everyone keeps saying this, but let's have the- It's true.

Okay, y'all, Kamala was going to be the beacon of free speech. So if you have to choose between the two, who are you going to pick? But there was no like, oh, well, maybe I should take note of the fact that this guy is always trying to, like, change the libel laws and threatening in his first administration he tried to ban flag burning, et cetera. So I just, I don't think any of that was present in the conversation. I'm glad to see these comments now, but I just, you know, I think if that was like your primary reason for voting for Trump.

I just think it was, if that was your primary reason, no offense, he said and done, et cetera. If that was your primary offense, no offense, you're an idiot, which we often said here at the time. It's like, obviously, like, everybody kind of believed. But, you know, I see these owns all the time. And it's like, oh, the people who were literally trying to censor Alex Parenthood or Fox News or whatever are going to be going to give us a lecture about all this. Like, come on. Like, there's no, the fact is, is they both kind of equally believe in power. And, you know, the Republicans are probably just a lot more crass about it.

but I don't know. I just think who can be lectured by an establishment liberals about free speech? They're more willing to use the full force and weight of the government is what we're seeing. But the only reason they are is because they don't have the same cultural power. Well, they do now. I mean, with liberals, it was much more about using the cultural power. And here it's like, I'm going to make your, I'm going to make sure your deal doesn't go through. I'm going to, like, threaten you directly.

I'm going to do whatever I can to try to crush you. so you have an overt, like, full of government attack in a way that is definitely different from what we saw under the Biden administration and we covered all the things, you know, the Twitter files. This show's been here from day one. Yes, we've been consistent. Yeah, but I was more just saying people were like,

oh, we voted for Trump. And I'm like, okay, but again, go back in time. What would a Kamala administration have done? Probably the same shit, except about anti-racism. No, no, no, no, yes. You think they would have used the whole government to, like, threaten people? I mean, even if they wanted to, they just don't have the balls to do it.

Anti-racism and, quote, voting rights. Yeah, I absolutely. But they didn't. I mean, we had Biden Harris. Yeah, and he was literally a dunce. And they didn't, they did not do those things. I don't know. So I don't know why you would protect that they would do different things this time around.

Because Biden was a literal dunce. And in some way, his duncery was like a check in a way. Kamala's a genius. I don't say she's a genius, but she's breathing, okay? And there's a little bit of a difference. I think, I mean, I, I disagree. I don't think there's any evidence that. and I'm not saying that they were great on free speech.

We had our critiques at the time. But this is extraordinarily the consolidation of power in Trump ally hands, the consistent effort to quash, you know, any sort of universities and law firms and media outlets, the weaponization of lawsuits against them. It's different. It is genuinely different. It is genuinely different.

I think the reason is different is because of that point that we made, which is that, you know, the right has the government. It's the last tool that they really have. They don't have any cultural representation, you know, in these companies, maybe a little bit now. They do now. This is kind of my thing about earlier is, you know, is Larry Ellison pro-Trump or is he pro-Israel? Because, you know, which pro you are kind of matters.

Larry Elson's like, he's like a Republican-ish. She's like a Mitt Romney, Tim Scott type. You know, if you remember, he wrote big checks to Tim Scott. Is he pro-Trump or is he just really pro-Israel? And Trump is also pro-Israel, right? So, like, I think the distinguish, to be able to distinguish between that matters because it's like, what's the issue number one that they're going to fight on the most? It's Israel.

Like, that's the main one. Even if you look at Fox News, they hated Trump for years, or at least the Murdoch family. They don't like everything about it. But, oh, but Ukraine, Israel, you know, what else am I? There's like a couple of other issues. That's what they get the most animated about. And that's like a neo-conservative, you know, kind of religion. At this point, these people are definitely pro-Trump, though.

Oh, 100%. Only because of Trump operationally where he is right now. But, like, I don't think they care. Frankly, I think they hate Trump at a personal level. They're happy to, you know, have his administration. But they like that they get their tax cuts. They like the Israel policy. They like all of those things.

Yeah. That matters. One last, just we can just touch on this quickly because I think it's an important point. Lena Kahn has been talking about the way that the incredible concentration of power within the media industry in particular is making it much easier for the Trump administration to consolidate power and indulge his authoritarian tendencies. This is B5. Let's go ahead and take a listen to this.

Well, look, I think what we are seeing right now is a very clear display of how monopolies and concentrated economic power work hand in hand with authoritarian figures. As you noted, what this is about for the president is concentrating political control, and it is so much easier to do that when you have an economy that is as concentrated as we have today. If you're a president who wants to censor your critics, media markets where five companies control everything, make it much easier to do so than markets where you have 50 or more companies. And so this is really just putting in stark illustration how the extreme consolidation of economic power that we've seen in this country over the last few decades is now right for abuse by a president with such

authoritarian leading. And, you know, this is actually a pretty old lesson. Even after World War II, the U.S. Government Commission studies to figure out what was it that allowed the rise of Nazism in Germany, and they found that industrial monopolists actually helped facilitate the rise of Hitler. As a result, Congress passed something called the 1950 Anti-Murger Act because they worried that extreme consolidation in America could also lead to the rise of anti-democratic pressure. So these are lessons that were so central to our country for decades. Unfortunately, as we adopted a legal regime that was so much more permissive of mergers, of economic consolidation, it's brought us to the situation we're in today.

And just to back that up with some numbers, like a B6 up on the screen with regard to the media consolidation, this more perfect union says in 1983, 50 companies controlled 90% of the US media market. That number now is down to five. So from 50 down to five. And it's interesting,

this relates to saga. We were talking a little bit about like the libertarians are winning a lot of arguments right now because there's different ideologies. Well, there's different ideologies on the left. There's one ideology that says, Actually, it's good to have big, giant, like, industrial concerns. Like, for example, if you think about Amazon, okay, if you have this one giant company,

oh, well, if you force unionization on them, if you force them to, you know, lift their wages, then you're having a larger impact all at once. But it's effectively, like, a very high-risk environment when you have so much power consolidated, because on the other hand, you can also have a president like Trump, who uses in the opposite direction makes it much easier for him to, you know, consolidate power in the way that he is. Look, it's a fascinating question of which I am genuinely torn on. You cannot look at the Chinese model and tell me it doesn't work. It obviously works and it works super well. It has surpassed

American industry. And so there's a debate here in America, how do we achieve the same level of innovation? So the anti-monopolis like Lena and others would say that consolidation itself actually quashes competition. And inherently, that is just not true if you look at China. What they could say is that in an American context, we simply don't have the same. cultural unity and agreement that the Chinese have. And so thus, you know, with our heterogeneous differences, we need to debate and that this is more American in character. It's a really, it's a tough problem. Because if you look back at, you know, she uses the German example, the industrialists. But, you know, we had huge consolidation too during World War II to achieve economy of scale to spin up

the war machines where the government came in and effectively operated like China. So, you know, There's a quote where it's something like to beat the enemy. You often have to become the enemy. I'm like butchering it a little bit. But I don't really see exactly how you can contest B-YD, Huawei. I was just showing our crew these new Huawei foldable. This is better than anything that exists in the United States. Like hands down, it's cheaper.

It's better. It's called the Matebook or something like that. B-YD, by the way, just became the fastest car in the entire world like yesterday on a street track. You can't look at that and say that, and say that, you know, deconsolidation or whatever would be able to challenge it. I don't see it. Although we also, I mean, it's not like BYD is the only cartmaker in China. So it's not like they just like invest everything in one monopoly.

There's a lot of actually competition within the Chinese. They give the floor. Yeah, within the Chinese system, there is actually a lot of competition. But, I mean, I hear what you're saying. Like, that's why I phrased it as like a high risk landscape. It's a high risk landscape. It's also a high reward landscape if you do things right. And if you, you know, aren't just trying to like serve your.

own corrupt ends, but unfortunately that's the press that we have right now. It's not even just that because everybody reaches for the lever when they have it. So, you know, we talked to, we just had an argument on Biden. Well, what did they do with meta? You remember when Jen Saki was like, if you're banned from when social media platform, you should be banned from them all, right? I mean, that stuff, it's only possible to exert that pressure because there's only three companies in the world that control, you know, 90%. That is dangerous in a free society. And it also gets to that argument we're having about government power versus cultural power. One One of the reasons, one of the clips of mine that made me relatively famous or whatever

on the right was in 2019, I said that corporations could be just as much of a threat to your freedom and liberty as the government. And I still believe that, obviously, but part of the reason why is because of situations like what we just talked about, where you can have a full-on crush, let's say, collaboration between three different companies, and if you're parlor, you're dead overnight. I mean, that was very scary. Now, obviously, now through Trump, you know, we're learning why the government, people are afraid of the government too. So I get it. And I think that's a fair enough, you know, counterbalance. But that time was really scary and dangerous as well. So, you know, we have to ask that question. What does it mean for consolidation in what area? I believe it's, you know, the more socialists are saying that big is better because then you can force like rules on them. And I mean, they're not wrong. If you look at China, that's basically what they've done to lay out the rules. At the same time, if you, you know, the explosion.

small business. America is a country of entrepreneurs traditionally. If we had smaller banks, I listened to a fascinating podcast of why if we just had much smaller banks compared to the megabanks, it would create a lot more credit and it would actually enable, like credit unions and other things. It would actually enable a lot more commerce and median wage growth, et cetera. So I don't know. I've thought a lot about it. And I think there's also a big divide between how the U.S. government needs to compete in strategic industry and then how the average American should also have to be able to conduct commerce because maybe that's the two separate conversation like aerospace and all that like Boeing sorry like aerospace probably should just

be a monopoly so it's one of those things where i mean certain things that you have this you know natural monopolies are a thing you know i mean even like the social media we've talked to solar about that even the social media companies like the reason that they function is because everybody's there right so if you it it doesn't really work to have like a thousand different social media companies because then you're not getting the benefit out of it but then you know they should be, if they're effectively, like, public utilities, they should be regulated differently, and there should be, you know, some governance and the public interest. I mean, I guess bottom line, there's just no getting around, like, electing people who are, like, good. Yeah, that's right.

The interests of the country are just, like, no shortcut around that. Libertarians are also always like, well, everything needs to be a check. I'm like, yeah, but sometimes you have great leaders, like FDR. Sometimes you do, and it's great. America gets transformed. Or a Theodore Roosevelt, or, you know, Grant, Lincoln, you know, these people, when they have immense power, power at the disposal. They use it for good. And then they're like, yeah, but the bad ones use it for bad. I would argue on balance, you know, we've come out pretty damn well. Maybe not recently. We've had a bad 40 years. That a bad 40-year stretch. But, you know, before that, the system, I don't know. I think it works. I still think it works. So I still

just feeling that so much right now. But yeah. 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, artists, and activists to bring you death and analysis from a unique Latino perspective. The Moment is a space for the conversations we've been having us father and daughter for years. Listen to The Moment with Jorge Ramos and Paola Ramos on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

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?

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