Chapo Trap House - 971 - The Years of Whatever feat. Will Sommer (9/22/25)

Episode Date: September 23, 2025

Will Sommer of The Bulwark returns to Chapo to talk about the right’s reaction to the assassination of Charlie Kirk as well as his funeral proceedings in Arizona. We recap the Groyper War that preceded the assassination and the pressure it put on Kirk to move right, as well as the conspiracies surrounding his shooting. Was Israel involved? Why was there no exit wound? Did Charlie have a late-in-life conversion to Catholicism? And which faction of the right will be able to define the man’s legacy? Follow Will Sommer on Twitter/X: https://x.com/willsommer

All I'm going to be is he a trouble. All I want to be is there are trouble. We need problems and places. Hello, everybody. It's Monday, September 22nd, and Chapo is back at it. So at beginning this week, we'd like to begin now with a time of healing, a time of whatever. And joining us to discuss the ongoing ramifications of the Charlie Kirk assassination and its political and cultural ramifications is our old pal journalist Will Summer, now at the bulwark. Will, welcome back. Hey, thanks for having me.

You'd think I was in the third chair in the hotel room, the way this bowl work. That went over way this bowl work. That went over way better here than at a certain event that I opened for this weekend in Arizona. They did not like that over there. Well, I'd like to begin today's show, yes. In Arizona, in yesterday, there was the, you know, tens of thousands of people, maybe, you know, tens of thousands of people filled the football stadium outside of Phoenix to take part in a public memorial service for Charlie Kirk. And, you know, I'd like to begin with, yes, our comments made by our president. And will, ever since the Charlie Kirk assassination, people have been. been trying to come up with like what's a pithy phrase to describe the American years of lead I've heard years of lard years of lead paint years of bread but I think I think president Trump really nailed it when he said a time of healing a time of whatever so I'm going to refer

to what's coming as the years of whatever but just to begin with the the memorial service like will from your perspective like how does how does the mag of movement see both this is set the assassination of charlie kirk and this now like this this period of public mourning and uh like public grief like what did you see at that memorial service and what does it tell us about how they see this cultural and political moment yeah i mean a couple things i think number one they see it obviously as a big um a big religious opportunity i mean i think every speech said it was a it was going to be a revival uh you know that this is going to be this like old time religion um it struck me that one turning point USA person before the event said, gee, I sure hope the Trump

family gets saved tonight. So they're basically like, this whole thing is this big religious event. Trump doesn't give a shit about that. And so there's that aspect. I mean, I also think, you know, I mean, there's obviously a lot of genuine feeling. And we saw that from Charlie's wife. But also, I think there's a lot of, you know, it's clearly a, an opportunity for a lot of people. And so there's kind of this scrabble for what Charlie Kirk meant, who was closest to Charlie Kirk what he would have wanted had he lived well yeah i want to talk about that that schism and the sort of jockeying for position for like who will best speak for and control uh his legacy in the in the coming months and years but uh to be to begin with like uh just i i got to start with uh trump's comments

at what was ostensibly a memorial service and what you know the thing about trump is like he's always going to do his thing and i but even so i was a little kind of dumbstruck that like at several points in what was supposed to be, I guess, a eulogy. He just went into the campaign pitch, including talking about how today, apparently, we are going to have an announcement, one of the biggest medical breakthroughs in the history of our country. We think we found the answer to autism. And tomorrow, Bobby and health experts are going to be talking about that. By the way, I was interested to see, have they cured autism? And the announcement today was that Tylenol causes autism. Yeah, that's a surprising one. You know, I think a, I, I,

I've been kind of trying to get to the bottom of why they're picking on Tylenol like this. Certainly the anti-vaccine people are seeing this as sort of a dodge. They're like, you know, Tylenol is the scapegoat here. They really want the vaccines to get to get busted. And for whatever reason, RFK seems to really have zoomed in on Tylenol. And they say they have a cure for autism as well, which is like a kind of folic acid. But I don't think it's going to work out. Yeah.

So instead of pregnant women taking Tylenol, they're recommending that they're recommending that they take philinic acid. I just need to know, like, oh, between RFK and Dr. Oz, like, who owns a company that sells philic acid supplements? That's what I'm going to be looking for. I believe Dr. Oz has a, has an herb company. There you go. There you go. So autism is cured. Trump used his, is like his, his moment speaking to talk about tariffs. He made some comments about, you know, Charlie loved his enemies, but I don't. I hate them. So the religious revival is proceeding apace. But like, uh, just, just a few other highlights. from the other speakers.

My personally, my favorite by far comes from Benny Johnson who said, quote, we must wield the sword for the terror of evil men. So Charlie,

wielding his sword towards evil men once again. Yeah, no, we will light the path that leads to scruff. I, the Trump speech, I'm not going to say

it's like, you know, greatest hits because actually I have, been like, for the past like two years or so, I've been pretty sick of all the people who are like, you know, he's the last great American stand up. And then you watch a press conference and he's just mumbling about how college students are anti-Semitic. And it's like,

boy, this is real funny. This is hilarious. But, um, this was, I would say this is about as funny as any day in 2018, what he did at the, at the funeral, only to be upstage by, like the fireworks they set off for when Erica went to speak I thought Stone Cold was coming out yeah like I like

I'm sure like I have no reason to like disbelieve her when she says she like forgives the Tyler Robinson guy or or you know that her feelings are genuine but it's just like it's so fucking

weird to do that it's like at that point at that point, you just have to declare that Protestantism isn't Christianity anymore, or at least like not in America. Well, I mean, there's some speculation about a trolley's departure from the path of Luther. I'm going to get to that in a second. But the comments, the speech at the funeral or at the memorial service, rather, that I want to get into is, Will, how would you describe Stephen Miller's speech? I mean, Stephen Miller, there was a lot of tonal shifts here. I mean, there were kind of a lot of like evangelical stuff you had erika kirk on one end very forgiving

as you mentioned um and then you had people like step and to a lesser extent trump um and benny johnson i'd include there who really like you know we are out for blood i mean stephen miller clearly he was saying you know these people who took charlie from us they can't create anything they're this kind of like dead end and you know and they're it was almost like like orks or something he was really like riled up about them um and the thing i would add about the fireworks is TPSA loves fireworks, right? They use them in every chance they get. And so, like, if you ever watch a conference where, like,

Benny Johnson comes out with the memes, they'll shoot off, like, it's like a fourth of July. And so when they did this, I was like, man, I think they just have a ton of fireworks. Like, they know how to do this and they wanted to do it. And then the head of TPSA now, where they're kind of Charlie's producer said, basically, we just like fireworks a lot. You know, that's why we did it. Honestly, that's the most defensible thing about that organization that I've ever heard.

well uh well you're in stephen miller's speech but uh among some of the poll quotes from it uh quote you are nothing you can build nothing you can produce nothing you can create nothing we are the ones who build we are the ones who create another quote the storm whispers to the warrior that you cannot withstand my strength and the warrior whispers back i am the storm erika is the storm we are the storm that's from facebook that's from fucking facebook that's like guys are in Bangalore sending that to each other on WhatsApp every morning. Like what does he mean where the

like has Stephen Miller worked in politics like his entire life? Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think Alan West when he ran the Texas GOP, he got he was kind of the first guy to really get out front and that like we are the storm like the warrior whispers whispers back there.

I miss Alan West. He was just, um, I mean, talk about just being too early. And then one of the one of his final comments was we will achieve victory for our children, for our families, for our civilization, and for every patriot who stands with us. I mean, a lot of people have noted some of the, I don't know, omages that this speech made to a certain other speech made by a certain other political communicator following the death of Horst Wessel. But when Stephen Miller says our children, does he mean white children or like literally the kids that he's sharing with Elon? This is not an accusation

The bulwark does not stand by this Well he says Our lineage and our legacy Hails back to Athens To Rome to Philadelphia to Monticello Our ancestors built the cities They produced the art and architecture They built the industry

Well not his ancestors specifically But you know the ones he's talking about But Will like this gets back to like They clearly feel the wind Like this assassination has put like some wind in their sales And I'm not saying that they weren't already planning to this is already how they saw them themselves and how they saw the maggot movement, but they feel a sense of opportunity and

revitalization with this. We're like, you know, they've, Jimmy Kimmel, they got him yanked off the air. Now, TikTok is about to be sold to a bunch of Trump billionaires and Israel. But like, they feel that this is a moment in which they get to remake the culture. And like, how are they pursuing that? And like, how are they taking advantage of this opportunity? Yeah. I mean, I think the Republicans clearly see this as sort of like a second. win for the Trump administration. You know, we're putting the Epstein stuff in the past. We're putting the big beautiful bill, which kind of flopped. We're moving on. And as you said, I mean, they're on the verge of taking over TikTok. Larry Ellison is going to run both CBS and I think more importantly,

CNN. You know, you have all these, the walls are kind of closing in on liberal civil society. And so, I mean, look, we don't exactly know how they're going to capitalize on this. But, I mean, you can look at Stephen Miller's speech. There's a lot of, like, we're going to go out to these liberal networks who, I don't know if it was at the memorial or something else, people are saying like, you know, these people who are printing these signs, you know, who's paying for the protest signs? I mean, that's like pretty standard free speech stuff. And they're talking about pursuing people based on that. But I do think there's also, again, there's this religious aspect where they see, you know, the pews are packed and the, you know, if you really want to

make a buck right now, if you're a liberal commentator, if you could just tweet like, I went to the church to church for the first time last week. Like, I'm a Republican now. You know, you see these people doing this and getting a huge amount of retweets. So it's a big, I think they think that the tent has really been expanded and a lot of people are being turned to the right because of this. Well, one thing I'm curious about is I was during the election and in the immediate aftermath, I was pretty interested in people who, people on the online right who sort of staked out a position early as someone who was obviously. either decisively to the right of Trump or was maybe branding themselves as more moderated in some ways and appealing to a broader audience, but still sort of attacking him from the

right. Nick Fuentes would be like the first guy I would think of who's doing that, where with him, it really seemed like he made an educated guess that the austerity stuff was going to be very unpopular. It has been interesting seeing all those people jump on this in just the same way. I mean, a ton of them, like Charlie Kirk was their biggest enemy for like most of the last five years. But out of, out of anyone on the right, specifically like people in the Tucker or the Fuentes

lane, are there people who are at least off the record will show that they're cognizant of the fact that like things were not going well before this and that I mean did that they might not be going well quite soon yeah I mean look when I talk to Republicans uh in the aftermath of this I mean they're they're extremely mercenary I mean these right wing media personalities I mean they're saying can her Erica Kirk hold on oh I don't know she can I think her her speech helped dispel some of that at least for the short term but there's a sense that really like the wolves are circling T.P. USA. You know, yeah, I mean, Nick Fuentes, I think, you know, he was just bashing the memorial. He's, he, he kind of pushed his lifeboat out months ago. I mean, he was saying, you know,

this is a bunch of, you know, evangelical Protestant sickos. You know, why can't they let this guy rest in peace? But again, I mean, you mentioned Tucker Carlson, who got up there and basically said, you know, those hummus eating Jews, like, you know, they sure love to kill people. Makes you think, doesn't it? And, and so there's a lot of, you know, you have, you have these people who are positioning comes weirdly is like not necessarily anti-Trump, but like a little apart from Trump, people like Candace Owens, as you said, or or Tucker Carlson. And I think they're, they're laying the groundwork for 2028, where are they going to fit in in a post-Trump world? You know, and as I've written, I think there's this sense that Trump, it's kind of a lame duck. It's like,

it's not hitting anymore with the audience as like it used to. Um, is there anyone in the Trump or a bit proper, like anyone who, I mean, probably not, it probably wouldn't be anyone who who had his direct align to him as like Charlie Kirk did, but someone who like could at least maybe get FaceTime who, um, you know, is capable of stating the obvious around like maybe some of Trump's economic woes or, or is that just it's that was a Trump one relic. There's just none of that left anymore. Yeah, I think it's all yes, man. I like all around him. And even in right wing media, I mean, you know, you guys mentioned, it's weird with Charlie Kirk because he has understandably become so deified on the right. But, you know, even in the past couple weeks, it's not like people, even in right wing media were like, oh, Charlie Kirk is this universally beloved figure. I mean, Laura Lumer was attacking him. He was seen as kind of a dupe for Trump. I mean, we famously, Trump called him and said, hey, stop talking about Epstein. And he said, I don't want to talk about Epstein anymore. We're all moving on with our lives. but like you that's interesting like but because like despite these these fissures existing before

and now like perhaps widening in in his murder like he clearly has become a martyr like and the bloody shirt is being waived and well i'm wondering if like what you think of the comparison because like obviously like they're they're very focused on changing the culture and like and i think a lot of the way they talk about this they're they're talking about it like it's in response to what they saw in like 2020, 2021. And like, I think they view Charlie Kirk, like, not as George Floyd, but they look at this as like their George Floyd moment in that like here is like a sainted victim who is the victim, you know, who was killed by violent, systematic hatred. And like now they want this like watershed moment where they were they literally like, say his name, write his name on

this coffee cup, Starbucks worker. You have to. We have to like change the way people think and we have to police, like the way people think and interact with each other in public. What do you make of that comparison? Yeah, I mean, they'll make that very openly. They'll, they'll say, you know, this is our George Floyd, you know, well, at the same time, also saying, you know, this is our Martin Luther King. I saw one guy say, you know, isn't it amazing that, you know, Charlie Kirk's funeral has been made such a bigger impact than it was watched more than Martin Luther King or JFK's funeral. And it's like, I don't know. I don't know if that's true. But there's been this, as you said, I think they see this, they kind of have, they have this kind of self-righteous moment where they think they can

enforce norms. I mean, as we saw with Jimmy Kimmel, or they can, you know, Consequence culture. Exactly. And I mean, they really like, you know, this is what we see from from what they call the new right where basically they think the right of the old days, even the first Trump administration was too caught up in things like, you know, the Constitution or the bill of rights or, you know, trying not to be hypocritical or concern that liberals would do it to them when they're in power. And so now they, people like J.D. Vance, Peter Thiel, a Menchus moldbug. They see themselves as really like the point of the state when they have the power is to crush their enemies without any concern about, you know, the niceties of American history

or precedent. And so I think that's what we're seeing here. And the other thing is like they just really hate that the left has such a big slice of the culture. And so they think they need this state power and this kind of nastiness to take it back. Just like one small digression on like exercising this cultural power. Have you been following this stuff about how like Starbucks has had to officially say that you can name, call yourself Charlie Kirk and that they will write Charlie Kirk on your coffee cup for you? Because there was this like staged thing over the weekend where this someone was trying to claim that like the Starbucks employee wrote loser on their coffee cup when they said their name was Charlie Kirk. I guess what I'm asking is like, how did Starbucks employees become like the sin eaters

for blue America like all over the rest of the country? It's like like if you see if you're conservative and you see something in the news that the libs did that piss you off. You just go to your local Starbucks and like, is it because Starbucks is like coded as like a liberal brand and the people who work at Starbucks are like young people? I swear to God, we had this exact same

conversation like nine years ago like in the first year of the show. Like this was going on back then. I mean, I remember what we said back then was just that like Starbucks is the only place left where like people still sort of hang out?

I think that's part of it. Yeah, I know what you're saying, Felix. I mean, I feel like there's something at least something in the past of like making, you know, writing some name on the on the cup. Yeah. I mean, and the unique thing here, right, is that Charlie Kirk had this specific order. It was like tea with honey, I think, that supposedly soothed his voice from all the talking.

And so they go and they say, you know, I want the lemonade tea with honey for Charlie. And then I mean, the idea of it's Starbucks. or you're writing, loser, you know, while funny. Apparently, I guess they checked the security cameras and it didn't happen. I'm sure they were really satisfied with that. But, but I mean, it's, I think maybe it's, you know, I think you were pointing at this as well is that they're kind of this like blue-coded thing, but they're everywhere, including in Red America. And so you can go and like, this is probably where your local liberal is working. I'm, I'm going to, I'm going to start doing that for, but for Cracker Barrel. And I'm going to make them serve me liberal food and have

liberal Chatskies for sale in the restaurant slash store. I guess like the last thing I want to talk about like the Charlie Kirk Memorial, like, okay, you've got Stephen Miller and his Goebbels like speech about using this to purge all enemies of goodness and, you know, like, and destroy conclusively like the enemies within the state. You've got the WWE style pyrotechnics. You've got Donald Trump who like transparently can't be bothered to give a shit about this dead guy who he's supposed to be mourning.

and then you just have like the overall tenor of it and like this is what I would describe as and like the generally the religious tenor of it this is what I would describe as something Felix and I have discussed like you've heard the term the inshittification of the media or the internet this to me is the Garth Enisification

of American politics and by that I mean like when I see things on the news that like 10 years ago if I was writing a screenplay or a comic about what America would be like 10 years in the future in some dystopian state I would go, that's too on the nose.

That's hack. And I was thinking about that in light of the AI-generated Charlie Kirk memorials that are being played at churches where they like show him talking to St. Paul and other martyred saints and people are crying watching this. I'm thinking of the giant statue of the golden statue of Trump holding a Bitcoin. And just generally like this whole spectacle of like the complete and final merging of Christianity or religion with politics because like like what do you do you see like the way the Christian right like they've like in many ways the election of Trump and like his dominance of

the party has really like sidelined evangelical Christian conservatism but like they've taken it in stride and I think they've totally absorbed this new paradigm like what do you make of that and like how like how is religion changing as it relates to politics on the right yeah I mean Just to cite a couple more examples of that. I mean, of the spectacle just in the past week. I mean, we got more details on the UFC fight on the White House lawn that we're going to get. The, you know, they're the way in at the Lincoln Memorial. And then also the, in Oklahoma, there's a bill to mandate every university have a Charlie Kirk Square.

You get a choice. You can have a Charlie Kirk at the desk statue or you can have a Charlie Kirk with his family statue. And so I think the right has seen its opera or the Christian right has seen an opportunity to, I mean, I think it's no surprise that they have wanted to enforce their values, you know, whether it was the second Bush administration or what have you. And Trump, I mean, is obviously willing to be much more authoritarian than past presidents. So, I mean, they're on board. I mean, I think it's a broad coalition.

And, you know, religiously, they often hate each other. I mean, between Jews and in these kind of tradcasts, the new Catholic converts in the evangelicals. And I think we'll get into that about the Charlie Kirk legacy. But, I mean, they're all kind of united in this idea of crushing the left. Before we're going to do that, I want to talk a little bit about, like, some of the details of the shooting itself. And, like, the thing that struck me this weekend was the comments made by a Turning Point USA spokesman Andrew Colvert, who said that, speaking with Charlie Kirk's surgeon, it says, according to Colvert, the surgeon explained that the round absolutely should have gone through, which is very, very normal for a high-powered, high-velocity round. I've seen wounds from this caliber many times, and they always just go through everything. this would have taken down a moose or two down, an elk. And then he said, like, Charlie Kirk's bone was so healthy and so impressive that he's like a man of steel. And he saved the lives of others by having his spine stop this bullet from creating an exit wound. Like, well, what is going on with there? And of course, like, how is this fueling, like, speculation about, I don't know, a possible alternate theories for this shooting? Yeah, I mean, the conspiracy theories on this are insane. I mean, you know, on one hand,

You know, you can't think of an assassination that was more covered in terms of video, but there are still, there are all these things going around. I mean, for one thing, after the shooting, a guy grabbed the one of the, the camera that was even closer to Charlie Kirk with a video we haven't seen, presumably, because it was insanely gruesome. And people are like, we got to know what happened to that camera. Candice Owen says, I got to see the camera. You know, in terms of the, oh, the, right, so the, the Andrew Colvette is addressing why was there no exit wound. And look, I try to be patient with the Turning Point USA people. Obviously, they've gone through this, like, incredibly traumatic thing. But I was reading this, and I was just like, all right.

Basically, he says, Charlie's bones were so uniquely healthy and dense that they stopped. Normally the bullet would have gone through and hurt someone else. But Charlie's body protected those bystanders by catching, by stopping the bullet. And then, as you said, he quotes his Charlie's doctor saying he's like the man of steel. And of course, that, you know, there's this weird thing where they're trying to address these conspiracy theories because they exist very much in conspiracy theory land themselves on the right. But they're only fueling them because people say, well, wait a minute. You know, I wasn't really paying attention to this stuff about like the mystery gunmen or the angles. But now you're saying that his body was uniquely strong and that's why there's no evidence of an exit wound.

Yeah, I mean, like, look, I, I am neither here nor there on, like, look, I think if you, if we're looking at this like cogently, soberly, if they were capable of, you know, just pulling off a hit and for the most part, keeping it under such wraps that like everyone is just sort of chasing, chasing their tail looking, for breadcrumbs, you'd figure they would do it more often. On the other hand, I think it's funny to accuse people and entities of doing it. But this is, this is, this made me believe that like something is up more than just about anything else I'd say in. Yeah. I mean, like, was there an exit wound or not? Like, apparently not.

I mean, at least according to a turning point. I mean, the like, it's obviously, it's not clear from the, the video. But, you know, there's been a lot of, and I should say, I mean, Cash Patel has really latched onto this. I mean, over the weekend, he said, look, we're looking at everything, different angles for the guns. If you think there was a hand signal that was being sent, we're looking at that. You know, I'm in the telegram chats too.

I mean, you know, it's essentially a long bit of life. He's basically saying, I mean, he lays out stuff that goes beyond, you know, they've said, oh, they're looking at who else knew about this or whatever. But he's really like, we're looking at every kind of crazy idea you might have. I mean, what I'll say on this is, you know, like, I try to hold lightly explanations for current events that I find, like, instinctively entertaining or emotionally satisfying. I will say this. They are trying to do everything possible to make me believe there is a conspiracy involved in this or that there's something more than the official, sort of the official narrative here, which is also one that, like, I don't dismiss out of hand or find completely ludicrous. like the official narrative being essentially the plot of dog day afternoon except for a political

assassination instead of a bank robbery. But like I got to bring it up. The other thing that really just made me raise an eyebrow was Netanyahu just saying out of nowhere, we didn't kill Charlie Kirk and talking about it for like several minutes. And I was just thinking, why would, like, I understand like the accusation is out there, but he wasn't asked. And like, when has he ever commented on any of the other people that? he's supposedly not killing. Yeah, it's like, it's like walking into a job interview and being like, I had nothing to do with Columbine.

Yeah. The, I mean, this is where I think Netanyahu's clearly like extremely podcast brained. I mean, he's hanging out with the Nelk boys, all this stuff. And so, you know, obviously he's watching Candace Owens and Tucker make these insinuations. And he puts this video out. I mean, it's really bizarre. I mean, he obviously is bombing half the Middle East. He's busy with other things you would think.

but and of course as you said well i mean the masad is blamed for just about everything that goes on um and that this is the one specifically that he has to rebut well okay well let's talk about that because like much of the like this schism over like the legacy of what is maga what is charlie kirk's legacy and like did he make a turn or was he about to make a turn against Israel like that that seems to be like this this schism that's going on right now that you've covered does seem to be like, what will determine the legacy of MAGA in its future direction? Like, is it America first or is it Israel first? Which country is coming first? So like, could you describe what are the contours of this split? And like who is on what side and like how are they

debating like the terms of this like of this right now? Yeah. So I mean, this is a split that really hinges on. Was Charlie Kirk a really kind of like establishment pro-Israel? Ben Shapiro like Republican up until his last day? Or was he turning on Israel? Was he growing more skeptical? And then sort of relatedly, was he becoming an economic populist? Was he becoming Catholic? All this stuff. And so the factions here are you have on one hand, Erica Kirk, the widow, I think. She's supposed to address this later this week, kind of rebut Candace Owens. You have people like kind of the Turning Point USA organization. You have a lot of pro-Israel pundits. But the real action here is on the other side with Candice Owens, who's like insanely anti-Semitic on top of everything else,

very anti-Israel, and Tucker Carlson, and then like Roger Stone. And so you have, they're saying, well, Charlie in his last days, he was growing critical of Israel. Bill Ackman had him out to this kind of influencer retreat in the Hamptons and harangued him about Israel. He was being threatened. Oh, he had to go to Israel, all this stuff. And then there's this implication that, oh, and then, you know, a month later, he ends up dead, you know, make of that what you will. I obviously, I don't think that like I obviously think Israel is like morally capable of fucking just about anything right but it's just the weird thing about this one is it's just it's such a weird choice for them to make you know like they are obviously plugged in to the right wing the

American right wing scene but it just see like if you were trying the the basic theory that I see people put out is that it is they did this to like take the heat off of them which a like how has how has heat being on them prevented them for being able to do whatever the fuck they wanted with either Trump or Biden and B it's just like if you were trying to create a distraction I mean wouldn't you like why wouldn't you kill like Sabrina carpenter like someone more. famous. I know. It's just, it's, it's a weird one. I would have to see, I would have to see a more developed theory, you know? I agree. This one isn't really hitting right. Like, even by conspiracy theorist standards. I mean, I, I think that, you know, there's not really, I don't think anything that ties Israel to this. Um, you know, it's interesting, I guess that you would think the trans girlfriend roommate angle would satisfy the right, but they seem to be not really into it. They seem to be like, you know, we got to, we got, we got, there's got

be a second shooter. There's got to be more. Well, yeah. I mean, like, it seemed like there was a lot of skepticism about the official narrative of who the shooter is, like, why the shooting happened on the right initially, because in like the early hours, they were like, we need public execution for whoever did this. And then it turned out to just be like a white suburban kid. And they were like, okay, well, it's time for forgiveness. And I guess like, look, I wouldn't, I wouldn't put anything past him. I'm not putting my marker down too hard on any theory right now. But like, my problem with the Israel theory is that it does depend. heavily on the idea that of Charlie Kirk having some sort of moral revelation about Israel's

conduct or like, it will require him feeling bad about large numbers of non-white people being killed. So like I said, like, I mean, what is the there there for the idea that Charlie Kirk was perhaps, I don't know, turning over a new leaf as it regards the United States policy towards Israel? In sort of in early August, he was getting slightly critical of Israel. Basically, he was saying young people are getting kind of fed up with, even young conservatives are getting fed up with how long this war has gone on, time to wrap it up. And then he goes to this influencer retreat. Now, Candice Owens claims Bill Ackman confronted him. Other people who are there, and by the way, are probably very well financed by the Turning Point USA organization and donors

say, no, that didn't happen. But then the next day, Charlie Kirk goes on Megan Kelly's show, and he's just like, I'm sick of these Israel people. He's like, they've treated me in a repulsive way for even voicing mild criticism. So he definitely, I mean, it seems like something happened to that retreat or around that time that really riled him up. I mean, I just like, I've, I'm sure he did, like, he did like come to loggerheads with people from the Israel lobby, absolutely. But the idea that he had like a genuine change of heart and not just that he's,

he is a near lifelong media figure whose specific thing is, is that he, is that he communicates with young people. Like, obviously it's him realizing, oh, shit, I can't make jokes about how they'll get thrown off the building in Gaza anymore. People under 58 don't like that. Yeah. Yeah, I think there's a lot to that. I mean, and also, you know, he, he has this kind of like warrior version of himself,

Nick Fuentes, who is hoovering up media appearances and followers based on, you know, often being anti-Semitic and hating Israel. And so in the past, you know, we've seen, we saw him pivot to the right because of Nick Fuentes. And so presumably in this case, he was looking around and kind of seeing which way the wind was blowing and saying, gosh, you know, if I'm like just 100% hardcore pro Israel all the time, I'm going to start losing my audience. Well, you bring up Fuentes, who I think is like one of the more interesting and one of them more like, not to give him too much credit, but one of the more intelligent communicators and broadcasters on the right. But like when this happened, like, did you like, did you, did you see like, did you see like, like, did you, like, did you see. like traces of the griper war because when it happened like Nick Fuentes looked shook and he was like God please hold Charlie in your please hold Charlie in heaven like we condemn all violent acts like

it seemed like he was cognizant of the fact that like there's a possibility that the trigger man could have been one of his followers because you describe what was the griper war and like what was the basis of the sort of conflict or animosity between Charlie Kirk and Nick Fuentes yeah so back in 2019, there was this growing tension between Charlie Kirk and Nick Fuentes, both of whom are young people whose whole thing is that they can get young men, particularly to become conservative, one of whom, Charlie Kirk is extremely well-financed, very pro-Israel, very establishment, and the other Nick Fuentes, who was in Charlottesville, very racist and anti-Semitic, and much scrappier. And so Charlie Kirk, excuse me, Charlie Kirk said at one point,

you know we should start anyone from another country who comes here and gets a degree should get a green card and Nick Fuentes uses that to seize and get the Groypers to start crashing turning point events and they prove to be completely defenseless Dan Crenshaw is getting shouted down by like random racist teens and so basically Charlie Kirk says oh yikes and suddenly becomes much more restrictionist on immigration much more supportive of eventually you know a ban on third world immigration And so basically Nick Fuentes won there. And I think it was clear that Charlie Kirk was kind of fleeing from him. And so, you know, as you said, I think in the immediate aftermath of the shooting, Nick Fuentes, I think like a lot of people was like, you know what? This could have been a Groyper.

This could have been a Fuentes fan. And obviously they had had these previous clashes verbally at campus events. And so who's to say that one nut who really loved Nick Fuentes hadn't done this. And so he started saying, you know, if you use violence, I disown you, he was saying. making this weird, like, statesman-like tone of, like, we need to, this is a time for peace positioning himself as, like, Charlie's heir. So clearly that he saw that as a possibility. Now, there was some speculation that Tyler Robinson, the alleged shooter, like, was a Groyper. We talked about that on our show last week. And, like, I've, in my opinion,

determined that, like, there's not much there to go on. Like, where did that rumor come from? And, like, what is being used of evidence that Tyler Robinson had Groyper affiliations? Yeah, they're going to hate this one over on Blue Sky. Um, yeah, basically the, um, you know, it was, it was interesting there was like, his name was, his name was announced on a Friday. And then I was offline for like two hours and I came back online and people were just like, well, Groyper, it's confirmed. And I thought, well, what was the evidence here? So I looked and I was kind of shocked with how little evidence there was. I mean, obviously Tyler Robinson was, was, was even then was known to be really into video games. Um, and into memes. And people, I think made this jump that that that proved that he was a Groyper. Um, um, um, You know, I hate to be like de meme expert, but there was a point where, you know, there was this picture of him in Halloween doing this like Slavits, Slavic squat, Adidas track suit, squating meme. And then someone had paired that with a Pepe doing the same squat. And so that kind of got around. Pepe's a Gifford Frog.

Thank you, feeling that's what I was saying. I was like screaming at my phone. And so people saw that and they said, oh, wow, this is this is a Pepe. And so it has to be a groiper and this guy's a griper. But, you know, these are the pepe meme of doing the squat and Tyler Robinson are splitting off from the same mother meme. They're not necessarily doing a pepe meme. And so it's, and you sound insane bringing this up. But like, but people, I would say, I was like, I don't know if that's a peper thing.

And, you know, people get really riled up about it. I mean, understandably, because, you know, Donald Trump seems to want to use this shooting to like crush 50% of the country politically. And so, and yet, but, I mean, I guess I would just say that the idea that he was into memes and into video games, I think people saw as like proof that he's a Fuente's follower. But really, I mean, you know, this is a world Felix I think is very in touch with in terms of the video games. The, that's like 90% of young men now.

And so, you know, I think people were really, we're really jumping to conclusions there. Yeah, it's like the default hobby for anyone under like 30 now. I mean, we, we had, um, Spencer talk about, uh, you know, what a meme kid is. I was very glad that we had him on to explain that to, you know, some of the elder millennials. Some of them, yeah. Because it is like, I do think that there is a millennial-shaped prism that a lot of us can mistakenly view things through, where we automatically assume that everything, whatever anyone's identity, whatever their hobby is, they fall on some

politicized spectrum of that hobby and for people much younger than us I would say I mean again how could you possibly quantify this right now

but I would say you're more likely to find people who are entirely checked out one way or the other just entirely exhausted and grossed out by the entire process and maybe have a few beliefs about a couple things that either, you know, affect them or that, you know, they heard their dad talk

about, but they are not as overt, like, they are not, you know, throwing up their banner in the same way that the generations immediately previous to them may have. And Will, like, do you think that's why, like, you said earlier that, like, it seems like on the right, the official story or narrative of the alleged shooter. and his motivations doesn't seem to be satisfying them in the visceral way that they were hoping for. Do you think it's because of this kind of meme vertigo and like just sort of meaningless context signifiers that like there's nothing really for anyone to sink their teeth into, at least as far as the official alleged narrative goes?

Yeah. And I think the news cycle moves so quickly now that even with something like a major event like this, I think it was, they were clearly really geared up to like be imprisoned trans people over this. And then they saw that it was like, well, it's like kind of at this distant connection. You know, the trans roommate maybe didn't know. At the point where it was like a white guy, they were just, oh, well, maybe what's going on on that discord server? I think, you know, if we talk about people not understanding like the Gen Z Internet, I think that's another aspect of it where it's like this discord server must be like the new weather underground. And then you see, you know, Ken Klippenstein posting the transcript where they're saying like, anyone play hell divers?

And then he goes, by the way, I shot Charlie Kirk. And everyone goes, uh. and you know I think both sides were really like eager to dig through the the online record here and it turned out there really wasn't much of one at the same time I think we can often you know I think there are a lot of kind of like self-proclaimed meme experts internet under standards who will be like you know this is a hell diver's meme this is the furry meme and then he did write like hey fascist on the bullet casing allegedly so apparently that is not from hell divers no apparently it's not from hell divers this is going to spencer yeah yeah i've got two hours logged on hell divers

felix i think uh you know yeah i i do think that does appear to be if it is from hell divers i think it's a little oblique spencer there was a miscommunication there so it says hey fascist catch and then there's a series of arrows the series of arrows is from hell divers hey fascist catch i don't think is this has been uh this is my correspondence from doing some more digging into this okay i i thank you I have been playing the Phantom Pain exclusively for the past 10 years thinking that if I clip the game the right way

and expose Venom's penis I will finally get all of us Chapter 3 piece the thing we've been waiting for for 10 years Well I think there's another sort of fractal or a subset of the right that I'm interested in and that is like

you know I'm all On the far right, there's like, I guess, like a subset of, you know, the dissident right or white nationalists who are, I would say, to the right of Charlie Kirk, but also hate the Groyperies. And like this, but this I mean sort of like the tealite wing of the party that are like, your Bronze Age perverts, your Steve sailors, the people of that nature. Like, does this third group factor into like all of this jockeying for position? And like, if so, how have they been reacting to this assassination? Yeah, so sort of like dementia mold bug, the people who are really like eager to staff a future fascist administration. And I think they're like, they're like, let's go. This is like the new right. Let's go. Let's crush these liberals. We have our excuse. And I think they're very open about that. I mean, they called it like a once in a lifetime opportunity to crush the liberals. And they're very frustrated with the Candace Owens, the Tucker wing. I mean, Candice Owens is clearly doing, I would say like a pretty wild like exploitation of her friend's death. But then they're looking.

at her and saying like, hey, you know, let's just, let's just pretend we discovered some liberal NGOs that finance this or something like that. You know, there was one guy, this captive dreamer guy on X, who's very big. He has a, um, the David Koresh picture, um, as his profile. And, and he literally just said, he's like, why are these guys talking about Israel? This is our chance to impose, you just crush these people under our boot. So there's, I think a lot of frustration from these much more clear-eyed would be fascists about that. It is, I mean, like, I, I, it's like, you know, I, I, there's no point in trying to predict the future and what you even get if you're right, but, um, it almost feels like with some of the, um, not Candace Owens, because she's just, you know, I, I think, what I call what she does is having fun. Uh, some people call it a lot of other stuff.

I think she's having a blast. Well, she's also the only one of them that, like, seems to have actually liked Charlie Kirk. That's very rare iconic for two people to actually be friends. But some of the other ones, it does seem like maybe they don't even have a fully developed theory of, you know, how or why Israel did it. But they're just cognizant of the fact that, like, spending, like, two weeks going, look what they did to him. This is what they wanted. and then they turns out to just be like a fucking stupid 20 year old

like everyone else who has ever done something like this in fucking the history of America like that's why Luigi was a big deal was because he was the first one of these guys who's like randomly killed a public figure who didn't have like 900 posts on like the subreddit for guys who have like blue smegma

he was like the first first one of those guys who wasn't just completely confused and idiotic and was like kind of telegenics. Like they're all like Thomas Crooks where it's like the like people who you can't you can't evince any type of coherent ideology or identity from them because they're just fundamentally confused people who just it's like their scripting got fucked up when they were born. God fucked up their scripting and they'll do things like go to January 6th and while they're there become like lifetime NPR pledges while making $9 an hour.

It is, it is bizarre seeing. I mean, there's this real desire to find a network to find, you know, other people who knew about the shooting supposedly. But, you know, or what the motivation was. But, and, you know, you mentioned Thomas Crooks. I mean, that guy, they're still talking about the, the Butler assassin saying, you know, we don't know anything about this guy. What were his motivations or the Las Vegas gunmen?

And it's like, well, you know, this is kind of the thing. with mass shootings or these assassinations. I mean, we've seen this for decades. These guys really just sort of emerge and they have these, these pointless attempts of violence. I mean, even like Paddock, again, like with Paddock, I don't think, like, motive is not like, I don't think that's the weirdest thing.

Like, obviously it's just like, the idea of a 60 year old rich guy who like went into the red, just exploding his serotonin, doing the equivalent of doing Molly every day. day for 10 years to his brain, but with a video poker and then just hauling off and trying to kill as many people as possible. That's not the most bizarre thing I've ever heard, but at least with that one, I mean, the real maddening thing about Paddock is that it, it is how Brace described it

brilliantly. It's like when you make a suicide with a soda machine, it's two inches of every type of soda, but you can't, not enough to tell which is the dominant flavor. There's just an orange fanta or root beer. yeah there's just a little bit of every possible angle there's and there's just enough juicy stuff but not enough of a follow-up with thomas crooks it's like it's there's only one soda that went in this and it's idiot so it's stupid guy soda the same soda that all these guys are um just going back to like will going back to this sort of uh the sort of like three factions that are sort of

emerging on the right. It's been said, there's been a lot of reporting that would seem to bear out that Trump number two is one of the most online administrations to date. Like, they're incredibly online. They're incredibly podcast brains. So, like, among these factions, like, of the sort of institutional turning point USA people, the Gryper's and the kind of like theelite, you know, far right, you know, white supremacist, whatever, tech, tech fascist movement, of those three factions, what would you say has the most influence in the current Trump administration? Yeah, that's a great question. I mean, I think, you know, either the theeolite or, you know, maybe there's a fourth faction that we can just call Laura Loomer, you know, the, who sort of

operates under agendas that are mysterious and, you know, as obviously often being accused being paid as recently by, you know, Roger Stone and Joe Kent, the counterterrorism chief just this weekend. Oh, actually, could you explain the feud between Joe Kent and Laura Lumer? Yeah, I mean, and this is just a fun one. But, I mean, this was over the weekend. And so Laura Lumer started, it's a little obscure. I think she was just picking on some Natsack guy that she wanted to get fired.

And Joe Kent kind of waded into it. And she felt he wasn't being harsh enough on ISIS or Islamists. And she said, you know, you should know about this because your wife was killed by ISIS, which is true. There was a suicide bombing in Syria. Oh, my God. She says stuff that it. I mean, that's like her power.

A lot of it is like, she'll just say, She'll go to these, like, fucking insane places that even Republican, like, you know, she went after recently this soldier who had part of his arm, or his leg blown up and got the Medal of Honor. And she said, hey, this guy's a Democrat. Why are we talking about him getting the Medal of Honor? And so, I mean, like, so Joe Kent then basically said, you know, you're being paid by these forces. And he didn't quite name them, but I think he meant like kind of like neocons. And then someone at the, in Chelsea Gabbard's office went after her. And Roger Stone, even, her buddy was said, you know, you're being paid.

And so there's just like this, and yet, you know, as you said, I mean, she has this way to like make things into issues like Palestinian children getting treatments for their imputations in the U.S. temporarily visiting. And she said, that's not going to work. We got to ban these people. And it happens. And so she's this kind of weird force of nature onto herself. Yeah, Will, I always, I always think of you when she comes up, not because you remind me of her. I think I think you are, Will, you're the least. like Laura Lumer out of anyone I know, both demographically and disposition wise.

But no, no, I think of you because I, I mean, I, I, I feel like I'm the only one who notices this, but it's so weird to, you know, not just see her become like a powerful force in the administration who has a direct line to the president and can like single-handedly affect staffing decisions and policy, but like just the fact that she's like allowed to use DoorDash again. Like she was, it was basically like a law in America that like she's not allowed to like use an oven. She was treated.

She was treated like the like the worst like the worst kid in a reading out loud in high school class for like 10 years. And then she just, it was. I mean honestly she's made out of tougher horrible person but made out of tougher stuff than me because if that happened to I would have killed myself

if like everyone knew that it's like that like Southwest like imagine you go to an airport and Southwest or like Spirit Airlines more likely announces you know you are banned from our airline you're too weird and crazy

to you know fly to Santa Fe with us and everyone cheers and that's just every day for you, but it was like she knew that everyone would just get worse and the baseline would go down so much that she would be like basically normal. It must be so jarring for you to watch that. Felix, I always think of years ago when actually all three of us were at the CPAC at the Gaylord Convention Center in National Harbor, Maryland. And I'll never forget you, Felix, you, me and Matt, just walking through the metal detectors being sort of escorted

in the Trump thing by the Secret Service as she was throwing a tantrum outside the metal detectors about being denied entry to the event for some reason. Oh my God. That was so funny.

Like the Secret Service guys were like, oh, don't worry. We have a bin for all you all you's left one guys is jewels. Yeah. There's a bin with like 60 jewels in it. Yeah. They were like, we'll help you figure out

who's who. And we were like, these guys are so great. they're so handsome and nice and think these these cops aren't bastards and meanwhile they're like forcibly bathing Laura Lumer

she's too crazy give her the nanomachine shot for Metal Gear Solid 4 but it was like she just knew she knew like maybe she did COVID because she like something needs to happen where

everyone everyone finally sees things my way. You're right. I mean, it can be hard to stress to people who haven't been following her career as minutely as perhaps the three of us have that, I mean, this is someone who was seen as an outcast, even among like right wing media personalities. I mean, after she did, after she got banned from Twitter and after she did the locking herself up to the door thing, I mean, people were like, we're like, oh boy, you know, I mean, she has no credibility. I mean, people just didn't want, like the vibes were off. They thought she kind of being around her, like sort of hurt their

own standing on the right. And now she's like a like a cabinet secretary essentially. Yeah. Like Bill Ackman will, we'll say things like, Laura, I respect you. And that's not to say that like Bill Ackman's normal, but that's like it used to in like 2018, if Bill Ackman like even made eye contact with Laura Lumer, he would have had to like call, he would have had to have called a press conference where he's like, it was a mistake. I thought it was

the woman who stabbed my dog walker for no reason. I apologize. It just, I mean, it makes me think if Thomas Crook's hand just gotten his head blown off, he would have been a senator in six years. Like, probably. Well, going back to like the Graper War, you had a piece called How the Gryper's Won.

And I was interested in it because, like, This is a familiar pattern in American politics, particularly on the American right. And I'm thinking about a figure like William F. Buckley, who's like, you know, heralded as the sort of figurehead of a kind of revitalized right wing movement in America who is very successful and then kind of gets goes on TV, gets sort of lazy and complacent, and is eventually eviscerated even in the pages of the National Review by like the people who came up after him, who were even hungrier, more ruthless, and more. right wing. Do you see this pattern, like a similar pattern emerging in the Fuentes-Charlie Kirk thing? And like, and what does it mean to like if the Grypers and Nick Fuentes are going to be a major force in politics in this country? I mean, yeah, I do think Nick Fuentes is unfortunately really a dynamic figure and he's getting a lot of mainstream attention. And I think it's awful. But I mean, kind of the historical perspective, as you said, I think particularly in the Trump era,

the right in right wing media institutions and personalities have really no way to guard. against their right flank and to prevent these things from shifting right. You know, Charlie Kirk being a great example of someone who is trying to do like a very pro-business stance on immigration. You know, we're trying to do politics the right way. Yes. Well, exactly. You know, we're trying to, you know, bring in all these high-skilled immigrants. Trying to, you know, yeah, yeah, support business, support corporate tax breaks and Israel. That's doing politics the right way. Exactly. And then just had to completely flip on that because basically, you know, there was nothing to stop a random groiper from disrupting his events. And if he didn't have that, you know,

what did he have? You know, we can also look at like in those emails where Fox News that came out through the Dominion settlement where they're saying like, look, if we don't say the election was stolen, someone else is going to and we're going to lose. And so there's just no way for them to really hold the right. One, one possibility was banning people from Turning Point USA events. And that's why we saw this big pressure on Charlie Kirk before his death to, to ban Tucker Carlson from speaking at these events or band and and so as a result i mean there's really there's only so many a few gatekeeping mechanisms they have and especially with social media i mean someone like kandis owens i mean if if ben shapiro or these broader figures in the right had their

way i mean she would not have anywhere near the platform she has but i mean there's a lot of incentives for her she can just post a video saying you know maybe there was another shooter or maybe there's all these questions about charlie kirk's death and it gets like seven 10 million views on YouTube. So, I mean, these people are no longer reliant on the party apparatus. Well, if a net result of Charlie Kirk's murder is that an organization like T.P. Turning points and then like the sort of political and media apparatus around it, if that is stewarded by someone like Ben Shapiro who is in the more traditional pro-Israel mold of traditional right-wing Republican politics and that like the, the,

maga movement, like, is corralled within the boundaries of not turning against the Zionist products. I saw, by the way, I saw Mike Huckabee talking today in Israel. And he described Israel as America's wife. And this is his comments. He said that, like, if you say that when I invite you to my house for dinner and you say, Mike, I'm so happy to come to dinner. I can't wait to eat your food and talk with you and have fun. But if your wife is there, I don't want to be there. And he was like, well, that's the case. You're not going to be there. Because if you love me, you have to love my wife, and that's the way it is with Israel and America. So, like, if the Trump administration, yeah, I mean, look, happy wife, happy life, am I right? And if you keep your wife happy,

maybe you won't get killed by a vague randomly, you know, a vague young man with random associations. I kind of hope that Mike Huckabee is right. Just like, I hope that like the rapture happens just to spite Israel. Like, I hope they're, they're like gearing up to like nuke Mozambique for no reason and then just Mike Huckabee like floats fatly upwards towards the sky and he's like I knew I was right anyway hope you I hope you guys have sunscreen ready so what I'm saying is if if a U.S. policy and like at least if the right wing movement in this country is corralled into the air maintains a boundary that can be enforced of Israel happy wife happy life do you think that that would I don't know, perhaps give ammunition to people inclined to believe that they were behind his

murder? Yeah, I mean, I think it would. I mean, certainly I think a lot of this stuff about Israel, you know, supposedly killing Charlie Kirk is based on, is kind of this fight over Kirk's legacy and, you know, either Tucker Carlson and Candace Owens trying to ward a turning point off from really going hardly in favor of Israel, or at least to kind of grab like a remnant of the Charlie Kirk legacy for themselves. But yeah, I mean, I, I think, think we've already seen, you know, another example, Marjorie Taylor Green, which this is really crazy. She was just like, Turning Point is an evangelical organization. We cannot let another country, that being Israel, or another religion, take it over. So she's saying, you know, we can't let Jews

run turning point. Like Ben Shapiro, basically. Yeah. I mean, people were, he, he guest hosted on one of the Charlie Kirk shows last week. And I mean, people were flipping out. Um, actually, Felix, Felix brought it up just a second ago. And I did want to ask you about this. This is independent of our discussion. I do want to ask, apparently the rapture is happening tomorrow. Have you been following this TikTok trend, Will? And if so, like, where does it come from? And should we be looking forward to a, you know, sort of a historical day tomorrow? Do you need real idea for that, by the way? I use my passport at Airport. I use my passport. I knew I knew I should have fucking gotten my new one. God damn it. Yeah. I mean, this is all over TikTok, this idea that the rapture is coming on Tuesday.

I'll see y'all later. But, you know, I haven't traced the origin. here. But, I mean, you know, it should be interesting to see, you know, there's a classic kind of millennarian, you know, how these people deal with when the rapture doesn't happen afterwards. Yeah, the Millerites. There's another old story in American history. Yeah, well, I'll be looking forward to the rapture. I mean, I personally believe it already did happen, but the number of people who actually get into heaven was so, so imperceptible that, yeah, we are living in hell right now, obviously, obviously. What is the only, what if the only guy who, like, was holy enough

to get into heaven was Thomas Crooks and it's not because of the thing he did if you are an arresting party it's something maybe like if you literally interpret

the Bible it's actually good to give like $20 to Joe Biden and then $20 to Joe Kent in the same day I guess like to bring this conversation back to where it originally started like this is a moment

of great hope and great triumph for the right in this country because they have conclusively won the political war in this country and like it really looks more than ever like the political project of liberalism is breathing its last gasps. It doesn't seem like there is much of any juice left in that tank. However, that being said, the cultural assumptions and senators like just standard moral programming of liberalism, I don't think is going away anytime soon. So in light of like their massive recent successes, like you said, of Larry Ellison now owning CBS, which he's going to put Barry

Weiss in charge of, you know, ideologically screening all news, CNN, and then the whole host of, like, cable channels as well. The TikTok deal, I think they feel that like they can, if they can conclusively get their arms around the sort of systems and apparatus of media, be it social media or traditional broadcast in this country, that they can turn the boat around. And if I were them, I would want to do that too Because like, I'm not going to lie, public television from when I was growing up probably made me into a liberal What was Sesame Street and reading rainbow, things of that nature. But like, well, I guess my question is in the current like age of media where everything is so siloed and atomized

And like there really is no more mainstream media left to speak of like how do you rate the success of such an attempt to like make the. media of this country now like totally right wing like will they they think that that will give them success in terms of changing people's basic moral beliefs and values yeah well i mean look certainly you know brend and car at the FCC thinks so i mean they're saying you know it's our job to police these airways uh and make sure they're in the public interest um you know i i do think i think i think the tick tock thing is obviously the most important thing here i think in terms of of controlling what people think and and influencing them um you know yeah i mean i i i I think that there is a, you know, you have these people who, you know, want a kind of, you know, a much more authoritarian government.

And I do think that they think, you know, if they can, you know, we've seen other mainstream outlets like the Washington Post, the LA Times have been cowed by Trump, you know, and ABC in the past and now again with Jimmy Kimmel. So I think that, you know, with the exception of, you know, some podcasts and some YouTubers and some substacks, I think they feel pretty confident that that I think they can whip most of them. media into shape um i mean i like i definitely don't think it's like yeah a good thing especially very wise um at cbs that is quite grim but i will say i mean does anyone remember the years i don't know 2014 through like 2022 when there was when there was like not like in all media but pretty visible pretty pretty easy to see in

pretty like all formats of media a kind of like agro late Obama in poll focus liberalism that was like sort of sometimes weirdly punitive and but was so well

defined that it had like an identifiable style no matter if it was like a movie or a streaming show or a video game for that matter and we ended up with Brandon.

I mean I think that's a good point about like what how does having control over mainstream media mean quite the same thing as it did in say 2002 but also just like you could have complete cultural

purchase and like actually actually have like majority popular support behind it, which a lot of liberalism did during that roughly eight-year period. And still, it could just like fall to fall apart in seconds. Yeah. I mean, it's like, it's like we've talked about this in the show so many times before, but like I think we're seeing it in really like a vivid contrast right now in that the, the right has all of the political power and none of the cultural power. And they're going to attempt as they are right now to use their political power to enforce a kind of like,

to create for themselves a cultural power that they fear, though, denied. Liberals responded to the election of Donald Trump by having lost politics to try to use their cultural power to gain and enforce political power. And the thing is, I don't think either one of them works. I don't think you can do, like, I don't know what the answer is here, but I think both efforts seem doomed to failure. Yeah, yeah.

Um, I just, you know, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, you know, I, I, I, I, I, I, it's hard to confidently predict anything except, like, both parties, like, handing each other the flaming bag of shit that is administration over this country every, like, four to eight years. And, well, well, the good news is, Felix, if things keep going the way they are, we, we don't, we don't have to deal with that anymore. We, we won't have to. That'll be resolved. Yeah. I mean, well, I mean, well, like, Yeah. Like, I mean, like, because if these guys are serious about like their plans and if we take Stephen Miller seriously, like the things that they're going to do or be required to do will make them, you know, vulnerable to prosecution when they leave office. I mean, they've already learned that lesson once with Trump being indicted many times and not, eventually not convicted. But like, yeah, I mean, yeah, maybe we won't have to hand off the bag of shit anymore because we're just going to end democracy in this country. Yeah, that's a possibility. I mean, that's what they want. that's what that's what they want i mean they could not like they're getting pretty they're getting

ready to pretty close to just saying it i mean i will i will say um generally not like these are not like the economic policies of like a party that um is thinking about contesting another presidential election yeah or a real one i should say uh well the last thing i want to ask you about is the speculation about uh charlie's perhaps religious conversion from evangelical Protestantism to Catholicism. And just one quote here I want to highlight, of course, involving Candace Owens. Owens not content to leave any battle enjoined,

declared on Monday that Kirk and evangelical Christian had been on the verge of conversion to Catholicism, saying her friend had been praying the rosary and attending mass. You're too smart to be a Protestant, Owens recalled, joking to Kirk. Again, she provided no evidence. This enraged evangelicals. She provided no evidence that he was too smart to be a Protestant.

as a Kirk's own pastor released a statement urging Owens to be more respectful of Kirk's memory. Owens responded that the pastor should quote, be quiet. And I guess my question here, Will, is like, how is this, an old dispute, you know, one of the oldest ones between Catholicism and Protestantism, what does that speak to in terms of like who is Catholic and who is Protestant on the right? Like what do the Catholics have and what do they dislike in the evangelicals, aside from the obvious, aside from, you know, the whole reformation thing. Yeah, I mean, I think it's interesting. I mean, and in many ways, I think Candace Owen's claiming he was about to become Catholic. Is Candice Owens Catholic? Is she

converted to Catholicism? Okay. Yeah, I think she's a convert. Yeah. And so, or basically, like, in some ways, I think this is more of sort of a knife in the Kirk legacy than saying he was turning on Israel, which I think a lot of those people directly involved don't really care about. But like to say, I mean, they clearly see Charlie Kirk as like there's going to be this new revival. He's going to bring all these people to evangelical faith at the memorial. One of the pastors, I think maybe even Charlie Kirk's pastor said, you know, stand up if you want to embrace Jesus in your hearts right now. And so for her to say, oh, yeah, actually he was about to become Catholic. He was praying the rosary.

He was going to mass. I mean, has obviously infuriated them. I mean, there are these tensions. And, you know, I think Mattie Glaci has made a very good point here. jumping off of this Catholic, he's crypto Catholic thing with Charlie Kirk, that I think evangelical Christians see themselves as underrepresented in the kind of right wing media project because there are so many Catholics and Jews. And so Charlie Kirk was unique in that way because he wasn't evangelical. And then to say that, oh yeah, no, that guy was Catholic too,

I think has driven them nuts. I mean, I don't know. I mean, I remember Matt saying this years ago about why there's so many Catholics on the Supreme Court. And he said it's because they're the only one's left in the right-wing movement who can read books. And I suppose that would apply to right-wing Jewish people as well. But, like, yeah, I think that, like, they're, I think the smarter and more ruthless members of the right are all Catholics because they read books and you have to read books. And the evangelical megachurch kind of American Protestantism isn't cutting it for them anymore.

And on that line, what did you make of a lot of, I've seen a lot of the weirder reaction to Erica Kirk's comments at the funeral at the memorial service that she forgives Tyler Robinson. A lot of them are really mad about that. Yeah, a lot of that kind of world of like the Bronze Age Patriot or excuse me, Pervert, the Bronze Age Pervert. Same difference. I mean, he is a patriot, of course, but the kind of like the Andrew Tatee, but like kind of with more of a Christian flair world is just like, you know, forgive him. No, you know, we need to behead this guy. I'm seeing a lot of like, you know, this. is why women shouldn't be in government, why they should stay in the home because, you know,

she would forgive her husband's killer. So, you know, people were mad about that. There's like a ton of gender discourse, as you might imagine, around Erica Kirk and, you know, the question of whether, you know, because of, you know, whether she can really, you know, take a returning point USA. I mean, the right is obviously very divided on that question. I mean, but this does seem like her moment. Like, like, she is, she's ready to, I don't know, like, be on center stage for the of the right wing movement right now. Like, does she have ambitions to be like a media figure in the way her husband was? Or is she just willing to kind of like step into that role as circumstances demands of her?

Yeah. I mean, up until the assassination, she wasn't seen as like a major media figure on the right. On the other hand, you know, I think a lot of the kind of like Charlie Kirk loyalist at Turning Point USA, the people who were closest to him obviously really want her to continue in that role and kind of step up, you know, conversely, you have people like Candace Owens, I think, who, you know, she said, you know, I'll only shut up with my, you know, paraphr, oh, gosh, I knocked my chair down, you know, saying I'll only be quiet with these conspiracy theories or my claims about Charlie Kirk if, you know, if Erica tells me to shut up. And so she's kind of nodding to the power that

Erica Kirk has as the widow. But, you know, there's clearly a lot of jockeying for sort of like, who was the real heir to Charlie. Is there any lane for someone who's like, listen, I love Charlie, but boo, Eric. Like, is it, does anyone try that? Well, like the sort of merge. The manosphere guys who don't want women to be like, you know, in any position of authority. Yeah, but I mean, those guys kind of hate a Charlie Kirk anyway. Yeah.

Yeah. Like, um, yeah. Someone where you could like go back a month and not find posts where they're like, you know, join our, uh, beheading Charlie Kirk. Workshop. Yeah. They were, um, you know, it's, on one hand. you know yeah no one publicly is saying you know charlie was great but you know erika has got to step aside or something but you know i do think i mean these are these are very mercenary people in right

wing media and they really do not like you know in my private conversations with them there is definitely a lot of like you know we'll see how she does at this memorial speech maybe you know someone else will need to step up but i think so far she's she's kind of solidified her hold on it um but you know again i mean a lot of this is who can get the donor money who can throw the sickest parties um you know at these conferences, and, you know, that's going to be kind of decided in the worst to come. Will, having been to the fucking Charlie Kirk party at CPAC, I can conclusively say he did not throw the sickest parties in the right win. That's not fair.

No, that's not fair. That was a Benny Johnson party. Well, he's turning point. Or was he turning point? Well, then you've got Benny Johnson. I mean, another potential error as well. And, you know, that's right. One thing about Benny Johnson, he's talked a lot about his degeneracy and how Charlie

Kirk saved him from degeneracy, which is like, I don't think of. What? What? What? Wait a sec. Come on. No. Pause.

Yeah, no. I mean, those are his words. And what was he, okay. Well, what was his degeneracy that he's referring to? Well, he doesn't say, I mean, he says he was an alcoholic, which, okay, setting that aside. But then he'll say he saved me from alcoholism and degeneracy. And it's like, you know, yes, Benny was a plagiarist. You know, he was the conservative at BuzzFeed.

But I didn't think of that time as like particularly degenerate, at least publicly. So I'm not sure. But he's bringing it up. up. So I just wanted to flag it. I'm just saying, in the parlance of the right, alcoholism and plagiarism are never really considered degenerate behaviors. I think that's right. So it's a little unclear what's happening. It's unclear. It's unclear. The last thing I want to bring up is like, I just thought of this now, but like, I think my favorite right-wing reaction to Charlie Kirk's assassination or

the attendant discourse around it was from, well, I don't know if you're familiar with this account, martyr-made. Oh, yeah. Martyr Maid had a comment and it was sort of in response to people when Tyler Robinson's father turned him in and they were like wow what if that was your son? If your son killed Charlie Kirk like would you call the cops on him

would you turn him into law enforcement and some people were saying yes obviously I would and other people were like no it's still my son I would try to protect him or save him or help him get to Mexico or whatever and Martyr Maid's response to this was like I'm shocked that anyone would collaborate with the state when it comes to matters of family.

If my son killed Charlie Kirk, I would have taken him camping and took care of it myself. So he would have like, he's saying, you should Lenny your own kid if you thought they did a murder. It's crazy. And I mean, of course, in that world, I'm sure the cops would show up and say, oh, you shot your son. Okay, well, case closed. Oh.

Yeah. Yeah. Then do you turn yourself in, sir? Is the question. Yeah. Thanks for saving us the paperwork. We love parents like you. And, of course, parents are allowed to kill their kids.

Yeah, I mean, it's, it's, and of course, I mean, also in this world where your son confesses, then you go, hey, you want to go camping? Yeah. All right. We'll leave it there for today. Will Summer. Thank you so much for your time. Thanks for joining us today. You can check out Will's writing at the bulwark.

Yeah. Thanks for having me, guys. Thank you, Will. All right, everybody. That does it for this one. Until next time, bye-bye. Let's point a line. to heaven and try to destroy it we should demand a great reward in time to enjoy it

if you believe we're going to hell one way or another can it be worse than all the hell we make for each other I listen and watch all the whisper turns through a roar our love is for the moment we won't need any more You're ripe a soul, let's go-oh-ho, and there should be a handle. You dance around, you burn like playing from a Roman angle.