The Josh Innes Show - Charlie Kirk Assassination

Episode Date: September 11, 2025

I'm not interested in getting into a big political discussion over this. Honestly, I don't know much about the man. I don't follow politics closely enough. That said, given the reaction from Left wing types, I think I know what his views were. My biggest takeaway from this is that we have become so desensitized to actually watching murders take place. And that's pretty screwed up. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This episode is brought to you by Defender. With a towing capacity of 3,500 kilograms and a waiting depth of 900 millimeters, the Defender 110 pushes what's possible. Learn more at landrover.ca. So can we all acknowledge that it's fucking crazy that we just watched a dude get murdered right before our eyes? And we don't even really feel like it's outrageous, if that makes sense? Like over the last week, we've watched a woman get stabbed to death on a train in Carolina,

and we watched, watched with our eyes, watched a dude get shot to death, get assassinated. Assassinated fascinates me, too, when we use assassinated versus just murdered, right? I guess since this guy, Charlie Kirk was a political activist or a political figure in some way, this constitutes or counts as an assassination. But whether you want to call it assassination, murder, whatever you want to call it, we watched a guy get gunned down we saw the video like the type of shit we are seeing now used to be reserved for faces of death like the kind of shit you'd get on bootleg VHS tapes that would make their way around you know the Elks Lodge or you'd get together with dudes and watch them because there was only one copy of it like weird snuff film faces of death shit and like you'd be like holy shit what am I watching now we are so immune to it that we could go to Twitter scroll through Twitter and see a video of a guy getting plugged. We're in a weird place, man.

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Pennsylvania many moons ago and was involved in some sort of scandal, some sort of controversy where he was going to be in trouble in some way. So he holds a press conference and he pulls out a manila folder or a manila envelope or, you know, like an envelope, pulls a gun out in front of a whole crowd of reporters and just shoots himself in the head, like puts the gun in his mouth and shoots himself and I've never seen anything like that in my life the video is like the most effed up thing you've ever seen like he shoots himself blood like you don't know how things work like because you've never shot yourself or really watched somebody shoot themselves so you never know how it works and like all the different holes and the orifices in his body there's just like

blood gushing from these and he just like it is wild how this this works and you would see stuff like that in the past and you'd be like whoa now we literally have watched a video of a dude getting shot on a college campus. And if you've seen the really effed up video of it, you see the blood just gushing. Like, it is like a raging river of blood shooting out of this guy's neck and he dies. We watched a guy get murdered. We watched a woman on a train get murdered and watched nobody do anything to help her. We've watched a presidential assassination attempt.

We've watched these things in recent months. and incredibly we feel nothing. I know there's a lot of people that feel outrage and there are people yelling on the internet and there are right-wing people yelling about one thing and left-wing people yelling about another and there's Rosie O'Donnell yelling about this and then there's this pundit doing this and Keith Olderman doing this and I get all that, right? I'm not saying that people don't feel a way about it and I'm not saying that people aren't sharing their message about it or saying these people are lunatics or the worst of it

is people basically saying the guy fucking had it coming or whatever. You get a lot of that shit from people. But we are so immune to this stuff now. Like we have normalized, and I hate the word normalized, but we have normalized watching this kind of shit where we're just like, that's old hat. Here's an example. Or kind of a reference point that, like in Major League,

at the beginning of Major League, when Rachel Phelps has the team, and they're trying to, she sends the guy Charlie out to call all these different guys, like, they call, like, Jake Taylor, and he's, like, hammered in a hungover in a hotel. And he's like, you know, hey, Jake, how would you like to, you know, play for the Indians? You know, is that you, Tolbert, whatever, I told you, I don't want to deal with this. But there's the scene where he calls, in the same scene, he calls Lou Brown, who's working at a, you know, an auto body place or a tire, he's just in a tire place. And he goes, hey, this is Charlie Donovan of the Indians. Lou, how would you like to manage the Indians? And he's like, I don't know, Charlie. I got a guy on the other line about some white walls. I'll talk to you later. And you're sitting there thinking, this guy has just been offered the opportunity to manage the Indians, a major league team. And he's so, like, uninterested in that.

And it's so, it's like, it moved him so little that he's like, hold on, I've got to close this deal on whitewall tires. I'll get back to you. It's kind of that kind of passiveness about. it, that kind of blasé attitude of, oh, whatever. That's kind of how we are when we see these kind of stories now. We see these stories and our first thought is like, whatever. I'm going to head on over to Chipotle now. Like, you would have thought, and there had to have been a time where watching somebody

get shot to death like that and seeing the 24-hour coverage of it would have maybe shut down the country. But now it's just a, it's Wednesday. day. There's nothing. Now, maybe if that would have been Trump that would have gotten taken out or the president or a high-ranking official of some sort, maybe it would have shut things down and maybe things would have been different. It would have been more big. There's a lot of people who don't even know who Charlie Kirk is.

I'll be honest with you, I knew very little about the guy. Like, when I told Jilly, she's like, I don't really know anything about the guy. I don't know as much about these political people as the average Jumok on the internet does because I don't care. Like if you said, Josh, what are Charlie Kirk's or what were Charlie Kirk's key points and viewpoints, I'd say, well, considering that he's right wing and somebody wanted to shoot him, I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that there was something related to the Second Amendment that he was very in favor of keeping in place. I'm going to guess that he was someone who was not in favor of abortion. I'm going to guess that he had those right wing viewpoints that maybe aren't so extreme but are considered extreme. by extreme people on the other side. All I've seen is that he's been called a Nazi and other shit, which all these people do anyhow.

So I would have just thought he was your garden variety, right-wing activist type of guy, young dude, good-looking wife, beautiful family. You know, and again, I don't know anything about him. I don't know the super controversial shit about him because I don't pay attention to that shit because I don't care. And you can say, Josh, you sound like a naive person or educate yourself on this shit. honest to God, I could not tell you what the main platforms or viewpoints that Charlie Kirk have,

but considering how he's been treated by a lot of people that are left-wing types and how they've celebrated his death, I'm going to go out on a limb and say that he has the kind of viewpoints that they disagree with. So he's probably someone who's not in favor of turning your eight-year-old son into your eight-year-old daughter or something like that. Therefore, he's a piece of shit and had to be taken out. That would be my guess if I had to break down. who Charlie Kirk probably was, and his viewpoints were probably not all that extreme, but they were considered extreme because these people have TDS and they are fucking broken, broken.

I am on neither side on these things. And I know you'll listen to this if you're some left-wing guy. If you're like Damir listening to this, you'll be like, ah, there's that wacko right-wing guy. He's always talking bad about, well, like, I got in trouble for that here in Detroit because I was doing a bit. But there's a neighborhood called Furndale. And it's like a, you know, you're kind of hipster, progressive, you know, a very gay neighborhood. It's a wonderful neighborhood, great bars, great restaurants. I take Ross over there to walk all the time.

And I was doing a bit about the Philly Karen here in Detroit. And I said, this woman definitely looks like she's got the in this house, we believe, signs in her yard. And she would live in Ferndale if she were here. My boss comes in and he's like, look. I don't want you to have any viewpoints on there that, like, show who you are politically. I'm like, is it really political to make fun of an in-this-house we believe? That is a non-partisan making fun of there. Like, in the same way that I would make fun of some jacked-up truck with brass balls dangling from the back

or some guy who's got a flag that says, fuck your feelings, yet he's all worked up over something that Keith Olberman said. Like, I make fun of everyone if you listen to me. Now, what is my main viewpoint politically, if you want to call it that? Like, I was talking to another radio guy, an older radio guy the other day, and he goes, based on listening to you, I can tell that your big thing is you're a very anti-woke guy. And I'm like, yeah, I'd say that's about as political as I get on the radio. Or when I was in Nashville, we celebrated that we didn't have to wear masks anymore. But I felt like that shouldn't have been a political message.

That was just a message of, you know, good, I don't have to wear this fucking diaper on my face anymore. And we're opening stores and we're living. you know. But that's obviously a political message too. And what I explained to him is I'm like, you know, I'm not super political, but I'm not going to avoid making jokes about this kind of shit because you think it might turn someone off because guess what, ain't nobody fucking listening right now anyway. So I might as well have some sort of a viewpoint. But my main viewpoint is just making fun of those types of absurdities. I'm not going to get on the air and say, so let's talk about abortion on the Josh and a show. It's not something that I'm interested in

care that much about. But kind of making fun of wokeness is, and I hate the word woke, because now it's so politicized that if you call something woke, you're obviously a right-wing Nazi. But point being in all of this, I know nothing for the most part about this Charlie Kirk, except now that he's, you know, he was 31 years old and got plugged at Utah Valley University or whatever it was. That's what I know about the guy. Politically, I know very little about him, but obviously he pissed somebody off enough. Probably somebody, if I had to guess, I'm going to go out on a limb here and say it was some left-wing person, some extreme person that wanted this guy dead. I've seen people that I know on the internet celebrating that he

died and putting up a screenshot of some quote of his where he said that, you know, some people are going to have to die to protect the Second Amendment. I think people get kind of lost on what the Second Amendment is a lot of the time, and people were celebrating that. Like, ha, ha, look at that. I don't know if that's irony. Kind of, I guess it's irony. But I guarantee, I know nothing about the guy. But I would feel like if he were somebody that was fighting for the Second Amendment, had you gotten that gun legally? I don't know that the guy would have cared. Unless, like, you know, you were clearly a mental patient and they gave you a gun. I think that would probably be a problem to this guy. My guess is he probably would have said, I mean, that's the way this thing works. But those are the kind of outrageous viewpoints. that are considered Nazi fascist viewpoints now. You know, like, actually, the one topic I've done on the radio here that got people to call was gun related. So I'm going to write that down and say, hey, talk about guns and people will call. But it was about in Tennessee how in Tennessee the schools are mandating gun safety classes for kids going so far as to like kindergartners, which I think that's extreme.

But I don't think there's anything wrong with kids who are maybe fourth graders, fifth graders. Not having like a shooting range. They're not going out with real guns and putting on, you know, the fucking, the silencing earphones and getting up there and shooting targets and cans and shit. But they're just letting them know, like kind of teaching them, you know, hey, if you find a gun, here are the safe things to do. It's firearm safety shit that I think is good. Like, I don't think that's bad.

It actually got a ton of people calling, which I never get a ton of people calling here. So it was fascinating. But like, that's the kind of shit. So guns are obviously a big talking point. But point being in all of this is. that, like, we are so desensitized now that the kind of shit that you would have to see on bootleg VHSs or watch at a stag party are now so commonplace that we're just like, eh, just Wednesday.

Like, did you see this? A guy got assassinated, quote unquote, assassinated at this, at the Utah Valley University. Wow, he is dead. And you go, all right, that's good. So what do you want from noodles and company? Like, we don't even think about it. it. It doesn't shut us down. We just go about our day. And for many of people, it's just a reason to be even less sympathetic or empathetic. And it's usually the people that claim to be the most

empathetic who are the ones who are the most vocal on social media celebrating that somebody died. Or you get the gal that got stabbed on the train. And there's people fighting for the rights of the stabber. I feel like I used to live in a time and place where we'd watch a guy, no matter what race this person was and if we had video of him stabbing somebody no matter what race she was and we'd go that guy's fucked up and needs to be in jail we don't go into in-depth conversations about why he might have done it and why society might be part of the issue and no we would just say the guy's a motherfucking psycho and he's been in jail multiple times what the fuck are we doing but we don't have that conversation anymore we got to look deeper we got to and honestly

we just got to find some way to bring it back around to how it's the fault of Trump or right-wing people like it can't just be somebody's a fucking lunatic somebody's a dreadful person it needs to be dealt with we have to know the underlying cause of this guy going on a train and stabbing somebody and then we see it on film and we're like all right that's great i'm gonna go to the gym now like that's where we are and it's fucked up you know there's a giant part of me because i'm not some huge trump supporter and you guys know that if you've listened to the podcast at all you know that i voted for trump once and that was because i was super pissed off it my most political point in life in that during the the ronum but i think there's a there's a case to be

made that trump is truly the worst thing that's ever happened to america and not for the reasons you might think like if you're some left-wing guy you're like god damn right um it's because i think that 99% of people know that the government's full of shit and that the government lies and that the government cheats you but if your life is comfortable and you're not having to turn on, you go to Twitter every day and watch people getting shot every day, and you don't have to be accosted every day for your beliefs, and you just want people to shut the fuck up. There was something to be said about, like, hey, we don't know all the bad shit the government's

doing. And you know what? I don't really care. I get up in the morning. I go to work. I think taxes are bullshit, but I pay them anyway. I go about my life. I go home.

I have a dog and a wife. Maybe I have two kids. Whatever it is. I go home. I watch my stories. I get up, I go do it again tomorrow. Like, I don't know that activating these fucking political lunatics was the best move. Like the Elizabeth Warrens and all of these people who are clearly shitheads,

there's a part of me that thinks maybe just letting them be shitheads, as long as my life wasn't impacted by it in a huge way, is kind of okay. Like if my choices are, hey, here's some fucking people who want to tell you all about, How, you know, about transgender shit and all this shit on a consistent basis. If the tradeoff is, I don't have to go to social media every day and watch somebody get shot in the neck and die or stabbed on a bus and feel nothing about it. If those are the options, I'm kind of like, let the lunatic political people have their power. Because now that they feel their power is waning, now they're fucking crazier than they were before. and they've created a universe of more crazy fucking people.

That's the problem I'm having here. Like, if I could go back 10 years before Trump was elected, if Trump was never a political figure, I'd be like, okay, I can live with this. Like, yeah, there's some wacky left-wing shit that I don't believe in, but ultimately I get up, I go to work, I live my life. Now, every day, it's just a constant fight and a constant battle. And it's not enjoyable, it's not fun.

it's just like it just sucks so look and I'm not ripping Trump I don't know if but I don't know if in 15, 20 years from now we're going to look back and go boy everything Trump did was for the better all he's done is pissed off these left wing people and his existence has created the AOCs of the world and has created the Van Jones of the world

and created like these wackos who can say fucked up repugnant shit and they're doing it in the under the guys eyes of like the moral high ground and I'm like fuck you you know like if I could go back into a time machine like a butterfly effect thing right and you can go you know like you always see those stories like hey if you could stop baby Hitler would you do it I mean the obvious answer is yes you got to stop baby Hitler but like I'm not saying Trump is Hitler by the way just to be clear but that's the example you always get is what is what if you could kill baby Hitler would you do it no I would take him and raise him as my own and make him a good person I mean you

And maybe you just might be better off just putting a plastic bag over baby Hitler's head and said, let's get out of here. But if you can go back 10, 11 years and just have no Trump, like, yeah, you probably wouldn't get some of these right-wing politicians, whatever. But would you just be kind of content knowing that the government sucks and that they're fucking you and that there's corruption and power and manipulation and all this shit? But your life kind of feels normal and you don't walk around feeling like somebody. hate you because of the color of your skin or you don't feel like somebody hates you because of what your political views are. And maybe that would still be the case, but it's not as obvious and in your face. And you wouldn't have to go to Twitter and see dudes getting plugged every day. Like, I don't think that would be the case if Trump had never existed. In a

butterfly effect type of world, I don't know that that would be the case. Maybe I'm wrong, but, like, I kind of, I miss, like, 2014. I miss, like, you know, the era of, like, like, you know, the era of like, you know, you'd get angry right-wing dudes that think Obama sucks, but life would go on and you'd get up and you'd go to work. And that was kind of the gist of it. There'd be like, angry Rush Limbaugh hopes that Obama fails. And that's like the worst thing you're going to fucking hear. And now people are just free to say the most fucked up repugnant shit about everybody and it's normal. Like, I don't like the way that feels.

I don't know. Maybe I'm a pussy. Maybe I'm reading too many self-help books. I don't know. But I don't like it. And if I'm wrong, you can tell me I'm wrong and you can message me. You tell me to go fuck yourself, and that's fine. I'm not trying to alienate anybody, and not telling you you're bad for whoever you vote for.

But what I'm telling you is, 11, 12 years ago, before Trump came down the escalator, people bitched about politics, but it wasn't like this. And I think there are other factors. Social media plays a big factor in it, which is bigger than it was 15 years ago. And I get all that. But it's fucked up where we are. Like, we are so, like, I watched a guy get blown away. blood gushing from his neck. You know what I did after I watched that?

I flipped on YouTube, watched Pat McAfee talk about football with Dennis Ariens. And like, life went on. And we're like, this is just what happens in life now. So, anywho, more to come.