The Young Turks - Suspected Assassin Arrested - September 12, 2025

Episode Date: September 13, 2025

Visit https://prizepicks.onelink.me/LME0/TYT and use code TYT and get $50 in lineups when you play your first $5 lineup! Officials have identified the suspect in Charlie Kirk’s killing, as Trump blames “radicals on the left” and announces plans to send the National Guard into Memphis to “fix” crime, just like in D.C. Even Republicans are blasting Kash Patel's bungled response to the Kirk assassination. Hosts: John Iadarola, Jordan Uhl & Mark Thompson SUBSCRIBE on YOUTUBE ☞  https://www.youtube.com/@TheYoungTurks FOLLOW US ON: FACEBOOK  ☞   https://www.facebook.com/theyoungturks TWITTER  ☞       https://twitter.com/TheYoungTurks INSTAGRAM  ☞  https://www.instagram.com/theyoungturks TIKTOK  ☞          https://www.tiktok.com/@theyoungturks 👕MERCH  ☞      https:/www.shoptyt.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You're listening to The Young Turks, the online news show. Make sure to follow and rate our show with not one, not two, not three, not four, but five stars. You're awesome. Thank you. Let's go! Hey, guys, Friday! The guy! Drop me, Bexie, Bexing, Dxie, Dxie, Dxie, Dxie, Dxie, Dxie, Drop it. Welcome one and all to the Friday Power panel with me, John Arola, and very lucky to be doing yet another show this week with Jordan Yule. Jordan, how's it going?

Oh, it's going great, John. What a week. It's certainly been a week. And joining us to cap off the week, Mark, how's it going? Yeah, great to be with J&J. I love it. Yeah, I have your vaccine. It's done wonders for me. Yeah, thank you. Get it while you still can. But anyway, yeah, so I think it's probably about time that we end this week of news. I think that's enough of stuff happening. It's been a terrible week. Yeah, it's been bad and it's likely to get worse because we are governed by monsters. But there is little dribs and drabs of some good news and little ideas of what might be coming in the near future. So we're going to be talking about that throughout this hour. And so I'm very looking at my panel. The second hour, Yaz is going to be leading that, which is very exciting.

And Masjabrani, as well as Michael Shore, will be joining Yaz. And Yaz is going to be in studio, which is very exciting because she's never done a show in studio before. So lots to look forward to. And with all that said, why don't we jump at our first story? Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. We got him. On the evening of September 11th, a family member of Tyler Robinson reached out to a family friend who contacted the Washington County Sheriff's Office with information that Robinson had confessed to them or implied that he had committed the incident. This information was relayed to the Utah County Sheriff's Office and seen investigators at Utah Valley University. This information was also conveyed to the FBI.

That right there is the governor of Utah, Spencer Cox, announcing the good news that they think this time, third time's a charm, they actually got the guy. The guy responsible for the tragic killing of Charlie Kirk earlier this week. It's a 22-year-olds, but identified as Tyler Robinson. You can see a photo of him right there. Obviously, some photos had been circulating online for the last day or so. It took quite a while after the attack for those to start to come out. But we'll get into criticisms of the investigation soon. For now, we want to talk a little bit about what is known about the suspect.

And as was alluded to there by the governor, it was a family member of the shooter who reached out to a family friend who had contacted the Washington County Sheriff's Office. And so eventually information was relayed and they were able to link up. Investigators not only talked to the members of the family, but also to Robinson. roommate who showed the messages on Discord between him and Robinson, which was further corroborating evidence in their view that he had been the one who did it. Those messages associated with the name Tyler State, quote, a need to retrieve a rifle from a drop point, leaving the rifle in a bush, engraving bullets, having left the rifle wrapped in a towel, and a mention of a scope and the rifle being unique. Now, I had seen earlier today, Discord is stating that nothing

was done to plan the attack on their platform. The investigators are saying that those messages are unique, so we'll see how that develops. But for now, we know as of yesterday that law enforcement had recovered a rifle. I believe that was discussed yesterday on the show. It was a high powered bolt action rifle, and it was indeed wrapped in a towel. So that's again, yet another link that this could be the actual person. And then as everybody continues to try to figure out what the motivation of this tragic and horrific act was, there were, as was alluded to the messages, engravings on the actual casing. So here we're going to discuss the engravings that appear to actually have been there. Earlier this week, there was initial

reporting that turned out to not be the case. Initially, it was Stephen Crowder that spread this, that made people falsely believe that this had something to do with either the shooter being trans or in support of the trans movement. And that was, it was like almost unbelievably boneheaded how they came to that conclusion. But we'll discuss that. First, let's talk about what was actually on the casing. So there was a phrase, hey, fascist catch, followed by an up arrow symbol, a right arrow symbol, and three down arrow symbols. There was the phrase, oh, Bella chow, Bella chow, Bella chow, chow, as well as if you read this, you are gay LMAO. Now, there was also one more. Notices, bulge, O-W-O, what's this? And basically, what's this?

this is a variety of phrases that are part of different meme cultures on the internet and basically the sorts of stuff that you'd be you'd be knowledgeable of if you were a gamer on the one hand or way too online on the other. I was familiar with one of them and we'll get to that in a sec. That would be of course hey fascist catch which initially people pointed to as evidence of the ideological bent of the shooter that it seems like well if he's writing that on a a bullet than he seems to be indicating he thinks Charlie Kirk is a fascist. Now many people have identified both that phrase as well as the arrows as being references to components of the game, Hell Divers 2, which I'm familiar with. The arrows are basically

a code that is put in on the controller keypad that brings in a bomb. And the phrase, I'm not familiar with that from the game, but people are saying it is a part of the game. Now we also should bear in mind the possibility that it is a reference to the game And it's an expression of ideology. That could certainly be true as well. Now, the game itself is a sort of satirical play on a fascist state, sort of scrubbing out democracy around the galaxy. But again, these sorts of memes and, you know, like trolling doesn't always have to make logical sense necessarily. So we can't say for sure exactly what it means. But that said, let's turn now to a little bit of video. We'll get in discussion in a sec. First, here's a family

member, there is a family member who had talked to investigators about some of the radicalization of the shooter. Investigators interviewed a family member of Robinson who stated that Robinson had become more political in recent years. The family member referenced a recent incident in which Robinson came to dinner prior to September 10th, and in that conversation with another family member, Robinson mentioned Charlie Kirk was coming to UVU. They talked about why they didn't like him and the viewpoints that he had. The family member also stated Kirk was full of hate and spreading hate. So we'll get into in a minute a little bit more of the more breaking evidence, possibly pointing to an ideology or a motive. But I want to jump

to our panel. Mark first, I haven't talked to you yet about this story. What do you make about the fact that they caught him and what's been revealed so far? Well, first of all, they didn't really catch him they they picked up the telephone when they were contacted by family members and i mean that's an important distinction because there's so much peacocking going on we got him and you know the narratives that were slapped onto the situation first from the president of the united states and then on to this situation from every sort of right wing pundit and a fox news channel any kind of right wing propaganda instrument was all too anxious to sort of used the vacuum between the incident and then actually apprehending the suspect to slap on,

as I say, whatever narrative they wanted. So that's why when you talk about those various etchings that were there and those that even weren't there that I know you'll get to, you begin to see how this is all just being used for political purposes, which is, again, to be expected. But it's sort of toward a loathsome end. But anyway, back to Cash Patel and the gang that couldn't shoot straight quite literally cash Patel is one of these guys who is all too ready to take the microphone he's gotten rid of everybody at the FBI with any competence at the highest levels and he's essentially replaced them with a bunch of loyalists and so there were a bunch of mistakes made up until the point where they could announce that they had this shooter in custody those

mistakes included proclaiming that they they had him in custody already then he had to walk it back And there were a number of different things from an administrative standpoint that Cash Patel had screwed up. And then finally, and we'll kind of get to this a little bit later, John, but the fact that he had to sort of yield completely to allow Trump to go on television and announce that they had the shooter in custody. All of these things sort of speak to the theatrics of this, almost a performative aspect to this. But what we're seeing, I think, is some revelations that don't match the existing narrative that they tried to slap onto. to this situation prior to what we're learning now. Yeah. Jordan, what do you think? Yeah, I think, well, a few things, right?

You pointed out some of these writings on the shell casings. That's a pattern that we're seeing with a lot of younger, more nihilistic shooters. And for me, that underscores not a political ideology or this nihilism leading to shootings, but another reminder that we are passing off this problem of gun violence to another generation. It manifests differently than prior generations, but still, nothing is being done about it. We've talked about this repeatedly. It is a uniquely American problem. And I think, yes, I see a lot of people on both sides of the political spectrum trying to find bits and pieces that affirm their worldview and demonize the other. And they're trying to make this shooter into someone part of a different political camp.

And again, we talked about it on Damage Report yesterday. I can't stress enough. The problem, the underlying theme in all of these shootings is the proliferation of guns in this country. You've seen people say, oh, he was an adherent to a certain right-wing political figure and podcaster. You're seeing an interview in The Guardian with a purported high school classmate saying, He was firmly on the left. We don't know, but to me, none of this really matters. The problem here throughout all of these stories, but this one again is guns.

Yeah, exactly. And maybe we'll have more details soon. We don't know for sure, but you're right. It seems based on what we've seen, he had access to guns if you wanted them. I mean, he was of age, he could have theoretically like this sort of gun generally, I don't know what gun control would have banned this sort of hunting rifle, this This is not, you know, it's not a classic like assault style weapon or anything like that. But he knew guns, he grew up around guns. Guns are part of the culture. And so when he

turned violent, that's that's the direction that he lashed out in. Maybe there is more of an ideological component, we'll see. But I do think that nihilism certainly seems to be a part of it. And I would also think it's noteworthy and we're not going to go into great detail on this. I know I believe they're going to be talking about it in the second hour of the show, But we're now finding out that the person who on that same day committed a mass shooting at a school appears to have been more traditionally radicalized online by white supremacist anti-Semitic right-wing organizations. Now, we can't talk about that because that would distract from Donald Trump's quest to make all of this seem like it's left-wing political violence. But that also happened the same day. And so to your point, the guns do seem fundamentally to be a big part of the problem.

Well, and to the point also, John, you know, it bears mentioning, I know that it's been said over and over, but I think there's a reason it's been said over and over. I mean, the tragic irony of Kirk being this champion for gun rights and then falling victim to gun violence. I mean, it can't be ignored and it really can't be overstated. This is America. I mean, America fetishizes guns and guns are everywhere. You can't have that kind of proliferation, whether it's a nihilism or a radicalized white supremacy in that environment without their being some pretty nasty things as a result. Yeah, yeah. Well, in terms of like hard evidence of, you know, what his background might be, and bear the, bear in mind, we're interested in this because it's a horrific act. This is sort of the part of the process of coming to understand a story. I understand there are some people that don't care at all about any of this. They're not interested in what the background was or what we could find out about this

person. And I totally understand that. But I'm a curious person and I don't want to know. He was apparently registered as a voter, but not affiliated with any part. party in a way that we could see. There had been like initial reporting people thought they had tracked down donations he had made to Donald Trump or to Maga. That turned out not to have been the case. Always take with a massive grain of salt, any information like that that comes out in the immediate aftermath of a shooting, particularly when it's based on nothing other than the person's name.

There are a lot of people, particularly with the name Tyler and Robinson, you cannot assume that simply because that name is in a donation that it's going to turn out to be that particular person. We know that he apparently never attended Utah Valley University, but he did go to Utah State University for one semester and was in some sort of electrical apprenticeship. He's being held right now without bail in a Utah jail is expected to be charged with aggravated murder, felony discharge of a firearm causing serious bodily injury and obstruction of justice. And as of right now, the investigators are saying that he is refusing to talk to them. I don't know generally how that ends up going in these cases, it seems like a person that like to express, based on what the family has said, like to express his political opinions.

Maybe he'll end up talking and giving more information. We don't know. This episode is brought to you by prize picks. You and I make decisions every day, but on prize picks, being right can get you paid. Don't miss any of the excitement this season on prize picks where it's good to be right. All right, look, the football season, is getting underway and I love it and I'm locked in on prize picks. For me, it's the perfect way to test your football knowledge against the projections and I love to test my knowledge in politics and in sports. So I was looking at the app this morning and it was fun, it was simple. You're not dealing with complicated spreads. You're just picking if a player will go more or less on their projected stat. So if you're looking at Sequan Barkley and they're saying more or less than one rushing touchdown, well, I like Seiquan a lot. Of course it depends on who's playing, but I got that at more. You're looking at Joe Burrow more or less than two and a half passing touchdowns? Oh, I love that one. I'm going to go more on that too.

But your call and you see how super easy this is. And if you get it right, you win money, which I also love. So look, I love this app. It's so simple. You just pick two to six player projections. If you get your picks right, you can cash in. It's the best way to get action on sports in more than 40 states, including California, Texas, and Georgia. Prize picks puts their users first so all withdrawals are fast, safe, and secure.

Price picks offers Venmo, Apple Pay, MasterCard, and more for quick and easy deposits into your accounts this football season. Price Picks also offers injury reboots if one of your players leaves the game in the first half and doesn't return. Price Picks won't count it as a loss. So download the app today and use code TYT to get $50 in lineups after you play your first $5 lineup. That's code TYT to get $50 in lineups after you play your first $5 lineup. Prize Picks, it's good to be right. discover Vegas-level excitement with BetMGM Casino, now introducing our hottest exclusive, Friends, the One with Multi-Drop. Your favorite classic television show is being reimagined

into your favorite casino game featuring iconic images from the show. Spin our new exclusive because we're not on a break. Play Friends, the One with Multidrop exclusively at BetMGM Casino. Want even more options? Pull up a seat and check out a wide variety of table games from blackjack to poker. Or head over to the arcade for nostalgic casino thrills. Download the BetMGM Ontario app today. You don't want to miss out. 19 plus to wager, Ontario only. Please play responsibly. If you have questions or concerns about your gambling or someone close to you, please contact Connex Ontario at 1-866-531-2,600 to speak to an advisor free of charge. BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming Ontario.

Despite taking 33 hours to apprehend the suspect in the tragic killing of Charlie Kirk and falsely claiming that they had the right guy in custody the very first night of the shooting, FBI director Cash Patel was really quick to rush out and brag about how quickly he and his team had worked during the press conference that happened earlier today. Take a look. The arrest is a testament to dedication of good law enforcement being great and partnerships in law enforcement, which I've tried to highlight as my tenure at the director of the FBI. There is no better relationship for law enforcement than the FBI to partner with state and local authorities, and you've seen it here in these last few days. I want to express my

deep gratitude to the employees of the FBI, the men and women, the evidence for response team tacticians, the special operators, the agents, the support staff, you have done monumental work in historic time when the public who had a right to demand such an expeditious solving of an investigation, the FBI answered that call diligently, critically important to our nation. And we delivered. And I'm proud to be their leader. And I'm proud to be the director of the FBI. I don't know what that strange little man is saying. Yeah, they answer the call. The call was from the family member of the shooter, because if not for that, there would be nothing. We would still be looking for him. And by the way, I'm not going to be critical of the investigators or

the agents or the cops are working with them. They're scrubbing the internet. They're out there. They're searching. They're investigating people. They're doing all that stuff, all that stuff that Cash Patel is not doing any of, by the way. Cash Patel is just sitting stewing after having made one boneheaded blunder after the other. And feeling the pressure, by the way, because more and more people in the Maga world were mad at him. It's all well and good for loyalists and toadies with no experience to be put into these incredibly important and sensitive positions in government when you don't care if the government functions. But as soon as you desperately want it to function because one of your own was struck down, suddenly it's like,

oh wait, why do we have an idiot in one of these positions? And unfortunately, he's the idiot. So when he comes out and says, we got him, okay, I'll say the same thing, we got him. And I can say that because I had as much to do with it as Cash Patel did. Neither of us were essential. Both of us could have taken a vacation and it would have been the exact same outcome. And so anyway, for him to come out and pretend that his leadership was a part of this, the only way it couldn't have been, like if what would he have told people not to answer the phone? I guess that would have been bad leadership.

Other than that, I don't think he was that important in this particular story. But anyway, before we get into the discussion, I want to give some evidence, some examples of that pressure that I referenced he was experiencing. Here is Steve Bannon and some other conservatives. So many unanswered questions, and I do not understand why law enforcement did not step up to the microphone and give some details. Some details. Instead of glazing each other about this partnership and we're all great, we did a great job. Correct me if I'm wrong. It appears the kid had said something to the family, the family had confronted him, and the family turned him in. I'm not seeing the great law enforcement work. And I'm not saying there's not great law enforcement work. And I'm not, you know, saying there's not great law enforcement.

They all came together. I got that. But this was not through law enforcement work. I don't know why Cash flew out there, you know, thousands of miles to give us, hey, working partnerships and our great partnership in Utah. Okay, I got that. No offense to the law enforcement guys in the future of this. The public assumes that you're working together as partnerships.

Exactly. Now, Cash may not know that because, again, he doesn't know what he's doing and he's not qualified for the position. So all of this might be another blessed discovery every day that he wakes up. But anyway, look, this is what you get when you put a guy like him who's only in that position because he's a loyalist. He wrote a fawning, like, picture book about Donald Trump. And his like main assistant is a like a bloviating podcaster.

And I understand like they could have done a lot in this investigation. They're certainly not distracted by like, you know, finding justice with the Epstein files or anything like that. They had the time on their hands. But anyway, I think if anything coming out of this, he should be fired, replaced by somebody who actually knows what they're doing. But Jordan, I want to hear your thoughts on this. Yeah, Cash Patel has no business running the FBI. It's an absolute joke. And I was laughing, just the mental image of Patel and Dan Bongino flying out to Utah to do the conduct or leave the investigation.

Like, what would they be doing? Just podcasting from the forest. This is another problem. We're seeing this throughout the government. This is what it looks like when you fill these positions with lackeys and loyalists instead of somebody who has expertise in that field. This person was free to roam for an additional day because they wrongfully detained to other people. And granted it was a chaotic situation. But still, like Mark pointed out, like many people have pointed out,

The only reason they have him is because somebody turned him in. The press conference last night was not very reassuring. They said they had no leads and they were begging the public for help. The FBI didn't solve this crime. That's it. The public did. And it was somebody who seemed like they wanted the reward who already knew him. Mark, any of the thoughts?

I know you talked a little about this earlier. Yeah, but this crew really can't wait to take a victory lap. And that's kind of why Bongino and Patel go out there and they sort of just to try to in some way, take credit for an investigation they had nothing to do with. We said, I mean, it was like working the phones at a telethon. I mean, you essentially sit there, you take leads from the public and the one that seems as though it's connected. And this one was, you know, served up cleanly. It wasn't though they, it wasn't like solving the case in New York where the CEO is shot on the street and you have to put together a jigsaw puzzle of little bits

and fragments of information. This was a situation in which the family reached out. Bannon was right. And Bannon says some loathsome things later on in that. in that same run, but he's absolutely right about the fact that essentially Bonjino and Patel, they go out there and they're just there to sort of be part of the winner's circle. It is what's happening across government. And it stands as a stark example of what these toadies do as they sit there completely vapid and unable to really do the world, any kind of police work. And they simply take credit and celebrate, if you, will, something that they had nothing to do with. Exactly. And I can only imagine,

and I won't speak, I can't speak for any of them, but so many of those actual agents, the ones who haven't been fired for like, you know, being the wrong race or whatever, how insulting must it be to see these losers standing up there and like taking credit for this when you're the ones doing like the actual work? It's like, you know, how the diplomats must feel when they see Donald Trump talking about how he should get like the Nobel Peace Prize. It's a very weird administration. It's 80% people who have no business being in their position. The Christie Nomes and the Pete Hags and all that.

And then you have the 20% who theoretically do know what they're doing, but have to pretend that they don't. Like Besant and Lutnik understand the economy, but they all have to now pretend that they don't know how tariffs work because Donald Trump is a moron. It's a very weird way to run a government. But the one thing they do, John, is they all sing from the same hymnal. And you saw it in that press conference that we just saw a bit of from Patel. And that is a lavish praise on the Supreme Leader on Donald Trump.

It's remarkable to see. But that's the one thing to tell can do. He can do it 24 hours a day is find new ways to compliment Donald Trump on his squiring of this investigation, on his appointment of great law enforcement people. It's all about lavishing praise on the Supreme Leader. Yeah. Jordan, a final thought before we break. I just, it can't be stated enough. Patel has to be fired. And I think it should. be as soon as possible. I mean, this is, thankfully, this was a contained situation. There's only one person who lost their life. But think about if it was a mass shooting and somebody was on the loose. Think about someone who escapes and goes to a different town. Like, you need to think about the long term consequences of keeping him in this position. I don't expect Trump will because

like Mark just laid out, he's doing the most valuable thing you can do to keep that job, which is just praise Trump. Exactly. Yeah. He should be five. Take Dan Bongina with him, let him spend more time with the podcast he loves so much. Like imagine if this guy had been like the Minnesota guy and it had a list of 60 people that he wanted to take out. Thank God he appeared to only horrifically, but only wanted to take out one person. The days that they gave him to run amuck if he wanted to could have proved deadly, but thank God it didn't happen. We're to take a short break. We come back, lots more. What do we do about our country with that?

Because we have radicals on the right as well. We have radicals on the left. People have gotten or watching all of these videos and cheering. Some people are cheering that Charlie was killed. How do we fix this country? How do we come back together? I'll tell you something that's going to get me in trouble, but I couldn't care less. The radicals on the right, oftentimes are radical because they don't want to see crime.

They don't want to see crime. Worryed about the border. They're saying, we don't want these people coming in. We don't want you burning our shopping centers. We don't want you shooting our people in the middle of the street. The radicals on the left are the problem. That is Donald Trump doing something that I guess isn't going to surprise anyone. There's a moment.

Will he meet it? Obviously, he's not going to. When America needs a responsible figure, someone who cares about everyone in America. Again, you're not elected by the people who voted for you, which I'll remind you for Donald Trump is less than 50% of the people who voted. You're supposed to be the president of everyone. And we have a country that is scared and not just Republicans are scared. Many Democrats are scared as well. And Donald Trump decided, I could do the thing that literally every other president in American history would do, which is just try to take. down the tenor of the conversation. I keep telling people not to demonize people. You know what I'm gonna do? I'm gonna demonize people. And I'm going to erase all of the right wing political violence, which is still the vast vast vast majority of all of it. I'm gonna erase the right wing political violence that happened on the exact same day that Charlie Kirk was shot. And I'm gonna pretend that it's a problem of the left so that I can get something out of it. He's gonna use callously and cruelly, viciously use the death of a person. He claims to be a friend to get something politically. It's

absolutely sickening. And then it gets even weirder, I guess, as he goes on. He just starts rambling about all of his political grievances. Take a look. They're vicious and they're horrible and they're politically savvy. Although they want men and women sports, they want transgender for everyone, they want open borders. The worst thing that happened to this country, because I've already solved inflation, cost it down. Look at energy costs. You're going to have $2 gasoline pretty soon. I've solved just about every problem. The worst thing that happened to our country is when we let 25 million people in, many of which, and I say 80% should not be in our country. They empty their prisons

into our country. They empty their mental institutions insane asylum. They threw them all into our country. And these stupid people, and some of them are stupid in terms of common sense, but they're brilliant in other ways. Biden wasn't calling the shots. It was the geniuses that surrounded radical left geniuses that surrounded him on the, unfortunately, he used the resolute desk. That's the one I used. I hated that he used it, but he used it. But they called the shots, and he didn't do anything. Look at what happened. The auto pen signed everything. He wasn't aware of anything that was being signed. I don't often feel an abundance of empathy for the hosts of Fox and Friends, but I can only imagine how utterly bored they are as grandpa rambles

on. Come on, come on, get to the point. So anyway, a lot of that was either nonsense. The idea that we'll soon have $2 gas when he's been going around for six months saying that it's less than $2 already. We have no inflation even though we do cost her down even though they're up. I don't know if it's just him lying, which would be bad enough for a guy whose reputation is that he tells it straight to the voters that he spits in their face by lying about all the problems that they still face. Or if the likelihood that he's been experiencing a series of micro strokes have resulted in him not knowing what year it is. Maybe he thinks that gas is $2 a gallon because he thinks it's 1994. I don't know. But anyway, he went on from trying to point his rabid

gun-toting followers at the left to then ranting about trans people and all of that. It's absolutely sickening again. As far as possible from meeting the moment, Mark, I'm going to go to you first. What do you think? Well, I mean, it's just this is the, as you suggest, it's sort of this ramble. But what's in the ramble is the propaganda machine, which is always going with Trump. And it's the kind of things that you see in Maduro does it, Putin does it, Orban does it. I mean, you know, the facts have nothing to do with what the leader is saying. And the idea somehow that he could pivot off of the question that was really a sitter, which is, you know, they're radicals on the right, their radicals, radicals on the left.

I mean, how are we going to bring this country together? you could have gotten so many different ways. And instead, he just said, no, they're radicals on the left. And they are crazy, lunatic libs who are destroying this country. And then he begins this screed. And as you suggest, all these digressions. And as I say, they just seem to me to be the sort of digressions that are associated with both kind of the fact that he's untethered by reality. And also that he just has to keep pumping the propaganda machine, which he does almost nonstop.

The line that we're seeing from many people on the right is that political violence is only a one-way problem. And of course, you know, Trump, we and I talked about on The Damage Report yesterday, John, how they were talking about the dangers of dehumanizing rhetoric. I mean, who more and who of greater prominence than Trump has used dehumanizing rhetoric to inspire and incite violence? over the last several years in our politics. It's just an absolute mockery. But one thing I can't really shake is while Trump is doing this Fox interview, and I know we might get into the Yankees game last night and his dancing and the crowd and all that, J.D. Vance is the one flying with Charlie Kirk's widow and the casket. And then this morning at the White House, Trump has asked about his friend, his friend, and he's like, oh yeah, I'm okay. Hey, if you check

out this new patio furniture? It was insane. It just does not care at all. It's remarkable. Jordan, that I'm glad that you mentioned that because that video is like psychotic. It would like you may think, oh Jordan, surely he's exaggerating. He must have said more. No, it was I'm doing fine. Hey, by the way, look at these bulldozers. We're going to have a Fabulous. Everybody's wanted a big ballroom. We're going to have a big ballroom. He knew Charlie Kirk for years. Charlie Kirk is a close personal friend of Don Jr. And I know that Trump doesn't necessarily like his sons, but he seemed to like Charlie Kirk. And then, and by the way, people mourn in weird ways. But when he was at the Yankees game, they're filming him doing

his little weird dance and everything. This dude does not seem to care at all what happened. And I understand some MAGA people will get mad at us for like pointing that out or whatever. He seems to care significantly less than a lot of Democrats do about this tragic killing. And but anyway, look, my fear is that Donald Trump is obvious. He's always looked for opportunities to consolidate executive power to crack down on his political opponents. He has whatever, you hear a lot about free speech and free association, all everybody's rights you've heard about this week. Donald Trump doesn't care about literally any of that. Many of his followers do not. So I am very worried that he is going to use this as an

opportunity to crack down on those that he disagrees with. We're already largely seeing it. There's a lot of media companies that are like firing people, probably because they're worried that the federal government will come after them if they don't. And his willingness to once again give the green light implicitly to his followers who are flooding the internet with like enraged videos about how they want to go to war with liberals. And Donald Trump is giving them the go ahead to do that. And so for every right winger that's like, you know, these, these libs are being so callous, talk to your man, because he's the one that's inspiring it. In any event, any of the, well, actually, why don't we, why don't we briefly play the final

video, the video that Jordan had referenced with the Yankees? Aaron Judge, he is some player, but he is some strong guy. He had the biggest forearms. You know, I've seen weightlifters. I've never seen arms as big, and he's a fantastic. person too. Look, I understand it's maybe it's been two days. Maybe that's enough for Donald Trump to have more. But like he just went off on vicious leftist and political violence. And then he's like, screw that stuff.

Let's talk about this guy's forearms. They're jacked. This is not a serious person. This is not a, like, you cannot count on him to be responsible, to be human, to be adult, never to be a man. He just cannot be any of those things that you would expect a guy. in this position to be. But you did lose the plot there, John.

You're so right so quickly. I mean, he's there expressly to talk about the capture of Charlie Kirk's murderer. You're at least supposed to feign a kind of grieving that you would think Trump could do. But as you say, maybe the, you know, the expiration date on that is less than 48 hours. And then he's on to, you know, talking about, you know, something that you would speak about on an ESPN panel. I mean, the inappropriateness of it is striking. And because after all, he's a performer, and he couldn't even stick this landing.

It's really disturbing, given the gravity of the situation. I want to point out one thing on Wednesday. After Charlie had been shot, there was, of course, a lot of speculation, will he make it? What condition is he in? And there was one report from the speaker in the Utah State Legislature that was circulated a little bit. But it wasn't until Trump himself announced it. And I think that was a coordinated effort on the right because that's the role he wanted to play in that moment. He wanted to break the news.

And then all of the legacy media outlets ran with it on his confirmation. And I think for him, it's not really about their friendship, the contributions to the Republican Party and the MAGA movement that Charlie has led and fed into over the years. It's because yet again, this is all about Trump. And I was trying to think, like when I watched that Yankees footage last night, I thought about like, I've unfortunately lost friends, as I'm sure many people watching this have. the devastation that you feel in the immediate moment for the ensuing days to go to a baseball game like a day later granted it's 9-11 in New York but still like to do your dance and then talk about that and point to the the renovations at the White House the guy is incapable of feeling any sort of empathy or putting himself in someone else's position and this is weirdly like the

most grotesque display of it. Yeah, Waza was on the damage report this morning. And he pointed out like, you know, as terrible as like George W. Bush was after 9-11, he did some speeches where he seemed to care and he was like trying to make people feel better. I mean, then he went on to invade a bunch of countries and kill hundreds, thousands of people and he was terrible and mismanaged Katrina. And he was a terrible, terrible, terrible, terrible president.

But he could at least be counted on to do that. Obviously, Obama always could be counted on to show the gravitas necessary. Also did some terrible things. But he could do that. Biden, for all my disagreements with Biden, could do that. Trump can't do it. And many of his base seem unable to even see what's lacking there. So anyway, just like I think about the video that like Bernie put out last night,

like showcasing infinitely more capacity and understanding and compassion than Donald Trump is capable at this point. Okay, I think we're going to take our second break. We come back. Let's talk about where the next phase of Donald Trump's invasion of America will turn. Welcome back to what remains the first hour of the Young Turks, everyone. We got a couple more stories to talk about, so let's jump into it. President Trump announced earlier today that he's planning to send federal law enforcement and the National Guard into Memphis, Tennessee, to, in his words, lower crime, i.e., do mulch and

clean up garbage, I guess, like he did in Washington, D.C. Now, when is it going to happen? We don't know, because he probably doesn't know. But he said, we're going into Memphis. Memphis is deeply traveled. I'm just announcing that now, and we'll straighten that out, National Guard and anybody else we need. And by the way, we'll bring in the military to if we need it. Now, bear in mind, a court recently said that his previous deployment of National Guard here in L.A. was unlawful, but even that ruling doesn't say that he can't do it elsewhere. So although there's no judge that apparently is going to stop him deploying not only the National Guard, but the military against his own people, I just want to remind everyone, because if I'm insidious, the normalization of things is, this is insane. It was insane when he did it in L.A. It's insane that he did it in D.C. And there's a natural. urge that like, oh, well, now it'll be Memphis and maybe it'll be New Orleans and that'll be Chicago. And that's just a thing that happens. No, it is a thing that has only happened very recently with this one insane man. No one else has done this. No one has gone against the will

of mayors and governors and dispatched the U.S. military against their own citizens. It is still insane today the same way it was when he started this a couple of weeks ago. But anyway, to try to make this, I guess sound more reasonable. He said the mayor is happy. He's a Democrat. And the governor of Tennessee, the governor is happy. We're gonna like fix that just like we did Washington. Well, the mayor has come out with a statement since then saying that that is an exaggeration of what he said about them going in there. The mayor Paul Young had said that he'd been talking with the Trump administration about bringing in federal support for the police department, like financial resources, patrol officers, not battle tanks and APCs.

But of course, like any sort of, you know, it's a Democrat. Trump doesn't care. He's going to do whatever he wants. And so with that said, this could happen over the weekend. It could happen next week. Mark, what do you think? Well, it's a flex on his part that he likes. It doesn't have anything to do with crime.

As was alluded to, if he really was serious about crime, you'd buttress existing police forces with money, with federal guidance, with additional hiring incentives. All of these things could be done. and supercharged even from the federal government. It's not about crime. It's about my ability as president to put troops on the streets. And it's performative. These are National Guard troops that are now used as props.

It's expensive, by the way. And these are men and women who have dedicated portions of their lives to their availability, to go where they're called to be. But they're accountants and real estate agents and teachers. And they have real lives. So there's a cost to the federal government, a cost to you and me as taxpayers to have this happen. But this is all just part of a flex, but there may be an end game associated as well with the fact that what you were saying, John, which is sort of this normalization, which is crazy. But it really may be true, maybe very much relevant to the coming election, where you say we've heard of threats on polling places.

I'm going to put troops there to protect voters, et cetera. and the mere presence of troops chills out, voter turnout, and you begin to assert yourself in a way that could actually affect an election outcome. I think that to me is that that's the end game of this. That's the whole point of this is to make it the most normal thing in the world when Atlanta and Houston and Austin and Detroit and Philly are just flooded with troops to drive down turnout. Sorry, Jordan. What do you think? No, yeah, I mean, you and I talked about that a couple weeks ago on my show.

It's just really horrifying to think about the, long-term consequences of this normalization. But for me, it's also about cost. I mean, we just went through this massive budget process where they told us they had to cut all of these vital programs like SNAP and Medicaid to, you know, rain in, waste, fraud, and abuse. And you're seeing four times potentially the amount of money spent per day in some of these cities that it would cost to house every homeless person per day in that city. They don't really care about the most vulnerable, they're just trying to create a national, federalized police state, make people pay for it, and they're twisting the arms of elected officials into making them say thank you,

and they welcome it, and they're excited. The comments from the governor of Tennessee and the mayor of Memphis are supportive of this effort, despite, like you pointed out, John, crime is low right now in Memphis. This isn't about crime. And the more we have a militarized presence in cities across the country, the greater the likelihood we will see more and more tragedies like we saw today out of Chicago. Ice was conducting traffic stops. Not sure what power gives ice to conduct traffic stops, but they were and somebody was shot and killed by ice. So that's just one incident. tragic, but the more widespread these occupations are, the greater the likelihood we will see repeat occurrences. Yeah, I hadn't been familiar with that. So thank you for telling us. That's

terrible. And yeah, I mean, look, Memphis does still have a high right of crime for U.S. cities. You know where this is going. Graphics 6. Overall crime, according to the Memphis Police Department, is at a 25-year low. Robbery, burglary, and larceny, also reaching 25-year lows, murders at a six-year low, aggravated assault, a five-year year low, sexual assault at a 20 year low. But I want to be very clear. If it wasn't, that doesn't mean we're done with America. It doesn't mean we're done with our democracy. It doesn't mean that you set fire to the Constitution, you crap on the flag, you give up on our society. If you do that, then you never really meant it. You were never really one of us, you never shared

our values. They're not a patriot. You're not any of that. You were just waiting to be conquered. you were waiting to submit if you're that easily bought off. And it's not even true anyway. So standing up for the values we all supposedly hold should be the easiest thing in the world when even the excuse for getting rid of our system is just pure gas lighting. I just want everyone here and in the country to understand what our Republican colleagues just did. For the third time this year, Republicans just resorted to the so-called nuclear option in the Senate, weakening the Senate even further and turning this chamber into conveyor belt for unqualified Trump nominees. But what Republicans have done is chip away at the Senate even more.

To give Donald Trump more power and to rubber stamp whomever he wants, whenever he wants them, no questions asked. I just can't help but get fired up every time I hear that lion speak. Anyway, that's Chuck Schumer. And he's not wrong in what he's saying. It is the Senate once again just saying, hey, all that stuff about like procedure and tradition and the rights. the minority, yeah, we're in charge. So screw all that stuff, we're done. We want to use our power, and that's what they're doing. They did trigger a version of the nuclear option yet again, allowing them to speed up the confirmation of Donald Trump's nominees. And so normally you need

60 of 100 senators to agree to vote to move toward passing legislation. By using this nuclear option, the majority party can just use majority rule to change the rules. In this particular case, the vote was 53 to 45 to establish a new rule that allows the Senate to confirm a big block of nominees rather than process each one individually. Republicans say they'll allow their own senators to object to individual nominees at any given block, but the rule will strip away the power of the minority party to do the same thing. Because this is not a democracy, this is, this is nothing, this is a game. I mean, they're barely a Senate. They're there as long as Donald Trump doesn't tweet about them or

whatever. We're a failed state, just understand that. I mean, I guess one silver lining is that theoretically now, if the Democrats get back in charge, more power for them if they want to do this. But I just want to point out that, like, yes, if you're in charge and the minority party is blocking everything, that's really annoying. Just I want everyone to bear in mind that the nominees this year have been the least qualified than ever. There were people under Bush that didn't seem qualified. This is, we have Fox News hosts filling incredibly sensitive roles. We have podcasters and grifters, insane people, 22 year old ex-gardners in charge of counter terrorism security. There has never been a better argument for extra scrutiny on nominees when they're

putting forward people with no experience or putting forward judges that can't even get the Bar Association to approve their nomination. Chuck Schumer is unfortunately not the guy to be doing this, but somebody should be vetting these people. Jordan, I'll go to you first. What do you think about this change. This just is another instance of democratic weakness. And we just watched as they threw up their hands that, oh, we can't, the rules, the rules say we can't do this. We can't eliminate the filibuster. We can't, we can't change the rules to pass through popular legislation. Meanwhile, at home, I saw watching it, knew Republicans, if they were in the same circumstance, would. And this is what they're doing. And this is why people gravitate towards the right because you might not

like everything that they do, but you can clearly see they will fight for something and they will do whatever they can to enact their agenda. And then we're just watching as Schumer's complains about the parliamentarian or the Senate filibuster rules. They'll just change it. If it gets in their way, they'll change it. They ignored the parliamentarian on Trump's budget bill. They ignored the CBO and the readings. They didn't care? Why are we letting these constraints get in the way of popular policy? If not that the Democrats in power and in leadership specifically don't actually want to do these things. They're beholden to corporate donors and special interests. Those donors and those voices

don't want these things to pass because it affects their bottom line. And we pay that we pay. We deal with the consequences, not them, they're fine. It's just it's absolutely aggravating, John. I mean, they're institutionalists, you know, and as a result, As a result, the Democrats do find themselves, as Jordan says, in this place where they're complaining about Mansion and Cinema. You know, when they were the key votes, you've got to try to somehow, you know, romance them so they can. But the reality is that when the GOP gets in, you see the ruthlessness with which they pursue everything. There is a brutality to it. We have, the ends justify the means and you begin to see it.

And it's on full display. But as John has pointed out, the incompetence is. the cornerstone of this administration. I mean, it's just, it's unparalleled in my lifetime, the kind of incompetence we're seeing at the highest levels. And so, of course, you want to get them rubber stamped all at once, because you don't want any real examination of who these people are or what incompetence they are. So when this situation meets the kind of brutality of the GOP, then it does just turn into a conveyor belt of utter horror. And that's what's going on right now in the Senate. Yeah, and it's all predictable. I mean,

government always suffers in terms of capability and desire to do anything when Republicans are in charge. This is just the worst version that we've ever seen, at least in my lifetime. And from their point of view, it largely doesn't matter if the government can accomplish literally anything. The people that they're there to represent are the ones who have already won. They just want the government to stay out of their way, to not tax them, to not regulate them. But while it's not an issue for them, it is an issue for regular people. Regular people need a government that actually functions. And so as things fall apart, we're already seeing that, and it's only going to get worse,

there has to eventually be a political reckoning that'll come because even their voters are not going to be able to deny that Donald Trump can keep saying $2 gas all he wants. It's not. He can keep saying that prices are down. Food prices, other prices are up. We just did a segment on it on TDR earlier today about that. You can lie to them over and over. You can spin their face over and over. But eventually, I think their bank account is going to tell them the truth. And so they really seem to be bargaining on the right that they can just gerrymander and, you know, martial law their way out of the democratic consequences of their constant willful

failures. And it's going to be an exciting year to find out if that bargain actually Well, don't undersell it, John. That speaks to the brutality. I mean, that really is part of the plan. It's like, hey, if we can't win on the facts, then we're just going to, we'll change the rules in effect. And I really see that as a legitimate scenario and strategy that they're going to pursue. When I say legitimate, I mean, it's a legitimate from the standpoint of the fact that I think we're going to see it. It's obviously full of illegitimacy. Yeah. Final word for me, Jordan. Yeah, I just, Democratic voters, the base right now wants to see fight. You're seeing high levels of energy at these tours, like the fight the oligarchy tour. You see people,

anything they can latch on to. You're seeing pretty high levels of support for Newsom's effort to temporarily throw out the independent redistricting in California to fight back against Texas. But when you look in Congress and you see Jeffries and Schumer just kind of twiddling their thumbs and doing, you know, wagging their finger, it doesn't inspire confidence. So I keep coming back to, why are these people still in their positions? There are plenty of fighters in the party elected in Congress who could lead in this moment. Neither of them seem especially well equipped to be the leaders that we need right now.

Quickly, just on that point, John, I wanted to say Jordan is so right about this. I look to the governors. I mean, you know, you look at a Pritzker, Shapiro, Newsom, these are all standouts for pushing back. but you don't really see much of it on Capitol Hill. Yeah, it is maddening to me that Schumer is just, he's just going to be in charge for this entire period, I guess. They're just not going to challenge it. It's insane. But anyway, that's all the time we have for insanity in the first hour. Thank you, both Mark and Jordan, for being here. I appreciate it. Love talking politics with you guys. But coming up,

we have a new panel, which is going to be here on the other side of this break. Yaz is going to be in studio taking the reins. We got Michael Shore. We got Maas Gibrani. should be a lot of fun so don't go anywhere. We'll be right back.