Our conversation takes a deeper turn as we examine the posthumous debates about Charlie Kirk’s political positionings and their impact on his legacy. With comments from high-profile media personalities and political columnists, we dissect the role of conspiracy theories and the influence of political biases in shaping public discourse. This episode invites you to reflect on the nature of political loyalty, media influence, and how they intertwine in today’s polarized societal landscape.
Because we do go to Cleveland for this story, Mike. I saw you posted about it. See what I did there? Exactly right. That’s right. Welcome, welcome. So the fire chief in Cleveland is a gentleman named Anthony Luke. And this just goes under the big file of… How are people this stupid? How is someone the fire chief of a city with a responsibility of making sure the good people of Cleveland feel protected, feel well served? Is it ever a good idea for a police chief, a fire chief, anybody to show abject hatred for half the community? Nope. And yet this this. Have you seen the cartoon itself?
SPEAKER 02 :
Yes.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yeah. It’s a big machine gun on like a worshipful statue. You know, you sound very hollow. You sound like you’re the bottom of a barrel.
SPEAKER 02 :
How about now? Better?
SPEAKER 03 :
There you go. Much better. There you go.
SPEAKER 02 :
We have a guest mic on. We have a guest in studio. And you’d think that it’s the England welcoming of President Trump because we never have guests in studio in Tampa Bay. But this will be good. Just a quick note before we get into the show. No grand at all. We got the Florida Attorney General in studio, James Utmeyer, which is he’s a real, real good guy. And I saw he’s got some work today in Tampa. So we’re going to go ahead and and talk to him about hate speech, among other things.
SPEAKER 03 :
Florida, quite the proving ground for all kinds of folks in our life. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And his future, Pam Bondi. So the cartoon is a machine gun up on a pedestal like a worshipful statue. A bunch of elephants, elephants, get it, conservatives, kneeling in praise of the gun, bloodied bodies on the steps. And someone yells out, bring out the next sacrifice. Now, doing this in the wake of Charlie Kirk’s murder is unbelievably stupid. The mayor suspends him, but even the mayor doesn’t get it. The mayor of Cleveland is a 38-year-old kid named Justin Bibb who says, yeah, this cartoon, excuse me, romanticized gun violence. No. No, it doesn’t. It mocks and derides conservatives for our devotion to the Second Amendment, even in times of tragedy. Either way, he’s suspended.
SPEAKER 02 :
But you said something twice that is just wrong. What’s that? It’s not stupid. This is not a stupid person. This is a fire chief, Mark.
SPEAKER 03 :
I get your point.
SPEAKER 02 :
They’re not stupid. It’s willful. It’s cruelty. It is indeed. It’s cruelty, and I have got to figure out why these people are so blind in their rage towards Charlie and conservatism that they can’t hold their fire. Jimmy Kimmel, Monday night, goes on and says this was one of the MAGA gang. Now, anybody watching Jimmy Kimmel’s show Monday… thinks that the guy is a violent MAGA extremist because Jimmy Kimmel lied about his agenda. We all know what the guy’s agenda was. It’s clear now. His own mother said he was radicalized to the far left last year. There’s no mystery. He said it. I hate Charlie Kirk. I had a chance to take him out. All right, so Jimmy Kimmel lies about it Monday. He gets absolutely dragged all day yesterday on social media. He’s trending all day long. You lied about it. You suggested that this guy was MAGA. Well, at the very least, he’s got to correct it last night, right? Ask me if he did. Did he? He did not. No, of course not. Of course not, because they don’t have any decency. And nothing will happen. You think Jimmy Kimmel’s stupid? He’s not stupid.
SPEAKER 03 :
The stupidity, you’re so correct. I’m not trying to criticize you. I’m just saying.
SPEAKER 02 :
Not at all. You know what I mean.
SPEAKER 03 :
It’s funny, because in such broad terms like stupidity.
SPEAKER 02 :
Words matter.
SPEAKER 03 :
They sure do. The stupidity, I think, of the fire chief is thinking that his cruelty and horrible lack of taste and lack of decorum would go unpunished. Very. That there’s the stupidity. But yours is a larger and more important point that we have a fire chief so cruel, a late night host so cruel. However, over at The Washington Post, a black woman got fired. Karen Atia, one of the main opinion writers. I think she was the first prominent black woman to be an opinion columnist at The Post. That was hard to believe, but she was. And she’s gone for the lie, the fabricated quote that Charlie said that black women don’t have the brainpower to be pilots, which he never said.
SPEAKER 02 :
Ezra Klein is a New York Times columnist. Ezra Klein wrote a piece, Charlie did politics perfectly. This is how you do politics. You have debate. You have dialogue. You take it into hostile territory. Ezra Klein, a liberal New York Times columnist. Now, they’re going nuts over him. They want him fired. They want him canceled because the cruel, awful, ugly. I’d say demonic side of the Democrat Party is on full display. And it is vast. It is vast. These are not one-offs. It’s vast. That’s the right word, Mark. I mean, these are not purple-haired people in their parents’ basements.
SPEAKER 03 :
No, they have a mainstream look with mainstream jobs. And it means that you were kind of prescient on Monday. Yes. And was it Monday when you asked me or was it even the day after a couple of days where you said, are you surprised by the layers and levels of horrific repellent reaction? Because you said you were surprised. And I said, I’m not so surprised because I was somehow more aware of what a success pool the Internet was, blah, blah, blah, whatever. But in the days since, I join you in being surprised and just taken aback. I did not on my worst, most pessimistic. day, think that America was reeking with this layer of hatred among teachers, among administrators, among fire chiefs, among pilots. Just no. Just no.
SPEAKER 02 :
It’s unreal. And so… In a way, this clarity is meaningful. In a way, it’s valuable. It’s a teaching moment. It’s a teaching moment about the Democrat Party, and that’s why they’re panicked. Look, Jimmy Kimmel, the fire chief, they’re all panicking. They’re all panicking because… The truth is coming out. And there is a violent, violent. And that’s not to say every Democrat is violent. Look at the Ezra Klein’s. Look at Jamie Lee Curtis. Did you see her clip?
SPEAKER 03 :
You know, when I saw the headline, Jamie Lee Curtis grows sort of tearful in saying that she hopes that Charlie is with his mega.
SPEAKER 02 :
Yes.
SPEAKER 03 :
I thought it was fake. Because we’re in a series of incredibly fake headlines. Patrick Mahomes is going to pay for Charlie’s kids’ education. Total fake news. Jerry’s going to open Cowboy Stadium for his own Charlie tribute. Fake. Oh, my favorite. Mick Jagger stops a Rolling Stones concert for a tearful tribute to Charlie Amensing’s God Bless America. Totally fake. I thought this one was, too, because it’s a Hollywood actress. But this one was true. Jamie Lee Curtis had a really moving moment on a podcast, talking about how moved she was by what happened.
SPEAKER 02 :
Let’s try to unpack something that’s really difficult, but I want to lean on you for some wisdom and get your take on the debate right now. And I know when you mentioned Candace Owens… People are saying, what happened to her?
SPEAKER 01 :
Well, look at the time. Yeah, I know. I know.
SPEAKER 02 :
But I want to talk about this because this week Israel did a full incursion again into Gaza. The situation, this war in Israel is complicated. It’s challenging. It’s difficult. Candace, of course, is claiming in death. after Charlie’s killing, that Charlie was starting to push away from his staunch pro-Israel support. He was starting to question Bibi Netanyahu’s tactics. He was starting to, and of course, Candace, not unlike Tucker, they’re just Completely anti-Israel. They’ve gone full-blown anti-Israel. But there’s a lot of anecdotal stuff that suggests that some of that may be true. Some of what may be true?
SPEAKER 03 :
That if Charlie were alive today or next week or next month, that at some point he would have joined Candace and Tucker in the Israel opposition?
SPEAKER 02 :
I’m not saying that. I’m saying that there’s some anecdotal stuff that suggests he was starting to maybe re-evaluate the role that Israel was playing, what they were doing. Is this going to come to an end? Look, this is not unlike something that President Trump has expressed. He’s expressed frustration. We’ve got to figure out how to bring this thing to an end. I know Trump wasn’t happy about the strike in Qatar, or Qatar, however you’re supposed to say it. And P.S., it didn’t work. They didn’t get the Hamas leadership on that. It was a failed attack, and it was an attack… arguably on a sovereign nation. So this is complicated. But what do you make? I want to start by saying Charlie welcomed, like his whole thing was both sides of a debate. He just didn’t want to shut down people who challenged it. And what’s fascinating, I think, about the conversation, and this is what I want to pick your brain about, is that Charlie was starting to say, allegedly, that he was being called an anti-Semite for even questioning any aspect of the Israeli offensive. Because that will happen to people sometimes. Because that will happen, and I think that’s part of this conversation, Mark, that we ought to have, because I sense that too. Look, you and I are staunch Israel supporters. I wear a flag pin every day. that connects the American flag with the Israeli flag. We’re wearing it right now. But I’m willing to say, hey, is that what’s kind of the right thing? How do we get this thing to an end? And then right away, then the pro-Israel folks will say, ah, anti-Semite, you’re not supporting them. And so that’s kind of the post-Charlie murder conversation that’s occurring online with the Candaces and with the Tuckers. And interestingly enough, Tucker will be, I believe, at the ceremony Sunday that we’re going to attend. We’re bringing the show to Phoenix tomorrow, and we’ll be attending the memorial. Candace will not.
SPEAKER 03 :
No, because Candace is a full-blown Jew-hating lunatic. Which leads me to my very simple answer to the wonderful question you’ve asked. When a Candace or a Tucker or anybody after somebody is dead suddenly says, you know, the dead person was just moments away from agreeing with me on a really big thing. I don’t believe it for a moment. Now, does this mean I know it to be false? It does not. It means I don’t believe it for a moment. And I believe such claims deserve to be ignored.
SPEAKER 02 :
Well, it’s a fascinating debate that I’m sure is going to rage on. I did think it was interesting. And interestingly, one of the aspects of this debate is that some big donors to Turning Point were furious that Charlie was inviting Tucker to speak at one of his big Turning Point action summits. And Charlie’s response allegedly was, when somebody tells me who I’m not supposed to have at the event, I’ll make sure they’re there. I’ll double down and they will be there. But again, and I have to say how sad it is that Candice will not be playing a prominent role because it must be said, Charlie and Candice really put Turning Point on the map together, Mark. But that’s very true.
SPEAKER 03 :
very 2018 i mean that that is that that was before candace went off in orbit around neptune she’s a loon and it breaks my heart i often will in fact again there’s great wisdom in knowing whom to ignore and she now meets that criterion for me i think at one point a year ago or so i said i really miss you know the previous candace who abducted candace and left us this person where’d she go so
SPEAKER 02 :
Well, and let’s go down the conspiracy theory rabbit hole because now that the text messages between the shooter and his partner or his friend or roommate, boyfriend, that now that those have been released, a lot of people aren’t buying it. They’re saying this isn’t the way 22-year-olds talk. This is not – Steve Bannon said, I’m not buying any of it. The evidence, you know, this is – and you know what the setup is. The setup is patsy, that this was bigger, that this was a network, that there was stuff that – I mean, Steve Bannon said, I’m not particularly – I’m particularly not buying those text messages. It seems too stilted, too much like a script, like a bad script. So we’ve got to get to the bottom of it. You’ve got to get to the bottom of Antifa. You’ve got to see if there’s any connections to Butler. There’s a whole lot of work to do in Antifa.
SPEAKER 03 :
Everybody wants things so badly. Okay, now I’m trying to re-rack my reaction to the text messages. Do 20-somethings talk this way? Sure they do if they’re pretty high IQ and dorky. I don’t think there’s any disconnect there at all. However, I wonder this about investigations about everything over time, whether it’s a blood test or a DNA test or a revelation of a text exchange. Do we know this is real? If somebody says, look, we have the texts or we have the DNA, really? Do we absolutely know that it’s not contrived?
SPEAKER 02 :
The state attorney read the text messages yesterday in the charging documents. So, yeah, I mean, the state of Utah’s position is they are real. I think the note that the killer said to his partner, look under the keyboard for the note, I believe the note was destroyed, but the partner took a picture of the note. Okay. And look, it must be said, the partner is absolutely cooperative.
SPEAKER 03 :
Whereas the killer monster is not. Oh, I haven’t even said what one of my whole points was. 30 seconds, we’ll wrap up on this. Sure. This monster, this killer. deserves a swift and fair trial with a vigorous defense. If he’s convicted, he deserves an appeal to the Utah Supreme Court. If that doesn’t go well, he deserves an appeal to the United States Supreme Court. And if that doesn’t go well, he should be executed the following day. This monster should be dead by Christmas. And P.S., they have the firing squad in Utah. Does he get to pick? They have firing squad and lethal injection. They mostly use lethal injection. But remember Gary Gilmore?
SPEAKER 02 :
Let’s do it. Well, God forgive me for feeling this way, but I hope he gets the firing squad.
SPEAKER 03 :
I thought there was something vivid about that.
SPEAKER 02 :
I think he gets to pick.
SPEAKER 03 :
There’s something symmetrical about that.
SPEAKER 02 :
Yep, that he would die at the method that he used… to rob Charlie Kirk of his life.
SPEAKER 03 :
I had somebody text me and say, you know, all this call for the death penalty, the death penalty is a reprieve. Isn’t life in prison far worse? I don’t know. We can conceptualize that all day. But there is one fact. Everybody on death row is trying to get off a death row.
SPEAKER 02 :
Look, they’re going to Luigi this guy. You better be ready. They’re going to Luigi this kid. They’re going to make him out to be a hero.
SPEAKER 03 :
Oh, he’s getting marriage proposals today, I guarantee it.
SPEAKER 02 :
Yesterday, when that crazy lunatic judge threw out the terrorism aspect of first-degree murder yesterday, what did they do outside the courthouse? They cheered. They’re cheering for Luigi. He has a fan base.
SPEAKER 03 :
He has a fan base. I’m glad we’re here, man.
SPEAKER 02 :
I’m glad you exist. No, I’m glad you exist. I’m glad we can get through this together because I don’t know what I’d do without you. I love you. See you tomorrow and then Friday in Phoenix.
