9/12/25: Charlie Kirk Assassin NAMED: What We Know

19:28Emily Jashinsky:I hope that that's true. I think that's likely true. On the other hand, it does bother or it does worry me that you get into and it's too early even to be speculating too much. But you end up with like Charles Manson cult around someone. I don't mean like a literal cult, but like a cult following where people are obsessed and get fixated on someone in prison for a just cause. Or like even Mangione, you see some of this after he said he was innocent, which means you could like really be misdirecting people in different ways. Hopefully that doesn't happen here, but says like, I had nothing to do with this.

20:03Emily Jashinsky:I'm just to quote Lee Harvey Oswald, I'm just a patsy. So I guess there's still always potential that things could go in a bad direction. But yeah, I agree, Crystal. I think this is likely a very good sign.

20:18Ryan Grim:Yeah. Well, and he's not as good looking as Mangione. So we'll be less inspirational for people. Tell me I'm wrong, man. I don't see any Hawaiian gear yet. Otherwise, I think you'd see a lot of people calling him a boogaloo dude. Oh, well, that was another thing.

20:37Emily Jashinsky:I mean, that movement basically collapsed, too. Yeah, that was around, that was like a Proud Boy adjacent, if I'm remembering correctly. Yeah. But yeah, but kind of wacky and cultish and extremely online. Like trolly, very trolly. Yeah. And, you know, believed in like random violence and accelerationism. Yeah.

21:06Ryan Grim:Yeah. Well, the other thing. Massive like meme, you know, hyper meme focused. Yeah. So this like, so that. Yeah. Anyway. It's like if Lenin was me. I mean, that only knows. I mean, that only knows. God only knows what weird online subcultures exist that, you know, relatively normal people have no idea about, you know. Be careful, parents, what your kids are consuming on the Internet. I'll just say that. I mean, the other part, the other part to say about the press conference is Kash Patel has been, you know, I mean, it's been ridiculous during this whole thing. Right. Tweeting out, oh, we've got a subject in custody.

21:42Ryan Grim:And then having hours later, well, turns out that guy was innocent. Sorry. Oops. We're still looking. They delayed that press conference yesterday was supposed to be in the afternoon. And reportedly, you know, it ended up not happening till like nine o 'clock, nine thirty at night, reportedly because they were waiting for cash and maybe Bongino as well to get into town. And then they just, you know, stood there like idiots during the press like they hadn't they didn't actually speak or participate at all. So you delayed this press conference. They claimed it because it was because of rapid developments, which made everybody think, oh, they must be on the trail.

22:20Ryan Grim:That was not the case at that point, just so that he could be there for the photo op. So clearly he was trying to project a lot of authority here in this particular press conference and a lot of command and using a lot of very Trumpian language about how historic the manhunt was. And that's what happens when you let good cops be cops was one of the things that he said to try to cover the fact that he did not come across as a strong leader here. And there was also reporting about, listen, we know that a bunch of FBI agents have been pulled off of their jobs to assist ICE. We know some of them have been like roaming the streets in D.C.

22:56Ryan Grim:We know that the head of the Salt Lake City FBI office was fired. We're not really sure why in recent weeks as well. So a lot of CYA in this press conference from Kash Patel as well.

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24:17Emily Jashinsky:What's up, fam? I'm sports journalist Ari Chambers. Hey, what's up, y 'all? It's your girl, Sam J. And we're the hosts of Everyone Watches Women's Sports, a new podcast from Together and I Heart Women's Sports. Because let's be real, women's sports is giving us way too much to talk about these days. So Kelsey Finler, she became the first female solo rower to go from California to Hawaii. My first thought is like, what's up with the snacks? Like, what are we eating? The highlights, the rivalries, the breakout stars, the moments that take over your entire timeline. And the conversations that start during the game and somehow keep going all week.

24:51Every week, we're breaking down the biggest stories across women's sports.

24:55Emily Jashinsky:Naomi Osaka showing out. She beat Sabalenka. Shout out to you, Naomi. You get the palm, Naomi. You get the palm for that. Because we're not just interested in what happened. We're interested in why everyone's talking about it. Because everyone watches women's sports. Listen to Everyone Watches Women's Sports on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

25:19Emily Jashinsky:Well, that's I mean, again, what we're learning just minute by minute here is the suspect. I find this very disturbing and I think it should continue to disturb people whether or not we can rightfully celebrate that the pictures were put out there and enough that someone came forward. That's all good. And I hope justice is served. This is a stone cold assassin who was able to escape a densely packed event on a college campus and stay at large for over 24 hours. So God knows what could have happened in that time period. Thankfully, you know, doesn't look like anyone else was hurt. It doesn't look like that was the case.

26:05Emily Jashinsky:It doesn't look like more damage was done in the 24 hours. But if you have, again, a stone cold assassin who murders a political speaker in broad daylight in a densely packed area, I have no stomach to celebrate their father walking them into or their father turning them in more than 24 hours after that happened. I don't think that, at least as of right now, reflects good police work at all. I actually think that picture of him from surveillance cameras probably could have been released. I don't want to Monday morning quarterback it, but it does seem to me that could have been released within three hours of the event happening rather than 24.

26:43Emily Jashinsky:So you have this mass panic. You have misinformation being leaked to the press in the 24 hours because there was a killer on the loose, presumably in Utah. So I just I think, you know, it's too early to say any of that definitively because we don't know what was happening behind the scenes. But I think it's a very high possibility that this was actually a not great, a less than adequate investigation and law enforcement response.

27:12Ryan Grim:Not to mention the lack of prevention when we know that this guy had been spotted on the roof multiple times prior to Charlie Kirk's arrival. And this tip was apparently, you know, provided and nothing done. You know, the law enforcement, so Charlie had his own security detail. And then there were apparently only six police officers there to secure the event, which, you know, I know, like certainly the landscape for people doing public events of this sort going forward is going to be a very, you know, very, very different. And I saw Ben Shapiro is apparently going to pick up the rest of this tour.

27:51Ryan Grim:This was supposed to be the first stop, first step, first stop on this new Charlie Kirk College tour. So he's going to pick that up. But, you know, also we have to look at, like, were there things that were missed leading up to the day that could have prevented this horrific series of events, you know, this horrific murder to start with? Yeah.

28:11Emily Jashinsky:And I mean, obviously, I have a lot of thoughts on that because part of like I'm on the board of a group that does lectures for students and student chapters and all of that and have done it myself. And I checked in with some of my friends in that space and they made an interesting point, which is that our discourse has gotten so poisoned that it's now actually also difficult to do indoor events. Because when you do an indoor event, trolls will like buy up all of the tickets. And so it's actually why you've seen a lot of conservative speakers start doing outdoor events because it kind of makes it easier to be in front of the public.

28:42Emily Jashinsky:And when you're doing campus stuff, nobody has like the resources to screen the roofs like local police departments don't, which to me is insane post-Butler that, you know, people would do an outdoor event without screening the roof. But then we're also just talking about college campuses where kids should be free to have speakers in and yell at them and challenge them and scream at them or whatever. You shouldn't have to worry about a sniper on a roof. I mean, it's so insane that this is where we are. But you cannot be doing outdoor events anymore where you aren't clearing a roof that's 200 feet away.

29:18Emily Jashinsky:I mean, that is such a pathetic commentary on the country. I mean, that is just unbelievable on a college campus where kids are just interacting with a 31-year-old, like, pundit. It was completely insane. Yeah.

29:32Ryan Grim:A student could have been hit. There's going to be, as we learn more about this individual, there's, you know, a lot of room for commentary also about, you know, Internet culture and what it's doing to everyone's brains, you know. um yeah this appears to be a guy from a middle class family you know we don't know what the life was or what struggles might have existed or whatever but um you know I thought I actually thought Emily where you were going with your commentary when you say I don't have room for praise of you know a father bringing his son in 24 hours later is I thought you were just I don't have room for praise of that father thank god he did the right thing in the end oh no no no but You raised a killer.

30:15Ryan Grim:And I do think that there's something to be said about, you know, about that as well. So crazy.

30:23Emily Jashinsky:Yeah. And but this is what's so crazy about the Internet, too, is that you have kids from seemingly normal backgrounds who are parented well sometimes. And again, I'm not making assumptions in this case, but who are parented well and don't need to be partying and doing drugs to get into the wrong crowd because it's coming through the screen. And that screen is their portal into darkness, whereas in the past there was more friction. You had to start getting involved in shady groups of friends or whatever it was. But now there's just way less friction to go down dark paths because it all comes from the little screen that you keep in your pocket.

31:05Emily Jashinsky:And that is horrifying. I can't imagine for parents how horrifying that is.

31:14Ryan Grim:Yeah, it is pretty horrifying. As a parent, I can tell you it is pretty horrifying. Just like, you know, you definitely have to be aware of what your kids are doing with their time and who they're spending their time with if they're, you know. They're on their devices a lot. You need to take note of what sort of content they're consuming. Internet is real life. Yes. And forget that. I mean, there's rampant speculation on the timeline right now, of course. Everybody, it's a Rorschach test. Everybody's seeing what they want to see in this guy and his profile and what he wrote on the bullets and whatever.

31:59Ryan Grim:So we'll let that speculation go on. But are there other stories you guys want to get to while we're waiting for any more news with regard to Tyler Robinson?

32:14Emily Jashinsky:This is all I've been able to think about for the last couple of days. Yeah, I feel you on that. And it's crazy because there's a ton of stuff going. I mean, we had drones over the Polish skies. there's potential law enforcement going into Memphis. It's not as though this is a slow August news cycle as it was, you know, maybe a couple of weeks ago. This is a packed news cycle and it just seems so hard to focus on anything else.

32:41Ryan Grim:Emily, how do you think that the that this murder will change like. influencer culture and public events and how people think about their, you know, their, what they're doing and how much they're available, what their security situation looks like. Like, what are you hearing from people on the conservative side on that?

33:02Emily Jashinsky:I mean, I'm scheduled to be on Megyn Kelly's tour this fall, actually on a stop in San Antonio with Glenn. And you can imagine Glenn, I can't imagine the security that Glenn has to worry about. constantly. So, I mean, I haven't heard anything in that space. I don't know what's up. I assume everything is going as planned. But I also just am so, I don't know about you guys, like I'm so blackpilled that a lot of what, you know, elite influencer, prominent high profile influencer culture says, it just seems like there's such a dark subculture of irony posting and all of that, that I'm glad I liked how Dean Withers reacted.

33:46Emily Jashinsky:I thought that was extremely classy and I thought his raw emotion was really powerful. And I think, you know, probably 80 % of Gen Z watches Dean Withers, whether they're on the left or the right, and says that was a really, that was the appropriate reaction. That's what this country should be about. Or jank, like that was, that's exactly what this country should be about. But it doesn't, to some extent, this is, the problem is with the other 20 % or 10 % or whoever it is who are not at all. I mean, they feel like they have no control or agency and they don't give a fuck what, you know, how Dean Withers or Cenk reacts or how anyone else reacts.

34:26Emily Jashinsky:It just doesn't matter to them because it's all cringe and everything is ironic. And there's a nihilism to it that, I mean, I think influencers are probably going to do some really great stuff over the next year and be great about civic debate and push each other in public and, you know, try to have like really hard conversations. I think that's great. Do maybe more of what we do, which is left on right as often as possible. I think that's all great. But to me, I don't know that that makes any difference whatsoever with the 20 percent, 10 percent, 5 percent of just utterly nihilistic people who are disillusioned with the political system.

35:10Ryan Grim:Yeah, unfortunately, I'm less hopeful that that even will be the outcome. I mean, I guess for some influencers, but most of what I saw was I mean, frankly, most of what I saw from the right from Trump on down was like, this is war. We want vengeance. Let's crack down on free speech. Let's destroy them. You know, they want to kill us. This is this is war, etc. etc. And so I didn't really see many people out there using it as a moment to say, hey, let's come together and, you know, let's turn down the temperature and resolve our differences. So and, you know, again, you've got an arsonist in the in the White House.

35:43Ryan Grim:I just, you know, Ryan, I know you were one of the reasons we really wanted to have you on yesterday and you were traveling, so you're unable to. But we were trying to think of historic parallels to this moment because, you know, as awful as it is for someone to take a shot at the president, that's part of American history. There's always going to be people who want to kill president, even, you know, even the legislators, the Minnesota legislators, that legislator who was killed and the legislators that were targeted. It's like, OK, well, there's still political officials, like very unsettling.

36:16Ryan Grim:But part of what made this so shocking and really sort of solidified for me that we're living through this very different era, like it's not new, we're living through it, is the fact that he is this, you know, he's an influencer, he's an activist. Obviously, it hits really close to home. But, you know, what do you see in terms of historic parallels? Are there other periods of American life that we can look to as being even somewhat analogous here? Yeah. And I watched you guys talk about it yesterday and Sagar's right. So I, I had said, you know, I couldn't think of anything other than the pre-Civil War period, which is very ominous because, you know, that's a dark like 15 years heading into what then becomes the Civil War.

37:04And he flagged the most famous example yesterday, which is this guy, Elijah Lovejoy, who was, I believe, in Ohio, either Kentucky or Ohio, newspaper editor who was a hardcore abolitionist and murdered by pro -slavery forces. his cousin, I'm not a cousin. I think it was his brother. Oh, and people can Wikipedia all this, but his brother was Owen Lovejoy. He was a congressman who was anti-slavery congressman, who was also, it turns out a, a, an ally of then Whig, uh, politician, Abraham Lincoln. And when, when Lincoln was running for president, it was, it was really, there were, there was a lot skepticism about him from the anti-slavery side you know was lincoln really with us or not and it was owen lovejoy who basically was lincoln's kind of validator to the left saying no like and and you know no no he's one of us he just can't really say it because he's trying to win a national election um and owen lovejoy got so much of his own credibility not just from his own politics but from the fact that he was the brother of this martyred anti-slavery editor, Elijah Lovejoy.

38:19And martyrs play a radicalizing role in all movements. You know, Chris Edges mentioned this yesterday on Twitter, that when movements, when somebody is martyred in a movement like Charlie Kirk just was, it sanctifies violence no matter what that particular person felt about violence. In Kirk's case, he was strongly for discourse. You can hate what he said, but he was about persuasion and argumentation. You can hate that he was for argumentation on behalf of something that you think is terrible, but he was not advocating for violence. But what happens with his martyrdom is that now people in the movement who call for discussion and debate will say, no, you know, Charlie Kirk tried that.

39:15Or, you know, Elijah Lovejoy tried that. And look what happened to him. He was killed by our evil enemies. And the only thing we can do is war. Like that's the only option that's left to us. And if you don't do that, you are betraying the legacy of our martyrs. and and it's very hard internally in those factional arguments to argue against that even if you can point to and this states you know not that charlie kirk is mlk but like mlk was very you know all about non-violence but what a lot of people said afterwards is well look what it got him you know it got him killed the only path forward is to fight for him and to fight violently for him.

40:07Emily Jashinsky:Well, yeah, because I forget who said this, but it shows someone who's trying to have a back and forth and trying to say, like, let's debate. Let's debate really rowdily, if that's an adverb, but let's do it. And that effort was ended with a bullet. So. I should let people use that and say, well, don't do that anymore. Like, it's not worth it. You're Gen Z. Charlie Kirk has been an ever present fixture of your social media diet for five to 10 years. And that doesn't matter whether you're political or not. This kid was on South Park. This guy was on South Park because he was well known enough to be parodied on a pop culture platform like that.

40:57Emily Jashinsky:And you have for years been scrolling through this guy, yelling at the libs, debating on college campuses, all of that on a podcast. And suddenly the video that you scroll past is him engaged in that very same act and it ending literally in a geyser of blood. The point that some people will take from that is, you know, dialogue doesn't work. It doesn't work because you can end it with a bullet. And that's a horrifying, there's a horrifying takeaway that people might walk away with. Yeah.

41:35Ryan Grim:Chris Hedges wrote a piece, Ryan, I don't know if you read it, that talked some about, you know, the role of the martyr. Yeah. And I thought made some very salient points about the way that a martyr can be used in a movement to further radicalize. And this isn't speculative. Like you can go and look on the timeline at the number of people who are saying that's it. Gloves are off now. We're waging war. They want to kill us. And the president of the United States, as we played earlier, saying, you know, well, you know, it'd be nice if we could solve it at the ballot box. But that's not really possible because it's we don't even have a ballot box.

42:10Ryan Grim:It's so rigged, et cetera, et cetera. So, you know, that's what's like when you add those the sense of political existential stakes, which in some ways, you know, I mean, the stakes of politics are high. Right. There's I don't want to sugarcoat it. Like there is a reality that the political stakes are high, in fact. And then you add to it this tinderbox of gun culture, untreated mental illness, mass inequality, increasing the economics. So we haven't been covering the economic numbers this week, but they're not looking great. Things continue to trend, higher inflation, higher unemployment, more jobless claims, et cetera.

42:52Ryan Grim:And, you know, and then you have these other existential fears over AI, over climate crisis, over, you know, migration for some. See that as an existential, you know, existential type fear. And you're looking at you're looking at a powder keg. That's that's the sense. And, you know, Ryan, do you think that the so I don't I don't particularly enjoy the pre-Civil War comparison. That one is really scary. I don't love the 70s comparison either, but I guess it's somewhat less scary. Like, do you think do you see parallels with that time period as well? Yes. And more so than with pre-Civil War, because as you pointed out on the show yesterday, the slaver class and also the anti-slavery folks properly understood the fight over slavery as existential and fundamental to the soul of the country.

43:55What is that today? Like, that doesn't exist. Like, the two parties agree on, like, most things.

44:25who matter most. Your next vacation starts here. Travel through July 31st, 2027. Start your vacation today at applevacations.com or through your travel advisor. Apple Vacations, where your story starts. Make it a summer of life at Credit Union 1 Amphitheater. Get four lawn tickets for just$99 and see the Black Crows and Whiskey Myers, MGK, Mio and Akon, Death Cab for Cutie, Chicago and Sticks Toto, Christopher Cross and the Romantics avenged Sevenfold and Good Charlotte on July 30th Train on August 7th Five Finger Death Punch on August 19th Motley Crue on August 22nd and many more Get your friends and grab tickets now at CreditUnionOneAmp.com What's up fam?

45:17I'm sports journalist Ari Chambers Hey what's up y 'all? It's your girl Sam J And we're the hosts of Everyone Watches Women's Sports a new podcast from Together and I Heart Women's Sports. Because let's be real, women's sports is giving us way too much to talk about these days.

45:30Emily Jashinsky:So Kelsey Finler, she became the first female solo rower to go from California to Hawaii. My first thought is just like, what's up with the snacks? Like, what are we eating? The highlights, the rivalries, the breakout stars, the moments that take over your entire timeline. And the conversations that start during the game and somehow keep going all week. Every week, we're breaking down the biggest stories across women's sports. Naomi Osaka showing out. She beat Sabalenka. Shout-outs to you, Naomi. You get the palm, Naomi. You get the palm for that. Because we're not just interested in what happened.

46:03We're interested in why everyone's talking about it. Because everyone watches women's sports. Listen to Everyone Watches Women's Sports on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

46:18Emily Jashinsky:Brian, I don't know if you've ever read the biography of Barry Goldwater that Lee Edwards wrote. He was a historian. He was actually at the Heritage Foundation for a really long time, but he was Goldwater's comms director. He was at the March on Washington. He was involved in a lot of the conservative political activism and the rise of the Reagan revolution. And my friend Chris Bedford and I talked to him in June of 2020 as DC was like in a state of rolling crisis and asked him how it compared to 1968. And I've taken a lot of heat for reposting this just in the last, like, I don't know, 48 hours, whatever it is now.

46:53Emily Jashinsky:But he said he told us when we asked how it compared to 1968, I was kind of like saying like pushing him, I thought, to say like, no, it's not is bad don't be hysterical whatever and he said now it's worse than 1968 because some of those like institutional points of consensus have frayed and that is a very very different time to end that is like so that that you do the civil war parallels feel more accurate in a point like

47:23Ryan Grim:that so guys i want to sorry i people are sharing um a clip and now let me see if i can play it um of the governor talking about how family members believe that Robinson had become more political in recent years. So let me go ahead and see if I can share this clip and we can react to it on the other side. 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 the conversation with another family member, Robinson mentioned Charlie Kirk was coming to UVU.

48:08They 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. The family member also confirmed Robinson had a gray Dodge Challenger. Investigators identified an individual as the roommate of Robinson. Investigators interviewed that roommate who stated that his roommate, referring to Robinson, made a joke on Discord. Investigators asked if he would show them the messages on Discord. He opened it and showed several messages to investigators and allowed investigators to take photos of the screen as each message was shown by Robinson's roommate.

48:46These photos consisted of various messages, including content of messages between the phone contact name Tyler with an emoji icon and Robinson's roommate's device.

48:57Ryan Grim:So the commentary there, again, is that spoke to a relative who had been with Tyler just recently. Tyler mentioned Charlie's coming into town, talked about why he hated him and said he was full of hate. I can tell you that what a lot of people on the right are saying online is they're tying it into, oh, he went to college and became radicalized. So, you know, and radicalized against the right and, you know, became this like murderous Antifa guy. And so you can already see, you know, the obviously this administration already has been very aggressive against universities. The right has been very this has been part of a political ideological project anyway.

49:50Ryan Grim:So I fully suspect that piece will be used further to go after. And maybe this is maybe this is me just reaching for what I want to be true. But if filled with hate, recently becoming filled with hate, would they be using that in the context of becoming anti-fascist? I mean, I guess you hate fascism. Like that filled with hate feels. I mean, I couldn't tell if he was saying that he was filled with hate, Tyler, or whether he was saying Charlie Kirk was filled with hate. And that's why he didn't like him. Right, right. It was a little bit unclear in what the governor was saying there. But people are taking it to mean that Tyler was saying Kirk was filled with hate.

50:40Did he say anything? And maybe we can find more of this clip. But did he say anything about what these messages were? The clip cut off before he told what the jokes were that he was telling and what the messages were.

50:53Ryan Grim:I haven't seen, have not seen that, but we'll keep looking and seeing if they indicated what those Discord messages were, because, yeah, that would certainly be relevant to know.

51:09Emily Jashinsky:And this, you know, we don't need to even continue finding ways to underscore this. But the fact that someone was posting messages on Discord, I think, you know, we've seen the furry reference so far. Discord, that's indicative of somebody who is deep, deep in online culture.

51:31Ryan Grim:Yeah, the radicalization seems less to do with, you know, whatever academic institution he was at and more to do with whatever Discord server he was at. It's crazy. Also, the arrows, it looks like, and maybe people have some better clue into this, you know, where they said the arrow down, right? Upside, up, right, down, down, down. Is it Hellfire 2? I mean, Helldivers 2 or what? That's what I thought too.

52:01Emily Jashinsky:It's run some video game meme. The Times says, the list of messages on the suspect's casing as described by Governor Cox include apparent references to online culture and gaming. Quote, up arrow, right arrow, and three down arrow symbols. As described by Cox, may be a reference to a sequence of moves on a controller that release a bomb in the video game Helldivers. Wow.

52:24Emily Jashinsky:Another engraving, quote, notices, bulges, O-W-O, what's this? is a phrase used for trolling in online role-play communities.

52:33Ryan Grim:Yeah. And it's a furry specific, I guess. I don't know. The internet was a mistake. I don't know, guys, what to tell you. I don't know what to tell you. Xi is on to something in China. Shut it down. I mean, this is, yeah. I mean, the most 2025 thing you can imagine. like total gamer gamer troll brain rot gamer troll engravings on you know bullets that are used to murder a prominent activist and online influencer um and with the videos being streamed into our feeds basically in real time so that we can all over and over again watch watch one of the goriest most horrific things you can possibly imagine.

53:26Ryan Grim:Like, what hell are we living through?

53:30Emily Jashinsky:Yeah, seriously. Yep. It's hard to understand right now what this is going to do to Zoomers who have already seen so much. I mean, I think back, I'm slightly younger than you guys. You guys were like, your brains were fully formed when some of the, like, beheading videos were hitting Twitter in, you know, circa like 2013. I forget when Foley was, but I saw that when I was like probably 16. And it's not normal for the human brain to experience that. It's not normal for the species to experience that where it's, you can zoom in, you can pause. It's posted so many times in the hours after Charlie was shot.

54:21Emily Jashinsky:It was, you know, I probably saw it. 15 different times on my feed. You know, if you were trying to get the news on a mainstream website, it's not like this was in the bowels of, you know, something somebody downloaded on like BearShare and sent to their friends over email. Like that's not what it was. It was on a mainstream website and it sounds trite to us now, but I'm just thinking of somebody who was like probably 16 and saw a human being beheaded multiple times. Like, this is so much worse. I mean, they saw Brian Thompson. They saw all of that all over. And it's a level of exposure to violence that previously only would have existed in, like, war zones.

55:04Emily Jashinsky:But even then, you're experiencing something physically and in person. And the disconnected nature of watching a total stranger that you will never meet, you do not know, and then being incentivized to weigh in, either with a great thought that's classy or with a horrible thought because the algorithm that pushed that video to you is also demanding a response from you. That's right. We are so absolutely fucking cooked.

55:30Ryan Grim:We're just cooked. Yeah. I mean, what else can you say? Like, and that's before we even talk about the, you know, the images of a genocide that we've been seeing every single day, the horrific video of Irina who was murdered on a, you know, public transit. and this is like maybe i'm misremembering but the beheading videos like you had to like actually like i never watched it you had to like kind of intentionally this was almost unavoidable i had a great yeah go ahead ryan no no i i we were breaking that in real time and i i'm i had it up and then i put it in a different tab because i didn't want to see it yeah and then And as and then as I'm going back to working later, I clicked on that tab not knowing what it was.

56:18And there it was. And it's still in my mind.

56:21Ryan Grim:Yeah. I mean, that image of Charlie will ever be out of my mind because it was I mean, it was horrifying. And I just you know, one thing that I can't quite fully describe or put my finger on, but like think about, OK, this killer puts these brain rot memes, engraves them intentionally, like went out of his way to do this. so that you and I and Ryan and the whole world could talk about it and decipher his internet memes that he put on there for lulz. And there's this sense of disconnect and unreality where it's like, it's that nihilistic, nothing matters. You know, the more like outrageous thing you say, the more like disgusting and hateful thing you say, the more sort of notoriety you get.

57:17Ryan Grim:And this sense that other humans are quote unquote NPCs, right? They're not really real. I mean, there's just this, I don't know, this sense of sort of disconnect from your fellow human. And there are always going to be sociopathic type people out there who just naturally have that disconnect from humanity and are able to pull a trigger and blow someone to bits from, you know, 200 yards away and, you know, have no regrets about it or whatever. Or a knife in the case of Arena. Right. Like that's right. To some extent. That was a very intimate murder. You know, that's very intimate to be that close and to murder someone in that way.

57:55Ryan Grim:But yeah, I just I have a feeling like this type of Internet nihilism is converting many more people into basically like sociopaths with little sense of fellow common humanity.

58:10Emily Jashinsky:Yep. And that's what, like, I'm genuinely not trying to make this a partisan or anti-Trump comment. I'm saying this as somebody who's Charlie Kirk's age, 32. He was about to turn 32. When Donald Trump says what he said about elections, that is something you heard from the fringes when I was growing up, when we were growing up, and the fact that that came out of the president of the United States' mouth after so many people in Gen Z just saw what they saw. I think genuinely, like boomers, people in Trump's demo have no idea what type of rocket fuel that is for nihilism and violence and danger. And it horrifies me to think about that combination it really really does

59:00Ryan Grim:I mean Ryan the you know some of the violent weather underground and those type of movements I mean I feel like that comes from a similar place of like you know oh well we the political system like failed us and so you know there's this is this is the only thing that Matt this is the only thing that could work I mean you can also see it in terms of like this you know the parallels are not perfect guys here so forgive me but um the hamas palestinian like violent resistance too it's like hey we tried we tried this thing didn't work so our only path forward is is violence the difference between you know that kind of organized violence um and this is that what you could hate it but it has it it has and you can disagree like i think the weathermen were reckless adventurists who, you know, on and on.

59:59People don't care about my, you know, weather on the ground critique. But, like, the point is, like, they had an idea. Like, they were going to spark a revolution, you know, whatever. Like, it had a one, two, three.

1:00:14Emily Jashinsky:There was a grand strategy. I think it's an outrageous one, two, three, and stupid and counterproductive and blah, blah. But it was a one, two, three. like what is this like this feels like trolling it feels like taking someone's life in in the most with the flick of a wrist with personal catharsis for a personal catharsis and just joking like like you're on a discord server like to but this is to take someone's life with references to like video games and meme and furry memes is so sacrilegious to humanity so keep that on discord like you want to feel you want to feel blackpilled the weather underground could actually organize a group of physical people to plan right that is not they blew themselves They blew themselves up, but at least they were able to get more than one person in a room.

1:01:16Emily Jashinsky:They were not. Yeah, they were. Right, right, right. And so that's a huge difference from lone wolf, Internet radicals or Internet nihilists. Because think about I mean, think about this. He was not part of a literal underground community of dozens of people who are organizing in back rooms. This is somebody who was alone. When you are part of a radical revolutionary group, whether it was right or left, underground or whatever else, these are people who had like that was a sense of purpose and belonging in community. This is somebody who has no and that's everything that Ryan said, underscore, like awful, horrible way to find community through violence like that.

1:02:05Emily Jashinsky:But this is somebody who is who's trying to find purpose in saying there is no purpose and is trying to make that point the the oh, my God. I mean, it's just so depressing to think about. I think I have a clip here that's a little bit more of the. The family member stuff, if you want to roll back through this again, just like so we can see if how are you able to share it, Ryan? Yeah, let me do it here. The family member also confirmed Robinson had a gray Dodge Challenger. Investigators identified an individual as the roommate of Robinson. Investigators interviewed that roommate who stated that his roommate, referring to Robinson, made a joke on Discord.

1:02:51Investigators asked if he would show them the messages on Discord. He opened it and showed several messages to investigators and allowed investigators to take photos of the screen as each message was shown by Robinson's roommate. These photos consisted of various messages, including content of messages between the phone contact name Tyler with an emoji icon and Robinson's roommate's device. The content of these messages included messages affiliated with the contact Tyler stating a need to retrieve a rifle from a drop point. leaving the rifle in a bush messages related to a to visually watching the area where a rifle was left and a message referring to having left the rifle wrapped in a towel the messages also refer to engraving bullets and a mention of a scope and the rifle being unique messages from the contact Tyler also mentioned that he had changed outfits.

1:03:54Ryan Grim:Wow. I know there has been speculation as well as to the writing on those casings, those bullet casings. And I believe we have that as well. Did we already do this? And I will share that with you. Yeah, we already got the casings. But the so so in my understanding, right, this man murdered Charlie Kirk and then went on a discord server to be like talking about the gun and talking about changing his clothes and basically asking his roommate for help. Is that what I'm understanding here? He's doing that. He's doing that police talk, which makes it deliberately difficult to translate into English.

1:04:39But that is wild.

1:04:42Ryan Grim:That is wild. you did this and you got away, you left your gun, and you're, like, talking about the gun, talking about where you left it, talking about how you changed your clothes, bragging about this to your buddy on a Discord server. Like, what?

1:04:56Emily Jashinsky:And it took 24-plus hours. They did not, until this person's, again, like, until this person's dad turned them in. This was in a public place full of CCTV at a densely crowded event, And this person is bragging about it on a Discord server afterwards. And the FBI, more than 24 hours in, about 36 hours in, had nothing except for, by the grace of God, this person's father had the willpower to turn them in. And so increasingly looking like, from my perspective right now, it's increasingly looking like possible antifa nihilism, but also horrific law enforcement response. I mean, just what the hell?

1:05:43Emily Jashinsky:It's crazy.

1:05:44Ryan Grim:That's so dangerous. It's so dangerous. Yeah. And there and and then Kash Patel has the temerity to go out and brag about how historic and how incredible, how incredible of a job they've done. I mean, it's just it's unbelievable. I mean, the truth is you don't law enforcement doesn't have to be that great. If you if a picture gets out like. Right. You're going to get you're going to get found. Yeah, because everybody is known by the public. Right. And almost all the public is going to be on your side. Right. There's going to be very few that would actually be willing to, you know, harbor the Charlie Kirk murder, not turn them in, you know.

1:06:23Right. So unless he's, you know, going. you'd have to wear a ski mask and then people would be like, what the hell are you doing wearing a ski mask?

1:06:31Ryan Grim:Right. Well, the other... If this was during the pandemic, maybe you could have snuck in. You could have gotten away with it, yeah. Or if you're posing as an ICE agent, you could pull that off. That's true. Yeah, I'm an ICE agent on the roof. Yeah, actually. Yeah. That would have been even more of a 2025 murder. And then the other aspect of it, you know, to add to the sort of dystopian unreality of the whole thing, is I know you guys saw this, like, influencer who was there who was posting to TikTok, like follow me on TikTok and like mugging for the camera, which again is like, you know, even as you're living through this horror, you're still like somehow disconnected from it.

1:07:12Ryan Grim:Even as you're like in the real world, you're still disconnected from it. And after the fact, I know we like apologize, I'll be a better creator or whatever, but you're like disconnected from the very reality and the humanity that you are existing with and living through.

1:07:26Emily Jashinsky:Because your reality is that your career is tied to the algorithm. And so you are, this is like Marshall McLuhan, you are as a human being changed by the medium that is controlling your life. And these mediums are not changing us for the better. There's just clearly, we are being warped into our own thought processes, having dictation by the algorithm, because you start thinking in terms of the algorithm and people need to be extremely careful about it. And we aren't. And the tech companies aren't. The tech companies, X included, Elon Musk is condemning all of this, but he owns a company that has one of the most major roles in poisoning us algorithmically, poisoning us algorithmically.

1:08:10Emily Jashinsky:So it's just like, it reminds me of the video of that went viral in a totally different vein of that young man who was saying he was working really hard and couldn't get ahead. That went mega viral like a month ago. And he was dead on in his description of the economy. It was accurate. It was poignant. And then you look at the bottom of the TikTok and it says things like hashtag follow me. And it's, think about that. I mean, hashtag follow me, hashtag. So you had hashtags basically being like, I want to become an influencer. something to that extent. And it's just like that is just you. I don't know that you could possibly be much more depressed about the state of the country.

1:08:55Ryan Grim:Yeah. And I think it's an accelerant. Like, I don't think it starts with the social media. I think it's it's an accelerant. The the Internet culture for a society that's already sick in any number of ways. But, yeah, I don't I don't know what to say about it. And we can wrap up here pretty soon because I I don't see, you know, I don't know what else we're going to get right now. But Ryan, you got any last thoughts you want to add in here? No, I mean, the only, you know, for people like myself who don't want this to be like a leftist, the only hope is that he's trolling with his hey, fascist catch and that sort of stuff.

1:09:35Emily Jashinsky:And the Bella Chow. And the Bella Chow, that that's some kind of a troll and a misdirection. yeah i think i think i hear mac what's mac saying oh no that was uh actually it was you heard yourself through my microphone because oh gotcha so uh you know these are just you know dark dark dark times really um and it's uh it it's still

1:10:03Ryan Grim:hard to believe that charlie kirk is dead yeah um it is just thinking that it feels it's crazy and And I mean, that's the other aspect of this is, Emily, you brought up like the parasocial relationship that millions have with him and will experience this as if, you know, someone who is genuinely close to them was killed.

1:10:24Emily Jashinsky:Mm hmm. Mm hmm. Mm hmm. I mean, it's so like and that can go in really positive directions for some people. But again, I'm not worried about the people who are reacting healthily to this because I know that there is a large group of people that aren't going to react healthily to this because they have no community. They have no friends, but they have a they have a computer. And I'm just going to put this before we wrap. I just want to put this image that we've gotten in of. Charlie's widow, now widow, on the screen because it is just you just look at her face and the video emerged of her exiting Air Force Two with Usha Vance and just gripping onto Usha Vance.

1:11:12Emily Jashinsky:Obviously, J.D. was very close friends with Charlie. Charlie helped get J.D. onto the ticket by lobbying behind the scenes with Don Jr. And so this is something that this administration, I mean, again, at the White House yesterday, those young Trump staffers, the level of doom that was ever present hanging in the air the entire day and shock, it just, you know, it's one way. I think we're talking now about how people in the public are experiencing this, and that's right, because it's crazy. But just also think about how closely this is touching the way that we talked about this earlier, the reactions from this administration.

1:11:55Emily Jashinsky:This is so, so personal, so personal.

1:12:00Ryan Grim:So it's a really scary time. Yeah. Yeah. And Trump had no direct personal connection to big balls. This is someone he knew and knew closely and, you know, was looped in with the administration in any number of ways. So we'll see where we go from here. Anything else, guys? I just hope you guys stay safe. Yeah, I appreciate you guys. I'll say that. And, you know, we'll end on the good news. It's good news that this guy got caught. Good news that he's in custody. Good news that, you know, they've got him. and I'm sure we're going to learn a lot more here. And, you know, if there's anything that pops up big over the weekend, guys, one or the other of us will try to cover it.

1:12:46Ryan Grim:Otherwise, Sagar and I will be in studio for a normal show on Monday and we will see you then.

1:12:51Emily Jashinsky:Pull people out of nihilism, by the way. Sorry, I just want to say, because like we have some very online people and we're grateful for all of you. If you see someone going down a dark path, do what you can to pull them out of it. That's the best we can all do right now. Yep.

1:13:05Ryan Grim:All right, guys. Talk to you soon. Okay, laundry stinks, literally. I mean, you could just keep buying new underwear. Not that I've ever done that. Or maybe sort your clothes into piles based on how re-wearable or filthy they are. Or just use Arm & Hammer Deep Clean. It's made for real-life stinks and stains. So even if you don't do laundry the, quote, right way, Deep Clean will knock it out. I mean, it is from the number one liquid detergent brand that tackles more loads than any other. Come clean with Arm & Hammer Deep Clean. Number one claim based on total wash loads sold. We learned how to love dogs from the dogs that loved us and waited for us to get home from school.

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