Gaines for Girls with Riley Gaines - Jimmy Failla Sets the Record Straight on the VIRAL ＂Shots Fired＂ Clip ｜ The Riley Gaines Show

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00:00:30.000 I've been to this dinner before, the White House Correspondents Dinner, and I will tell you,

00:00:38.660 I did not really enjoy my time there. My husband and I, I'll put a picture on screen. Look at us,

00:00:43.900 we look so young. We went back in 2023 under President Biden. Didn't really enjoy it. Did

00:00:50.980 not have a good time. Was kind of underwhelmed, truthfully. For those of you who don't really

00:00:55.260 know what this night is. It's kind of like a night for all media to let loose. Like there's

00:00:59.680 jokes being cut, left-leaning, right-leaning, everything in between. It's just a night for

00:01:04.060 good fun. I don't know if it's like the competitor in me, very driven. I don't like to lose. I did

00:01:10.860 not like hearing the comedian on stage and President Biden and his administration make

00:01:15.060 jokes towards conservatives. So I kind of vowed right then and there that I wasn't really interested

00:01:20.840 in going again. Roll around to the next year, 2024, was invited, didn't go. Same thing in 2025.

00:01:27.560 Same thing even just this past weekend. And boy, let me tell you, I'm glad I did not go.

00:01:34.520 Before we get into this episode, which we're talking to someone who was there, who was in

00:01:39.500 the room, who witnessed all of the chaos unfolding, let me just make it very clear where I stand.

00:01:46.020 political violence is never okay. I mean, sue me. It seems to be a controversial take

00:01:53.760 nowadays. If you have found yourself in some way justifying what happened this past weekend,

00:01:59.580 again, a third assassination attempt on the president. And for that matter, anyone who was

00:02:04.680 in this wannabe assassins way of getting to the president, whether that was, you know,

00:02:10.260 the shooter was MAGA. I've seen that online. Whether that was, this was all stage, whether

00:02:14.500 it's, you know, this was just an excuse for President Trump to build his ballroom, whatever

00:02:19.500 it was, then I have nothing in common with you. I honestly don't even know how we coexist.

00:02:26.620 After the three assassination attempts on President Trump, after watching what happened

00:02:31.220 to my dear friend, Charlie Kirk, after Kavanaugh, Scalise, and more, I wake up every single day with

00:02:39.020 a knot in my stomach thinking about the future, the trajectory of this country. All of that and

00:02:45.140 more with one of the funniest people I know, Jimmy Fallon. Well, Jimmy, Trump seems to ruin

00:02:51.400 everything. Now you can't even be in a room with him without fearing for your life, fearing you're

00:02:56.320 going to get shot. You were there at that White House correspondence dinner. First and foremost,

00:03:03.000 can you give us a little context on what the dinner really is, what it's supposed to be about?

00:03:07.640 and then I want you to kind of take us through the moment you heard the shots what that was like

00:03:12.760 the chaos in the room okay I mean traditionally the dinner is a celebration of the media which

00:03:21.700 is kind of ironic you know what I mean imagine if the captain of the Titanic dumped the Gatorade

00:03:27.300 on himself at the end of the game like what a good job we did you see the way we took that iceberg

00:03:32.460 You know, it's always been a little ironic, but it is the Super Bowl of the D.C. party circuit because D.C., of course, runs, you know, on a high octane level of activism.

00:03:44.520 And obviously there's a big media presence. So the correspondence dinner is the conflation of those two things.

00:03:49.660 And traditionally, it involves the president and a bit of an off ramp like a detente between the president and the press.

00:03:56.900 that's usually a lot of good-natured joking.

00:03:59.340 But as you know, Trump hasn't gone at any point in his presidency

00:04:03.160 because the relationship between him and the media,

00:04:06.660 Trump and the media get along as well as a bathtub gets along with a toaster.

00:04:10.620 You know what I'm saying?

00:04:11.660 There's usually going to be some type of casualty when they get together.

00:04:15.320 And even in the years he didn't go, during term one, if you remember,

00:04:20.000 whoever attended from his administration didn't get made fun of, they got attacked.

00:04:25.260 Like Sarah Huckabee was the press secretary when Michelle Wolfe famously went after her smoky eye and trashed her appearance.

00:04:33.180 And, you know, Michelle Wolfe, you know, I'm sure she's a fine Uber driver right now.

00:04:37.980 So I don't want to disparage her completely.

00:04:39.940 But she is the comedy as O.J. was to marriage.

00:04:43.120 Like, yeah, you can claim this in the intro where I went in 2023 when, of course, President Biden was still in office.

00:04:50.140 and I found myself I know it's supposed to be a night of joking and fun and humor but I found

00:04:55.360 myself angry by the end of it I found myself angry by the end of it and that's kind of when I vowed

00:05:00.780 I was like I'm not going to this again yeah well can I tell you something about the 23 dinner that

00:05:05.540 you were at is I was there I was laughing because I did a red carpet show that year I actually have

00:05:10.740 a year to laugh I saw you before that dinner too I had a picture uh but hold on okay this is

00:05:15.340 important that was the dinner where they were you know they had this huge banner up about protecting

00:05:21.240 the first amendment and it was in the same week that the biden white house had just launched its

00:05:27.840 ministry of disinformation do you remember that nina jankiewicz mary poppins girl and they were

00:05:33.580 starting to throw people off the internet because of their takes on vaccines and stuff like that

00:05:38.600 so it was kind of infuriating but you saw the performance art of what the established media

00:05:44.900 has become. They were literally giving themselves awards for protecting the First Amendment

00:05:51.300 in the same week they were taking away speech rights. So it was very 1984, but the way the

00:05:59.620 open bar situation goes, it was like point 1984, you know? Right, exactly. So I get it, okay? And

00:06:06.840 I knew what we were walking into, but knowing the stakes being what they were because Trump was

00:06:11.940 going, and there was going to be this kind of free-for-all where he would get them alone in a

00:06:17.740 room in a good-natured way, hopefully, and have a little fun and maybe have an off-ramp. I was

00:06:23.040 hoping for a feel-good night, and I was trying to deliver one. I had Brian Stelter on my red

00:06:27.700 carpet show. I had Comedy Central. I was trying to get as many non-Fox people as I could

00:06:33.000 to get people into a good headspace so they could fathom a 12-minute world where it was okay to get

00:06:40.100 along with Donald Trump. Just pretend he's not Hitler. Pretend he's not oppressing women and

00:06:46.400 democracy's not hanging in the balance. None of the, you know, performance manufactured hysteria

00:06:51.500 pieces that we know to be BS. So I was trying, like legitimately trying. And I went into that room

00:06:57.160 in hopes that we were going to actually have like this moment I grew up in where for one night,

00:07:03.720 just for like a few minutes, like people stopped taking themselves so seriously because that's

00:07:09.800 what I find so exhausting. Like I can handle people who disagree, but I can't handle the

00:07:15.300 sociopathic aspect of this. And it's the one we inhabit right now, even after the shooting. It's

00:07:21.020 like Hitler has to tone down the rhetoric. And if all of his white supremacist misogynist followers 0.98

00:07:26.540 could just learn to coexist with us, maybe we wouldn't have these problems. And that's what I 0.96

00:07:31.320 hate. So in terms, Riles, of what my experience was, I taped a really bipartisan red carpet show

00:07:38.180 that I was psyched to show people,

00:07:40.280 walked into the actual room.

00:07:43.040 This is all true, okay?

00:07:45.360 I went through the same mag the shooter ran through

00:07:47.800 probably two minutes before he did,

00:07:50.140 and I told the people working the mags,

00:07:52.500 I just want to go eat one roll.

00:07:54.580 I said, I'm about to host three hours of live TV.

00:07:57.180 Unlike the people you've met tonight,

00:07:58.920 I actually eat food.

00:08:00.540 I said, that's why I'm pleasant.

00:08:02.400 I said, because I'm the only guy in the media

00:08:04.040 who's allowed to eat in this contract.

00:08:06.020 I said, and that's why these people are hostile

00:08:07.800 and are angry maybe if they had a few more rolls like i'm about to have so i went into the freaking

00:08:11.880 uh into the banquet room grabbed a roll and before i bit it a secret service agent had me on the

00:08:18.160 ground my first thought it was that it was the fox wardrobe department being like that's enough

00:08:23.140 carbs fats and then of course i saw the chaos and the people rushing the stage and was like my god

00:08:30.220 and i butt walked on my butt to a pillar i got behind a pillar with my back to the stage while

00:08:36.560 the secret service was shouting commands and people were on the ground and there were three 0.96

00:08:40.940 waitresses that were about two feet tall each okay that didn't speak english that were weeping

00:08:46.340 and i legitimately was holding them i had my arms around three women at once three tiny guatemalan

00:08:51.340 waitresses which to be honest is how i was hoping the night would end uh but i just didn't think

00:08:56.480 there'd be an assassination plot along the way nuts oh my gosh it sounds like chaos at least for

00:09:04.200 the president, the vice president, we've seen, uh, pictures circulate online now, which I kind

00:09:09.660 of want to get your take on this too, of, uh, people like Hegseth or Kash Patel. One of my

00:09:14.440 favorite that has surfaced from this is you have Bobby Kennedy. I don't know if you've seen like

00:09:18.740 the text screenshot. I don't know if it's real. I really hope it's real. I think it's real,

00:09:23.060 uh, posted from, uh, RFK's son. It's a group chat with Cheryl Hines, of course, his wife

00:09:29.100 and saying like, you know, mom, dad, are you okay? Cheryl responds back. And it's like, yeah,

00:09:33.200 you know that was terrifying and Bobby responds back I'm really hungry but you see this footage

00:09:37.720 of him he's just sat at his table like still eating but you've got Hegseth he looks like a

00:09:42.720 total BA walking around like not scared at all you've got Stephen Miller who's protecting his

00:09:48.940 wife I thought that was a pretty cool visual to see all like manly men I don't think you would

00:09:54.060 have seen that with the previous administration the previous cabinet yeah I mean in the in the

00:09:59.720 last administration i i'd listen to be clear they might have distracted a potential shooter with a

00:10:05.140 drag show but i'm not sure it would have worked you know what i mean you'd rather have one yeah

00:10:11.000 when the game's on the line you'd rather have pete hegseth than a guy named cinnabons okay i mean we

00:10:16.520 know that about the military that's why the recruiting numbers are so much higher so yeah

00:10:21.060 there were some reassuring elements to this uh that being said the security primer around this

00:10:28.180 president needs to be better given the stakes and what we've already seen. So that's the part that

00:10:33.840 I was kind of bothered by. And to Trump's credit, he is absolutely going to do this again. There is

00:10:40.400 no world where he doesn't do this because it's like Butler. He will not concede real estate.

00:10:45.520 When they said like no more outdoor rallies, he's like, hell no, because what is the message that

00:10:49.620 sends to the world? That here in America, we have to compromise because there are nutbags that are,

00:10:54.880 you know, kind of galvanized by this inflammatory rhetoric. So I think there'll be another dinner.

00:11:00.720 I, you know, I don't know if it'll be the full scope that this one was in terms of a week of

00:11:05.980 partying. I would like to think you'll need more to get into this dinner than a room key.

00:11:10.900 And that maybe the magnometers will be outside the hotel and not 10 feet from the dinner itself,

00:11:16.240 which was kind of crazy. Yeah, you know, I think that's why people say that this was staged or

00:11:22.220 whatever, because of President Trump and his attitude, his charisma, his resiliency.

00:11:28.800 Yeah, you think back to Butler.

00:11:30.000 I mean, what I was watching online as this was happening, what they're reporting on Fox

00:11:34.680 News is like, look, this dinner is going to continue if it's up to President Trump.

00:11:37.740 He wants to get back out there.

00:11:39.960 It's amazing the attempts on his life.

00:11:42.360 And while certainly I'm sure he's he's scared to a degree, he probably would never admit

00:11:47.640 it, he's willing to continue to put himself in the position so long as as impact is being made

00:11:54.380 and good things are being done, which, of course, they certainly are. What about, again, taking this

00:12:02.220 to someone who was not in the room? There was a lot of confusion in the immediate. You know,

00:12:06.940 we were hearing reports that the shooter was down, had been eliminated and neutralized. Some

00:12:12.800 reports saying the shooter was still alive. What about in the room? Did you guys know pretty

00:12:16.740 immediately what was happening and what the outcome was if he had been shot if he was alive

00:12:22.240 listen between us a lot of people on the right side of the room i think brian kilmeade might

00:12:27.820 have mentioned this too uh we thought the president got shot like straight up and i'll explain why

00:12:33.180 okay the shots happened behind us there was it's basically the left side of that ballroom is where

00:12:38.900 the magnometers are for all intents and purposes because it's an oval shaped room if you remember

00:12:43.940 you come in on one side of that ballroom and then you make a left and go down a set of stairs and

00:12:49.880 you're now in the ballroom standing at the back of it okay so in that ballroom which is very wide

00:12:55.180 2500 feet wide you kind of come into it on one side so understand the minute those shots rang

00:13:01.520 out behind us that immediate response team that's there to shield the president we're talking about

00:13:08.080 the guys in suits with machine guns, they just sprinted towards the stage. And they're trampling

00:13:14.900 over tables and they're obviously trying to secure cabinet members, but they're making a rush to kind

00:13:20.700 of insulate the president from whatever the heck is happening outside the room. And because a lot

00:13:25.600 of us showed up there thinking there was going to be some type of physical disruption, a lot of our

00:13:31.100 initial reaction was these people, whoever these people are, are storming the stage. And the reason

00:13:37.660 I think we felt that way is because when president Trump was picked up to leave the room, anybody can

00:13:43.160 go watch the video. He fell on the ground. And I truly believed like, my God, he's been hit in a

00:13:49.540 way that he can't be held up. And that was, that's when I butt walked like on my butt anyway, over to 0.58

00:13:56.640 a pillar. And I called my wife immediately. Um, and I was like, Jenny, this will be on the news 0.87

00:14:00.980 within like three minutes. There was a shooting at this dinner. I'm fine, but I just want you to

00:14:05.500 know that in case everyone's cell phone signal goes on the fritz and i don't want you watching

00:14:09.520 this for two hours wondering where i am you know what i'm saying so that was psychotic and then we

00:14:15.120 got because my show was supposed to be live i knew we weren't doing comedy at that point

00:14:19.860 but i couldn't get to the actual area of where the red carpet was that i had just left because

00:14:27.280 that's where the secret service ran through in a lot of those videos with guns drawn gianno

00:14:31.340 Caldwell had a good video they shot right past the red carpet area and shot at the shooter so we

00:14:36.820 couldn't get back to the camera because at that point they had everyone barricaded in the ballroom

00:14:41.200 like we opened the back door of the ballroom and they had guns drawn pointed right at us like get

00:14:46.300 down get down get down and we got right down obviously and didn't give them a hard time

00:14:49.520 so at that point there was probably a five minute maybe even a 10 minute window of we didn't know

00:14:55.560 what happened other than there were shots by the magnometers uh and then it was explained to us

00:15:00.320 that there were multiple Secret Service shots.

00:15:02.700 Everyone in the room probably for the first hour

00:15:04.740 believed the guy was dead

00:15:05.760 because that's all anyone was saying

00:15:07.520 is we heard the Secret Service got him.

00:15:09.520 We all got that same message

00:15:11.080 from the head of the Correspondents Association

00:15:12.600 that Trump was coming back out.

00:15:14.560 And then apparently he got a second message

00:15:16.240 once they had ascertained

00:15:17.720 that the guy was staying in the hotel

00:15:18.960 that we couldn't come back out

00:15:20.620 because what if there was another guy in the hotel?

00:15:22.440 So that was the wrap.

00:15:24.280 Yeah, makes sense.

00:15:25.840 What do you make of the fact that this guy is a teacher?

00:15:30.320 I mean, none of us are shocked by that.

00:15:32.620 We saw the whole pronouns in the bio and the potential Kamala donation.

00:15:36.840 These are the people, and it's worth pointing out, okay, there are a lot of people on the left that are kind of like, you know the term they use, suicidal empathy, to describe man's migration in Europe like that?

00:15:51.160 There is a lot of that on the left. 0.89

00:15:52.740 I believe there are decent people that truly believe they're helping the world, but what they don't get is they've made an emotional investment in a fallacy, meaning they believe they're helping the world by killing Donald Trump because he's Hitler. 0.97

00:16:09.000 He's a threat to democracy. 0.98

00:16:10.740 He's oppressing women.

00:16:12.120 You know, there have been two women, as you know, who have led a winning presidential campaign.

00:16:18.940 Their names are Kellyanne Conway and Susie Wiles.

00:16:21.600 We were in a 250-year-old country. The only guy who's ever won the White House with a female

00:16:27.720 campaign manager is the one supposedly oppressing the women. The guy oppressing the gays is the one 0.97

00:16:33.420 that went to Elton John's wedding in 2005, 10 years before the Democrats came out in favor of

00:16:38.840 the gays. The guy who hates black people is the guy who gave Jesse Jackson and the Rainbow Coalition 0.98

00:16:43.900 office space in 1984. But the point is, if you live in this manufactured hysteria 0.99

00:16:49.780 that the omnipotent liberal media has created

00:16:52.740 over the last 10 years of politics,

00:16:55.060 that empathetic side of you

00:16:56.700 that's emotionally invested in this lie

00:16:59.140 might be willing to act on it.

00:17:01.520 And that's a lot of what we've seen.

00:17:02.800 It's no different when we talk about,

00:17:04.240 you know, your relationship with women's sports

00:17:06.140 and the men trying to gain access to female spaces. 0.98

00:17:09.440 A lot of people who are hopped up on hormones

00:17:12.200 that might not otherwise occur in their body 0.99

00:17:13.940 are being told the rest of us want to kill them. 0.98

00:17:16.540 Okay, we don't. 0.67

00:17:17.660 We don't necessarily want to share a locker room

00:17:19.260 or a swimming lane, but the fact that it's portrayed that way is creating a level of

00:17:23.200 unrest in a lot of people who might not be stable people, and that's what we're

00:17:27.280 watching now. Yes, that's right.

00:17:31.260 I saw this week where Hassan Piker, who I guess is a Twitch streamer,

00:17:36.420 was, I don't know what the format was, I think he was talking to the New York

00:17:39.360 Times actually, and said that murder, specifically

00:17:43.220 in talking about the UnitedHealthcare CEO, that murder was

00:17:47.340 justified because he had committed what he called social murder. We've got a clip of it here. Let's

00:17:53.180 play it really quick. Engels wrote about the concept of social murder. And Brian Thompson,

00:18:02.880 as the UnitedHealthcare CEO, was engaging in a tremendous amount of social murder, the

00:18:10.100 systematized forms of violence, the structural violence of poverty, the for-profit paywalled

00:18:19.960 system of healthcare in this country. And the consequences of that are tremendous amounts of

00:18:28.380 pain, tremendous amounts of violence, tremendous amounts of deaths. And that was a fascinating

00:18:34.260 story from for me because americans are very draconian about crime and punishment they're

00:18:40.460 very black and white on this issue and yet because of the pervasive pain that the private health care

00:18:49.820 system had created for the average american i saw so many people immediately understand

00:18:57.780 why this death had taken place so many big words draconian pervasive i thought it was so telling

00:19:06.560 you have these new york times reporters or journalists or hosts or whatever this setting

00:19:11.220 was who are kind of just like nodding and smiling along seemingly agreeing never pushing back on

00:19:16.560 this what do you make of it well you know what i think i think it there's like an emotional

00:19:22.080 convenience as psychotic as it sounds to agree with something so psychotic because it's easier

00:19:28.200 to tell yourselves hey this health care ceo is an evil dude harming people than it is to go hey

00:19:34.380 i consistently voted for the party that made this health care so unaffordable that gave them so

00:19:41.260 much money and so many subsidies and in the process reduced all the consumer choice from

00:19:46.380 the market that's causing the very hardships this guy tried to avenge. I mean, the Democrats passed

00:19:52.160 Obamacare without a single Republican vote. Those Obamacare subsidies that they passed during COVID

00:19:59.280 happened without a single Republican vote. So if you are bearing the brunt of the inadequacies in

00:20:05.580 our healthcare system and you're a Democrat voter, isn't it easier to say Brian Thompson was evil and

00:20:10.820 Luigi's a good guy than it is to go, you know, if only there was some choice in the market and some

00:20:17.140 competition for your healthcare dollar, they're never going to do it. And that's the biggest

00:20:21.620 challenge we face is there's a lot of people and you know this, and this comes back to the

00:20:25.340 assassination. Everybody watching this has friends who absolutely positively dislike something about

00:20:33.100 themselves in a severe way. So they've outsourced it to Donald Trump. Okay. It is convenient to buy

00:20:39.900 Whatever the narrative is, threat to democracy, threat to women, threat to minorities, Jim Crow on stories, it's so much easier to peddle that and traffic in that every day than it is to look inward at that one thing you don't like about yourself. 0.99

00:20:53.740 And that's where the Hassan Pikers of the world and the members of the media are doing that thing where they sound like their pool of knowledge is a mile wide, but it's like not even a quarter of an inch deep. 0.89

00:21:04.240 But it doesn't need to be because that person looking for that convenient outsource. 0.99

00:21:08.920 Oh, Brian Thompson, UnitedHealthcare has got all this leverage over my life.

00:21:12.620 Yeah, if you look an inch deeper, you realize you voted to give them that power.

00:21:16.940 That's the biggest problem we face right now.

00:21:20.220 Okay, you know the George Orwell book, Animal Farm.

00:21:23.200 I read it in my freshman year of high school.

00:21:25.780 You probably did too.

00:21:26.900 I feel like most people read it in school and then just kind of like move on.

00:21:31.220 But watching the animated adaptation as an adult, it really just hits completely different.

00:21:39.060 My husband and I got early access screening to the new Animal Farm movie.

00:21:42.720 It was done by Angel Studios.

00:21:44.880 It's not really about animals.

00:21:47.380 If you read the book, then you know this.

00:21:48.620 It's about how fast things change when people stop questioning what is actually happening.

00:21:54.540 Like the rules slowly shift, language gets twisted,

00:21:58.220 and suddenly everyone's just expected to go along with it.

00:22:02.360 Sound familiar?

00:22:03.580 And what stuck with me most in watching this film

00:22:05.900 is how uncomfortable it is to be the person

00:22:08.540 who actually says, wait, this doesn't really make sense.

00:22:13.620 That's kind of the whole point.

00:22:15.340 It's actually a really good watch,

00:22:16.760 especially with older kids.

00:22:18.380 So you can watch it as a family.

00:22:19.520 If you have kids in middle school, high school,

00:22:21.480 it's fantastic and opens the door to having conversations

00:22:24.960 that most people avoid.

00:22:27.040 certainly what most kids programs or kids films avoid you can have these conversations not really

00:22:32.980 in a heavy way per se but just in a pay attention to what's real kind of way animal farm it is in

00:22:39.860 theaters on may 1st and i'm telling you this is the one people are going to be talking about

00:22:44.780 you mentioned it's it's never going to change uh and these people who are riddled with tds do you

00:22:52.700 think tds carries on beyond trump like is the next thing gonna be like jd ds like is it gonna

00:23:01.440 keep going or do you think kind of the buck stops with president trump or do you think we're too far

00:23:05.500 in now no i mean one thing to keep in mind is it didn't start with president trump they treated

00:23:10.960 every republican like this trump's just the only guy who got his money's worth and gave him some

00:23:16.140 good sound bites along the way like george w bush was a fascist you know hellhole they were calling

00:23:22.280 john mccain hitler in some circles do you remember mit romney like mit romney man in mom jeans they

00:23:29.200 said you know joe is a joe biden commercial he's gonna put you back in chains do you remember that

00:23:33.600 the only thing mit romney ever changed was his dog to the roof of the car

00:23:37.260 seamus the dog that was a controversy but the point is they've treated every republican nominee

00:23:42.460 like hitler because this is what the democrats do they run so aggressively on social pressure

00:23:48.180 If you say someone is the devil enough, it creates a social pressure not to publicly support them.

00:23:55.040 You just want the problem to go away.

00:23:57.520 Isn't that kind of how they created the divide between what people believed to be true and what they were willing to say in public when it came to men convening against women?

00:24:06.160 That's how this started.

00:24:06.880 You think that? You think COVID?

00:24:08.660 You think of how many people were fearful during COVID to admit they weren't vaccinated or how many people got those fake cards because they didn't want anyone else,

00:24:16.160 their peers or their friends or their family not knowing they actually weren't vaccinated.

00:24:20.900 So absolutely.

00:24:22.120 Yeah, it's a thing.

00:24:23.140 So that's part of the problem.

00:24:24.660 But you want to know something, Riles?

00:24:26.560 I do think people will outgrow this because it's exhausting.

00:24:31.120 Like nobody, you really like, nobody wants to be at the party waiting for the guy who

00:24:37.480 gets offended at everything to show up.

00:24:39.860 You know what I'm saying?

00:24:40.800 You're never going to be at the party and be like, well, I can't wait till the guy who

00:24:43.660 gets upset gets here.

00:24:44.740 and you can't because that guy doesn't get invited to parties so i actually do think well i i truly

00:24:50.920 i i'm optimistic that it can evolve and it will improve but it's not going to happen anytime soon

00:24:55.800 because this is the second time uh we are post shots fired in donald trump's vicinity you could

00:25:02.820 say a third if you count the nutbag waiting in the trade and nothing's changing we're getting

00:25:07.560 told it was gun laws it was trump's rhetoric they're not backing off the throttle like my 0.51

00:25:11.980 over under in vegas on a hitler reference is tomorrow at noon and i'm sure i'm gonna win that

00:25:17.260 bet yeah i think so too my money is on you winning that bet uh okay the much less funny jimmy uh

00:25:26.060 jimmy kimmel of course had a joke that went viral in the days leading up to this white

00:25:32.020 house correspondence dinner let's watch it really quick our first lady melania is here

00:25:38.440 look at more so beautiful mrs trump you have a glow like an expectant widow 1.00

00:25:42.880 okay so melania took to x to say this she said kimmel's hateful and violent rhetoric is intended

00:25:50.800 to divide our country his monologue about my family is not comedy his words are corrosive

00:25:55.440 and deepens the political sickness within america people like kimmel shouldn't have 0.86

00:25:58.640 the opportunity to enter our homes each evening to spread hate a coward kimmel hides behind abc

00:26:03.480 because he knows the network will keep running cover to protect him enough is enough it's time

00:26:07.260 for ABC to take a stand? How many times will ABC's leadership enable Kimmel's atrocious behavior

00:26:12.040 at the expense of our community? Now, as a comedian yourself, I wanted to get your take

00:26:19.100 on this because I think oftentimes on both sides of the aisle here, it's hard to find that line of

00:26:25.840 what comedy really is. I've certainly taken issue specifically with some of the things that have

00:26:30.420 surfaced surrounding Erica Kirk, but I wanted to ask you, what's that line look like and what's

00:26:37.080 your take on this jimmy kimmel response well i mean my biggest frustration with late night shows

00:26:41.420 is not that they're political it's that they're purposeful okay everybody's political like there's

00:26:46.760 not a late night show going back to jack parr or steve allen that wasn't making fun of whoever

00:26:51.260 the president was or whoever his competitor was or whatever the potential scandal of the week was

00:26:55.880 the difference between those guys and jimmy kimmel and colbert is they are purposeful it's not just

00:27:01.300 that they tell a trump joke it's that they then editorialize and say that's why we can't vote for

00:27:06.360 this. That's why democracy is under attack. That's why the fascists are here. So my frustration on a

00:27:11.960 personal level is that they're ruining this medium, which was supposed to be common culture,

00:27:17.540 which was supposed to give us an off ramp at the end of a day to just kind of laugh and not take

00:27:22.120 life seriously. And they've kind of polluted the narrative around comedy, because now there is

00:27:28.020 this small scale expectation that we're somehow soldiers in a larger war, when in fact, we're not

00:27:34.720 So, you know, we're people who entered a profession where we get paid in chicken fingers and drink tickets the first five years.

00:27:41.280 And then they take away the drink tickets because people are usually alcoholics by year five.

00:27:45.940 They throw in some dipping sauce instead.

00:27:48.440 So on a personal level, that's my frustration.

00:27:51.020 On a larger level, like I completely empathize with the Trumps because they're actually getting shot at.

00:27:56.840 but i feel like when you actually call for his dismissal it almost makes him a little more punk

00:28:05.700 rock in his circle it's like if you ban a rap album people are more likely to buy it so i don't

00:28:11.420 actually like the call uh you know to kind of maybe disbar him or whatever uh i think that call

00:28:18.300 should be coming from abc i think it should be coming from the viewers based on the ratings we

00:28:22.520 should never have a night in the ratings where a weekday primetime show loses to me on a saturday

00:28:27.880 at 10 p.m but it's happening okay it shouldn't because i'm on saturday night at 10 o'clock 70

00:28:34.000 percent of the tvs are off and we're still beating a guy who's on the air when 100 percent of them

00:28:38.520 are on that's not a good sign for him but it shows you just how a lot of these networks are

00:28:43.220 activists masking rating as journalists just the way kimmel is an activist masquerading as a

00:28:48.100 journalist so i get every side of this frustration i just wish in all honesty like abc would invest

00:28:55.580 in comedy instead of activism because they could help and they could help themselves because people

00:28:59.560 want to laugh like i am proof that people want to laugh they just need something to laugh at

00:29:04.540 they don't need a rally and that's the difference kimmel is having for all intents and purposes

00:29:08.800 it's a no kings protest but if you're you're protesting something we don't have riley this

00:29:13.800 is like the view protesting abs okay you don't need to that's so good oh my gosh well saturday

00:29:22.820 at 10 p.m people know where to find you hey girl last thing for you you had this clip this interview

00:29:28.300 with caroline levitt that went viral i think following the events of that evening that made

00:29:34.220 it seem like she knew what was going to happen i don't think we have it here but i'll insert it in

00:29:38.140 post it's pretty crazy right what's kind of been the discourse online in response to to her saying

00:29:44.020 you know there's going to be shots fired it'll be funny it'll be entertaining there will be some

00:29:50.600 shots fired tonight so everyone should tune in it's going to be really great i'm looking forward 0.90

00:29:56.160 to hearing it it's such it's so goofy like it's such a dumb time to be alive so we were previewing 0.82

00:30:02.140 the speech and i said you know you fired up for the speech how's it gonna go she's like oh i think 0.95

00:30:06.260 he's going to bring the heat I think there's going to be some shots fired in that ballroom

00:30:09.780 and in comedy parlance shots fired means personal attacks and that phrase came up multiple times on

00:30:16.240 the red carpet because every time I interviewed a cabinet member I said hey everybody's in the

00:30:20.100 splash zone I said this to Pete Hegson I said everybody's in the splash zone uh you know you're

00:30:25.180 going to be the subject of a joke he goes oh god absolutely there's no way I'm not going to be like

00:30:29.280 you know I said you know if this is SeaWorld Shamu's swimming right after you and we died

00:30:33.320 laughing everybody expected a lot of personal attacks at both his cabinet members himself and

00:30:39.460 yes members of the media and every single person who clipped that it was like look the illuminati

00:30:45.340 told us it was coming caroline levitt said shots fired i'm like come on and this is the biggest

00:30:51.320 problem with the world we live in people want clicks more than they want dignity okay dignity

00:30:58.100 is you look at that in the parlance and the context that occurred in and go, ah, that's 0.92

00:31:03.220 a silly, silly timed remark given what came next. If she said it after the fact or she 0.78

00:31:09.460 said it while she was distracting security to let some nutbag with pronouns in his bio

00:31:15.260 run into the room, then you got something to talk about. But she said it to a fat guy 0.98

00:31:20.020 in rhinestones. Hardly the coup attempt it's being portrayed as.

00:31:24.120 all right you guys let me tell you about my friends over at why refi they have been changing

00:31:30.280 lives for people who are buried in private student loan debt so if those payments are keeping you up

00:31:34.940 at night if the minimum due is more than what you can actually afford each month or if you're

00:31:39.580 already in default and you feel like there's no way out there is real help and that helps name

00:31:44.940 is why refi they do what most lenders refuse to do they refinance private student loans that

00:31:50.580 others won't even touch they will sit down with you personally and look at your actual situation

00:31:56.540 they will build you craft you truly a custom payment plan around what you can actually afford

00:32:03.320 they can cut your monthly payment way down they can reduce the total amount that you're paying

00:32:07.500 every single month and you will get a rock bottom fixed interest rate some borrowers are locking in

00:32:13.020 rates as low as one percent and the best part is they do not care what your credit score is if this

00:32:18.960 debt, these private student loan debts, if they have been weighing on you, if they have been

00:32:22.720 stealing your joy, if they have been holding your future hostage, it is time to finally breathe

00:32:27.940 again. Go to why refi.com. That is Y R E F Y.com. And be sure to tell them that Riley from the

00:32:34.200 Riley Gaines show sent you. It is so true. I think people nowadays, at least from what I've seen in

00:32:42.960 my own personal experience. People are just chronically online. They're like so invested

00:32:49.300 in the conspiracy things. Yeah. It's, it's crazy. Um, we appreciate you. I think you're awesome.

00:32:57.400 I tune in every Saturday at 10 PM. Uh, and I think everyone watching this should too.

00:33:02.160 How can we support you? Follow you? What's, what's kind of next for you personally?

00:33:05.980 Uh, this week I'm on tour. I'm in Des Moines and Omaha and Reno. Cause I need to get a better

00:33:10.660 agent i kid i love all of those towns uh you guys can always get tickets to see me live at

00:33:15.020 foxacrossamerica.com and you guys can help me pressure riley gains to do the show when she's

00:33:19.980 in new york yeah i'm there we owe this to the american people riles that's what i think too

00:33:25.740 you know i i people don't know i'm i'm actually deep down i'm really really funny and if you

00:33:32.720 have to tell people that it like means it's true right like if i have to tell you i'm funny

00:33:37.400 it definitely means I'm funny

00:33:39.180 thousand percent that's usually how most

00:33:41.480 comics I know open shows they walk

00:33:43.440 right on Madison Square Garden

00:33:45.300 they're like I promise I'm really funny

00:33:46.780 and you will absolutely kill on our show

00:33:49.640 we owe this to the American people Roz let's work

00:33:51.540 it out that's so good you're the best Jimmy

00:33:53.560 thank you thank you see you soon

00:33:55.220 I've coached the game, I've played the game

00:34:09.020 so when I break it down on Don't At Me

00:34:10.720 you're getting more than opinions

00:34:12.540 you're getting experience 1.00

00:34:14.000 we've put really dumb racist people 1.00

00:34:16.960 on the air, that's the ESPN 1.00

00:34:19.220 model right now, this show's about winning

00:34:21.140 accountability and truth

00:34:22.520 not the usual nonsensical soft

00:34:25.060 takes. If you want real analysis from someone who's been there, join me. Search don't at me

00:34:30.400 on Spotify or Apple podcast. Subscribe right now. It's free. It's portable. And most importantly,

00:34:34.860 it's as real as it gets.

Gaines for Girls with Riley Gaines - April 28, 2026

Jimmy Failla Sets the Record Straight on the VIRAL ＂Shots Fired＂ Clip ｜ The Riley Gaines Show

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