The Ben Shapiro Show - THE DAY AFTER: Kimmel Suspended, Democrats LIVID

00:00:00.000 Well, as we have all week, we'll get to the news in a moment.

00:00:02.000 All the fallout from the suspension of Jimmy Kimmel, apparently according to left, a significantly more important event in American life than the murder of Charlie Kirk.

00:00:10.000 Truly, like the wailing, the gnashing of teeth, the sackcloth and ashes done by every member of the entertainment coterie in the United States, people who are the richest and most famous among us, spending all their days talking about how this is the death of the Republic.

00:00:27.000 They did not demonstrate one iota of the same concern about, you know, actual murder for free speech as they are about Jimmy Kimmel being taken off the air in sort of disputed circumstances.

00:00:39.000 We'll get to that.

00:00:39.000 But I I want to lead the whole week with inspirational news about Charlie and about TP USA.

00:00:46.000 So, according to the Daily Wire, Erica Kirk was elected by unanimous vote on Thursday to take over her late husband's role as CEO and board chair of the college campus organization he founded Turning Point USA.

00:00:56.000 This, of course, is exactly the right move.

00:00:59.000 Exactly the right move.

00:01:01.000 According to the Turning Point Board, quote, an Ecclesiastes, King Solomon, wrote that mankind is to be tested by God.

00:01:06.000 Today we are facing such a test, yet we also know that God has prepared us with everything we need to overcome this ordeal.

00:01:11.000 It was the honor of our lives to serve as board members of Charlie's side.

00:01:14.000 Charlie prepared all of us for a moment like this one.

00:01:16.000 He worked tirelessly to ensure Turning Point USA was built to survive even the greatest test.

00:01:20.000 And now it is our great pride to announce Erica Kirk as the new CEO and chair of the Board for Turning Point USA.

00:01:26.000 All of us at Turning Point USA have a special role in carrying Charlie Kirk's mantle and completing his vision of bringing us all closer to our Lord and fostering a prosperous country for generations to come.

00:01:34.000 As Charlie always said, and we have a country to save.

00:01:36.000 We will not surrender or kneel before evil.

00:01:38.000 We'll carry on.

00:01:38.000 The attempt to destroy Charlie's work will become our chance to make it more powerful and enduring than ever before.

00:01:43.000 May God bless Erica, the Kirk family, and the entire team at Turning Point USA.

00:01:48.000 That was written by TP USA board members Doug DeGroot, Mike Miller, Tom Sadeka, and Dave Engelhard.

00:01:54.000 It's exactly the right move.

00:01:56.000 It's exactly the right move.

00:01:57.000 Erica, of course, is a public figure in her own right. 0.88

00:02:00.000 She has run businesses.

00:02:02.000 She has an excellent educational background.

00:02:05.000 She, of course, was involved with Charlie.

00:02:07.000 Charlie, of course, was the driving force behind Turning Point USA, but it's not as though his wife was not involved or unaligned or something.

00:02:13.000 She's very politically active.

00:02:14.000 In fact, here is a clip of Charlie with Erica on his show just a few months ago.

00:02:20.000 My wife joins us, Erica Kirk, the beautiful legendary Erica.

00:02:24.000 I love you so much.

00:02:25.000 I love you.

00:02:26.000 You're my best friend.

00:02:27.000 Welcome to the Charlie Kirk Show.

00:02:28.000 We have asked the audience for questions.

00:02:30.000 You pick one.

00:02:31.000 Who is more conservative and why?

00:02:33.000 Erica.

00:02:35.000 Yes.

00:02:36.000 By far.

00:02:37.000 Not even close.

00:02:38.000 I am a moderate compared to Erica.

00:02:41.000 Andrew always jokes, so once you got married to me, you got more base.

00:02:45.000 That's true.

00:02:46.000 That is true.

00:02:47.000 No, Erica is very conservative. 1.00

00:02:49.000 Do you think having kids made you more conservative?

00:02:52.000 100%.

00:02:53.000 Which I didn't think was possible.

00:02:58.000 So Erica will be taking over as the head of the organization, which of course is precisely exactly the right move.

00:03:05.000 Erica is not only a delightful human being, she also happens to be made in Charlie's mold. 0.72

00:03:10.000 She is a fighter, and that is great for TP USA.

00:03:13.000 Couldn't be more excited about that.

00:03:15.000 And obviously, we at Daily Wire will continue to help TPUSA the best we can.

00:03:19.000 Meanwhile, Speaker Johnson is urging a unanimous resolution for a day honoring Charlie Kirk scheduled for his birthday, October 14th.

00:03:28.000 In moments like this, when when uh political instability and fear are pervasive, it's incumbent upon leaders to step forward and stand in the breach and do what is right.

00:03:37.000 So by voting for this resolution today, we're making a strong statement on behalf of the Congress.

00:03:42.000 We're telling our constituents, for one thing, that political violence, but also the glorification and celebration of that violence are profoundly wrong, and that goes against everything we stand for as Americans.

00:03:55.000 Charlie stood for exactly the opposite.

00:03:57.000 He stood for what was good in America, what is virtuous, what is worthy of protection and preservation.

00:04:03.000 And we honor his memory by doing this simple act of passing this resolution.

00:04:08.000 I can't imagine that anyone would vote against it or vote present or pretend as though this is not exactly the right thing to do.

00:04:17.000 So I certainly hope that we can pass this resolution unanimously today, just as it should be passed.

00:04:22.000 So again, all this beautiful tribute to Charlie.

00:04:27.000 His memorial is to take place on Sunday in Arizona.

00:04:31.000 It's going to be taking place at the football stadium in Phoenix.

00:04:35.000 And we're talking like 65,000 people there.

00:04:38.000 And what I've heard from the folks over at TP USA is that the reservations were numbering over a quarter million, and that was a couple of days ago, as far as people who wanted to get in.

00:04:47.000 I mean, again, the outpouring of love for Charlie is an amazing, amazing thing, and that's the thing that I think that most Americans should be focused on.

00:04:54.000 They should be focused on the good that Charlie did and the good that TP USA, the organization that he built, will continue to do under Erica's leadership.

00:05:01.000 Joining us online is our White House reporter Mary Margaret Olahan.

00:05:05.000 Mary Margaret is going to be going to Charlie Kirk's funeral on Sunday aboard Air Force One with the president of the United States.

00:05:10.000 Mary Margaret, thanks for joining the show.

00:05:12.000 Really appreciate it.

00:05:14.000 Hey, Ben, it's great to be here.

00:05:17.000 So obviously it's been an incredibly tough week for an enormous number of people.

00:05:21.000 What's the attitude around the White House given the horrifying murder of our friend Charlie Kirk?

00:05:28.000 Well, Ben, it has been an incredibly sad week, and I think still here at the White House, if you ask any of these officials or members of the communications team how they're doing, how things are, people respond, not great.

00:05:40.000 Uh Charlie was a friend and colleague and even a mentor to many of these people who work here.

00:05:45.000 Uh and so it's been incredibly crushing to see how he was killed and to I think experience the aftermath of a lot of this uh aggressively violent rhetoric directed towards a lot of members of the Trump administration.

00:05:59.000 Uh you know, we heard only this morning, it was reported by CBS News that Caroline Levitt now has a security detail. 0.99

00:06:06.000 Now, I I asked the White House about this, they didn't comment further on it.

00:06:10.000 Uh but what I can tell you is I have a federal law enforcement source that told me you don't get a security detail unless there's a reason for it, unless there is a threat assessment done to show that you need one.

00:06:20.000 Uh and that source also told me that there's a lot of members across the Trump administration, whether they're in uh higher level positions or mid-level positions, lower level positions that are receiving threats as well.

00:06:31.000 Um and whether those threats are substantiated, uh, it doesn't really matter.

00:06:35.000 They're they're receiving them all across the board, and this is really creating uh a culture of fear uh among a lot of people.

00:06:42.000 That being said, these members of the Trump administration are still determined to go to this funeral, they're still going to show their support for their their deceased friend.

00:06:51.000 Uh and we're seeing across the board a lot of uh examinations of how safe this event will be.

00:06:57.000 Obviously, President Donald Trump will be going, Vice President JD Vance will be going.

00:07:00.000 Ben, I know that you'll be in attendance, and I will as well.

00:07:03.000 And so this is this is a very serious event, and I'm glad that they're taking security so seriously.

00:07:08.000 Uh and it's it's a really sad time, but it will be beautiful for everyone to be gathered in Arizona together and to honor Charlie's memory.

00:07:17.000 So, Mary Margaret, obviously we've seen some of the public reports.

00:07:20.000 I've talked to some of the people with TPUSA itself about what the event is gonna look like.

00:07:23.000 What are you hearing from the White House's perspective about what people can expect on Sunday?

00:07:28.000 Yes, so I know that uh Charlie's Charlie's widow, Erica Kirk, is scheduled to speak at the funeral event.

00:07:35.000 This is going to be a massive public funeral.

00:07:38.000 Uh, I believe the president of the United States is scheduled to speak as well, as well as Shady Vance and other members of the Trump administration and conservative hosts or commentators who were close with Charlie to honor his memory.

00:07:50.000 Uh I'll be flying in with the president uh and other reporters, members of the White House press pool on Sunday.

00:07:57.000 Uh and this is a massive event.

00:07:59.000 I'm seeing TPUSA commentators like my friend Alex Clark.

00:08:03.000 She's urging as many people as possible to go to this event.

00:08:07.000 The dress code is red, white, and blue, Sunday best, but red, white, and blue.

00:08:11.000 And Alex, as I saw her encouraging online, she said, even if you can't get into the event, even if it's completely full, I want you in the streets.

00:08:19.000 I want everyone in red, white, and blue.

00:08:21.000 I want this to be bigger than a Taylor Swift concert, bigger than the Super Bowl.

00:08:24.000 Uh and so there you're seeing a lot of emotion like this, support from people who worked with him who are close with him to encourage as many people as possible to come out and honor his memory.

00:08:34.000 Uh, and I hope we do see that.

00:08:36.000 I I hope that we see the stadium packed for Charlie and that security is tight and that everyone can honor his memory uh as the great man who he was.

00:08:47.000 Well, it's Mary Margaret Olahan, our White House reporter, Mary Margaret, really appreciate it, and obviously I'll see you on Sunday to celebrate the life and legacy of Charlie Kirk.

00:08:56.000 Looking forward to it, Ben.

00:08:58.000 Okay, meanwhile, The entire media are filled with rage and anguish today, not over Charlie's murder.

00:09:06.000 I mean, let's be real, there are many who are not of my political ilk who were very broken up over Charlie's murder.

00:09:13.000 I got calls from them, emails, texts.

00:09:16.000 I know who they are.

00:09:18.000 And honestly, obviously I I feel the exact same way.

00:09:25.000 There are many on the left who did not feel the exact same way.

00:09:27.000 There are many on the left who felt like, you know, just another day in America, or it's just a gun violence act, or even well, I mean, he did have some views I don't particularly like.

00:09:38.000 With that said, the outpouring for Jimmy Kimmel is overwhelming.

00:09:44.000 Overwhelming.

00:09:45.000 So let's start from the things that we know about Jimmy Kimmel going off the air.

00:09:50.000 Number one, Jimmy Kimmel's ratings were lower than dog bleep.

00:09:54.000 Jimmy Kimmel had horrifyingly low ratings, like truly awful ratings.

00:09:58.000 Remember, he was on network television, network TV.

00:10:02.000 He was drawing in 2025 1.6 million people viewing his show, being broadcast for free on network TV across the country.

00:10:14.000 In the advertiser coveted demographic of adults age 25 to 54, the decline was even more significant.

00:10:22.000 Okay, you ready for this?

00:10:25.000 Adults age 25 to 54.

00:10:27.000 What were his what were his views?

00:10:30.000 In 2015, he had a million viewers in that in that age range.

00:10:34.000 By 2025, he had, I kid you not, 261,000 people in that age range, 25 to 54 watching his show.

00:10:45.000 My show is multiple times larger than Jimmy Kimmel's show by this metric.

00:10:50.000 Like by a multiple.

00:10:51.000 The ABC late night program should a staggering 72% of the audience that helps pays the bill over the last decade.

00:10:59.000 made.

00:11:01.000 Compare that to Gutfeld over on Fox.

00:11:03.000 In 2025, Gutfeld averaged 3.2 million total viewers, despite the fact that it's on a cable channel.

00:11:09.000 It is not network.

00:11:12.000 Meanwhile, when it came to that 25 to 54 demographic, Gutfeld was averaging 381,000 people compared to 261,000 for Kimmel, meaning that Gutfeld was ahead of him by 46%.

00:11:24.000 So it is quite possible, frankly, that a bunch of local affiliates were just done, that they were just done with Jimmy Kimmel.

00:11:31.000 And when Jimmy Kimmel decided that he was going to go on air and heavily suggest that the shooter of Charlie Kirk was in fact a MAGA conservative, that they'd had it.

00:11:41.000 Many of these station owners, remember the way that this works is that many of the local stations are not owned directly by ABC.

00:11:46.000 They are owned by local television networks or by consortiums like Sinclair.

00:11:52.000 So Sinclair broadcasting happens to be conservative in its orientation politically.

00:11:56.000 The ownership of Sinclair is conservative.

00:11:58.000 There's been longtime rumors of Sinclair trying to launch its own form of Fox News, essentially, with its own lineup and all the rest.

00:12:06.000 So it is perfectly plausible that Sinclair looked at what Jimmy Kimmel said and they said, you know what, we're done.

00:12:10.000 We're not interested anymore.

00:12:11.000 In fact, Sinclair said that his suspension by ABC was insufficient.

00:12:15.000 What happened is the local affiliates went to ABC.

00:12:18.000 They said we don't want him on the air, and ABC responded by basically saying, well, I mean, if like half of our affiliates don't want you on the air, we're just going to suspend your show, because what else are we going to do?

00:12:26.000 We have to provide them some programming.

00:12:28.000 Well, Sinclair announced it would yank Jimmy Kimmel live from its stations until the host apologized it directly to Charlie Kirk's family and also donated to TP USA, which of course is not going to happen.

00:12:38.000 The company vowed not to return Kimmel's show until formal discussions are held with ABC regarding the network's commitment to professionalism and accountability.

00:12:47.000 Meanwhile, Nextstar, they also, they were the biggest network to say that they were not interested, the network of affiliates to say they weren't interested in Jimmy Kimmel.

00:12:56.000 When this happened, apparently, Jimmy Kimmel had been planning to double down on his remarks.

00:13:03.000 Like the reason he was pulled abruptly is because he was planning the night after that show on doing another monologue where he ripped into MAGA.

00:13:12.000 According to the New York Post, late night host Jimmy Kimmel said he was unwilling to apologize for his remarks that blamed MAGA supporters for killing conservative activist Charlie Kirk.

00:13:20.000 He said he was going to double down on attacking President Trump's backers before he was yanked from the air, according to new reports.

00:13:25.000 Kimmel learned in a phone call from Top Disney exec Dana Walden on Wednesday afternoon that his show Was being removed indefinitely, according to deadline.

00:13:32.000 During that call, Kimmel reportedly refused to comply with calls from critics and owners of a dozens of ABC affiliate stations for him to apologize.

00:13:39.000 Kimmel felt his remarks required no apologies.

00:13:42.000 Apparently, he also claimed he was planning to call out his critics for the latest attacks on him, all while trying to clarify his comments about Kirk's death.

00:13:50.000 He says that his comments were mischaracterized.

00:13:53.000 Disney felt that if Kimmel had doubled down on his MAGA comments, the company would have been forced to go beyond suspending him and they would just have to fire him.

00:14:01.000 It's still unclear if he's willing to return after this suspension at all.

00:14:05.000 All right, in a moment, we will get to Jimmy Kimmel, why he was actually fired.

00:14:08.000 He was planning to double down.

00:14:09.000 Plus, we will get to the FCC.

00:14:11.000 Are they involved in overregulation?

00:14:13.000 Is there gonna be a crackdown on quote unquote hate speech?

00:14:16.000 What the hell is going on first?

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00:14:27.000 I mean, that's what it does.

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00:16:28.000 Okay, so just from that fact pattern, it appears that the reason that Kimmel was taken off the air is because of organic outrage by viewers, which filtered up to affiliates, and those affiliates went to Disney and ABC, and they said we are not interested in having Jimmy Kimmel on our air.

00:16:43.000 And he responded by saying, I'm going to double down and attack your viewers.

00:16:46.000 So, as a matter of sort of organic market blowback to crap programming, totally legit.

00:16:53.000 And in fact, not unprecedented in any way, shape, or form.

00:16:56.000 This has happened many times before.

00:16:59.000 Many, many times before.

00:17:00.000 It happened most prominently, actually right after September 11th when Bill Maher was suspended from the air because Bill Maher made some comments about 9-11 that people didn't like.

00:17:08.000 And then of course he found his new home over on HBO.

00:17:11.000 Well, Money's the Waters here are the words of the FCC chairman, Brendan Carr.

00:17:16.000 Because Brendan Carr went on Benny Johnson and suggested, right before the affiliates apparently went to Disney and ABC, that there might be regulation, there might be punishment for affiliates for putting out the Jimmy Kimmel show.

00:17:28.000 And that raised the specter of government involvement.

00:17:30.000 As I said yesterday, as an organic matter, Jimmy Kimmel should have been kicked off the air 10 years ago.

00:17:34.000 He's an awful, awful late night host.

00:17:36.000 He decided not to be funny.

00:17:38.000 He decided that instead of going for laughter, he was going to go for clapter.

00:17:41.000 Meaning like, uh Yeah, I totally agree with what you're saying.

00:17:45.000 He decided he was going to go for that a decade ago.

00:17:47.000 And he should have been basically booted for being bad at his job a long time ago.

00:17:52.000 So I shed no tears for Jimmy Kimmel.

00:17:55.000 But that said, the FCC should not be in the business of telling Local affiliates what they should and should not broadcast.

00:18:02.000 So why don't we begin this discussion about what the FCC can and should do by finding out what exactly they have the legal power to do?

00:18:10.000 So I asked my sponsors over at Comet Browser by Perplexity.

00:18:14.000 What powers does the FCC have to regulate actual content over the airwaves?

00:18:17.000 And according to Comet, the FCC's powers to regulate actual content over the airwaves are significantly limited by the First Amendment.

00:18:23.000 It does have authority in certain areas, specifically regarding obscenity, indecency, and profanity, as well as public interest and disclosure requirements for broadcasters.

00:18:32.000 The FCC is strictly limited in censoring broadcast material and cannot impose content-based restrictions that would curb specific viewpoints.

00:18:40.000 There are some exemptions there.

00:18:42.000 Public interest requirements are about broadcast licenses.

00:18:45.000 They're awarded based on whether stations, quote, serve the public interest, convenience, and necessity, which is interpreted to include equal opportunities for political candidates, disclosure of sponsorship for political or commercial content, prohibition of lottery advertising, and rules against broadcast news distortion if it involves deliberate manipulation of significant facts.

00:19:02.000 So the case that Brendan Carr would make is that basically Jimmy Kimmel was deliberately manipulating significant facts, and so the FCC can go after him.

00:19:11.000 The problem, of course, is that the thing that we have learned here over and over and over again is that if a left-wing person is at the head of the FCC, they will simply accuse the right wing of deliberate manipulation of significant facts.

00:19:22.000 And so what's good for the goose is good for the gander here, which is why the actual solution here would be to remove that capacity from the FCC.

00:19:30.000 How about that?

00:19:31.000 Can we get any support for that?

00:19:32.000 Will Republicans will Democrats will anyone support that?

00:19:36.000 Here is the beautiful thing about a government of enumerated powers.

00:19:39.000 A government of enumerated powers is a government you don't have to fear as much.

00:19:43.000 Because if you're on the wrong side of the government, the government still can't do anything to you because it has enumerated powers.

00:19:48.000 So if you reduce the power of government in this area entirely, that seems to me a better solution than a race to the bottom where every prior norm gets broken.

00:19:59.000 And I fully understand the mutually assured destruction argument.

00:20:02.000 I've used it myself before.

00:20:05.000 But I think that what we're getting into now is not mutually assured destruction, but assumption that the that the next go-around, they will destroy you, so you should just destroy them preemptively.

00:20:14.000 And if that happens, then basically there's no reason for anybody to go weapons down.

00:20:20.000 Again, it all remains unclear as to why this actually happened.

00:20:23.000 There's a long account in the Wall Street Journal about how this happened.

00:20:26.000 The timeline goes like this.

00:20:28.000 Kimmel criticized how Trump and other Republicans responded to the shooting and suggested the shooter was in fact a MAGA Republican.

00:20:35.000 Brendan Carr suggested during a podcast appearance two days later, the FCC could take action against the broadcast licenses of ABC owned stations.

00:20:42.000 Advertisers and affiliates soon called the network expressing concern about Kimmel's show.

00:20:46.000 Executives at Sinclair and Nextar, owners of more than 60 local ABC stations, told network leaders after Carr's remarks they would indefinitely preempt the show starting that night, moves that would hobble the program's reach.

00:20:59.000 So, again, how much was the FCC part of this conversation?

00:21:04.000 Is the is the big question.

00:21:08.000 Next star is currently being regulated by the FCC.

00:21:12.000 They need the FCC's sign-off on their $6.2 billion acquisition of techno.

00:21:16.000 And it needs the agency to ease rules that currently limit the percentage a broadcaster can reach to 39% of the nation's TV households.

00:21:24.000 Now, Nextstar put out a statement, they said it had nothing to do with the government.

00:21:27.000 Quote, the decision to preempt Jimmy Kimmel Live was made unilaterally by the senior executive team at Next Star.

00:21:31.000 They had no communication with the FCC or any government agency prior to making that decision.

00:21:37.000 Apparently, ABC scrambled to satisfy advertisers who paid for commercials to run on episodes that were canceled.

00:21:44.000 Advertising buyers said they would likely shift ad dollars committed to Kimmel's show to other programs, some considered asking for their money back.

00:21:54.000 So the question remains as to whether this was a reaction to Kimmel being bad at his job and saying bad things, or whether, in fact, this was a reaction to the FCC.

00:22:04.000 And that's the open question at this point.

00:22:06.000 FCC Commissioner Anna Gomez, she said, listen, we actually do not have the authority to retaliate against broadcasters, and so talk of us doing this is is sloppy.

00:22:16.000 The thing that we need to understand is that the FCC cannot.

00:22:21.000 It does not have the authority, it does not have the ability, it does not have the constitutional right to take action against broadcasters because the administration doesn't like what they're saying, because they don't like anyone that pushes back against them.

00:22:38.000 So what you see are just threats.

00:22:41.000 But the threats are the point.

00:22:43.000 Because we don't have the authority to do this, because it's against the law, we would not be able to actually take that final action.

00:22:52.000 Because on appeal, the FCC would be wrong on the facts in the law, if in fact it retaliated against the network.

00:22:59.000 So I mean the broadcasters, the local licensees, because of what they air.

00:23:05.000 Okay, that doesn't change the math, meaning that yes, the FCC probably could not do what Brendan Carr had sort of suggested.

00:23:12.000 However, if you're next star, I mean, this is just a steel man the opposing case.

00:23:16.000 If you're next star and you're under the possibility of merger, and you want to make sure sure that the merger doesn't get shut down, you want to please the FCC, and the way to please the FCC is to do the FCC's bidding.

00:23:25.000 Now, again, it seems to me that there's a perfectly good organic case for canceling Jimmy Kimmel's show or suspending Jimmy Kimmel's show based on ratings, based on the fact that he says schmucky things all the time, based on the fact that he's bad at his job.

00:23:36.000 And that's a point that the FCC's Brendan Carr made.

00:23:38.000 He said Kimmel was losing viewers faster than Carr, who is bald, loses hair.

00:23:44.000 I think the last couple of decades you've seen the FCC really step back from enforcing the public interest standard, and I don't think that that's a good thing.

00:23:51.000 Just look at the trust in national mainstream media.

00:23:54.000 I mean, it's just in an absolute nosedive.

00:23:56.000 And look at the ratings for people like Jimmy Kimmel.

00:23:59.000 I mean, they are going away, their audience and their viewers faster than uh than my hair's gone away from the top of my head.

00:24:06.000 So, yeah, again, that's fine.

00:24:10.000 But when he says that he is going to go after others, now you start to build a narrative just politically.

00:24:17.000 You're building there's two questions here.

00:24:18.000 Should the FCC get involved in this way?

00:24:20.000 And even if the FCC is not involved in this way, should they be promulgating a narrative that can be used by the left to make the claim that the Trump administration is acting irresponsibly or an authoritarian manner with regard to speech.

00:24:33.000 If the narrative takeaway from the murder of Charlie Kirk turns from there is a systemic left-wing threat embedded in actual ideologies, a violent threat that emerges from the sewers of certain ideologies, and that needs to be fought both socially and insofar as it is possible with governmental power.

00:24:54.000 If it shifts from that narrative to the Trump administration is trying to shut down the view, that is a giant fail.

00:25:01.000 It is a giant fail.

00:25:02.000 It is a counterproductive measure.

00:25:04.000 Because the sympathy for Charlie is nationwide.

00:25:07.000 Again, there's widespread sympathy for Charlie, obviously, for his family, and there should be.

00:25:12.000 And there's widespread outrage at the attack on free speech it represents when somebody gets shot for debating.

00:25:19.000 If somehow that narrative is turned into a narrative about the Trump administration actually shutting down free speech, that's that's a fail.

00:25:27.000 That's a fail.

00:25:28.000 It's a fail for the country, it's a fail for the administration.

00:25:31.000 It is a bad way of approaching policy.

00:25:32.000 Many things can be true at once.

00:25:33.000 Jimmy Kimmel is terrible and should be off the air.

00:25:35.000 Charlie Kirk was a warrior for free speech who was shot.

00:25:38.000 That is significantly worse than Jimmy Kimmel being taken off the air.

00:25:42.000 Also, the FCC should not be threatening various broadcasters and hosts with governmental consequences for speech.

00:25:52.000 And they shouldn't even appear to be doing that.

00:25:54.000 Even if that's not the reason why people are acting, it muddies the waters.

00:25:58.000 Again, there's an easy way to tell whether you're being ideologically coherent on this.

00:26:01.000 If the shoe were on the other foot, if a left-wing politician had been shot, or a left-wing activist had been shot by somebody associated with the right, and Barack Obama were president or Joe Biden were president, and they'd activated their FCC to go after local Fox affiliates, for example, to go after talk radio, which is also public airwaves.

00:26:23.000 Would the right sit back and say, well, you know, you know.

00:26:28.000 This is why the solution to lack of trust between the right and the left is not the use of government to effectuate more power in general.

00:26:37.000 The solution to that lack of trust is for the government to step back and effectuate less power.

00:26:42.000 I don't mean in the criminal law.

00:26:44.000 The Trump administration going after Antifa, going after the people who fund Antifa, going after the people who fund various violent groups around that that is not only that is only good, that is necessary.

00:26:55.000 It is mandatory.

00:26:57.000 But this narrative that the left is starting to spin up is bad.

00:26:59.000 Now, again, the Left is overdoing it on its own, right?

00:27:01.000 So many things being true at once, as we'll get to, the left has decided that this is the greatest assault on American free speech in American history, which is totally crazy considering a man was shot to death for doing free speech one week ago.

00:27:14.000 And they seem to care much more about Jimmy Kimmel being taken off the air than Charlie Kirk being murdered live on TV.

00:27:21.000 But we'll get to that in a moment.

00:27:23.000 Here's the FCC's Brendan Carr saying that we'll they will hold broadcasters accountable to the public interest.

00:27:29.000 Look, we're gonna continue to hold these broadcasters accountable to the public interest.

00:27:34.000 And if broadcasters don't like that, simple solution.

00:27:37.000 They can turn their license into the FCC.

00:27:39.000 There's other things that we can do with it that would serve the national interest, and frankly, other people would want to use this spectrum, but we're gonna continue to make clear that we're holding broadcasters accountable to the public interest.

00:27:49.000 And again, I think that's gonna be a really good thing for the country.

00:27:52.000 Again, people can go on podcasts and go on cable shows like this.

00:27:54.000 You don't have a license from the FCC.

00:27:56.000 Uh so there's a lot more they can do there.

00:27:58.000 There's no public interest obligation on those outlets.

00:28:02.000 Okay, again, the idea here should be that we should just deregulate.

00:28:06.000 The FCC actually should not have the power to do local broadcast licenses to regulate speech on the on those broadcasters.

00:28:13.000 They shouldn't.

00:28:14.000 It was one thing to say that, by the way, before the era of the internet, when basically you had a limited spectrum, and the only things that got on TV were those local stations.

00:28:24.000 I'd make the case we should have deregulated long before that, but this is a vestigial organ of a broadcast television infrastructure that no longer applies to the general informational consumption of the American people.

00:28:35.000 But the reason that, again, I'm objecting to this is because the narrative that you're laying out for the left and you are the narrative you're laying out for the left or providing the impetus to is the narrative that the Trump administration is anti free speech in the aftermath of the murder of a free speech martyr.

00:28:50.000 To blow that opportunity is a is a giant fail.

00:28:54.000 The FCC's Brandon Carr, he said yesterday that maybe he would go after the view.

00:28:59.000 Now, listen, there is no one in America who would be happy, no one who'd be happier to watch the view go off the air than I. The view is a bunch of shrieking harpies who are unbelievably stupid, vicious, venal, annoying, herodons, jabbering at each other nonsensically to the clapter of train seals in the audience.

00:29:24.000 It is the worst show on TV.

00:29:27.000 That is my review.

00:29:29.000 If I were a regulator, would I be saying the view needs to go off the air because of violation of equal time rules?

00:29:34.000 I really don't think we want to play this game.

00:29:35.000 I really don't.

00:29:37.000 It was equal time rules, by the way, that restricted back in the 1980s the ability of Republicans to get out their messages via the airwaves.

00:29:44.000 Here is Brennan Carr with Scott Jennings talking about this.

00:29:50.000 Thank you.

00:29:50.000 You could make the argument that the view is a bona fide news show, but I'm not so sure about that.

00:29:54.000 And I think it's worthwhile uh to have the FCC look into whether the view uh and some of these other programs that you have still qualify as bona fide news programs and therefore exempt from the equal opportunity regime that Congress has put in place.

00:30:14.000 Okay, well, I mean, why are you just giving the talking point to the other side?

00:30:18.000 Why?

00:30:19.000 Well, that Charlie Kirk gets murdered, now they've taken Kimmel off the air.

00:30:22.000 Now they're taking the view off the air, and will you be next?

00:30:24.000 And President Trump, unfortunately, threw some gasoline on the fire yesterday.

00:30:27.000 So he said one true thing.

00:30:29.000 He went, he went off on Jimmy Kimmel, said he's a terrible host.

00:30:31.000 He went scorched earth on him.

00:30:32.000 Agree with every word from the president of the United States here.

00:30:37.000 Well, Jimmy Kimmel was fired because he had bad ratings more than anything else.

00:30:40.000 And he said a horrible thing about a great gentleman known as Charlie Kirk.

00:30:44.000 And Jimmy Kimmel is not a talented person.

00:30:47.000 He had very bad ratings, and they should have fired him a long time ago.

00:30:50.000 So you know, you can call that free speech or not.

00:30:53.000 He was fired for lack of talent.

00:30:56.000 Okay, that totally agree with that.

00:30:58.000 And again, if that should be the story, right?

00:31:00.000 The story should be Jimmy Kimmel gets fired because he's bad at his job and nobody wants him on there, yay.

00:31:05.000 Right?

00:31:05.000 But instead, we're now gonna have a conversation about hate speech, which again, Republicans have opposed that idea for my entire lifetime because it is malleable.

00:31:13.000 Yes, of course, there is some speech that is more hateful than other speech, but that is a malleable definition that can be applied to everything.

00:31:19.000 The left was trying to say that's what Charlie was doing was hate speech and regulated out of existence.

00:31:25.000 So here's President Trump saying that maybe Brandon Carr will go after others.

00:31:28.000 Again, why?

00:31:30.000 Just why?

00:31:30.000 There was the president.

00:31:33.000 And then 97% against they give me only bad listen press.

00:31:40.000 And they're getting a license.

00:31:42.000 I I would think maybe their license should be taken away.

00:31:46.000 I It would be up to Brendan Carr.

00:31:48.000 I think Brendan Carr is outstanding.

00:31:50.000 He's a patriot.

00:31:51.000 He loves our country, and he's a tough guy.

00:31:53.000 So we'll have to see.

00:31:54.000 President Trump was then on with Martha McCallum.

00:31:59.000 This is an interview that's supposed to be broadcast on Sunday.

00:32:02.000 And in one of the clips released from the interview, he started talking about hate speech.

00:32:06.000 And Martha McCallum made the quite proper point that Charlie Kirk didn't believe in the concept of hate speech, because, you know, my entire lifetime, the right has not believed in the concept of hate speech, given, again, that hate speech is a malleable term that can be applied to anything you don't like.

00:32:20.000 And the president, instead of recognizing that point, then said, well, maybe Charlie would have changed his mind given what happened to him.

00:32:28.000 Well, no.

00:32:30.000 No, he would not have.

00:32:31.000 No, he would not have.

00:32:32.000 Because the person who shot him was claiming that Charlie was quote unquote hateful.

00:32:36.000 The very concept of hate speech is a dangerous concept because it assumes that any speech I don't like can be labeled hate and therefore regulated out of existence.

00:32:44.000 The president of the United States sat down with Martha McCallum over at Fox News, and she asked him about hate speech.

00:32:51.000 Charlie said, you know, that there was no such thing as hate speech.

00:32:55.000 Um he obviously, you know, no one anticipated what happened to Charlie.

00:33:00.000 But you have always been saying he might not believe that, you know, anymore.

00:33:08.000 Um here's my problem.

00:33:10.000 Like a couple of days ago, the presidents of the United States brought the topic of hate speech came up because Pam Bondi, the attorney general, idiotically suggested that she was going to prosecute hate speech and then sort of walked it back.

00:33:19.000 Well, the president was heading to the UK, this is a few days ago, and he was asked about hate speech, and he labeled, and he he he said that ABC News had engaged in a form of hate speech.

00:33:33.000 Now, the president of the United States sued ABC News for having selectively edited a Kamala Harris interview.

00:33:41.000 That may be many things.

00:33:43.000 It could be a form of discrimination, it could be a form of libel depending on how it was cut.

00:33:49.000 Is it hate speech?

00:33:51.000 Like a really broadening out hate speech just mean things I don't like.

00:33:54.000 Like this is a problem.

00:33:55.000 You should it's not good.

00:33:56.000 Here we go.

00:33:56.000 I should probably go after people like you because you treat me so unfairly.

00:34:02.000 It's hate.

00:34:02.000 You have a lot of hate in your heart.

00:34:04.000 Maybe I'll come after ABC.

00:34:06.000 Well, ABC paid me $16 million recently for a form of hate speech, right?

00:34:12.000 Your company paid me $16 million for a form of hate speech.

00:34:16.000 So maybe they'll have to go after you.

00:34:20.000 And this follows upon the president filing a $15 billion defamation lawsuit against the New York Times, claiming that the paper is a full-throated mouthpiece of the Democratic Party.

00:34:30.000 The suit points to three articles and a malicious, defamatory, and disparaging book.

00:34:35.000 And it points to the editorial board's endorsement of Vice President Kamala Harris in the 2024 election.

00:34:42.000 So again, having looked at the lawsuit, I do not think that lawsuit's gonna go very far.

00:34:48.000 But regardless of whether you think that it's good or bad or whatever, the bottom line is this.

00:34:54.000 In the aftermath of Charlie Kirk's assassination, the murder of Charlie Kirk by a left-wing radical gay man in a relationship with a furry trans. 0.74

00:35:07.000 In the aftermath of that, if the narrative that comes after that is not violent leftist groups must be found, rooted out and destroyed, that their funders must be ferreted out and prosecuted, that permission structures on the social level for violent ideologies must be removed.

00:35:29.000 If that's not the narrative coming out of Charlie's assassination, and the narrative instead is we need to go after using governmental power.

00:35:36.000 Not so, again, not social sanction, which is fine.

00:35:38.000 Governmental power.

00:35:39.000 We need to go after people that we don't like on the air.

00:35:45.000 That is going to be forget about, again, whether it's good or bad morally.

00:35:49.000 It is political malpractice.

00:35:51.000 It is a mistake.

00:35:52.000 Now, the good news for the Trump administration and the Republicans is that the backlash from people on the left is so overwrought and insane in its in its size and scope that it may obliterate the very point that they are trying to make.

00:36:05.000 Truly.

00:36:05.000 Already coming up, I want to get some things the government actually should be focused on, other than like Jimmy Kimmel, if that's what they're focused on.

00:36:11.000 They should be focused on, you know, violent left-wing groups actually doing acts of violence first.

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00:38:12.000 John Stewart did a special weekday break in.

00:38:16.000 So he hasn't been broadcasting more than once a week.

00:38:18.000 And he decided that he was going to break into the Daily Show, right?

00:38:22.000 He was going to, he was going to just do a special episode.

00:38:24.000 Now, notice no special episode from John Stewart last week after Charlie was actually killed.

00:38:30.000 No special episode about the importance of free speech after a person he disagreed with was shot to death in front of 3,000 people and countless others on the internet.

00:38:39.000 No break-in for that.

00:38:41.000 But he's breaking in because his friend, Jimmy Kimmel, got suspended from the air.

00:38:46.000 He did a 23-minute monologue on this.

00:38:50.000 A 23-minute monologue suggesting that the state was going to come after everybody on the left.

00:38:55.000 Now, one thing I noticed about Jon Stewart is that in fact he is under no threat.

00:38:58.000 If you thought that he were actually under a threat, he wouldn't have done this particular, this particular lecture.

00:39:04.000 So he showed up, and his shtick was that the background had been made up to look like a sort of Trumpian Mar-a-Lago.

00:39:10.000 And he was wearing a jacket and a red tie to mimic Trump and a flag pin, so you can claim that he's operating under fear.

00:39:16.000 Now, John Stewart is not operating under fear.

00:39:18.000 Let's be real.

00:39:18.000 This is crocodile tears.

00:39:19.000 He is not operating under the assumption that his free speech life is over in the United States.

00:39:25.000 But this is the narrative being retailed by the left.

00:39:27.000 We have another fun, hilarious, administration-compliant show.

00:39:34.000 What are you doing?

00:39:50.000 Shut up. 0.95

00:39:51.000 Shut up. 0.95

00:39:55.000 Blow this for us.

00:40:07.000 So we're coming to you tonight from a real shithole.

00:40:12.000 The crime-ridden cesspool that is New York City.

00:40:15.000 It is a tremendous disaster.

00:40:18.000 Like no one's ever seen before.

00:40:22.000 Someone's National Guard should invade this place.

00:40:25.000 Am I right?

00:40:27.000 Shut the f off.

00:40:29.000 He was just for 23 minutes.

00:40:30.000 For 23 minutes he did this.

00:40:34.000 for 23 minutes into this routine, the lady doth protest too much. 1.00

00:40:37.000 Stephen Colbert then came out and said, We are all Jimmy Kimmel.

00:40:40.000 And what he really means is I am Jimmy Kimmel.

00:40:42.000 Okay, now, even if Jimmy Kimmel, if it turns out that he was taken off the air because of FCC pressure, which again I think is very, very doubtful, just on the merits.

00:40:50.000 Even if that were the case, Stephen Colbert was not taken off the air because of Trump administration pressure.

00:40:55.000 That's not true.

00:40:56.000 In fact, here is the ex-paramount chief Sherry Redstone pointing out that Stephen Colbert's cancellation had literally nothing to do with anything governmentally related.

00:41:06.000 I'm not going to tie any of that to regulatory approval.

00:41:10.000 I can tell you that we had been looking at late night.

00:41:13.000 It was financially not viable.

00:41:15.000 It had been that way for a long time.

00:41:17.000 We had made a decision months prior to the announcement that we were not going to be going forward with that show.

00:41:22.000 I love Stephen.

00:41:23.000 He does a great job, but we really needed to be in a financially viable business.

00:41:27.000 And you saw we did that with James Corden as well.

00:41:30.000 And in terms of DEI, I think the reasons why DEI exists matter and will always matter, and we need to continue to fight for those issues.

00:41:39.000 But I think the way in which DEI has been executed has often led to more problems than it solved.

00:41:46.000 Okay, so Sherry Redstone saying Colbert was not taken off the air because of some sort of evil right-wing Trumpian plot.

00:41:52.000 It's because he sucked at his job and because he cost too much money.

00:41:55.000 Well, here was Stephen Colbert saying, we are all Jimmy Kimmel.

00:41:57.000 So first of all, let me point out.

00:41:59.000 Stephen Colbert isn't even Jimmy Kimmel.

00:42:01.000 Jimmy Kimmel isn't really Jimmy Kimmel by the left's definition of what's going on here.

00:42:06.000 Because probably, again, he was taken off the air for being a jackal who was bad at his job with low ratings. 0.90

00:42:12.000 I'm not Jimmy Kimmel.

00:42:13.000 I'm on the internet.

00:42:15.000 I'm not I don't no one has the luxury of a broadcast show.

00:42:20.000 But the left is going to get, again, try to whip up the narrative.

00:42:23.000 We'll see if it works.

00:42:23.000 It may not work at all.

00:42:26.000 You know, I think the best solution for all of this is to remove the power of the FCC to regulate content.

00:42:32.000 That would be a, I think a good solution.

00:42:34.000 But in the absence of that, in the absence of that, again, the left the left protesting about this after spending, you know, 60 years using the FCC to crack down its own on its own political opposition, is a little bit strained.

00:42:48.000 Here's Stephen Colbert complaining.

00:42:51.000 Welcome one and all to the late show.

00:42:53.000 I'm your host, Stephen Colbert.

00:42:59.000 But tonight, we are all Jimmy Kimmel.

00:43:03.000 I um still have a show, though, right?

00:43:09.000 Okay, good.

00:43:10.000 Yesterday, after threats from Trump's FCC chair, ABC yanked Kimmel off the air indefinitely.

00:43:18.000 That is blatant censorship.

00:43:21.000 And it always starts small.

00:43:22.000 You know, remember like in week one of his presidency, Gulf of America.

00:43:27.000 Call it Gulf of America.

00:43:28.000 Sure, seems harmless, but with an autocrat, you cannot give an inch. 0.87

00:43:33.000 And if ABC thinks, if ABC thinks that this is gonna satisfy the regime, they are woefully naive.

00:43:44.000 And clearly they've never read the children's book if you give a mouse a Kimmel.

00:43:50.000 And and and to Jimmy, and to Jimmy, just let me say I stand with you and your staff 100%.

00:43:55.000 And also, you couldn't let me enjoy this for like one week.

00:44:00.000 Just come on.

00:44:05.000 So, again, one of the great tragedies of our time, according to the left, Jimmy Kimmel being removed from the air under disputed circumstances, Mark Merrin doing the same thing.

00:44:12.000 They can come for all of us.

00:44:13.000 It's basically like Kristalnacht.

00:44:16.000 Uh-huh.

00:44:16.000 Here we go.

00:44:18.000 Jimmy Kimmel has been muzzled and taken off the air by his network ABC, who are buckling to and trying to appease the next R media conglomerate, who have a lot of affiliates, and they threatened to preempt him at the suggestion of the FEC chair.

00:44:39.000 This is government censorship.

00:44:42.000 This is the Trump administration coming after people who speak out against him.

00:44:50.000 This is the end of it.

00:44:51.000 If you have any concern or belief in real freedom or the Constitution.

00:44:59.000 And free speech, this is it.

00:45:01.000 This is the deciding moment.

00:45:03.000 This is what authoritarianism looks like right now.

00:45:06.000 In this country, it's happening.

00:45:10.000 It's so overwrought, Mark Merrin, so overwrought.

00:45:13.000 Um, I mean, you can hear the jackboots at the door there about to break it down and arrest Mark Marin for that, for that for that absolutely anti-authoritarian tire tribe. 0.61

00:45:21.000 Or maybe he's, you know, like just living his normal life today, because we actually don't live in an authoritarian country.

00:45:26.000 And by the way, a court is very likely to intervene if in fact there is a lawsuit, and it turns out that the FCC improperly used its power against Jimmy Kimmel or now, again, I think there might in fact be a case that the FCC did not even necessarily improperly use its power on a legal level, but this is why the FCC should not have that power in the first place.

00:45:43.000 Again, I'm old enough to remember when Republicans oppose the fairness doctrine, because the fairness doctrine was an attempt to stop right-wing opinions from being disseminated.

00:45:52.000 And at a certain point, there's a difference between saying we need to use the rules against you, the way you use them against us, so that we can all stop using those rules and instead create a new system of rules.

00:46:03.000 There's a difference between that and saying, you broke the rules, I'm gonna break the rules even further.

00:46:08.000 I'm gonna hit you, and you're gonna hit me. 0.99

00:46:10.000 It's just a sheer power dynamic.

00:46:12.000 A spiral.

00:46:14.000 David Letterman emerged from his house in the woods, where I assume he's only writing unibomber journals to uh to go to the vaunted Atlantic festival to talk about how this is criminal, an authoritarian administration.

00:46:28.000 Again, this is the maybe it'll you know, maybe it'll work for them.

00:46:31.000 It seems to me it's so overwrought it won't.

00:46:33.000 But this is the attempt.

00:46:34.000 This is one of my one of the critiques I'm making here is there is no reason for the Trump administration to have even given this issue to the Democrats in any way.

00:46:42.000 It is not useful.

00:46:44.000 Nothing is gained.

00:46:46.000 In any case, here's Letterman.

00:46:48.000 For 30 years, I did this for a living.

00:46:51.000 So I see this happen.

00:46:52.000 They took care of Colbert.

00:46:54.000 That was rude, that was inexcusable.

00:46:56.000 The man deserves a great deal of credit.

00:46:58.000 He's in the Hall of Fame nine times, and to be manipulated like that because the uh the Ellison family uh didn't want to uh trouble Donald Trump with this move, so they got rid of him, not only got rid of him, got rid of the whole franchise.

00:47:12.000 You're not gonna have to worry about anything, Larry.

00:47:14.000 It's all gone.

00:47:15.000 It's fine.

00:47:16.000 Good night.

00:47:16.000 And then my good friend Jimmy Kimmel, I, you know, I just uh I feel bad about this because uh it uh we all see where this is going, correct?

00:47:25.000 It's managed media, and uh it's no good.

00:47:29.000 It's silly, it's rid it's ridiculous, and you can't go around firing somebody because you're fearful or trying to suck up to an authoritarian uh criminal uh administration in the Oval Office.

00:47:43.000 That's just not how this works.

00:47:47.000 So this is going to be the unified democratic claim.

00:47:50.000 That that that's exactly what is happening, that this is uh a fascist authoritarian takeover.

00:47:55.000 Chris Murphy, the senator from Connecticut, who for some weird reason believes that he is going to run for president.

00:48:01.000 He says that this is about Trump silencing his political opponents, and then he actually says that people should take to the streets.

00:48:06.000 There should basically be giant protests in favor of Jimmy Kimmel.

00:48:09.000 Yeah, good luck with that one, my dude.

00:48:11.000 Donald Trump, in the wake of uh the tragic murder of Charlie Kirk, has decided to exploit uh that tragedy to try to silence his political opponents.

00:48:21.000 I think Kimmel is just the beginning.

00:48:24.000 Uh I think you're gonna see a potential dizzying campaign of political repression against anyone who opposes this president.

00:48:33.000 Okay, and then he actually asked for people to take to the streets.

00:48:36.000 Uh, call it the late night riots.

00:48:38.000 Here we go.

00:48:40.000 Understands the gravity of this moment.

00:48:43.000 This is a moment for the country to mobilize.

00:48:45.000 This is a moment for all of us to be out on the streets protesting because if you don't raise your voices right now about the assault on free speech, about Donald Trump's decision to disgustingly exploit the murder of Charlie Kirk so as to try to permanently render um powerless and impotent those who politically oppose him.

00:49:07.000 Um there may be no democracy to save uh a year from now.

00:49:12.000 Um this is a red alert moment, man.

00:49:14.000 It feels like the red alert has been on since January.

00:49:17.000 Um, but the days are getting darker, which means the obligation on us to stand up and mobilize um is getting more urgent.

00:49:27.000 Now, on a broad level, it may not work.

00:49:28.000 This is this kind of sort of democratic authoritarian op.

00:49:31.000 It may not work specifically because the Democrats were for, you know, solidly a couple of decades here, quite authoritarian in their approach to things like speech.

00:49:38.000 We we all remember the woke revolutions, where if you didn't post the black square, then you were in danger of losing your job. 0.78

00:49:44.000 We all remember Barack Obama using the law to spy on James Rosen, the Associated Press journalist.

00:49:51.000 We remember Joe Biden using the power of the government to crack down on major social media companies in order to get them to mirror his political priors.

00:50:00.000 We all remember Alexander Ocasio-Cortez calling for more censorship.

00:50:04.000 This wasn't that long ago.

00:50:05.000 It was like two years ago.

00:50:06.000 Here's Alexander Ocasio-Cortez doing this.

00:50:09.000 Several members of Congress in some of my discussions have brought up media literacy because that is a part of what happened here.

00:50:20.000 And we're going to have to figure out how we rate in our media environment so that you can't just spew disinformation and misinformation.

00:50:35.000 It's one thing to have differing opinions, but it's another thing entirely to just say things that are false.

00:50:45.000 And so that's something that we're looking into.

00:50:50.000 Okay, so again, the right is saying, okay, turnabout is fair play, and the left is saying we never did that in the first place.

00:50:56.000 This for the country probably doesn't go anywhere good.

00:51:00.000 The best possible solution, once again, is for the government to spend its time on the actual things that matter.

00:51:06.000 Go after leftist radical groups who are violent in orientation.

00:51:10.000 Go after their monetary sponsors, go after the leftist networks of thought on a social level that incentivize violence.

00:51:17.000 Do all of those things.

00:51:20.000 Yeah, I it just it's frustrating that the conversation could be so clear and so unified and so easy.

00:51:29.000 It really could.

00:51:30.000 And getting caught in these rabbit trails is counterproductive in the extreme.

00:51:36.000 Alrighty, coming up, what Republicans should be doing, what the administration should be doing.

00:51:40.000 Well, we have some information about violent left-wing groups that obviously should be receiving serious law enforcement scrutiny.

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00:53:48.000 Well, meanwhile, thinking of things the Trump administration can do, as I've been saying, they should be focused like a laser directly on left-wing violent groups.

00:53:56.000 But the evidence tends to show in the case of the assassination of Charlie Kirk is that the assassin was coordinating with people on Discord about what he was going to do.

00:54:05.000 That's what the evidence seems to show.

00:54:06.000 There were people who are putting out posts that they later deleted, predicting that Charlie would be murdered on the day that he was murdered, a month in advance.

00:54:13.000 That investigation has to be done, obviously.

00:54:16.000 And we know that there are these violent left-wing groups that have basically gone without much law enforcement scrutiny for whatever reason that needs to stop.

00:54:23.000 According to the Daily Wire Luke Rosiak reporting, a 10,000 member strong group called the Socialist Rifle Association has been conducting weapons training for transgender and Marxist Leninist extremists, and its members have been linked to at least four major crimes, including the firebombing of Tesla dealerships, a Daily Wire investigation found.

00:54:39.000 Members stuck up on assault rifles and tactical gear like gas masks and received membership cars bearing an image of Karl Marx and the quote, any attempt to disarm workers must be frustrated by force if necessary.

00:54:49.000 Videos show them preparing for engagements that look more like war than self-defense, running through the woods and hitting long-range targets.

00:54:55.000 A common logo is the transgender flag with an assault rifle and the phrase, defend equality.

00:55:00.000 SRA members say that their interest is to defend against fascists and Nazis, but according to court documents, they applied those labels loosely, citing incidents like the January 6th Capitol protest where guns were largely absent as a reason to prepare for war.

00:55:12.000 Apparently, the SRA has a chapter in Utah where Charlie was murdered.

00:55:15.000 It advertises, quote, inclusive firearms education with a rainbow-colored target and the tagline women-friendly, BIPOC friendly, queer-friendly.

00:55:22.000 One of its posters says, quote, I will die fighting for this cause.

00:55:25.000 A quote attributed to John Brown, a radical abolitionist who was murdered by the capitalist slave-owning class.

00:55:30.000 On June 19th, the Utah chapter asked members to support Arturo Gamboa, an anti-racist accused of murder.

00:55:37.000 Apparently, the chapter and SRA's national headquarters told the Daily Wire that Tyler Robinson, who's been charged with murdering Charlie, was not a member, but they did not answer whether his transgender identifying boyfriend Lance Twiggs was, citing their own confidentiality policies.

00:55:51.000 The SRA Reddit thread falsely claimed years ago that Charlie was openly calling for the lynching of transgender individuals.

00:55:58.000 After Kirk was assassinated, SRA members mocked him, expressed enthusiasm and wish that the man who shot President Trump had similar marksmanship.

00:56:07.000 There are a number of crimes that have been linked to SRA members.

00:56:11.000 On July 4th, a group of militants allegedly swarmed law enforcement at nice facility in Alvarado, Texas, and opened fire at the unarmed DHS correctional officers.

00:56:19.000 One of them, Benjamin Hanel Song, is charged with shooting a police officer in the neck.

00:56:23.000 Song was a member of the SRA's Dallas Fort Worth chapter, a fellow group member, told KERA.

00:56:29.000 Of the 10 co-defendants charged with attempted murder of a federal officer, at least two claimed to be transgender.

00:56:35.000 Authorities recovered nine firearms in the home, where one of them lived with six other transgenders. 1.00

00:56:40.000 On March 18th in Las Vegas, Paul High and Kim set on fire and shot up five Teslas, leaving a multiple cocktail inside one, according to charging documents.

00:56:48.000 The court papers said that this person had an Instagram page where he followed the SRA's page.

00:56:53.000 On January 20th, the day that Donald Trump was sworn in as president, Adam Matthew Lansky allegedly threw mollet of cocktails at a Tesla dealership in Salem, Oregon.

00:57:01.000 Lansky is a competitive shooter and a former member of the SRA, according to prosecutors.

00:57:06.000 In October 2021, Daniel Allen Baker of Florida was sentenced to 44 months in prison for threats.

00:57:11.000 After the pro-Trump Capitol protest on January 6th, 2021, Baker offered cash rewards for information leading to the verified identification of every individual in this video.

00:57:20.000 Don't worry, I won't be going to the cops.

00:57:21.000 We have decided to handle this ourselves.

00:57:26.000 Apparently, he told prosecutors who's a member of the SRA.

00:57:31.000 Apparently, the SRA was incorporated in Kansas in 2019 by Alexander Tackett, who later began identifying as a woman named Alex Norma Tackett.

00:57:39.000 A website for a queer bookstore he owned said, quote, Lilith, it she and Alex Tackett, she it, are a trans lesbian couple living in Wichita with their six-year-old son, which is just wonderful.

00:57:50.000 Its co-founder was Faye Ecklar, who explained, quote, I believe firearms ownership is necessary because as a transgender socialist, half the country wants me dead, and the other half is happy to watch.

00:57:59.000 Plus, the means of production won't seize themselves.

00:58:01.000 This is why we say that there are violent ideologies.

00:58:03.000 Yes, there certainly are, and they are attached to violent groups.

00:58:07.000 Meanwhile, a new report from Ryan Morrow over at Capital Research says that since 2016, George Soros's open society foundations, now run with his son Alexander, has poured over 80 million dollars into groups tied to terrorism or extremist violence.

00:58:22.000 Open society sent millions of dollars into U.S. based organizations that engage in quote unquote direct actions the FBI defines as domestic terrorism.

00:58:29.000 Those groups include the Center for Third World Organizing and its militant partner Ruckus Society, which trained activists in property destruction and sabotage during the 2020 riots, and the Sunrise Movement, which endorsed the Antifa-linked stop Cop City campaign, in which activists currently face over 40 domestic terrorism charges and 60 racketeering indictments.

00:58:47.000 At the same time, open society awarded $18 million to the Movement for Black Lives, a group that co-authored a radical guide glorifying the Hamas October 7th massacre, and instructs activists on the use of false IDs, blockades, and economic disruption.

00:58:59.000 Open society is also funneled more than 2.3 million dollars into a Hawk, an NGO based in the West Bank in Israel, and long accused of ties to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.

00:59:10.000 In September 2025, the State Department sanctioned Al Haq, citing its role in advancing campaigns that quote directly engage in the ICC's illegitimate targeting of Israel.

00:59:20.000 So there are things for law enforcement to do.

00:59:22.000 There are things for law enforcement to investigate.

00:59:24.000 And that is where we should be able to find unity.

00:59:26.000 Violation of the law is where we should be looking.

00:59:29.000 Violation of the law.

00:59:31.000 And social sanction should be enough.

00:59:33.000 Jimmy Kimmel should have been fired because the people said no to Jimmy Kimmel.

00:59:37.000 That is the way to do this.

00:59:39.000 And that is the way to create a more unified response to the horrifying murder of Charlie Kirk.

00:59:45.000 Meanwhile, I gotta say, the left softness on crime just continues at pace.

00:59:48.000 It truly is amazing.

00:59:49.000 Mayor Brandon Johnson, the worst mayor in America, which is saying a lot.

00:59:51.000 We have some pretty bad mayors.

00:59:53.000 He's mayor of Chicago.

00:59:54.000 And yesterday, he said that law enforcement is a sickness.

00:59:57.000 I wonder why people want the National Guard in Chicago.

01:00:01.000 I can't imagine.

01:00:02.000 Thank you.

01:00:04.000 The fact of the matter is we are driving violence down on this city, and we're using every single resource that's available to us.

01:00:11.000 Jails and incarceration and law enforcement is a sickness that has not led to safe communities.

01:00:19.000 Hmm.

01:00:20.000 Hmm.

01:00:22.000 Well, you know, if you think that law enforcement is the sickness, you might get more crime.

01:00:30.000 I'm just putting it out there.

01:00:31.000 It's possible.

01:00:32.000 It's just possible.

01:00:35.000 So, you know, I think that um this is a little over the top.

01:00:40.000 It's a little over the top from the Democrats.

01:00:43.000 We we we just want to lose elections.

01:00:46.000 Jasmine Crockett, the um not particularly intelligent representative from Texas, who somehow has become a resistance hero, an icon.

01:00:54.000 She says committing crimes doesn't make you a criminal.

01:00:56.000 No, literally, it does.

01:00:58.000 Literally, it does.

01:01:02.000 When people are like, oh, you know, crime is terrible, and yes, it is, right?

01:01:06.000 Like, because when somebody goes out and commits a crime, they don't typically, you know, say, well, I'm a D or I'm a R, I'm an I. It's not like literally like it's about, well, how do you fix it?

01:01:17.000 How do you make community safer?

01:01:18.000 And I do think that I'm in a unique situation because I was having the conversations with people that were going out and committing crimes.

01:01:27.000 And so I understood what was kind of pushing them there.

01:01:32.000 And so I do want people to know that just because someone has committed a crime, it doesn't make them a criminal.

01:01:39.000 That that is completely different.

01:01:41.000 Being a criminal is more so about your mindset.

01:01:45.000 Committing a crime can come for a lot of different reasons.

01:01:52.000 Deep thoughts.

01:01:52.000 Deep thoughts there from Jasmine Crockett.

01:01:55.000 Well, apparently Democrats want to lose elections.

01:01:57.000 Uh it's amazing, but apparently this is a thing they would like to do.

01:02:01.000 Speaking of suicidal democratic policy, apparently Democrats now want to do a government shutdown, which is going to work out very poorly for them.

01:02:07.000 The Republicans are pushing forward with basically a clean CR, a seven-week continuing resolution that continues to fund the government at its current levels.

01:02:14.000 And Democrats senators say that unless Republicans scrap their plan to advance it, they don't see any option other than defeating it as a way to send a message to President Trump and then trigger a shutdown.

01:02:26.000 Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer has been taking flag from his left flank for his failure to go along with the government shutdown earlier this year.

01:02:33.000 One Democratic senator says Donald Trump gave us the finger.

01:02:36.000 There is no alternative.

01:02:38.000 Well, no, actually, the alternative would be to pick ground that you can win on.

01:02:44.000 But, you know, good luck.

01:02:46.000 The party would likely need at least eight votes to help Republicans reach the 60 votes necessary to move a Senate legislation forward.

01:02:52.000 Senator Rand Paul, who of course votes against everything, says he's going to vote against the CR.

01:02:56.000 Apparently, there are a bunch of Democratic senators who are not going to vote for the shutdown.

01:03:00.000 That includes the only sane Democratic Senator left, John Fetterman from Pennsylvania, Jean Shaheen of New Hampshire, Maggie Hassan in New Hampshire, Catherine Cortez Masto in Nevada, Jackie Rosen in Nevada, and Angus King in Maine, by the way, all of them in swing states, you will notice.

01:03:14.000 Because they understand that it is repeated that it's poison for them to do this politically speaking.

01:03:18.000 Meanwhile, Speaker Johnson says that they will, in fact, pass the CR.

01:03:23.000 That is the goal.

01:03:23.000 Here he was.

01:03:24.000 Republicans are going to do the responsible thing.

01:03:28.000 We will pass a CR here tomorrow out of the House.

01:03:31.000 I suspect it sounds like we won't have many Democrats to assist in that.

01:03:35.000 And that's a really sad state of affairs.

01:03:37.000 Do you have the votes tonight, Mr. Speaker?

01:03:39.000 I believe we have the votes to do it.

01:03:40.000 Yes.

01:03:41.000 We'll send it over to the Senate, and I suspect they'll be able to process that.

01:03:43.000 Thank you.

01:03:45.000 So it seems to me that uh Democrats are putting themselves in an unenviable political position.

01:03:50.000 But if this seems to it's a it's a it's a bold move, Cotton.

01:03:54.000 We'll see how it works out for them.

01:03:55.000 All righty, as we continue here on the Ben Shapiro Show, Kamala Harris's book is coming out and we have some interesting book reviews.

01:04:02.000 Apparently, she is big mad.

01:04:05.000 Her book, 107 Days, is just filled with joy, so much joy and so much prayer.

01:04:10.000 Remember, in order to watch you have to be a member.

01:04:12.000 If you're not a member, become a member, use code Shapiro at checkout for two months free on all annual plans.

The Ben Shapiro Show - September 19, 2025

THE DAY AFTER: Kimmel Suspended, Democrats LIVID

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