Verdict with Ted Cruz - August 28, 2025


BONUS POD： Gunman Left Online Manifesto w Anti-Trump & Anti-Israel Rhetoric

Topics
trans-Minnesota Catholic school shooter manifesto
Hosted by
Ted Cruz
Mentioned
Robin Westman Robert Westman Ben Ferguson Donald Trump Kash Patel Amy Klobuchar Brooke Taylor Brian O'Hara Brian Jean Todd Jen Psaki Aaron
On the Ground with President Bukele in El Salvador plus Cracker Barrel Surrenders Inside El Salvador's CECOT Prison for MS-13 Gang Members, plus Stopping China from Having Control of the Panama Canal

Episode Stats


Length

16 minutes

Words per minute

169.45

Word count

2,790

Sentence count

240

Harmful content

Misogyny

1

sentences flagged

Toxicity

13

sentences flagged

Hate speech

4

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

Two children were shot and killed at a Catholic elementary school in Minneapolis on Wednesday morning. The mayor of Minneapolis, Betsy Hodson, said the shooting was a hate crime, but the FBI Director said it is being investigated as a possible hate crime.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
Topics generated with Qwen2.5-3B-Instruct.
Hosts, guests, and mentioned names generated with spaCy (en_core_web_sm), reconciled against Wikidata.
00:00:00.000 This is an iHeart Podcast.
00:00:02.540 Guaranteed human.
00:00:04.760 These parents, they want answers.
00:00:06.720 Everyone wants to know why.
00:00:08.180 There is no answer to the why.
00:00:10.400 Nothing explains shooting at children.
00:00:13.900 We could bring in the world's foremost forensic psychiatrist.
00:00:17.760 Okay, he was trouble.
00:00:19.000 So if we are waiting on a why, then we are going to be unsatisfied.
00:00:23.480 And where we direct our energies and our emotions is to the trial.
00:00:27.500 And he deprived those parents of justice by taking his own life.
00:00:32.620 They'll never get the answers that they want.
00:00:35.300 Ever.
00:00:35.880 You're listening to the 47 Morning Update with Ben Ferguson.
00:00:39.880 Good Thursday morning.
00:00:41.100 Nice to have you with us on the 47 Morning Update.
00:00:43.940 And we've got one major story that we're talking about.
00:00:46.880 It is the horrific shooting in Minneapolis at a Catholic school that has claimed the lives of two children.
00:00:53.860 An 8 and a 10-year-old.
00:00:55.680 I want you to hear from what the FBI director is saying about this now.
00:01:01.100 Making it very clear that he believes this was a hate crime.
00:01:05.080 Yet the mayor in Minneapolis playing politics refuses to say the same thing.
00:01:10.000 We're also going to introduce you to that mayor.
00:01:12.660 And what is he talking about right now?
00:01:14.700 Not about the transgender student and the radical left ideology that is clearly broken. 0.93
00:01:19.620 No, he's now talking about gun control and saying that you shouldn't have the right to go out and buy guns.
00:01:27.320 This is what Democrats are doing.
00:01:29.400 Using the tragedy to push a political agenda.
00:01:32.980 And even Amy Klobuchar getting in on the action.
00:01:35.840 Saying, we don't even know what guns were used yet.
00:01:39.400 Or if certain laws can stop this from happening.
00:01:42.000 But she still wants the laws to be passed anyway.
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00:03:53.200 It's the 47 morning update.
00:03:55.280 And it starts right now.
00:03:57.380 Story number one.
00:03:58.520 There is one thing we are getting from the Trump administration when it comes to the shooting in Minneapolis.
00:04:03.820 It is clarity.
00:04:04.960 The FBI director, Cash Patel, saying the shooting is now being investigated as a hate crime targeting Catholics.
00:04:13.080 This is something we did not get from the prior administration.
00:04:16.760 The FBI director used a post on X to make it clear that the Minneapolis Catholic school shooting will be investigated as a hate crime specifically targeting Catholics.
00:04:28.940 It was reported that the alleged shooter changed his name from Robert to Robin at 17 years of age.
00:04:36.100 Fox News correspondent Brooke Taylor reported that his mother signed off on the suspected shooter's name change from Robert to Robin.
00:04:43.240 Yet again, another transgendered individual shooting up a school. 1.00
00:04:47.660 Police indicated the alleged shooter used a pistol, a rifle, and a shotgun to carry out his attack on the church Wednesday morning. 0.83
00:04:54.960 From inside the church, he shot through windows, striking children as they sat in the pews during mass.
00:05:00.760 As you know, at this point when I am recording this, two children have been killed.
00:05:05.980 17 other individuals have been wounded.
00:05:09.180 Patel putting it on X, saying updates on the shooting in Minneapolis.
00:05:13.240 The FBI is investigating the shooting as an act of domestic terrorism and hate crime targeting Catholics.
00:05:19.840 There are two fatalities, an 8-year-old and a 10-year-old, in addition to 14 children and three adults that were injured.
00:05:27.400 He went on to say after that, quote,
00:05:29.800 The shooter has been identified as Robin Westman, a male born as Robert Westman.
00:05:37.640 The FBI will continue to provide updates on our ongoing investigation with the public as we are able.
00:05:44.320 Now, even CNN is having to admit that this was a radical.
00:05:48.160 Here is more of what they said about the shooter.
00:05:51.320 Breaking news, admiration for mass shooters, hatred of multiple groups, no sympathy for any victim.
00:05:59.020 It's just some of what the shooter in today's Catholic school massacre, which he murdered two children, reveals in videos, posted online.
00:06:06.860 Videos that police are scouring through right now for clues and answers about the shooter,
00:06:10.820 who has been identified as a 23-year-old named Robin Westman.
00:06:14.420 Brian Todd has the latest on what we know about the shooter.
00:06:16.920 The coward that shot these victims took his own life in the rear of the church.
00:06:23.140 That coward has been identified as 23-year-old Robin Westman. 0.95
00:06:27.680 Westman seems to have left a series of online videos which describe an obsession with school shootings
00:06:32.700 and even named other mass shooters, such as the 2012 Sandy Hook gunman, the Columbine gunman,
00:06:39.100 and the man who attacked the Tree of Life synagogue in 2018.
00:06:42.140 Swing! Um, here's my, um, note to my family.
00:06:48.140 The video also shows written statements and several guns painted with slurs.
00:06:52.500 In another clip, the speaker simply reads aloud from a clothes dryer manual.
00:06:56.880 Dryer safety. Your safety and the safety of others are very important.
00:07:01.540 Police say they also found a litany of writings.
00:07:04.140 We're also aware of a manifesto that the shooter had timed to be released on YouTube.
00:07:09.160 This manifesto appeared to show him at the scene and included some disturbing writings.
00:07:15.360 That content has since been taken down with the assistance of the FBI,
00:07:19.480 and it now remains under active review by our investigators.
00:07:23.060 Apparently part of the plan that the shooter seemed to illustrate in those same videos on YouTube,
00:07:27.740 a photo of a slab of wood.
00:07:29.580 An actual slab of wood was found at the scene blocking a door from the outside.
00:07:33.600 This will be for the emergency exit.
00:07:36.900 Pop it through the hand.
00:07:38.200 According to social media posts, the shooter's mother worked at the school from 2016 to 2021,
00:07:45.220 and the shooter graduated from the school in 2017.
00:07:48.960 The shooter, now known as 23-year-old Robin Westman,
00:07:51.880 identified as a female and changed their name legally to Robin from Robert in 2020.
00:07:57.520 The agency is investigating this as an act of domestic terrorism and as a hate crime targeting Catholics.
00:08:03.240 Police Chief Brian O'Hara says officials there have not yet established enough of a motive to charge it or to investigate it yet as a hate crime.
00:08:11.920 Aaron?
00:08:12.460 That is the part that's the most shocking.
00:08:14.700 You now have two very different narratives.
00:08:17.740 You have clearly leadership in Kash Patel and the Trump administration calling this what it is.
00:08:22.760 And then you have local liberal police who are saying,
00:08:26.560 no, we don't have enough to actually look at this as a hate crime yet.
00:08:32.400 The question I would ask is, when will you have enough?
00:08:35.740 As the Minneapolis police chief, describing the attack on the mass as, quote, evil,
00:08:42.100 noting that the worship service was marking the first week of school for children that are attending the Catholic school.
00:08:48.560 He described the shooting as a deliberate act of violence against innocent children and other people worshiping,
00:08:53.820 but won't call it a hate crime yet.
00:08:57.080 If you want to know what's wrong in this country, this is a perfect example of it.
00:09:01.980 Democrats, even when evil is staring them in the face, will refuse time and time again to call it exactly that.
00:09:10.580 If there's one thing that is happening right now, it is that Democrats are using this to push for gun control.
00:09:17.320 Amy Klobuchar said, I have long supported assault weapons ban, even before she knows what guns were even used.
00:09:24.360 Many others are also saying the same thing.
00:09:27.180 Former White House press secretary Jen Psaki breaking down in tears on MSNBC.
00:09:32.620 And then the Minnesota mayor saying, why is it that you can buy a gun virtually every month if you wanted to?
00:09:41.080 Again, blaming the gun instead of the transgendered person who they decided to say that their mental health issues were normal
00:09:49.200 and decided that, you know, we're never going to help them with their mental health.
00:09:54.020 We're just going to try to normalize it.
00:09:56.160 Former FBI profiler said the shooter's parents, well, they're ones to blame as well, saying you helped them change their name at 17.
00:10:04.920 That's probably when the fuse was lit.
00:10:07.980 Now, story number two.
00:10:09.180 There's another part of the story about the trans-Minnesota Catholic school shooter that the media is not covering.
00:10:15.460 It doesn't fit the narrative that they want this story to be about, which is gun control.
00:10:20.900 And we don't even know what guns were even used yet, but they're calling for it anyway.
00:10:25.280 Well, here's the other part of the story they're not talking about.
00:10:28.740 The shooter had a YouTube manifesto, and it included vile anti-Trump messages written on guns.
00:10:37.540 The transgender gunman who opened fire during that mass at the Minneapolis Catholic school
00:10:43.100 had a YouTube channel that contained his manifesto as well as the anti-Trump rhetoric.
00:10:49.280 A senior Trump administration official has now confirmed that the now-deleted YouTube page belonged to the gunman.
00:10:57.440 A video posted by the gunman showed the manifesto in all of the gunman's weapons. 0.58
00:11:02.800 One of the magazines contained the words, kill Donald Trump.
00:11:07.540 Another one said, where is your God? 0.99
00:11:10.120 And another one, Israel must fall. 0.85
00:11:12.760 We're among the words written on the gunman's magazines and the actual weapons.
00:11:18.300 The person who appears to have carried out that shooting reported by local news had it this way. 0.89
00:11:23.260 Posted a video showing the manifesto on the weapons and one of the magazines they put the picture up, kill Donald Trump.
00:11:30.420 The shooter also went to the Catholic school and hated people of faith. 0.99
00:11:35.540 He was a Trump hater, a Jew hater. 0.54
00:11:37.780 And he appears to be a supporter of the Palestinian Islamic movement.
00:11:40.760 The shooter also wrote, Israel must fall.
00:11:44.160 And that was just some of what we've seen.
00:11:47.520 In a post on X, as you know, Kash Patel provided an update of the shooting,
00:11:51.860 which he stated that two children, an 8 and a 10-year-old, were killed.
00:11:55.820 And it's by someone that is anti-Trump and anti-Israel.
00:11:59.600 So why is the media not covering that?
00:12:03.200 Why is the media also not covering the fact that this was a transgendered shooter?
00:12:07.780 Yet again, the same issue we had in the Nashville school shooting there.
00:12:13.000 Yes, this is a real problem.
00:12:16.220 And they're not covering it.
00:12:18.000 And that's the other issue, which is when will the media start actually telling you the truth?
00:12:23.060 When will the media actually start asking the tough questions?
00:12:26.660 Yes, we know that the left loves pushing gun control when something like this happens.
00:12:32.740 The Minnesota mayor, for example, not talking about the mental health issue,
00:12:36.220 not talking about the anti-Jewish rhetoric.
00:12:39.900 No.
00:12:40.280 What was he talking about?
00:12:41.780 He was talking about gun control as well.
00:12:44.100 Listen carefully.
00:12:45.260 Yeah.
00:12:45.500 And yet it does.
00:12:46.500 What does that look like?
00:12:48.500 I mean, you know well, obviously, from being a mayor for some time in Minneapolis,
00:12:52.780 that there are gun laws in Minnesota that other states don't have,
00:12:57.160 but there are some things that could still be done.
00:12:59.600 Is that something that you hope people in the legislature have a will to do at this point in time?
00:13:05.940 We have more guns in America than people.
00:13:10.860 Say that again. 0.71
00:13:12.120 We have more guns in America than people.
00:13:15.580 Why?
00:13:15.960 Why is it so easy to get a gun?
00:13:18.500 Why is it so easy to get a whole heap ton of guns?
00:13:21.740 Why is it that you can buy a gun virtually every month if you wanted to?
00:13:26.000 What good is that?
00:13:27.520 We're not talking about your father's hunting rifle.
00:13:30.560 We're talking about people that have gotten guns that seemingly, in this case legally,
00:13:35.200 that obviously have a whole ton of mental health issues. 0.96
00:13:39.100 You're not right in the head if you're going to a church to shoot it up. 1.00
00:13:43.020 You're not right in the head. 0.94
00:13:43.880 But the fact that you have guns, in fact, many, many guns.
00:13:47.780 Why is that okay?
00:13:49.300 You know, this has gone down in other countries, and they say, you know what?
00:13:52.620 We're not going to allow this anymore.
00:13:54.800 We're not, we don't want this to happen anymore.
00:13:57.160 We're going to do something about it.
00:13:59.340 It's got to be out of love for our kids,
00:14:02.180 It's a common kind of humanity that you understand how deeply I love my little girls.
00:14:09.500 I've got an almost five-year-old, four and three-quarters, she would tell you.
00:14:13.520 And I've got a three-week-old.
00:14:15.000 And I, many times today, have thought about the last things that I have said to her before she went into school.
00:14:22.740 And, you know, you shove these things off as, you know, maybe even an annoyance.
00:14:27.860 Get out the door, put on your shoes, let's go, here's your headband, come on.
00:14:31.060 But there's also a beauty to it in that I love her so dearly,
00:14:35.900 and I want her to be able to experience the school and her life safely.
00:14:39.860 That's not too much to ask.
00:14:42.780 And the fact that we've seen these things happen again and again throughout our country,
00:14:49.160 what it tells me is maybe we're not seeing these kids as our own.
00:14:53.580 And so that's my ask to people.
00:14:55.600 Don't think about these as just somebody else's kids.
00:14:59.080 Think about them as if they were your own.
00:15:02.560 By the way, that same mayor, hours after that interview, going on the anti-gun tirade,
00:15:09.520 he is now facing fierce backlash after attacking people of faith for offering prayers
00:15:15.980 during a press conference on a tragic shooting at the Catholic school.
00:15:20.520 Critics now blasting the mayor's remarks as tone-deaf and callous in wake of violence
00:15:26.060 that specifically targeted children at worship.
00:15:29.380 But at the news conference, the mayor declared,
00:15:31.540 quote, don't just say this is about thoughts and prayers right now.
00:15:34.720 These kids were literally praying.
00:15:36.580 It was the first week of school.
00:15:38.340 They were in a church.
00:15:40.000 These are kids that should be learning with their friends.
00:15:42.420 They should be playing on playgrounds.
00:15:44.420 They should be able to go to school or church in peace without the fear or risk of violence.
00:15:49.600 So don't say it's about thoughts and prayers right now.
00:15:52.720 Wow.
00:15:53.280 That is the mayor of a liberal city that normalized a radical leftist who said, 1.00
00:15:59.520 kill Trump, kill the Jews, and killed the children that are Catholic. 1.00
00:16:04.860 And what are they focused on? 1.00
00:16:06.480 Gun control.
00:16:07.520 Thank you for listening to the 47 Morning Update with Ben Ferguson.
00:16:11.680 Please make sure you hit subscribe wherever you're listening to this podcast right now.
00:16:17.120 And for more in-depth news, also subscribe to the Ben Ferguson podcast,
00:16:21.500 and we will see you back here tomorrow.
00:16:24.500 This is an iHeart Podcast.
00:16:27.120 Guaranteed Human.