SIO491: What Do We Actually Know About Tyler Robinson? Why Did He Kill Charlie Kirk?

Transcript

This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors — the audio is the record.

0:00:11 Thomas: And welcome to Serious Inquiries Only. This is episode 491. I'm your host, Thomas Smith, and lots to talk about. Lots and lots. If you follow me on social media, you've heard me mention, or you read me mention some things about the Charlie Kirk shooting and the shooter and lots of stuff like that. I've made some jokes, I've made some observations, but I haven't said anything on here yet. And every day, I was like, all right, gonna record, and then like something new would break, and And then I'd be like, OK, got to got to record an SIO. And then, you it kept feeling like, oh, maybe I'll wait till I have a little more information. But now that the dust has settled quite a bit, I want to talk about the shooter. There's so much to talk. But I think I probably have like 10 episodes worth of stuff. I'm going to probably do it like two. We'll see. I could imagine it being more, you it's just kind of one of those like I have thoughts. I got to get them out. It is going to be what it's going to Be. I think what I want to talk about right now is increasingly I'm interested in how we can know things in a time where knowing things is harder and harder each and every day. Don't think it's impossible. I think it still doable, but I think I've said this before, maybe not harder to know the truth per se, but it becomes easier to believe falsehoods every day, I think. And I think there's a key difference there, because I now, at least, there's enough institutional know-how and people doing good work in journalism. And I don't know, I was going to say, and sometimes in government, too, but it's been so torn apart by Trump. I don't know. I used to be able to rely on things like indictments by the DOJ or the FBI or charging documents like those kinds of things. Used to be able to rely on that, not like as gospel, but as pretty and as giving you a lot of information. And nowadays that's less and less true, which sucks. But I think it's still possible to arrive at the truth in many areas with a certain degree of probability, I usually think in terms of probabilities, but it's way easier to believe falsehoods. And I think people are increasingly motivated to believe what they want to believe. And I Think they have more of an excuse to now. Know, me, I'm not both sizing this as in both sides are equal. Do think the left is doing this a bit, bit more each day than I'm comfortable with still fundamentally different, fundamentally different than what's going on on the right. There's still knowledge happening on the left, especially the higher up you go in terms of who's in power it's people are relying on actual facts in a way that the right just doesn't do anyway point is with this shooter and the way the information kind of came out there's a lot of opportunity there still is a lot opportunity for conspiracy theory motivated reasoning all that kind of stuff and I wanted to talk about what we know what we can know and I also want you know I've somewhat of a mea culpa for I got some things I think initially incorrect on social media. And I think the most important thing in skepticism is admitting mistakes. And so it's also interesting. I think it's kind of funny in a way. I said, I play probabilities and it was like rolling snake eyes on this one, which I think is really funny and I want to talk about it. Yeah, lots more besides. So who is Tyler Robinson? Is he a Is he a groiper? Is he on the left? Why did he kill Charlie Kirk? What we know, what we can know. All of that stuff after the break. Please support the show at patreon.com. It's the only reason it keeps going. It is more important than ever. Thank you so much to the patrons. We will take a little break and then we will get into it. So

0:03:50 Thomas: Here's how this went down this uh shooting happened this killing happened and right away I told Lydia and I um a video pretty quickly uh normally don't watch that kind of thing but the really normally don't watch that kinda thing but the way things were happening the way information was unfolding I in that moment I really really wanted to know if what people were were saying was true and like who was saying, because there are a lot of conflicting claims initially. And so I watched the video and yeah, that was awful. I'm sure, I'm sure many of you have seen it. I wouldn't recommend it. It's definitely, definitely awful for people who don't like seeing stuff like that. And I would hope that's almost everybody. So that was interesting epistemologically there too, because I told, you know, we have a Slack that we use for the podcast and the OA opening arguments and Matt and Jenessa Alyssa and Olivia and Lydia. And we were, we were definitely talking about this. And I said like, well, uh, you know, Charlie Kirk's dead. There's, there's just no way. And it was really interesting because I, you Know, I got some, some amount of pushback and then people saying that, oh, no, wait, it was reported that he was alive. And, and it was, it's kind of interesting because it was fundamentally, it was just like, look, I don't, unless I'm very wrong about medical science, I don't he's not alive there's just no way and again I don't know. I assume by this point people who listen to the show might be as interested in this kind of thing as I am but I'm just I'm really interested in truth claims now and just like what what we can know when and like it's not enough to get something right it's got to be the for the right reasons and also getting you get stuff wrong which everybody does also want to get it wrong for the write reasons, if that makes sense. Because I just resent more than ever the pure making up of information. But in this day and age of AI and deep fakes, there are certainly people right at the time who are like, well, no, that's fake. No way. It's faked. It's fake. And it' dealing in probabilities, you can really start to eliminate the possibilities more than you would think, because you see multiple angles of the same event very quickly after it's released and those agree with each other, the odds of those being some sort of fake, any of them goes Exponentially, I mean, exponentially, the more you see, because it just the amount of coordination that would be involved in the motivation to do something that coordinated that quickly from that many different entities. I mean, truly becomes zero almost instantly. And so I was pretty convinced that this this was real and he was dead based on what he saw. And it was it was interesting to get. There was one random like, apparently I there's a quote we kept looking at where some officer was like, oh, stable, you know, stable condition. And I was like that. No, there's no there's No way. And it's funny to to think about that kind of thing. And, you know, the reason is probably that they're not going to announce to the world before they tell loved ones. So in that instance, it was kind of interesting to be like, yeah, OK, yes, I'm going slightly against the like reported grain, I guess. But there's a very good reason why that would be like there's A very good Reason why, even if someone was very obviously dead, like why they would hold off or delay on making that announcement, because there really is no upside to making that announcement um as soon as possible there's no reason why it needs to happen a half an hour sooner uh us news consumers and there's every reason to want to alert the family and loved ones before making a public announcement then I I just again I use the phrase I love a lot and please know that's in this like gallows humor of like I cannot believe how fucked the world is and president is in the country is but the the fact that like everyone was kind of waiting with with bated breath on this. And then Trump just tweets it, just like fucking, just truths it or whatever the fuck he did. Like just, that's how the world finds out. Now I assume, I think at that point, the family, I hope the family knew already. Like, just for that to be the way that it gets released, just what a stupid world. And for that not to be scandal number one, you know what I mean? There's just each and every day, there's stuff that if any other president had done it would be Watergate times 10. I mean, announcing that Charlie Kirk died before the authorities did as president, it's a joke. It's an absolute joke. So anyway, then the focus shifted to who did it and why. I think everybody was really curious about that for different reasons. We can talk about how much that even means. And one thing I noticed right right away was that instantaneously MAGA was, you know, obviously making this out to be a leftist or whatever, a trans or something that whatever their favorite version of who they could then demonize, uh, that that's who did it right away. And that's one thing, cause obviously it's wrong and they're going to do it. Um, and that's MAGA. But what really bothered me was how much the left and just the whole media environment, like the mainstream media environment seemed to do the same thing. They seem to make the same assumption stuff like, well, he was shy. He was killed for mere disagreement, killed for mere speech. And while acknowledging that, like, I guess ultimately that does seem to be the motivation of the shooter at that time, there's just no fucking way to know that. And it really did bother me because we have so many examples in history of these assassins being people who want attention, being people Who think, you know, they're going to impress Jodie Foster being, you know, just things that just have nothing to do with like, well, he argued on campus with, you know, college students. And I think it was irresponsible to buy into that right away because it wasn't, again, that's why I say getting stuff wrong for the right reasons. Like I made a big deal of this because I thought I, and I ultimately really believed I'll, I'll confess that though. I withheld obviously from doing a podcast about it until now, but I believed it would would be someone on the right. I would be, I believed it would be a crazy right winger as it almost always is, almost always yes. Um, and we could talk about like, even, even the man I hope to one day marry Luigi Mangione isn't a leftist really. I mean, he had one issue that he was, uh, I guess, you know, you could say radicalized on for sure. Um. But it wasn't, it wasn'T cause he was like a progressive AOC voter, you now, like you look at his, his stuff and it's kind of weird and random. And some of it is very like misogynistic in certain ways, his postings and the breadcrumbs we have of him. So the idea that there's just like this wave of leftist progressive, like LGBTQ terrorism cells, it's just a joke and it shouldn't be bought into at all. And I really did expect that I'd be taking a victory lap on the fact that he wouldn't be a left winger of some kind. And I will confess that on social media, I did take such a victory lap when we found out that he was raised, first of all, white male, 22-year-old guy, plenty of gun pictures with his family, raised by a family that seems to be MAGA and very much loves guns, plenty of pictures with guns, a picture of him dressed as like a Pepe the Frog meme. And so I started posting on social media things to the effect of like, I would say the most incorrect thing I said, and again, just to come clean, I just think it's important to be accountable. And again, I was making jokes on social data. The most incorrect joke I made was, it's time we had an honest conversation about the violence problem on both sides of the far right, which I think still stands as a funny joke. Didn't directly make truth claims about the shooter, but like, I'm not going to hide behind that. Like it it very much the premise of the joke was that the shooter ended up being on the right.

0:11:46 Thomas: That's that's what the premise OF THE JOKE was. That was incorrect. Incorrect premise there. The other stuff I made was from the standpoint that he was either right wing or going to be a nihilistic kind of really my nightmare. The thing I hate most in the world is the nihilist fucking terrorists that do it for the lulz. That's what I thought he would be, because you put all that together. And this is why I talk about percentages. I think it's really funny to talk about this, because once we had that information, once we had the guns, the white male, the Utah, the conservative family, the MAGA, and then we started and we had these memes, the memes on the bullet casings. Then I was very comfortable with the idea that he was either some sort of crazy right winger or a nihilist. I was so certain that this was not going to be any sort of leftist based on the memes based on the like lol if you read this you're gay because that's just not a language that any lefty like progressive left person traffics in like it's just Not and so at that point that was why I was so confident the percentage of all those factors of all Those things that we those data points the The percentage of that being compatible with some sort of lefty was, in my mind, very near zero. I'm still struggling with that because I don't quite fully understand how this is possible. And I resented what was happening. So here's what the memes were, if you don't already know this. Notices, bulge, oh, what's this? That's some sortof like furry thing. We all know this at this point, but I mean, we've all heard some awkward major news person say what that is. I don't pretend to have inside knowledge on that, but my understanding is it's some sort of joke about furries or some crap. I don' t know. Second one, Hey Fascist Catch, Arrow Symbols, which is, you know, the Hell Divers 2 thing. Third cartridge, Belle Chao. Fourth cartridge, If You Read This, You Are Gay, LMAO, or as I pronounce it, Lamao. And I only learned somewhat recently that that's just a me thing. Anyway, it's Lamau, clearly. And so I resented this idea that, hey, since it says, hey fascist catch, that's what the Utah governor guy and the people on the right, the MAGA movement, was pointing to that as like ironclad proof. See, the problem is you call Trump a fascist and this says, hey, fascist catch, arrow symbols, that must mean it's a lefty who is motivated by that language of fascism. You know, and that that's just wrong. Still, that's still actually wrong. That's important to point out again, being right for the right reasons and wrong for the Right Reasons. In the same way that apparently my reading of if you read this you're gay lmao I I it's so hard to fathom but apparently that isn't the work of a nihilist we're to believe right now um in the same way but that doesn't prove that this was someone either from the right or from some nihilistic position the hey fascist the hey facist catch one does not prove that the nihilists were about, seemed to demonstrate that this person was motivated by at least wanting to end Charlie Kirk's hatred of trans people to peers or maybe or maybe LGBTQ in general. I don't that's unclear, but at the very least, combined with having the relationship with the trans roommate, the best we know now, if this was motivated by Charlie Kirk's hate of trans women, then it would be a very, very bad thing to do. Do with the hey fascist catch thing and and if you're if they're pointing to that because that ended up being the information we had they're still clinging to that as their proof and it's that's not I mean what we can say about these memes is that they were memes and to say for the third time I'm still amazed that somebody was scratching or writing memes on their bullet casings that were all different directions including you know left and right I guess you you could say or whatever. And, and we just had the church shooting a moment ago with the, with a bunch of memes all over everything. And that was nihilistic terrorism. That was, that was the nihilist internet awful 4chan terrorism. And for this to not be that, I thought this was a copycat of that sort of, or along the same vein. And again, just all the, all the evidence, like I'm, I'm still, I'm still struggling because I just don't understand

0:16:37 Thomas: These bullet casings or whatever, these inscriptions. But right now, if we're to believe they were just memes, they had nothing really to do with much, they were just memes, then they were just memes. And the fascist one doesn't prove that it was an anti -fascist person any more than the if you read this, you're gay proves that it wasn't someone who was like homophobic. So there's that point. So like I said, accountability mode. Now, I do want to to point out, this might sound like excuse making, the times when I make truth claims that matter to me, in my view, I research them. I look them up. I make sure they're true. Sometimes when I'm making a joke on social media, I still want to have everything right. Don't get me wrong. I want to have every thing right. But sometimes I'll make a joke because it's funny. And also my social social media reach is, is it's not big. It's not. So I look at that as like a little bit of an audience, maybe slightly more than like your average person, but certainly far less than any average, like thirst trap posting account would have nowhere. I'm nowhere near average random person thirst trap account. That's that's my reach is not big and so I might sound like excuse making, but again, I, I do think that these are slightly different things and I personally just don't quite hold myself to the same epistemological standard in social media posts as I do on, say, this podcast or opening arguments, maybe that's a mistake. Maybe I should, you know, I don't know. Again, I made some jokes that eventually seem to have been on the wrong assumption. I'd never claimed that he was a groiper. That's an interesting thing. I think think a lot of people took my jokes to mean that I agreed with that. But if you look, I made comments about this, um, that I, I didn't really see that as proven at all. I thought it was like plausible based on what I heard about the Groiper thing. I don't pretend to have known what that was ahead of time. Uh, cause mostly these people make me want to fucking jump off a bridge. If I researched their different fucking pathologies that they had, they're on super online, weird right -wing crap. I just, I don't, I'm not super knowledgeable on that, but I never said he was a groper and I never, I, cause I actually never saw that as proven out. And that is one of those ones where I am left to question why that took off so much. I think obviously people on the left wanted to be, to be someone on the right and that's convenient to us. It's also, you know, again, odds wise, we're vastly on the more correct footing because it almost always is someone on on the right. So I don't mean that to say that that's that improper of a thing to assume, but that specific claim about the Groyper thing, I didn't really get it. And I think that, I think people got a little ahead of themselves on that one. I think that was not established.

0:19:41 Thomas: Here's another one I need to criticize. And this one does drive me a bit nuts because I saw a lot of people make this one and I didn' I did comment about it somewhere, but maybe I should have done like a main post about it. This doesn't matter. Sorry, I'm talking about my social media. It's just I in an effort to want to be accountable for things I got wrong. That's that's where I got some stuff, you know, a little bit wrong. So I'm like wanting to be responsible. It really isn't that important, but I just don't want to seem like I'm hiding from the fact that I post stuff wrong. Anyway, I do wish I had commented about the TRN bullet case thing sooner, because this was if you didn't see it, this was somebody at the soonest I the earliest version I see. I can't be sure that I tracked down the earliest version. I did a reverse image search, but the image is from five years ago, at least. So I can'T be sure when it was first used, like with this truth claim. Again, just spent a few minutes on this, but point is someone named Adam Cochran was who I saw it from. I don't know who that is, but they seem to be some independent in quotes journalists. But this was a tweet essentially saying, wow, I can' t believe how incompetent this administration is. They're saying this was a trans person based on like arrows and then it's the accompanying image is of some sort of bullet not a gun person sorry don't give a shit don't care some sort of bullet that says trn on it and that really took off among a lot of people that I follow and that one was I'm gonna go ahead and say that was bad that was a that was not something you should should have believed because just knowing fucking nothing, the one thing these idiots do know is guns. And as much as Trump has dismantled a lot of things, the FBI and the local law enforcement is still like what it is. You know, it's still going to feature people who know about guns. I simply do not find it plausible that any like that there would be a consensus of any kind among law enforcement that a TRN like stamped into a bullet that like, they wouldn't recognize that as like some sort of manufacturer, which I don't know, but I would assume they know and would instead think that meant someone was trans. I mean, that that's absurd. Like that's genuinely absurd. What would, what, what imagine what that would mean? Like, like trans people are like, okay, here we go. I'm a trans person. I want to do a trans murder. I I'm going to stamp Yep. TRN on the bullet. Like that's just fucking stupid. And I know that many of you probably fell for that one and probably said, well, this administration is that fucking stupid? No, they're not. Like I know, like that's a, that's not a popular thing to say, but actually I don't think anyone with a job is this fucking stupid, like nobody, nobody with a job, very few people, certainly not a consensus of people with a job in law enforcement are going to think a stamp like that means trans. That's just silly. And the picture was not from this story. It's old. It doesn't even what this... So it's like, I don't know where that came from. I'm not sure if this Adam Cochran person originated it, but it's the first one I kind of saw. And that was that was silly. That's not what it was. Now, how silly was it that they assumed the arrows and this I do find plausible that they assume the arrows after the catch this fascist one, that that might be some sort of LGBTQ thing that I do do find plausible because that is not a gun manufacturer, something that gun people would easily know. That's a video game thing that I play video games. I don't fucking know. I don't play Helldivers 2, although it is apparently a really popular game. I don't know. Or it's from Helldiver 1. I'm not sure. But that is also silly to interpret as some sort of trans thing. Those arrows would be like the gender arrows or something. But But that's within the realm of like I actually could see a conservative law enforcement officer making that mistake, especially when they want it to be someone trans. So that was just a video game thing was not trans stuff. It just wasn't. So if if they were making that claim, which I'm not 100 percent sure on, but based on trying to piece this together, that's what the original TRN thing was based on. Was them saying, we saw some markings and arrows that indicate transgender ideology. And then I think some people assumed or made up the TRN thing. And then it ended up being that they were, I think, talking about the video game or the up, down, whatever the heck that is. And that's pretty stupid, but it's not as stupid as the TRM bullet stamp, because that no one would think that. So let's talk about the texts. And before the texts were out, another thing that that just really fucks with me is that it seemed so clear. The main thing, again, the main thing for me, someone who deals in probabilities was what I said, the upbringing, the guns, the MAGA family, all that in the memes. That just the odds of that not being a right wing person or a nihilist is just crazy, like low to me. Then pair that with some other information that the right was was using to say that he was on the left which just coincidentally seemed so bad it seemed like again someone the mom saying well he had become political in recent times which seemed again if this is a MAGA family like a pretty fucking convenient thing for them to say you know like especially if they are trying to I don't know cooperate be cooperative with the law enforcement that also wants this to be a left winger that seemed and the fact that like all they could could point to was he was hateful you know charlie kirk was less hateful it was too hateful that whatever that quote was at the time that was like all we had for one I wasn't 100 sure if that was like a direct quote and for two it did seem like it was so little that like if this were a leftist political killing usually well I say usually it gets so rare but if this was a political killing with a with a very specific motive like you you expect like a manifesto or something you expect some statement. You expect also that his social media would reveal like, you know, the ramblings of a lefty hell bent on changing the world through shooting people. They don't, you know, some anything you'd, you'd expect anything. And the fact that they had nothing for like days, I just, that seems so compatible to me with them trying to make a few breadcrumbs into not a right winger. Um, it's just, it was wild to me how this went down, but then these texts come out. This charging document on the 16th, I think it was, comes out and it's got these texts. And I'm going to read these texts because now this is where I think the real skepticism needs to happen. And by that, I mean the good kind. Let's see what we can know, because I know so many of you and so many people on the left are not buying these texts and I get it. I get it. And I'm here to tell you, I'm not here to lie to you and say these texts seem normal because they don't seem normal. They don't. But let's talk about it. Okay. Here's what we got. The roommate. I'm just reading from the charging documents. Police interviewed Robinson's roommate and this is some anti -trans stuff, sorry, but a biological male who was involved in a romantic relationship with Robinson. The roommate told police that the roommate received messages from Robinson about the shooting and provided those messages to police. On September 10th, the roommate received a text message from Robinson, which said, drop what you're doing. Look under my keyboard. The roommate looked under the keyboard and found a note that stated, I had the opportunity to take out Charlie Kirk and I'm going to take it. Police found a photograph of this note. Now, stepping out, that was another thing where, you know, people were trying to poke holes on this. And there was some wording that like, there was a note and it was reconstructed. Was like some of the language on there. And people on the left took the opportunity to say, reconstruct, that doesn't make any sense. What a, what a inconsistency. We've got a, there is a note, but you don't actually have it, but you've reconstructed it. How can we take your word? Well, it seems as though the roommate took a picture of the note

0:28:11 Thomas: And maybe threw away the original note. That seems plausible to me, honestly. Then that's getting rid of something incriminating, but still having a picture OF it. I don't know. That seems reasonable to me. And it also just, again, if you're going to make something up, it's a weird way to make something up. Okay, back to it. The following text exchange then took place. After reading the note, the roommate responded, what, with a million question marks, you're joking, right? Robinson, I am still okay, my love, but I am stuck in Orem for a little while longer yet. Shouldn't be long until I can come home, but gotta grab my rifle still. To be honest, I had hoped to keep this secret till I died of old age. I'm sorry to involve you. Roommate. You weren't the one who did it, right? I am. I'm sorry. Roommate. I thought they caught the person. Robinson. No, they grabbed some crazy old dude, then interrogated someone in similar clothing. I had planned to grab my rifle from my drop point shortly after, but most of that side of town got locked down. It's quiet, almost enough to get out, but there's one vehicle lingering. So pausing here. Yeah. I mean, this is, this are odd texts. I am not going to gaslight anyone one otherwise I get why people are like this reads very weird it does read very weird here's the thing people are weird people who shoot people and kill them are weird you know like in in this manner this doesn't happen that often this is important there's a point I wanted to make assassinations like this are very like in the scheme of things like when you think about how gun happy we are and how politically divided we are it's crazy that it's not more frequent and And the ones that happen, those are going to be some people who are not normal, let's just say. Just definitionally, they're going to Be not normal in some way. In some way, I don't know what that'll be. I'm not even putting value judgments on anything here. Um but like they're going to be like I'm just trying to think of like again I don't want to put like I don' t want to stigmatize anything but they're they're not going to be like everyone else probably because it's like they've done a very horrifying thing they've done a ver I almost said exceptional I don''t mean that in a in a like a good way I mean that like it's just abnormal they've done a very very abnormal thing a socially unacceptable thing to say the least a criminal thing a thing that might get the death penalty, there are going to be somebody who is capable of doing that. And combine that with, this is a 22 -year -old Mormon, no offense, my ex -mo's in the crowd, but Mormons can be weird. I'm going to go ahead and say it. Mormons Can Be a Little Weird. Don't know if this person's still a Mormon or not, not actually sure, or if they ever, like, I don't know anything about that. I think the Mormon, I'm pretty sure the family is Mormon. I haven't, don't quote me on that .I haven't checked it for sure, but like going with the numbers there. And, you know, there's some, there're some things about that community that I find different to say the least. So there's like reasons what, like, here's the thing. These seem weird, but for many, many reasons, it would be insane for these to be made up and they aren't, they aren'T made up. I mean, here'S what I will say to jump the gun a little, so to speak. It'S It's possible they could be misleading in a certain way, but there's absolutely near zero chance. I'm, I'll just say fucking zero. There's zero chance these are made up for reasons we'll talk about. First one is not even the best reason, but the first reason is, yes, they seem weird, but people are weird. And these are like intimate conversations that we don't normally, we don'T normally have access to people's conversations like these. Least of all 22 year old Mormons who just assassinated Charlie Kirk. Like, I don't know what kind of person that is. I just don't know. And so them being weird might be expected. Let's keep going here though. There's more reasons to know that these are not made up. So why, roommate says, Robinson, why did I do it? Roommate, yeah. Robinson, I had enough of his hatred. Some hate can't be negotiated out. If I am able to grab my rifle unseen, I will have left no evidence. Going to attempt to retrieve it again. Hopefully they have moved on. I haven't seen anything about them finding it. And then there's a dot, dot, dot. Was that ellipsis or whatever? I forget, but that means that there's some missing messages. And that's, to put a pin in that, that's where things could potentially be slightly misleading. I'm not sure ultimately they are, because I think there's too much here telling us otherwise, but you never know. There's no way the texts are made up, but I could would at least fathom of them being presented in a misleading way based on selective, you know, what they're giving us and all that. So after that, dot, dot. Roommate says, how long have you been planning this? Robinson says, a bit over a week, I believe. I can get close to it, but there's a squad car parked right by it. I think they already swept that spot, but I don't want to chance it. Robinson, then dot, do dot again. So who knows what's there? Robinson, I'm wishing I had circled back and grabbed it as soon as I got to my vehicle. Robinson, I'm worried, it's a pin in that, I'M WORRIED WHAT MY OLD MAN WOULD DO IF I DIDN'T BRING BACK GRANDPA'S RIFLE, I D E K, it maybe means IDK, I assume, I D E K, IF IT HAD A SERIAL NUMBER BUT IT WOULDN'T TRACE TO ME, I WORRY ABOUT PRINTS, I HAD TO LEAVE IT IN A BUSH WHERE I CHANGED OUTFITS, I DIDN'T HAVE THE ABILITY OR TIME TO BRING IT WITH, dot dot dot, I don't, again, now I don t know if these dot dot dots are like in the message or if that means there's a bunch missing I actually don't know I think that means there's stuff missing because there's a period then a dot dot dot I might have to abandon it and hope they don't find prints how the fuck will I explain losing it to my old man dot dot only thing I left was the rifle wrapped in a towel dot dot and uh let's pause there because man there's there's the next thing is a lot too so yeah that language is crazy to me like I I get why people are like these aren't real because this is very, I'm saying my old man is the weirdest fucking thing to me, but is it the weirdest thing to a 20 year old, 22 year old Mormon dude who would shoot trial clerk? I don't know. I don'T actually know .I feel like that kind of weird old timey language is kind of their thing. I know their religion is stuck in the 1800s. Maybe, maybe the language is too. Yeah. My old man. And then people really caught, uh, clinged on to vehicle. As soon as I get back to to my vehicle. It is weird. It is weird, not the least of which if you're talking to this, this is weird I'm not gonna lie it's weird. There's still a part of me that wonders again this is not made up so take that for what it's worth because if it's not made up then vehicle is vehicle and that's what they said and it's hard to imagine that the ellipses the dot dot dots is gonna affect that word choice but if these people are in a relationship and I mean we We already had the text that was like my love kind of thing. If, if Tyler Robinson was in a relationship with some, with this trans roommate who he lived with saying my vehicle is so fucking weird. Wouldn't you say like, yeah, back to the car. Do they not like, I don't know, drive together frequently. Is that not something they do just seem, I can't imagine saying my vehicle that's, that's fucking weird unless I don'T know, maybe, maybe Robinson used a car that wasn't his or something. Something maybe that's why he said that um so weird not gonna say it's not weird but relative to the other probabilities we've got going on that I haven't even you know gotten into all of it's just impossible to believe that someone would make because even if someone was making this up that's a weird way to do it like my vehicle I mean I guess you want to say people want to stay like oh that's like cop speak you know but I I don't know I I think if if you're were going to engage in this level of conspiracy, which this would be insane to try to make up texts of the killer and put them in the charging document. I think you'd try a little harder than that, but it's weird. Not going to say it's not weird. I cannot imagine that being how I would communicate that. Here's another thing. What mental state is this person in? Forget like the fact that, you know, their baseline mental state, if they did this assassination, but right now when when they might be caught, when they're, you know, we're like, what kind of mental state is this person in? Put all those things together with a Mormon -ness, possibly the Utah -ness and the culture going on here. Who knows? There's also something in there that I think is the most under -recognized part of this. I'm going to come back to it, but just flagging. There's something in that last paragraph I read that I really think explains a lot. And I haven't really seen too many many people make this observation. Maybe I'm wrong. I don't know. I also don't listen to a lot of mainstream stuff. So anyway, pin in that. Now here's a key part. Remember how I was engraving bullets. Man, this, even as I'm reading this, I really, I struggle. I struggle with, there's a part of me that's like, how is this all so convenient? How did this all come together to to be that 1%, be that snake eyes in terms of the percentages of these facts, but ending up being a left motive in at least a key way. But I mean, again, I think I got this wrong for the right reasons. Cause like, this is crazy. This is fucking crazy. Here we go. Remember how I was engraving bullets. The fucking messages are mostly a big meme. If I see quote notices bulge on Fox Fox News, while it says on Fox News, I might have a stroke. All right, I'm going to have to leave it. That really fucking sucks. And that means they're leaving the rifle. Judging from today, I'd say grandpa's gun does just fine IDK. I think that was a 2K scope and then some sort of face thing with the punctuation that I don't, I never did those. I don'T know what it is. So that, that's That's crazy. I don't, this is just, I, it's so hard. So this is like, remember how I was engraving bullets. So that means the person who's my love, the person whose, who they're in a relationship with, who they live with, from what I understand, is saying, remember when, how I was engraving bullets.

0:39:07 Thomas: Like that wouldn't have been a conversation. I mean, I mean again, maybe this is just gun people stuff. I'm not a gun person, but boy, that is weird. Hey, remember I was engraving bullets? Yeah. Yeah.

0:39:21 Thomas: You know, like that wouldn't have already been a conversation, you know, or that would, man, I don't know. I am actually struggling with this in real time. Are these fucking real? I don' t know. But they're also too weird to not be. They're too weird to not be real. That's the thing about being weird. I don't even know how you could make up something this weird. And so all together, like it's more likely that someone's just weird who committed a murder than that someone made stuff up in this exact way. But it, but it really is. Again, I stand by my prediction that this person was on the right or nihilist because this is what had to be in the facts. This is what I had to do. Had to be, had to have had to, had had to. And I had, I had had, had, and I had the right to be in the text for my assumption to be wrong was fucking this, whatever this is. It's crazy. I I don't know what this is. The fucking messages are mostly a big meme, mostly a big meme. So I don'T know, are the fucking kids in their music these days? Are they, they just like write memes, but not like, okay, I get the writing the memes for the nihilistic killing for the, for that, for the glory of fortune. I actually, I at least fathom what's happening there. I like, I like. I grasp what is being done. The just, hey, it's bullet carving night. Night it's bullet engraving night and I I'm not you're not involved a lover roommate you're not involved but you at least know you can remember that I did it and that only I did it remember how I was engraving but it wasn't something we were doing together we weren't engraving bullets like decorating easter eggs together this was just like hey one one night I was ingraving bullets and you're like oh weird but didn't didn't poke too much more into it I I guess. And then remember I was engraving bullets. I was just doing memes. Why? Fucking, I don't know. They weren't, that's, this is what's crazy. I'm talking myself into conspiracy theory here, actually. Not really, but like, God, who were these for? Who were these memes for? If you're telling your lover roommate, remember how I was ingraving bullets, the fucking messages are mostly a big meme. I think, okay, here's what makes the most sense. There's a level of conspiracy theory that is more plausible. I still don't know that I would say I would still would not say that I believe this per se, but it's tempting to believe that this is a Walter White Schuyler situation and that this This is a person who knows he's going to get caught talking to someone who knew about it and really trying to clear their name that I'm tempted to say that that's maybe more plausible just with how, remember how I was engraving bull. I fucking what? I just don't know.

0:42:15 Thomas: It really, it would explain a lot. Again, it's just hard to know now because we have, we do not have access to this person's brain. I mean, we do not have a baseline for comparison for so much of this. What is a shooter like this think? How do they normally talk? How does a person like this who's not a shooter normally talk as a 22 year old white dude gun nut in Utah, possibly Mormon or ex -Mormon who is dating a trans person talk like it's just we don't have any baseline. And then how would they talk when they are trying to, to, uh, to what I say, Walter White Schuyler, their roommate, you know, it's like, it'S hard. Like it's, it's hard to be confident in any serious way about this stuff and absent real confidence in a conspiracy theory of any kind, you know, usually want to default to like, okay, well, this is as presented, but this is fucking weird. I don't know. I don' know. It being like, hey, you didn't have anything to do with this. You know how you didn't know about any of this? I don't know. But it's also, that also would take a level of coordination that seems weird. Weird like that would mean that the roommate was at risk of being pointed to as a collaborator and Robinson somebody who doesn't seem like a great criminal like in terms of just pulling stuff off seems wildly overcommon it has the wherewithal to before he's caught send these messages and then the roommate also I guess would have to be in on it in that theory the roommate mate would have to be like playing along and this right now is the only evidence at least that we're seeing I mean maybe there's other evidence but that would that would require this Robinson shooter who thinks he's gonna get away with it if he could just get rid of that gun or grab the gun that requires them to think oh no they're gonna find proof that my roommate lover was in on it So I need to send these texts to frame it that they weren't in on it.

0:44:23 Thomas: Even that doesn't make sense. Like, this doesn't makes fucking sense. Once again, it's weird. No getting around it. Remember how I was engraving bullets. And I don't really get it. The fucking messages are mostly a meme. If I see noses bulging on Fox News, I might have a stroke. I don't even know what that means. Like, what is that?

0:44:45 Thomas: That would suggest that I'm going to have a stroke because they're not saying like, oh, it'll be so funny. I don't think unless they're saying it's a stroke of laughter. But I mean, that's not something that I know about. But we're so out in the territory of what the fuck is any of this? It's hard to know. But this is a 22 year old kid. And I guess if they did this in a immature 22 year old gamer way of like, Like, LOL, here's some memes. And then they're like, oh, my God, didn't even remember I put those on the bullets. You know, that's what it reads to me. And is that how it's reading to you, everybody, that the explanation is the engraving bullets was not connected to the killing? That's how I read this. I'm not saying I 100 % read it that way, but I'm like 65, 35.

0:45:39 Thomas: Because that this doesn't sound intentional. Like if it were hey remember how I was engraving these bullets lol it's going to be funny what they make of them like because that like if the intention was after I kill somebody the authorities are going to see these memes the the only way someone does that is in the haha trolling sense or in a genuine political sense like if they just was a coherent political message so that's neither of this so that this has to read to me as oh I was just fucking around on bullet engraving night you know it's Wednesday whatever and whoops those bullets that I put random memes on for nobody for not you because you don't you aren't in on this apparently roommate lover but maybe for another room it was I saw something that maybe he had roommates I don't know or or if there's somebody else he was doing that for maybe maybe the roommate trans roommate is not a big gun person and so maybe I don't know it's just fucking weird anyway I'll move on but god damn this is weird then we get an ellipsis then robinson delete this exchange my dad wants photos of the rifle ellipses he says grandpa wants to know who has what the feds released a photo of of the rifle. And it is very unique. He's calling me RN, not answering. Ellipsis or ellipses. I'm sorry. I don't know what ellipsis maybe ellipsus. Who cares? Anyway, then there's one that now this is where if you weren't suspicious before, I get why you might be suspicious. I am suspicious that at least this is being selectively presented. Robinson, since Trump got into office, bracket Hackett, my dad, which we can assume it's his name, his dad's name that he's saying, has been pretty diehard MAGA.

0:47:37 Thomas: And then back to ellipsis. Now, assuming this is presented in order, which maybe it's not, maybe this is one random poll quote. We don't have any times or dates. Maybe the authorities grabbed this one message from God knows when and stuck it in right here. But I mean, it's weird because everything is presented in what seems to be clearly timeline order like why is he saying since trump got into office my dad in brackets has been pretty diehard maga what like what conversation is that what does that have to do what would the roommate have said that led it's just man a lot of unknowns I'm sure there's some explanation but that's weird it feels it feels a bit artificial like they're trying to get something in there to to separate him from maga like if his dad is maga then he's not you you know, if he's saying that about his dad, I don't know. So we'll see. Then back again after ellipsis, Robinson, I'm going to turn myself in willingly. One of my neighbors here is a deputy for the sheriff. Robinson, you are all I worry about love. Roommate, I much more worried about you. Robinson don't talk to the media, please don't take any interviews or make any comments. If any police ask you questions ask for a lawyer and stay silent oh okay boy

0:49:08 Thomas: I sure have a lot of questions I mean let's okay but here's the thing god I have so much to talk about I'm almost done with an episode length and I like one percent through the stuff I want okay um there's just no fucking way these texts are made up there's not I'm gonna go ahead and assume most of my My audience will also be pretty law literate because of opening arguments and such, but there's just no fucking way. I mean, you make up texts like this to put in a charging document about this and that person is walking like there's, there is no way that you're going to risk manufacturing evidence in a case like this, just to try to point to not even very effectively, by by the way, because that's, that's the thing you always have to keep in mind. If people are going to make something up, it's like, yes, they're going to try to make it not seem made up. Sure. But like, it'S also going to serve the purpose better than this shit, whatever this is does. I mean, for the authorities to make this up now, I still hold out some amount of like, maybe Robinson is saying this for the benefit of like the roommate. Maybe even that is so weird, but point is, the FBI, the local authorities, they are not manufacturing texts that then think of all the entities involved, the prosecutor, that everybody like everybody's eyeballs are on this charging document to like you're not doing that. There's no way anyone is manufacturing evidence in that way and then risking that the killer just walks because it's easy to prove. I mean, you obviously the cell phone and the all that stuff's going to have to be authenticated before it's presented or as it's present in trial. Like you're just there's just no fucking way that this is made up.

0:51:02 Thomas: So what the fuck is this? So many questions. I still hold out that maybe the texts are being presented in a way that is selective enough to mislead us, but not enough to matter in terms of the evidence for the case. Um, because I think you could argue in front of a judge that this is all presented in a way to give information to the public. It's not really relevant to like, was this person, the shooter, you know, assuming they didn't manufacture anything whatsoever in terms of that. And it's just selective editing a little bit in terms of giving us information that makes us more likely to believe this person's on the left. And it doesn't at all affect like the evidence for if this person is the murderer, like maybe even that's going to have some some risk. But I can at least see that as like more plausible, especially with all the ellipses and whatever the hell is going on there, especially for the Trump, the MAGA one that it's out of nowhere. So I'll leave some room open for that. But there is just no way. Way. There is just no frigging way that they made up these texts. I think you know that. I think most of you know, that legally speaking, there's just no way having said that, boy, I can't make heads or tails of some of this. I wish we knew more. I Wish we had more texts. I would like, here's one of my biggest issues. If this was Tyler Robinson doing this for let, We'll say at least left-wing motives or a left-wing motive. Like at the very least, we'll say these texts seem to demonstrate, well, we don't get anything linking it to trans rights other than that he has a trans roommate lover.

0:52:54 Thomas: All we get is too much hate. That's all we get. And again, that's so fucking weird. That is so weird. Someone who is this radicalized in a way usually can't shut the fuck up about what they want to accomplish usually or again they're a nihilistic 4chan shit poster and that's a different thing but I could at least have a category in my brain for that this is fucking crazy man it's fucking crazy so I will say this I think there's still a chance that this could be not a right -wing motive I'll tell you why. Here's my biggest thought.

0:53:36 Thomas: We're all assuming this is because Charlie Kirk hated trans people because this is a trans roommate lover. But then for the roommate to say, why did you do it? Is that fucking weird? Isn't that weird? Wouldn't it be like okay why did you do it in terms of like we all know this guy sucked and like assuming we're lefties or at least we're we're very like not big fans of his anti -trans views hey I get that like yeah if if if we had our druthers charlie kirk would be dead but why like come on why did he throw everything away for this or why did she pretend like that that kind of thing. But for him to say, why did you do it? Why? Okay, let's go through the correct quotes here. Roommate says, why? Robinson says, Why did I do it roommate? Yeah. Robinson, I had enough of his hatred. Some hate can't be negotiated out. God, that is fucking weird. I, man, I don't know. I like I think we're gonna find out something more. I don'T think these are made up. Don't get get me wrong I don't don't think these are made up but I don' t there's there's got to be something because like again in a world where this guy who was maga was right wing at least seemingly all his life until sort of lately when he was coming to terms with maybe I don'T know if he's I've seen people say bisexual I DON'T know IF it would be that or just you know being in a relationship with a trans roommate like what how he would look at himself how robinson that is the shooter would look at himself but safe to say regardless not compatible with his parents politics and the politics of the people around him probably of the community of the of whatever's mormon upbringing probably so if we're to believe this is a killing because this person is not just like oh they've they're they're right wing but they've kind of you know thought differently about lgbtq issues but to the point where they're going to murder somebody because they're anti -trans and then their trans roommate lover asks and they say, ah, I had enough of his hatred. Some hate can't be negotiated out. What? That's fucking wild to me. It wouldn't be like, I look, he, he the things he said were so hateful toward you that I couldn't take it anymore. You know, like not bring like, I just, there's, I, this is fucking crazy. I don't know what this is. I, I don't know. Know I still struggle with the motivations here why would that be what he says to his trans roommate lover I had enough of his hatred some hate can't be negotiated out anyway if I were to grab my rifle unseen I will have left no what so I don't I guess I'm saying and I'm I am grappling with this as I review the evidence for the fifth time like I I thought I knew what I was going to say but I I'm being thrown for a loop even in real time here because like I just don't understand I I don't understand if this is because of Kirk's anti -trans views, how this is how Robinson responds to his trans lover roommate in this moment of, why did you do it? I just don't, I just, no way. I don'T get it. I donT get it, what, what else? Then there's ellipsis right after that. What are we missing there? Is there something else? Is there some, does the roommate ask him, hey, what do you mean by his hatred? And he says, oh, I'm a groiper. I don't know. I just like I don'T. There could be something because it's just so weird for that to be all have the only thing we have. The only thing We have is had enough of his hatred. That's it.

0:57:30 Thomas: And the memes. Memes, but if we're to believe that I had enough of his hatred, we also would have to believe that the memes are just a meme. So we don't really have that. That's nothing.

0:57:42 Thomas: And we have the trans roommate lover, but.

0:57:46 Thomas: If this is how he's responding to the trans roommate lover when he killed someone for anti -trans views, like that seems crazy to me. So I don't know. I don'T know if this is, I'll tell you this.

0:58:00 Thomas: We still, for sure, Sure. Even taking all of this at face value, we do not have proof that this is a leftist of any kind. This could be someone who would change their mind about one thing and one thing only. And that is they want to, you know, be in a relationship with a trans person. And I know plenty of far right pieces of shit who conveniently have the one compassionate on the one thing that affects them or someone they love, that's very common. So I still, like, I still think it's premature to count this as a leftist. Now, I will say, admittedly, having enough of Charlie Kirk's hatred certainly does suggest someone who at least has a problem with Charlie Kirk's hateful views and if not trans stuff, name something else. I don't know. Hating women, hating black people, hating immigrants, whoever Charlie Kirk was hating that that pissed Robinson off.

0:59:04 Thomas: But that's it. I mean, that's the best you could say is that that they had a view that was diametrically opposed from Kirk's in that one thing. But there's no, like, this is not a Bernie supporter. This is not an AOC support. There's nothing else. There is nothing else in this whole thing. Maybe we will see more. Maybe we will more stuff, but there is nothing else. Well, shit, I'm out of time. I wish I could just go long, but I just, because of workload, I can't do that. I can barely, obviously, as you know, barely keep up as it is, much less if I do long stuff. So, I think I'm going to have to, I am just going gonna start recording another one after this um and just get this one out to you but as a teaser for next episode I've done some research into what we have on tyler robinson it's not much but it I I have an explanation and it relates back to that thing I teased as in that one paragraph and as further teaser it's that paragraph I had enough of his hatred some hate can't be negotiated I already read that, I guess. If I am able to grab my rifle unseen, I will have left no evidence. Going to attempt to retrieve it again. Hopefully they have moved on. I haven't seen anything about them finding it. I think there's something there. And then also there's footage. I don't know if you've seen this. I actually only just found this tonight. Night. There's footage of Robinson after a car accident in 2022. And it's about five, six minutes of getting to hear him talk in that scenario. And I know that's grasping at straws a bit, but that's all we have. And actually, it's interesting. To say the very least, it's fucking interesting. This whole thing is very interesting in many different ways, many dark ways, but just like mind blowing ways. But it paints a bit of a picture of him. And then there's also a Clippenstein. That guy has done reporting on the discord server and talk to people in the discord sever. There's stuff there, but it's also not what you would think. And I got to talk about it and I'm out of time. So I'm going to do it in another episode right away. But thank you for listening. I hope you enjoyed, you know, trying to make sense of this together. Um, what the fuck? I just, what is happening? Oh, anyway, rest in peace. My King, Charlie Kirk, he was a hero. He was doing politics the right way. He Was just pranking you. I can't believe that I haven't even gotten close to that part of what I want to talk about, which is the Ezra Klein approach and the Charlie Kirk doing politics, the right thing. Which is fucking absurd that we'll see if I can get to that, but thanks for listening. If you got this far. I really appreciate you listening, appreciate your support. And I feel like there's something more here. There's something more. I don't know what it is. It's not that someone made up these messages. It'S not that. But there's something there's Something going on. All right, I want to talk more about it next episode. See you then.