SIO492: How Radicalized Was Kirk's Killer, Really?

Transcript

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

0:00:11 Thomas: Hello and welcome to Serious Inquiries Only. This is episode 492. I am Thomas Smith and this is the follow-up to the previous Charlie Kirk episode and I guess it's more about Charlie Kirk's shooter now that I think about it. That and I suppose information, misinformation, and just how do we know what we know or not know. And it continues to get more interesting actually. I know by now there's been another shooting. I guess I wouldn't say it's like more significant just because it didn't involve, uh, you know, some, I was going to say celebrity. I don't know. It was Charlie Kirk, a celebrity, but a notorious person, but the shooting on the ice facility in which there seems to be bullet casings that said one said anti ice, uh which seems absurd, absolutely absurd. But, uh that'll be that'll, be for another show sometime down the the line. I want to finish up a lot of the thoughts I had on Charlie Kirk shooter. And there's been some interesting stuff, had some interesting exchanges with some of you in the Facebook group. That's where there's woke, there's serious inquiries only is the name of that. If you haven't joined that and that, I mean, that led to some more thoughts. It also led to me figuring something out, putting something together that I hadn't, which I think allows me to be pretty confident in a conclusion about the memes. I also teased that one paragraph where he mentioned that he would get away with it if he could clear the rifle. That's actually very significant and something else I want to talk about. But yeah, I mean, there's so much. I, I also haven't even gotten a chance to talk much about the whole stupid discourse around, you know, is violence What's the problem with what's causing this political violence? What do we do? Who do we point the finger at? All that kind of thing. And also, I have serious points to make that I don't know if they still need to be made or maybe they always need to being made about like, what is violence? Because I'm a firm believer that words can, in fact, be violence. And words can do actually, especially in today's environment where your words can be spread far and wide instantaneously, words are capable of more violence than ever before and are responsible for actual deaths. Deaths. Words are responsible for actual deaths probably every day. And I don't know why we view it as such a clean cut thing, a clean -cut distinction between words and violence. And I almost don't even know if I can get to that today because that's another whole thing. And I want to think about that and I want talk about that. Well,

0:02:58 Thomas: I'm going to stop myself from getting into it. We'll go to the commercial break here, the first break, which you can avoid at patreon.com/seriouspod. You don't have to hear the ads and you support the show. And then we'll get to it. There's also to do more teaser. I'm going to talk about the Ken Klippenstein reporting on the Discord server. I think that's pretty interesting, but there's a lot here, a lot to get to. Thanks so much for giving this one a listen and I'll see you after this break.

0:03:36 Thomas: All right, where to begin? Well, from speaking to some of you on Facebook, I gather that like people, I think people have made a lot of assumptions about what we know about Tyler Robinson just based on I think people are fitting him into kind of the boxes that they already know about and already have and so I've seen a number of things like okay so to recap last episode slightly I find the messages to be very confusing but obviously not fake for the reason that for many reasons but they're just just, they're not fake. There's no way that level of conspiracy would make sense. I covered that already. Considering they're NotFake, I do struggle with them, especially, specifically, the idea that if Tyler's motive, if the shooter's motive was because Charlie Kirk, well, I'll just, again, I'm going to read the quote. I had enough of his hatred. Some hate can't be negotiated out. That's all we have that's literally it that is the sum total of everything all anything we have from the shooter on his motive and so I said that is incompatible with this being a nihilist killing someone for the for the lulz that is absolutely incompatable with that and I also found it so confusing and the reason I was so confident this would be someone on the on the the right or a nihilist was, was the memes, the memes on the shell casings, because I, I just don't, I cannot understand why anyone on the left would be putting those memes that, uh, by the way are kind of homophobic. I know it's just jokes or memes or whatever, but yeah, I mean, they're a little bit homophobic. Um, and I just don't know anyone who's like a super leftist who also would do that in a super leftist motivated killing. That's why it seemed more nihilistic to me or some far-right nonsense. So first thing to say that's interesting is I had a few people, including Jenessa over on OA, who I love and who comes on the show, say that they just interpreted the I'll have a stroke part, the if I see notices bulge uwu on Fox News, I might have a stroke. People are saying they interpreted that as laughter. I even mentioned like, I Yes, it could. Like that's potentially an interpretation. But I really think what's happening there, honestly, and I I'm sure people might disagree. I think people are fitting it in that they would think he's going to laugh at this first and then therefore interpret the stroke as laughter. Because I just, look, I grant that people have different ways of saying something, but there's nothing in any of this sentence at all that indicates laughter. Like I get, you might say, oh, I'm going to have a heart attack and die from laughing because we associate laughing with you can't breathe. You know, it's like a common expression to die. You don't associate laughing with a stroke at all. It's not something, there is no association there. And I know I'm getting into these, like trying to pick apart these specific words, but I, I'm trying to find a way to evaluate this. I just searched Twitter, I guess, for quote, I might have a stroke. And I did the dates before this to just set the cutoff date, like before this. And there are no uses where it means funny. It means laughing, except a couple where they say I might have a stroke from laughing. It's mostly associated with like uncanniness or anger. Like, I can't believe this. If I have one more person telling me this, I'm going to have a stroke. I'm gonna have a strike. Like I just, I know it's a weird small thing, but it's just one of those, it's, I just find it interesting how we all have. And I granted, we all have different associations and it might be an area thing. Like it might be, you know, among whoever people's social circles are, maybe they say it differently, but again, fully granted that But if the thing were already funny and laughing was already happening and someone said, I might have a stroke, then sure. If they said I might have stroke from laughing or from whatever, sure. But there's none of that. There literally is just, if I see this on Fox News, I might Have a Stroke, which to me, it's just about the difference in the uncanniness there. And I think people are putting in the assumption that this shooter would find it funny first and then having that color how they interpret I have a stroke, but that's just my theory. And the only reason this is important is because, again, this is in a conversation where I think people are fitting this into their picture using assumptions. And I know we all do that. I'm really trying to clear my head of these assumptions and figure out who this guy is. And, uh, I want to see see how best I can do that. And as I read, remember how I was engraving bullets. The fucking messages are mostly a big meme. If I see notices bulge, ooh, on Fox new, I might have a stroke. I know it says Fox. I'll just start saying Fox news, but the typo was Fox new on Fox news. I might've a stroke. All right. I'm going to have to leave it. There's something about the conversation that didn't fit with like, people are trying to say, oh yeah, they're just, they, they're gonna, that, that means they put the memes. That means the shooter put the memes on there. It's a big joke. And then they're going to laugh when they see it on Fox News. And I just do not think that's the correct interpretation. And in getting into that, there's sort of this disagreement about what I might have a stroke means. But then I realized I put something together, which was bothering me about this. And I think which was why subconsciously I was interpreting it in a certain way. When you put it in the context of what he's saying, and I went and checked to be sure, the bullet casings were recovered with the gun. In this part of the conversation, he is talking about how he needs to go get the gun, he says that that's the last piece of evidence in his mind, he's wrong obviously, but that's in his mind the last beast of evidence left. He literally says, if I am able to grab my rifle unseen, I will have left no evidence, and that's this whole conversation, He's talking about, how he He needs to go back and get it. So this is not someone who intended to leave these bullet casings as evidence. So everyone's saying that that's the intention is wrong. That's why I said it reads as though the bullet engravings or whatever are incidental. They're like an accident. So, no, I don't think he's saying I might have a stroke as in he's going to laugh about it. This isn't it. He's saying, I need to get this or else they're going to recover this and they're going to see these bullet basings. And then he says, remember how I was engraving bullets. The fucking messages are mostly a big meme. If I see notices, bulgy woo on Fox news, I might have a stroke. And then He says, all right, I'm going to have to leave it. That really fucking sucks. Now, obviously that's about the fact that he doesn't want to leave evidence, but once again, it goes to show that he's not trying to have these memes be seen. And that was the whole reason why this was to my mind, just crazy. Like it was, I was so, I wasn't, I didn't know what to do. I was 90 % certain. I think I told someone probably 90 % certain that this was either a far-right person or a nihilist person, because I just did not think if you're putting that, those memes on your bullet casings and you're intending for people to find it, unless you are trying to throw people off the scent or do something like that, I just do not see that compatible with the leftist motive was the point I was making. And again, I said 90 % didn't say a hundred, but now when I see this, this explains why why I feel like this was a snake eyes, because this is just a, like a coincidence. I think that this 22 year old kid was doing what I guess sometimes 22 year olds dudes might do, or maybe even like immature for his age dudes might due, which is he has a hobby. He has a thing he really likes, which has guns. It seems to be a gun person, very much a gun. Has a thing. He likes, he has another thing he likes, hell divers too. And he's like, Oh, I'm going to write the thing I like on the thing I like, you know, like not connected to, I'm going to also do a high profile murder, which was so out of the realm of possibility to my mind that I just didn't, I never would have thought that. And it just goes to show the fallibility that we all have in trying to interpret the mysterious inner workings of other human beings. It's always going to be hard. It is hard to be certain about anything, but I thought this was a bit, for me, it was a bit of a revelation to put together like, oh yeah, he's talking about this in the context of, uh -oh, I need to get this gun, otherwise they're going to see these bullet engravings. Well, otherwise, they're gonna have evidence, and also they're Gonna See These Bullet Engravings is kind of the thought there, which to me, I think definitively, pretty, as definitively as we can be, I thinks shows that this was not an intended message. These bullet casings, these memes, were not an extended message connected to the killing. OK, now we also have some people and I believe the people I'm seeing who are saying this, I believe it's connected to neurodiversity, possibly, you know, like autism mainly. People are saying to them, these texts come across as totally normal. I'm seen some people saying that and it seems to be tied to that. Like this might be a neurodivergent way of speaking. I'm not going to speak to that, I'm just representing what I've seen. And that, that might be, that might be true. That could, I could see that being a possibility if you're trying to explain why these texts seem very weird to a lot of people, but then to some people not very weird. Neurodivergence could be an explanation there. I think there's, I think it's over -determined why these might be weird. There's plenty of, there's an abundance of reasons why these might be word. I already said it, it's somebody who just killed a guy, by the way. It's somebody we know who would do something like this and there aren't very many people actually who would do something like this. We know this is going to be a unique person. This is somebody who's on the run currently. This Is somebody who is in a hyper conservative area and is dating a trans person. And you know, like this is somebody Who has all kinds of ways that they are not just blending in with everyone. They are not like everybody else where they are is all I'm saying by that they're, they are, they're unique. This I unique person in many ways, but the thing that that kills me. I'm just going to repeat it because it's the thing I'm stuck on. And I'm just trying to make this clear because it seems like often when I say stuff, I don't know that I'm making my meaning clear enough based on response I'm getting. What I'm most confused about with these messages is the idea that this Tyler person would be dating a trans person and would kill Charlie Kirk, would do an assassination of Charlie Kirk because of Charlie Kirk's anti -trans views. And then the trans partner would ask, why'd you do it? For one, just ask why you do It. Like there wouldn't be some already shared understanding there. Like they wouldn't have spent time talking about this, I guess. They wouldn't Have already, you know, had a shared hatred of Charlie Kirk. Apparently that that's all, that's all weird to me, but they ask why, why did I do It? And he says, I've had enough of his hatred doesn't mention what doesn't doesn't personalize it doesn't make it like hey yeah I mean not to not directly saying like I did this for you but like something akin to that something something that that would acknowledge it's just it's bizarre to me that is bizarre to me there's no personalization in these texts whatsoever there's not there's no like connection to like oh this might be something you did because this person hates an identity group that I'm part of, that's, it's like zero acknowledgement of that in any way to me is odd. I don't get it. Now I am happy. Now that I've, I've tried to make that point more clearly. I want to know if you all agree with that. Like, do you all think that's weird or not? Or does it blend into the weirdness of the texts already? And it's not any more weird than that. I dunno, maybe it is part of the same thing. I Don't know if the same reasons that these these texts are weird would mean someone would just not even mention that when that was their motive. That just seems bizarre to me. I don't know. Again,

0:16:03 Thomas: Unless we have some information wrong. Now I've seen people say, hey, what's the evidence that this roommate was trans? And that's a pretty popular claim online. People saying, hey we don't even, they just said that, we have no proof of that. I tried to track this down and I will say there's no, that I can find find direct hard proof, but there's enough indicators that I think it would be pretty crazy if it were not true. For one, it would Be One Thing if Kash Patel said it, if the cops said it, but Governor Cox, I find to be, obviously I don't, I'm not going to say this guy's 100% reliable, not at all, but I do think that he is actually a degree or seven more reliable than the other actors involved in this, because I think Cox is genuinely coming from a place where in his mind he wants, maybe because he can't conveniently just put this on a far lefty or something or a foreigner, who knows. I think listening to the interview with that guy on Ezra Klein and based on what he's trying to do, I think he is trying to dial things down. He's trying to unite things. And he said pretty matter of factly that the roommate, they have evidence that Tyler Robinson was in a relationship with a roommate and that the roommate was transitioning from male to female, is what Governor Cox said, in no uncertain words in the press conference. And I think that's the kind of thing that's going to be kind of clear. It's also going to be kind of crazy to just make up. I get that we're saying they're trying to link the shooter to to trans people. But at that point, if that many steps away, it'd be like the fabricating that is crazy. You know, like, why wouldn't you just say, oh, the shooter is actually closet trans, you know, which I guess is not impossible. I got that thought that would make the text make a a slight bit more sense if Tyler could have been closeted in some way that and felt then then then the shooter feels that anti-trans hate more personally and which would explain text messages where he's explaining his motives to a trans person he's in a relationship and doesn't mention that at all I mean that that that's a possible explanation that I think could make some sense but I, you know, that this just speculation. So I'm not, I'm not going to say that. The point was, if you were a bad actor trying to link this killing to trans people, doing the roommate instead of just this guy would be a weird way to do that. Um, again, this is under the assumption that the roommate is not trans. I'm saying if the roommate weren't trans, I, I think it would be crazy for them to try to make that up. And if they're willing to make that up, why wouldn't they just make it up about Tyler Robinson? I don't see that that there's any like strong refutation of that theory of a trans identity in Tyler Robinson that would be harder to overcome than the one with the roommate. From what I can tell, there's enough people saying it in enough different places and ways that I think it's something that was pretty apparent and we just don't really have access to like this roommate's social media kind of got taken down right away. Switch to private right away. We don't have a ton of access. Plus in Mormon, Utah, this is not a trans person. Potentially, this isn't a person who's like out and about and just, you know, fearlessly out to the world. So why wouldn't we expect that it might be kind of hard to find like online corroboration of this person being trans? So it doesn't seem that crazy to me that investigators and authorities and the governor who's gotten briefed about that would be able to confidently say yes this person is trans they're transitioning from female like that they maybe they saw a medication maybe they Saw text that maybe saw whatever but it's not stuff that we can easily verify online as sleuths that all fits to me and it's something that so I think we can be reasonably confident that that claim is true then people say how do we know they were actually in a relationship, man.

0:20:25 Thomas: When someone says, I am still okay. My love to a roommate or a, like someone they're not, I don't know. I, once again, I think that's going to be something that is probably pretty clear. If we were there, if we were in the apartment or whatever, if we Were in these text messages, like the authorities are, you know, I Think it's something that would be obvious very quickly. And the roommate is cooperating. Um, it would be pretty pretty crazy to have a cooperative roommate and then be like, well, that said, let's just make up this stuff about them as though that wouldn't instantly come out. Again, if not publicly in the trial, it would instantly come up. And how bad would the police look if they say, yep, this roommate, it's a trans roommate that he's in a relationship with. And then at trial, the roommate's like, I'm neither trans nor in a friendship with him. Like that, that would be devastating. That That would be so devastating that I think you can make a solid argument like, hey, if the police have this wrong, if they're lying about this, can we believe anything? That would jeopardize the case. And look, I bring this up because I think we are getting way too, it's getting way too easy. And I don't think this happens as much on the left. I think it's way more problem on the right and in the Joe Rogan. I think this is a very Joe RogAN thing. I think It's so easy in this day and age to just say, oh yeah, I'll bet they made that up. Oh yeah you can't believe anything they say it's like no I think we I think we really need to be more precise I think we need to be more precise about when someone could be lying and when they couldn't and again just speaking in terms of probabilities we can't be sure about anything but this general feeling that we have that anyone anything could be fake or conspiracy at any time that I really see in the right and the Joe Rogan centrist, I think it's incredibly harmful. And that's why I'm sorry if this is like a little tedious, I don't know. But I just think we have to do better. We have to be more precise. We're losing our grasp on the truth. And it's the thing I care most about. And It's the Thing That Scares Me the Most. And I'm just trying to put out there better reasoning. You know, like we can know things to some degree. We can have confidence in certain things. And we can rule out a lot of it. We might not be able to know the for sure truth all the time, but there are very often things we can roll out to a high degree of certainty. And we just need to do better at that. Like everybody, we need to be better at being skeptics in a real sense, not skeptics and doubt everything, including the obvious stuff and the experts and the everybody saying stuff. There's the hyper -skepticism that actually is conspiratorial thinking the joe rogan like yeah but she can't trust those scientists they'll write anything that's that's not skepticism that's conspiracism but a healthy skepticism that that really digs into why and how and and if something could be made up or not and looking at how quickly the shit would hit the fan if this were made up like how quickly the consequences would hit for the very authorities were accusing of making this up potentially, it would be insane. It just would not, this would, they would not do this. They would not doing this. Think of the entities. Again, think of how many eyeballs are on this evidence. Like, yeah, sure. If Kash Patel is the only one, hey, I'm going to go in the apartment here and analyze everything. No one look but me. But that's not how it works. This is like teams of people, especially with a high profile thing. Like there's going to be a bunch of different people that are going to see this stuff. Stuff and then you're going to be like, okay, shh, I'm just going to say it was a trans person. And you're gonna expect that that's going to fly. Like nobody's going ever leak that. And there's not going to any bad documents in court. There's not gonna be in discovery. There is not going to me any texts, any emails, any anything between two officers being like, oh yeah, by the way, hey, x -nay on the whole, you know, we're just going say this person is trans. That's just not realistic. It's not realistic. Okay. Made that point.

0:24:47 Thomas: So what does explain this? What are some theories that make sense. Again, we can always go to the, well, this is going to be a weird person, just definitionally, because of what they did. And I think that's true. But I want to go at long last to the point I wantto make about that one paragraph. It is mind -blowing, mind -blowing that this kid thought they were going to get away with this. I thinkthat's significant. So, So quickly, let's go back over what that is and then let's talk about it. So first thing he says that is about that is, to be honest, I had hoped to keep this secret till I died of old age. I'm sorry to involve you. Can you imagine?

0:25:33 Thomas: I hoped to Keep This Secret Till I Died of Old Age. So just look at what that says about this person's mind. Look, being 22, 22 is a young age. I can remember being 22. I don't remember being that stupid. I don't know if I was ever that stupid, maybe. We were all that stupid at some point, but not at 22. I'm going to go ahead and say this about myself. I was more realistic than that at 22, that is interesting, that' s, I don'' t know if I would say, is it delusional? I think you could call that kind of delusional, to be honest, like to be able to think, to To plan something for a week and the something you're planning is the murder of a very high profile person who is friends with the president of the United States, who is influential, who helped him get elected, and that you're just going to do that and then just like literally no one will ever know until your deathbed. I think that means this person, I mean, there's a number of explanations. I suppose you could argue they were having a break from reality. We don't have any evidence of that or else this is they're that naive. And they just this this person really thinks like, oh, I've seen enough crime shows or I've played enough Helldivers. I don't know. I'm smart enough that I can pull this off, this perfect crime and get away with it. That is I mean, that's pretty dumb. That's that's very, very dumb. It's very unrealistic. It's Very like inflated. It might be an inflated sense of self there. There's a lot of things this says. And then again, I've already read it, but the, if I am able to grab my rifle unseen, I will have left no evidence. Now, not for nothing. I mean, now that I think about it, like, I guess we can't know in another universe if the authorities were searching, were searching like eventually how they might've been able to catch him. But I suppose if he had been able to get his rifle out and, but for what, I guess it was like the photo of the rifle was huge because, you know, it was unique and the father recognized it and all that. And then I think the mom recognized the, you know, thought the photo might be him, that they have like the still image. And then, you Know, obviously, these texts are incriminating, but in a world where this shooter is never suspected, then the texts don't matter, really, I mean, unless the roommates can turn them in. But, you you know, setting that aside, I guess, I'm, I guess I'm saying how close was he to pulling that off? In some sense, it feels like, oh, not very close to come so fast. In other sense, it's like, eh, I don't know, like how common in our cops, how, I just feel like though in today's digital day and age, I can't imagine that, that even if you did all those things, even if você pensa, ok, ele pega a arma, ele não, ele de alguma forma conseguiu não ter uma imagem clara, talvez ele fez melhor nisso, como de alguma maneira, e talvez ele he never sent those texts because maybe he never thought he, maybe he only sent those texts to the roommate because he thought he was going to get caught and it was sort of imminent. And so you take all that away and it might be like, okay, maybe you could have gotten away with it. But on the other hand, I just think in this day and age, like I'm sure it would have made it harder, but eventually there, there, There'll be some footage of something somewhere. I just, I don't know how realistic that is, but I don'T know. It was just kind of funny to think about for a moment. It felt like he is totally unrealistic and near delusional on that. And at the same time, it does feel like pretty lucky that the authorities got him. So maybe, maybe not, but I don't know. I don' t know. Here' s why I bring this up, though. One thing I haven' t really seen anyone say, and who knows, often I say that and maybe it' l be because it' s a dumb thought, but, I don'' t know, I think this might be insightful here. I think if you actually put yourself in that mindset and you and you think, OK, this is a person who thinks they aren't going to get caught, then it actually changes the calculation a bit. And it does make things click into place, because imagine if I asked you, hey, would you throw your life away to assassinate Charlie Kirk? Kirk. I would imagine pretty much all of you would say no, otherwise he would have been assassinated before that. I think pretty much we're all going to say, no, I'm not going to throw my life away to assassinate Charlie Kirk. Now, if I were to ask everyone listening, would you hit this button where Charlie Kirk would die? No other consequences. I'm going to go ahead and say a lot of people would push that button. I mean, no judgment here.

0:30:27 Thomas: I if you put yourself in the mindset of the shooter who thinks he's going to get away with it, it's maybe closer to that. And it, and it maybe is a different set of motivations because I don't think you have to argue that in order for me to hit the Charlie Kirk dies with no other consequences button. I don'T think you need to argue that I'm a deranged, radicalized terrorist killer. I DON'T. How many people do you think would put, say it's Donald Trump right now, how many of you would throw your life away to assassinate Donald Trump? I'm going to go ahead and say none. Otherwise you would have already tried to do it. How many of you would push a button where Donald Trump just dies, gets struck by lightning, or is just shot, I guess, to keep it the same. I don't know. Just dies, just shot. And there's no consequences. You're never caught. That's going to be many of us. That's going to be many of us. And I think it's important because I think it could maybe explain why we're not seeing the things we expected to see. This is another point I want to make. I think a lot of people are operating under the assumption that this was some way online shit poster guy. I've seen some things to that effect. It's possible that's true, but we have no evidence of that. That's another thing that's been confusing. Like, it's been hard to put this person in a category because I would expect if it's, again, we have been all through this, but if it'S a nihilist killing, there's certain things I expect. I would suspect a manifesto, the memes, the, by the way, the means to be intentional and probably more confusing than they were. I would expect an online presence that would indicate like they're a shit post or they're a nihilist. If this were a leftist motivated killer, I would respect like a manifesto of leftism. I would accept like a declaration of values. I would except, you know, I expect posts that we see where they're, where they are like constantly saying very leftist things. Maybe they're maybe they're getting further and further agitated by the state of politics. You would expect all these signs. People have been forensically dig sleuthing into this. Now, we don't know what the authorities have, but like we do know that the broader Internet has been very dedicatedly just sleuthing into this guy and online presences like aren't that hard to find. And there's none of that. We have none of the one thing we really have right now is from Ken Klippenstein. And I've seen people references. I want to talk about this briefly. Briefly, he interviewed some friends and tracked down who was in this Discord server. Now, this is a funny thing because the olds, the idiots of the media are declaring Discord to be like this terrorist supercell, whatever. They don't know what it is, I think some of them. And people are expecting that this Discord servers going to be this disgusting den of scum and villainy that would lead to something like this. And what I think is really interesting about Ken Klippenstein's reporting here, and it seems pretty good. I don't see any obvious reasons why any of this would be wrong. He seems to have actually talked to this friend group or some people in this friend group and gotten access, not direct access, but gotten some sort of access to the Discord server and on screen, the people did searches for him to see what was in there. And if you don't know about this at all. I think what's really surprising about this is that it's just not political. Now, this is a Discord server that I think is related to gaming, probably. It's like a friend group gaming thing. But what's so interesting about this, is how not political this guy seems to be. Like, there's just nothing. And what's also eerie is the message, Zealous Monkey is the handle of the shooter. And he wrote a message to the Discord saying, saying, hey guys, I have bad news for you all. It was me at UVU yesterday. I'm sorry for all of this. I'm surrendering through a share of friend in a few moments. Thanks for all the good times and laughs. You've all been so amazing. Thank you all for everything. Which is just like, people in the server were like stunned. They're like, I don't, what is happening right now? What a weird, what a weird thing to say. Now, it could always be the case that maybe this kid kept it straight up in this discord but saved his shit posting or saved his politics or saved as whatever his radicalization his his whatever nihilism is anything saved it for some other thing maybe that's always possible we could find that he lived a duplicitous life and was in some other website somewhere saying outrageous things but it's pretty crazy like usually the kind of person that is just a zealot one way or the other is like that to the to the extent where they commit a political act of violence usually can't shut the fuck up about it like they're usually pretty vocal everywhere um you know I I mean you never know you never Know again this could be one weird guy but if it's not if this if this is representative of this shooter it's Not Gonna Be Comprehensive obviously but if this discord server is representative of this shooter's online presence in general which by all accounts it's like concordant with who this person was from the quotes from the friends and stuff then it's this is crazy it's like a person who wasn't very political there's a couple of posts about the election like oh looks like uh biden's gonna win the 2020 election you know just but totally kind of detached for lack lack of a better word like no not really pretty matter of fact I guess about everything and so when the parents claim that oh he's moved left in recent years I think that's them as far right mega people reacting to him maybe slightly softening on queer issues like that that very much could be like I I don't think that means he started handing out antifa flyers at the family family functions or whatever. Like, I think that means one time he was like, well, maybe gay people are okay. And then there's Mormon, you know, far right families, like he's been just moving so far to the left ever since he left home or whatever I think it's, you Know, I'm not saying for sure, but like, I don't think, I Think when people are using that combined with a few of the texts to say this is a leftist killer who's been radicalized to the Left, that's just not true by any, by by anything we see. Now,

0:37:20 Thomas: There's one more interesting thing about the shooter that I teased at the end of last episode, and that is this footage. And again, I just find this fascinating. This footage of Tyler Robinson after a car crash that seems to have been his fault. And he's interacting with a police officer and it's in 2022. And it's actually, let's just go go through some of it it's kind of interesting here that's him oh

0:37:47 Clip: Whose driver you're the driver yeah you tell me just really quick what happened I was coming this way and he's just passing through and he pulled out uh from here or no from there I think what do you remember which lane you were in I was in one of those two lines going this way I think in the right yeah in the rightmost lane coming this way okay and he would have been there going left And as I was coming through, he turned in, and I T-boned into the siren. Okay. Do you remember looking at the light? Yeah. It was, it just turned yellow as I getting into the intersection. Gotcha. Okay, are you, are either one of you injured in any way, shape, or form? No, nothing hurts? Okay, do you have your registration and proof of insurance on your vehicle?

0:38:36 Thomas: And that's it uh by the way censoring address or names or something that that I didn't stop but that's the audio going quiet but I'm taking the opportunity to pause so you know what's funny to me is once again in the differences between people's frameworks of reference so many of the comments were like that is not what I expected that guy to sound like I'm like that's exactly what I expected that kind of sound like A 22 -year -old white Mormon or ex -Mormon kid from Utah. He's got the sunglasses and the hat. That's exactly what that guy sounds like. It really weirdly kind of fit for me. I don't know if it's from growing up with that exact kind of conservative person, conservative gun culture person, but that perfectly fits for me, and you know what's another thing that's funny is so much was made in the text thread about him saying, when I get back to my vehicle and while I do think that's weird to me just in itself using vehicle is not like outside of the realm of possibility of this kind of kid conservative kid Utah kid you know like in that situation it actually it didn't seem too crazy to me except for the fact that he's talking to his roommate lover partner person that is so fucking weird to me that's the only thing that's because that like I guess unless he's driving a car car that's not normal I guess maybe but but like I I don't know people some of the people who said like these texts didn't seem that abnormal to them possibly because of neurodivergence reasons said that also didn't seam abnormal like that might just I I dont know who knows but um the only thing that seemed crazy to me is the fact that he's talking to his roommate if I'm telling lydia about this I'm not saying my vehicle I'm saying like the car our car you know which which which car it is. It's just that, that that's kind of weird to me. But what's funny is in this video, he actually does say vehicle for something. And so I was like, yeah, no, that's that fit with like, that's this kind of person potentially.

0:40:38 Clip: All the way yeah she's gotta be a minute she's gotta shuttle over from where she's at to her car and then drive over gotcha okay what I need you to do is just fill out this witness statement for me this is just your identifying information down here put exactly what you told me that happened uh Do you two, are you brothers or friends? Yeah. Okay, all I need, I just need his, like down here, but let's put name, name, date of birth, your address, and your phone number. That work just right down here? I have to list him as a passenger. Okay, are injured in any way, shape, or form? No? Okay. And we're gonna have a tow truck come and get your car since you're leaking fluids. Yeah. You're not gonna last too long. I had just, just as I left the house, put oil on. Of course. Just top that welcome to real life yeah that's Murphy working all right buddy y'all done yes please did you make any statements to him after the incident happened I said are you all right as we pulled up here I had him check on them okay all right did you make us did you made this a statement saying that it was your fault yeah what's When I got out, I was worried, so I just went out and said, yeah, it wasn't your fault, it was our fault, everything's messed up. But I first went up to him to check on him. Okay. You said that to him? Yeah.

0:41:57 Clip: Okay. Well, what do you mean by that? I think it was just trying not to... Okay, because you guys have a couple different versions about what happened. So we have a third we had a third party witness that watched the entire thing I'm just trying to clarify your guys's story a little bit so you're heading from that rightmost through lane through the intersection okay maybe a second or so before I reached the intersection the light changed yellow okay you remember looking at the light yeah I was looking up at the light just before getting there okay so I shift yellow and as I get into the intersection the There was a vehicle in the lane,

0:41:57 Thomas: This is the brother, by the way,

0:42:37 Clip: Between the left coast through lane that was forward some. So people on the side of you were slowing down to a stop?

0:42:38 Thomas: There's vehicle.

0:42:48 Clip: I had seen someone slowing down and wondered why they had slowed so much. Okay. Why did you think that they were slowing? I'm not sure. Okay. Maybe because the light was turning red? Well, I was close enough to the light that I would be, like, I would end up in the intersection if I had tried to brake from that speed. Okay. I was going the speed limit, I had just made sure. Okay. How long to before, how long were you, how was that? Like, when did you last check your speed?

0:43:25 Clip: Uh, probably back, like maybe halfway down that road to where it curves. All

0:43:35 Thomas: And there's a little more of the mom comes. I've trimmed some of that as you could hear. Uh, what a weird thing. Look, it's, it'S weird to listen to this. This, this is all we have breadcrumbs tiny breadcrumbs I just found this interesting because this guy is really calm during this like excessively calm where he just T-boned somebody and seems to have pretty clearly been at fault and is very calmly lying to an officer about it or at least telling you know the sympathetic version of the story and the only reason I say that kind of confidently is the brother is maybe not like that and the brother's like yeah well I did yeah I did say it was our fault right away and is not like as calm you know and it's not like sweating bullets or anything I can see but it's definitely more uncomfortable the situation look people are different. I get it. But I do think it's interesting looking at this. And I'm just going to give my leading theory right now that could always change. But given the totality of everything, we have someone who we know thinks they're going to get away with this. We have someone who very clearly seems to be a gun person. And from this car accident, I know it's a small thing, but I would make an argument that this demeanor shows someone who's pretty comfortable lying to authority and is not panicking. I just wonder if what really the main ingredient, the main thing going on here, not the only thing, But the main thing is the whiteness of it all, the entitlement, the caucasity of it all, because this just feels like someone who doesn't think they're going to get in trouble for anything. I mean, really, like to think that you were going to kill Charlie Kirk and then not tell anyone until your deathbed and to be able to very calmly lie to the cops in this situation about the, you know, car you just T-boned, it just paints a very interesting picture. Sure. You know, it could be, provisionally speaking, that this person disagreed with Charlie Kirk's hatred. That's all we know. That is all we know. On at least one issue, probably trans issues, to the extent that they thought the world would be better if Kirk were dead, but they didn't want to throw away their life for it. The shooter didn't think he was throwing away his life for it, it seems to be black and white from the text. It seems like he thought he was going to get away with it. It seemed like the combination here might be... So I just think that lowers the threshold of

0:46:43 Thomas: Radicalism that you need to talk about. Once again, going to my button analogy, how radicalized do you need be to say, hey, do you want to throw your life away to go down notoriously and possibly get the death penalty for killing Charlie Kirk? Kirk? The answer to that for most people, 99.999% of people is going to be no. That's going to be most everybody. He's not going to want to throw away their life in that way. It happens sometimes, not that often. And there's a lot of people in the world. There's a lot of in the country. So it only takes a tiny 10th of a percent or whatever. But if the question is, do you think the world would be better without Charlie Kirk? And And furthermore, if you think you can get away with it, would you do it?

0:47:24 Thomas: Still, 99.9% of people are not going to do it. But if you are delusional enough to think you could get away with it and you're this guy who's comfortable with guns and is, you know, that kind of thing, I guess that makes that something that seems like a rational decision for the shooter. And it may, I guess overall, just to repeat for a final time, my central theory in the reason why I'm tying together this kind of weird information is to say that I don't think this person was that radicalized I actually don't think he was and I think that's important because all of the internet pretty much all of not the internet all of media all of our politicians claim he was radicalized and in a sense I suppose it's hard, I mean it's very understandable to say that somebody who committed a political act of violence was radicalized. But I do think it's possible they're missing this. It's possible they are not understanding that maybe he really did think. Now, this is pure speculation, but just looking at if it was about anti -trans hate, maybe Tyler Robinson did think that anti - trans hate was a life and death issue. Is that radical? I don't think so. I think anti -trans hate, anti -trans bigotry, anti trans misinformation, anti trance everything Charlie Kirk was doing. I don't know if I may need to like do another part to make my case for this possibly. But the solution is not me or you or anyone stopping talking about that issue or lying and saying, oh, no, it's not a life and death issue. That's not the solution. The solution is that we need to stop calling out the fascism. The solution is stop the fascism. And if you are doing something like Charlie Kirk was, if you are fomenting hate against many groups, but specifically with regard to trans people, if you are enabling policies that are life and death for trans people that are getting trans children killed, you are doing violence.

0:49:50 Thomas: You just are. And I don't think it's particularly radical to say that the thing Charlie Kirk did, Charlie Kirk's words got people killed. They did a ton of harm. And so I guess my overarching point here is right now, again, subject to the availability of the data we have could change with any more information. But right now, as it looks to me, it might be more about Tyler Robinson thinking he could get away with it than it is about him being radicalized. And that is, I mean, you could say that's a certain kind of radicalization for sure. It takes radicalization, because again, pushing a button isn't like going and physically shooting someone with a gun. So I don't want to make that equivalence. There is a degree to which that's a radical thing to do. It's a violent thing to do, obviously, and not everybody is just capable of killing someone. So I should be very clear about that. But in the spectrum between throwing your life away for a gruesome assassination and pushing a button that maybe somebody might just disappear one day, this is edging over toward that if you think you're going to get away with it, is the only point I want to make. And so I don't know. How radical was he? Pretty, I don't know. We don't have any evidence. No other evidence. No other evidence.

0:51:24 Thomas: Maybe it'll come. Maybe that evidence will come. But maybe this guy was just delusional in thinking he could get away. That's delusional. It's delusion for sure. And certainly it takes some amount of, I dunno what, I'm not a doctor, I am not a psychologist, but it takes something to be able to just kill somebody. I couldn't do it. I mean, absent extreme protecting my family or something like that. I couldn't do it. I wouldn't do a premeditated murder of someone like that; that's I don't know what that takes. I don' t know the science on that but it seems like he has that and it seems more people than you think do have that part even if they' re not out there killing people. People, it does feel to me like some segment of our society, especially, I don't know, among the gun worshipers, they do seem to talk about fantasies of shooting burglars or shooting, like they seem pretty into that. And so in a sense, that's not even particularly radical for the place we are. I could be wrong. How many, what percentage of Americans do you think would, if they wanted to, and I don't mean in self-defense, I think that is a different thing. How many would be willing to proactively kill somebody with a gun to shoot somebody?

0:52:40 Thomas: It's an uncomfortably higher than zero number is all I'll say. I don't know how much that is. I don'T think we're talking anywhere near like half or anything. I just mean like it could be still in the single digits of percentage, but I don't know. You get a lot of gun nuts and they talk at length. People, especially if you look at like whenever there's a story about, you know, pedophilia or something. You get a lot of people who seem to have thought a lot about killing people and talk about how they like to find that excuse to use that kind of gross language. And I don't know, is that all words? Maybe it's all words, but who knows? So the combination of all those things together seems to be what we're looking at here. And this wasn't a radical leftist. And he certainly wasn't tied to the George Soros Foundation for Antifa Terrorism. There's no, they found no connection between those two entities.

0:53:35 Thomas: All right. Well, I think I'll call it there. I think that's enough on Charlie Kirk and Charlie Kirk's shooter. It's more than enough. Wish I had gotten it out to you more timely, but hope you got something out of that. I do have so much more to say. I do think maybe it's been said now. Let me know. Let me know what you think in the comments anywhere. Where there's a lot to say about Ezra Klein's response. There's a little bit of a lot of talk to say, like I alluded to earlier, I have a lot to say about words being violence and not and what I think there's a lot to explore there, but there's also been so much said and written about this. So, I don't know, let me know what you think if it's worth saying more on this or perhaps leaving it for another time. But, as always, thank you so much for listening really truly I love you all please support the show if you can patreon.com/seriouspod I'll see you next time