Transcription
All right, I got to cover this viral video of MAGA commentator Megan Kelly getting into a screaming match with a college student that is not even half her age. Megan Kelly is 54 years old. This dude is maybe 19 or 20. And she begins to go back and forth with him about the topic of political violence, which is of course in the news over the past few weeks and months, ever since Charlie Kirk, even before that. Political violence has been something that has been stewing, bubbling in America for a while, and it is time to address it head-on. I've been using a lot of frameworks to deal with this that we'll walk through throughout this video, but let's just start off with this clip of Megan Kelly versus the college student. Then I want to dig into some super simple facts about how many ideologically motivated killings there have been on each side. So, let's start off here. Make sure you drop a like. Make sure you subscribe to the Adam feed.
"Know why you support a president who contributes to the rhetoric that got your friend Charlie killed? We saw his rally recently. He said, 'I hate my enemies.' He's, he, his, uh, Steven Miller said similar things. How can you support him when he contributed to what got Charlie killed?"
">> Assumes facts, not evidence. What you said is not true."
">> 70% of political violence is committed by Republicans."
">> Okay."
">> Look it up. That's not..."
">> DOJ just pulled it. DOJ. The DOJ just pulled it from their website."
"He is absolutely right. I'm going to pause right here because he's right that the DOJ pulled it from the website, but he's actually wrong that 70% of it has been committed by right-wingers. The real number is 76%. He was underestimating it. This reads 'Domestic extremist-related killings in the US by perpetrator affiliation.' This is in 2023. And then we can look through the past decade. In the long term, as well as the short, extremists from the far right have been responsible for the bulk of extremist-related murders. Over the past decade, right-wing extremists have committed the majority of such killings in all years but one. 2016, which was the year of a shooting at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Florida, which was a gay nightclub that was shot up by an Islamist extremist. So that year was an outlier. But of the 442 people killed at the hands of extremists from 2014 to 2023, 76% were killed by right-wing extremists of one sort or another. I'll link this in the description. It's from the ADL. When we look at 2014 to 2023, you see that 76% of it is right-wing extremism. Now, political violence isn't always lethal. Sometimes it can be non-lethal, like spray painting or rioting, but even then, right-wingers are rioting more. Let's go back to this clip. Sorry for pausing. I just want to make sure we're on a factual basis."
"There's also a point where someone in the crowd yells out, 'You called us fascists.' I'll address that later on."
">> Political violence is committed by Republicans."
">> Okay."
">> Look it up. DOJ just pulled it. DOJ. DOJ just pulled it from their website. DOJ just pulled the study from the website because they're delusional."
">> That's not true. Because..."
">> They just pulled it. Look it up."
">> DOJ pulled it from their website."
">> Once you pull the crazies out of there, it is overwhelmingly left-wing violence."
">> Google it. We have had..."
">> Every single person Google it right now."
"I mean, he is totally right. The DOJ actually did remove it from the website. They've removed multiple statistics that don't look good. It's very Orwellian. But when she says, 'If you remove all of the crazies,' no, no, no. You don't get to remove the crazies. They are right-wingers. You own them. You can't quote unquote remove the crazies from your side, but then look at liberals or left-leaning people in power and include the crazies with them. In fact, I would make the argument that right-wing politicians sow more violence than left-wing politicians. It's an easy line to draw. In American politics, there has been no president who called for the arrest of their political opponent by saying, 'Lock them up,' before 2016. Donald Trump did this with Hillary Clinton in 2016 for the first time. There has been no president or president-elect who was making up birther conspiracy theories about a former president, saying they're not real, they're not legitimate, they weren't even born in America. That is a new type of politics that Donald Trump rose to fame off of where he was calling people nicknames. He was spreading lies about elections. He is the one that has changed the tone and changed the game, and the onus is on him to knock it down, to take it down a level."
">> You know, this is, this is how we get here. So, first of all, let me take on the first part of the premise of your question that it was President Trump's rhetoric that led to an assassin killing our friend Charlie Kirk. That's a blatant lie. It's a defamatory blaspheme and it's inappropriate in this setting."
">> That's not what I said."
">> We know. Yes, it is."
">> No, I said he contributed to the polit, he contributed to the political atmosphere. The, the, the..."
">> Well, then you have no point. Then your point is utterly empty. Contributing to the atmosphere. This guy was, no, let's just make clear. Let's just make clear. This guy was motivated by leftist ideology. We know it from the bullet casings. We know it from the Utah governor. We know it from his own mother. Yes, we do. Let's be really clear on that."
">> Even if that's true, so then you're saying because, let's say this guy's a leftist. Even if that's true, does that make it okay for the sitting president of the United States to incite violence against liberals?"
">> The president of the United States has not accepted violence against liberals. The president of the United States made a joke at the Charlie Kirk Memorial, which was funny and self-deprecating. It was on the heels of Erica Kirk saying she, in an extraordinary moment, forgave her husband's killer."
">> And let me finish. And then President Trump got up and making a joke playing off of what Erica said. He said, 'We disagree. I need to do better. Erica is going to try to convince me, but I'm in a different place.' And that's completely normal for a politician to be thinking about his political fights. And by the way, Trump has every right to loathe his enemies. They tried to put him in jail for the rest of his life. They tried to bankrupt him. They tried to put his family in jail and they tried to kill him."
">> Jack, wait. Okay, now you go."
">> Thank you for your time."
"All right. There are so many things wrong with this. First of all, when this dude says that Donald Trump contributed to this political atmosphere, I would actually change that to Donald Trump created this political atmosphere. As I said earlier, I drew the lines between his rhetoric in 2012 about Obama, 2016 about Hillary Clinton, 2020 about the stolen election. You can see the direct escalation coming top down from Donald Trump. Then Megan Kelly tries to make the claim that Erica Kirk, or sorry, Donald Trump was just joking when he came on stage after Erica Kirk. No. Do, do the words of the president not mean anything anymore? This dude can set deadlines with Russia, but that's just a joke. This dude can say that he hates his political opponents, but that's just a joke. This is the president of the United States. He's not just joking. He's going on stage saying, 'I really do.' He said, 'I really do hate my political opponents.' And then they get into the argument of who needs to tone down the rhetoric first. It is always going to be Donald Trump. He is the one that needs to tone down the rhetoric. I made this point on a CNN panel last night. Take a look."
">> Condemn him."
">> You know, every time one of these tragic shootings, >> every time one of these tragic shootings happens, everybody's at each other's throats about which side did it, but we're missing a broader pattern in America. This was another young white dude who's in his 20s. We have seen this pattern accelerating over the past decade. The same day Charlie Kirk was shot, the same exact time, there was a neo-Nazi who shot up a school in Colorado. We can look at the acceleration of the radicalization of young men through a few frameworks. There's the COVID pandemic which had people isolated, had a bubble around themselves, and a lot of young men failed to pull that bubble down and got sucked down these algorithms. I've seen it happen to my close friends. They get sucked down these algorithms. We have foreign actors trying to sow chaos in America, sow division. How much does Putin salivate when he sees us at each other's throats? Then we have domestic actors, people like Elon Musk riing it up. So all of these factors, wait, hold up, Ben. All these factors come together to create this pattern that we see of young men in my age range committing these shootings. And if you want to sit here and go back and forth, tit for tat, I can say Dylan Roof, Robert Bowers, John Nest. None of these were black people. None of these were trans people. None of these were even Democrats. These were neo-Nazis who had things carved into their guns. You can sit here and muddy the waters, but you are just lying."
">> I just don't want innocent people to die. Sue me for that. I >> maybe tell Trump to turn down his rhetoric. If you think this is this exact, you just, you literally put the political >> look at how much that triggers him. Me saying that Trump needs to tone down the rhetoric triggers him so, so much because it's the truth. Trump is the one that needs to tone down the rhetoric."
"Now, during the Megan Kelly clip, someone in the crowd yelled out, 'You called us fascists.' Well, last night on the same show, they played a clip of Donald Trump saying that..."
">> It's a choice between communism and freedom. This is communist. This is Marxist. This is fascist. There's a radical left Marxist communist fascist."
">> She's a Marxist. She's a fascist."
">> We, we have short memories around here."
">> I guess what I'm, what I'm asking you, Ben."
">> Last thing. Okay."
">> His, his response was, 'Who's running for mayor in DC? What, what is this guy talking about? They are grasping for straws.' And I'm going to leave it at that. If you appreciate the videos we make, make sure you drop a like. Make sure you subscribe. But it's insane to me that famous MAGA commentators like Megan Kelly are out there getting into screaming matches with people who are less than half their age. I mean, I should try to get on Megan Kelly's show. I think that would be a good debate. I'll see you guys in the next one and peace."