A nearly eight-year-old clip of Charlie Kirk ripping Left-wing streamer Hasan Piker&#8217;s communist dream went viral on social media again this week.
In the exchange, which took place during a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2RIKm-cOdh0">Politicon debate</a> in Los Angeles on October 20, 2018 — the pair&#8217;s second meeting at the convention — Kirk asked Piker why he doesn&#8217;t live by the communist vision he calls for America to embrace.
&#8220;Why don&#8217;t you give 95% of your money away and go live on a commune?&#8221; Kirk asked the America-hating communist streamer.
&#8220;Do you really think that that&#8217;s how it works?&#8221; Piker replied.
&#8220;Why not? Go live what you preach,&#8221; Kirk said as Piker attempted to interrupt the Turning Point USA founder.
&#8220;I live what I practice,&#8221; Kirk added. &#8220;I am a free-market capitalist, I employ people, I took a risk, I have my own start-up business. Every single day, I practice what I preach. He wants other people to contribute to what he considers to be a good idea, what he considers will make the world a better place.&#8221;
&#8220;You have the freedom to go live as a socialist. Go do it, Hasan. What&#8217;s stopping you?&#8221;
Piker called the exchange &#8220;absolutely preposterous.&#8221; &#8220;If I gave away the measly earnings that I had and gave away 95% of that,&#8221; he began — before Kirk cut in to ask, &#8220;How much do you make, Hasan?&#8221; — &#8220;that wouldn&#8217;t necessarily even push the needle.&#8221;
&#8220;I will be very honest, it&#8217;s really embarrassing especially because my boss is sitting right there, I make $60,000 a year, okay? And that&#8217;s a really good salary.&#8221;
The exchange devolved when Cenk Uygur — Piker&#8217;s uncle and, at the time, his boss at The Young Turks — began shouting at Kirk from the audience, demanding to know Kirk&#8217;s own salary.
&#8220;I live like a capitalist every single day, Cenk,&#8221; Kirk said. &#8220;I practice what I preach. You do not practice what you preach.&#8221;
Pressed on his own pay, Kirk answered: &#8220;Less than Hasan, so you can check it yourself.&#8221;
The debate was just one of many examples of how Kirk stood for conservative principles in some of the most radical leftist environments.
On September 10, 2025, Kirk was assassinated while speaking on the campus of Utah Valley University. The Turning Point USA founder was shot while taking a question about transgender mass shooters. According to charging documents, the suspected gunman texted his roommate and trans-identifying lover afterward: &#8220;I had enough of his hatred. Some hate can&#8217;t be negotiated out.&#8221;
Since the debate with Kirk in 2018, Piker has gained fame among the far-Left, and he has even been embraced by some in the Democratic Party, including Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY). This year, Piker has campaigned with Democratic House and Senate candidates in New York and Michigan, including Michigan Democratic nominee Abdul El-Sayed, who is hoping to become the first Muslim U.S. senator.
Piker&#8217;s earnings have grown considerably since. Fox Business host Charles Payne <a href="https://www.foxbusiness.com/video/6403267383112">put his net worth at $35</a> million on air Wednesday, though public estimates vary widely, with Celebrity Net Worth listing roughly $8 million. What isn&#8217;t in dispute is the $2.7 million West Hollywood home — a long way from the commune.
In an April New York Times podcast, Piker <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/socialists-have-made-a-new-crime-into-a-form-of-protest">said</a> he&#8217;s &#8220;pro stealing from big corporations, because they steal quite a bit more from their own workers,&#8221; and added that while he doesn&#8217;t shoplift himself, &#8220;if someone needs the food, they should absolutely steal it.&#8221;
Piker has praised murderous Chinese communist dictator Mao Zedong and has argued that America &#8220;deserved 9/11.&#8221; In March 2025, Piker was temporarily suspended from the streaming platform Twitch — his fifth suspension from the site — after saying that if Republicans cared about entitlement fraud, &#8220;you would kill Rick Scott.&#8221;

Politicon 2018 – Day 1

FLASHBACK: Watch Charlie Kirk Expose Absurdity Of Hasan Piker’s Communist Dream

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Conservatives love to talk about what’s wrong with my generation: why college kids are marching in support of terrorists, why they have so many genders, and why so many of them are impossibly woke. I’m sure there are plenty of reasons. But as a 13-year-old myself, I’m here to tell you that social media is the problem.
Social media platforms have always had some sway over what adults think politically, but now that kids are getting on them at younger and younger ages, kids are getting radicalized sooner.
We can spend hours arguing about whether kids should be on social media, but the reality is that most of them already are — and have been for some time. The result is that most people in my middle school can’t tell you anything about President Donald Trump or Republicans other than the fact that they’re supposedly evil.
Of course, my classmates have never read articles about this; they just watch short videos on various social media platforms and assume everything they hear is true. These videos twist words, tell lies, and change the narrative because it’s progressives telling the stories, and conservative videos aren&#8217;t on the algorithm.
The day after Charlie Kirk was shot, almost all of my grade had watched his murder on video multiple times. It was all anyone was talking about. But instead of making everyone feel sick, like it should have, it simply turned into a meme. Kids kept singing the viral Charlie Kirk song, not because they were honoring him but because they saw it online and thought it was funny. I asked some of my friends if they knew what Charlie stood for, and I wasn’t surprised that they had no idea. They probably still don’t know today.
Social media had not given them Charlie&#8217;s whole story, only the end. Watching social media turn his death into a meme shows how addictive social media is, and how thoroughly it brainwashes young minds.
It also shows that conservatives aren’t trying to reach kids my age. The internet is full of left-wing ideas, so it is not surprising that so many kids are growing up to have extreme views. Conservative adults worry that college kids are being brainwashed, but by the time these kids reach college, it may already be too late. When they get on social media at younger ages, they also get brainwashed earlier.
Middle schoolers today are already being propagandized from every angle: We go to school, where hyper-partisan teachers tell us we live on stolen land, and then we come home and watch videos about how terrible and evil conservatives are. Right now it’s college kids who are marching in the streets, but in the years to come, it will be my generation, and then the kids behind me who are barely in middle school.
We see a rainbow and think of Pride, and we see coed bathrooms and think it&#8217;s normal because conservatives aren’t making online content aimed at kids. People my age don’t see the other side, and they don’t have conservative voices to inspire them. Conservatives like to talk about the future, but it’s time they started reaching out to the kids who will be that future before it is too late. I wish I could say that rational thinking as we get older is enough to win over my generation, but the reality is the battle is already being fought, one swipe at a time. And right now, conservatives are losing.
But all hope is not lost. I have a front-row seat to what social media is doing to your kids, and it&#8217;s time for you to take a stand and keep them off social media platforms. They may push back, but I’m proof that they can live a completely normal and happy middle school life without it — or even a phone!
We should be learning our values from our family, our history, and our pastors, not letting influencers tell us how to live our lives and view our country. If your kids don&#8217;t have social media, keep it that way. If they’re already doomscrolling, get them to stop before it’s too late. And if you’re my age and happen to be reading this: I hope you put down your phone, go touch grass, and realize that America’s grass will always be greener.
***
A.H. Bell is a middle school student living a perfectly normal, happy life despite not having a cell phone.
This article is part of <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/upstream" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Upstream</a>, The Daily Wire’s new home for culture and lifestyle. Real human insight and human stories — from our featured writers to you.

Midsection of friends sharing smart phone in hallway at high school

I’m A Middle Schooler. Here’s The Biggest Threat To My Generation.

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Secretary of State Marco Rubio recently stated a plain truth that too many have ignored: <a href="https://statedept.substack.com/p/countering-the-resurgence-of-political">the first duty of any government is to protect its people</a>. Yet for years, many of our institutions have maintained a shameful blind spot when it comes to far-left violence. They dismissed riots as &#8220;mostly peaceful protests&#8221; while cities burned. They excused firebombs, assaults, and political intimidation so long as they were wrapped in the language of &#8220;justice&#8221; or &#8220;equity.&#8221;
This is not an abstract threat. Secretary Rubio pointed to victims across the West: a 72-year-old Greek grandmother burned alive, an arson attack that left tens of thousands of Berlin homes without power, leading to the death of an 83-year-old woman, and a young Frenchman beaten to death in Lyon. In recent days, authorities launched a terrorism investigation after 78-year-old former Conservative cabinet minister and Reform UK spokeswoman <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026/jul/21/ann-widdecombe-was-hit-on-head-repeatedly-with-hammer-court-told">Ann Widdecombe</a> was brutally bludgeoned to death, suffering 21 blows from a hammer.
Here in America, we&#8217;ve witnessed <a href="https://www.ice.gov/news/releases/ice-reports-second-death-dallas-sniper-attack-after-detainee-succumbs-injuries">sniper attacks on Border Patrol agents</a>, execution-style murders, multiple assassination attempts against <a href="https://ballotpedia.org/Attempted_assassinations_of_Donald_Trump,_2024">President Trump</a>, and the heartbreaking killing of <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/politics/charlie-kirk-murder-spurs-first-in-the-nation-state-political-violence-hate-crime-legislation">Charlie Kirk</a>, a husband and father who was gunned down while speaking to students. These are not statistics. They are shattered families and lives cut short.
Too often, prominent Democrats have fueled this climate with reckless rhetoric. <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2018/06/25/politics/maxine-waters-trump-officials/index.html">Rep. Maxine Waters</a> (D-CA) famously urged supporters to confront members of the Trump administration in public, telling crowds they should make them feel unwelcome &#8220;anywhere.&#8221; Senate Democratic Leader <a href="https://www.congress.gov/119/meeting/house/118401/documents/HHRG-119-JU03-20250624-SD005-U5.pdf">Chuck Schumer</a> (D-NY) stood on the steps of the Supreme Court and warned Justices Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh that they had &#8220;released the whirlwind&#8221; and would &#8220;pay the price.&#8221; These incendiary remarks are not just relegated to the past, but are ongoing calls to action from Democrat leadership.
Anti-law enforcement rhetoric has polluted even the highest levels of Democrat leadership, with House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) just this past week referring to ICE as <a href="https://nypost.com/2026/07/21/us-news/100-dsa-dem-lawmakers-sign-letter-pushing-schumer-jeffries-to-hop-on-abolish-ice-bandwagon/">“Donald Trump’s violent mass deportation machine,”</a> and in April stating that  <a href="https://www.axios.com/2026/04/27/hakeem-jeffries-trump-whcd-maximum-warfare">“We are in an era of maximum warfare, everywhere, all the time.”</a> That is not the language of civil disagreement. When national leaders normalize rhetoric that casts political opponents as enemies, they do not calm tensions — they inflame them.
Just this past Monday, <a href="https://abcnews.com/US/man-custody-after-setting-off-incendiary-device-federal/story?id=134916208">Andrew Arrabaca</a>, “a man described as an ‘anti-government extremist’ set off an ‘incendiary device’ to set a fire outside a Manhattan federal building that houses an immigration court.” Arrabaca proudly said he was OK with hurting or killing people and was found with anti-ICE literature.
Today, that hostility has become institutionalized through efforts like <a href="https://www.fox5dc.com/video/fmc-az9f4rj9vh0ie6ub">&#8220;Project 2029,&#8221;</a> a sweeping progressive agenda that proposes dramatically expanding executive authority and bypassing Congress to advance its objectives. At the same time, in addition to smears of “fascism,” <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/hakeem-jeffries-democratic-leader-face-the-nation-transcript-10-26-2025/">leading Democrats</a> have repeatedly described conservatives as an &#8220;existential threat to democracy.&#8221; When political opponents are portrayed as enemies of the republic, it should surprise no one that unstable individuals feel justified in resorting to violence.
This pattern extends far beyond the United States. Slogans such as &#8220;Punch a Nazi&#8221; and &#8220;by any means necessary&#8221; have become cultural rallying cries. Mainstream conservatives, churchgoers, parents at school board meetings, and anyone who dissents from progressive orthodoxy are routinely portrayed as extremists. Major media outlets, academia, Hollywood, and influential advocacy organizations reinforce this narrative every day. When people are repeatedly told their neighbors are evil, some eventually decide violence is justified.
These extremists cannot build; they can only destroy. They target power grids, pipelines, schools, police officers, and public institutions because they seek to undermine the very foundations of a free society. They despise what America represents because it stands for opportunity, liberty, and individual responsibility.
Enough is enough.
I stand with President Trump, Secretary Rubio, and every nation willing to confront political violence wherever it originates. We must dismantle violent transnational extremist networks, Antifa, anarchists, and their foreign enablers through stronger intelligence sharing, aggressive prosecution of criminal acts, defunding violent organizations, and securing our borders.
The civilized world is watching. Our children are watching. We have a duty to defend the values that built this country and ensure future generations inherit a nation where families can live in safety and freedom. The old double standard is dead. May God give us the courage and the fortitude to meet that responsibility.
***
Congressman Mike Rulli represents Ohio&#8217;s 6th Congressional District.

Leftist Violence Proves Politics’ Deadly Double Standard

DW Opinion

Marco Rubio

Political Violence

Tech billionaire Elon Musk plans to re-enter the political arena by backing a major ground operation to boost Republicans ahead of the November midterm elections, according to a new report.
Musk plans to relaunch America PAC, the same political group that spent hundreds of millions helping elect President Trump in 2024, with a heavy focus on battleground states, Axios <a href="https://www.axios.com/2026/07/29/musk-pac-midterm-election">reported</a>. The revived operation will prioritize door-knocking, digital advertising, and direct mail aimed at turning out conservative voters who typically skip midterm elections.
It is not yet clear how much Musk plans to spend or where the resources will be deployed.
&#8220;America PAC was an essential partner for our historic GOTV operation in 2024, and their return for 2026 is a huge boost for Republicans across the country,&#8221; James Blair, President Trump&#8217;s senior political adviser, told Axios. &#8220;We will again outsmart our opponents and ruthlessly execute our mission for the GOP between now and Election Day.” 
It&#8217;s a striking reversal for the X owner, who just <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/elon-musk-goes-after-trump-over-epstein-files-time-to-drop-the-really-big-bomb">last year accused Trump </a>of covering up convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein&#8217;s crimes and implied the president himself was implicated.
“Time to drop the really big bomb: @realDonaldTrump is in the Epstein files. That is the real reason they have not been made public. Have a nice day, DJT!” Musk said in June 2025, before adding a follow-up: “Mark this post for the future. The truth will come out.”
“This is an unfortunate episode from Elon,” White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/white-house-responds-to-elon-musk-epstein-claims-an-unfortunate-episode-from-elon?utm_source=chatgpt.com">The Daily Wire</a> at the time, saying Musk was “unhappy with the One Big Beautiful Bill because it does not include the policies he wanted.”
Musk, who also threatened to financially back a third political party, later de-escalated the feud and deleted several of his most inflammatory posts — including his Epstein allegations — and publicly acknowledged that some of his attacks on Trump &#8220;went too far.&#8221; 
Following the assassination of Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk, Musk and Trump publicly reconciled at <a href="https://x.com/RapidResponse47/status/1969870768201777180?s=20">Kirk&#8217;s memorial service</a> in Arizona, where the two shook hands and spoke for the first time since their bitter falling out. The reunion fulfilled a promise made by the late conservative activist, who also helped elect Trump and transform an entire generation of young conservatives. 
“I know both these guys… I am hopeful, optimistic, and will do everything I possibly can to try and bring this back together,” Kirk <a href="https://www.wral.com/archive/22170145/">said</a> in June of last year.
Since then, the Tesla and SpaceX CEO has been a social media advocate of the administration’s policies despite recently acknowledging he got “carried away” with his brief stint at the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). 
“I think I got a little too involved in politics,” Musk <a href="https://thehill.com/policy/technology/5988248-doge-initiative-shut-down/">told</a> The Economist. “I got carried away, frankly.”
Nonetheless, the Musk&#8217;s cash infusion will add to Republicans&#8217; already formidable financial advantage heading into the midterms. President Trump&#8217;s super PAC has amassed a roughly $400 million war chest, while the Republican National Committee has another $130 million on hand. In contrast, the Democratic National Committee is reportedly about $2 million in debt, as previously reported by The Daily Wire.
With control of both the House and Senate up for grabs, Republicans face significant headwinds heading into Election Day, including <a href="https://gasprices.aaa.com/">elevated gas prices</a>, the lingering <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/live-updates-iranian-protests-intensify-as-citizens-demand-end-to-ayatollah-rule?topStoryPosition=undefined&amp;author=Daily+Wire&amp;category=News&amp;elementPosition=1&amp;row=1&amp;rowHeadline=Top+Stories&amp;rowType=Top+Stories&amp;title=U.S.+Hammers+Iran+After+Tehran%E2%80%99s+Attempt+To+Take+Out+American+Troops">war with Iran</a>, and President Trump&#8217;s <a href="https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/5997864-trump-approval-rating-low/">low approval ratings</a>. The latest <a href="https://www.realclearpolling.com/polls/state-of-the-union/generic-congressional-vote">RealClearPolitics </a>polling average gives Democrats a roughly five-point lead on the generic congressional ballot. Republicans&#8217; biggest asset may be the Democratic Party&#8217;s tarnished national brand, with one polling guru saying voters increasingly see the leftist party as &#8220;weak.&#8221;
&#8220;The Democratic Party in the minds of the American public are weak, weak, weak,” CNN’s Harry Enten <a href="https://x.com/ThomasMHern/status/2081723610549383250?s=20">said</a>, noting how voters still trust the GOP more on handling Iran. &#8220;The Democrats in Congress, simply put, are not well-liked.&#8221;
“Donald Trump and Republicans may not be liked, but Democrats in Congress are really hated,” he added.

President Trump Attends NCAA Division I Wrestling Championship In Philadelphia

Elon Musk Jumps Back In To Help With Trump’s Midterm Fight

Elon Musk Rejoins Trump's Political Fight With On-The-Ground Midterm Push

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In Roman riding, the rider stands with one foot on each of two horses as they gallop side by side. The rider controls both horses simultaneously while balancing across them. That&#8217;s what Megyn Kelly has been doing for almost a year: straddling two very different personas.
One horse is Megyn 1.0 — the common-sense legal analyst and pro-Western conservative commentator.
The other is Megyn 2.0 — increasingly indulgent of anti-Israel narratives, defending the spread of Islam in the West, and joining the ranks of Candace Owens&#8217; defenders.
Last week, during Tyler Robinson’s preliminary hearing, those horses drifted too far apart, and Kelly landed on her ass.
Kelly opened the preliminary hearing with this promise to her audience:
<blockquote>
As we go through this preliminary hearing this week, we&#8217;re gonna be sticking to the proof that is offered by both sides&#8230; while you can have suspicions about somebody else&#8217;s role in a murder like this one, you cannot get that into evidence unless you have real proof and a legitimate good-faith basis for raising it&#8230; that&#8217;s where we begin today.
</blockquote>
There is, of course, nothing controversial about this.
Except that only last December, Kelly told her audience to &#8220;go f*ck themselves&#8221; for expecting her to call out Owens&#8217; conspiracy theories and months-long campaign of harassment and accusations against Charlie Kirk&#8217;s friends, family, employees — and pretty much everyone else under the sun.
This followed months of Kelly moving the goalposts in defense of Owens&#8217; reprehensible behavior after Charlie Kirk&#8217;s death.
When first confronted about Owens&#8217; conduct on The Fifth Column podcast, Kelly said she wouldn&#8217;t criticize her because &#8220;she&#8217;s a young mom&#8221; —  a standard that has never stopped Kelly from attacking Meghan Markle, for example.
Next came Ben Shapiro, who appeared to be the first person to tell Kelly that Owens was targeting TPUSA, Kirk’s friends, and even Erika Kirk.
Kelly acted shocked, insisting she wasn&#8217;t &#8220;the mother of the internet.&#8221;
She then followed it up by confidently assuring her audience, &#8220;It&#8217;s not true. Candace has, in fact, been defending Erika.”
That statement has aged like milk in a heatwave.
Kelly then revealed that she had been working behind the scenes to broker peace between Candace Owens and Erika Kirk, the newly widowed young mother.
It was at this time that Kelly berated viewers who questioned her continued defense of Owens, unleashing profanity and showing them the door.
Not since Neville Chamberlain has there been a more gullible or unsuccessful peace negotiator.
Ben Shapiro accused Kelly of moral cowardice at TPUSA’s AmFest, and rather than reconsidering her position, Kelly bizarrely transformed her unwillingness to criticize Owens into a principled stand against &#8220;bending the knee to Israel.&#8221;
Once again, she told her critics to &#8220;go f*ck themselves.&#8221;
It wasn’t long after this that Megyn Kelly’s Israel Derangement Syndrome metastasized. Megyn 2.0 earned the moniker “Grandma Groyper,” stating:
<blockquote>
How much of the narrative that is in our news today has been spoon-fed to me by people who are super pro-Israel at all costs, who won’t tell the truth about Israel, no matter what it is&#8230; I’m just starting from square one basically on Israel right now.
</blockquote>
Only a year earlier, Kelly had hosted Charlie Kirk, warning about the threat of Islam in the West. Fast forward a year, and she was openly eyeing Tucker Carlson&#8217;s significant Muslim audience, saying on Next Up with Mark Halperin, “Like he’s gotten very, very popular lately, I read, with Muslim viewers because he’s been standing up for Islam.”
Then came Tyler Robinson&#8217;s preliminary hearing.
Almost overnight, Megyn 1.0 reappeared.
On the second day of the hearing, she argued, &#8220;There is no disproving a conspiracy theory in the mind of a true conspiracy theorist. It&#8217;s not possible. They will just continue moving the goalposts.&#8221;
By day four, Kelly was urging those attacking Erika Kirk to show some humanity. &#8220;Every night Erika goes home to Charlie&#8217;s two children who have no father&#8230; it&#8217;s just beyond human what is being asked of the family.&#8221;
For a moment, Kelly sounded exactly like the careful legal analyst who made her reputation.
Unfortunately, this is where things fell apart.
Kelly&#8217;s guest, former prosecutor Matt Murphy, politely but directly challenged the person driving many of the Charlie Kirk conspiracy theories — not anonymous internet trolls, or even leftists, but young mom Candace Owens herself.
Murphy said, &#8220;I&#8217;ve seen some insane things on the internet, mostly championed by Candace Owens, that are so loony, tinfoil-hat out there. And I think that&#8217;s hard on the victim&#8217;s family.&#8221;
He accurately described those embracing the conspiracy slop as &#8220;actual lunatics.&#8221;
Murphy also pointed out that Owens had said she would stop spreading baseless conspiracies if Erika Kirk asked her to; Erika Kirk repeatedly did, and Owens ignored her.
Instead, Owens responded by accusing Erika of being a child groomer, a human trafficker, connected to Jeffrey Epstein, mocking her by pretending to cry over death threats she’d received, and implicating her in her own husband&#8217;s murder — all without credible evidence.
This treatment of Erika, by the way, is ongoing.
Kelly immediately rushed to defend Owens: &#8220;I think she&#8217;s in her own search for what she believes happened here, and she has zero trust in official words on anything.&#8221;
Murphy continued and actually delivered on what Kelly had promised at the start of the week, being unbiased and objective.
But when Murphy dismissed Israel&#8217;s alleged involvement outright — &#8220;Israel didn&#8217;t kill Charlie Kirk. Sorry. They just didn’t.&#8221; — Megyn 2.0 returned.
Kelly immediately defended not simply Owens, but the legitimacy of continuing to speculate about Israel&#8217;s possible involvement, pointing to Charlie Kirk&#8217;s criticisms of some Jewish donors before his death and reports of Israeli-only cell phones allegedly being present at Utah Valley University.
The shift was striking. In fact, it’s a surprise she didn’t begin going on about maroon shirts or Egyptian planes.
The same Kelly who had spent days insisting that conspiracy theories require evidence was now arguing on behalf of conspiracy theories.
The same Kelly who argued for compassion and humanity toward Erika Kirk was arguing on behalf of someone who has actively profited from tormenting Erika Kirk.
Everything Kelly had started the week promising to do, she was now doing the polar opposite of.
This is where Kelly&#8217;s two personas collide. The legal analyst who demands evidence gives way to the commentator willing to excuse wild, even harmful, speculation when it comes from her friend.
Kelly has repeatedly shown that she knows exactly how evidence should be evaluated. She understands legal standards. She recognizes how conspiracy theories move the goalposts whenever facts become inconvenient.
As she put it: &#8220;There is no disproving a conspiracy theory in the mind of a true conspiracy theorist.&#8221;
Yet only days later, Megyn 1.0 resurfaced.
Referring to those who continued denying Tyler Robinson&#8217;s guilt despite the evidence presented at the preliminary hearing, Kelly remarked, &#8220;Some people who refuse to believe that Tyler Robinson did this have been saying for quite some time, &#8216;Oh, but there&#8217;s no video of the actual shooting&#8217;&#8230; and still they won&#8217;t accept it. We&#8217;re never gonna get through to them. I don&#8217;t even really care about them, to be honest.&#8221;
It&#8217;s enough to give her remaining audience whiplash.
The balancing act isn&#8217;t sustainable. Eventually, one of these two Megyn Kellys will prevail. Judging by who she&#8217;s repeatedly told to &#8220;go f*ck themselves,&#8221; she&#8217;s already made her choice.
***
Nathan Livingstone is an Australian filmmaker and video editor who creates short films, commentary, and investigative pieces. Follow him on X:<a href="https://x.com/@themilkbartv"> @TheMilkBarTV</a>

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Will The Real Megyn Kelly Please Stand Up?

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Taxpayers may end up paying up to $10 million to defend the man accused of assassinating conservative activist Charlie Kirk as the case drags out for months, according to a new report. 
Multiple lawyers told <a href="https://nypost.com/2026/07/14/us-news/taxpayers-could-end-up-shelling-out-more-than-10m-for-lawyers-to-defend-accused-charler-kirk-killer-tyler-robinson/">The New York Post</a> that 23-year-old Tyler Robinson’s defense team is challenging every aspect of the case with the goal of pressuring state prosecutors into offering a plea deal. Prosecutors have said they intend to seek the death penalty for Robinson, who is charged with gunning Kirk down during an event at Utah Valley University in September 2025. 
Neama Rahmani, a former federal prosecutor, told the Post that Robinson’s lawyers “are litigating anything and everything to try to bring the prosecution to the table to offer a life-without-the-possibility-of-parole deal.”
Robinson’s defense is being paid for by the county and the lawyers defending him have to be specially trained because it involves the death penalty. 
“So yeah, it is costing taxpayers,” Rahmani said. “But what do you expect the defense to do? They’re playing the hand that they’re dealt, right? And it’s not a good hand.”
Rahmani said if the case is prolonged enough then prosecutors may choose to secure life in prison through a plea deal and avoid the many appeals that come with the death penalty. 
“If the state offered a plea deal and a life sentence, the taxpayers would save millions and millions of dollars,” he said. 
Last week, Judge Tony Graf Jr. oversaw the preliminary hearing in the case where prosecutors presented the evidence they planned to use during the trial. Graf will rule in September whether there is enough evidence against Robinson to schedule a trial. 
“I think all the attention on the case, he doesn’t want to make a mistake or be overturned on appeal,” Rahmani said. “He’s very slow, he’s very thorough, and very deliberate.”
Rahmani said the longer the process takes, the more pressure there is on the prosecution. He pointed to the high-profile case of Bryan Kohberger, who avoided the death penalty by pleading guilty to murdering four University of Idaho students. 
“They’re trying to put pressure on the prosecution to offer a life deal. Like they did in Kohberger,” he said. 
Nathan Evershed, a former deputy district attorney for Salt Lake County, agreed the longer the case took the more likely a plea deal would be. 
“Usually what happens is that the longer a case can get delayed, the more of a chance there can be an off-ramp or a plea deal,” he told the Post. “And an off-ramp is harder to find when it’s raw and very, very fraught with emotions. Whereas it’s easier to find when it’s less raw and you’re able to come to the table.”
Evershed added that it would be quite expensive before the whole ordeal closed. 
“It’s going to cost quite a bit of money to get to that point,” he said. “And the only people that will be paying for that are the taxpayers.”

Tyler Robinson Arrested In Utah For Shooting of Charlie Kirk

Tyler Robinson’s Defense Strategy That Could Cost Taxpayers Millions

assassination

Crime

Tyler Robinson

Utah

WASHINGTON — Vice President JD Vance says there is &#8220;clear evidence&#8221; that 23-year-old accused assassin Tyler Robinson killed Charlie Kirk, he shared in an interview with The Daily Wire, but that he is &#8220;always going to wonder&#8221; who radicalized his friend&#8217;s killer.
The vice president shared that he managed to follow parts of the Utah hearing for Robinson, though not all of it, and he told The Daily Wire that &#8220;the evidence against Robinson is just really, really compelling.&#8221; In a wide ranging interview as the hearing concluded on Friday, Vance put a rest to the notion that he believes the viral conspiracy theories about Kirk&#8217;s death, stating firmly that Robinson killed his friend.
&#8220;Do I think Tyler Robinson pulled the trigger and killed Charlie Kirk? Absolutely,&#8221; Vance said. &#8220;I think the evidence is clear on that.“
Throughout the past week, prosecutors spent days revealing surveillance footage, forensic evidence, an alleged confession note, and testimony from Robinson&#8217;s ex-roommate and transgender lover Lance Twiggs, as well as Robinson&#8217;s parents. Vance and Kirk were close friends, and Vance has spoken openly about the role Kirk played in convincing President Donald Trump to choose him as his vice president.
Vance addressed claims in an upcoming book from New York Times journalists Jonathan Swan and Maggie Haberman, who report that Vance&#8217;s “instincts told him that there was a larger plot behind&#8221; Kirk&#8217;s murder in the days following Kirk&#8217;s death. Swan and Haberman wrote that Vance &#8220;went down countless online rabbit holes, becoming so consumed by the videos and the theories that his wife, Usha, told him she was worried about him.”
The vice president emphasized that the aspect of Kirk&#8217;s death that will always haunt him is the possibility that other individuals were involved in radicalizing Robinson.
<div id="attachment_1133065" style="width: 875px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/exclusive-jd-vance-says-evidence-against-tyler-robinson-is-really-really-compelling/vp-vance-transports-charlie-kirks-body-back-to-phoenix-via-air-force-two" rel="attachment wp-att-1133065"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-1133065" class="wp-image-1133065 size-large" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/07/GettyImages-2234227591-865x576.jpg" alt="" width="865" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/07/GettyImages-2234227591-865x576.jpg 865w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/07/GettyImages-2234227591-300x200.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/07/GettyImages-2234227591-768x512.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/07/GettyImages-2234227591.jpg 1024w" sizes=" (max-width: 865px) 100vw, 865px" /></a>Vice President JD Vance, Usha Vance, and Erika Kirk escort the body of Charlie Kirk on September 11, 2025 in Phoenix, Arizona. (Photo by Eric Thayer/Getty Images)</div>
“Do I think that Tyler Robinson is part of a broader network of left wing radicals who have fomented and encouraged violence? Absolutely. Do I know that they communicated with Tyler Robinson before the shooting? No, I don&#8217;t have evidence for that.&#8221;
&#8220;I&#8217;m always going to wonder,&#8221; Vance said. &#8220;I&#8217;m always going to wonder what was said and how many contacts he had beforehand. By the way, it doesn&#8217;t mean that [Robinson&#8217;s] any less guilty. But do I wonder if there are other people who are more directly involved in Charlie&#8217;s murder? Absolutely, because I don&#8217;t think that it&#8217;s possible for a young man to get radicalized like that without somebody encouraging him, whether informally or formally.&#8221;
&#8220;I think there are a lot of people with blood on their hands in the case of Charlie Kirk, but of course, the person most directly who has blood on their hands is Tyler Robinson,&#8221; he concluded.
&#8220;The truth is that Charlie is dead because a bunch of left-wing radicals have preached a message that it&#8217;s okay to kill people you disagree with, and unfortunately, for my friend and and importantly for his family, there&#8217;s at least one guy in Utah who took that message to heart and and and murdered a young innocent father,&#8221; Vance said. &#8220;The worst part about all of this is not my my personal grief, as much as that&#8217;s very real, and the country&#8217;s loss, but the fact that I know that Erika and two little kids are going to grow up without their husband and father.&#8221;
Vance says his hope is that what transpired last September causes leftists to reconsider the violent rhetoric that they too often unleash against political opponents.
&#8220;If I was on the left, whatever the ideas that I had about politics and policy, if I saw that the result of some of the violence that I pushed is the death of Charlie Kirk, I would think twice about what I said and what beliefs led me to advocate for violence against people,&#8221; he added. &#8220;Because way too many leftists have advocated for violence for too long in our country, and it&#8217;s had real consequences.&#8221; 
<div id="attachment_1133049" style="width: 874px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/exclusive-jd-vance-says-evidence-against-tyler-robinson-is-really-really-compelling/turning-point-inaugural-eve-ball-held-in-washington-d-c-7" rel="attachment wp-att-1133049"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-1133049" class="wp-image-1133049 size-large" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/07/GettyImages-2194278697-864x576.jpg" alt="Donald Trump Jr., then Vice President-elect JD Vance, and Charlie Kirk during the Turning Point USA Inaugural-Eve Ball.  (Photo by Samuel Corum/Getty Images)" width="864" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/07/GettyImages-2194278697-864x576.jpg 864w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/07/GettyImages-2194278697-300x200.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/07/GettyImages-2194278697-768x512.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/07/GettyImages-2194278697.jpg 1024w" sizes=" (max-width: 864px) 100vw, 864px" /></a>Donald Trump Jr., then Vice President-elect JD Vance, and Charlie Kirk during the Turning Point USA Inaugural-Eve Ball.  (Photo by Samuel Corum/Getty Images)</div>
During the court proceedings this week, the prosecution played an interview with Robinson&#8217;s ex-roommate and lover Lance Twiggs, showing some of their text exchanges about the murder. Twiggs revealed to the court that Robinson cried at their apartment after he shot and killed Kirk and said he wished &#8220;he hadn&#8217;t done it.&#8221;
Vance said he had seen this report, calling it &#8220;very compelling evidence for a court of law.&#8221;
He sighed as he added: &#8220;In all Christians, if we&#8217;re being honest for us, there is a thirst for justice and a thirst for vengeance. And you know what God encourages to do is to care about justice and not vengeance. And so, if I&#8217;m being honest, my mind wishes for justice and hopes that Tyler Robinson is able to find forgiveness and find mercy. But I don&#8217;t feel that, and I don&#8217;t particularly care about that person or what happens to him.&#8221;
Reflecting on his own grief after the death of his friend, Vance said he remains as &#8220;heartbroken.&#8221;
&#8220;I think selfishly, I was thinking about what it would mean for for us, for the movement, and then you know, non-selfishly, I was thinking about what it would mean for Erika and the kids,&#8221; he said. &#8220;And you know, Charlie was one of those guys who was not just a friend, he was sort of a confidant. He was a guy that I could rely on. He was a guy that I could confide in. And there aren&#8217;t that many people when you&#8217;re the vice president of the United States.&#8221;
&#8220;It was a very, very big loss to me,&#8221; he shared. 
Vance also repeatedly returned to the impact that Kirk&#8217;s death has on his family, his wife Erika, and his two children. 
&#8220;I think about this a lot as a young father, and this is probably the thought that I&#8217;ve had the most consistently since Charlie&#8217;s death: thank God, my kids are at an age where, if God forbid, something happened to me, they would they would have memories of me, and Charlie&#8217;s kids are at that age where, especially for his youngest child, but even for his oldest child, you just worry that a young father who poured his heart and soul into that family, you worry that those kids won&#8217;t have any memory of them, and I think that is the greatest tragedy of all of this.&#8221; 
&#8220;And I know it&#8217;s something Erika cares a lot about,&#8221; added Vance. &#8220;It&#8217;s certainly something I&#8217;ve thought a lot about over the last year, but I think we have to take some some, as Lincoln would say, some measure of devotion to that, that his kids should know at the very least who he was, that that they were beloved, and that their dad gave his life fighting for the very best principles of the country that he loved.&#8221;

Image-1

EXCLUSIVE: JD Vance Says Evidence Against Tyler Robinson Is ‘Really, Really Compelling’

JD Vance

Jennica Pounds, also known as DataRepublican, is a data analyst and <a href="https://datarepublican.substack.com/">self-described</a> algorithm geek. In the Weekend Punch interview, she speaks with The Daily Wire about debunking wild conspiratorial claims surrounding Charlie Kirk&#8217;s assassination, widespread skepticism about information, and what it means to pursue the truth. The following quote is <a href="https://x.com/DataRepublican/status/2075384791080280453">Pound&#8217;s X response</a> to Candace Owens and her conspiracy theories in light of the evidence presented at Tyler Robinson&#8217;s preliminary hearing, which concluded this week.
<blockquote>
Hello Mrs. Owens,
You told millions of people that Tyler Robinson &#8220;wasn&#8217;t even there.&#8221; That you felt &#8220;confident stating that Tyler Robinson did not kill murder Charlie Kirk.&#8221;
He was on camera. Prone on the Losi rooftop at 12:22. Shot at 12:23:28. DNA on the screwdriver at 30 quintillion to one. DNA on the rifle at 1.7 octillion to one. He told his family what he did. His parents helped him surrender. He texted his roommate: &#8220;I am, I&#8217;m sorry.&#8221; He engraved &#8220;Hey Fascist! Catch!&#8221; on the ammunition a month before he used it.
You said police &#8220;didn&#8217;t even question&#8221; Lance Twiggs. He was interviewed twice. FBI the morning after. Joint state-federal team seven months later. His own attorney. Voluntary phone surrender. You laughed when you said it.
You told Shawn Ryan a shaped charge killed Charlie. That PETN was in his microphone. The medical examiner says gunshot wound. Bullet fragments were recovered from his body. A .30-06 Mauser with Robinson&#8217;s DNA was found in the woods. Neither side — not prosecution, not defense — has mentioned explosives. Not once in four days.
You said the shot came from below. The Losi building is above the amphitheater.
You called Erika Kirk a &#8220;clinical psychopath&#8221; to an audience of millions. You said the assassination was &#8220;an occult ritual.&#8221; You said Charlie was &#8220;sitting in a pentagram.&#8221; You told people Israel killed him because he refused Netanyahu.
You made over a hundred episodes. You built a franchise on a dead man&#8217;s name.
And the hardest fact of all: Tyler Robinson&#8217;s own defense lawyers — the people whose entire career is on the line to get him acquitted — have refused to make a single one of your arguments. Not one. They&#8217;re challenging DNA methodology. They are doing their jobs. You were doing something else entirely.
Charlie Kirk changed my life. He platformed my work when nobody knew who I was. He had my back when I was doxxed. I was the ten-thousandth most important person in his world and I will never be able to repay him.
So I did what I know how to do. I read every transcript. I watched every hour of testimony. I cataloged your claims and I held them up against what was said under oath.
Every single one failed.
I don&#8217;t know why you did this. I&#8217;m not going to speculate on your motives, because that would make me exactly the kind of analyst I&#8217;ve spent my career refusing to be. But I know what you did. You told people confident lies about a dead man&#8217;s murder, and millions of them believed you, and some of them turned that belief into threats against his widow.
The trial continues. And every day of sworn testimony is another day your words get tested against reality&#8230; under oath, on the record, where it counts.
I&#8217;ll be here for all of it&#8230; because just as Charlie defended me, I will do what little I can to defend his legacy and <a href="https://x.com/TPUSA">@TPUSA</a> and <a href="https://x.com/MrsErikaKirk">@MrsErikaKirk</a> from evil.
&nbsp;</blockquote>
Ben Domenech: You’ve done extensive research on the details surrounding the shooting of Charlie Kirk, particularly regarding the conspiracy theories that have spread online like wildfire. What topline details have you found that you think are most important for people to know?
Jennica Pounds: After a week, all of the conspiracy claims have been thoroughly demolished in court. [Tyler] Robinson&#8217;s own defense team isn&#8217;t making any of the claims circulating online.
They&#8217;re making procedural challenges to not show evidence. The people who have the most to gain from a conspiracy being real won&#8217;t even touch any of Candace [Owens]&#8217;s claims.
Data analysis is a skill. The hardest part isn&#8217;t connecting dots; anyone can do that, as Candace and her fans have proven. It&#8217;s knowing when not to connect them. When you find yourself pulling more and more people into your theory as villains to make the story hold together, that&#8217;s when it crosses into fan fiction territory. Except in this case, fan fiction is posing a very real threat to Erika Kirk&#8217;s life.
BD: We live in an era of heightened skepticism after a cascade of media scandals that destroyed public trust. It&#8217;s reiterated constantly – consider Graham Platner the most recent example. How do you go about breaking through that skeptical assumption – that everyone is lying – with the truth? 
JP: The skepticism is earned. People have been lied to by institutions for years, and they&#8217;re right to demand receipts. So I give them receipts. Now, I&#8217;ve made mistakes and been wrong. But I&#8217;ve never gone wrong by letting the receipts talk as much as possible.
Also, most people in this space try to destroy the person they disagree with. I&#8217;m not interested in that. What I do is show people the story they&#8217;ve been told, and then show them what the evidence actually says, and let the distance between those two things do the work.
The trick is that you don&#8217;t have to convince anyone of anything. You just have to make the evidence accessible and let people be honest with themselves.
BD: Candace isn&#8217;t alone. Her conspiracy theories – too many to count – have been echoed and defended by Ian Carroll, Tucker Carlson, and Megyn Kelly. What&#8217;s your interpretation of why people would entertain these theories as legitimate, given the evidence?
JP: I&#8217;m not going to speculate on anyone&#8217;s motives; that would make me exactly the kind of analyst I just warned you about.
What I can tell you is what I see in the data. None of these people have gone line by line through three days of sworn testimony. None of them have spent hours cataloging their own claims to track how far the theories have drifted from anything falsifiable. They built a narrative before the evidence was available, and the narrative is more important than anything.
And I&#8217;d be remiss not to mention Joel Finkelstein at The Network Contagion Research Institute (NCRI), a good friend, who has done more work than anyone studying the assassination culture that took Charlie&#8217;s life… and that may take more lives if it isn&#8217;t confronted. We need to learn the difference between data and narrative, and fast.
BD: There are clearly a lot of people obsessed with the idea that Candace and her supporters have uncovered some vast political conspiracy. If you were sitting next to someone who thought that way at a local bar, what would you say to them?
JP: I&#8217;d tell them that Charlie Kirk changed my life. He gave me a platform when nobody knew who I was. He stood behind me when I was doxxed by Rolling Stone. I owe him more than I&#8217;ll ever be able to repay.
Then I&#8217;d buy them a drink and tell them I get it. We&#8217;ve all been lied to by people in power, and the instinct to distrust official narratives is earned.
But finding the truth isn&#8217;t making a conscious decision to follow a different narrative to the prevailing one. It&#8217;s about following the data, the actual data, no matter where it goes. The data shows that many institutions are failing us and are taking escalating actions to maintain their legitimacy by coercion. That’s true. But the data also shows that Tyler Robinson killed Charlie Kirk, and that&#8217;s becoming more obvious every day the court proceedings are televised.
BD: The effort that goes into heavy research these days seems harder than in the past, but also more accessible. What approaches and tools do you wish young journalists would use to pursue information and data rather than just chasing after everyone else?
JP: AI is a double-edged sword for sure. Most people use AI to replace their thinking – that’s why those stories of lawyers using AI-hallucinated citations are becoming more common.
For me, agentic AI has been a godsend in analyzing gigabytes of video transcripts, books, documents, website mirrors – and connecting them all together. It’s not unusual to burn 100+ subtasks to compile a 12-post thread. If AI is making your job easier rather than challenging you to meet a 100x productivity increase, you&#8217;re probably using it wrong.
BD: I have bottle 887 of Distilled Data in my bar. It is nearly empty. Can we get a rerelease?
JP: Glad you enjoyed it! I’ll petition my husband.
***

Punch-Pounds

The Data Cruncher Who Debunked The Biggest Charlie Kirk Conspiracies

DataRepublican

Punch

Weekend Punch

Let’s cut the crap right now. Candace Owens, Ian Carroll, and their gaggle of online grifters from podcastistan are peddling the dumbest, most unscientific conspiracy garbage imaginable about Charlie Kirk’s assassination. The woke reich conspiracists claim a .30-06 can’t possibly produce the wound we saw because it “always” goes through a human neck or would have “blown his head clean off.” Therefore, they insist, it must have been an exploding microphone, a professional “buffet gun” hit squad, or some other fever-dream nonsense designed to pin it on Israel instead of the actual killer: Tyler Robinson, the trans-activist leftist who hated Charlie for telling the truth about biology.
This is peak ignorance dressed up as “research.” I’ve been shooting since I was a kid, over 40 years now. I’ve harvested deer and other large game with .30-06, .308, and .30-30. I’ve seen soft-point bullets do exactly what they did to Charlie: expand on impact, dump their energy into the target, and stop inside or fragment with no exit wound, especially when they hit dense structures like vertebrae or heavy muscle like you find in the neck and upper torso of a large man who played football and wore a helmet to build those muscles. This isn’t theory. This is what happens in the real world with the exact type of ammunition used here.
<h4 class="p1">The ammunition: Remington Core-Lokt Soft Point, designed to stop, not sail through</h4>
Court evidence and expert identification, including from veteran analysts like Matt Tardio, point to Remington .30-06 150-grain Core-Lokt jacketed soft point. This is classic big-game hunting ammo. The design is simple and brutal: a tapered copper jacket mechanically locked to a lead core with an exposed soft tip. On contact with tissue or bone, it mushrooms rapidly, increases frontal area, and transfers all its kinetic energy into the animal, or in this case, the target. That’s the entire point. It doesn’t “always” exit. It often doesn’t exit at all when it does its job. The lead tips on these are so soft that you can write on paper with them.
<h4 class="p1">Recovered bullet fragment from Charlie Kirk’s body, direct court evidence</h4>
Direct evidence confirms this real-world behavior in the Kirk case. A bullet fragment was recovered from Charlie Kirk’s body, not exploding mic pieces. Photos of the fragment were displayed in court during the preliminary hearing. These deformed fragments are consistent with a soft-point .30-06 round that expanded and broke apart on impact with dense structures such as bone or vertebrae, exactly as designed. This is powerful confirmation that the wound profile matches standard expanding hunting ammunition and refutes conspiracy claims about foreign objects or exploding devices.
According to official reporting from the preliminary hearing, a bullet fragment was recovered from Charlie Kirk&#8217;s body. Photos of the fragment were displayed on a screen for the court. Ballistics tests conducted by the ATF on the fragment were inconclusive, with defense attorneys challenging their reliability. Yet the physical presence of the deformed fragment aligns with the terminal ballistics of an expanding soft-point projectile that dumped its energy internally, resulting in no exit wound, precisely as expected from hunting ammunition like the Remington Core-Lokt. The mushroomed and fragmented jacket pieces prove this was not a shaped charge from an exploding RODE microphone. A shaped charge would leave entirely different debris, not classic expanded copper jacket and lead core fragments from a hunting bullet. There are many other problems with the idiotic “exploding mic theories,” but this should end that debate.
This is a photo of recovered bullet jacket fragments, official ATF evidence as referenced in case reporting. It <a href="https://x.com/ErikaCA47/status/2075335407470780698">shows</a> labeled evidence pieces with close-up views of the fragmented, deformed bullet jackets, classic terminal performance of an expanding soft-point projectile that dumped its energy internally with no exit wound.
<a href="https://pbs.twimg.com/media/HM0SjhCXUAA3Mu2.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-1132821" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/07/casing1.jpg" alt="" width="875" height="734" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/07/casing1.jpg 875w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/07/casing1-300x252.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/07/casing1-687x576.jpg 687w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/07/casing1-768x644.jpg 768w" sizes=" (max-width: 875px) 100vw, 875px" /></a>
<h4 class="p1">Engraved bullets introduced as evidence in court</h4>
Investigators testified about key evidence in the preliminary hearing, including engraved bullets and casings recovered from the scene. One casing was engraved with “Hey Fascist!” and others with messages consistent with the shooter’s ideological motives. These were introduced as evidence, further tying the physical items to Tyler Robinson.
<h4 class="p1">Real cases: Necks, spines, and retained or fragmented bullets happen all the time</h4>
Hunters see this constantly. Neck and spine shots with .30-06 soft points frequently result in no exit wound. The bullet expands or fragments on the vertebrae and stays inside or lodges under the hide on the far side. I’ve seen it. Thousands of other hunters have seen it. Spine hits are notorious bullet traps that arrest penetration while shattering bone and creating devastating internal damage.
Just a few years back, my teenage son took a clean neck shot on an axis deer with a .308 at close range because the body was obscured by brush. No exit wound. The bullet hit the spine, deflected, and stopped a little way down. Most of the blood pooled internally into the trachea and lungs. We even hung the deer by its head to dress it, and the neck held up perfectly. See the photos and full post <a href="https://x.com/ChrisLoesch/status/2019160037025894447">here</a>.
Human cases follow the same physics. The 1968 assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. was carried out with a .30-06 Remington Gamemaster. The bullet struck King’s jaw and neck and fragmented on the spine. There was no clean exit wound.
Forensic pathology is clear: retained bullets and fragmented jackets are common in high-velocity rifle wounds to the neck and shoulder when the projectile encounters bone or when expanding designs initiate upset. The neck isn’t some magical tunnel of Jell-O. It’s packed with cervical vertebrae, cartilage, dense muscle, and major vessels. Hit those with a soft point at 2,700-plus feet per second, and the bullet does exactly what it’s built to do: dump energy and stop or break apart. At an elevated angle from a Mauser, as in this case, the physics line up perfectly for exactly this outcome.
Gary Melton of Paramount Tactical — a Green Beret, sniper team leader, and professional ballistics instructor, Matt Tardio, and experts from Fenix Ammunition have directly addressed and debunked the misinformation in public statements and videos.
<h4 class="p1">The “Always Exits” and “Would Have Decapitated Him” crowd are full of it</h4>
Ian Carroll and his Valhalla VFT video claiming the bullets shown in court couldn’t possibly have caused Charlie’s wound are pure grift. They rely on cherry-picked gel tests and ignore real living tissue, real living bone, and real expanding bullet behavior in living and animated targets. Candace Owens pushing exploding microphone or professional hit theories to drag Israel into this is disgusting and lazy. It lets the actual killer, the ideological actor with motive, opportunity, DNA on the towel-wrapped rifle, video evidence, engraved bullets, and the recovered bullet fragment displayed in the preliminary hearing, off the hook while smearing an unrelated country to fit her insane bigotry.
A .30-06 soft point does not always exit. It doesn’t always blow heads off. At 135 to 200 yards, with the right or wrong anatomy hit, vertebrae, dense muscle, angle, it expands, decelerates, and stays inside or fragments. That’s not a conspiracy. That’s ballistics 101 for anyone who’s actually hunted or trained with these tools instead of watching YouTube from their mom’s basement.
My friend Charlie was murdered by a leftist who hated him for speaking the truth. The rifle was an old Mauser .30-06. The ammo was standard hunting soft point. The wound profile matches exactly what that combination produces when it hits neck anatomy the way it did. The evidence, DNA, video, digital trail, motive, engraved bullets introduced in court, and the recovered bullet fragment displayed in the preliminary hearing, is overwhelming. The mushroomed fragments from inside his body prove beyond any doubt that this was not a shaped charge from an exploding RODE microphone.
Stop the conspiracies. Stop blaming Jews and Israel for everything. Face the facts: a .30-06 soft point did what it was designed to do, and the killer was the radicalized kid with the manifesto-level hatred. The rest is noise from people who wouldn’t know a Core-Lokt round from an FMJ.
<h5 class="p1">Sources &amp; Further Reading</h5>
• Matt Tardio X post identifying Remington Core-Lokt 150gr and explaining real human tissue vs. gel: <a href="https://x.com/angertab/status/2075356666472862012">https://x.com/angertab/status/2075356666472862012</a>
• Chris Loesch on soft point expansion and energy dump: <a href="https://x.com/ChrisLoesch/status/2075341218213507225">https://x.com/ChrisLoesch/status/2075341218213507225</a>
• Matt Tardio on The Dana Show with Dana Loesch, ballistics discussion: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tvKRl6OHCo4">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tvKRl6OHCo4</a>
• Fenix Ammunition responses on expected terminal performance of expanding projectiles: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qmG2RgfLA5I">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qmG2RgfLA5I</a>
• Gary Melton and Paramount Tactical on ballistics misinformation and real-world performance: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O6zFmbMmrWs">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O6zFmbMmrWs</a>
• U.S. Army wound ballistics studies, WWII and Korea era .30-06 data: <a href="https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/tr/pdf/ADA570469.pdf">https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/tr/pdf/ADA570469.pdf</a>
• Forensic pathology literature on retained and fragmented high-velocity rifle bullets in neck and shoulder wounds: <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6474515/">https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6474515/</a>
• Historical record of MLK assassination: <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination_of_Martin_Luther_King_Jr.">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination_of_Martin_Luther_King_Jr.</a> and <a href="https://www.archives.gov/research/jfk/select-committee-report/part-2a.html">https://www.archives.gov/research/jfk/select-committee-report/part-2a.html</a>
• Bullet fragment recovered from Charlie Kirk, official court evidence displayed in preliminary hearing: <a href="https://x.com/erikaca47/status/2075335407470780698">https://x.com/erikaca47/status/2075335407470780698</a>, direct image link to evidence photo.
• Preliminary hearing coverage, AP News July 10, 2026, detailing bullet fragment displayed in court, ATF inconclusive ballistics testing, and engraved bullets introduced as evidence: <a href="https://apnews.com/live/charlie-kirk-tyler-robinson-hearing-07-10-2026">https://apnews.com/live/charlie-kirk-tyler-robinson-hearing-07-10-2026</a>
***
Photos of ammunition are representative of the Core-Lokt soft point type identified in the case, with manufacturer imagery matching the court-referenced load. The recovered bullet fragment photo reference is from official evidence presented in the preliminary hearing. Court reasoning from the hearing confirms the physical evidence of a deformed bullet fragment recovered from the body, consistent with expanding ammunition behavior at the angle and with the ammunition type used.
Chris Loesch is pro staff for Triumph Systems, a Tier 1 training company founded by Navy SEAL Jared Ogden. He has over 40 years of hands-on shooting, hunting, and ballistics experience and operates broadcast audio and video for conservative media. This piece honors the memory of my friend Charlie Kirk and stands with his widow Erika and their family in seeking truth and justice.

How The ‘.30-06 Always Exits’ Lie Is Fueling The Worst Charlie Kirk Conspiracies

ballistics

An office launched by the State of Texas to investigate banned diversity, equity, and inclusion practices at universities has launched its first investigation, according to a complaint obtained by The Daily Wire.
The probe centers on a complaint filed by a former student at Stephen F. Austin State University in Nacogdoches, Texas, who alleges that the school is operating &#8220;a shadow D.E.I. program in violation of state law.&#8221; The complaint also alleges that university employees &#8220;discriminate against conservatives &#8230; and those that they perceive do not support D.E.I. or leftist political beliefs.&#8221;
The state launched the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board Office of the Ombudsman last year to serve as a watchdog for universities to ensure they are not violating anti-DEI laws. The office has since begun accepting complaints from students, faculty, and employees.
The office can push to withhold state funding from schools found to have violated state law that have failed to address the issues, <a href="https://www.texastribune.org/2026/04/03/texas-ombudsman-investigate-university-complaints/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">according</a> to The Texas Tribune.
&#8220;The Office of the Ombudsman enforces key Texas higher education laws that prohibit divisive practices and unconstitutional discrimination as well as ensure accountability for important personnel and curriculum decisions at public universities,&#8221; Brandon L. Simmons, who leads the office, told The Daily Wire.
&#8220;We take every complaint seriously and will fully investigate allegations of potential violations. Our work helps protect a fair learning environment in which Texas students are treated equally under the law,&#8221; Simmons said.
The complaint at the center of the office&#8217;s first investigation is heavily redacted, leaving many details unclear.
In one alleged incident, the former student claimed that a campus peer tutoring office sought &#8220;to restrict political speech following Charlie Kirk&#8217;s assassination.&#8221; After Kirk&#8217;s killing, university staff informed students in the tutoring office that &#8220;we&#8217;re a political free zone,&#8221; the former student&#8217;s attorney, Tanner Franklin, told The Daily Wire.
Franklin is representing the ex-student alongside State Rep. Briscoe Caine.
The ex-student responded to the group message, saying, &#8220;I appreciate &#8230; that we&#8217;re not going to be political, but that&#8217;s not what&#8217;s happening in reality,&#8221; referring to other tutors who wore &#8220;clothing with obvious political slogans such as &#8216;No person can be illegal on stolen land&#8217; and &#8216;From the River to the Sea,'&#8221; a Palestinian chant for wiping Israel off the map.
He was subsequently fired from the tutoring office.
Franklin said that he believes the university retaliated against his client.
&#8220;His point was that&#8217;s fine if you want to be viewpoint neutral, that&#8217;s fine, but you actually have to be viewpoint neutral. And in response, they deleted his comment immediately from the group and basically sent him a message separately, saying, &#8216;Well, we&#8217;ll handle it.&#8217; And that was it. And then a week and a half later, he basically gets fired,&#8221; Franklin said.
In another instance, the ex-student said he was punished for asking a transgender student for their legal name when taking attendance. The transgender student would not provide their name, which was on the class roster, and only gave their preferred name.
&#8220;That student went and complained that my client was essentially being mean to him,&#8221; Franklin said.
The complainant and his attorney subsequently met with university officials to air his concerns.
&#8220;I left the meeting hopeful that SFA took my reports seriously and would take proper, and immediate action to address these serious issues. Unfortunately, that was not the case,&#8221; the student said in the complaint.
The school provided the former student with an &#8220;update&#8221; more than a week after the meeting took place, informing him that they &#8220;would be &#8216;firming up dress code expectations.'&#8221;
The university&#8217;s general counsel also told the former student that university employees &#8220;did not know what &#8216;From the River to the Sea&#8217; meant.&#8221;
&#8220;This fell far short of the full and transparent investigation that I requested and certainly did not hold anyone accountable,&#8221; the complaint reads.
As a result of the university&#8217;s actions and alleged failure to address the situation, the former student chose not to &#8220;walk at his graduation&#8221; out of concern about further retaliation, Franklin said, adding that his client &#8220;was just so disheartened with how the university had handled this process.&#8221;
Franklin hopes that the ombudsman&#8217;s office can push for greater accountability.
“We appreciate the Office of the Ombudsman for taking this complaint seriously and conducting a thorough investigation. Our client’s courageous decision to file this complaint is a critical step toward holding rogue university officials accountable,&#8221; the attorney said.
&#8220;We must ensure that the free speech rights of Texas students are protected and that any restrictions on speech are applied in a viewpoint-neutral manner. The Governor, Lieutenant Governor, and the Legislature’s conservative majority have made it clear: Texans are tired of conservative student voices being silenced and targeted at our taxpayer-funded institutions. When it happens, there will be consequences,&#8221; he added.
In a statement, the university said it &#8220;complies with all state and federal laws,&#8221; adding that &#8220;if there is a governmental investigation, the university will fully cooperate.&#8221;

Untitled design – 2026-07-09T114115.040

EXCLUSIVE: Texas’ Anti-DEI College Crackdown May Have Its First Target

Diversity Equity and Inclusion (DEI)

Greg Abbott

Texas

The note investigators say reveals that 23-year-old Tyler Robinson confessed to the assassination of Charlie Kirk was inadvertently broadcast live in court on Thursday. 
Lance Twiggs, the trans-identifying former boyfriend of Robinson, told investigators that he received a text after Kirk was shot at Utah Valley University telling him to look under his keyboard. Under the keyboard was a handwritten confession note, Twiggs said. 
“If you are reading this per my text, then I am so sorry. I left the house this morning on a mission and sent an auto-text. I’m likely dead or facing a lengthy prison sentence,” Robinson allegedly wrote in the note. “I had the opportunity to take out Charlie Kirk, and I took it. I don’t know if I will/have succeeded, but I had hoped to make it home to you.&#8221;
“I wish we could have lived in a world where this was not necessary,” the note added. “Please try and find joy in this life. I love you always, Tyler.”
&nbsp;
<div class="image"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-1132295" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/07/Screenshot-2026-07-10-at-8.34.17-AM.png" alt="" width="2092" height="1412" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/07/Screenshot-2026-07-10-at-8.34.17-AM.png 2092w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/07/Screenshot-2026-07-10-at-8.34.17-AM-300x202.png 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/07/Screenshot-2026-07-10-at-8.34.17-AM-853x576.png 853w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/07/Screenshot-2026-07-10-at-8.34.17-AM-768x518.png 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/07/Screenshot-2026-07-10-at-8.34.17-AM-1536x1037.png 1536w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/07/Screenshot-2026-07-10-at-8.34.17-AM-2048x1382.png 2048w" sizes=" (max-width: 2092px) 100vw, 2092px" /></div>
Images of the note had been prohibited from being broadcast before the trial officially began, Judge Tony Graf previously said. On Thursday during the <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/thats-so-criminal-ep-23?elementPosition=1&amp;row=2&amp;rowHeadline=Latest+Episodes&amp;rowType=Horizontal+Show+Episodes+Carousel">preliminary hearing</a>, Graf stepped in and asked Utah County Attorney&#8217;s Office prosecutor Ryan McBride if the note was being broadcast after it appeared on the camera feed from the courtroom, the New York Post <a href="https://nypost.com/2026/07/09/us-news/redacted-heartfelt-letter-from-tyler-robinson-to-trans-lover-accidentally-shown-in-court/">reported</a>. 
“Let me stop you, Mr. McBride. I’m not sure, is this being broadcast?” Graf said.
“Let’s take that down,” McBride answered back.
<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/thats-so-criminal-ep-23?elementPosition=1&amp;row=2&amp;rowHeadline=Latest+Episodes&amp;rowType=Horizontal+Show+Episodes+Carousel" target="_blank" rel="noopener">WATCH: Tyler Robinson Preliminary Hearing</a>
Other evidence prosecutors revealed Thursday included a recorded interview with Twiggs where he said that Robinson confessed to the killing. 
“[He] didn’t go into detail. I just asked him in person if what he said was true the night before and he said it was, starting crying a little bit, and he says he wishes he hadn’t done it,” Twiggs said. 
Robinson also confessed to the killing in text messages to Twiggs, according to investigators. 
“Shouldn’t be long until I can come home, but I gotta grab my rifle still. to be honest I had hoped to keep this secret till I died of old age. I am sorry to involve you,” Robinson allegedly wrote.
“You werent the one who did it right????” Twiggs asked.
“I am, I’m sorry,” Robinson allegedly replied. 
On Friday, lawyers for Robinson are expected to present one more witness from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) before the case wraps for the day. After that, Graf told lawyers on both sides to craft legal briefs on whether enough evidence has been produced to bring Robinson to trial. Oral arguments on those briefs will be on September 1.

Note_Tyler_Robinson_Hearing

SEE IT: Court Accidentally Shows Tyler Robinson’s Confession Note To Trans Lover

Lance Twiggs, the trans-identifying former boyfriend of accused assassin Tyler Robinson, said in audio released during Thursday&#8217;s preliminary hearing that Robinson had claimed he wanted to engrave bullets ahead of a planned &#8220;hunting&#8221; trip.
A police interview with Twiggs, originally recorded several months after the late Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk was assassinated, was played for the first time during preliminary hearings ahead of Robinson&#8217;s trial.
Twiggs said that Robinson had mentioned a hunting trip he was planning with his family, and asked whether he had a Dremel tool that he could use to engrave bullets before they went. He confirmed that he did have the tool, and had told Robinson where he could find it — and that all of that had transpired about a month or so prior to the shooting.
&#8220;He said he was going hunting with his family and he asked if we had a Dremel he could borrow because he said he wanted to engrave messages on bullets,&#8221; Twiggs explained. &#8220;I just told him where the Dremel was and told him to make sure he doesn&#8217;t set off the bullet on accident in the house, but I didn&#8217;t really think about it until then.&#8221;
He recalled seeing Robinson the day after the shooting, and said that he&#8217;d appeared restless — as if he&#8217;d been attempting to keep himself busy, or to distract himself from what he had done.
Twiggs also said that he&#8217;d asked Robinson directly whether the things he&#8217;d said via text the night before — namely that he&#8217;d been the one to shoot Kirk — had been true.
&#8220;[He] didn’t go into detail. I just asked him in person if what he said was true the night before and he said it was, starting crying a little bit, and he says he wishes he hadn’t done it,” Twiggs said.
Some portions of the interview were redacted pursuant to an earlier ruling from Judge Tony Graf, in which he stated that about 16 minutes of the recorded interview — which initially took place earlier in the year — would be redacted in order to balance transparency of the proceedings with the rights of the defendant.
Robinson, 23, will potentially face the death penalty if he is convicted.

Charlie Kirk Shooting Suspect Tyler Robinson Arraigned In Utah Court

Tyler Robinson’s Trans Furry Boyfriend Reveals Engraved Bullet Details

Tyler Robinson Claimed Engraved Bullets Were For 'Hunting,' Trans Furry Boyfriend Says

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