The brutal murder of a 23-year-old Ukrainian refugee on a North Carolina bus has become a flashpoint in national discussions about urban safety, with President Donald Trump weighing in on the tragedy.
&#8220;I give my love and hope to the family of the young woman who was stabbed in Charlotte by a madman, a lunatic,” Trump said in a speech at the Museum of the Bible on Monday. “Just viciously stabbed, she&#8217;s just sitting there.”
“There are evil people,” the president added. “We have to be able to handle that. If we don&#8217;t handle that, we don&#8217;t have a country.&#8221;
The victim, Iryna Zarutska, came to the United States in 2022. She was returning from her job at a local pizzeria when Decarlos Brown stabbed her repeatedly in the neck. The video of the attack is profoundly disturbing and has circulated widely online, amplifying concerns about Charlotte&#8217;s escalating violent crime.
According to recent data, the city experienced a 25% increase in homicides last year — the second-highest on record, surpassed only by the peak in 2020 amid the Black Lives Matter riots. Robberies in the city center have surged 54%, general violent offenses are up nearly 10%, and &#8220;shootings into occupied property&#8221; have risen 42%.
Many Charlotte residents have said they no longer feel safe using public transit.
“I think that there&#8217;s a lot of things we could talk about, of the failure of what&#8217;s happened in Charlotte from nobody checking tickets to no real law enforcement that was there on the train,” North Carolina Congressman Mark Harris told The Daily Wire.
“I spoke to a parent who said that they had wanted to take their five-year-old for his birthday just a few weeks ago on a train ride. It was on a Friday at 11 o&#8217;clock in the morning. They did that, but they had to get off the train because of a fight that nearly broke out, and it was because it was somebody on there that didn&#8217;t have a ticket…And this dad said, ‘I just got my family and got off for our own safety.’&#8221;
&#8220;When you have things like that happening in your city, you&#8217;re seeing a city that is not being governed well.”
Brown had a lengthy criminal history, including at least 14 prior arrests for offenses such as armed robbery and assault with a deadly weapon. Despite serving five years for the robbery, most of his other cases resulted in time served, probation, or community service.
His most recent arrest in January was for misusing 911, yet Judge Teresa Stokes granted him pretrial release despite his violent record. In 2024 alone, Brown had three encounters with the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department&#8217;s (CMPD) community policing team, each time receiving referrals to resources and fines rather than jail time.
Critics argue that progressive reforms to North Carolina&#8217;s criminal justice system, implemented since 2020, contributed to Brown remaining on the streets. Two weeks after George Floyd&#8217;s death, then-Democrat Attorney General Josh Stein — now the state&#8217;s governor — announced the creation of a &#8220;Task Force for Racial Equity in Criminal Justice.&#8221;
&#8220;The inequities that African Americans experience, whether it&#8217;s in the economy, healthcare, our schools or the criminal justice system, are pervasive, just as they are wrong,&#8221; Stein, whose campaign for attorney general was <a href="https://www.opensecrets.org/officeholders/josh-stein/contributors?cycle=2020&amp;id=333383&amp;recs=100" target="_blank" rel="noopener">supported</a> by George Soros, stated at the time.
&#8220;The task force for racial equity and criminal justice will consider and implement measures that can bring about meaningful change to the criminal justice system. We will review law enforcement recruitment, training and accountability, as well as court issues, including pretrial release and the use of fines and fees.&#8221;
The task force&#8217;s <a href="about:blank" target="_blank" rel="noopener">recommendations</a> included expanding pretrial release, decriminalizing homelessness and &#8220;public behavior,&#8221; and mandating &#8220;implicit bias training&#8221; for judges and prosecutors. Opponents say these changes directly enabled Brown&#8217;s repeated releases, with a <a href="about:blank" target="_blank" rel="noopener">later report</a> from the racial equity task force highlighting that the task force’s recommendations on expanding pretrial releases were being adopted in courts around the state.
Adding fuel to the debate, Charlotte&#8217;s Democrat Mayor Vi Lyles issued a statement immediately following the stabbing that omitted any mention of Zarutska while calling for &#8220;compassion&#8221; toward the perpetrator.
&#8220;We will never arrest our way out of issues such as homelessness and mental health,&#8221; Lyles said. &#8220;I want to be clear that I am not villainizing those who struggle with their mental health or those who are unhoused. Mental health disease is just that— a disease like any other that needs to be treated with the same compassion, diligence and commitment as cancer or heart disease.&#8221;
A GoFundMe campaign has been set up to support Zarutska’s family, who said she came to the United States “seeking safety from the war and hoping for a new beginning.”

MixCollage-08-Sep-2025-02-31-PM-2293

Fatal Charlotte Stabbing Highlights The Failure Of Racial Equity Policies

Crime

Donald Trump

George Floyd

North Carolina

Ukraine

It&#8217;s become perfectly predictable at this point.
Let&#8217;s say there&#8217;s a violent incident in which a black person and a white person get into conflict. Let&#8217;s say it&#8217;s the white person who ends up killing the black person. Even in a situation where the black person was actually performing an aggressive act and the white person was acting in defense of self or others in the situation, we get months of discussions about white on black violence.
If it&#8217;s Michael Brown, months and years of talk about white on black police and crime. Derek Chauvin, George Floyd. This is just the way it goes.
If, however, the crime is reversed, if it is a black perpetrator and a white victim, then, of course, it just disappears into the ether and we never hear about it again. The latest case of this happens to be this horrifying video out of North Carolina.
According to the <a href="https://nypost.com/2025/09/06/us-news/ukrainian-refugees-stabbing-death-on-north-carolina-train-caught-on-video/">New York Post</a>:
<blockquote>Haunting new video revealed the terrifying moment a homeless ex-con allegedly fatally <a href="https://nypost.com/2025/08/25/us-news/ukrainian-refugee-23-who-fled-war-for-safer-life-in-us-knifed-to-death-by-homeless-career-criminal-in-north-carolina/">stabbed a 23-year-old Ukrainian refugee</a> in what police said was a random attack on a North Carolina light rail train. Iryna Zarutska, who fled war-torn Ukraine for a safer life in America, was on the Lynx Blue Line in Charlotte just before 10 p.m. Aug. 22 when she was ambushed, <a href="https://www.charlottenc.gov/cmpd/News-Information/Newsroom/Homicide-Investigation-in-the-Central-Division-08.22.25">according to the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department.</a>
The <a href="https://www.wbtv.com/2025/09/05/light-rail-stabbing-graphic-video-shows-moments-before-after-woman-killed-charlotte/">surveillance footage</a>, released Friday by the Charlotte Area Transit System (CATS), shows Zarutska boarding the train in her pizzeria uniform at 9:46 p.m. and sitting, looking at her phone, unaware of the danger behind her.
Just four minutes later, 34-year-old Decarlos Brown Jr. allegedly whips out a folding knife and lunges forward, stabbing her three times, at least once in the neck, police said.
The chilling video then appears to show Brown walking through the rail car, stripping off his sweatshirt and waiting by the doors — as passengers began to notice blood dripping from him.</blockquote>
Zarutska, collapsed in her seat and was pronounced dead on the light rail train. Brown apparently got off at the next stop. A folding knife was later recovered near the platform.
There are a couple of issues here.
This particular perpetrator had multiple arrests dating back to 2011. His record included larceny, robbery with a dangerous weapon, and communicating threats.
The first issue has nothing to do with race. It has to do with our criminal justice system not keeping criminals in prison long enough. I know this cuts against the left-wing view that we are an “over-incarcerated” society.
Wrong. We&#8217;re a radically under-incarcerated society.
<h3><a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/ep-2275-the-ben-shapiro-show?elementPosition=3&amp;row=2&amp;rowHeadline=Latest+Episodes&amp;rowType=Horizontal+Show+Episodes+Carousel">WATCH: The Ben Shapiro Show</a></h3>
My point is not that we need more random misdemeanor defendants in jail — my point is that if someone is arrested for armed robbery, that person should be in jail for the rest of his or her life. They should not be let back out on the streets. It’s wrong to stick someone like that in jail for only three or four years, especially if they&#8217;re a homeless, mentally ill person, which is what this person was.
What we end up with is crime on the street. This idiocy where we arrest career criminals, take them off the streets for five minutes, and put them back on the streets is insane. It&#8217;s totally ridiculous and insane at every possible level. It gets human beings murdered. 
There are judges who give light sentences that allow for this catch-and-release nonsense. This process needs to be ended immediately.
Evil people need to go to jail forever. Forever. They should not be out. There&#8217;s a very, very high recidivism rate with regard to violent crime.
The second issue is the racial angle, which is less about race and more about media coverage of race. There are some people who will attempt to turn this into some sort of salient point about the difference between races.
Let&#8217;s be very clear. Crime is a result of individual evil human action. It is not inborn into any race. What you have in a lot of areas are different cultural orientations toward crime. This is just a reality. If you don&#8217;t have fathers in the home with high crime areas, if you have people who see other criminals around them acting like criminals, they act like criminals.
The media coverage is always radically disparate. If a white person commits a crime against a black person, it is a national news story. If a black person murders a white Ukrainian girl on the train in Charlotte, it gets zero mainstream media coverage.
Zero.
As of Sunday, The New York Times had not covered the story at all.
Liz Wheeler <a href="https://x.com/Liz_Wheeler/status/1964875008209301552">pointed out</a> that The New York Times dedicated some 6,000 articles to George Floyd, roughly 1,200 articles to Trayvon Martin, 56 to Kilmar Abrego Garcia, roughly 100 to Daniel Penny, and ZERO to Iryna Zarutska.
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George Floyd—5,897
Trayvon Martin—1,190
Kilmar Abrego Garcia—56
Daniel Penny—100
Iryna Zarutska—0
New York Times is propaganda. <a href="https://t.co/042SZW0g3G">pic.twitter.com/042SZW0g3G</a>
— Liz Wheeler (@Liz_Wheeler) <a href="https://twitter.com/Liz_Wheeler/status/1964875008209301552?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">September 8, 2025</a></blockquote>
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It is not out of line to point out the radical disparity in attention to these headlines. If you ask people who work in legacy media why they have their biases, they will say they don&#8217;t want to “reinforce stereotypes.”
The only stereotype that&#8217;s being reinforced when they don&#8217;t report the news is that the legacy media are trash, and they&#8217;re not giving you the full information.
Donald Trump Jr. <a href="https://x.com/DonaldJTrumpJr/status/1965016826141958650">noted</a>, “Strangely, all the clowns with Ukraine flags in their bio are also all silent on this one.”
What he means by that is that many of the people who have the Ukraine flags in their bio are people who are leftists, people who are oriented against the Trump administration. But when a Ukrainian woman gets killed on a subway by a black man, it turns out that the intersectional hierarchy has been upended.
And so they have to ignore the murder.
The bottom line here is, as always, legacy media are perfectly willing to overlook stories that do not match their narrative.
The death of this young woman will not become a national issue. It will not spur a national conversation about crime rates, about policing, or about people getting out too early on bail.
It won&#8217;t do any of those things because it doesn&#8217;t match up with the corrupt legacy media and what they wish the world were really all about.

Mentally Ill, Repeat-Criminal Kills Young Ukrainian Female Refugee. Media Silent. Guess Why.

Ben Shapiro

Blacks

Charlotte

Criminal Justice

Legacy Media

Murder

Opinion

Stabbing

Whites

The trial is underway for a professor who sued the University of California, Los Angeles, over his suspension after he refused to grade black students more leniently in the wake of George Floyd&#8217;s highly publicized death.
Gordon Klein, an accounting <a href="https://www.anderson.ucla.edu/faculty-and-research/accounting/faculty/klein">professor</a> at UCLA, is demanding $22 million in damages in a trial that began last week in Santa Monica.
Back in June 2020, just weeks after George Floyd&#8217;s death, Klein received an email from a group of his students asking for a &#8220;no-harm&#8221; final exam that could only help their grades and would involve shorter tests and extended deadlines for final assignments and projects.
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🚨🚨NEW: Will UCLA have to fork over $22 million to Gordon Klein, the business professor it suspended after he refused a request to grade black students leniently? 
We will soon find out &#8212; the trial is scheduled to start July 1 in a Santa Monica courthouse! 
I just read… <a href="https://t.co/cwSdaKtVMT">pic.twitter.com/cwSdaKtVMT</a>
&mdash; Jennifer Kabbany (@JenniferKabbany) <a href="https://twitter.com/JenniferKabbany/status/1939056470815056343?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 28, 2025</a></blockquote>
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The students asked for special accommodations due to “traumas, we have been placed in a position where we much (sic) choose between actively supporting our black classmates or focusing on finishing up our spring quarter,” as The Daily Wire <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/ucla-students-want-two-professors-fired-because-they-didnt-accommodate-student-feelings">reported</a> at the time.
“We believe that remaining neutral in times of injustice brings power to the oppressor and therefore staying silent is not an option,” the students told Klein.
The students claimed their request was not “a joint effort to get finals canceled for non-black students,” but rather to “ask that you exercise compassion and leniency with black students in our major.”
Klein responded with several sarcastic emails that got him in trouble with the school.
“Thanks for your suggestion in your email below that I give black students special treatment, given the tragedy in Minnesota,” Klein wrote to the students.
“Do you know the names of the classmates that are black?” the professor asked. “How can I identify them since we’ve been having online classes only?”
Klein also asked about students who “may be of mixed parentage, such as half black-half Asian?”
“What do you suggest I do with respect to them? A full concession or just half?” he quipped.
Klein also wrote that “a white student from [Minneapolis] might be possibly even more devastated by this, especially because some might think that they’re racist even if they are not.”
The professor ended his email response to the complaining students with Martin Luther King Jr.&#8217;s famous quote about not judging people based on the color of their skin.
Students screenshotted Klein&#8217;s email and posted it to social media, where it sparked angry responses.
Klein was <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/professor-sues-ucla-after-he-was-suspended-for-refusing-to-grade-black-students-differently-than-white-students">suspended</a> and criticized by UCLA in June 2020 before being reinstated in September 2020, <a href="https://dailybruin.com/2025/06/30/trial-to-begin-in-lawsuit-filed-by-ucla-lecturer-against-administrators">according</a> to the Daily Bruin.
“Conduct that demonstrates a disregard for our core principles, including an abuse of power, is not acceptable,” <a href="https://www.thecollegefix.com/trial-set-to-begin-over-ucla-prof-suspended-after-refusing-lenient-grading-for-black-students/">wrote</a> Anderson School Dean Antonio Bernardo in a message to the campus community. &#8220;I deeply regret the increased pain and anger that our community has experienced at this very difficult time. We must and will hold each other to higher standards.”
UCLA reinstated Klein after just a few weeks, but his reputation and career had already suffered, according to the professor&#8217;s lawsuit.
Klein accuses UCLA of harming his expert witness practice, where he previously made about $1 million a year in high-profile cases, including Michael Jackson’s wrongful death suit.
“By this moment, as a direct and immediate result of [his] public suspension and excoriation, Professor Klein’s expert witness practice had been permanently destroyed,” the lawsuit <a href="https://www.thecollegefix.com/trial-set-to-begin-over-ucla-prof-suspended-after-refusing-lenient-grading-for-black-students/">states</a>.
Meanwhile, UCLA will argue that Klein was suspended for his &#8220;tone and manner.&#8221;
The <a href="https://legalinsurrection.com/2025/07/trial-starts-in-suit-against-ucla-by-prof-gordon-klein-targeted-and-smeared-for-refusing-exam-leniency-for-black-students/">trial</a> is expected to last through the end of next week.

Group of multiracial teenage college students ready to go back to school standing against blue background wall.

Trial Underway For UCLA Professor Who Refused To ‘Exercise Compassion’ With Race-Based Grading

California

Courts

Los Angeles (UCLA)

U.S.

UCLA

Even though he was technically correct, Governor Gavin Newsom&#8217;s (D-CA) latest attempt to fact-check conservatives — over a protest video that circulated via X — went sideways in a hurry.
The video in question was shared by a number of accounts and showed protesters surrounding several LAPD vehicles that had been damaged and set on fire.
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🚨 CHAOS! Los Angeles now looking like a collapsing third world country under Mayor Bass and Governor Newscum’s lack of leadership.
🔥 Absolute MADNESS. <a href="https://t.co/3RdvrszCfk">pic.twitter.com/3RdvrszCfk</a>
— Jay Merz 🇺🇸 (@OopsYouMissed) <a href="https://twitter.com/OopsYouMissed/status/1931801788904305148?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 8, 2025</a></blockquote>
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Community notes clarified that the video was not from the recent confrontations between violent protesters and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents. Rather, it was from the violent riots that took place in the aftermath of George Floyd&#8217;s death in May of 2020.
Both Newsom himself and his press office quickly capitalized on the error, responding to multiple accounts that shared the video and saying, &#8220;This video is from 2020,&#8221; or &#8220;FACT CHECK: This video is not from this year. Misinformation like this only adds to the chaos the Trump Administration is seeking. Check your sources before sharing info!&#8221;
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
❌FACT CHECK: This video is not from this year.
Misinformation like this only adds to the chaos the Trump Administration is seeking.
Check your sources before sharing info! <a href="https://t.co/1dqJ1K3xI5">https://t.co/1dqJ1K3xI5</a>
— Governor Newsom Press Office (@GovPressOffice) <a href="https://twitter.com/GovPressOffice/status/1931841115290042630?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 8, 2025</a></blockquote>
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And even though Newsom was correct regarding the origin of that particular video, critics quickly pointed out the fact that there were plenty of current videos — many depicting similar carnage on the streets of Los Angeles — to go around.
<a href="https://get.dailywire.com/gift/?utm_medium=website&amp;utm_source=wisepops&amp;utm_campaign=dad&amp;utm_content=fathersdaygiftpopups" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Gift Dad an All Access Membership. Use code DAD40 at checkout to save 40%!</a>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
This video is from 2025. <a href="https://t.co/W0ijR8TFSo">pic.twitter.com/W0ijR8TFSo</a> <a href="https://t.co/5G7ysK4z6o">https://t.co/5G7ysK4z6o</a>
— Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) <a href="https://twitter.com/libsoftiktok/status/1931909430737518625?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 9, 2025</a></blockquote>
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<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
This isn’t… <a href="https://t.co/6XnIlhDIaU">https://t.co/6XnIlhDIaU</a> <a href="https://t.co/giyG1KFxCB">pic.twitter.com/giyG1KFxCB</a>
— Robert Greenway (@RC_Greenway) <a href="https://twitter.com/RC_Greenway/status/1931895849312752107?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 9, 2025</a></blockquote>
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<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
How about this one Gavin? <a href="https://t.co/z96KwJcgkB">https://t.co/z96KwJcgkB</a> <a href="https://t.co/vZUOnHHLWM">pic.twitter.com/vZUOnHHLWM</a>
— sikmedia.algo (@sik_media87) <a href="https://twitter.com/sik_media87/status/1931893537265885501?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 9, 2025</a></blockquote>
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🚨 <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/BREAKING?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#BREAKING</a>: Rioters have SET FIRE to a California Highway Patrol vehicle while officers are trapped under an overpass
WHAT YEAR IS THIS FROM, <a href="https://twitter.com/GavinNewsom?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@GavinNewsom</a>?
YOU’RE A FAILURE! <a href="https://t.co/Qg6AbBJE2F">https://t.co/Qg6AbBJE2F</a> <a href="https://t.co/kJCSJRZ3qK">pic.twitter.com/kJCSJRZ3qK</a>
— Nick Sortor (@nicksortor) <a href="https://twitter.com/nicksortor/status/1931908921175966173?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 9, 2025</a></blockquote>
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Others pointed out the fact that Newsom had failed to contain the riots in his state in 2020 and was once again failing to do so.
&#8220;&#8216;Five years later this place is still on fire&#8217; may not be the campaign slogan you’re looking for, tho?&#8221; Emily Zanotti posted.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
“Five years later this place is still on fire” may not be the campaign slogan you’re looking for, tho? <a href="https://t.co/ZyTANTjkeO">https://t.co/ZyTANTjkeO</a>
— Emily Zanotti 🦝 (@emzanotti) <a href="https://twitter.com/emzanotti/status/1932049756001329643?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 9, 2025</a></blockquote>
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&#8220;Are you trying to imply that LA isn&#8217;t currently a hellscape?&#8221; Jillian Michaels asked.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
. <a href="https://twitter.com/GavinNewsom?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@GavinNewsom</a> are you trying to imply that LA isn&#8217;t currently a hellscape? <a href="https://t.co/Z6b6MVHaUG">https://t.co/Z6b6MVHaUG</a>
— Jillian Michaels (@JillianMichaels) <a href="https://twitter.com/JillianMichaels/status/1931931758490202571?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 9, 2025</a></blockquote>
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&#8220;Yeah, you’ve been good at destroying this state for half a decade. Thanks for taking the bait,&#8221; actor James Woods said.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
Yeah, you’ve been good at destroying this state for half a decade. Thanks for taking the bait. <a href="https://t.co/iULfqn0UbP">https://t.co/iULfqn0UbP</a>
— James Woods (@RealJamesWoods) <a href="https://twitter.com/RealJamesWoods/status/1931886323268473243?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 9, 2025</a></blockquote>
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&#8220;This video is from a different horrific failure of mine,&#8221; John Ekdahl added.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
“This video is from a different horrific failure of mine.” <a href="https://t.co/aTZkDoVmZf">https://t.co/aTZkDoVmZf</a>
— John Ekdahl (@JohnEkdahl) <a href="https://twitter.com/JohnEkdahl/status/1931876464250564906?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 9, 2025</a></blockquote>
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&#8220;Who was Governor of California in 2020?&#8221; Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) asked.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
Who was Governor of California in 2020? <a href="https://t.co/v9VOPnBNwX">https://t.co/v9VOPnBNwX</a>
— Team Cruz (@TeamTedCruz) <a href="https://twitter.com/TeamTedCruz/status/1932088856762806451?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 9, 2025</a></blockquote>
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&#8220;I also allowed rioters to burn police cars and assault cops in 2020!&#8217; is not the own you think it is,&#8221; Libs of TikTok posted.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
“I also allowed rioters to burn police cars and assault cops in 2020!” is not the own you think it is <a href="https://t.co/5G7ysK4z6o">https://t.co/5G7ysK4z6o</a> <a href="https://t.co/tYnPRQy6ED">pic.twitter.com/tYnPRQy6ED</a>
— Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) <a href="https://twitter.com/libsoftiktok/status/1931897410071957757?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 9, 2025</a></blockquote>
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The Daily Wire&#8217;s Matt Walsh weighed in as well, saying, &#8220;No, no, this is from a different time when leftist militants were torching police cars while I sat back and cheered them on.&#8217; Wow. You really dunked on us, governor. Good one.&#8221;
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
&#8220;No, no, this is from a different time when leftist militants were torching police cars while I sat back and cheered them on&#8221;
Wow. You really dunked on us, governor. Good one. <a href="https://t.co/Axi9terps5">https://t.co/Axi9terps5</a>
— Matt Walsh (@MattWalshBlog) <a href="https://twitter.com/MattWalshBlog/status/1931910202879783049?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 9, 2025</a></blockquote>
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&#8220;You’ll have to forgive the masses for mixing up which time you let Los Angeles descend into fiery chaos. To think, radical democrats want all of America to be run like California &#8230;&#8221; Rep. Eli Crane (R-AZ) added.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
You’ll have to forgive the masses for mixing up which time you let Los Angeles descend into fiery chaos.
To think, radical democrats want all of America to be run like California… <a href="https://t.co/ZX5G8aUgup">https://t.co/ZX5G8aUgup</a>
— Rep. Eli Crane (@RepEliCrane) <a href="https://twitter.com/RepEliCrane/status/1932055571072417818?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 9, 2025</a></blockquote>
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Vogue World: Hollywood Press Announcement

Gavin Newsom Blistered Over Fact-Check Gone Wrong: ‘This Video Is From 2020’

Gavin Newsom Blistered Over Fact-Check Gone Wrong: 'This Video Is From 2020'

2020

Fact Check

Gavin Newsom

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)

Los Angeles

Politics

Riots

Dozens of residents filled Chicago’s Federal Plaza on May 25 to commemorate the 5th anniversary of George Floyd’s controversial death that led to riots across the world.
TPUSA contributor Savanah Hernandez was right there to greet them, asking protesters what they thought of Floyd’s autopsy results that show he died of a fentanyl overdose. She was met with confusion, pushback, and even hostility.
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“Bringing up the fentanyl thing is f*cked up!”
For the fifth anniversary of George Floyd’s death, I decided to go show protesters his autopsy report. 
They all stated it was irrelevant to his death: <a href="https://t.co/uG2H4crneY">pic.twitter.com/uG2H4crneY</a>
&mdash; Savanah Hernandez (@sav_says_) <a href="https://twitter.com/sav_says_/status/1927016045383942574?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 26, 2025</a></blockquote>
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“Bringing up the fentanyl thing is f***ed up,” one protestor spat. “Let’s just pretend that it was from the drug, right? Who cares? That’s not how he f***ing died.”
Many of the protestors Hernandez spoke to echoed the &#8220;who cares&#8221; sentiment.
“The autopsy report that says there was fentanyl in his system — why is that relevant to anything?” asked one protestor. “Maybe he did have fentanyl in his system. I don’t care. It doesn’t matter.”
Other residents denied the evidence of a fentanyl overdose altogether.
“I think it’s untrue and propaganda that he died from a fentanyl overdose,” one protestor said, despite seeing the autopsy report.
“America is still racist,” one man claimed from behind a mask, a stance some white protestors agreed with, seeking to acknowledge their supposed privilege.
“It’s so important for white people [to] not forget George Floyd,” one said.
“I am a white woman and I have privilege, so I want to be able to show up in these spaces and make sure that other communities are safe,” said another.
Hernandez pressed one protester further. “Do you feel like if George Floyd was white, the narrative surrounding his death would be different?” she asked.
“Absolutely,” the woman responded. “Everyone would know.”
On May 25, 2020, a store owner in Minneapolis called the police on Floyd over a counterfeit bill. Once law enforcement arrived, a struggle ensued near the police vehicle, leading Officer Derek Chauvin to kneel on Floyd&#8217;s upper back while he was handcuffed and lying face down. Floyd died during the restraint, leading to widespread outrage and riots against police brutality.
Chauvin was convicted of murder and sentenced to 22.5 years in prison. However, the autopsy report revealed Floyd died from a fentanyl overdose he took before the police arrived, meaning Chauvin&#8217;s restraint did not suffocate him.
The Daily Wire has <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/show/the-case-for-derek-chauvin" target="_blank" rel="noopener">pushed</a> for a pardon for Chauvin.

US-NEWS-FLOYD-ANNIVERSARY-CHICAGO-TB

George Floyd’s Biggest Supporters Really Don’t Want To Talk About Fentanyl

Black Lives Matter

Fentanyl

Social Issues

As Ali MacGraw and Ryan O’Neal famously said, “Love means never having to say you&#8217;re sorry.”
Someone should tell that to modern day comedians.
Too many apologize for their past jokes, often years after uttering them. For some, it’s Damage Control 101. The “wrong” joke, no matter how long ago it was spoken, could be a cancel-worthy affair.
Take <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-52815624" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Jimmy Fallon groveling for forgiveness</a> during a 2020 Tonight Show episode over a 20-year-old blackface sketch. The apology came during the height of the BLM movement.
In other cases, it’s pure virtue signaling, since no one actually remembered the bad joke in question.
The latter may explain Sarah Silverman’s recent mea culpa. The far-Left comic previously got pinched by Cancel Culture when a 2007-era blackface gag <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/nbcblk/sarah-silverman-says-she-lost-film-role-wearing-blackface-2007-n1041621" target="_blank" rel="noopener">cost her a movie role</a>.
She took a rare shot at Cancel Culture while sharing that story.
“You have to ask yourself, would I want this person to be changed or do I secretly want them to stay what I deem as wrong so I can point to them as f***ed up and myself as right?”
More recently, Silverman <a href="https://x.com/RollingStone/status/1924113153228423434">apologized for using the n-word</a> in previous comedy routines.
“I felt like the temperature of the world around me at the time was, ‘We are all liberal so we can say the n-word. We aren’t racist, so we can say this derogatory stuff’ … I was playing a character that was arrogant and ignorant, so I thought it was OK. Looking back, my intentions were always good, but they were f***ing ignorant.”
She’s far from alone.
Tina Fey once blasted the woke mob for policing humor. The “30 Rock” alum said she makes it a policy <a href="https://reason.com/2015/12/20/tina-fey-is-done-apologizing-for-offensi/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">not to explain her jokes</a>.
Post-George Floyd, a very different <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-53148316" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Fey yanked four “30 Rock” episodes</a> from syndication for featuring various blackface jokes. Said episodes cannot be found on streaming or DVD platforms, according to the BBC.
Fey apologized for the “pain they have caused.” What pain? The subject came up during the BLM protests. How many people cared before…or after? Context is everything, particularly in comedy, and the episodes weren’t designed to attack or belittle black people.
Standup comedian John Mulaney isn’t known for his political musings. Yet he still circled back to apologize for a riff about the 2020 presidential election. He dared suggest it didn’t matter if an elderly Joe Biden or a slightly less elderly Donald Trump won.
“Outrage” ensued, and he <a href="https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2020/12/john-mulaney-snl-backlash-kimmel" target="_blank" rel="noopener">backpedaled on Jimmy Kimmel Live!</a>
&#8220;I should have said I very much want one to win over the other, and there will be improvements if one wins. I deserved backlash. I flat-out just forgot to do it&#8230; I never was like, ‘Hey, don’t you mean that one guy is worse than the other?’ And I forgot to make the joke good.&#8221;
Taylor Swift is arguably the most famous celebrity in the world, meaning she’s heard her fair share of insults, jokes and more. It’s not pretty, but it comes with the territory.
Comedienne Nikki Glaser still felt the need to <a href="https://www.today.com/popculture/miss-americana-nikki-glaser-apologizes-taylor-swift-t172987" target="_blank" rel="noopener">apologize to Tay Tay</a> after an old crack she made about the pop superstar resurfaced in the Swift documentary “Miss Americana.”
“She’s too skinny; it bothers me&#8230;all of her model friends, and it’s just like, c&#8217;mon!'&#8221;
Glaser called it “projection” due to her own eating disorder issues. Has she apologized to others <a href="https://www.thewrap.com/nikki-glaser-does-a-brutal-hilarious-high-speed-roast-of-biden-trump-and-other-politicians-video/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">she’s hammered with her humor since then</a>? It’s even more ironic because her biggest career boost came when she killed it at Netflix’s “The Roast of Tom Brady” last year.
The Apology Tour isn’t reserved for stand-up comedians. The key forces behind 2007’s “Superbad” — co-star and co-writer Seth Rogen, and star Jonah Hill — have apologized for the movie’s raunchy humor.
Rogen apologized for <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/seth-rogen-regrets-homophobic-superbad-jokes/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">capturing how real teenagers talk</a> in the hit comedy.
&#8220;There are probably some jokes in &#8216;Superbad&#8217; that are bordering on blatantly homophobic at times. They&#8217;re all in the voice of high school kids, who do speak like that, but I think we&#8217;d also be silly not to acknowledge that we also were, to some degree, glamorizing that type of language in a lot of ways.&#8221;
Hill piled on, blasting his own early comedies as portraits of “<a href="https://variety.com/2019/film/festivals/berlin-film-festival-jonah-hill-wants-to-challenge-traditional-masculinity-1203134534/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">toxic masculinity.”</a>
“I love those films, but I also think that if you look back at those films, a lot of what they’re showing is major bro comedy, and bro masculinity.”
He said he wanted his newer films to educate viewers about the “problematic behavior” highlighted in these box office hits.
Not every comic performer feels this way. Monty Python alum John Cleese isn’t eager to apologize for his past gags, and he occasionally does so <a href="https://www.yahoo.com/news/john-cleese-issues-sarcastic-apology-155723976.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">with tongue firmly in cheek</a> to make his point.
Podcasting giant Adam Carolla is even more firm in his “no apology” mantra.
The “Mr. Birchum” star defended his position in 2015 during a <a href="https://www.huffpost.com/entry/adam-carolla-done-apologizing_n_6811940" target="_blank" rel="noopener">HuffPo conversation</a>.
&#8220;Go find a politician or somebody who&#8217;s in charge and poke a popsicle stick up their butt…I&#8217;m a comedian. I&#8217;m done apologizing, I really am&#8230;And by the way, everyone who apologizes is faking it. They&#8217;re only doing it because they&#8217;re gonna get canned.&#8221;
He later started his book, “Everything Reminds Me of Something: Advice, Answers … but No Apologies“ with this promise.
“I’m not going to apologize. S****y times call for s****y language.”
And, bless his heart, 98-year-old Mel Brooks has yet to apologize for “The Producers” and its pro-Hitler ditty, “Springtime for Hitler.”
Christian Toto is an award-winning journalist, movie critic and editor of <a href="https://www.hollywoodintoto.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">HollywoodInToto.com</a>. He previously served as associate editor with Breitbart News’ Big Hollywood. Follow him at <a href="https://www.hollywoodintoto.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">HollywoodInToto.com</a>.
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

Sarah Silverman

Comedians Apologize…For Jokes? 

Cancel Culture

Comedy

Tina Fey

FBI agents who knelt with Black Lives Matter protesters following George Floyd&#8217;s death have been reassigned to less coveted positions, according to insiders briefed on the matter.
The agents were photographed kneeling with Black Lives Matter protestors during the 2020 protests in Washington D.C. following George Floyd&#8217;s death.
The agency was deployed by then-Attorney General Bill Barr in June 2020 to protect federal buildings and aid in crowd control efforts in the streets as local law enforcement were being <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/03/politics/federal-authorities-washington-dc/index.html">overwhelmed</a> by BLM protestors.
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NEW: FBI agents photographed kneeling during George Floyd protest have been removed from their positions &#8211; CNN <a href="https://t.co/yCVX2a3rK9">pic.twitter.com/yCVX2a3rK9</a>
&mdash; Breaking911 (@Breaking911) <a href="https://twitter.com/Breaking911/status/1917649459124560262?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 30, 2025</a></blockquote>
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FBI officials declined to explain the reassignments, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/30/us/politics/fbi-agents-2020-protests.html?smid=url-share">stating</a> to the New York Times, “it is our standard practice to decline to comment on personnel matters,” with many inside the bureau viewing them as demotions.
This action, first <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2025/04/30/politics/fbi-agents-blm-protest/index.html">reported</a> by CNN, aligns with President Donald Trump&#8217;s campaign promise to root out what he has called &#8220;woke&#8221; and politicized elements within law enforcement.
The kneeling incident occurred when agents assigned to protect federal monuments were confronted by protesters, with the agents claiming that their tactic prevented potential violence.
Photos of the incident sparked fierce internal backlash inside the FBI, with some agents being ostracized by colleagues who viewed the gesture as politically charged, and put the agents at a tactical disadvantage if confrontation did occur.
While former bureau leadership determined the agents hadn&#8217;t violated policy, the incident became a focal point for Trump and the GOP, who cited it as evidence of politicization within the law enforcement agency.
Legal experts note that while the FBI can transfer employees at will so long as they maintain the same pay and position, the agents could potentially pursue legal options if their reassignments were motivated by reprisal or discrimination.
Many Americans expressed frustration in 2020 when various police departments and federal agencies appeared to take political stances during nationwide protests that caused an <a href="https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/nicholas-fondacaro/2020/09/16/abc-nbc-spike-mostly-peaceful-protests-leaving-2-billion?utm_source=chatgpt.com">estimated</a> $1-2 billion in property damage and resulted in dozens of deaths.

Police Shooting Death Of Young Black Man Near Minneapolis Sparks Protests

FBI Pushes Out Agents Who Knelt With BLM Protestors In 2020

kash patel

Trump Administration

In the third episode of his groundbreaking series “The Case for Derek Chauvin,” Daily Wire editor emeritus Ben Shapiro revealed how the politically-connected former Chief Medical Examiner of Washington, D.C., dramatically influenced the Hennepin County Medical Examiner to add &#8220;neck compression&#8221; to George Floyd&#8217;s autopsy report despite initial findings that showed &#8220;no physical evidence suggesting that Mr. Floyd died of asphyxiation.&#8221;
“The facts are straightforward: Baker’s initial <a href="https://www.hennepin.us/-/media/hennepinus/residents/public-safety/medical-examiner/floyd-autopsy-6-3-20.pdf">autopsy</a> was conducted on May 26th, 2020, and his subsequent draft autopsy report found ‘no physical evidence suggesting that Mr. Floyd died of asphyxiation’ and ‘no medical indications of asphyxia or strangulation,’” Shapiro said.
“Then, Roger Mitchell enters the picture.”
Mitchell, a Democrat activist who also served as a D.C. deputy mayor, <a href="https://spectator.org/chauvin-did-not-murder-george-floyd/">called</a> Baker twice following the initial autopsy findings, according to <a href="https://www.mncourts.gov/mncourtsgov/media/High-Profile-Cases/27-CR-20-12949-TT/Exhibit105122021.pdf">documents</a> filed in the case of Tou Thao, a former Minneapolis police officer and Chauvin&#8217;s colleague.
During these calls, Mitchell allegedly told Baker, &#8220;You don&#8217;t want to be the medical examiner who tells everyone they didn&#8217;t see what they saw. You don&#8217;t want to be the smartest person in the room and be wrong.&#8221;
The pressure campaign intensified when Mitchell threatened to publish an op-ed in The Washington Post critical of Baker&#8217;s findings.
&#8220;[Mitchell] said there was a way to articulate the cause and manner of death that ensures you are telling the truth about what you are observing on the body and via all of the investigation. Mitchell said neck compression has to be in the diagnosis,&#8221; the memorandum states.
By June 1, 2020, Baker had added &#8220;neck compression&#8221; to his official diagnosis, transforming the case against the officers. This revised finding enabled Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison, assigned to the case by Governor Tim Walz just one day earlier, to bring an additional second-degree murder charge against Chauvin.
Dr. Baker&#8217;s private concerns about external pressure were revealed in former prosecutor Amy Sweasy&#8217;s sexual harassment <a href="https://mncourts.gov/mncourtsgov/media/High-Profile-Cases/27-CR-20-12949-TT/TT-SweasyDiscriminationCharge.pdf">lawsuit</a> deposition, where she detailed conversations with Baker in which he expressed anxiety about the case. According to Shapiro, this information further confirms the political nature of the prosecution.
As Shapiro notes, “Dr. Baker confided to Hennepin prosecutor Amy Sweasy, ‘What happens when the actual evidence doesn’t match up with the public narrative that everyone’s already decided on? This is the kind of case that ends careers.’”
The appearance of blackmail aside, Shapiro continues, “Worse yet, the Hennepin County prosecutors met with Dr. Baker to review his draft autopsy report without detectives or special agents present, violating protocol.”
“After being assigned to Chauvin&#8217;s case by Governor Tim Walz one day prior, Minnesota AG Keith Ellison utilized the revised autopsy report to bring an additional second-degree murder charge against Chauvin,&#8221; Shapiro adds. &#8220;All of these revelations, despite qualifying as Brady material, were buried at trial and were never properly disclosed to Chauvin’s defense.”
In the episode, Shapiro explores how “the detailed autopsy findings provide significant reasons to determine that Derek Chauvin did not receive a fair trial, and his conviction for murder was not supported by the medical evidence beyond a reasonable doubt.”
Watch the full episode <a href="https://youtu.be/4KrY4XR88Ws?si=eiI7O3suA_jFK5n7">here.</a>

TCFDC

The Chauvin Trial’s Dirty Secret: Shapiro Exposes D.C. Influence On Floyd Autopsy

Derek Chauvin

Minneapolis

Police Brutality

Daily Wire Editor Emeritus Ben Shapiro&#8217;s campaign to secure a presidential pardon for former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin continues this week with the premiere of his new series, &#8220;The Case for Derek Chauvin.&#8221;
&#8220;This is going to be a comprehensive, multi-episode breakdown of the case — all the facts, all the evidence, all the political context,&#8221; Shapiro says in the <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/bss-ep-2160">first episode</a> of the five-part series, which premiered today.
&#8220;We’re going to tear this case apart piece by piece, and by the end, I think you’ll agree with me that President Trump should immediately pardon Derek Chauvin for his federal convictions. This is The Case for Derek Chauvin.&#8221;
On March 4, Shapiro launched a petition to pardon Chauvin. The website, <a href="https://get.dailywire.com/pardon-derek/">PardonDerek.com</a>, has already attracted more than 50,000 signatures. The petition has gained momentum in Trump&#8217;s circle, with Elon Musk <a href="https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1896975871904505884">calling</a> the idea of a Chauvin pardon “something to think about.” Conservative commentator Charlie Kirk also <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dduWmpo7ioY">hosted</a> Shapiro on his podcast in support of the effort to pardon Chauvin last week.
The first episode, titled “The Background,” features Shapiro delving into how his own position on Chauvin has evolved after reviewing evidence beyond the viral video that sparked nationwide protests.
“Like everyone else in America, I first saw the tape of Derek Chauvin and George Floyd on May 25th — what appeared at the time to be nine minutes of a police officer’s knee on George Floyd’s neck. And given the tape alone, I drew the same conclusions most Americans drew.”
“And then, over time, new evidence emerged. A lot of it. And I realized that I had done something absolutely wrong: I rushed to judgment,” Shapiro explains in the first episode. “As new information was released—the full body camera footage, the complete autopsy findings, the Minneapolis Police Department training materials—my viewpoint changed. Dramatically.
Shapiro argues that complete body camera footage, autopsy findings, and Minneapolis Police Department training materials tell a different story than what the mainstream media initially reported.
Trump, who has signed nearly 100 executive orders targeting what he calls &#8220;woke&#8221; ideology since returning to office, cannot consider his “war on wokeness complete unless he addresses the fundamental injustice that started it all,” Shapiro said.
“Pardoning Chauvin is about making a definitive statement that the rule of law matters more than mob justice and that America is finally ready to correct the catastrophic error that sent our country spiraling into years of racial division and leftist cultural supremacy.”
Although a presidential pardon wouldn’t directly affect Chauvin’s state conviction, due to harsher federal rules for minimum sentencing, Shapiro explains, “On a 21-year federal sentence like Chauvin’s, the maximum reduction would be only about 3.1 years, resulting in approximately 17.9 years of actual incarceration — three years longer than what he’d serve under Minnesota’s more lenient system.”
The episode then delves into every one of  the “18 complaints” lodged against Chauvin as an officer, which reveal not a racist monster, but what Shapiro deems “the normal course of what happens when you’re policing high-crime areas for nearly two decades.”
Chauvin, in the course of dealing with “non-compliant suspects, domestic violence situations, armed suspects, and intoxicated individuals” was only reprimanded by the MPD once for being too aggressive in a traffic stop in 2007.
“The Left wants you to believe that these complaints prove Chauvin was a ticking time bomb who should have been removed from the force years ago. But when you actually examine the details, what emerges is a portrait of an officer doing a difficult job in challenging circumstances, operating within department guidelines.&#8221;
“They don&#8217;t want you to know these details because they contradict the narrative that Chauvin was a racist monster who deliberately murdered George Floyd out of racial animus. But facts don’t care about their feelings, and the facts show that Chauvin’s record was typical for a veteran officer working in a high-crime urban environment.”
Next, Shapiro unpacks George Floyd’s background, noting his rough upbringing in Houston’s Third Ward, eventually starting a troubling turn into crime and drugs, with his first felony cocaine conviction in 1997.
“The police officers who encountered him on his last day weren’t dealing with an upstanding citizen who had simply made a minor mistake; they were dealing with someone who had a long history of criminal behavior, including violence and resistance to police.”
The first episode of &#8216;The Case for Derek Chauvin&#8217; is <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/bss-ep-2160">now streaming</a> on DailyWire+. Episode 2, “The Incident,” will reveal &#8220;what really happened&#8221; on the day Floyd died.

WATCH: Ben Shapiro Gives The Facts On Derek Chauvin And George Floyd

This week, Daily Wire Editor Emeritus Ben Shapiro will begin a five-part series titled “The Case For Derek Chauvin.”
&#8220;This is going to be a comprehensive, multi-episode breakdown of the case — all the facts, all the evidence, all the political context,&#8221; Shapiro says in the first episode of the five-part series, which will premier Tuesday.
Chauvin was convicted in 2021 of second-degree unintentional murder, third-degree murder, and second-degree manslaughter in the death of George Floyd after a traffic stop on May 25, 2020. He was sentenced to 22.5 years in prison. Chauvin appealed his conviction, but the Minnesota Supreme Court upheld the decision and the United States Supreme Court declined to review the case. After the verdict was delivered, President Joe Biden declared, “Today&#8217;s verdict is a step forward.”
Chauvin was later convicted on federal charges of depriving Floyd of his constitutional rights and <a href="https://www.justice.gov/archives/opa/pr/former-minneapolis-police-officer-derek-chauvin-sentenced-more-20-years-prison-depriving#:~:text=On%20Dec.,police%20officer%2C%20resulting%20in%20Mr.">received</a> a 21-year sentence.
Floyd’s death was used as justification for riots throughout the summer of 2020.
“Dozens of people were killed or injured in the violent unrest, and thousands of businesses and properties, many minority-owned, were looted, torched, or otherwise vandalized,” the Foundation for Economic Education <a href="https://fee.org/articles/george-floyd-riots-caused-record-setting-2-billion-in-damage-new-report-says-here-s-why-the-true-cost-is-even-higher/">noted</a>. Fifteen people <a href="https://dailycaller.com/2020/06/05/15-people-died-protests-riots-george-floyd-death/">reportedly died</a> as a result of the riots. “The arson, vandalism and looting… will result in at least $1 billion to $2 billion of paid insurance claims,” Axios <a href="https://www.axios.com/riots-cost-property-damage-276c9bcc-a455-4067-b06a-66f9db4cea9c.html?utm_source=newsletter&amp;utm_medium=email&amp;utm_campaign=newsletter_axiosam&amp;stream=top">reported.</a> That only estimated losses that were insured, thus underestimating the likely damage.
Shapiro has called for President Trump to pardon Chauvin of the federal charges against him, stating:
&#8220;The evidence demonstrates that Derek Chauvin did not, in fact, commit murder of George Floyd. George Floyd was high on fentanyl. He had a significant preexisting heart condition. George Floyd was saying he could not breathe before he was even out of the car. He was in the car saying he could not breathe. Derek Chauvin, for a large segment of the tape that was shown, had his knee on George Floyd&#8217;s shoulder or back, not on his neck.&#8221;
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Something to think about <a href="https://t.co/KbZQEMpFXP">https://t.co/KbZQEMpFXP</a>
&mdash; Elon Musk (@elonmusk) <a href="https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1896975871904505884?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 4, 2025</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
&#8220;The autopsy of George Floyd showed that he had no damage to his trachea, that probably George Floyd died of excited delirium,&#8221; Shapiro continued. &#8220;There were no accusations, even at trial, that Derek Chauvin had committed a hate crime against George Floyd, or that he targeted George Floyd because of his race.&#8221;
Shapiro noted that &#8220;it is worthwhile to remember that there is a man who is rotting in prison because the media decided in the middle of 2020 that they were going to turn a tragic law enforcement stop that ended with the death of a man who had a significant problem with drugs and preexisting health problems into the raison d’etre of the entire 2020 election.&#8221;
&#8220;It led to vast chaos,&#8221; Shapiro said. &#8220;It led to the destruction of racial comity in the United States, $2 billion in property damage, and a guy rotting in prison who, the evidence demonstrates, certainly was not guilty beyond reasonable doubt in that case.&#8221;

Ben Shapiro To Host Five-Part Series: ‘The Case For Derek Chauvin’

A lot of people have been asking why I’ve focused on the pardon of Derek Chauvin. After all, he&#8217;s convicted on both federal charges as well as state charges.
There are a few reasons. 
The first and most obvious reason is that there is a likelihood he serves less time if the federal charges are relieved because federal inmates can&#8217;t earn good-time credit that reduces sentences. That happens at a much lower rate at the federal level than it happens at the state level. With Chauvin&#8217;s concurrent sentences, he has roughly a 22.5-year sentence on state charges and 21 years on federal charges.
But under Minnesota state sentencing structure, inmates usually serve about two-thirds of their sentence behind bars and one third under supervised release. So he would serve roughly 15 years of the 22.5-year state sentence in actual confinement under the state charges, thus less time in jail.
But the second reason I have focused on pardoning Chauvin is that when someone believed to be not guilty is languishing in prison, that is the time when the President of the United States ought to either commute his sentence or pardon him. 
Chauvin is the perfect example. It is immoral to allow a person whom you believe is innocent to languish in prison just because that person was made into the face of American racism. With no evidence of such a claim, Chauvin was made the face of American racism before his trial. Every media outlet in the country decided he was guilty. 
The governor of Minnesota decided he was guilty. The mayor of Minneapolis decided he was guilty. The presidential candidates on the Left side of the aisle at that time, including Joe Biden, decided he was guilty. Thus, it was necessary for the jury to convict him in order for an entire narrative structure to be created.
That was wrong.
<h3><a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/bss-ep-2154-member-exclusive" target="_blank" rel="noopener">WATCH: The Ben Shapiro Show</a></h3>
There are many people who object to all of this. One of those people is Steven A. Smith, a loud-mouth on ESPN. When I say loud-mouth, I mean the man does not have a volume that goes below eight on the spinal tap scale. I&#8217;m not sure that there is such a thing as a normal Stephen A. Smith voice, and I say this as a long-time viewer of ESPN. Every time Smith comes on the TV, you have to turn down your volume significantly.
Smith is very angry that I have suggested that Chauvin ought to be pardoned. He <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U5EhE8LcwNU">said</a> on his show, “Would you have taken that position if George Floyd was a Jewish person? A white Jewish person? If a black cop had his knee on a white Jewish person for over nine minutes, Ben Shapiro, would you have called for that individual to be pardoned?” 
First, let&#8217;s start with this: I don&#8217;t know why he believes that it would be important, even in his stupid example, for it to be a “white Jewish person” as opposed to just a Jewish person.
His claim is that I am a tribal identitarian; thus, I would be just fine with the wrongful prosecution of a cop if a Jew died under the knee of that cop — even if the cop was not responsible and the fact patterns were exactly the same — and George Floyd’s name had been Harold Bernstein (or something equivalent), and the cop had been named George Floyd, a black man.
That is intensely stupid. It&#8217;s intensely stupid for a variety of reasons. Why don&#8217;t we begin with the first? This would not have been a national news story if that were the case. The reason this entire story was national news is because of the race of the people involved. In fact, when black people were routinely beating up Orthodox Jews in Brooklyn, it was covered up by the New York Times. It was not a national story. 
The reality is that this was made a national story specifically because the media had a preexisting narrative of race in America, and this fulfilled their narrative, even if the facts didn&#8217;t match.
Second, if, in fact, the facts had matched, and this was a Jewish person who had been arrested for counterfeiting (for passing counterfeit bills), had been high on fentanyl with a preexisting heart condition, and then had died under the knee of a cop, would I have said that the cop was innocent?
Yes, because if the cop is innocent, the cop is innocent. That&#8217;s the way this works.
The race or religion of the pseudo-victim is irrelevant to the question of whether this person was in fact murdered or not.
Stephen A. Smith is one of the deepest racial identitarians in our society. He does it all the time. All the time. He does it when he talks about sports — all the time. If you&#8217;re talking about Nikola Jokić, the greatest basketball center of our generation, he&#8217;ll talk about how Jokić should not be included in conversations for MVP specifically because of his race.
The reason Smith makes these kinds of statements is because he is projecting. He is projecting a racial conversation where none exists. I’m a Boston Celtics fan, so the following example with Smith from just a couple of years ago springs to mind.
Danny Ainge was the chief of basketball operations for the Boston Celtics; then, Brad Stevens was elevated to fill his position. Stevens is a really good president of basketball operations. How do we know this? The Celtics won an NBA championship last year, and he&#8217;s been one of the most successful NBA executives in all the NBA over the course of his tenure.
But Smith was firmly convinced the only reason Stevens was elevated was because of his race, <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/ESPN/comments/1dk2a26/from_3_years_ago_how_does_anyone_like_or_respect/">saying</a>, “It&#8217;s moments like this where I get on people&#8217;s nerves, particularly white America and the NBA community specifically, because I point out it&#8217;s beautiful to be a white guy. It&#8217;s just beautiful. You know, you&#8217;re a question mark as a coach in some people&#8217;s eyes, including in Boston. But somehow, someway, you’re moving upstairs.”
It’s worth noting that “it&#8217;s beautiful to be a white guy in America” has not precluded Smith from a five-year $100 million contract for ESPN, a failing network with plummeting ratings.
The reason that Smith is exercised over the George Floyd situation is specifically because of a racial narrative that is not predicated on facts. Now, he&#8217;s projecting that onto me as being some sort of racist for suggesting the racial narrative should not predominate. This is the whole reason that Black Lives Matter was such a mistake and failure, because it was racializing of a question that was not, in fact, racial.
This is just more evidence that what I&#8217;m saying about Chauvin is true, that the reason that Chauvin is in prison right now is because he was the wrong race and George Floyd was the wrong race. Because of that, Chauvin is in prison.
Here&#8217;s the dirty little secret: It never would have been a national news story if the races had been reversed, or if both people had been white or both people had been black.
And that means the officer would have been assessed on the facts of the situation rather than the racial narrative that people like Stephen Smith were propagating.

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