Inside Golden State Politics

Trump. Kirk. The First Amendment.

• Nancy Boyarsky

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We talk about the difference between the murder of Charlie Kirk and the killing of  Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr. We discuss whether the President should try to calm America rather than stir hatred.

host-4ha0_2_09-17-2025_150523:

Welcome to another episode of Inside Golden State Politics. I'm Bill Bosky, former city editor and columnist for the Los Angeles Times, and with me is our executive producer, Nancy Bosky.

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And I am Sherry Bevi, Jeffy political analyst and self-styled media maven coming to you from a state of total

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I.

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in what our country has become. Brutal recognition that the world order is unraveling. And that's all I'm gonna say for now because I don't wanna start crying over to you, bill.

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Sherry, what is so striking about the media coverage of Charlie Kirk's death and its aftermath? It's how it sheds light on how the Trump administration really works.

squadcaster-06ch_2_09-17-2025_150523:

Mm.

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You get a glimpse of these people, at work in a way that you wouldn't get from a book. you're inside, you're looking at it from the inside who really makes these decisions. For example, Steve Woff. who we know as Trump's chief negotiator on the Middle East is really Steve Witkoff investor in Trump's, Bitcoin enterprise, and his son also works there too. Trump of course runs the Bitcoin enterprise all, although he says he doesn't and his sons work there. I would say that looking at it from the inside, first thing is don't worry about buying a book on the Trump administration. It's all there in the story of, of these transactions. And, secondly, it really kind of reminds me of an old fashioned. Mob movie, you know, people, associated with cousins and all of that there. Oh, where is George Raft when we need him today?

squadcaster-06ch_2_09-17-2025_150523:

Well, I, me how you came to the conclusion that you could sort of connect the Kirk shooting and the Bitcoin question about Donald Trump. Why do each of them give you little bit of insight into the dynamic that is

host-4ha0_2_09-17-2025_150523:

Well, well, the first question you wanna ask is, who calls the shots there? with the Trump administration on, its on its, dealings, with, with Bitcoin and, and chips and all of that. And how are decisions really made? What did Charlie, Kirk shooting and death has to do with it? Is it such a traumatic event opened up, inquiries and, Into how does this thing really work? I mean, is the story we're getting, all we wanna know more? And so I,

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the Epstein files.

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I thought that the New York Times did a marvelous job in tracing the, These chips and, the, dealings of the Trump and the Wykoff family and others, did a marvelous job. Took'em months and months, many reporters, and they did it. And it made Trump so angry. I think that's what set Trump off. that's why he's suing the, New York Times for what,$15 million?

squadcaster-06ch_2_09-17-2025_150523:

of money.

host-4ha0_2_09-17-2025_150523:

lots of money. So I think there, there is a connection, you know.

squadcaster-06ch_2_09-17-2025_150523:

Well, let's talk a little bit about, since you, brought up. The New York Times, article, the fact that, much is being now about the question of the, of First Amendment freedoms. He's suing the New York Times because he doesn't like what they're saying about him. His Attorney general and other members of the administration are threatening to get back at people who, If, if not celebrate, say nasty things about Charlie and, kind of gleefully point out that he is now dead. In fact, apparently the State Department has indicated it will pull the visa anyone who has anything nasty to say about. Charlie Kirk. I mean that is what highlighted where this administration has gone and will continue to go for me, and it makes me very nervous.

host-4ha0_2_09-17-2025_150523:

What Trump is trying to do, and his aide, Steven Miller and and the rest of that crew. Trying to do is they're, they're trying to intimidate the press, to, to keep quiet, to not,

squadcaster-06ch_2_09-17-2025_150523:

feeding.

host-4ha0_2_09-17-2025_150523:

and not investigate. Now, the New York Times a big, powerful and rich, we hope will, will stand up and not fold. But I wonder what will happen to the reporter when Trump turns on that reporter at a press conference. And tells them you're evil.

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These, he's

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he

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it

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did with Jonathan Carl of a B, C. Will that reporter get a call from the front office saying that he was fired?

squadcaster-06ch_2_09-17-2025_150523:

Well, if Pam Blondie, as Laura Loomer calls our attorney General, has anything to do with it, she indicated, although she sort of walked back her remarks that yeah, you know, it's not only the person who makes nasty remarks that they're gonna go after, they're gonna go after the employer if they say anything nasty. About Charlie Kirk, what's gonna happen,

host-4ha0_2_09-17-2025_150523:

That's what's gonna happen in any. Any kind of investigative report that's done, now in the, aftermath of, of Kirk's slang, will be subject to this kind of, scrutiny and attack. You know, you asked me what the Charlie Kirk killing had to do with, the, Trump. Bitcoin deal. What it does is frighten people from doing investigative reporting, from finding out about things like that. It creates this atmosphere of fear among the reporting core. And now We're in an era where it's more and more the reporters are under the thumb of cowardly editors we're getting into. For those who love history, we're getting into kind of a repeat of the McCarthy era. Well,

squadcaster-06ch_2_09-17-2025_150523:

looks like that.

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yeah.

squadcaster-06ch_2_09-17-2025_150523:

It sort of looks like that. And I mean, it's really, that perception has been heightened, I think by, the on all sides in the wake of the Charlie, Kirk murder, you know, Pam Blondie. Just doesn't even try to hide the reality that she's gonna go after people she thinks are speaking ill of the dead. And he, Donald Trump will not only be doing that, but he's gonna be going after people who he thinks speak of him, whether or not, and you know what? Under the First Amendment. Hate speech is not listed. It is not listed unless that there is real danger. Unless there's real hurt involved. You could talk as nasty as you want, theoretically the First Amendment, as long as you don't do something like kill somebody. If the speech is responsible for, for something like that, frankly do not. Well, I do know that there is a chance the Trumps take to the Supreme Court something that they don't like, that someone said either about Charlie Kirk or Donald Trump. But, you're gonna give. Anything to the Constitution at all? no court, I think unless there was real concrete hurt, would be able to say out. You're right. Kicking out. Mm-hmm. No hate speech. Whether we like it or not, is, protected with some exceptions.

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The very conservative Justice Alito said, talking about speech in the First Amendment. He says that it protects the thought that we hate from, interference by the government. I mean, the thought can be terribly, offensive. The clan marching through Skokie Illinois years ago, was very offensive to the Skokie population, but the Supreme Court. Said that they could do that under the First Amendment and its protection.

squadcaster-06ch_2_09-17-2025_150523:

right. But when the, attorney General of the United States kind of says, I can sure do that if I want to. That's a little weird. At the very least, don't you think?

host-4ha0_2_09-17-2025_150523:

Yeah, that's right. So, here we go with this, we don't know where it's, Going to end

squadcaster-06ch_2_09-17-2025_150523:

Know where? What is going to end?

host-4ha0_2_09-17-2025_150523:

When is it going to end that the, power of the news media, is, gradually and gradually dis diminish so that it, it has no power?

squadcaster-06ch_2_09-17-2025_150523:

It's getting very close if it hasn't already reached it, don't you think?

host-4ha0_2_09-17-2025_150523:

Well, I do, and I think you've gotta have some understanding of the way these news organizations work too. you know, nobody ever puts out a memo unless they're really stupid, telling the staff to go easy on Trump. I mean, nobody. Nobody puts out, you won't find that memo, in a search of, of the various cubby holes in a news media office. But you feel it. If you're there, you sense it, you know, you know somebody will be demoted from their job, to a worse job, after a broadcast. You, you sense it gradually, the. Broadcast media gradually the, internet, even the, and the print will be still and still. And finally, there will be no, no news. No news is good news.

squadcaster-06ch_2_09-17-2025_150523:

Who knows, but wait a minute. You just loved, legacy Media, which is old school media, I guess and TV with, the internet and social media. the social media, and I think it's just part of our problem right now doesn't have nearly the constraints real spoken or otherwise. That, media has, and I think that's a problem. I mean, in the sense that there's a whole lot of nasty stuff from both sides, from releasing the, the tape of, Kirk being shot. The mainstream media didn't do too much with it, but it's all over the web. And the web is so unregulated that can't, government really can't do a whole hell of a lot about it. Now, I don't think that's gonna stop Donald Trump from trying. But nonetheless, I think one of the things that I saw coming out of, the Charlie Kirk, the handling of the Charlie. Kirk murder the fact that we don't have control over what gets put on the web. And I believe that that the social media is a large in what led up to the Charlie Kirk shooting the meanness, the nastiness, and. The mainstream media wasn't of any help under any circumstance'cause a large, maybe a majority of people got the news rightly or wrongly, but firstly off the web. And I think that added to the anger and the frustration and it sort of, made the fire of the event even more intense. That's dangerous.

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You know, we're talking about clicks here. We're talking about people scrolling along with their phones and, stopping at something. Only they'll give it two seconds, five seconds, stopping at something that attracts their attention if you're in that business, what you've gotta have is content, as they call it, content that will generate clicks. The pictures of Charlie Kirk getting shot, graphic, I didn't see it, but graphic as they were.

squadcaster-06ch_2_09-17-2025_150523:

to go onto any social media until this thing quiets down.

host-4ha0_2_09-17-2025_150523:

but that was definitely what you would call clickbait. And so there's this constant pressure, by the people who. Run these organizations, you know, all of them, all of the platforms to get more clicks. And they don't care how they do it, and they don't care about the harm that it causes. that is why, for example,

squadcaster-06ch_2_09-17-2025_150523:

they?

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The people who own, Facebook, the people who own all of those companies, they.

squadcaster-06ch_2_09-17-2025_150523:

about Elon Musk, you're talking about Zuck,

host-4ha0_2_09-17-2025_150523:

Yeah.

squadcaster-06ch_2_09-17-2025_150523:

about gay. That is what's so astonishing. So many of us now get our news. Get our attention focused on an issue or a story because of the decision of an individual, whoever owns the social media platform we are looking at, I think that's a danger in terms of society too. We don't get all, we don't get perspective on what happens

host-4ha0_2_09-17-2025_150523:

That's true. The people who own it are really villainous scum. I'll grant you that, but the decisions that are made are made by some little schlump sitting

squadcaster-06ch_2_09-17-2025_150523:

Called an algorithm.

host-4ha0_2_09-17-2025_150523:

sitting an algorithm, but it's all governed by some little slump sitting in front of her or his computer, desperately knowing that if their responsibility isn't getting enough clicks, they will be punished and not only

squadcaster-06ch_2_09-17-2025_150523:

I just don't understand that.

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fired. In other words,

squadcaster-06ch_2_09-17-2025_150523:

What.

host-4ha0_2_09-17-2025_150523:

are, you're, you're in charge of this operation. I want you to get more clicks on it. Get more clicks. That's what I've hired you to do, that no one's watching the damn thing. I want you to get more people to watch it. Now you do whatever you have to do to get more people to watch it. And if you don't do that, you're out. Now. If you're that person, and this is how it works, you'll just do everything you can to get more. people watching your, platform. I mean, that's the way it works, you know, that.

squadcaster-06ch_2_09-17-2025_150523:

I think the buck stops with the guy. Who owns the platform, I, and, and the algorithm that gets figured out and they were hoped. The algorithms that list grade, stories, that you get to see. And so that's one of the reasons I haven't been on any social media since this shooting happened. And I'm sure, I mean. essence, I'm sure I'm missing a whole lot, but I am deathly afraid. Excuse the pawn. That was stupid. that I will come across the clip of the shooting. A friend of mine said, I've seen it my life will never be the same again.

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For people who are. Reaching their final roundup, who go back to the, 1940s and thirties. People don't remember. People don't know of how vile that available media was at that time. How much it fostered hatred of, Japanese people. how much it, refused to cover, lynchings in the south of, of black people, how much it covered up for corrupt and brutal police departments, both, in the north and the south. These things have faded from American memory, but there's an evil streak about people in this country.

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Yeah.

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It's ready to be tapped, and that's what I'm afraid is happening. The, unfortunate death of this, very talented, political organizer. I set it off it, it set it off, and now there's really. no stopping it because there's another thing that we've gotta remember too. The president is really responsible for this. When the federal building was blown up in Oklahoma City, when, 9 black children murdered in a church in the south, when we were attacked. On September 11th, that day, the president was, a soothing and comforting figure. He did not, the president, no matter who it was, did not turn around and say, we've got to find the villain, we've got to blame, and, we've got to censor the press. The president's role in that time was of, was. Somebody who had to bring the country together in this terrible, stressful time. And if you remember how bad it was on September 11th, we thought we would never get through it. Nothing like this had ever happened. and then all of the sixties assassinations, which Sherry you and I both have, experienced,

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We've observed.

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We thought nothing would ever, ever surpass that in awfulness. Well, here we are again and what do we have? We have a president who stirs dissent. Who stirs hatred.

squadcaster-06ch_2_09-17-2025_150523:

It's interesting because, you know, It is part of the job description of the President of the United States, to be the uniter in chief, to be the consoler in chief, and we have seen it time and time again. You're supposed to calm America. This is not happening. Although I must say keep waiting for the news to come through that there been. Major protests here in the United States. Apparently there is one in London against, Trump's visit to the king and queen at Windsor Castle. But that isn't exactly right, bill. That is not what Trump is doing. He could have exercised the traditional role of the president of the United States and calm, try to calm America. Be positive. He did not, and he chose not to do it. And that, I think is, is really a major part of the problem. Yeah. I do believe that, the way President Trump and his administration face events like this, it's not helpful in terms of focusing the country a little bit more calmly, a little bit more. Positively that has been done. It's not the only reason we are where we are. I mean, we've been talking a bit about social media and oh boy, did the Charlie Kirk event really open? Not open my eyes'cause they have been open. But they really underscored the negative dynamic of social media, generally speaking. Americans are losing, or half of the US trust and faith in governmental institutions, in politicians, in the way the world is working. All of this, I think, adds up to an anxiety, a frustration, a focus, and the wrong that if you get rid of somebody, it'll all stop. And I think that's a very big danger right now society.

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Well, it is, and you know, the most hopeful people today are saying, it's a fever. It'll run its course. And then exhausted. we will, leave the sick bed and, march along like we always have, but there is something. Different. You know, if you think back to the, the terrible, summer of 68, when Robert Kennedy was assassinated and Martin Luther King was assassinated, and, we thought that things couldn't get so worse, but they, but we, but there's no comparison. Is there?

squadcaster-06ch_2_09-17-2025_150523:

Well define, I mean, no comparison, way I think I, I'm finding this far more horrendous than. What we went through, and again, I think, you know, part of the reason is we didn't have 24 7 media, both mainstream and social media screaming at us. We didn't really see when, when, when. Dr. King. Was assassinated when, Robert Kennedy was assassinated. We didn't within seconds see the ugliness of it. And we had people like RFK who managed to calm Indianapolis, where he gave a speech, the only city not to devolve into, rioting after the news came out to Dr. King. Had been shot and killed. there were unifier site. I didn't see any in relation to, the Kirk shooting.

host-4ha0_2_09-17-2025_150523:

No, you get, you get anti unifier, you get this, Steven Miller, who, is one of these people in the White House. Who, if you said, what does Steven Miller do? What's his exact job? You wouldn't know except to, encourage, Trump in his, spreading of, of hatred. but,

squadcaster-06ch_2_09-17-2025_150523:

job.,

host-4ha0_2_09-17-2025_150523:

That's a full-time job. but, you know, you, you have people like that, who are. On the, Sunday shows. They're, they're everywhere and they're spreading this, hatred. Now Obama is starting to speak up on this and, and, Newsom is too, someone's got to say, wait a minute, This has got to stop. this is, this has got to stop. You know, Newsom said Newsom who had Charlie Kirkland on his first, podcast, the first Newsom podcast, first episode. he had'em on and he said he had'em on because, he wanted to have that viewpoint on his show. When Newsom did that podcast, when Newsom the son accompanied him to the, studio and he asked to have his picture taken with Char, Kirk. which I guess they did. And then on the day of the assassination, he called his father and asked if he was still alive, did he die? That's his son called him. Now, those gestures or acts do a lot to unify the country to make you feel, to feel good, not to make you feel. Hatred.

squadcaster-06ch_2_09-17-2025_150523:

see that happening though. I think we're still so divided. That, yeah. For perhaps part of the country that that's what happens for another part. not. I mean, I see. I don't see one person who can unite country, who can calm down America. I don't see the unity. I saw it more obviously after September 11th, but also after, the, the George Floyd and basically, after Martin Luther King's murder, Bobby, I don't know. I'm trying, I have been trying most of this week to figure out exactly how we felt. And what the re, the response was to the assassination of, Robert Kennedy Senior.

host-4ha0_2_09-17-2025_150523:

I've never felt after that happened, after he was killed. and, then part of my job at the ap, I, I spent, all that time, waiting outside the hospital until he, died. And I, and I didn't have any feelings. I've often examined my feelings while I was doing my job. I was so much involved in the nuts and bolts of doing my job. Like how can I get a telephone to phone the office with and how can I do this and how can I do that? And it was only after I was flying back to my home in Sacramento. and there was just me flying there with the other passengers that I felt like crying. And I did, ever since then, I've never really felt the same about politics. I've always had this feeling about when he was killed. After that, I said, what's the use? What's the use? And I still have that feeling, really, even though I. I'm involved in writing about and discussing politics. I still have that feeling, like something had gone out of me or something had happened to me after, that assassination of Robert Kennedy.

squadcaster-06ch_2_09-17-2025_150523:

I think you're not the only one who had that, that move. I decided I was going to leave the next morning and go live in London. That's all I could think about doing. I was so upset. luckily I didn't, but, it was a disaster to those of us of a, of a certain age, There wasn't the intensity of the ideological split and the ideological paralysis, if you will, that we see in, in today's politics, only in the United States, it looks like, but the, I mean, really the world appears to be unraveling. There seems to be protest after protest. largely anti-government at this point. Which is a little bit of an aberration from, Kirk shooting. He was a public figure, but he was not an elected official. He did not have any, institutional, formal policy role, but clearly well, and then, and then we do not know yet what the shooter's motivation was and whether the behavioral. Outcomes are owed to something, different than simply an ideological discussed with Charlie Kirk. up until today, the Kirk shooting has just engulfed the media and I find. That the behavior of the president of the United States is not as presidential as it needed to be. I recall that when John McCain passed away initially, Trump 1.0, would not the flags at half mass when it was. that Charlie Kirk, an influencer, a a conservative activist, a well thought of by at least one group of people in the United States had passed away. It's kind have been seconds. Doug PLAs were down.

host-4ha0_2_09-17-2025_150523:

and anybody who disagreed with that, like if, if

squadcaster-06ch_2_09-17-2025_150523:

cri. If you criticized it,

host-4ha0_2_09-17-2025_150523:

you.

squadcaster-06ch_2_09-17-2025_150523:

in danger.

host-4ha0_2_09-17-2025_150523:

That's right. You stood on the capitol steps and objected to them lowering the flag. There'd be retaliation. Well, we're gonna be moving on to, probably deep into this subject, for the next several days as well. We should,, this one gets to the very, Heart and soul and future of our country and

squadcaster-06ch_2_09-17-2025_150523:

And we haven't even begun to talk about, the dynamic of, of gun control.

host-4ha0_2_09-17-2025_150523:

right.

squadcaster-06ch_2_09-17-2025_150523:

really been talking in, in broader thoughts about, where we go now. As a result, I, I, I just sort of like to end with explaining too, man, we're not voky, but there was an incredible political or, cartoon, in the week this week, and it's Uncle Sam in a graveyard with tombstones and he is saying political violence has no place in America. Mostly because we're full. each of the headstones has a name, JFK Garfield Milk. Martin Luther King, the Minnesota Legislators. Charlie Kirk Lincoln, Edgar Evers, Malcolm X, William McKinley, Youi Long Robert F. Kennedy And then he, I don't know why he also has a, a headstone for Ronald Reagan. Ronald Reagan did survive. But, nothing new,

host-4ha0_2_09-17-2025_150523:

No.

squadcaster-06ch_2_09-17-2025_150523:

it happens too frequently and in too intense, a dynamic and period of time and in a truncated, fractured media environment. And. Everybody can know what happened and get some bad information about what happened immediately and all of that. I think it's changed America and at some point I really wanna get into that one.

host-4ha0_2_09-17-2025_150523:

Yeah, I think we have to, it has changed America and, we ought to go back and see how it's changed America since other. Similar, events that we've talked about. Well, let's, let's continue this on next week.

squadcaster-06ch_2_09-17-2025_150523:

We must,

host-4ha0_2_09-17-2025_150523:

Bye-bye.

squadcaster-06ch_2_09-17-2025_150523:

we'll also have, the fallout, if there is any, from the memorial service for Charlie Kirk coming up. And I'm gonna take a look at how that is approached by the media and how that is approached by horrifically polarized electorate.

host-4ha0_2_09-17-2025_150523:

Yeah, we know.

squadcaster-06ch_2_09-17-2025_150523:

Well

host-4ha0_2_09-17-2025_150523:

Hey, talk. Bye-bye.

squadcaster-06ch_2_09-17-2025_150523:

Bye-bye.