He May Have Pulled The Trigger, But Charlie Kirk’s Suspected Killer Didn’t ‘Act Alone’
The alleged 'radicalized' assassin did not get to this moment on his own. Investigation details show a young man steeped in leftist dogma.The alleged 'radicalized' assassin did not get to this moment on his own. Investigation details show a young man steeped in leftist dogma.Not an assassin, not a sniper — just a loser with a rifle
Charlie Kirk’s assassination was an atrocity — for his family, his friends, his supporters, and America. I haven’t been this shaken by the death of someone I didn’t personally know in a long time.
As an ex-U.S. Army Special Operations sniper, I’ve seen a lot of speculation online, and I want to cut through some of the noise. Even following the arrest Friday morning of 22-year-old Tyler Robinson for the crime, people are throwing around claims that this was “state-sponsored” or a “hired hit man paid by a political group.” We don’t know that, nor do we have any evidence pointing to that. In fact, we had ample evidence pointing to somebody just like Robinson: a leftist college dropout.
Charlie Kirk wasn’t taken down by a sniper, or a covert team, or a shadowy state actor. He was killed by a bitter amateur with a rifle and a desperate need to matter.
I won’t call this shooter an “assassin.” That word carries a mystique. It gives a pathetic loser like this validation. He doesn’t deserve the title. He wasn’t an assassin. He wasn’t a sniper. He wasn’t a pro. He was simply an amateur shooter who decided to take a life better than his own and become a killer.
The shot
The facts are simple. The distance was under 200 yards. He used a bolt-action .30-06 Mauser with a scope of at least 8x power. That’s a very easy shot — so easy that I could teach a child to make it in under an hour, and I am not exaggerating at all.
You don’t need military training, hunting experience, or any special skill. The .30-06 is a powerful round, and if you watched the sad, horrific video of Charlie being hit, you saw how devastating it is.
The round appeared to strike Charlie in the neck. Maybe it hit his chest and exited near the neck, but what it didn’t do was hit his head. A professional would have gone for the head. If this killer wanted maximum shock value — which he clearly did — a head shot would have given him that. Either he missed low or he aimed for the chest because he didn’t have the skill level for a headshot.
Either way: amateur hour.
The gun and the tactics
The rifle says it all. A Mauser .30-06 bolt-action is the tool of a casual hunter, not a professional killer. Even on a budget, a serious shooter would have picked better gear. To call that weapon “professional” is laughable. It’s like rolling up to an F1 race in a Honda Accord.
Even more ridiculous than his gear choice were his tactics or lack thereof. He positioned himself on a rooftop in black, wearing a tactical vest. That’s straight from the “Call of Duty in Mom’s basement” playbook. A professional wouldn’t be spotted on camera by kids on the ground asking, “Should someone be up there?”
A pro would have been invisible. Or, if seen, instantly forgettable. He would have used proper urban hiding techniques (I won’t detail them here). He wouldn’t have stood out in black tactical gear. He would have looked like a student or like someone with a legitimate reason to be where he was.
And then there’s the footage — clear, high-quality video of him at the school and hopping fences in a neighborhood. The FBI and local police had his face, which meant, in due course, they had him. This wasn’t a state-sponsored operator or “hit man.” It was an angry lone amateur.
Who he is
When I wrote this column Thursday night, I speculated that the shooter would turn out to be a lonely, angry kid desperate to be somebody. A nobody who wanted attention, validation, fame. He thought killing someone hated by one side of the political spectrum would make him loved by the other. This was about belonging. About being noticed.
And that’s where the media and social media come in. They amplify these monsters. They hand them the spotlight. And for a young man like this, that’s gasoline on the fire.
Sound familiar? Donald Trump barely survived an attempt when another college kid fired at him. Add Luigi Mangione, and that makes three young men in recent memory trying to kill or successfully killing public figures. We’re watching a disturbing trend.
Political assassination — or something new?
Yes, Kirk was killed for his political beliefs. But he wasn’t a politician. He held no office. That’s why this atrocity might mark something new: the first assassination of an influencer.
Think about that. Kirk wasn’t targeted for power, or for policy, but for his ability to influence. If that’s where we are now — where speech alone makes you a target — we’ve stepped into very dangerous territory.
The slippery slope of ‘hateful rhetoric’
Almost immediately, politicians and pundits said, “This is what happens when you use rhetoric like his.” Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) went as far as accusing Kirk of posting “hateful rhetoric,” as if that justifies what happened. That logic is as dangerous as the act itself.
If hateful rhetoric makes someone fair game, then by her own standard, someone could make the same judgment about Omar’s words. Would she see her own assassination as justified? Of course not. And that’s the slippery slope: When violence is framed as acceptable because someone decides speech is hateful.
That’s exactly why the First Amendment exists — to protect all speech, even the speech you hate. Because once a group can ban “hateful” speech, they can ban anything they dislike. That’s how dictatorships start. And it’s not a coincidence that the loudest calls to ban “hateful speech” come from people who want more control.
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Bottom line: Charlie Kirk wasn’t assassinated by a professional. He wasn’t taken down by a sniper, or a covert team, or a shadowy state actor. He was killed by a bitter amateur with a rifle and a desperate need to matter.
That makes his death no less horrifying — but it should change the way we understand it. Because this wasn’t just about politics. This was about influence, attention, and validation. And it signals a very dark turn in where we are headed.Obama-appointed Judge Boasberg releases woman who allegedly threatened to kill President Trump
U.S. District Court Chief Judge James Boasberg, an Obama-appointed federal judge who has been working ardently to block the MAGA agenda, ordered the release last week of a woman accused of repeatedly threatening President Donald Trump's life.
Nathalie Rose Jones of Lafayette, Indiana, was arrested in Washington, D.C., on Aug. 16 and charged with threatening to take the life of, kidnap, or inflict bodily harm upon the president and with transmitting threats across state lines.
'Any threat to the president's life should be taken incredibly seriously.'
"Threatening the life of the president is one of the most serious crimes and one that will be met with swift and unwavering prosecution. Make no mistake — justice will be served," U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro said in a statement.
According to the Justice Department, members of the U.S. Secret Service observed a series of increasingly concerning posts made on Instagram and Facebook between Aug. 2 and Aug. 15 by a user with the handle "nath.jones."
The user started off parroting Democrat and liberal media talking points, allegedly labeling the president a terrorist and referring to his administration as a dictatorship.
However, on Aug. 6, "Nath.Jones" allegedly wrote in a Facebook post directed at the FBI, "I am willing to sacrificially kill this POTUS by disemboweling him and cutting out his trachea with Liz Cheney and all The Affirmation present."
RELATED: If ‘words are violence,’ why won’t the left own theirs?
The same user followed up the apparent death threat with an Aug. 14 post directed to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, in which she allegedly wrote, "Please arrange the arrest and removal ceremony of POTUS Trump as a terrorist on the American People from 10-2pm at the White House on Saturday, August 16th, 2025."
The U.S. Secret Service met with Jones on Aug. 15 and conducted a voluntary interview during which she allegedly called Trump a "terrorist" and a "Nazi" and allegedly said that if afforded the opportunity, she would kill the president.
The DOJ noted further that Jones said she "would take the president's life and would kill him at 'the compound' if she had to, that she had a 'bladed object,' which she said was the weapon she would use to 'carry out her mission of killing' the president, and that she wanted to 'avenge all the lives lost during the COVID-19 pandemic,' which she attributed to President Trump’s administration and its position on vaccinations."
The day after her interview, Jones took part in a protest outside the White House, during which she told NewsNation, "This regime has to go, the whole administration."
Jones added, "We will not exist in this authoritarian regime. We will not accept fascism."
The U.S. Secret Service interviewed Jones a second time after the protest. Jones allegedly admitted to the USSS that she threatened Trump's life during their previous interview.
Jones appears to be among the many American liberals who think that violence against their political opponents, Trump in particular, is justified.
A survey conducted by the Network Contagion Research Institute and Rutgers University's Social Perception Lab revealed in April that 55% of respondents who identified as left of center said that assassinating President Trump would be at least somewhat justified.
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A poll conducted by Scott Rasmussen's RMG Research immediately following the alleged September 2024 attempt on Trump's life at his golf course in West Palm Beach, Florida, found that 28% of Democrats said it would have been better for the president to have been slaughtered on the green.
Jones was arrested after her second interview with the USSS and apparently confirmed that she had made the threatening statements as "Nath Jones" on social media.
"Special Agents from New York and Washington, D.C., working in close coordination with prosecutors from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia, acted swiftly and decisively to neutralize this alleged threat before it could escalate," said Matt McCool, special agent in charge of the U.S. Secret Service's Washington Field Office.
Boasberg, whom Attorney General Pam Bondi slapped in July with a misconduct complaint "for making improper public comments about President Trump and his administration," ordered Jones' release on Wednesday.
Boasberg remanded Jones to the custody of her defense investigator, Tyrees Smith, and told her to "drive directly to New York City, taking only reasonable rests along the way and arriving in New York City to meet with her psychiatrist prior to 5 p.m. on August 27, 2025."
When pressed for comment about Jones' release, White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson said in a statement to Blaze News, "Any threat to the president's life should be taken incredibly seriously — now more than ever considering President Trump has survived not one, but two, attempts on his life."
"This should be common sense for anyone dealing with deranged individuals who make these types of threats," added Jackson.
The Obama judge's decision to cut Jones loose comes just weeks after a federal appeals court threw out Boasberg's bid to pursue criminal contempt for Trump administration officials who deported illegal aliens to El Salvador.
Liz Wheeler of "The Liz Wheeler Show" noted earlier this year that Boasberg was a member of the "FISA court that rubber-stamped the illegal spy warrants against Trump during the Russiagate hoax. Boasberg was one of those judges signing off on it. 'You go ahead and spy on Trump.'"
Boasberg also kept Kevin Clinesmith — the former FBI attorney who, according to the DOJ, fabricated evidence to support a surveillance application to the same FISA court, lying about Carter Page's past cooperation with the CIA — out of jail.
The Obama judge gave Clinesmith only 12 months of probation and 400 hours of community service.
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'Complete fools': Dark money group paying influencers $8K monthly to push Democratic propaganda: Report
Former Washington Post writer Taylor Lorenz — the blogger who doxxed Libs of TikTok in 2022, called breathing without a mask "raw dogging the air," and expressed "joy" over UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson's assassination — appears to have finally stumbled across a story of value.
Lorenz detailed in a piece for Wired magazine this week how a dark money group has launched a "secretive program aimed at bolstering Democratic messaging on the internet," offering would-be propagandists up to $8,000 a month for their services but requiring in exchange the surrender of a significant amount of creative control as well as "extensive secrecy about disclosing their payments."
'You failed. You didn't influence anyone. You made fools of yourself.'
Lorenz indicated that among those allegedly approached with contracts by Chorus, the apparent nonprofit arm of a liberal influencer marketing platform, was nonstraight activist Laurenzo; Eliza Orlins, a public defender who once competed on "The Amazing Race"; and one of the pro-abortion zealots behind the Women in America account on TikTok — three individuals who did not respond to Lorenz's requests for comment.
Other influencers allegedly involved "in communication about the program" include: 2024 Democratic National Convention speaker and Gen Z influencer Olivia Julianna; Playboy executive turned podcaster Loren Piretra; leftist YouTuber David Pakman; and Sander Jennings, the brother of Jared Jennings — the boy called "Jazz" whose genital mutilation was promoted on reality television.
Chorus has reportedly boasted that its initial propagandist cohort has a collective audience of over 40 million followers.
Blaze News senior politics editor Christopher Bedford said Thursday on "The Mandate" that "this was designed to reach out to among the most unstable TikTokers you've ever seen — the kind of folks who were at the White House with the nine-inch nails talking about how everything is gay and how great Joe Biden is because everything is gay now. These are the people that they are trying to pay — and they were also trying to control the message."
"My favorite part about the story is how incredibly incompetent this operation was," said Bedford. "Reading through it, I'm thinking: Well, you failed. You didn't influence anyone. You made fools of yourself."
This initiative, the Chorus Creator Incubator Program, is funded by the second-largest super-PAC donor in 2020, the Sixteen Thirty Fund.
Politico indicated that the Sixteen Thirty Fund forked out $410 million in 2020 in an effort to torpedo President Donald Trump's re-election and to help Democrats take control of the Senate. It has kept up pressure in the years since.
According to Influence Watch, the Sixteen Thirty Fund, which is not obligated to reveal its contributors, is managed by Arabella Advisors — a leftist, for-profit dark money group based in Washington, D.C., that is presently undergoing a messy breakup with the Gates Foundation.
The Sixteen Thirty Fund confirmed to the New York Post that it is serving Chorus as a "fiscal sponsor" and providing it with "operational and administrative support."
The Chorus Creator Incubator Program was reportedly launched in July. The propagandists involved were notified that over 90 influencers would take part.
Some of those who apparently signed on told Wired that the "contract stipulated they’d be kicked out and essentially cut off financially if they even so much as acknowledged that they were part of the program."
RELATED: Democrats want a new Joe Rogan — but their dogma won’t allow it
Copies of the contract reviewed by Wired apparently confirm these claims, indicating that participants cannot disclose their relationship with Chorus or the Sixteen Thirty Fund and cannot disclose that they're paid shills.
In addition to their discretion, program participants must allegedly clear all of their bookings with lawmakers and political leaders through Chorus.
On a Zoom call reviewed by Wired, Graham Wilson, a lawyer working with Chorus, allegedly told participants, "There are some real great advantages to ... housing this program in a nonprofit."
"It gives us the ability to raise money from donors. It also, with this structure, it avoids a lot of the public disclosure or public disclaimers — you know, ‘Paid for by blah blah blah blah’ — that you see on political ads," Wilson allegedly said. "We don’t need to deal with any of that. Your names aren’t showing up on, like, reports filed with the FEC."
'They don't know how to deal with bad press.'
Wilson did not respond to Wired's request for comment, and the Federal Election Commission declined to comment.
Ellie Langford, the director of programming at Chorus, reportedly told liberal influencers on a Zoom call in June, "Our political systems haven’t been able to figure out a real solution, and I’ve been really excited to see you all treading the path forward. I deeply, deeply believe that the work you all are doing is what’s going to make the difference in supporting and frankly resuscitating our democracy."
Bedford noted that this ham-fisted effort on the part of leftists to regain control of the public discourse made him realize that "in the last couple of decades, while the American right has been building an alternative media system, which has become extremely successful and really launched into cool mode around 2011, 2012, with Daily Caller, but then finally came into its own with the meme wars in 2016."
"They're 10, 20 years ahead of where Democrats are," continued Bedford. "Democrats don't know what to do if ABC and CBS and CNN lay off half their employees. That's all they know. It's their only game in town. They don't know how to deal with bad press. They don't know how to deal with new media — and they're going to have to learn real quick."
Bedford noted further that it's clear from liberals' desperation to find and anoint a Joe Rogan-caliber influencer that they've missed the point.
"They put politics before entertainment. 'We need a liberal Joe Rogan.' No, you don't. You just need to convince Joe Rogan," added Bedford.
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Deranged DC leftist faces consequences for allegedly hurling a Subway footlong at a federal officer
President Donald Trump's latest push to clean up the streets of Washington, D.C., reached new heights after law enforcement arrested and charged a man for allegedly hurling a Subway sandwich at a federal officer.
A police complaint identified the man as Sean Charles Dunn, a 37-year-old D.C. resident who was captured shouting obscenities at police before apparently chucking the footlong at law enforcement Tuesday night. Dunn is now facing a felony charge for assaulting a federal officer, according to the FBI.
'I did it. I threw a sandwich.'
Dunn initially approached law enforcement and got within inches of an officer's face, yelling, "F**k you! You f**king fascists!" according to the complaint. Dunn later crossed the street while continuing to yell obscenities before returning to throw the sandwich and striking a federal officer in the chest, video of the incident indicated.
Dunn quickly attempted to flee on foot following the confrontation, but he was swiftly apprehended, video showed.
RELATED: The awful irony of the White House’s crackdown on juvenile crime
The @FBI arrested this individual last night.
He has been charged with felony assault on a federal officer. pic.twitter.com/GY2DBr9rUP
— FBI Director Kash Patel (@FBIDirectorKash) August 14, 2025
While Dunn was being processed, he admitted to the police that he was the culprit, according to the complaint.
"I did it. I threw a sandwich."
U.S. Attorney for D.C. Jeanine Pirro said she was going to "back the police to the hilt" after charging Dunn with a felony.
"Assault a law enforcement officer, and you’ll be prosecuted," Pirro said in a statement on X. "This guy thought it was funny — well, he doesn’t think it’s funny today, because we charged him with a felony."
"We're going to back the police to the hilt," Pirro added. "So there! Stick your Subway sandwich somewhere else."
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Leftists go full conspiracy theorists after Stephen Colbert’s show is canceled
After 11 seasons of Stephen Colbert’s political commentary, “The Late Show” on CBS has come to an end — and while leftist politicians are in disbelief, BlazeTV host Stu Burguiere is not even close to surprised.
“Before we start our show, I want to let you know something that I found out just last night. Next year will be our last season. The network will be ending ‘The Late Show’ in May,” Colbert told his audience.
“It’s not just the end of our show, but it’s the end of ‘The Late Show’ on CBS. I’m not being replaced. This is all just going away,” he added.
A CBS News executive said in a statement that the show's cancellation wasn’t “related in any way to the show’s performance, content, or other matter happening at Paramount.”
“Now, obviously, the first thing you do is you jump to the big conspiracy theory, right?” Burguiere says on “Stu Does America.” “We’re told all the time that we on the right are the big conspiracy theorists. Of course, it’s not just like podcasters on the left going to conspiracy theories. It’s like mainstream left-wing politicians.”
Unsurprisingly, one of those left-wing politicians is Elizabeth Warren.
“CBS canceled Colbert’s show just THREE DAYS after Colbert called out CBS parent company Paramount for its $16M settlement with Trump — a deal that looks like bribery. America deserves to know if his show was canceled for political reasons,” Warren wrote in a post on X.
“Fascinating, of course, because the whole show was political. The whole thing was political. They didn’t care about that show being political because it benefited them the entire time. Now that politics might be getting in their way, they don’t like it so much,” Stu comments.
Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) also joined in to theorize on the cancellation of Colbert’s show, posting on X, “People deserve to know if this is a politically motivated attack on free speech.”
Stacey Abrams also opined over the CBS show’s cancellation, posting several photos of herself on the show.
“Maybe that’s part of the problem, that he invited you on this,” Stu laughs.
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Why leftism attracts the sad and depressed — and keeps them that way
By now, the trope of the “sad leftist” has become so popular that it’s essentially a meme. Multiple studies show leftists are, on average, far less happy than conservatives. That aligns with the experience of many who observe self-professed leftists exhibiting more anxiety, gloom, and hostility than others.
It’s not difficult to understand why. If your main news sources tell you the president is a fascist, half of your countrymen are bigots, and the world is about to end due to climate change, you’re bound to feel — and vote — blue. Yet, even in Democratic administrations, leftists never seemed content.
People latch onto progressive narratives because they offer someone to blame. That brings short-term relief, but it quickly fades.
This suggests the root of their discontent isn’t merely political messaging but something deeper. Rather, the ideas implicit in leftism seem antithetical to a happy life and human flourishing — even if well-intended. Leftists push for diversity, equity, and inclusion in place of meritocracy, support a more powerful state to implement those ideals, advocate open borders to globalize them, and demand wealth redistribution to fund them. In the sanitized and euphemistic language they often prefer, leftists are about fairness, progress, and kindness.
Sad people lean left
Nate Silver recently weighed in on the happiness gap between conservatives and progressives. His take? People might have it backward. It’s not that leftism makes people sad but that sad people gravitate toward leftism: “People become liberals because they’re struggling or oppressed themselves and therefore favor change and a larger role for government.”
If this is true, it still doesn’t explain why leftism is correlated with sadness and why it offers no remedy. Conservatives, for their part, offer a diagnosis and a cure: Leftism is foolish and destructive — so stop being a leftist. That’s the gist of Ben Shapiro’s infamous line, “Facts don’t care about your feelings.”
While clever and catchy, this oversimplifies the problem. People who ascribe to liberal or leftist causes don’t merely do so because they prioritize feelings over facts. Yes, some are true believers, but most are reacting to powerful cultural pressures and personal struggles. These feed destructive habits that, in turn, make them more susceptible to leftist propaganda.
After all, the narratives that comprise leftist propaganda are easy to understand and adopt since they lay the blame of all society’s ills on someone else. People are poor because rich people exploit them; people of color are marginalized because white people are racists; queer people are depressed because straight people don’t accept them; third world countries are dysfunctional because Americans and Europeans meddled in their affairs too much or too little; and leftists are unpopular because Trump and other conservative populists are effective con men.
The media’s vicious cycle
These narratives not only offer paltry short-term solace — they breed resentment. Instead of directing their efforts to personal improvement, leftists are encouraged to push their anger outward — sometimes through direct violence (vandalism, looting, even political violence) and sometimes indirectly by cheering on those who perpetrate it. In this way, left-wing media weaponizes its audience.
Nevertheless, the principle motivation behind leftist propaganda is not necessarily weaponization. It’s monetization. Beyond adopting leftist narratives and positions, audiences need to continue consuming leftist media and become addicted to it.
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As Georgetown professor and computer scientist Cal Newport explains in his book “Digital Minimalism: Choosing a Focused Life in a Noisy World,” society has now entered the era of the “attention economy,” where media companies do everything in their power to hold people’s attention — for forever. In conjunction with tech companies, these outlets turn otherwise healthy people into helpless junkies enslaved to the apps on their smartphones.
Like any addiction, this one feeds a destructive cycle. People latch onto progressive narratives because they offer someone to blame. That brings short-term relief, but it quickly fades. The need for comfort drives them to consume even more leftist content, which distorts their view of the world and fuels resentment. Anxiety deepens. Misery spreads.
As their emotional state deteriorates, they seek comfort in even more content. Eventually, this behavior sabotages their ability to function. They become dependent on the very content that made them feel worse in the first place. Many even join the performance, filming themselves crying, ranting, and broadcasting their despair for clicks.
Meanwhile, the titans of the attention economy grow wealthier and more powerful. They refine their algorithms, suppress dissent, and tighten their grip. The last thing they want is for their users to wake up — to take Newport’s advice, unplug, and rediscover meaning in the real world. They might just find happiness. And stop drifting left.
Model a different life
This presents an opportunity for conservatives hoping to transform the culture. The answer isn’t just a matter of advocating time-tested ideas but of modeling the habits that reinforce these ideas. Rather than view leftists as incorrigible scoundrels and idiots who refuse to open their eyes, conservatives should see them as unfortunate people who have been seduced, reduced, and enslaved by powerful corporate and government interests.
This means that conservatives should do more than offer political arguments — we must pull them away from the vicious cycle through modeling a better life. Leftists (and many on the online right, for that matter) must be reminded that being perpetually online and endlessly scrolling is a recipe for sadness. In contrast, church, family, friends, and meaningful work are what empower people. They are what make us human — and happy.
Once the cycle is broken — and the leftist has regained some control over himself — the case for conservatism becomes much easier. If Nate Silver is right that sad people gravitate to the left, then it’s only logical to assume happy people should be attracted to the right. Conservatives should cherish those values and habits that make them, on average, happier and more fulfilled. It’s time to stop drinking leftist tears and help them out of their malaise.
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