On Tuesday’s CNN NewsNight (aka CNN Thunderdome), former TV talk show host Montel Williams channeled ABC’s Matt Gutman from hours earlier in finding a new motive for the alleged Charlie Kirk assassin, which was the suspect — “a love-torn kid” in “probably his first real relationship” — murdered Kirk out of devotion to his trans significant other.
“Motivated emotionally”? “Somebody was disparaging the person that he loved”?
In other words, as I told Dr. Drew Pinsky on Wednesday afternoon, these two are trying to foist upon us the talking point that murderers are people too.
Williams had even more to say, seeming to imply the suspects political differences with his father may have set him off:
But this is a young man who’s dating a person in transition. And I’m a conservative father and I question — let’s say my daughter brought home the first guy that she brought home. I question the guy that he brought home — she brought home. Was the dad questioning him politically? Is this a political motivation or was this a psychological kind of thing?
A few minutes later, Scott Jennings chimed in and wasn’t having any of this namby pamby behavior (click “expand” to read what he said):
JENNINGS: Guys, guys, the evidence here is overwhelming. He said, Charlie Kirk, I can’t stand this hate anymore, I’m going to take him out. He — the testimony from and the statements of his family, he had become more left-wing. He etched the statements that are made by the left about Republicans and conservatives and Charlie Kirk fascist on the bullet casings.
WILLIAMS: He made a joke about it in his last text.
JENNINGS: Well, it doesn’t sound like a joke to me because someone’s dead and about to be buried.
WILLIAMS: Those are two different things. Those are two different things.
TANDEN: Well —
JENNINGS: So, it doesn’t sound like a joke to me. So, I’m just telling you. There is an effort — there was an effort all weekend long on the left to try to make this guy sound like he was a conservative that failed. That was passed around all over the weekend. That has now failed. The evidence has now come out. He was motivated by hate. He was motivated by left-wing radicalism. He got mixed up with some trans ideology in his life. We’ll learn more about that, I’m sure, when more evidence and testimony comes out. We are looking around the edges of this for something other than what’s staring us in the face, left-wing radicalism got this kid, he went up to a roof and he murdered our friend, and that’s what happened.
When the other conservative on-set — The Federalist’s Brianna Lyman (and in her Thunderdome debut, no less) — pointed out there’s been “a large part of the left....cheering” and “celebrating [Kirk’s] death,” host Abby Phillip insisted there’s no evidence to this:
Jennings tried to ask the rest of the table to acknowledge there were people at all celebrating Kirk’s death. Phillip, Williams, and longtime progressive partisan Neera Tanden refused to agree:
To end the A-Block, Williams mocked Jennings being upset about Kirk’s death (click “expand”) to read:
WILLIAMS: Can we, for one second, understand that as we continue — Scott just got all angry, got real mad, it’s got to be this, got to be this, it’s got to be this. Why can’t we have a discussion about how long is it going to take for us to figure out a way to come back together?
JENNINGS: Yes. And, by the way, I am angry. Just to be clear —
PHILLIP: Can we just let him finish, Scott?
JENNINGS: — I am angry because I knew him.
PHILLIP: Scott, I’ll let you talk in just a second. Go ahead.
WILLIAMS: Could we spend as much time figuring out how we bridge this and come back together again? You know, I used to have a note on my producer’s desk when I did my show, I said, we don’t belabor what happens. We try to figure out why it happens and come up with solutions. Right now, all we’re doing is belaboring what happened over and over and over again. We’re not going to sit down and try to figure out how do we stop it.
LYMAN: You got to go after left-wing terrorist. That’s actually exactly the conversation we’re having, is we’re acknowledging there’s a problem.
WILLIAMS: So, anybody who disagrees with you is a left-wing terrorist?
LYMAN: Absolutely not. But if they target a conservative and murder him in brutal fashion, he’s probably a left wing terrorist.
TANDEN: [INAUDIBLE]
JENNINGS: Let me answer your question.
TANDEN: Yes, that person is a murderer. We can all acknowledge that.
JENNINGS: You said I’m — I’m angry. And I’m just telling — I am channeling the emotions of millions of conservatives who are angry. They knew Charlie. They loved Charlie. They viewed Charlie as a mainstream, conservative, Republican voice who talked about issues that millions of Americans believe. He also talked about his faith and he did it by going to college campuses, which are not normally hospitable to conservatives and offering his opponents a microphone to have what we always say —
WILLIAMS: In support of what? In support of what?
JENNINGS: Civil discourse.
WILLIAMS: Not only that, but support of the First Amendment.
JENNINGS: And guess what?
WILLIAMS: He made sure that people had an opportunity and to stand in a room and talk.
JENNINGS: And guess what? He was murdered trying to do what we always say, why don’t we talk to each other? So, yes, there is — it’s not even been a week. So, you’re going to have to give us a little grace on being angry about somebody who did what you always say that we should do, let’s talk, and he got killed.
WILLIAMS: And he got killed more than a week’s grace over. So, two Michigan [sic] elected officials who were murdered, did we give — was it three weeks before we decided to say that there was something wrong with Speaker Pelosi’s husband’s being hit in the head with a hammer?
JENNINGS: By a homeless drug addict? I mean, it was terrible that that happened. This is not the same kind of case.
To see the relevant CNN transcript from September 16, click here.
