PRETENDERS: On what meat is Red America fed?

THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 18, 2025

We'd seen this stew served before: Last Wednesday, the fact that Charlie Kirk had died was announced at roughly 5 p.m. Eastern.

At exactly 5:26 p.m., former president Barack Obama offered this post on X. As we type this very morning, the former president's post has been viewed 105.3 million times:

Barack Obama
@BarackObama

We don’t yet know what motivated the person who shot and killed Charlie Kirk, but this kind of despicable violence has no place in our democracy. Michelle and I will be praying for Charlie’s family tonight, especially his wife Erika and their two young children.

5:26 PM Sep 10, 2025

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2025/09/10/obama-condemns-kirk-shooting/86084145007/

That's what Obama posted. A few hours later, USA Today published this report about Obama's message:

Barack Obama condemns 'despicable violence' in the shooting of Charlie Kirk

Former President Barack Obama condemned the shooting that led to the death of conservative influencer Charlie Kirk on Wednesday, Sept. 10.

"We don’t yet know what motivated the person who shot and killed Charlie Kirk, but this kind of despicable violence has no place in our democracy," Obama wrote in a post on X.

Kirk, 31, was shot during a question-and-answer session with students during a Turning Points USA event at Utah Valley University in Orem, Utah.

For the record, it was true! A few hours after the shooting occurred; thirty minutes after the announcement of Charlie Kirk's death; we still didn't know what had motivated the assailant. The report in USA Today also noted that former president Biden has posted a similar message:

"There is no place in our country for this kind of violence. It must end now."

So said former president Biden—and that was where matters stood. Three days later, a 25-year-old independent journalist focused on Obama's post when she appeared on Fox & Friends Weekend.

Her name was Evita Duffy-Alonso. Interviewed by Kevin Corke, this is what she said:

CORKE (9/13/25): As we continue to celebrate Charlie's life and memory, shocking and sickening celebrations of his death have occurred on social media, and those who are mourning him have actually faced heated backlash. Independent journalist Evita Duffy-Alonso joining us now with reaction.

So great to have you with us, my friend! I just want to set the table here by asking you about your experience as you watch some of the reaction. How has it struck you?

DUFFY-ALFONSO: I mean, it's been unconscionable. I mean, this is—the reaction itself is such a good example of how there is no intellectual diversity on the left.

Not only is there no intellectual diversity on the left towards the right, they're not even tolerant of diversity on their own side. And there are deadly consequences, clearly, to not agreeing with them.

Obama said, right after Charlie was killed, "We don't know what motivated this." I think Obama should know what motivated this. It was his entire political career, sprung out of his close relationship with left-wing terrorist Bill Ayers.

Between 1971 and 1972, an 18-month period, left-wing terrorists set off nearly five bombs a day in American cities. So it went from the Weather Underground to our institutions, and what Charlie Kirk did is he went to our institutions, the heart of the indoctrination machine of the left, and he evangelized young people.

Young men have swung, between 2023 and 2025, 44 points to the right. That is why they hated him so much. 

For the record we don't know if that last statistic is accurate.

At any rate, that's what the young independent journalist said. First, she delivered a childish paraphrase of what Obama had said. Then she delivered a bomb.

On what meat doth this our Caesar feed? Shakespeare had Cassius asking that question in his well-known play, The Tragedy of Julius Caesar. 

In the present day, angry presentations like the one delivered by the young journalist constitute the type of meat on which this nation's largest "cable news" audience is force-fed around the clock.

For today, let's clear one mystery up. Yes, the 25-year-old Duffy-Alfonso is the daughter of Rachel Campos-Duffy, the genial but unfailingly tribal co-host of the Fox & Friends Weekend program.

This fact was mentioned that morning during the 7 o'clock hour. It wasn't mentioned by the genial Corke as he introduced and spoke with the angry young woman he addressed as "my friend." 

For the record, there's nothing automatically wrong with having a sibling or a child appear on a cable news program. This very morning, Mika Brzezinski introduced her brother, Ian Brzezinski, as a guest on Morning Joe.

There is one apparent difference. Ian Brzezinski is 62 years old. He's also a highly experienced foreign policy specialist. According to the leading authority on his career, "he served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Europe and NATO Policy in 2001–2005," and so on from there.

By way of contrast, the "independent journalist" who appeared on Fox is only 25. That doesn't mean that her views are automatically "wrong." 

That doesn't mean that her views are wrong. But in this instance, she principally showcased her ability to respond with a type of irrational tribal anger to a statement in which the person she chose to attack said that he and his wife would be praying for the family of the man who was killed.

Also this:

As we noted yesterday, the young journalist's angry attack on the former president didn't seem to make any sense as a matter of basic history. 

Some of what she said was a bit hard to parse. But her astonishing claim—her unexplained claim that the murder of Kirk had been motivated by President Obama's entire career—didn't seem to make any sense, except as an example of the meat upon which Red America's "cable news viewers are persistently asked to feed.

The killing was motivated by Obama's career? As we speak, Jimmy Kimmel has been removed from the air for a fuzzy statement on Monday night—a fuzzy statement which was itself hard to justify.

But even as Kimmel is removed from the air, presentations like Duffy-Alfonso's will continue to be blared out all over the Fox News Channel, with no one in Blue America willing to notice, report or care.

As we noted yesterday, Duffy-Alfonaso seemed to be completely sincere as she dropped her atom bomb on the former president's head. She was telegenic, but also "full of passionate intensity" as she came over the walls.

Obama had said that he was praying for Kirk's family members. Three days later, this young woman was still in a state of fury on a major "cable news" show, as her genial mother looked on.

Can a nation gripped by such tribal furies really expect to survive? We can't say that the answer is clear. This afternoon, we'll link you to the puzzling thing that Heather Cox Richardson seems to have said on that very same day, or perhaps on the day before.

That said:

As we watched the "independent journalist" present viewers of her mother's show the latest reason to hate Obama, we thought of an earlier remarkable claim—a remarkable claim about Obama which was made, on that same weekend show, in the wake of the murderous attacks of October 7, 2023.

The "journalist" who sounded off that day was Batya Ungar-Sargon. At the time, she was a 42-year-old Berkeley grad. She was also the deputy opinion editor of Newsweek.

Former president Barack Obama had made a set of remarks about the October 7 attacks. His remarks weren't sufficiently tribal for the furious Newsweek employee in question, and so she went on Fox & Friends Weekend and told Campos-Duffy this:

UNGAR-SARGON (11/5/23): Thank you so much for having me, Rachel. Thank you for your incredible courage at this time, and I also just have to say thank you to everybody at Fox News, every producer, every writer, 

You guys have been incredible in a sea of antisemitic media and bigotry. So thank you so much, from the bottom of my heart.

Speaking of signs, I was joking with a friend over Shabbat that the progressives need a new sign for their yard, right? 

"Black Lives Matter," "In This House We Trust Science," :No Human is Illegal"—and "Kill the Jews," right?

I mean, that's what we're seeing. 

According to the Newsweek editor, progressives needed a new new sign for their yards! With apologies, that sign should say this:

 "Kill the Jews."

Campos-Duffy just smiled right along with this—and as she continued, Ungar-Sargon threw Obama into the stew:

UNGAR-SARGON (continuing directly): [An earlier speaker] is absolutely correct that the progressive movement is deeply, deeply antisemitic. Rashida Tlaib out there defending Hamas' chant, "From the river to the sea?" Why would anyone pick that as the hill to die on, I don't know. 

But even President Obama, out there with a clip yesterday with absolute moral equivalency between Hamas and Israel. Absolutely disgusting stuff.

[...]

I feel very sure that this country will not accept this progressive movement with this disgusting antisemitism and anti-Israel sentiment. and we're going to see the unity of the American people and the good heartedness of the American people prevail.

To watch that interview, you can just click here.

As she delivered this poisonous message, Ungar-Sargon praised "the good heartedness of the American people." Along the way, she herself had said this:

In his recent presentation, President Obama had produced "absolutely disgusting stuff." The former president apparently needed a sign on his lawn. That sign should say this:

Kill the Jews!

At the time, we spent an entire week—November 6 - November 10—week discussing this ugly, inane performance. What had Obama actually said? To recall what the rank antisemite had said, you can start by clicking here.

That was our post from November 7, 2023. This was part of the "absolutely disgusting stuff" the rank antisemite had said:

What Hamas did was horrific, and there’s no justification for it....And what is also true is that there is a history of the Jewish people that may be dismissed unless your grandparents, or your great-grandparents, or your uncle or your aunt, tell you stories about the madness of antisemitism.

That wasn't enough for the overwrought Fox & Friends Weekend guest. To her, the former president rather clearly wanted to kill the Jews.

By clicking that link, you can read a larger chunk of what Obama said. Campos-Duffy made no attempt to challenge Ungar-Sargon's astounding characterization of his lengthy remarks.

Today, Ungar-Sargon is still in the business. We've seen her featured several times as a guest on CNN's horrible shoutfest show, NewsNight with Abby Phillip.

We assume that Ungar-Sargon was completely sincere in what she said about Obama the absolutely disgusting antisemite. So was Duffy-Alfonso last Saturday morning.

That said, their furious, extremely ugly statements were examples of what we called "Humans at war" in our reports about Ungar-Sargon. This is what we humans are inclined to do when we start marching to tribal war.

Back in 2023, we saw no one say a single word about what Ungar-Sargon had said. This week, we've seen no one say a word about the young journalist's screed.

The Fox News Channel attacks Blue America all day long, and then long into the night. The pampered stars of Blue American media have agreed they must never report or respond.

They must never report what occurs on that "cable news" channel. They must never discuss what gets said. 

As we've noted in the past, the Achaeans are currently coming over the walls! According to Professor Knox, this is the lesson the ancient Greeks learned from what had occurred at Troy after the furious Achaean troops finally came over those walls

The images of that night assault—the blazing palaces, the blood running in the streets, old Priam butchered at the altar, Cassandra raped in the temple, Hector's baby son thrown from the battlements, his wife Andromache dragged off to slavery—all this, foreshadowed in the Iliad, will be stamped indelibly on the consciousness of the Greeks throughout their history...to reinforce the stern lesson of Homer's presentation of the war: that no civilization, no matter how rich, no matter how refined, can long survive once it loses the power to meet force with equal or superior force.

At this point, the journalistic elites of Blue America seem to be politely awaiting that failing nation's end. You simply can't get our stars to report what happens at the Fox News Channel.

They're willing to talk about "social media." They aren't willing to say the names of the various soldiers at Fox.

Judging from appearances, no one wants to tangle with Fox! David Brooks won't report or discuss the squalor of the Fox News Channel. How about Bruni or Stephens? How about David French?

Tomorrow: Two members of Congress react