Nov. 11, 2025
“Are You Ready To Motherf*&%$g” Die?” Just A Sample Of What Arizona Teachers Are Facing After Their Halloween Costume Is Mistakenly Believed To Mock Charlie Kirk’s Assassination
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RSS Feed The Vail School District in Arizona has been forced to add extra security to protect teachers and students at Cienega High School after they posted a picture to their Facebook page showing a math teachers’ group Halloween costume. It was meant as a math joke, t-shirts that looked like they had blood stains on them with the words “Problem Solved” on the front, but it was interpreted by Charlie Kirk’s own organization, Turning Point USA, as mocking their late founder’s assassination. Even after the district posted an explanation and photographic proof that the teachers had worn the same costume the year before, some conservative activists and prominent national leaders doubled down, posting the teachers’ names, phone numbers and demanding they be fired. The school has had more than 3-thousand hateful messages, including death threats, with the school superintendent asking for better understanding.
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00:00:02
Speaker 1: Hey, there're folks.
00:00:02
Speaker 2: It is Tuesday, November the eleventh, and a group of teachers is getting death threats. They've had to update security on their school campus. Even a state official is demanding that this group of teachers be fired. And get this all because everybody is wrong. And with that, welcome to this episode of Amy and TJ. All of this happening, folks and robes because a mistake was made, mistakenly identified them as doing something wrong. It catches fire, goes everywhere, and nobody wants to come back and now admit we made a mistake, We apologize.
00:00:44
Speaker 3: This story is appalling, and the more you get into the details of it, it's such a sad statement of where we are in this country when it comes to politics, when it comes to understanding, when it comes to keeping an open mind, giving peace people grace and recognizing that maybe it's dangerous to jump to conclusions.
00:01:07
Speaker 2: This is and you'll hear these details, really, Roades, I had not seen this make a lot of headlines before now, and you're the one that brought it to my attention. So I'm not sure how many people are aware of what's going on, but this is happening out in Arizona in particular, and it's connected to the death of Charlie Kirk.
00:01:25
Speaker 4: That's right.
00:01:26
Speaker 3: So a group of math teachers at an Arizona high school decided to put together a Halloween costume.
00:01:36
Speaker 4: And that Halloween.
00:01:37
Speaker 3: Costume that was worn by this group of math teachers led to a teacher saying he was so scared he hid in his bathroom to cry so his wife wouldn't see him cry. There was extra sheriff's deputies on campus all week. The front office received phone calls with people yelling things like are you ready to mother effing die over a Halloween costume? Because someone saw a picture of these teachers that was posted to the school's Facebook page and said they are mocking Charlie Kirk.
00:02:12
Speaker 1: All right.
00:02:12
Speaker 2: To be clear, the shirts folks look like, and the makeup they're dressed kind of like zombies, all right. They're just kind of dirty shirts. They say problem solved on it, and it has bloodstained for the most part. From what I can tell, robes on the left side of the shirt on the person's left the left arm, if you will, is what they look like. So they're supposed to be some kind of zombie. These are math teachers. So problem solved was supposed to be a nod to math problems. That is what the shirt looked like. It was posted somewhere and it was misinterpreted. Correctcuse me, it was interpreted absolutely wrongly and then spread and caught fire. When you're talking about we have seen robes, people fired and threatened and etc. For mocking the death of Charlie Kirk. So what happened Charlie Kirk's own organization? I think robes probably are the ones that really got this going, that is correct.
00:03:10
Speaker 3: So this turning point. USA spokesperson Andrew Colvid he tweeted that the teachers in that photo deserve to be famous and fired. Now he since deleted that post, but it accrued nearly ten million views. Damage done, Damage done. And here's to me what even bothered me the most when the district, the school district realized what was happening. The school principal talks about waking up to a flood of messages and being mortified because this of course wasn't the intent of the Halloween costume, and they were trying to do damage control. So they put out a statement saying this had nothing to do with Charlie Kirk. This was our teachers enjoying Halloween. They were wearing those T shirts in the spirit of a zombie run that the school was putting on later in the day, So they were being zombies and they thought they had a math joke, so they put that out there. And then here's the really egregious part, I believe in turning Point. USA SPOKESPSID Andrew Colovitt then took the district statement, posted it and said he'd be relieved if they didn't intend to reference Kirk, but that he didn't think everyone in the photo was innocent, and he said teachers have been among the worst defenders of mocking and celebrating Charlie's assassination, so he kept it going even though the district gave a very innocent explanation as to what the photo actually was showing.
00:04:43
Speaker 1: I don't know what to do.
00:04:44
Speaker 2: I know though, everybody connected and that entire organization is going to be hurting for quite some time for what happened to Charlie Kirk. I just wish a cooler and more sensible head could prevail and to give a little grace that it's possible that initially the fure the the outraids you had was wrong because you didn't have all the information, and that's okay. But instead of we didn't acknowledge that, we have to say yeah, okay, but still I bet some of them were. And so you're still a sign you're actually doubling now you have it all, and you're doubling down on these being people who are celebrating the death of this man. That is this we can't we're getting We're never gonna get anywhere. This is so upsetting that we just can't take a beat. They're getting death threats. If you want to say they were stupid and should have maybe assumed, I might start with that conversation, but I'd still push back, say, hey, you got on white T shirts, bold letters on it looks like some blood down one side. Hmm, maybe somebody might, Hey, just the head's up somebody maybe if you want to make that argument. But rodes after hearing, oh have we even said the big part? They can prove these were the same damn Halloween costumes from last year.
00:06:01
Speaker 4: That's correct.
00:06:02
Speaker 3: And even when they did and posted a picture of those same teachers wearing those same T shirts from the year before, people said don't believe it.
00:06:13
Speaker 4: It's AI. It's a fake.
00:06:15
Speaker 3: So even when you have photographic evidence proving that this was not related to Charlie Kirk, it couldn't have been if they had these T shirts and wore them the year prior, and still people say they fake the time stamp.
00:06:29
Speaker 4: It's a fake photo.
00:06:30
Speaker 3: So you can't even convince people that it isn't connected when you have photographic evidence that it is not connected.
00:06:37
Speaker 2: I pray everybody listening, we got to do better and give. At some point, you have to believe something in front of you and not just the lane you have chosen. We are so sure that if this is happening on this side, and this has happened on the side, then I.
00:06:51
Speaker 1: Have to stick with my group.
00:06:52
Speaker 2: There's no way I could concede that I was wrong or concede something to the other side. I have to double, triple, quadruple down. And this is getting people hurt. These teachers are being threatened. Who knows how far it's going to go. But there is proof that they fine made a mistake and shouldn't.
00:07:11
Speaker 4: Have worn them this year. Maybe it was in poor taste.
00:07:13
Speaker 2: Let's go with that, but we have to give teachers grace when we see we know they did not buy these last year in anticipation of an assassination. They've had these shirts for a year.
00:07:26
Speaker 3: And look, most of these teachers who are in this photo are not comfortable enough putting their names out with any sort of commentary. But we have heard anonymously they have spoken and said several of the teachers in that photo are Charlie Kirk supporters. Several of the teachers in that photo voted for Trump. So they were trying to say, trust us, we had zero mal intent and we certainly aren't against Kirk or the Republican Party.
00:07:57
Speaker 2: Is that message ever going to be amplified loud than those first ten million likes or whatever it was spreading this story. Are you ever going to be loud enough? And even if you are, is the response going to be the same one we're getting from turning point now?
00:08:15
Speaker 1: I don't know.
00:08:16
Speaker 3: Well, you can't take the toothpaste out of the I can't put it back in the two.
00:08:21
Speaker 4: You can't put it back in the tube.
00:08:23
Speaker 2: You can't culverhead an option of doing so.
00:08:27
Speaker 1: Say hey, folks, heads up, need you to know this.
00:08:31
Speaker 2: But this wasn't the most egregious one to me, there is a state official there robes this was the one when I saw it, like you have a different public responsibility.
00:08:40
Speaker 3: Yes, Arizona State Representative Rachel Keshel, she's a Republican from Tucson, and the first thing she posted on X when she saw the district's response, she saw the fact that there was another photo. She said, I am not buying this BS story one bit. And she even said her daughter graduated from that very high school the year before, and her daughter told her those teachers never wore those Halloween costumes the year before.
00:09:07
Speaker 2: That's what she's going with, right, so she knows better and the principal is lying. The photo from last year is a timestam. All of these things are AI. So what do we do. We believe a kid who was in high school there who may be heard possibly something and she saw every and remembers every Halloween costume from every teacher last year is her basis. This was my problem with the statement from this state representatives. I must firmly reject any attempts to downplay this incident as mere math problem solving attire recycles from last year. So what she said is okay, fine, even if it is from last year, you still shouldn't be wearing that.
00:09:47
Speaker 1: Correct, Like, there is.
00:09:49
Speaker 2: No answer for this other than you all are wrong because we say so. There is no room for conversation.
00:09:56
Speaker 3: She wants all of these teachers fired. She's demanding that they all be fired. And look, some folks took it even further. A conservative commentator on x posted the photo alongside the names and phone numbers of all the teachers. Guess how many views that post received? Twenty million views?
00:10:18
Speaker 1: Okay, political violence, right.
00:10:20
Speaker 4: And this is the irony of all ironies.
00:10:24
Speaker 3: In an effort to be upset and try to point the finger at people who incite political violence, people on the other side are inciting political violence.
00:10:35
Speaker 2: The claim will be, we just want you to hound these people, get them fired right in, make sure you hurt their businesses. That's the idea of it's to think that some people think it just stops there.
00:10:50
Speaker 1: What is that? What we have just expoke?
00:10:52
Speaker 2: We have put a target, literal target on the backs of teachers and giving you directions.
00:10:59
Speaker 1: To find them.
00:11:00
Speaker 4: Correct. Correct, that is.
00:11:02
Speaker 2: What we have done all because we can't just simply say, you know what, we didn't have all the information we got it wrong, find it in poor taste. Still, but these teachers, obviously we're not trying to mock the death of Charlie Kirk. Now, And how many are there in that picture?
00:11:19
Speaker 4: It looked like around ten. Yes, I didn't count, but that's.
00:11:22
Speaker 2: A lot of people to get together and say, hey, let's play this really poor joke.
00:11:27
Speaker 3: And this would have come weeks after they already saw the firings, the condemnation and the repercussions of so many other prominent folks who misstep, misspokes, said things they shouldn't have, tweeted things they shouldn't have. So they already saw the fallout from all of that in the days immediately after Charlie Kirk's assassination. So why then would they do that after having all that? Now it doesn't actually even make sense. And you know, we talked about some of the reaction. This wasn't just from Yes, it's very specifically probably got turned up by turning Point USA. But when you have the Florida governor weighing in, when you have a Senator from Utah weighing in, when you have a founder of a political group for students that has a million followers, weighing in.
00:12:18
Speaker 4: These are all prominent names who have a lot of.
00:12:20
Speaker 3: Followers, who people believe and rely on for real and true information.
00:12:24
Speaker 2: They're telling them what to do. They're telling them to be outraged, and they're telling them to go after these people. And they're telling them that it's okay to do so because we are interpreting what they did as completely wrong and they deserve no grace. Also, don't explain, they don't even deserve us listening to their explanation.
00:12:40
Speaker 1: That is how debate is taking place in this country.
00:12:43
Speaker 3: You know what's fascinating to me, So I mentioned Florida Governor Ron DeSantis. He initially posted on x that these teachers were glorifying a murder. Then he later posted the district statement of course, explaining what the photo actually was. And he's said people can quote decide for themselves. And then when reporters have followed up and said, hey, now that you know more about the story, you know, what do you have to say about the situation, and his representatives referred them to his comments on Twitter, and he refused to say anything else. And then we have I think one of the scary things is when you have representatives and people in power and places of respect. When they are calling into question the integrity of a school district a principle and saying everyone's lying to cover it up. It's just sowing these seeds of complete and total distrust in anyone and everyone, and that's.
00:13:39
Speaker 2: Chaos in any institution. Don't believe it because we say don't believe it. This isn't This is just an unreasonable story to me. Now, it's unreasonable, and it's highlights how we have debate in this country. You know, we hate We go out of our way to make sure we don't criticize. People have their feelings on whatever side or the other.
00:13:59
Speaker 1: And I'm sure.
00:14:02
Speaker 2: That maybe they were initially upset or maybe something in the back of their mind things right, that they were trying to mock this person that they loved and the death of this person that they love. I try to leave some room for that. This is just not one of those situations where it's up for interpretation. Necessarily. We know they did not put these outfits together to mock the death of Charlie Kirk like we know that, and there's reasonable doubt even of what the other side is saying. That's enough for us to pump the brakes and not send armies of outraged, emotional people their way. I hate this story so much. This is devastating about our political discourse.
00:14:52
Speaker 3: I hate you know, this is a small town in Arizona, a tight knit community, and when you start to read the for reports, I mean all last week, the students were scared to go to school. Half the teachers in that photo didn't show up for the first couple of days. They were so scared to come to school. There were threats and rumors that snipers were going to be taking out students, taking out teachers. In an era of political violence and school shootings and all of the.
00:15:24
Speaker 4: Just unbelievably.
00:15:27
Speaker 3: Violent vitriol we have, can we take a step back and recognize that these folks are scared to go to work, kids are scared to go to school. The learning process is being disrupted for what.
00:15:40
Speaker 2: They don't seem to care because they think it is a more just cause they have, which is to get these people fire, to draw attention to these people. That's school, that school, just to send people to their homes for whatever reason.
00:15:55
Speaker 1: That is.
00:15:58
Speaker 2: Justification or what they believe, and what they believe just happens.
00:16:03
Speaker 1: To be wrong. They made a mistake.
00:16:07
Speaker 2: You didn't have all the information, Like we gotta be big enough to say oops and understand your responsibility as leaders to bring the temperature down. The Santas had the information, the state lawmaker has the information, but she still keeps doubling down. Such costumes aren't harmless fun. They normalize the unthinkable political assassination because she won't just say, you know what, these are Arizona citizens. I represent them as well. I'm gonna go have a conversation with them and maybe we can come to a better place that is leadership.
00:16:43
Speaker 4: Her daughter went to that high school.
00:16:46
Speaker 1: She knows these teachers.
00:16:48
Speaker 4: Yes, that blows my mind.
00:16:51
Speaker 3: And we mentioned the conservative commentator who posted the names and phone numbers. Okay, how about a senator, a Republican from Utah, Senator Mike Lee also posted the teachers names and phone numbers and said, anyone else think this might be the best advertisement ever for school choice and homeschooling.
00:17:15
Speaker 2: Okay, so you're telling me now, this is what we do us, Senator, We ain't got many of them.
00:17:22
Speaker 1: These are a prestigious job.
00:17:25
Speaker 2: And he is saying this is okay to dock.
00:17:31
Speaker 3: It's really hard It makes me feel sick thinking about where our country is right now. Our government is shut down, folks aren't getting paid. It's incredibly difficult to see that this is still going on in the midst of all of that. So obviously we talked about how the district tried to show that they had a photo proving that this wasn't a Halloween costume based solely on Charlie Kirk's asassination. It had nothing to do with it, and that's because they had worn it the year before. But we know what the math department was actually considering wearing for their Halloween costumes. And when you hear this story, it makes this whole thing feel even more frustratingly senseless, stupid. And we want you to stay tuned for this part of the story and and and continuing our conversation about what's going on in the state of Arizona. And certainly it's become a national story where these group of math teachers in Arizona put on a Halloween costume for the second year in a row, but this year, in the wake of the Charlie Kirk assassination, it was misinterpreted and then it became something that just is difficult to watch and witness where we have teachers afraid to go to work, students afraid to go to school, and teachers' names, phone numbers put out for folks who are angry at this picture to put out messages of hate violence. I mean, it really is just a disturbing and escalating situation. The temperature has not come down because the state lawmakers and lawmakers around the country who want to believe that this was politically motivated, they're not backing down despite the proof that it wasn't. So the math department actually put out that they were going to do a group costume this year based on the gen Alpha the word of the year six seven, and they thought that would be fun. But they decided to not have this more probably timely Halloween costume out because they didn't want to spend more money. They wanted to save their high school and their school district money, so they decided to reuse the same Halloween costume they had from last year.
00:20:02
Speaker 2: So teachers were doing their jobs. Everybody knows a big part of being a teacher that is being very frugal, being very resourceful, and making money stretch. So they were actually in the process of being good teachers. As all this happened to him, that just adds to the story. Nobody's gonna believe that either. I guess that's just gonna that just adds another element to the holy hell to this story. It's it's just a shame. I hated for those teachers. I hated for that district, that area, that even for the state of Arizona at this point, to see to see how they are leading the way almost in this story on in the opposite direction of what we were hoping they were going to lead us. And that includes turning point USA, continuing on that legacy of debate, of discourse, of continuing that on. Absolutely we just saw. We are so offended at what happened to Charlie Kirk. It's all because he was saying something. So let's all bring the temperature down. You remember all that, You remember that memorial service? Did they get up time after time? I know they pointed some political fingers, but wasn't that more of a commitment, right? We all try the words matter that we all both sides left right, and I know they tried to blame each other, but still we agreed. We all agreed that this isn't what we need to keep doing, And yet here we are, they sick demond teachers.
00:21:32
Speaker 3: Who are still now fearing for their lives and fearing for their famili's safety because of a Halloween costume that had no mal intent. They actually won a costume contest with those same T shirts the year before, and so they thought, you know, they were good enough for last year. We wanted the whole contest, the costume contest with these T shirts. Let's just wear them again.
00:21:57
Speaker 4: Now.
00:21:57
Speaker 3: The school superintendent put a statement that I actually really appreciated and it goes in line with what you're saying, babe.
00:22:04
Speaker 4: And I think that maybe, man, if.
00:22:09
Speaker 3: The lawmakers who are holding firm and doubling down on their initial reaction to that photo, if they could just take what the school superintendent said to heart, maybe they could have a change of heart.
00:22:23
Speaker 4: He said, this horrific loop of.
00:22:25
Speaker 3: Flinging pooh and insults at others who we think disagree with us will never be broken online or via a phone call or via an email. It's only going to be broken by stepping out and meeting our neighbors. What if the head of Turning Point usay, what if some of these senators and lawmakers and conservative commentators actually went and met with these teachers.
00:22:53
Speaker 4: Would they walk away.
00:22:56
Speaker 3: Feeling and thinking and saying the same things they are now?
00:23:01
Speaker 2: The leader in this situation should not be the local school superintendent. We got, we got centers, us senators involved. There should be different and bigger voices. But I hope I pray they do listen and some cooler heads can prevail and this now turn into maybe maybe this is a reason for this robes and this ends up being a bigger story as a bigger show of support and understanding, and maybe it can become something bigger, because right now it's just a disappointment. I hope it's this is not just you know, when you get politicians involved on something like this, it's these are fundraising moves for them, right They're firing up their people, they're firing up their base. They got elections to win. I hope it's not just just that over some teachers. That Senator Lee thing is their names and numbers and addresses. That's that's that's that's tough.
00:23:48
Speaker 3: I actually had to reread it and make sure that I saw it for what it was, and that is just a sad and appalling state of where we are. But look, yes, the school superintendent is leading the way, and perhaps he can shine a light or shed some light on what is going on, and maybe one of these politicians will step up and say, I got it wrong.
00:24:15
Speaker 4: What do you think the chances of that are.
00:24:18
Speaker 2: I will stay optimistic today because we don't everybody else's We're down enough. We've got enough stuff to be down about. Let me be upbeating optimistic about this one, but really thinking about you all out there in Arizona, and.
00:24:29
Speaker 1: You will play this.
00:24:30
Speaker 2: I encourage everybody, and I do this all the time. Just give it a beat before your initial emotion is outrage, don't lead with that. Just a little investigation doesn't even take long. A quick Google search and you can find out, Oh that's not what I thought it was. We've seen it time and time again. I always go back to Princess Kate and everybody. Miss Ray had celebrities apologizing for things they said about her, that whole photo thing. Oh yeah, by the way, yeah, oh she has cancer.
00:24:58
Speaker 1: You know, Just give it a beat, give people a little.
00:25:01
Speaker 2: Grace, and do a little investigation, and maybe maybe you'll find out there's a there's no justification for your initial outrage.
00:25:10
Speaker 3: I love that and with us everyone. Thank you for listening to us. We appreciate it, and we appreciate you. I'm Amy Roebuck alongside t. J.
00:25:16
Speaker 4: Holmes. We will talk to you soon.
Speaker 1: Hey, there're folks.
00:00:02
Speaker 2: It is Tuesday, November the eleventh, and a group of teachers is getting death threats. They've had to update security on their school campus. Even a state official is demanding that this group of teachers be fired. And get this all because everybody is wrong. And with that, welcome to this episode of Amy and TJ. All of this happening, folks and robes because a mistake was made, mistakenly identified them as doing something wrong. It catches fire, goes everywhere, and nobody wants to come back and now admit we made a mistake, We apologize.
00:00:44
Speaker 3: This story is appalling, and the more you get into the details of it, it's such a sad statement of where we are in this country when it comes to politics, when it comes to understanding, when it comes to keeping an open mind, giving peace people grace and recognizing that maybe it's dangerous to jump to conclusions.
00:01:07
Speaker 2: This is and you'll hear these details, really, Roades, I had not seen this make a lot of headlines before now, and you're the one that brought it to my attention. So I'm not sure how many people are aware of what's going on, but this is happening out in Arizona in particular, and it's connected to the death of Charlie Kirk.
00:01:25
Speaker 4: That's right.
00:01:26
Speaker 3: So a group of math teachers at an Arizona high school decided to put together a Halloween costume.
00:01:36
Speaker 4: And that Halloween.
00:01:37
Speaker 3: Costume that was worn by this group of math teachers led to a teacher saying he was so scared he hid in his bathroom to cry so his wife wouldn't see him cry. There was extra sheriff's deputies on campus all week. The front office received phone calls with people yelling things like are you ready to mother effing die over a Halloween costume? Because someone saw a picture of these teachers that was posted to the school's Facebook page and said they are mocking Charlie Kirk.
00:02:12
Speaker 1: All right.
00:02:12
Speaker 2: To be clear, the shirts folks look like, and the makeup they're dressed kind of like zombies, all right. They're just kind of dirty shirts. They say problem solved on it, and it has bloodstained for the most part. From what I can tell, robes on the left side of the shirt on the person's left the left arm, if you will, is what they look like. So they're supposed to be some kind of zombie. These are math teachers. So problem solved was supposed to be a nod to math problems. That is what the shirt looked like. It was posted somewhere and it was misinterpreted. Correctcuse me, it was interpreted absolutely wrongly and then spread and caught fire. When you're talking about we have seen robes, people fired and threatened and etc. For mocking the death of Charlie Kirk. So what happened Charlie Kirk's own organization? I think robes probably are the ones that really got this going, that is correct.
00:03:10
Speaker 3: So this turning point. USA spokesperson Andrew Colvid he tweeted that the teachers in that photo deserve to be famous and fired. Now he since deleted that post, but it accrued nearly ten million views. Damage done, Damage done. And here's to me what even bothered me the most when the district, the school district realized what was happening. The school principal talks about waking up to a flood of messages and being mortified because this of course wasn't the intent of the Halloween costume, and they were trying to do damage control. So they put out a statement saying this had nothing to do with Charlie Kirk. This was our teachers enjoying Halloween. They were wearing those T shirts in the spirit of a zombie run that the school was putting on later in the day, So they were being zombies and they thought they had a math joke, so they put that out there. And then here's the really egregious part, I believe in turning Point. USA SPOKESPSID Andrew Colovitt then took the district statement, posted it and said he'd be relieved if they didn't intend to reference Kirk, but that he didn't think everyone in the photo was innocent, and he said teachers have been among the worst defenders of mocking and celebrating Charlie's assassination, so he kept it going even though the district gave a very innocent explanation as to what the photo actually was showing.
00:04:43
Speaker 1: I don't know what to do.
00:04:44
Speaker 2: I know though, everybody connected and that entire organization is going to be hurting for quite some time for what happened to Charlie Kirk. I just wish a cooler and more sensible head could prevail and to give a little grace that it's possible that initially the fure the the outraids you had was wrong because you didn't have all the information, and that's okay. But instead of we didn't acknowledge that, we have to say yeah, okay, but still I bet some of them were. And so you're still a sign you're actually doubling now you have it all, and you're doubling down on these being people who are celebrating the death of this man. That is this we can't we're getting We're never gonna get anywhere. This is so upsetting that we just can't take a beat. They're getting death threats. If you want to say they were stupid and should have maybe assumed, I might start with that conversation, but I'd still push back, say, hey, you got on white T shirts, bold letters on it looks like some blood down one side. Hmm, maybe somebody might, Hey, just the head's up somebody maybe if you want to make that argument. But rodes after hearing, oh have we even said the big part? They can prove these were the same damn Halloween costumes from last year.
00:06:01
Speaker 4: That's correct.
00:06:02
Speaker 3: And even when they did and posted a picture of those same teachers wearing those same T shirts from the year before, people said don't believe it.
00:06:13
Speaker 4: It's AI. It's a fake.
00:06:15
Speaker 3: So even when you have photographic evidence proving that this was not related to Charlie Kirk, it couldn't have been if they had these T shirts and wore them the year prior, and still people say they fake the time stamp.
00:06:29
Speaker 4: It's a fake photo.
00:06:30
Speaker 3: So you can't even convince people that it isn't connected when you have photographic evidence that it is not connected.
00:06:37
Speaker 2: I pray everybody listening, we got to do better and give. At some point, you have to believe something in front of you and not just the lane you have chosen. We are so sure that if this is happening on this side, and this has happened on the side, then I.
00:06:51
Speaker 1: Have to stick with my group.
00:06:52
Speaker 2: There's no way I could concede that I was wrong or concede something to the other side. I have to double, triple, quadruple down. And this is getting people hurt. These teachers are being threatened. Who knows how far it's going to go. But there is proof that they fine made a mistake and shouldn't.
00:07:11
Speaker 4: Have worn them this year. Maybe it was in poor taste.
00:07:13
Speaker 2: Let's go with that, but we have to give teachers grace when we see we know they did not buy these last year in anticipation of an assassination. They've had these shirts for a year.
00:07:26
Speaker 3: And look, most of these teachers who are in this photo are not comfortable enough putting their names out with any sort of commentary. But we have heard anonymously they have spoken and said several of the teachers in that photo are Charlie Kirk supporters. Several of the teachers in that photo voted for Trump. So they were trying to say, trust us, we had zero mal intent and we certainly aren't against Kirk or the Republican Party.
00:07:57
Speaker 2: Is that message ever going to be amplified loud than those first ten million likes or whatever it was spreading this story. Are you ever going to be loud enough? And even if you are, is the response going to be the same one we're getting from turning point now?
00:08:15
Speaker 1: I don't know.
00:08:16
Speaker 3: Well, you can't take the toothpaste out of the I can't put it back in the two.
00:08:21
Speaker 4: You can't put it back in the tube.
00:08:23
Speaker 2: You can't culverhead an option of doing so.
00:08:27
Speaker 1: Say hey, folks, heads up, need you to know this.
00:08:31
Speaker 2: But this wasn't the most egregious one to me, there is a state official there robes this was the one when I saw it, like you have a different public responsibility.
00:08:40
Speaker 3: Yes, Arizona State Representative Rachel Keshel, she's a Republican from Tucson, and the first thing she posted on X when she saw the district's response, she saw the fact that there was another photo. She said, I am not buying this BS story one bit. And she even said her daughter graduated from that very high school the year before, and her daughter told her those teachers never wore those Halloween costumes the year before.
00:09:07
Speaker 2: That's what she's going with, right, so she knows better and the principal is lying. The photo from last year is a timestam. All of these things are AI. So what do we do. We believe a kid who was in high school there who may be heard possibly something and she saw every and remembers every Halloween costume from every teacher last year is her basis. This was my problem with the statement from this state representatives. I must firmly reject any attempts to downplay this incident as mere math problem solving attire recycles from last year. So what she said is okay, fine, even if it is from last year, you still shouldn't be wearing that.
00:09:47
Speaker 1: Correct, Like, there is.
00:09:49
Speaker 2: No answer for this other than you all are wrong because we say so. There is no room for conversation.
00:09:56
Speaker 3: She wants all of these teachers fired. She's demanding that they all be fired. And look, some folks took it even further. A conservative commentator on x posted the photo alongside the names and phone numbers of all the teachers. Guess how many views that post received? Twenty million views?
00:10:18
Speaker 1: Okay, political violence, right.
00:10:20
Speaker 4: And this is the irony of all ironies.
00:10:24
Speaker 3: In an effort to be upset and try to point the finger at people who incite political violence, people on the other side are inciting political violence.
00:10:35
Speaker 2: The claim will be, we just want you to hound these people, get them fired right in, make sure you hurt their businesses. That's the idea of it's to think that some people think it just stops there.
00:10:50
Speaker 1: What is that? What we have just expoke?
00:10:52
Speaker 2: We have put a target, literal target on the backs of teachers and giving you directions.
00:10:59
Speaker 1: To find them.
00:11:00
Speaker 4: Correct. Correct, that is.
00:11:02
Speaker 2: What we have done all because we can't just simply say, you know what, we didn't have all the information we got it wrong, find it in poor taste. Still, but these teachers, obviously we're not trying to mock the death of Charlie Kirk. Now, And how many are there in that picture?
00:11:19
Speaker 4: It looked like around ten. Yes, I didn't count, but that's.
00:11:22
Speaker 2: A lot of people to get together and say, hey, let's play this really poor joke.
00:11:27
Speaker 3: And this would have come weeks after they already saw the firings, the condemnation and the repercussions of so many other prominent folks who misstep, misspokes, said things they shouldn't have, tweeted things they shouldn't have. So they already saw the fallout from all of that in the days immediately after Charlie Kirk's assassination. So why then would they do that after having all that? Now it doesn't actually even make sense. And you know, we talked about some of the reaction. This wasn't just from Yes, it's very specifically probably got turned up by turning Point USA. But when you have the Florida governor weighing in, when you have a Senator from Utah weighing in, when you have a founder of a political group for students that has a million followers, weighing in.
00:12:18
Speaker 4: These are all prominent names who have a lot of.
00:12:20
Speaker 3: Followers, who people believe and rely on for real and true information.
00:12:24
Speaker 2: They're telling them what to do. They're telling them to be outraged, and they're telling them to go after these people. And they're telling them that it's okay to do so because we are interpreting what they did as completely wrong and they deserve no grace. Also, don't explain, they don't even deserve us listening to their explanation.
00:12:40
Speaker 1: That is how debate is taking place in this country.
00:12:43
Speaker 3: You know what's fascinating to me, So I mentioned Florida Governor Ron DeSantis. He initially posted on x that these teachers were glorifying a murder. Then he later posted the district statement of course, explaining what the photo actually was. And he's said people can quote decide for themselves. And then when reporters have followed up and said, hey, now that you know more about the story, you know, what do you have to say about the situation, and his representatives referred them to his comments on Twitter, and he refused to say anything else. And then we have I think one of the scary things is when you have representatives and people in power and places of respect. When they are calling into question the integrity of a school district a principle and saying everyone's lying to cover it up. It's just sowing these seeds of complete and total distrust in anyone and everyone, and that's.
00:13:39
Speaker 2: Chaos in any institution. Don't believe it because we say don't believe it. This isn't This is just an unreasonable story to me. Now, it's unreasonable, and it's highlights how we have debate in this country. You know, we hate We go out of our way to make sure we don't criticize. People have their feelings on whatever side or the other.
00:13:59
Speaker 1: And I'm sure.
00:14:02
Speaker 2: That maybe they were initially upset or maybe something in the back of their mind things right, that they were trying to mock this person that they loved and the death of this person that they love. I try to leave some room for that. This is just not one of those situations where it's up for interpretation. Necessarily. We know they did not put these outfits together to mock the death of Charlie Kirk like we know that, and there's reasonable doubt even of what the other side is saying. That's enough for us to pump the brakes and not send armies of outraged, emotional people their way. I hate this story so much. This is devastating about our political discourse.
00:14:52
Speaker 3: I hate you know, this is a small town in Arizona, a tight knit community, and when you start to read the for reports, I mean all last week, the students were scared to go to school. Half the teachers in that photo didn't show up for the first couple of days. They were so scared to come to school. There were threats and rumors that snipers were going to be taking out students, taking out teachers. In an era of political violence and school shootings and all of the.
00:15:24
Speaker 4: Just unbelievably.
00:15:27
Speaker 3: Violent vitriol we have, can we take a step back and recognize that these folks are scared to go to work, kids are scared to go to school. The learning process is being disrupted for what.
00:15:40
Speaker 2: They don't seem to care because they think it is a more just cause they have, which is to get these people fire, to draw attention to these people. That's school, that school, just to send people to their homes for whatever reason.
00:15:55
Speaker 1: That is.
00:15:58
Speaker 2: Justification or what they believe, and what they believe just happens.
00:16:03
Speaker 1: To be wrong. They made a mistake.
00:16:07
Speaker 2: You didn't have all the information, Like we gotta be big enough to say oops and understand your responsibility as leaders to bring the temperature down. The Santas had the information, the state lawmaker has the information, but she still keeps doubling down. Such costumes aren't harmless fun. They normalize the unthinkable political assassination because she won't just say, you know what, these are Arizona citizens. I represent them as well. I'm gonna go have a conversation with them and maybe we can come to a better place that is leadership.
00:16:43
Speaker 4: Her daughter went to that high school.
00:16:46
Speaker 1: She knows these teachers.
00:16:48
Speaker 4: Yes, that blows my mind.
00:16:51
Speaker 3: And we mentioned the conservative commentator who posted the names and phone numbers. Okay, how about a senator, a Republican from Utah, Senator Mike Lee also posted the teachers names and phone numbers and said, anyone else think this might be the best advertisement ever for school choice and homeschooling.
00:17:15
Speaker 2: Okay, so you're telling me now, this is what we do us, Senator, We ain't got many of them.
00:17:22
Speaker 1: These are a prestigious job.
00:17:25
Speaker 2: And he is saying this is okay to dock.
00:17:31
Speaker 3: It's really hard It makes me feel sick thinking about where our country is right now. Our government is shut down, folks aren't getting paid. It's incredibly difficult to see that this is still going on in the midst of all of that. So obviously we talked about how the district tried to show that they had a photo proving that this wasn't a Halloween costume based solely on Charlie Kirk's asassination. It had nothing to do with it, and that's because they had worn it the year before. But we know what the math department was actually considering wearing for their Halloween costumes. And when you hear this story, it makes this whole thing feel even more frustratingly senseless, stupid. And we want you to stay tuned for this part of the story and and and continuing our conversation about what's going on in the state of Arizona. And certainly it's become a national story where these group of math teachers in Arizona put on a Halloween costume for the second year in a row, but this year, in the wake of the Charlie Kirk assassination, it was misinterpreted and then it became something that just is difficult to watch and witness where we have teachers afraid to go to work, students afraid to go to school, and teachers' names, phone numbers put out for folks who are angry at this picture to put out messages of hate violence. I mean, it really is just a disturbing and escalating situation. The temperature has not come down because the state lawmakers and lawmakers around the country who want to believe that this was politically motivated, they're not backing down despite the proof that it wasn't. So the math department actually put out that they were going to do a group costume this year based on the gen Alpha the word of the year six seven, and they thought that would be fun. But they decided to not have this more probably timely Halloween costume out because they didn't want to spend more money. They wanted to save their high school and their school district money, so they decided to reuse the same Halloween costume they had from last year.
00:20:02
Speaker 2: So teachers were doing their jobs. Everybody knows a big part of being a teacher that is being very frugal, being very resourceful, and making money stretch. So they were actually in the process of being good teachers. As all this happened to him, that just adds to the story. Nobody's gonna believe that either. I guess that's just gonna that just adds another element to the holy hell to this story. It's it's just a shame. I hated for those teachers. I hated for that district, that area, that even for the state of Arizona at this point, to see to see how they are leading the way almost in this story on in the opposite direction of what we were hoping they were going to lead us. And that includes turning point USA, continuing on that legacy of debate, of discourse, of continuing that on. Absolutely we just saw. We are so offended at what happened to Charlie Kirk. It's all because he was saying something. So let's all bring the temperature down. You remember all that, You remember that memorial service? Did they get up time after time? I know they pointed some political fingers, but wasn't that more of a commitment, right? We all try the words matter that we all both sides left right, and I know they tried to blame each other, but still we agreed. We all agreed that this isn't what we need to keep doing, And yet here we are, they sick demond teachers.
00:21:32
Speaker 3: Who are still now fearing for their lives and fearing for their famili's safety because of a Halloween costume that had no mal intent. They actually won a costume contest with those same T shirts the year before, and so they thought, you know, they were good enough for last year. We wanted the whole contest, the costume contest with these T shirts. Let's just wear them again.
00:21:57
Speaker 4: Now.
00:21:57
Speaker 3: The school superintendent put a statement that I actually really appreciated and it goes in line with what you're saying, babe.
00:22:04
Speaker 4: And I think that maybe, man, if.
00:22:09
Speaker 3: The lawmakers who are holding firm and doubling down on their initial reaction to that photo, if they could just take what the school superintendent said to heart, maybe they could have a change of heart.
00:22:23
Speaker 4: He said, this horrific loop of.
00:22:25
Speaker 3: Flinging pooh and insults at others who we think disagree with us will never be broken online or via a phone call or via an email. It's only going to be broken by stepping out and meeting our neighbors. What if the head of Turning Point usay, what if some of these senators and lawmakers and conservative commentators actually went and met with these teachers.
00:22:53
Speaker 4: Would they walk away.
00:22:56
Speaker 3: Feeling and thinking and saying the same things they are now?
00:23:01
Speaker 2: The leader in this situation should not be the local school superintendent. We got, we got centers, us senators involved. There should be different and bigger voices. But I hope I pray they do listen and some cooler heads can prevail and this now turn into maybe maybe this is a reason for this robes and this ends up being a bigger story as a bigger show of support and understanding, and maybe it can become something bigger, because right now it's just a disappointment. I hope it's this is not just you know, when you get politicians involved on something like this, it's these are fundraising moves for them, right They're firing up their people, they're firing up their base. They got elections to win. I hope it's not just just that over some teachers. That Senator Lee thing is their names and numbers and addresses. That's that's that's that's tough.
00:23:48
Speaker 3: I actually had to reread it and make sure that I saw it for what it was, and that is just a sad and appalling state of where we are. But look, yes, the school superintendent is leading the way, and perhaps he can shine a light or shed some light on what is going on, and maybe one of these politicians will step up and say, I got it wrong.
00:24:15
Speaker 4: What do you think the chances of that are.
00:24:18
Speaker 2: I will stay optimistic today because we don't everybody else's We're down enough. We've got enough stuff to be down about. Let me be upbeating optimistic about this one, but really thinking about you all out there in Arizona, and.
00:24:29
Speaker 1: You will play this.
00:24:30
Speaker 2: I encourage everybody, and I do this all the time. Just give it a beat before your initial emotion is outrage, don't lead with that. Just a little investigation doesn't even take long. A quick Google search and you can find out, Oh that's not what I thought it was. We've seen it time and time again. I always go back to Princess Kate and everybody. Miss Ray had celebrities apologizing for things they said about her, that whole photo thing. Oh yeah, by the way, yeah, oh she has cancer.
00:24:58
Speaker 1: You know, Just give it a beat, give people a little.
00:25:01
Speaker 2: Grace, and do a little investigation, and maybe maybe you'll find out there's a there's no justification for your initial outrage.
00:25:10
Speaker 3: I love that and with us everyone. Thank you for listening to us. We appreciate it, and we appreciate you. I'm Amy Roebuck alongside t. J.
00:25:16
Speaker 4: Holmes. We will talk to you soon.