Free Speech absolutist Charlie Kirk still cancelling people from beyond the grave

On the episode in question, Welch and Sullivan were reading out joke social media posts about the Democrats’ righteous stomping of the GOP in Tuesday’s midterm elections when they were taken unaware by one user’s admittedly ghoulish quip, “We’re digging up Charlie Kirk and doing it again,” referring to Kirk’s murder by a lone gunman at a speaking engagement in September, 2025. The hosts chuckled guiltily at the joke before noting a quick, “No comment,” but that was enough for irate conservatives to flood the show’s advertisers with no doubt intellectually consistent complaints that giggling at someone else’s joke about the guy who routinely mocked women, minorities, gay and trans people, and others under the guise of unfettered “free speech” is grounds for cancellation. (Hundreds of people across the United States were fired from their jobs for exercising their freedom of speech about Kirk’s murder after similar pressure from high-profile conservatives.) 

As of now, I’ve Had It advertisers Chewy and CashApp, among several others, have fled the show, with Welch and Sullivan editing out the brief segment from their online broadcast. In a statement following the not-at-all hypocritical outcry and resulting advertiser exodus, Welch and Sullivan posted, “On Thursday’s show, we laughed at a joke about Charlie Kirk. It was an insensitive joke, and we should not have laughed. We regret it, and we apologize.” They also noted that they have long been advocates for “sensible gun control,” unlike Kirk, who famously stated that kids murdered in school shootings every year were just “the cost” of allowing literally anyone to carry guns at any time, anywhere. Welch and Sullivan also made a donation to gun control group Everytown for Gun Safety in Kirk’s memory, an act likely more actually offensive to Kirk’s minions than their retracted on-mic titters.