Hammer & Nigel Weekend Show, 11/15/26

SPEAKER_2 (0:01)

It's The Hammer and Nigel Weekend Show on 93WIBC.

Nigel (0:08)

Well, Hammer, you know, if I would have, if I would have known we would have had one of the most powerful officials in the state in studio with us, I probably would have worn some sort of denim at the very, at the very least, but this was a kind of a last-minute thing, right?

Jason Hammer (0:26)

I love your fancy wear as denim. I love that the Attorney General for the Great State of Indiana, Todd Rokita joins us.

SPEAKER_2 (0:34)

Hey, guys. So legal stuff.

Jason Hammer (0:37)

We got some stuff going on. Boy, there was a hornet's nest earlier this week. You put out a tweet talking about how it's been basically a year since Charlie Kirk's murder took place, give or take, and the reaction from some Indiana educators was pretty disgusting. So you had turned in a list of people that you think had crossed the line to the governor's office and you tagged Governor Braun in the post, quote, at the time Governor Braun warned the teachers who celebrated and excused political violence could lose their licenses. And then it goes on and on and you tagged the governor basically saying, where are you at on this? A lot of people took that as you taking a shot at Governor Braun, what happened there?

Todd Rokita (1:25)

No, not a shot and not a hornet's nest. Just trying to get some answers and accountability through some transparency here. So a little background, the Attorney General's office regulates most of the professional licenses in partnership with the professional licensing agency.

Okay, so we're the attorneys that prosecute professional licensing cases except for the teachers, which goes to the Department of Education. Fine.

But after a year, and remember, another piece of background, I used to be the kindergarten through 12th grade education chairman in the US House. So I have a bit of an education background. That's why you see Eyes on Education portal on my website. That's why you see me taking an active role in accountability for teachers and schools because you're allowed and you're supposed to bring your experiences to the office you're holding. That's what's happening here. So after a year, I politely, privately went on to the government and said, Hey, nothing's happening here with these licenses. And I'm not saying that every license has to be revoked or anything else, but there should be a process and a hearing and a decision made as to what's happening to these teachers. Are we going to accept that you can celebrate the murder of somebody and then go the next day and teach our kids or not? And that's what I'm looking for. And I'm not getting that.

Nigel (2:44)

And I think one of the bigger stories here is, yeah, it makes for interesting radio and interesting fodder that you tagged the governor on this. And we talked about it a lot this week. But really, the story is these teachers that are saying things that were flagged, that you found, and that your office found that were disturbing. Can you encapsulate or maybe just give us an idea of the types of things that your office came across?

Todd Rokita (3:17)

Yeah, I was discussing about 25 cases of teachers celebrating the death of Charlie Hurt, couldn't happen to a nicer guy, or sarcastically and this kind of stuff. It was just...

Nigel (3:26)

Was it on social media?

Todd Rokita (3:27)

Yes, excuse me. Yes. It was, I think, exclusively on social media.

Jason Hammer (3:31)

You tagged a couple people in it. You showed the screenshots.

Todd Rokita (3:33)

And we're going to continue, by the way. Yeah. We're going to highlight all these cases. And to the taxpayers, to the parents, it's just not right.

And the defense, and the defense I've heard so far from the governor and the Department of Education is the same defense basically that the ACLU gives. All right. So we have a governor defending the ACLU, the ACLU defending these teachers saying, oh, free speech.

Well, there's a state statute that says you can't serve as a teacher if you're, quote unquote, immoral, right? There's an immorality clause in our state statute. So the free speech is just, it's not endless. And the fact of the matter is, whether you're doing it and then some are saying, well, they're doing it on their personal accounts and that's okay. No, it's not. Who here thinks that being on your personal account, the kids aren't going to see it. And what parent is comfortable after, whether on a personal account or not, those teachers then teaching their kids the next day.