SPLC's 'Hatewatch' is Actually a Hit List That Targeted Charlie Kirk
The Daily Signal's Senior Editor Tyler O'Neill joins the TCKS to discuss...
About Tyler O’Neil
Tyler O’Neil is a senior editor at The Daily Signal, a digital news and commentary website.
He is also an author, having written 2 books:
Making Hate Pay: The Corruption of the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC)
and
The Woketopus: The Dark Money Cabal Manipulating the Federal Government
O’Neil is recognized as a conservative commentator and has contributed to several conservative outlets in addition to The Daily Signal.
Racial discrimination. Sexual harassment. Off-shore accounts. Inflated and biased attacks on “hate.” These are some of the many reasons Americans should mistrust the Southern Poverty Law Center.
The Southern Poverty Law Center started with noble intentions and has done much good over the years, but a pernicious corruption has undermined the organization’s original mission and contributed to a climate of fear and hostility in America. Hotels, web platforms, and credit card companies have blacklisted law-abiding Americans because the SPLC disagrees with their political views. The SPLC’s false accusations have done concrete harm, costing the organization millions in lawsuits. A deranged man even attempted to commit mass murder, having been inspired by the SPLC’s rhetoric.
How did a civil rights group dedicated to saving the innocent from the death penalty become a pernicious threat to America’s free speech culture? How did an organization dedicated to fighting poverty wind up with millions in the Cayman Islands? How did a civil rights stalwart find itself accused of racism and sexism?
Making Hate Pay tells the inside story of how the SPLC yielded to many forms of corruption, and what it means for free speech in America today. It also explains why Corporate America, Big Tech, government, and the media are wrong to take the SPLC’s disingenuous tactics at face value, and the serious damage they cause by trusting this corrupt organization.
The same left-wing dark money foundations that supported the anti-Israel protests are funding a radical cabal, manipulating the administrative state on education, unions, transgender orthodoxy, elections, and the weaponization of law enforcement to silence their critics.
Why did the Biden White House celebrate Transgender Day of Visibility on Easter Sunday? Why is the bureaucracy prioritizing electric vehicles and less reliable forms of energy when Americans struggle to pay the bills amid historic inflation and higher gas prices?
America’s bureaucrats appear to live on a different planet from the working class in this country, and that’s no accident. The Woketopus explains how America’s elites are pulling the strings in Washington to prioritize their pet projects over the needs of the American people. O’Neil’s prose reveals how the left’s NGO apparatus pursues its woke agenda, maneuvering like an octopus by circumventing Congress and entrenching its interests in the federal government.
Discover how the donors who helped prop up the anti-Israel protests on college campuses are impacting policy in Washington; pull back the curtain on how federal agencies became engines of cultural change; and find out how the Left’s dark money influences federal law enforcement to demonize conservatives in an attempt to silence anyone who wants to criticize this agenda.
“Tyler O’Neil, talented when he was a college student, has now immersed himself in the troubled civic affairs of our time. In this insightful analysis, he has compared the contemporary distortions of our Constitution against its text and its proper and hallowed operation. If your eyes are closed, it will open them. At the end, Tyler recommends what to do. I hope we do it.” —Dr. Larry Arnn, President of Hillsdale College
“Tyler O’Neil’s book The Woketopus provides a definitive account of how the Left’s vast patronage network funds the woke pressure groups manipulating the administrative state. O’Neil pulls back the curtain on how America’s elites promote far-left ideologies like Critical Race Theory using the federal government, and how to combat this effort. This book will be a useful guide as the next conservative administration seeks to reign in the sprawling, radical bureaucracy of the federal government.” —Christopher F. Rufo
About the SPLC
The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) is a non-profit organization founded in 1971 by civil rights lawyers Morris Dees and Joseph J. Levin Jr. .
It was originally focused on issues such as fighting poverty, racial discrimination, and the death penalty, and later expanded its efforts to counter discrimination against immigrants and other minorities.
The SPLC is known for its legal victories against discrimination and white supremacist groups.
Its mission includes being a catalyst for racial justice in the South and beyond, working to dismantle white supremacy, strengthen intersectional movements, and advance human rights.
As of October 2025, the FBI officially terminated its ties with the SPLC…
FBI Director Kash Patel stated that the SPLC abandoned civil rights work and transformed into a partisan smear machine, and that its “hate map” has been used to defame mainstream Americans and inspired violence.
The SPLC is criticized for labeling mainstream conservative and Christian groups as hate groups on its “hate map” while refusing to include Antifa organizations.
Some conservatives and allies of Donald Trump called for the FBI to disaffiliate from the SPLC, citing its “Hate Map.”
The SPLC has been accused of overindulgent use of funds, with some employees calling its headquarters “Poverty Palace,” and has been described as a “highly profitable scam” by a former employee.