(Mods: I posted this a few months ago and you deleted it. Based on your feedback I've cleaned it up and clarified; hope it passes muster this time.)

I'm not an expert, just a curious learner/observer, so I hope you'll bear with me.

Over the past decade or so, I've noticed some kind of trill or fricative (?) emerging within a certain class of speakers of American English. From what I've seen, it seems to be happening among what some would call the "upper class".

For example, "hard" has some trill at the beginning of it. Instead of /härd/, the beginning sound is more like ⟨χ⟩, forming something like /χärd/. The word "reality" might begin with something similar to (but not exactly like) an ⟨ʁ⟩ sound.

Thanks to /u/dodongo, who responded to my previous post offering MSNBC host Chris Hayes as an example. Indeed, a clip from a recent show of his proved a rich source of examples. Except for the first item (which is first because it's the best/strongest example in the whole clip), I've put them in chronological order:

3:07 “hard” (very strong)

0:19 “having”
0:39 “punish”
1:10-1:14 “clear” and “warranted” (very mild, almost undetectable)
1:34 “Gelernt”
1:46 “custody”
4:04 “clear”
10:12 “toll”

I hope I've described it well enough that some of you experts will know what I'm talking about. I'm wondering if you've observed this and, if so, what linguistic phenomenon is occurring? Thanks!