Steve Nikoui
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By August of 2021, Kabul, Afghanistan looked a lot like, well, Saigon, Vietnam looked in April of 1975. Chaotic, dangerous, and humiliating to the United States. After 20 years in Afghanistan, the Biden administration had just pulled American troops out. The city immediately fell to the Taliban. The president got on a private plane with millions of American dollars and ran away like the coward he is.

And thousands of Afghan civilians were rushing to Hamid Karzai Airport in a desperate attempt to flee the country, sort of like those helicopters taking off from the roof of the embassy in 1975. So U.S. service members were deployed to the scene to help keep the peace, but it was an impossible task. Mobs of Afghans running on the runway, trying to board flights, some clinging to the landing gear. You remember the pictures.

And in the middle of that scene, that total chaos created by the Biden administration, a suicide bomber arrived carrying 20 pounds of explosives. It made his way to a place called the Abbey Gate, the entrance to the airport, and then detonated the device. And in so doing, murdered 13 American service members, along with 170 Afghans, men, women, and children. One of the Americans murdered that day was a Marine Lance Corporal called Kareem Nakui. He was just 20, 20 years old.

He is now credited with saving the lives of at least three Afghan families and help getting them out of that country. Fast forward to 2024, and Joe Biden is hoping, as he stands for reelection at the advanced age of 81, that you've completely forgotten what he did in Afghanistan and the humiliating and deadly way he withdrew American forces from that country. But not everyone has forgotten. In fact, those touched by the tragedy of that day in the preceding 20 years will never forget.

Now, if you watched Biden's State of the Union address earlier this month, you heard a man in the audience yell out to Biden, reminding him of the killings that took place at the Abbey Gate at the airport in Kabul. Here's that scene. All Americans deserve the freedom to be safe. And America is safer today than when I took office. The year before I took office, murder rates went up 30 percent. 30 percent they went up.

- The biggest increase in history. - But the soulless monster keeps talking. That would be Joe Biden, the soulless monster. The man you heard screaming has a soul and he has a reason for sadness and outrage.

He is called Steve Nikui. He is the father of that murdered Lance Corporal Kareem Nikui, killed in the bombing at Abbey Gate. So for saying that out loud, for trying to remind Joe Biden of what he did, Steve Nikui was arrested at the Capitol earlier this month. He now joins us in studio.

Mr. Cooey, thank you very much for coming on. Thank you, Tucker. So let's just start with the clip we just played. Why did you yell out Abbey Gate in your son's name at the president? Okay. So yeah, we had an opportunity to go to this State of the Union this time. Two families were invited by Mike Johnson. Yep. And so those families were picked by a hat. So there's a

a coalition of families, which is six of us. And we can get in later why we had to start a coalition. So we all signed a contract and, you know, are fighting for to get the information of the withdrawal out. But two, two, there were two tickets and we, we drew hat, we drew names for those and, and, and Hey, these are the ones that are going. And so there was a, a, a chance that, uh,

they might address he might address and finally say the kids' names because the thing is he's never he's never recognized the kids' names he's never accepted any kind of responsibility for the withdrawal Biden Biden has never said your son's name never never not once none of the kids and so we were hoping that all right well these two family members you know they're gonna be able to go and and he might you know bring up Afghanistan and um

Say their names. Now, for me, I had never done any interviews. The only interview that I really did was an interview I'd done with you at the very beginning. And after his first State of the Union, for whatever reason, I was at work and I got a call from some young man. Hey, look, we're trying to fill in a spot in our business.

news thing at two o'clock or whatever time was, would you come on? And I'm like, well, I don't do interviews. Oh, well, look, I need to have someone please. And he kept begging and was persistent. And he was all, you know, we want to ask you about Joe Biden's State of the Union. Now, this is the first one that he had done after the withdrawal. And I was like, well, I didn't even watch it. You know, I mean, I don't do interviews and

Somehow, I agree. I'm sorry. I just want to be totally clear on this. So a year or the next year after your son was murdered. Yeah, so this is in January probably of 2022. But you'd never met President Biden or been to the White House? No. So we met him at Dover when we did the dignified transfer, but that was anything but dignified. I mean, you know, he...

It's kind of the same like if you have kids. You have four. Okay. Like if I was drunk and then I killed your kid in a drunk driving accident and then I went to you and said, well, you know what? I know how you feel. I lost my son. And this is how he was at Dover. He talked about himself? He talked about his son.

So even in Dover, when we had first met, you know, when we had met him in the dignified transfer, he said, hey, look, you know, I understand what you're going through. We lost our son, Bo, as well. Now in there, I wasn't I. So people had a chance to whether or not they wanted to meet with the president. And if some people didn't want to meet with them, they could go to another room. I wasn't going to be bullied and go to another room. But, you know, I turned my back to him.

So when he walked in, I turned my back to him. My, um, sorry. It's all right. My daughter came and stood next to me. So we just turned our back to her. And then Kareem's mom was talking to him. So I was listening to what she was saying. And that, you know, that's what he had said. Like, you know, I understand your loss. You know, we lost a son. And that just, you know, infuriated her even more.

But he was like this with everyone. And then everything up in since we're on that point, I mean, we were we were used to

That whole thing was us being used. I mean, we were, you know, I wanted to wear a suit when I went to this dignified transfer for my son. And I don't know if you remember in like the 70, those yellow school buses that had the like Tijuana tuck and roll, you know, you're going up and down. There's no shocks. You can't put down the windows. Yeah. It's in Dover, which is like the most humid place you've ever been in your life. They transferred us in these like buses.

Like all the families, they put us up in a Motel 6, had fecal matter on the walls, had cockroaches everywhere. All right, now we all got into these buses and we're all sweating. They drove us to Dover. The place that they do this at Dover- So the message is really clear. Like they don't care at all. Yeah, but at the time, I didn't realize that. You know, at the time, I think, well, you know-

I'm doing this for my country. You know, I mean, I, I felt like almost obligated that I had to do this, you know, and like, here, this is, but like, Oh, they're honoring us like a stateside honoring when, when in retrospect, you know, it was just trying to show like, Oh, we're honoring these parents. And that's the end of it. Do you kind of understand what I'm saying? It's like the optics, like, here, look what we're doing. And, um,

It was, it was very, this is the first time I'd seen all the other parents and remind you, this is two days after it happened. So the next day after this all happens, you don't have time to grieve. You have the military telling you, you have to sign these papers. We got to go over here to Dover, Delaware. And I'm like, what's in Dover, Delaware. I have no idea what they're talking in any of this. I have to Google everything. I have to research what a dignified transfer is. You know, I'm,

I have no idea. And they're telling you, you know, you just lost your kid. Now they're saying you have to go to Delaware and, and, uh, et cetera, et cetera. So when we go over there, it's already. And, and, and what I noticed, the first thing that I noticed when I went there, um, from being like a boss or a business owner, I was able to see a different perspective is that they had no, they didn't really know what they were doing. They were reacting to how we were to react, right?

And I found that to be shocking. You know, it's like, whoa, what is going on here? Like, there's no protocol. They're seeing how we would react if we'd get physical, if we'd get violent, if we'd yell. You understand what I'm saying? There was that. You know, there was a lot of people yelling. I was yelling. I was yelling at the general, you know, and I was upset. What did she say to the general?

So I he was pretty much the only one that I that I yelled at. And I just said, you know, you should have been planning this evacuation. You know, you should have taken time. You know, at the time, I just remember him promoting his book. And then some of the stuff that had happened with his counterpart was, you know, at the beginning of the. Do you remember the name of the general?

Yeah, General Miley. Millie. Yeah. Yeah. And I just met him last week, and he remembered that. He remembered that altercation that we had. And, you know, I spotted him.

In one of the other room and that Dover Delaware. Let me let me so you said I'm sure just to clear up exactly happen so you See Millie at Dover and use and two days before your son was killed and you say to him you should have no after two days after so this all happened after Right was two but two days before when you first met him your son had just been killed. Yeah, that's right That's right. So you say to him?

effectively this is your fault, like you're in charge of this, and you didn't do a good job. What did he say? He said I had been planning for this. We did plan for it. It was a mistake. I don't know if he said a mistake, but he had said that, and I kept telling him, well, you don't care. I mean, you weren't looking like you were planning for it from what I've seen from January until now.

it looked like you were doing everything else. You know, it looked like you were on a book tour and it looked like you were co-cohercing with, you know, the Chinese government. Yeah. And, you know, he said, I think he said, I've lost 47 men.

or 67 men, one of the two. And then I said, I lost my son. And, uh, so you can front him and he made it about himself, just like Joe Biden. I've suffered too, is what he said. You know what I, now that I've known more about like the military and people, you know, I wouldn't say so with him. I would say, you know, what I've noticed with people in the military, and I've just realized this in the last month is that they look at us like,

Sorry. So people that have served, it appears that they treat us like they would want their folks treated if they had lost their lives. Good. You understand what I'm saying? Good, I do. And now in retrospect, you know, his anger, I think, was more along the lines of his guilt. I feel he really felt guilty, you know, and he didn't.

And he's just mad. And what I had told him a couple weeks ago is because I had an immense respect for him. To me, he was the guy. He was the face of our military. Yes. And more so than pretty much anywhere else. I mean, you know who Mark Milley is. I mean, he's a dominating force prior to that. Even Donald Trump had him. So...

And I think that rage was that. Here he found himself in a position that this stuff happened, and I feel like he felt some guilt, to be honest with you, at that time. Seems like an appropriate emotion. Yeah, but at the time, I didn't think that. It's taken several years and me to understand the military, and that's, I believe, what he was feeling, is that he was...

He was upset with how everything happened and he wanted to convey that, look, you know, I love you and I've lost people too. And I know what you're going through. And, you know, and so that was, that was that.

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Visit momsforamerica.us today for more information and to secure your exclusive VIP meet and greet tickets. See you on the tour. Between the time you spent in Dover receiving your son's remains, staying in the motel sex with human feces on the wall, between that and this State of the Union earlier this month, had you had any contact with

Biden or the White House? Never. We've never had any contact with the White House or Biden. And we have reached out or McCall and several people, several families have reached out to, you know, maybe have a roundtable with them, see what their

What they're thinking was anything, you know, honor us or not honor us, honor our children. Yes. Something. And they just refuse. I don't know why they hate us so much, to be honest with you. I have no idea. I mean, because you're a living reminder of their failure. But but in America, we're supposed to, you know, address those failures. I mean, he had an opportunity that he could have really rallied the country behind him.

him yes very easily you know by by assuming any kind of responsibility hell you know i know people that business owners that assume more responsibility for someone that gets hurt on their job than than what he's done for for these people people that are held more accountable in drunk driving cases than this and um

Man, yeah, after three years, this guy, he just doesn't want to say anything about any of these kids. So how much contact have you had with the families of the other servicemen killed, the 12 other families?

Um, so yeah, there's, uh, well, since we've started, um, trying to lobby to get answers, which was started last June. Yeah. Um, the six families we talked every week and on in the capacity that we do for getting these answers that you think they have the same feelings that you do.

well i can't i would say on some things yeah as regard to millie i couldn't i couldn't what about the bite administration oh yeah 100 100 were united on that and so you said at the outset that you wanted more information about what happened right the events that led up to your son's death right what what do you wish you knew but don't

Okay, so we've made a lot of progress. So what happened was when this all happened, we didn't have the House. So any of the hearings, if you look at any of the Senate hearings that were there, they were all kind of biased. They all said, although this was great, we did a good job, of course, we're going to... It wasn't until McCarthy became Speaker that we actually...

had an opportunity to get the answers that we needed. So last June, we got an opportunity from Daryl Issa to do like a public, we went, you know,

We went to Washington and the premise was like, look, we don't know what's going to happen, but we're going to introduce you to McCarthy. We're going to introduce you to Scalise, McCall, and we're going to get you to know because nobody knew our story. Nobody, you know, it wasn't really out there. Maybe it wasn't to some degree in like maybe social media or something.

Um, because that's probably the only outlet that the parents had like their Facebook or, or whatever, but there's a good portion of Americans that don't even pay attention to that. So, um, and I being one of them, I'm not on any of those that I could channel any, anything. And, um,

So when this opportunity came, they're like, look, we don't know what's going to happen. We don't know if there's anything, but we're going to go down there. And every family of the 13 was –

invited to this like here's what we're doing um it said it was set up uh sean reyes from utah and um kind of connected us with these people and then it kind of from there went for daryl isa he was the one that you know had been champion everything at that point and um so you know they they even had funding for it like we're going to take the mom and the dad of each um

each child, each service member, whoever wants to come. And we're going to go down to Washington and see if there's any, any, anybody that's interested in anything. So we went down there, we met these different offices. We told them our stories because nobody knew really our stories. You know what had happened to us in Dover. And then really like,

The stuff that we were being told. So they had given us a whole bunch of lies. People are talking to the kids. People are talking to everyone that's coming back. And what the government is telling us is different from what these people that were actually there are saying. And so we're like, well, they're like, oh, there was no gunfire. One of the Marines actually killed one of his men.

aggressors, you know, he like shot him and killed him or I don't know if he killed him. So to say that there was no gunfire is absurd. Now, my son, before I sent him or before he went to Afghanistan, I bought him a when I was a kid, when we were kids, there was that buck 110 knife that the Duke, the Duke boys had that with the with the bolster on it. So I bought my son one of those, but a switchblade. And I said, you know, this is good for fast

you know, if you need a knife, you know, you can, it's a switchblade and I bought him this and he carried it on him. I have pictures of him in Afghanistan with it. Well, when the, when the KCO, which is the casually assisted coordinating officer. So every time that something happens in the military to your loved ones, you get assigned to KCO and he's basically the liaison between the military and your family. I mean, everything from A to Z, you know, he's like your best friend.

And so when he had come that night to my house, I had said to him, hey, look, you know, nothing else. I know nothing else I wanted except for that knife. You know, I told him, hey, I gave my kid this knife and I want that. I want that back. And, you know, he can't he didn't. I just met him like two minutes ago. And, you know, he listened to me. Well, on September 17th is when they brought my son back.

his body back. And so we, you know, it was a very nice, another kind of dignified transfer from Ontario airport to where we live in Norco. He's buried like literally less than a mile from my house.

And that whole way, you know, the streets are lined, American flags and people and everything. And then when we get to the cemetery, he pulls me in the back room and he pulls out that knife, you know, in the case. And I'm like, just happy. And for me, it was like, I put so much value in that knife, you know? Like, for some reason, I felt like if I had that knife, it would...

It eliminates some of my pain that I had, you know, that that's something that we, that we shared and I give it to him. And, uh, when I, when he handed me the knife, I looked at it and there was a hole right in the front and the same, the same case that we had when we were kids, you know, it's a leather case with a little button. It says buck on it. Yeah. Yeah.

And there's a hole in it. And I'm looking at it and I'm excited. And I told my mom, hey, Charlie, there's a, wow, there's a hole from one of the BBs. You know, because IED, little BBs. And I'm looking at it and I pull the knife out. And the knife was like, had imploded inside the sheath. So it was hard to get it out of the sheath. You know, it was hard. And when I pulled it out, my gunny was like, he's a gunny. I think he got promoted, so.

Don't be upset with me. But when I pulled it out, he's like, that's not a BB hole. That's a bullet hole. And so when I took it home, I got one of my 5.56 bullets and I got my dial calipers and I started measuring the depth of the hole.

And then put that depth in relation to the boat tail of the bullet. And then measured the diameter. I mean, I got real scientific. And you could just pull the bullet right out of the 5.56 casing and put it. Fits perfect in there. It's a 5.56. And, you know, that's proof. And if it's on the front of his thing, it came from across. It didn't come from behind. It's not friendly fire because he didn't put it in his back. It was right on his front.

They also they gave you pictures of like where your kid is now, every, you know, maps. So when they gave you the the the briefing, when they first briefed the families, they had maps and said, OK, your kid is here. X marks a spot. And then you'd ask him, well, who's this guy? And they're, well, we can't tell you.

But then after that, they told the public. Then now all of a sudden, everybody is out there. But the maps that they gave us were all different. Like there's three of them. There's three different ones. But one thing I can say, and the other families' kids are in different locations in those three different maps. But my son's always on that wall. Like my son's always in every map right across from the bomber. Like right across. Right.

There's three kids on that wall and he was one of them. So there's no he wasn't turned around. There's no way it could have been friendly fire. You understand what I'm saying? And that was like one of the things is like, well, here I've got proof. You know, I've got proof that my kid was you're going to tell us that, you know, they weren't shot at.

Everybody can hear it on the videos, but in here's physical proof that I have and it's not an AK round, you know, it's not a it's not an AK size hole. It's a perfect like literally that bullet was probably stuck in there and someone had to like pull it out like that's that's how it was.

And so fast forward to when we met Daryl Issa and them in June, I brought that up and showed him that. And these were some of the things that

that they use to get the ball rolling, to get interest in it. So, you know, we've, since June, we've been going to Congress for no other reason, but to lobby for our kids, to give information that these congressmen don't have so they can bring in different people and do hearings and get the information that we need. And we've made like enormous traction. I mean, just the answers that we've gotten, um,

with the hearings that they have had have been good that we have them, that we didn't, you know, we didn't have them before, but as a testament to what a failure this was. And we've pretty much gone in all avenues. We've exhausted the military, I believe, at this point that, you know, well, you know, the part that they were in charge of was a retrograde. So there's two parts to it. There was a retrograde and then the evacuation. And the retrograde went off

unhitched, you know, no problem. The problem was, was that when you hear people say, well, you should have taken the people out before you take out the military, they should have done the NEO before they did the retrograde. And that's where the point comes is that the state department and the administration was in charge of the NEO and the retrograde. And the only reason why they did the NEO, now they did the NEO, the NEO was implemented by Ross Wilson. That's another guy. He's, he's the guy.

After all these nine months of going back and forth...

It's not, you know, I don't see it's the generals. I don't see it's the military. It's this guy. He's the guy that initiated the NEO and he did it on August 14th. Now, who is Ross Wilson? And if you could just explain what a NEO is. I just, I just, I'm not, he's the ambassador. So he was the ambassador for Afghanistan. That's about all I know about him. We just, we just kind of stumbled onto him a couple of weeks ago in that hearing that the two generals had.

A NEO is a non-combatant evacuation. And those are planned by the State Department. So every embassy has a NEO. The problem that they did is they didn't implement the NEO soon enough. So he implemented it on August 14th because the Taliban was – he could see the Taliban coming. So he sees them and he's like, uh-oh.

I'm going to implement the NEO. And then on the 15th, they come in and they take the embassy. I don't remember if you remember those pictures. Very well. Where they're over there. And that was all because the day before, and even the generals were kind of like, well, and I said, no, you guys did the NEO because you saw the Taliban right there. It wasn't for any other reason that he was scared, and that's why he did it. And if it had been done months earlier, I mean, actually, the whole thing should have been done at the beginning of

Per the Doha agreement. I mean, all the liberals say, oh, well, don't forget the Doha agreement. It's so frustrating. And I'm glad this last time we went to and we heard these Senate hearings with the two generals, you know, McKenzie and Miley. Finally, Meeks...

Because every time that guy is like, well, don't forget, you know, yeah, we appreciate the service and the sacrifice and we're not pointing, but don't forget who initiated the Doha agreement. They always have to do that little jab. And I'm here to tell you, I don't think anyone knows anything about Afghanistan better than any of these parents. You're right. He should have followed the Doha agreement. That would have been, we wouldn't have had this catastrophe.

Hey guys, Josh Hammer here, the host of America on Trial with Josh Hammer, a podcast for the First Podcast Network. Look, there are a lot of shows out there that are explaining the political news cycle, what's happening on the Hill, the this, the that.

There are no other shows that are cutting straight to the point when it comes to the unprecedented lawfare debilitating and affecting the 2024 presidential election. We do all of that every single day right here on America on Trial with Josh Hammer. Subscribe and download your episodes wherever you get your podcasts. It's America on Trial with Josh Hammer. So you show up at the State of the Union a couple of weeks ago. Do you plan to yell out your son's name?

I wouldn't say really planned. I, you know, we got the opportunity that there were other tickets, other members had given it to us. And I wouldn't, you know,

I'm sure I had said this to people. Yeah, I'm going to say something if this guy doesn't say anything. But when you're there in the greatest country of the world with the most powerful people, I was scared. Like I was scared. You know, am I going to get killed? Am I going to commit suicide tomorrow because of this? You know, who knows? Right. Right.

And so, no, at that time, I was just in serious prayer. I mean, I was like praying to the Lord, you know, humble me, soften my heart, you know, let your will be done, you know. And to be honest with you, when I stood up, when I just heard him say something about kids, at some point he was talking about kids and then he said something about being safe. And I just stood up and I didn't even, I didn't even like the Holy Spirit, like God in me and stood up.

And I don't know if you ever had anything like that happen, but like the effects of that had had affected me for weeks afterwards. You know, like what what really happened there? And when I stood up and I said the first thing I said, I kind of realized I had said it and I paused. I was like, oh, what did I do? You know, and then I said, you know, United States Marines and I said his name and I said, you know, Second Battalion, First Marines, you know.

But I don't even remember saying any of that. Like, I don't even remember saying any of that. You know, it just kind of came out. And if I could back up to why I had went earlier, I was talking about that first State of the Union. And I got these reporters, you know, and I felt bad for him and I wanted help. And I said, all right, well, look what I'll do is my lunch break. I got an hour lunch break on my lunch break. I'm going to watch a State of the Union so that I'll be able to answer questions.

appropriately for your interview that you want me to do. He's all right. So I watched his interview or I watched his State of the Union, the first one. And at like 56 minutes, he brings up Afghanistan and he did the exact same thing that he always does. He says, okay, you know, we're never going to, you know, the heroes that we didn't even say 13. And then one lady in the audience, she's like 13 of them. I think it was Bobbitt or Bobbitt or. Yes. And she said something out and I was like,

I got goosebumps. But he then did the same thing. He went right into Bo. He went right into his son and he said the existential threat to the military is the burning of diesel fuel in pits. Because that's, I think, how Bo got his cancer. And I was just like crying. I was so devastated. Like once I...

I was for more than the fact that like when this happens, like, like I said, like all these cockroaches come out of the woodworks, like every media, you know, they want, you know, people I'm selling this. Oh, we love you. And this, I didn't get involved in any of it, but I had seen that this was happening all over with a lot of people. And, um, so, so a part of me was upset that

I had watched this. All right. So I'm devastated. I'm devastated. Like, like this, what this president had just done and how he had turned it again. I mean, can't even say the kids, his name, if he would have said 13 names at that state of the union, we wouldn't even be here right now. All right. But he didn't. And so I call this, uh, I call this, um,

I call this reporter guy back to tell him, you know, I'm like, I watch it. I'm devastated. Well, when I call him back, he's like, oh, hey, Mr. Nakui. Yeah, we're not going to do the interview because we got Mark Schmitz to do it. And I was just like,

Wow. Like in my heart, you know, here I watched the, I didn't want to do it. I did it because I wanted to help him. Cause he said, well, we have to fill in a slot. Um, and none of the other parents can do it. Then I agree to it. I watched this. I get affected by it. The only, the only saving grace I have is like, all right, I'll get, be able to vent something in this interview. Yes. And then the guy's like, no, we're going to do it because we have one of the other parents.

And I was like crying even harder. And so I've had to deal with that for three years with, you know, my God, with my Lord, praying, you know, like, hey, Lord, you know, humble me from this, soften my heart from it, you know, like whatever. So when the opportunity came to go to the State of the Union, I'll be honest with you, there was no way I was going to leave that State of the Union without my kid's name being said, you know, and I feel like

But at first I thought that they would say something. So I felt like it was the Lord telling me like, here, you know, your reward for being patient and faithful for three years. I'm going to bless you with this. You understand what I'm saying? And then it didn't happen. You know, it's like it didn't happen. And I was able to see my other, the other parents. I found them in the crowds, you know, where they were at. And just the way that they were looking, the despair and the,

the sadness that they had at that state of the union everyone was slumped over just kind of devastated you know and uh another thing i was like concerned like like the state you would think that the speaker of the house would have the best seats right like all right well these two families are getting the speaker of the house and i was i remember praying the lord like lord you know

Why don't I have those seats? You know, why don't I have the best seats? I'm thinking. I don't know that they are. And then McCall gives up one of his seats, you know, and he's the head of the chairman. Right. So whoever got that, say, oh, Lord, why didn't I get that seat? You know, and that's all right. Thank you for the seats that you give. I don't even know where my seats are, but I'm just assuming, you know, that's how people they do. You know, we do this. We do our own assumptions. As it turns out, the seats I got were like right there.

I was watching the president right in front of him. Right where he comes out of that tunnel, I was sitting right above there. So the Lord had given me the best seats in the whole world. And for the last two weeks, I'm like, oh, Lord, you didn't give me... I don't even know what the seats are, but I'm assuming that they're the worst. And a lot of this has happened to me in the course of this by being patient and

I feel like the Lord has blessed me. And these, these are the little blessings that I need. I don't need any praise. I don't, I don't want to put anything on Facebook and then read those comments. Oh God bless you. You're so awesome. And, um, none of that. So what happened after? So you called out your son's name and said, Abby gate. And then what happened? Yeah. So then, um, those, there was these two young men and they came and kind of grabbed me and, uh,

me up. Who were they? So I guess they were the Capitol Police, but they were in like suits. So they weren't they weren't dressed in police uniforms or anything like that. And, you know, they escorted me into the hallway. And then at that time, the guy that was telling you that's been with us from the beginning, Marlon, he came, he ran. He was sitting at the other side and he ran to me. And I wasn't scared until I seen his face.

Then I was like, when I seen him turn the corner, like around gallery six and I saw his expression, then I was nervous. I was like, oh, I would travel.

And yeah, so they frisked me. He tried to say, "Oh, release him to me." Release him, and they're like, "No, you ain't getting him." And I had my Bible with me, but it was locked in one of the things, and they give you a ticket. And I kept telling them, "Hey, Marlon, get my Bible, get my Bible." I want him to grab my ticket out of my pocket to go and get my Bible, but he doesn't wanna touch me because I'm detained right now. - Were you being held by the cops? - Oh yeah, they had me back here. - Did they cuff you?

Not yet. They cuffed me. They cuffed me right there in the hallway. And they knew I was a gold star dad too because he had told them. He's all, hey, he's a gold star dad. And there was a reporter who after he said that, she said, sir, why did you do what you did? And Marlon was all, please, please, ma'am. He's a gold star dad and told her whatever. So they had known. At first, I thought they didn't know. I thought that they – I was just –

you know, a guy that talks out, but they knew. And so then they took me down to the basement and they did. How did they treat you? I would, they're pretty good. Yeah. Very nice. Yeah. Were you handcuffed as they led you to the basement? Yeah. Yeah. They handcuffed me.

So I knew I was going to jail because they handcuffed me. And then they took me downstairs. They did an extensive search. And then they had some new kids that had never done searches. So they used me to practice their searches. So I got searched by like three different people. Did anyone explain why you were being handcuffed and arrested in search for saying your son's name? No, no, no. That wasn't until I got back to the Capitol Police.

But at the Capitol Police, they asked, you know, they turned in all my stuff. They take it. And the one of the boys that was just in his his his suit was asking me questions, you know, my my name and everything. And then afterwards, Secret Service and another guy from Capitol Police come in and then they read me my Miranda rights and asked me if I wanted to talk to him.

and let me know that, look, you'll probably be out of here in an hour. It's $50. And do you want to talk to us? And I said, yeah, I'll talk to you. What did they ask you? So he asked me, so the one gentleman that worked for Capitol Police asked me why I had done what I did. And so I'm crying. I'm telling him. And both of these kids were service members, ex-service members. I think he was a soldier.

And the Secret Service guy, I think he was in the Air Force. And so I was telling him, you know, my story, you know, like, hey, this guy's never said my kid's name. I lost my kid in Afghanistan. And, you know, I'm really emotional, you know. But that Capitol policeman, he kept every five minutes he would say, Kareem would just look at me and say my kid's name. And he would tell me I'll never forget, you know, like every five minutes he would just say this to me.

To comfort you? Yeah. Good man. Yeah, he was a great man. And, you know, asked me, hey, have you gotten any help? I'm like, no, I don't need any help. It's just right now, you know, I'm feeling this way. And then he had told me that, he had told me that, well, we, you know,

If you say something and then we tell you to be quiet and then you don't, then we arrest you again. Then we arrest you. And I said, well, nobody ever told me to be quiet. You know, I never I never was afforded that opportunity. And then he left. And then they asked me more questions. The other kid in the suit, you know, just basic questions, sex, weight and stuff like this. And then he came back and he said that again. And then he said, well, there's two ways we can ask you questions.

And then ask you again and arrest you or we can just arrest you. And he's all, you don't want to be that because that's a felony. So I felt like he was kind of throwing me a bone, you know, like, and I kind of picked up on that and I was all, all right. You know, I, I appreciate that. Yeah, I guess. They did tell me. When did they let you go?

So what happened was, was that, you know, as we're talking and he's telling me this stuff, he says the congressman is outside. So we, I was invited by Congressman Brian Mast and Brian Mast bailed me out of jail. Like was there. And he's all the congressman's right outside the door. And I felt like, like a million dollars because I knew like, all right, I'm all right now. You know, I mean, I've got the congressman, you know, to help me, um,

And so, yeah, he got me out and walked me and had met, you know, had met him. We've met him several times. He's there's only you know, there's there's four congressmen that I call the four horsemen and there are military men. So they understand it's ISA, Mills, Mast and Waltz. And then they're all led by a.

the chairman, Michael McCall. So he's the chair of the House of Foreign Affairs, and he's the one that's able to bring these hearings. And then these guys are just, you know, they're the ones that we're telling our stories to, and they're helping do whatever they do in Washington to get the message out. So the fact that he was there meant a lot to me. Like, all right, you know, I'm not... Because to be honest with you,

From what I see on TV, yeah, we love you, but the next day I'll be on my own. This is what I'm thinking. I'm like, yeah, I'm going to be all by myself. This is great for tonight, but come the 28th when I've got to go to court, I'm going to be by myself. But the fact that he was there and he's a man of God and we prayed before. I don't know if we prayed before, but we talked about what we're talking about in the spiritual world.

you know, road that I've taken with my son. And it was, I was just really blessed that he was there and he got me out. And then when I got out, you know, Issa, Waltz, all of them were not going to let anything happen to you, you know, we're going to stand by. And even they telling me this, I still felt like, oh, a week from now, I'm going to be by myself. You know, I never really had any

you know, true belief like, hey, these guys are going to be here till the end. But they were. I mean, every couple of days they would they would do what they have to do. And and from what I understand, they found out that because the gavel wasn't hit,

that I didn't obstruct Congress. So the fact that, and Mike Johnson helped that. So Ken Calvert, Mike Johnson, Waltz, and Darryl Issa, and to some extent Mast and Mills, they helped to get this out. Like, hey, he didn't obstruct anything because the gavel wasn't hit. What's your life been like at home since your son died? Yeah, so my personal life has been very bad.

It's better now, but you know, at the beginning when this first happened was, was just devastating. I didn't really have a home where I could recuperate from this, you know, my son and I, you know, Kareem's real best friend was his little brother, Steven. And he was like 15 when this happened. And so I just said, focus, I'm focusing on him. Like, you know, he's, and he's so strong and so brave, you know,

He was 15 when his brother was killed. He was 15, and they were best friends. And, man, he's a rock. Karim was a Brazilian jiu-jitsu champion. Steven is one. They wanted to be in MMA and fighting, so they're not weak in that aspect, but they're very compassionate to the underdog. They're very quiet guys.

You know, Kareem was a little guy growing up, so he sometimes would be bullied. And that was one of my concerns when he started to learn how to fight. You know, I was like, hey, you know, I don't ever want to hear that you're bullying anyone or you're doing any of this. And luckily that never happened, you know. He was always compassionate to the underdog and the people that couldn't speak for themselves. So, you know, our home life was just...

It was just chaotic for the first year. And, but, but I think maybe the Lord had that happen to keep me from ruining myself to understand what I'm saying. Like all that probably happened just so I wouldn't,

ruin whatever, you know, I just, I just went in my room and, and just focused on the little things, you know, my son and, and whatever I could. And because there's a, there's a lot of, Oh, we want to do this for your kid. And we want this interview and this and that. And, and

For me to mitigate, like, how could these parents not, like, feel some sort of, like, pride or something after all this, right? And I remember telling my kids, look, you know, be careful how you deal with this because it won't always be there. And then you're going to resent the fact that it's not there. That's right. And don't forget, there's...

Tens of thousands of service members who died that don't have, you know, shootery boards at their front doorstep with a knock. I mean, it was just insane. Stuff at your front door, cards, we love you money, checks, you understand? And every check, every cash I ever got, I still have it. So I never spent any of that. And every card that we got, not probably every one of them because it was just too much, but I wrote everything.

you know, back to them. I remember telling my kids, hey, you know, watch out how you process this and what you do with it because it's going to ruin you and your faith. Another thing that, two other things. Today is our anniversary where my sons and I got baptized. We got baptized on March 26, 2017. And we got baptized together in the same pool.

And in a year. So the other thing is, is that like when you lose someone, like when I lost my mom, I lost my dad within a week. Like if they died on a Thursday, next Thursday, you'd bury them. And that was it. You know, I mean, you start trying to put your life together. And this situation didn't really happen. I mean, it was like five weeks. They brought back his body and, you know, things come up. Certain little things would come up. Like I know that they had the, um,

And when these things come up, you kind of focus towards that. So you repress your feelings and everything for this one event, right? And you're like, okay, well, this event's coming up and I'm going to, I'm focusing on that. And one of the events we had in November was the memorial at Camp Pendleton. Now, since he was, he lived, we lived like 45 minutes from Camp Pendleton. He came home every weekend.

So the only time I'd never seen him was when he actually deployed, you know. And he'd bring his Marine friends home with him. And I felt bad because some of them lived in Iowa. There was no way they could see their family. So if we could give them a weekend where they felt at home, then I was all for that, you know. It was kind of like around COVID. So we were cooking breakfast and couldn't really go to church. And I had the –

Sometimes I'd have the TV on with our preacher, our pastor, and they'd play games and they'd do whatever. My son would take them on hikes and they would drink on Fridays. However they had their own mind, they were able to do it at our house. And I was blessed that we could provide that for them. And so we had this memorial for the Marines, right?

And, you know, I never did any interviews or anything. I didn't want to be I didn't that wasn't right for me. And so I focused all my heart towards this memorial, which was in November.

and surpassed all my feelings and everything. And, well, I'm just going to focus on that part. And we went to the memorial and it was beautiful. And they had the missing man formation with the helicopters that went over the mountain where he would hike over there in Camp Pendleton. And I think that was either on a Thursday or Friday. And then on that Sunday, I just felt like a lot of remorse. I felt like grief, you know, and for me, my religion, you know,

which is Christian. For me to, I felt like for me to display grief is me saying, I don't believe in the Lord. Is that weird? I don't know. And so I'd never really had any grief. I'd never had any sorrow except for that day. I remember I was in my master bedroom and

It was the Sunday and there was nothing else to look forward to. There was no other event. That was the last event. And I remember just like feeling, you know, immense grief, sorrow. And I was like, Lord, why? And I'm looking out at the mountains that he would put weights in his rucksack and hike. And I was like, Lord, you know, why do I have this feeling? You know, why do I have this? Why am I feeling this way? And then he said, hey, the Holy Spirit or the Lord told me,

Hey, look at the day that you went to Harvest Festival. So Harvest Festival, so we gave our lives to Jesus Christ together, all right, in this place, in Angel Stadium, by a fellow named Greg Laurie, who does the same thing that, I forgot his name, but

evangelical in the 70s Billy Graham Billy Graham would do the same thing so they'd go to these stadiums they'd preach the gospel and you had an opportunity to give your life to Jesus Christ there and a lot of people did this and Billy Graham's things he's doing the same thing he's been doing it for like 20 years so if I could just go back

In like 2015, I realized that my kids didn't have the same faith like I did. You know, like, yeah, I said, you need to be Christian. And once in a while I would say, but I didn't lead and I didn't tell them about it. So my kids were already older, you know, so I didn't have an opportunity to indoctrinate them when they were younger. These are teenage boys. And I was praying, you know, Lord, please, you know, I failed, you know, give me an opportunity. And he did, you know.

And Kareem started asking about a church in like 2015, we started going. And I knew that I could tell them, hey, you got to do this. But I had to change. You know, I had to make a concerted effort to make a change and be sincere with the faith so that they would follow because I can't just tell them something. You know, I have to lead by example. And so that transformation happened. It took a year or something. And the pastor was like, hey, you know,

um, they're, you know, Greg Laurie is having this thing down there and we, we encourage everyone to go. So I'm thinking, Lord, this is our opportunity. Thank you. You know, and they're, we're going to church every weekend, me and my sons every Sunday. And we're working through, I'm working through the different things and being real with them, you know, ties, you know, how do you deal with ties? Right. Like at first I was like, I'm not giving them any money, you know, and, and, uh,

my pastor had said something at the time. He was all like, well, do you guys like, and this weeks later he had said, well, do you guys like air conditioning? And that just, I realized like my ties are for the air conditioning and it made me, so I made a point to, yeah, I talked bad about the ties before, but,

I'm going to make a point to show my kids that, look, I've changed. I realized. And we're going to start giving tithes. So the boys, I would give them their money so that they would know to give tithes. So every Sunday we would be given our tithes. And that's just an example of how we work through some of the obstacles in our faith, you know, and we're real about it. You know, we weren't just saying it. We were acting upon it. And so we went to Greg Laurie's.

And we all gave our lives to Jesus Christ, you know, Stephen, Shiler, Stephen, Kareem, me, Shanna. We all gave our lives to Jesus. And and I felt blessed. You know, I was like, wow, like this doesn't happen. You know, I mean, who gets this opportunity? I failed. And then but I prayed for a solid year, you know, please, Lord, please. And just such a blessing. And then from that blessing, you know, we were blessed.

We always went to church, you know, it was it was became part of our background and me telling and preaching to the boys, you know, you know, about the gospel as well as our our pastor. And then fast forward to that time when I was right after the right after the Camp Pendleton Memorial.

And I'm looking out in the backyard and I'm feeling grief and I'm just feeling horrible. You know, the first time in like eight months or whatever. And I'm like, why do I feel this way? You know, I, you know, and the Lord said, hey, Steve, look at when you went to harvest. That's what it's called. And we only went on Fridays because Sunday would be people wouldn't go to church. So they'd go.

Saturday, same thing. But Friday would be after work. So I just knew like, hey, we went to the first time it was on Friday and then every other time we went on Fridays. So I knew that it was on a Friday. And I Googled, you know, when was when was the Harvest Festival? And it was August 26th of 2017, which is five years to the day. And like I got goosebumps and like all my grief went away. And it just let me know that the Lord had planned this for me.

And, and that was verification, you know, that on August 26, 2016, we gave our lives to Jesus Christ. And on August 26, 2021, he took my son. And that was, uh, that's pretty powerful, you know, to let me know, you know, and that was just for me. Like we had done some events where, you know, they had honored and Greg Laurie had done, um,

That year had done his harvest festival and honored my son. And he only had one that year was October 3rd or 5th because of COVID. And they had done a big page thing and they honored my son. And he didn't know this. Otherwise, he would have been all over it. You know, everyone would have been all over that, I would assume. But that was just for me. That was just for me, you know, that the Lord told me that, like to let me know that you just got to show up.

You just got to show up and I'll take care of everything else. I appreciate you taking all this time. Thank you. I know it's hard, but I appreciate you. Thank you. Thank you. Steve.