The Charlie Kirk Show - Reviving American Manhood with Sen. Josh Hawley and Steve Friend

00:00:00.000 Hey everybody, Tan the Charlie Kirk Show.

00:00:01.000 Senator Josh Hawley joins us to talk manhood and then the FBI, a pretty amazing whistleblower, joins us to tell us about what's really going on in the FBI.

00:00:11.000 Very courageous man.

00:00:12.000 You should support him.

00:00:13.000 Get involved with Turning Point USA, the nation's largest organization focused on freedom, liberty, and American exceptionalism.

00:00:20.000 Turning Point USA is America's last best hope.

00:00:23.000 Thank you for those that support Turning Point USA.

00:00:25.000 It is the best and single greatest investment in the future of our republic, tpusa.com.

00:00:31.000 Email me as always, freedom at charliekirk.com.

00:00:34.000 Buckle up everybody here.

00:00:35.000 We go.

00:00:36.000 Charlie, what you've done is incredible here.

00:00:37.000 Maybe Charlie Kirk is on the college campus.

00:00:40.000 I want you to know we are lucky to have Charlie Kirk.

00:00:43.000 Charlie Kirk's running the White House, folks.

00:00:46.000 I want to thank Charlie.

00:00:47.000 He's an incredible guy.

00:00:48.000 His spirit, his love of this country, he's done an amazing job building one of the most powerful youth organizations ever created, Turning Point USA.

00:00:57.000 We will not embrace the ideas that have destroyed countries, destroyed lives, and we are going to fight for freedom on campuses across the country.

00:01:05.000 That's why we are here.

00:01:08.000 Brought to you by the Loan Experts I Trust, Andrew and Todd at Sierra Pacific Mortgage at andrewandTodd.com.

00:01:18.000 Welcome back, everybody.

00:01:19.000 You know, on my week off, I was watching The Last Dance.

00:01:23.000 I almost keep, I only have a Netflix subscription really to watch like three things, and that's one of them.

00:01:28.000 We used to have a country back then.

00:01:30.000 Someone who wants that country back and is also fighting for a return of masculinity.

00:01:35.000 Can't say that.

00:01:36.000 Senator Josh Hawley.

00:01:37.000 Senator, welcome back to the program.

00:01:39.000 You have a new book out, Manhood, The Masculine Virtues America Needs.

00:01:43.000 Oh, this one's going to get some warm response from the low testosterone crowd at the New York Times.

00:01:49.000 Senator, tell us about your new book.

00:01:51.000 Well, thanks for having me on, Charlie.

00:01:52.000 The premise of the book is really simple.

00:01:54.000 America needs stronger men, period.

00:01:58.000 We need men who are going to step up and provide for their families.

00:02:00.000 Heck, we need men who are going to start families to begin with. 0.92

00:02:03.000 Men are not a threat.

00:02:05.000 Strong men are not a threat to our democracy, as the left says all the time.

00:02:09.000 Strong men are the key to our democracy, to preserving it, to renewing it, to reviving it.

00:02:14.000 And so what the book is about is what does it look like to be a strong man and holding up role models, looking especially at the Bible, the faith of our fathers.

00:02:23.000 You know, what does it look like to be a good man, to be a husband, to be a father, to be a warrior, to be a builder, somebody who contributes something, and to be a priest, as I say, somebody in touch with eternity and a king, someone who's going to bring order and goodness and freedom to where he goes.

00:02:38.000 So the book is all about encouraging men.

00:02:40.000 It's about building men up. 0.68

00:02:42.000 It's about putting out role models.

00:02:43.000 And it's about calling them to something higher.

00:02:45.000 So the opposition will say this is toxic masculinity.

00:02:49.000 And Senator, there's a war on men in our country, a deliberate one, where, and we're seeing it with the suicide rates, with disenfranchising, young men that are just disconnecting from society altogether.

00:03:01.000 I'm sure you're going to be doing as much media as you're allowed on this.

00:03:04.000 But Senator, how will you respond to, you know, a critic that says, oh, no, no, toxic masculinity is the issue in America?

00:03:12.000 You know, the problem with the left is, Charlie, they say that all masculinity is toxic.

00:03:16.000 And I talk about this in the book.

00:03:18.000 I mean, if you look at what they actually say, the so-called leftist experts, they say stuff like, healthy masculinity is like healthy cancer.

00:03:26.000 And we've got to take that head on.

00:03:28.000 The problem isn't that masculinity is toxic. 0.94

00:03:31.000 The problem is we have lost touch with what masculinity is, thanks largely to the left.

00:03:36.000 Thanks to them saying things like, if you're a boy and you want to be a boy, there's something wrong with you.

00:03:41.000 If you want to go out there and provide and protect that there's something wrong with you, saying that traditional manhood contributes to the systemic evils of America.

00:03:50.000 All of that's false.

00:03:51.000 All of that is false.

00:03:53.000 We need to tell the truth to men, which is that they are needed. 0.98

00:03:56.000 We need to tell them we need you to be strong.

00:03:59.000 We need you to step up.

00:04:00.000 We need you to get married.

00:04:02.000 We need you to have kids.

00:04:03.000 We need you to get a job.

00:04:05.000 We need you to provide.

00:04:06.000 And guess what?

00:04:07.000 Doing those things is how you will leave a legacy, how you will change the world, how you'll change this country.

00:04:13.000 And that's what the book says.

00:04:14.000 And we need every functioning society needs a balance of both the feminine and the masculine traits. 1.00

00:04:19.000 And we've gone way too far in the feminine direction. 0.81

00:04:21.000 You can actually dig, and you can go too far in the masculine direction.

00:04:25.000 We all acknowledge that, right?

00:04:26.000 You can get too totalitarian, not compassionate enough, but we're so far in the feminine direction. 1.00

00:04:31.000 We never asked the question, what does toxic femininity look like? 0.83

00:04:34.000 Whereas society has zero influence on the masculine.

00:04:37.000 And so if you go read this 1970s booklet, this stuff they used to teach in sociology class, where they said, here are masculine traits and feminine traits.

00:04:44.000 Let me just read a couple of things on the feminine traits. 1.00

00:04:46.000 Gets overly offended too easily, dependent on others, passive, impressionable, subjective, emotional, and likely to be impressionable by others.

00:04:56.000 That sounds like almost where society has gone.

00:04:58.000 You need a balance of both, right?

00:05:00.000 And when men are absent from that, the entire society, the homeostasis, the balance of society goes out of whack.

00:05:07.000 Yeah, and you know what I think the left is really pushing today, Charlie, and all of the intelligentsia, it's really androgyny.

00:05:13.000 I mean, their message to men is don't be a man.

00:05:16.000 Their message to women is there's no such thing as womanhood. 1.00

00:05:19.000 That's why biological men can now be women if they want to be.

00:05:22.000 There's no such thing as gender.

00:05:24.000 It's this androgynous consumerism.

00:05:26.000 That's the message of the left.

00:05:28.000 And to men, their message is, hey, just go down to your basement, mom and dad's basement, turn on a screen, enjoy yourself. 0.98

00:05:34.000 Just sit there, look at that screen, play some video games, watch some porn.

00:05:37.000 You know, just be a good little consumer.

00:05:39.000 Don't rock the boat.

00:05:41.000 And what America needs is more men who want to rock the boat, who say, no, I'm going to turn that screen off. 0.99

00:05:45.000 I'm going to go up.

00:05:46.000 I'm going to get a job.

00:05:47.000 I'm going to go out on a date.

00:05:49.000 I'm going to ask a girl to get married. 1.00

00:05:51.000 I'm going to have a family.

00:05:52.000 I'm going to provide.

00:05:53.000 And I'm going to stand up for myself and those I love.

00:05:56.000 That's what this country needs.

00:05:57.000 Yeah.

00:05:57.000 And it's the complaint I get from men.

00:06:00.000 We have a men's summit at Turning Point USA, and it's doing unbelievably well.

00:06:02.000 We have a waiting list for our next one.

00:06:04.000 And Senator, this is why I'm so excited about your book.

00:06:06.000 Just to replug it again, manhood, the masculine virtue America needs is the country's falling apart for a lot of different reasons.

00:06:14.000 Young boys are not really demanded to grow up into a man.

00:06:19.000 It's almost these grown infants, right?

00:06:21.000 So you mentioned something interesting.

00:06:22.000 You say some either biblical or historical figures.

00:06:25.000 Tell us a couple of those.

00:06:27.000 Teddy Roosevelt, maybe you talked about Moses, who I think is one of the great figures of the Bible, who was really a man's man in a lot of different ways.

00:06:33.000 Who are some of the men of the Bible or of history you talk about in your book that we should try to emulate?

00:06:39.000 Well, let's start first with the Bible.

00:06:41.000 And Charlie, I make no apologies for the fact that I spend a lot of time talking about Bible stories in this book.

00:06:47.000 Listen, the Bible has been the foundation of Western culture.

00:06:50.000 It is truly the faith of our fathers.

00:06:53.000 It has been the ancient faith of this nation and the bedrock of our system of government.

00:06:57.000 So for all the haters out there like, oh my gosh, he spends a whole book and tells a whole bunch of stories from the Bible.

00:07:02.000 Yeah, exactly right.

00:07:04.000 And I apologize not at all.

00:07:07.000 In fact, if you're offended by that, you probably should read the book.

00:07:10.000 And more importantly, you should probably go read the Bible.

00:07:12.000 But I would just, let's pick one of those stories.

00:07:14.000 Let's pick David.

00:07:14.000 He's one of my absolute favorites.

00:07:16.000 A king, a warrior, you know, also a poet.

00:07:19.000 I mean, you talk about a guy who really has it all.

00:07:22.000 I mean, he shows the masculine virtues.

00:07:24.000 And I talk about him as a warrior.

00:07:28.000 I talk about him as a king.

00:07:30.000 I talk about him as a leader, as a priest, somebody who was in touch with the eternal, right?

00:07:35.000 And brought a sense of the eternal everywhere he went.

00:07:38.000 Also imperfect.

00:07:39.000 You know, and that's part of the message to men is nobody expects perfection.

00:07:42.000 I'm not perfect.

00:07:43.000 You know, he wasn't perfect.

00:07:44.000 So it's not perfection that we're after.

00:07:46.000 As men, you know, we know that, hey, our lives aren't perfect.

00:07:48.000 It's okay.

00:07:49.000 It's not about being perfect.

00:07:50.000 It's about being better.

00:07:52.000 It's about being what you can be, who God has called you to be.

00:07:55.000 And I hope that the stories that I tell are really about encouraging men to say, okay, how can I get better?

00:08:01.000 How can I be better at my job?

00:08:03.000 How can I be better as a husband?

00:08:05.000 How can I be better as a father?

00:08:06.000 Better is what we need.

00:08:08.000 In Genesis 12, it sets up the entire narrative of the Old Testament because we have this guy, Abram, that out of nowhere.

00:08:16.000 So we have, you know, we have creation, we have the fall, we have Cain and Abel, we have Noah, we have the flood, we then have the city of Babel.

00:08:24.000 And all of a sudden, history kind of starts in Genesis 12, where I think there's a lot of parallels where Abram, leave your father's home, man, go on an adventure.

00:08:35.000 I think we need a little Abram, eventual Abraham energy in our culture. 0.98

00:08:38.000 Don't you agree?

00:08:40.000 And boy, you've got, you have nailed it, Charlie, in terms of just the story of the Bible there and how so significant the call of Abram.

00:08:40.000 Absolutely.

00:08:47.000 And we need an Abram-Abraham generation, right? 0.99

00:08:50.000 A generation of men who say, gonna leave dad's house, gonna get out of the basement, gonna go on an adventure that is basically to go start a new world.

00:08:59.000 What does God call Abraham to do?

00:09:00.000 He says, Abraham, I'm gonna change the destiny of the world through you. 0.99

00:09:05.000 Come follow me.

00:09:06.000 Leave what's safe.

00:09:08.000 Leave what's known.

00:09:09.000 Leave what you're comfortable with and go out to where I am leading you.

00:09:13.000 Go start a family.

00:09:14.000 He says to Abraham, go get married.

00:09:16.000 Go have a kid.

00:09:17.000 Go start a family.

00:09:18.000 Go do something that's wild and crazy, right?

00:09:21.000 And take a risk.

00:09:22.000 And it doesn't always go well.

00:09:24.000 I mean, Abram didn't act correctly when he went down to Egypt with Sarah.

00:09:28.000 He had a lot of different opposition.

00:09:30.000 I mean, Sodom and Gomorrah, probably rather tragic, you know, for him to witness.

00:09:35.000 But, you know, even earlier than that in the scriptures, Genesis 2, 24, this is why a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife and they become one flesh or he cleaves to the flesh.

00:09:46.000 And so we're called, it's a biblical commandment.

00:09:48.000 And we wonder why are so people, you know, upset and depressed.

00:09:54.000 There's a rhythm to our existence that we are suppressing with the excesses of modernity, one of which is you can kind of become this androgynous, metro-sexual, dopamine screen addicted person and you become miserable and depressed.

00:10:09.000 And you're wondering, is there more to life?

00:10:10.000 There is.

00:10:11.000 And I want to talk about fatherhood, Senator.

00:10:13.000 You're farther ahead in the journey than I am, but I find it to be important to kind of celebrate it to young men, but also be honest about the challenges, about the difficulties.

00:10:22.000 But the most masculine thing a young man can do today is not post some Instagram photo with an AR-15 eating bacon without your shirt on.

00:10:30.000 Like, yeah, okay, man.

00:10:31.000 No, it's get married, stay loyally married, stop watching pornography and have children.

00:10:35.000 That is challenging.

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00:10:48.000 And the best part about summer is you guys can get on the grill and you need to eat more meat. 0.94

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00:12:21.000 Email us, freedom at charliekirk.com.

00:12:23.000 Senator Josh Hawley is with us.

00:12:25.000 Check out his new book, Manhood: The Masculine Virtues America Needs.

00:12:30.000 So, Senator, just walk us through the why you wrote this book, because you're a senator.

00:12:35.000 Usually, when senators write books, there's one of two books, right?

00:12:39.000 Which is I'm going to run for president book, and I just kind of regurgitate the same 25 stories of American history and with platitudes and the same chapter titles, ghost written by the same very average Washington, D.C. book writing people.

00:12:56.000 Or the second book is some sort of policy book, right?

00:12:58.000 You know, here's something I care about, which was your other book and was super important, right?

00:13:02.000 But you're doing something that's in a third category.

00:13:04.000 You're going after third rail.

00:13:06.000 You're going after a major issue that's going to irritate the press.

00:13:09.000 Talk about why you as a senator, with everything you've going on, are deciding to write this book.

00:13:15.000 Yeah, it's really easy, actually.

00:13:16.000 I'm a father, and that's what prompted me to do it, Charlie.

00:13:19.000 I've got three kids.

00:13:20.000 You've met my kids, my boys.

00:13:22.000 My two oldest are boys, and I've got a baby girl.

00:13:24.000 So my boys are 10 and 8 now.

00:13:26.000 And as my boys get to the age where I begin to think more and more about, okay, you know, how am I going to help them?

00:13:32.000 How am I going to do my duty by them as a dad?

00:13:34.000 How am I going to help them grow up to be the men that God called them to be, the men America needs them to be?

00:13:40.000 That's what got me thinking about this book.

00:13:42.000 And I just think about the young men who I once upon a time taught back when I taught law for a while.

00:13:47.000 When I think about the young men I had the privilege to meet all over Missouri and all over this country.

00:13:52.000 And I've had young person after young man after young man say to me, man, I just feel like they're not great role models out there.

00:13:58.000 So I wrote the book to put forward what I think is once upon a time our culture's vision and is still the Bible's vision of what a good, strong man is.

00:14:09.000 And then we talk about it, that he should be a husband and a father and a builder and a warrior and a priest and a king.

00:14:15.000 And I go through and I tell stories from the Bible.

00:14:16.000 I tell stories from American history.

00:14:18.000 I tell stories from my own life, people who were significant to me.

00:14:21.000 And it's about putting forward that positive vision and calling men to be all that they can be, which is what this country needs them to be.

00:14:29.000 Amen.

00:14:30.000 And so let's get through some just application, right?

00:14:33.000 So do you think there's any legislative opportunity here, or is this just more of a cultural fight?

00:14:40.000 Well, I do think that there are legislative applications for sure, Charlie.

00:14:43.000 And one of them is, and I talk about this in the book, look at the jobs that are available to men.

00:14:48.000 It used to be in this country, you could get a blue-collar job and you could support a family on it.

00:14:53.000 And you were proud of that.

00:14:54.000 Now, it's still true that 70 plus percent of men in this country do not have a four-year college education.

00:15:00.000 And they shouldn't have to have one in order to get a good paying job.

00:15:03.000 But the liberals in this country, and unfortunately, a lot of Republicans too, have made it incredibly hard.

00:15:08.000 We have sent those jobs overseas.

00:15:09.000 We've sent almost 4 million of them to China.

00:15:12.000 So you want to talk about application here.

00:15:14.000 We need to bring back good paying blue-collar jobs in this country.

00:15:19.000 So men can start a family, can support a family on one income, and can do it by working with their hands, working at a trade, working at things that make them proud.

00:15:29.000 And the elites in this country have made that almost impossible.

00:15:32.000 So the number, I'm going to approximate here, but American Compass did the numbers and Oren Cass, but it's been proven through third-party peer-reviewed research.

00:15:40.000 In the 1980s, it was about 38 weeks a year to support, work a year to support a family of four, 38 weeks.

00:15:50.000 Now it's 53 to 54.

00:15:52.000 You might say, well, Charlie, it's not 53 or 54 weeks in a year.

00:15:55.000 That means you have to go into debt.

00:15:55.000 Exactly.

00:15:57.000 Or, Senator, this is where the left goes really nuts.

00:16:00.000 The female, the wife, is forced into the workforce. 1.00

00:16:04.000 Now, the ideal should be to be able to support the family that in critical developmental years, that the wife is not forced to go get another income, especially years from birth to 10 years old.

00:16:15.000 Every piece of psychological literature shows that a present mother around for those times is irreplaceable.

00:16:21.000 Senator, can you, a minute and a half, just riff on that a second?

00:16:25.000 Yeah, absolutely right.

00:16:26.000 That what has happened, what the policy elites have given this country is a place where it is, first of all, if you're a blue-collar worker, it's increasingly hard to get a job in a trade.

00:16:35.000 Number two, it's hard to get a job that pays anything.

00:16:38.000 Let me cite some more statistics.

00:16:39.000 Since the year 2000, almost 4 million, 4 million blue-collar jobs have gone overseas to China.

00:16:46.000 60,000 we have lost in the state of Missouri, 60,000 just in the state of Missouri.

00:16:52.000 So what do we need to do?

00:16:54.000 We have got to get an economy that actually works for blue-collar men because that will be good for families.

00:17:00.000 That will be good for churches.

00:17:01.000 That will be good for neighborhoods.

00:17:03.000 And the left doesn't get this at all.

00:17:04.000 And too many Republicans don't get it either.

00:17:06.000 They talk about, oh, gains of trade, and we all get richer.

00:17:09.000 No, what's happened is the white-collar workers sitting in their air-conditioned offices in Wall Street, they've gotten richer.

00:17:16.000 Blue-collar workers have gotten poorer.

00:17:18.000 And it's not just about money, Charlie.

00:17:20.000 It's about families.

00:17:21.000 It's about kids.

00:17:21.000 We've got to change.

00:17:22.000 And it's about morale.

00:17:23.000 The local school district sees a 20% decrease in tax revenues and the factory is closed.

00:17:28.000 And then opioids come in and suicides go up.

00:17:31.000 And work is not everything.

00:17:33.000 But again, remember it says in the Ten Commandments, you shall work for six days and rest for one.

00:17:38.000 It's actually a two-part commandment.

00:17:40.000 Working is commanded by God.

00:17:42.000 So is rest.

00:17:43.000 But all of a sudden you get rid of work.

00:17:44.000 It destroys the morale and the purpose, especially for young men.

00:17:49.000 Senator, thank you so much.

00:17:50.000 The book is Manhood, Masculine Virtues America Needs by Senator Josh Hawley.

00:17:54.000 Thanks so much.

00:17:57.000 Hey, everybody, Charlie Kirk here.

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00:19:00.000 Joining us now is Stephen Friend, author of the new book, True Blue, My Journey from a Beat Cop to Suspended FBI whistleblower.

00:19:06.000 Boy, this is going to be interesting.

00:19:08.000 Stephen, welcome to the program.

00:19:09.000 Thank you very much for having me.

00:19:11.000 Stephen, tell us your story.

00:19:13.000 Well, I've lived a few years in the last six or seven months, but I'll try to invest my summit down as quickly as I can for you.

00:19:19.000 I was with the FBI in 2014 until February of this year.

00:19:24.000 Spent my first seven years working on Indian reservations in the Midwest.

00:19:28.000 And then in 2021, relocated my family to Florida with the understanding I was going to be working child pornography cases.

00:19:35.000 But after a few months, I was reassigned to work domestic terrorism with the understanding that that was mostly going to be January 6th cases.

00:19:43.000 And that is when I had my first exposure to how the FBI is departing very greatly from its rules for carrying forward investigations.

00:19:51.000 I had a couple of other alarming experiences that were associated with January 6th, and it ultimately led me to decide to come forward to my supervisor, my frontline supervisor, and make some protected whistleblower disclosures about my concerns about the rule departures and the heavy-handed tactics that the FBI is using.

00:20:11.000 And that then started a process by which I went up the chain of command and expressing my concerns at every level, but was rebuffed, told throughout that process that I was jeopardizing my career, that my duty was to the FBI and not the Constitution, not the oath that I took.

00:20:26.000 And it culminated with my suspension unpaid last year in September.

00:20:32.000 For 150 days, I was unpaid.

00:20:35.000 I had my medical information leaked to the New York Times.

00:20:38.000 I had an improper gag order placed on me by the FBI's inspection division.

00:20:43.000 I was accused of inciting violence and denied the ability to seek outside employment because although I was unpaid, I was still technically considered an FBI employee.

00:20:52.000 I sought outside employment.

00:20:54.000 I was offered an opportunity with the Center for Renewing America, Russ Votes crew up in D.C.

00:21:00.000 They offered me a fellowship.

00:21:01.000 The FBI denied that and tried to deny me an income.

00:21:05.000 And at the end, I resigned just before testifying in a transcribed interview for the weaponization committee.

00:21:12.000 And we'll have the opportunity to actually speak publicly this week on Thursday for the weaponization.

00:21:17.000 So lots of questions, and thank you for your bravery and your courage.

00:21:20.000 What specifically were you bringing to your direct supervisor that started this chain of events?

00:21:28.000 Well, the FBI has a rulebook.

00:21:30.000 It's called the DIAOG, the Domestic Investigations Operations Guide, and it spells out how you're supposed to bring investigations forward.

00:21:36.000 I was very familiar with it.

00:21:36.000 I'd opened about 200 cases in the years before getting reassigned to January 6th.

00:21:42.000 And what's going on with January 6th is it should be one case run out of Washington, D.C., but instead, the FBI has elected to open a separate case for every single person who may or may not be a subject that day.

00:21:56.000 And instead of on paper running them from Washington, D.C., they are spreading those cases around the country to all the field offices if the person happens to reside in that area.

00:22:05.000 And that is creating this false illusion that domestic terrorism is on the rise in Sacramento and Cleveland and Milwaukee and Miami, when in fact all of those numbers are justified by the January 6th investigation, which for most people actually isn't a terrorism investigation.

00:22:22.000 It's a criminal trespass.

00:22:24.000 So what you're saying, so for example, just an immediate reaction: if Christopher Wray were to testify in front of the Senate and he'd say, you know, currently we have 1,900 active terrorism investigations in 15 different cities, he's really talking about maybe January 6th in a different way.

00:22:44.000 Is that correct?

00:22:46.000 And you undersold it.

00:22:46.000 Precisely.

00:22:47.000 He told the House last week that there's 2,700 cases.

00:22:52.000 But now, how many of those are January 6th related?

00:22:52.000 Okay.

00:22:55.000 Just be at a ballpark.

00:22:56.000 Well, I mean, just ballpark area.

00:22:58.000 They've already charged 1,000 people, and I was told that they were going to be charging another 1,000.

00:23:02.000 They're going to extend the restricted area to outside the actual four walls of the Capitol to anybody that was standing on the lawn.

00:23:09.000 They're just going to keep this going.

00:23:11.000 And the most disgusting thing that nobody knows about and that I'm hoping to bring forward in this hearing is this is tied to compensation for senior executives within the FBI.

00:23:20.000 Are there bonuses for how many people you put in prison?

00:23:24.000 They predetermine their metrics before the fiscal year begins.

00:23:27.000 And obviously, in this country, the demand for domestic terrorism now vastly outstrips the supply.

00:23:32.000 So they're having a really hard time meeting those numbers.

00:23:35.000 And this is the same thing.

00:23:36.000 I'm sorry, I have to interrupt.

00:23:38.000 What do you mean they preset their metrics?

00:23:41.000 This is not selling aluminum siting.

00:23:43.000 These are lives they put in prison.

00:23:44.000 What do you mean by that?

00:23:46.000 That's exactly what I mean.

00:23:47.000 It's called integrated program management.

00:23:49.000 It's a very McKinsey-esque consulting process that was brought about about 10 years ago.

00:23:54.000 And wouldn't you know it, the terrorism statistics for the FBI have quadrupled in the last 10 years because they are trying to meet those numbers.

00:24:02.000 And meeting them is always a challenge.

00:24:03.000 But this is a five-year gift, essentially, until the statute runs up where executives are going to get their compensation.

00:24:09.000 People are going to be able to claim that they are involved with the most important, sophisticated investigation of the history of the Department of Justice and promote out of there.

00:24:17.000 And as a result, it's now just destroyed so many lives.

00:24:21.000 Wait, so let's say that XYZ person out of the Denver field office doesn't hit their domestic terrorism white supremacy quota. 0.84

00:24:31.000 What happens then?

00:24:34.000 I can't ever recall a time where they didn't hit the numbers because the pressure brought to bear and to generate fake numbers.

00:24:39.000 And January 6th is the most egregious example, but that's just one example.

00:24:44.000 I know of other instances where, you know, hey, we have a case with four subjects.

00:24:49.000 Well, instead of one case with four, we'll open four with one.

00:24:52.000 I was told and pressured that I needed to open an ISIS investigation on an individual who had no connection to ISIS because my division didn't have an ISIS case.

00:25:00.000 Oh, because you have to justify the operation.

00:25:04.000 Okay, so here you are.

00:25:06.000 You go to your direct superior, your supervisor, you basically say the diag, is that correct?

00:25:12.000 D-I-O-G-OK. 1.00

00:25:14.000 Is not being followed.

00:25:15.000 Now, the DIOG are internal FBI protocols that have been implemented, but also agreed to with the checks and balances of Congress over rules of the road that when they get watchdogs, these are supposed to be followed.

00:25:31.000 You're saying that for January 6th, they're not being followed basically at all.

00:25:38.000 That's right.

00:25:39.000 They're not being followed because while they can, by black letter law, those rules, they can open up a separate case if they want and spread it around if they want.

00:25:47.000 Once that decision is made, the agents and the task force officers and the various field offices have responsibility for working those cases, but that's not what's going on.

00:25:56.000 They're being run out of Washington, D.C., unofficially.

00:25:59.000 And we were getting directives in my office in Daytona Beach from Washington on how to perform our own cases.

00:26:05.000 And at the time, I brought my concern forward because I was very experienced in criminal investigations.

00:26:10.000 And I thought, look, if these cases are righteous and I want to win at trial, we're going to lose.

00:26:16.000 And I said to my boss, look, we have to disclose this information to the defense.

00:26:20.000 This is exculpatory information that we've departed.

00:26:23.000 And I'm worried that we're going to lose.

00:26:25.000 And I don't want that to happen.

00:26:28.000 But obviously, they know that the due process is not really a concern out of that Washington, D.C. district.

00:26:34.000 Do you know of instances where the FBI was knowingly not withholding evidence that could have been exculpatory for the defendant?

00:26:43.000 Well, it's my contention that on every single January 6th case, and I was hoping that the defense attorneys would get access to my whistleblower complaint, which is public, that that's information that should be brought to a jury to consider the fact that there is compensation tied to these cases.

00:27:01.000 I think a defense attorney should be able to put the agent on the stand and say, Agent, did your boss get a bonus because you opened this case up?

00:27:07.000 Yeah, I mean, yeah, these are incentives to try to get more Americans into jail.

00:27:14.000 I hope everyone is tracking this.

00:27:15.000 It's unbelievable.

00:27:16.000 So I want to ask you, how old are you, Steve?

00:27:17.000 And I'm asking for a reason.

00:27:18.000 How long have you been?

00:27:19.000 How long were you in the Bureau?

00:27:21.000 Just about nine years.

00:27:22.000 I'm 37.

00:27:23.000 Okay, got it.

00:27:24.000 So I'm asking, in the last couple of years, and I don't know the answer to this, has there been a more radical type agent that you've started to work with versus some of the kind of 30, 40, or 50 year olds that have been around for 20 years?

00:27:39.000 Or are they radical as well?

00:27:40.000 Is the actual individual agent, the rank and file, changing within the FBI at all?

00:27:47.000 I think it is, but what you have to understand is the environment in the FBI is not really consistent across the board.

00:27:53.000 You have the headquarters, very political dominion, and then you go out to the field offices, all the headquarters cities, and those can also be very political because the leaders are managers, they're not really leaders who run those offices go back and forth to headquarters in Washington so often.

00:28:08.000 And then you have the rank and file agents who are just, like myself, just want to keep their head down and work their cases.

00:28:12.000 And those tend to be your cops.

00:28:14.000 Those are the ones who want to put the bad guys in jail.

00:28:17.000 But unfortunately, at least even in my time in the FBI, the hiring practices were altered.

00:28:23.000 They've reduced physical fitness standards.

00:28:25.000 They've gone out and tried out of their way to recruit intersectional candidates to take positions.

00:28:32.000 And to me, it was just been a problem.

00:28:35.000 It's been a lot of objection from many of the agents because take something like physical fitness.

00:28:39.000 You don't have to be an Olympic athlete to be an FBI agent, but that's the only test along the way.

00:28:43.000 And for me, it was a four-year process to get hired.

00:28:45.000 That's the only test I knew the answers to ahead of time.

00:28:48.000 And that sort of indicated a character quality of somebody who was willing to put goals forward and achieve those goals.

00:28:54.000 But now that's not being met, and they're just really looking for people who are willing to go along to get along, to reach that GS-13 salary, make $130,000, and don't rock the boat.

00:29:04.000 About 40 seconds remaining, I have to ask this in this segment.

00:29:08.000 What does the FBI fear?

00:29:11.000 They fear being embarrassed very much, which is why three weeks ago they asked me, instructed me to redact multiple portions of the book that I'm coming out with next month, because at the end of the day, they're just incredibly embarrassing segments of that book.

00:29:24.000 So they do, that's interesting because the appearance that we patriots get is that nothing phases them.

00:29:30.000 But I want to dive into that.

00:29:32.000 You're saying that there is a fragility to them, that there is a weak spot of public shame and humiliation.

00:29:39.000 Now that I know that, I know that we do good work on this program then towards that righteous cause.

00:29:44.000 Stephen Friend, the book is True Blue.

00:29:46.000 You guys should buy it for no other reason than out of just, you know, gratitude for his courage.

00:29:52.000 My goodness, we've been saying, where are the FBI agents?

00:29:54.000 Well, here's one.

00:29:55.000 Buy the book, True Blue by Stephen Friend.

00:29:58.000 Very, very important book about how we are living in an open-air police state called the United States of America, where there are incentives, bonuses, quotas to try to get patriots in jail.

00:30:10.000 Literally, that's your taxpayer-funded government.

00:30:13.000 Can you just tell us about some of the intimidation that you've been receiving now that you're speaking out?

00:30:18.000 Well, the FBI told me three weeks ago they wanted me to redact the portions of the book.

00:30:22.000 There were threats in there about being out of policy, which doesn't really apply to me because I no longer work for them.

00:30:28.000 But in my meetings with the security division, I was told that I may have committed felonies and that I had incited violence by writing op-eds in which I said it was a rhetorical call to arms to obey your oath of office.

00:30:42.000 And my wife mysteriously lost her job a few weeks after my suspension.

00:30:46.000 So it's extended pretty greatly.

00:30:48.000 But I am going on offense and fighting back by just bringing this information forward to as many people as I can.

00:30:54.000 They're going to try to put you on a metaphorical show trial. 0.98

00:30:57.000 We have your back, and you know a lot, and I want to keep diving into that.

00:31:00.000 There is a lot of curiosity in our audience about who's actually in the FBI and why more people don't speak out.

00:31:07.000 And the answer is because not everyone has the courage that you have to speak out.

00:31:10.000 They will try to crush you, silence you, smear, slander, come after you.

00:31:14.000 The FBI fears humiliation.

00:31:16.000 What do you mean by that?

00:31:17.000 It's all about protecting the shield at all cost for them.

00:31:21.000 The image to them means everything.

00:31:23.000 And it's effective because I can't tell you the number of times I could just pick up a phone call and say I was an FBI agent and people would give me very personal information just based on the fact that they'd seen that badge on TV and in movies and it had such a great reputation.

00:31:37.000 So anything to tarnish that reputation, I think, is a grave threat to them.

00:31:41.000 And it also exposes how their Promotion process where it's in fact elevating people who are not qualified as leaders to rise to the ranks and are just ignorant to the facts on the ground, have very little experience actually carrying investigations forward.

00:31:57.000 That's some of the information that I'm bringing out, and they do not want that brought forward because being labeled competent is probably the most important thing to them.

00:32:06.000 Yeah, and it's just interesting.

00:32:07.000 I mean, do they fear funding cuts?

00:32:10.000 I mean, to protect the shield that I'll cause, I mean, I get the sense that they are a paranoid bunch, that they're afraid that some of their clandestine activities might actually one day come to the surface.

00:32:22.000 They don't seem as if they're not acting innocent because I think deep down they might know they're doing something wrong.

00:32:31.000 Any thoughts on that?

00:32:33.000 There's no question that it's become a weaponized agency.

00:32:36.000 And I think underneath the leadership of Christopher Wray, he's kind of brought that to its total fulfillment.

00:32:41.000 I made the point over the weekend at an event that he gave up a $9 million a year job to become the director of the FBI.

00:32:48.000 It's a 10-year appointment.

00:32:49.000 It means simple math, the man gave $90 million towards the cause.

00:32:54.000 That's what ideological conviction looks like.

00:32:56.000 And that's why he can stand in a senatorial hearing and say, I got a plane to catch Senator and walk out.

00:33:01.000 But now with the House being in the hands of the Republicans and they have the appropriations ability, I'm hoping that they're going to leverage that and really get some results done.

00:33:09.000 And most recently, the FBI refusing to cooperate with the source report documents about President Biden.

00:33:17.000 Why not just say, hey, look, we're not going to raise the debt ceiling until you give us that information.

00:33:21.000 When you were working at the FBI, when the Peter Strzzok and Lisa Page scandal hit, was there conversation about that?

00:33:27.000 Was there kind of, did you see other chatter amongst agents like that?

00:33:31.000 I mean, were people even aware of Andy McCabe and Comey when you were there, of that kind of behavior?

00:33:36.000 Was that kind of water cooler chat?

00:33:39.000 I'm just curious.

00:33:41.000 It was kept kind of his arm's length.

00:33:43.000 That's headquarters, the viper's nest.

00:33:46.000 That doesn't affect our day-to-day.

00:33:47.000 But just based on reputation alone, I know that Andy McCabe was just kind of a, they used to say any old Andy will do in New York City where he worked.

00:33:56.000 And Director Comey, when he came in, he brought this legitimate, ethical, beyond all reproach mentality that has now permeated throughout the leadership class.

00:34:09.000 And the people that came up to the ranks, the people that came up are still in positions of leadership within the FBI, and they don't think that their judgments can be questioned.

00:34:18.000 What percentage of current agents would you say view things the way you do, that find it to be improper or wrong?

00:34:27.000 What percentage of agents do you think would want to speak out if they were protected?

00:34:33.000 I think it's very sizable.

00:34:34.000 I think that most people join the FBI and take the oath of office, or at least I'm hopeful.

00:34:39.000 I kind of almost choked up when I took my oath of office because I knew what that meant.

00:34:43.000 And I hoped that the vetting process was going to bring people in that sort of felt the same way I did.

00:34:48.000 I think that too many people are worried about paying the bills.

00:34:51.000 They're beholden to that paycheck.

00:34:53.000 And they're worried about being steamrolled by the agency.

00:34:55.000 But hopefully, the weaponization committee can elevate the whistleblowers and show us the protection that the law is supposed to provide us so that the people in a position that know the information can bring it forward to Chairman Jordan and to Chairman Comer.

00:35:09.000 The book is True Blue by Stephen Friend: My Journey from Beat Cop to Suspended FBI Whistleblower, and he's testifying this Thursday.

00:35:17.000 I am looking forward to that testimony very much.

00:35:20.000 Stephen, thank you so much.

00:35:22.000 Thank you.

00:35:22.000 God bless.

00:35:23.000 Email is freedom at charliekirk.com.

00:35:25.000 That takes a lot of courage, a lot of bravery.

00:35:27.000 They're going to come after him with everything they have.

00:35:28.000 A defector, remember, the regime hates defectors, right?

00:35:33.000 This is why they had to go after Elon.

00:35:35.000 They go after Trump.

00:35:38.000 If you are part of their circle and then you speak out against them, look, whistleblowers, like Stephen right there, are one of the last bulwarks against tyranny.

00:35:48.000 It's one of the last pressure release valves.

00:35:51.000 People coming out and saying, no, no, no, I was in the agency and I saw them targeting Americans.

00:35:55.000 I saw them breaking the rules.

00:35:56.000 I saw them with an ideological agenda.

00:35:59.000 We need more and more whistleblowers and we need these whistleblower protections.

00:36:03.000 It's interesting that he says the FBI is fearful of humiliation.

00:36:08.000 That's good to know, isn't it?

00:36:09.000 Everybody fears something.

00:36:11.000 I fear God.

00:36:12.000 The FBI doesn't fear God.

00:36:13.000 They think they are God.

00:36:14.000 But they fear humiliation.

00:36:16.000 Maybe we need to make a bigger point of that.

00:36:20.000 Thanks so much for listening.

00:36:21.000 Everybody, email us your thoughts.

00:36:22.000 As always, freedom at charliekirk.com.

00:36:24.000 Thanks so much for listening and God bless.

00:36:29.000 For more on many of these stories and news you can trust, go to CharlieKirk.com.

The Charlie Kirk Show - May 15, 2023

Reviving American Manhood with Sen. Josh Hawley and Steve Friend

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