The Tucker Carlson Show - March 27, 2024


Steve Nikoui


Episode Stats

Length

59 minutes

Words per Minute

178.45605

Word Count

10,606

Sentence Count

8

Hate Speech Sentences

9


Summary

A man in the audience earlier this month yelled out to President Bagrama reminding him of the killings that took place at the Abbey Gate at the airport in Kabul, Afghanistan. He was arrested and is now serving a life sentence. But not everyone forgets what happened that day. And not everyone has forgotten. And that man is the father of one of the victims of that day, a Marine corporal named Kareem Nakoui, who was just 20 years old at the time of the attack that killed 13 American service members and 170 others. And yet, he has never said his son's name, not once. Not once. And now he is in prison, and no one knows where he is. And Tucker and Megan talk to him about that day and what happened to his son, and what he is doing to fight for the families of those lost in the attack, and how he is trying to get his name out of the public eye. And, of course, there's a special guest on this episode of the podcast, Mr. Kui, who is the son of the man who yelled out the name of his slain son, a man who was killed in the bombing at the entrance to the airport, and who was the one person who tried to remind the president of his son of what took place that day in Kabul. He's got a story to tell us about the day, and a story about what happened in the aftermath of that terrible day in Afghanistan, and why he still hasn't said the names of his own son, the one who was never mentioned in public by the president's name in his life. . Thank you, Tucker, Megan, and Megan and Megan, for coming on this week's episode of Two O'clock, and for joining us in the studio to talk about it! and for the story of the day that will make you remember the day of that fateful day in which a young man who lost his son and the day he was gunned down in Afghanistan in the streets of Kabul, the day his name is finally gets his chance to say his name in public for the first time, and finally gets to finally get his own name out in the public face of the country. in a way you get to meet his name, in the spotlight, in a place where he finally gets a chance to finally say his son s name in the history of his name. and so much more! and much more.


Transcript

00:00:00.000 by august of 2021 kabul afghanistan looked a lot like well saigon vietnam looked in april of 1975
00:00:18.660 chaotic dangerous and humiliating to the united states after 20 years in afghanistan
00:00:25.360 the bide administration had just pulled american troops out the city immediately fell to the
00:00:29.840 taliban president got on a private plane with millions of american dollars and ran away like
00:00:34.920 coward he is and thousands of afghan civilians were rushing to hamid karzai airport in a desperate
00:00:41.340 attempt to flee the country sort of like those helicopters taking off from the roof of the embassy
00:00:44.940 in 1975 so u.s service members were deployed to the scene to help keep the peace but it was an
00:00:52.100 impossible task mobs of afghans running on the runway trying to board flights some clinging to
00:00:58.460 the landing gear you remember the pictures in the middle of that scene that total chaos created by
00:01:03.980 the biden administration a suicide bomber arrived carrying 20 pounds of explosives and made his
00:01:09.600 way to a place called the abbey gate the entrance to the airport and then detonated the device and
00:01:14.420 in so doing murdered 13 american service members along with 170 afghans men women and children
00:01:21.860 one of the americans murdered that day was a marine lance corporal called kareem nakoui he was just 20
00:01:28.340 20 years old he is now credited with saving the lives of at least three afghan families and help getting
00:01:34.220 them out of that country fast forward to 2024 and joe biden is hoping as he stands for re-election at the
00:01:41.680 advanced age of 81 you've completely forgotten what he did in afghanistan and the humiliating
00:01:46.960 and deadly way he withdrew american forces from that country but not everyone has forgotten in fact
00:01:54.280 those touched by the tragedy of that day in the preceding 20 years will never forget
00:01:57.960 now if you watched biden's state of the union address earlier this month you heard a man in
00:02:02.940 the audience yell out to biden reminding him of the killings that took place at the abbey gate
00:02:09.120 at the airport in kabul here's that scene all americans deserve the freedom to be safe
00:02:16.060 and america is safer today than when i took office year before i took office murder rates went up 30
00:02:22.940 percent 30 they went up
00:02:25.800 the biggest increase in history
00:02:31.100 but the soulless monster keeps talking that would be joe biden the soulless monster the man you heard
00:02:39.120 screaming has a soul and he has a reason for sadness and outrage he is called steve nakoui he is the
00:02:45.960 father of that murdered lance corporal kareem nakoui killed in the bombing at abbey gate so for saying
00:02:51.840 that out loud for trying to remind joe biden of what he did steve nakoui was arrested at the
00:02:57.380 capital earlier this month he now joins us in the studio mr kui thank you very much for coming on
00:03:02.540 thank you tucker so uh let's just let's just start with the clip we just played why did you
00:03:07.540 yell out abbey gate and your son's name at the president okay so um yeah we we had an opportunity to
00:03:14.000 um go to this state of the union this time we two families were invited by mike johnson yep and so
00:03:23.420 those families were picked by a hat so there's a a coalition of families uh which is six of us
00:03:31.160 and we can get in later why we had to start a coalition so we all signed a contract and you know
00:03:39.980 are fighting for to get the information of the withdrawal out but two two there were two tickets
00:03:49.200 and we we drew hat we drew names for those and and and hey these are the ones that are going
00:03:54.680 and so there was a a chance that they might address he might address and finally say the kids's names
00:04:04.960 because the thing is he's never he's never recognized the kids his names he's never accepted
00:04:10.380 any kind of responsibility for the withdrawal biden biden has never said your son's name never
00:04:16.060 never not once none of the kids and so we were hoping that all right well these two family members
00:04:22.640 you know they're gonna be able to go and and he might you know bring up afghanistan and um say their
00:04:29.860 names now for me um i had never done any interviews the only interview that i really did was an interview
00:04:35.960 i'd done with you at the very beginning and after his first state of the union for whatever reason i i was
00:04:44.520 at work and i got a call from some some young man hey look we're trying to fill in a a spot in our in
00:04:53.080 our news thing at two o'clock or whatever time was would you come on and i'm like well i don't do
00:04:59.560 interviews oh well look i need to have someone please and he kept begging and was persistent and
00:05:04.580 he was all we know we want to ask you about joe biden's state of the union now this is the first one
00:05:08.340 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
00:05:13.600 interviews and somehow i'm sorry i just want to be totally clear this so a year or the next year
00:05:21.580 after your son was yeah so this is in january probably of 2022 but you'd never met president
00:05:28.480 biden or been to the white house no so we met him at dover when we did the dignified transfer but that
00:05:34.060 was anything but dignified i mean you know he um it's kind of the same like if you have kids
00:05:43.860 you have four okay like if i was drunk and then i killed your kid in a drunk driving accident and
00:05:51.300 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
00:05:57.320 was at dover so he talked about himself he talked about his son so even in dover when we had first
00:06:03.740 met you know when we had met him in the dignified transfer he said hey look you know i i um i understand
00:06:10.080 what you're going through we lost our son beau as well now in there i wasn't i so people had a chance
00:06:17.240 to whether or not they wanted to meet with the president and if some people didn't want to meet
00:06:21.500 with them they could go to another room i wasn't going to be bullied and go to another room but
00:06:25.900 you know i turned my back to him so when he walked in i turned my back to him my um
00:06:32.660 sorry it's all right my uh daughter came it stood next to me so we just turned our back to her and
00:06:42.040 then uh kareem's mom was talking to him so i was listening to what she was saying and that you know
00:06:48.800 that's what he had said like you know i understand your loss you know oh he lost his son and that just
00:06:54.100 you know infuriated her even more um but he he was like this with everyone and then
00:07:01.800 everything up in in since we're on that point i mean we were we were used that whole thing was us
00:07:10.740 being used i mean we were you know i wanted to wear a suit when i went to this dignified transfer
00:07:15.600 for my son and i don't know if you remember in like the 70 those yellow school buses that had the
00:07:21.380 like tijuana tuck and roll you know you're you're going up and down there's no shocks you can't put
00:07:26.700 down the windows yeah um it's in dover which is like the most humid place you've ever been in your
00:07:32.620 life they transferred us in these like buses like all the families they put us up in a motel six
00:07:39.240 had fecal matter on the walls had cockroaches everywhere um all right now we all got into these
00:07:47.240 buses and we're all sweating they drove us to dover the the place that they do this at dover
00:07:52.680 so the message is really clear like they don't care at all yeah but at the time we didn't i didn't
00:07:57.000 realize that you know at the time i think well you know i'm doing this for my country you know i mean
00:08:02.700 i i felt like almost obligated that i had to do this yes you know and like here this is but like oh
00:08:10.780 they're honoring us like a stateside honoring when when in retrospect you know it was just trying to
00:08:16.520 show like oh we're honoring these parents and that's the end of it do you kind of understand what
00:08:21.720 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
00:08:28.420 first time i'd seen all the other parents and remind you this is two days after it happened so the
00:08:33.280 next day after this all happens you don't have time to grieve you have the military telling you
00:08:37.540 you have to sign these papers we got to go over here to dover delaware and i'm like
00:08:42.040 what's in dover delaware i have no idea what they're talking in any of this i have to google
00:08:47.720 everything i have to research what a dignified transfer is you know i'm i have no idea and
00:08:53.320 they're telling you you know you just lost your kid now they're saying you have to go to delaware and
00:08:57.060 and uh etc etc so when we go over there it's already and and and what i noticed the first thing
00:09:04.420 that i noticed when i went there um from being like a boss or a business owner i i was able to
00:09:13.200 see a different perspective is that they had no they didn't really know what they were doing they
00:09:21.080 were reacting to how we would react and i found that to be shocking you know it's like whoa what is
00:09:27.740 going on here like there's no protocol um they're seeing how we would react if we'd get physical if
00:09:34.620 we'd get violent if we'd yell you understand what i'm saying um it could there was that you know there
00:09:40.440 was a lot of people yelling i was yelling i was yelling at the the general you know and and i was
00:09:45.200 upset what did you say to the general uh so i i he was pretty much the only one that i that i yelled
00:09:52.440 at and and i just said you know you should have been planning this evacuation you know you should
00:09:57.880 have taken time you know at the time i just remember him promoting his book and then some
00:10:02.140 of the stuff that had happened with the his counterpart was you know at the beginning of the
00:10:07.260 remember the name of the general yeah general miley millie yeah yeah and i just met him last week
00:10:14.680 and he remembered that he remembered that altercation that we had and uh um you know i spotted him
00:10:21.760 um in one of the other room and that dover delaware let me let me so you said i'm sorry just to clear up
00:10:28.420 exactly what happened so you see millie at dover and you and two days before your son was killed and
00:10:34.240 you say to him you should have no after two days after so this all happened after right it was but
00:10:39.180 two days before when you first met him your son had just been killed yeah that's right that's right
00:10:43.340 so you say to him effectively this is your fault like you're in charge of this right didn't do a
00:10:48.120 good job what did he say he said i had been planning for this you know we did plan for it um
00:10:55.360 you know it was a mistake i don't even i don't know if he said a mistake but he had said that um
00:11:03.000 and i kept telling him well you know you don't care i mean you know i mean you weren't looking like
00:11:09.460 you were planning for it from what i've seen from january until now um it looked like you're doing
00:11:16.360 everything else you know it looked like you're on a book tour and it looked like you were
00:11:20.540 coercing with you know the chinese government yeah and you know he said i think he said i've lost 47
00:11:29.920 men or 67 men one of the two and then i said i lost my son and uh so you confirmed him and he made
00:11:38.120 it about himself just like joe biden i've suffered too is what he said you know what i now that i've
00:11:43.520 know more about like the military and people you know i wouldn't say so with him i would say you
00:11:52.740 know what i've noticed with people in the military and i just realized this in the last month is that
00:11:57.620 they look at us like
00:11:59.080 sorry so people that have served it appears that they they treat us like they would want
00:12:09.080 their folks treated if they had lost their lives good you understand what i'm saying i do
00:12:13.940 and now in retrospect you know his anger i think was more along the lines of
00:12:20.460 his guilt i feel he really felt guilty you know and he didn't and he's just mad you know he's a he's
00:12:29.400 and and and and what i had told him a couple weeks ago is because i had an immense respect for him to
00:12:35.100 me he was the guy you know he was the face of our military yes and um more so than pretty much
00:12:44.360 anywhere else i mean you know you you know who mark milley is i mean he's he's a dominating force
00:12:51.460 at the you know prior to that even the donald trump had had him so um and i think you know that rage was
00:13:01.940 that was that here he found himself in a position that you know this stuff happened and and i i i feel
00:13:09.100 like he felt some guilt to be honest with you at that time seems like an appropriate emotion yeah but
00:13:13.880 at the time i didn't i didn't i didn't think that it's taken several years and me to understand the
00:13:19.840 military and and that that's i believe what what he was feeling is that he was he was upset with how
00:13:30.980 everything happened and he wanted to convey that look you know i love you and i've lost people too
00:13:38.080 and i know what you're going through and you know and so that was that was that
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00:15:24.360 between um the time you spent in dover receiving your son's remains staying in the motel six with
00:15:35.400 human feces on the wall um between that and this state of the union earlier this month had you had any
00:15:41.900 contact with biden or the white house never we've never had any contact with the white house or biden
00:15:47.680 and we have reached out or or uh mccall and and several people several families have reached out
00:15:54.900 to you know maybe have a round table with them see what their what their thinking was anything you
00:16:01.940 know honor us or not honor us honor our children yes um something and they just refuse i don't know why
00:16:09.080 they hate us so much to be honest with you i have no idea i mean because you're a living reminder of
00:16:15.540 their failure but but in america we're supposed to you know address those failures i mean he had an
00:16:21.880 opportunity that he could have really rallied the country behind him yes very easily you know by by
00:16:30.080 assuming any kind of responsibility hell you know i know people that business owners that assume more
00:16:36.580 responsibility for someone that gets hurt on their job than than what he's done for for these people
00:16:42.080 people that are held more accountable in drunk driving cases than this and um man yeah after
00:16:50.340 three years this guy he just doesn't want to say anything about any of these kids so how much
00:16:54.860 contact have you had with the families of the other servicemen killed the third the 12 other families
00:16:59.760 um so yeah there's uh well since we've started um trying to lobby to get answers which was started last
00:17:08.380 june yeah um these six families we talked uh every week and on in the capacity that we do for getting
00:17:16.740 these answers that you think they have the same feelings that you do well i can't i would say on
00:17:22.940 some things yeah as regard to millie i couldn't i couldn't what about the biden administration oh yeah
00:17:29.120 100 100 we're united on that and so you said at the outset that you wanted more information about
00:17:36.020 what happened right the events that led up to your son's death right what what do you wish you knew
00:17:41.820 but don't okay so we've made a lot of progress so what happened was when this all happened we you
00:17:47.680 know there we didn't have the house so any of the hearings if you look at any of the the senate hearings
00:17:53.440 that were there they were all kind of biased like they all said although this was great you know we
00:17:58.680 did a good job of course we're gonna it wasn't until um uh mccarthy became speaker that we actually
00:18:07.060 had an opportunity to to get the answers that we needed so last june um we got an opportunity from
00:18:16.900 daryl isa to do like a public we went you know we went to washington and the premise was like look we
00:18:24.800 don't know what's going to happen but we're going to introduce you to mccarthy we're going to introduce
00:18:29.580 you to scalise um mccall and we're going to get you to know because new but nobody knew our our story
00:18:36.280 nobody you know it wasn't um really out there maybe it wasn't to some degree in like maybe social media
00:18:44.660 or something um because that's probably the only outlet that the parents had like their facebook or or
00:18:50.760 whatever but there's a good portion of americans that don't even pay attention to that so um and i
00:18:57.400 being one of them i'm not on any of those that i could channel any anything and um so when this
00:19:05.460 opportunity came you know they're like look we don't know what's going to happen we don't know if
00:19:10.360 there's anything but we're going to go down there and we're you know and every family of the 13 was
00:19:15.720 was was was invited to this like here's what we're doing um it said it was set up uh sean reyes from
00:19:25.000 utah and um kind of connected us with these people and then it kind of uh from there went for daryl
00:19:32.360 isa he was the one that you know had been champion everything at that point and um so you know they
00:19:40.680 they even had funding for it like we're going to take the mom and the dad of each um each child
00:19:47.960 each service member whoever wants to come and uh we're going to go down to washington and see if
00:19:54.120 there's any any anybody that's interested in anything so we went down there we met um these
00:20:01.400 different offices we told them our stories because nobody knew really our stories um you know what had
00:20:08.320 happened to us in dover and then really like the the stuff that we were being told so they had given
00:20:14.240 us a whole bunch of lies you know we're people are talking to the kids people are talking to everyone
00:20:19.960 that's coming back and what the government is telling us is different from what these people
00:20:25.160 that were actually there are saying and so we're like well they're like oh there was no gunfire
00:20:30.560 well one of the marines actually killed one of his aggressors you know he like shot him
00:20:37.280 and killed him or i don't know if he killed him so to say that there was no gunfire is absurd
00:20:44.280 now my son before i sent him or before he went to afghanistan i bought him a uh when i was a kid when
00:20:53.000 we were kids there was that buck 110 knife that the duke brought with the duke boys had they had that
00:20:57.960 with the uh with the bolster on it so i bought my son one of those but a switchblade
00:21:02.280 and i said you know this is good for fast uh you know if you need a knife you know you can it's a
00:21:09.340 switchblade i bought him this and he carried it on him i have pictures of him in afghanistan with it
00:21:15.080 well when the uh when the keiko which is the casually assisted coordinating officer so every
00:21:21.820 time that something happens in the military to your loved ones you get assigned to keiko and he's
00:21:28.060 basically the liaison between the military and your family i mean everything from a to z you know
00:21:33.580 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
00:21:39.540 know nothing else i know nothing else i wanted um except for that knife you know i told him hey i gave
00:21:46.760 my kid this knife and uh i want that i want that back and you know he can't he didn't i just met him
00:21:56.840 like two minutes ago and um he's all you know he listened to me well on september 17th is when they
00:22:04.280 brought my son his body back and uh so we you know it was a very nice another kind of dignified
00:22:12.580 transfer from ontario airport to where we live in norco he's buried um like literally less than a
00:22:20.180 mile from my house and that whole way you know the streets are lined american flags and people and
00:22:25.820 everything and then when we get to the cemetery um he pulls me in the back room and he and he pulls
00:22:31.320 out that knife oh you know in in the case and i'm like just happy for me it was like i put so much
00:22:39.220 value in that knife you know like for some reason i felt like if i had that knife it would it would
00:22:47.080 eliminate some of my pain that i had you know that that's something that we that we shared and i give
00:22:53.900 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
00:23:00.620 and the same the same case that we had when we were kids you know it's a leather case with a little
00:23:06.140 button says buck on it yeah and there's a hole in it i'm looking at it and i'm excited and i told
00:23:12.320 him i'm like hey charlie there's a wow there's a hole from one of the bbs you know because ied
00:23:18.180 little bbs and i'm looking at it and i pulled the knife out and the knife was like had imploded inside
00:23:27.560 the sheath so it was hard to get it out of the sheath you know it was hard the uh and when i pulled
00:23:34.460 it out my gun he was like he's a gun i think he got promoted so don't don't be upset with me but
00:23:41.760 when i pulled it out he's like that's not a bb hole that's a bullet hole and so when i when i took
00:23:49.960 it home i got one of my 556 bullets and i got my dial calipers and i started measuring the depth of
00:23:56.460 the hole and then put that depth in relation to the boat tail of the bullet and then measured the
00:24:02.900 diameter i got real scientific and you could just pull the bullet right out of the 556 casing and put
00:24:09.360 it fits perfect in there it was a five it's a 556 and uh you know that's that's proof and if it's on the
00:24:20.600 front of his thing it came from across it didn't come from behind it's not friendly fire because he
00:24:27.060 didn't put it in his back it was right on his front they also they gave you pictures of like
00:24:32.420 where your kid is now every you know maps so when they gave you the um the uh the briefing when they
00:24:39.980 first briefed the families they had maps and said okay your kid is here x marks the spot and then you'd
00:24:46.260 ask him well who's this guy and they're well we can't tell you but then after that they told the
00:24:51.360 public then these then now all of a sudden everybody is out there but the maps that they
00:24:55.980 gave us were all different like there's three of them there's three there's three different ones
00:25:00.340 but one thing i can't say and and and and the other family's kids are in different locations
00:25:05.720 in those three different maps but my son's always on that wall like my son's always in every map
00:25:13.340 right across from the bomber like right across there's three kids on that wall and he was one of them
00:25:19.320 so there's no he wasn't turned around there's no way it could have been friendly fire you understand
00:25:25.580 what i'm saying and that was like one of the things is like well here i've got proof you know
00:25:30.300 i've got proof that my kid was you're gonna tell us that you know they weren't shot at everybody can
00:25:37.040 hear it on the videos but and here's physical proof that i have and it's not an ak round you know it's
00:25:43.700 not a it's not an ak size hole it's it's a perfect like literally that bullet was probably stuck in
00:25:50.040 there and someone had to like pull it out like that's that's how it was and um so fast forward
00:25:57.740 to when we met um daryl lison and them in june i brought that up and showed him that and these were
00:26:04.840 some of the things that that they used to get the ball rolling to get interest in it so you know we've
00:26:11.700 since june we've been going to congress for no other reason but to lobby for our kids to give
00:26:16.660 information that these congressmen don't have so they can bring in different people and do hearings
00:26:23.780 and get the information that we need and we've made like enormous traction i mean just the answers that
00:26:31.340 we've gotten um with the hearings that they've had have been good that we have them that we didn't you
00:26:39.420 know we didn't have them before but as a testament to what a failure this was and we've pretty much
00:26:45.460 gone in all avenues we've exhausted the military i believe at this point that you know the well you
00:26:52.880 know they're the part that they were in charge of was a retrograde so there's two parts to it there
00:26:58.640 was a retrograde and then the evacuation and the retrograde went off unhitched you know no problem
00:27:05.800 the problem was was that when you hear people say well you should have taken the people out before
00:27:11.140 you take out the military they should have done the neo before they did the retrograde and and that's
00:27:16.740 where the point comes is that the state department and the administration was in charge of the neo and
00:27:22.180 the retrograde and the only reason why they did the neo now they did the neo the neo was implemented by
00:27:28.000 uh ross wilson who's that's another guy he's he's the guy you know after all these nine months of
00:27:35.780 going back and forth uh it's not you know i don't see it's the generals i don't see it's the military
00:27:40.880 it's this guy he's the guy that initiated the the neo and he did it on august 14th now who is ross
00:27:48.780 wilson and if you could just explain what a neo is i just i just i i'm not he's the ambassador so he
00:27:54.980 was the ambassador for afghanistan that's about all i know about him uh we just we just kind of
00:28:00.960 stumbled onto him a couple weeks ago in that hearing that the two generals had um a neo is a
00:28:07.400 non-combatant evacuation and those are you know planned by the state department so every embassy has
00:28:15.940 a neo um the problem that they did is they didn't implement the neo soon enough so he implemented it on
00:28:24.820 august 14th because the taliban was he could see the taliban coming so he sees them and he's like
00:28:30.480 uh-oh i'm gonna implement the neo and then on the 15th they come in and they take the embassy i don't
00:28:36.420 remember if you remember those pictures very well where they're over there and that was all because
00:28:40.100 the day before and even even the generals were kind of like well we and i said no you you guys did the
00:28:45.800 neo because you saw the taliban right there it wasn't you know for any other reason that they were he was
00:28:51.320 scared and that's why he did it and if it had been done months earlier i mean actually the whole thing
00:28:58.740 should have been done at the beginning per the doha agreement i mean all the liberals say oh well
00:29:04.580 don't forget the doha agreement it's so frustrating and i'm glad this last time we went to um
00:29:10.740 and we heard these senate hearings with uh the two generals you know mccall uh um mckenzie and
00:29:19.500 and miley finally meeks because every time that guy is like well don't forget you know yeah we we
00:29:27.160 we appreciate the service and the sacrifice and and we're not pointing but don't forget
00:29:31.740 who initiated the doha agreement they always have to do that little jab and i'm here to tell you i
00:29:37.700 don't think anyone knows anything about afghanistan better than any of these parents you're right he
00:29:42.600 should have followed the doha agreement that would have been that we wouldn't have had this catastrophe
00:29:46.940 so you show up at the state of the union a couple weeks ago do you plan to yell out your son's name
00:30:01.820 i wouldn't say really planned um i you know we we got the opportunity that there were other tickets
00:30:10.600 other other members had given it to us and um i wouldn't you know i'm sure i had said this of
00:30:19.000 people yeah but uh i'm gonna say something if this guy doesn't say anything but when you're there in
00:30:24.340 the greatest country of the world with the most powerful people i was scared like i was scared
00:30:30.220 you know am i gonna get killed am i gonna commit suicide tomorrow because of this you know who knows
00:30:35.760 right and uh so no at that time i was just in in serious prayer you know i was like praying to
00:30:42.400 the lord you know humble me soften my heart you know let let your will be done you know and to be
00:30:48.180 honest with you when i stood up when i just heard him say something about kids at some point he was
00:30:54.180 talking about kids and then he said something about being safe and i just stood up and i didn't even i
00:30:59.960 didn't even like the holy spirit like god in me and stood up and i don't know if you ever had
00:31:05.080 anything like that happen but like the effects of that had had affected me for weeks afterwards you
00:31:11.900 know like what what really happened there and when i stood up and i said the the first thing i said
00:31:17.740 i kind of realized i had said it and i paused i was like uh-oh what did i do you know and then i said
00:31:24.840 you know united states marines and i said his name and i said you know second battalion first marines
00:31:30.600 but i don't even remember saying any of that like i don't even remember saying any of that you know
00:31:36.080 it just kind of came out and if i could back up to why i had went earlier i was talking about that
00:31:42.060 first state of the union and i got these reporter you know and i felt bad for him and i wanted help
00:31:46.960 and i said all right well look what i'll do is my lunch break i got an hour lunch break on my lunch
00:31:51.840 break i'm gonna watch a state of the union so that i'll be able to answer appropriately for your
00:31:58.240 interview that that you want me to do he's all right so i watched his interview or i watched
00:32:03.300 the state of the union the first one and at like 56 minutes he brings up afghanistan
00:32:08.720 and he did the exact same thing that he always does he says okay you know we're never gonna
00:32:13.900 you know the the heroes that we didn't even say 13 and then one lady in the audience she's like 13 of
00:32:20.540 him i think it was bobbit or bobbit or yes and she said something now and i was i got goosebumps but
00:32:28.620 he then did the same thing he went right into bow he ran right into his son and he said the existential
00:32:34.840 threat to the military is the burning of diesel fuel in pits because that's i think how bow got his
00:32:42.960 cancer and i was just like crying i was so devastated like once i i was for more than the
00:32:50.860 fact that like when this happens like like i said like all these cockroaches come out of the woodworks
00:32:55.980 like every media you know they want you know people i'm selling this oh we love you and this i didn't get
00:33:02.140 involved in any of it but i had seen that this was happening all over yes with a lot of people
00:33:08.080 and um so so a part of me was upset that i had watched this all right so i'm devastated i'm
00:33:18.020 devastated like like this what this president had just done and how he had turned it again i mean
00:33:22.920 can't even say the kids his name if he would have said 13 names at that state of the union we wouldn't
00:33:27.700 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
00:33:35.380 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
00:33:40.560 oh hey mr nakui yeah we're not going to do the interview because we got mark schmitz to do it
00:33:45.360 and i was just like wow like in my heart you know here i watched this i didn't want to do it i did it
00:33:54.860 because i wanted to help him because he said we we have to fill in a slot um and none of the other
00:33:59.860 parents can do it then i agree to it i watched this i get affected by it the only the only saving
00:34:06.440 grace i have is like all right i'll get be able to vent something in this interview yes and then the
00:34:11.620 guy's like no we're gonna do it because we have one of the other parents and i was like crying even
00:34:17.180 harder and and so i've had to deal with that for three years with you know my god with my lord
00:34:22.840 um praying you know like hey lord you know
00:34:27.980 humble me from this soften my heart from it you know like whatever so when the opportunity came
00:34:36.580 to go to the state of the union i'll be honest with you
00:34:40.460 there is no way i was going to leave that state of union without my kid's name being said
00:34:47.460 you know and and i feel like and and but at first i thought that they would say something so i felt
00:34:55.260 like it was the lord telling me like here you know your reward for being patient and faithful for three
00:35:00.400 years i'm gonna i'm gonna bless you with this you understand what i'm saying and then it didn't
00:35:05.560 happen you know it's like it didn't happen and i was i was able to see my other the other parents
00:35:12.300 i was i found them in the crowds you know where they were at and just the way that they were looking
00:35:18.220 the despair and the the sadness that they had at that state of the union everyone was slumped over
00:35:24.780 just kind of devastated you know and uh another thing i was like concerned like like the state you
00:35:33.180 would think that the speaker of the house would have the best seats right like all right well these
00:35:37.600 two families are getting the speaker of the house and i was i remember praying the lord like
00:35:42.040 lord you know why don't i have those seats you know why don't i have the best seats i'm thinking
00:35:48.660 i don't know that they are and then mccall gives up one of his seats you know and he's the head of
00:35:53.720 the chairman right so um whoever got that say i'm oh lord why didn't i get that seat you know and
00:36:01.120 that's all right thank you for the seats that you give i don't even know where my seats are but i'm
00:36:04.560 just assuming you know that's how people they do you know we do this we we do our own assumptions
00:36:09.300 as it turns out the seats i got were like right directly like i was watching the president like
00:36:15.920 you know um right in front of him like right where he comes out of that tunnel i was sitting
00:36:23.200 right above there so the lord had given me like the best seats in the whole world and like for the
00:36:28.500 last two weeks i'm like oh lord you didn't give me you know i don't even know what the seats are but
00:36:32.700 i'm assuming that they're the worst and and a lot of this has happened me in in the course of of of
00:36:38.940 this you know by being patient i feel like the lord has blessed me and these these are the little
00:36:43.740 blessings that i need i don't need any praise i don't i don't want to put anything on facebook and
00:36:48.660 then read those comments oh god bless you you're so awesome and um none of that so what happened
00:36:55.040 after so you called out your son's name and said abby gate and then what happened yeah so then um
00:37:02.160 those there was these two young men and they came and kind of grabbed me and uh escorted me up who were
00:37:11.060 they so i guess they were the capital police but they were in like suits so they weren't they weren't
00:37:17.720 dressed in police uniforms or anything like that and you know they escorted me into the hallway
00:37:26.140 and then at that time the guy that was telling you that's been with us from the beginning marlin he
00:37:30.980 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
00:37:39.460 um then i was like when i seen him turn the corner like around gallery six and i saw his expression
00:37:49.340 then i was nervous you know i was like oh you know i'm in trouble and uh yeah so they they frisked me
00:37:56.980 uh he tried to say oh release them to me you know release it they're like no you know you're getting
00:38:01.960 them and i had my bible with me but it was locked in one of the things and i had they give you a ticket
00:38:06.880 and i kept telling him hey marlin get my bible get my bible i want him to grab my ticket out of my
00:38:12.160 pocket to go and get my bio but he doesn't he doesn't want to touch me because i'm detained
00:38:17.080 right you being held by the oh yeah they had me back here and and they cuff you not yet they they
00:38:23.940 you know what yeah they cuffed me they cuffed me right there in the hallway and they knew i was a gold
00:38:28.540 star dad too because he had told them he's all hey he's a gold star dad you know and there was a
00:38:34.020 reporter who after she said that after he said that she said sir why did you do what you did
00:38:39.760 and marlin was all please please ma'am you know he's a gold star dad can and told her whatever so
00:38:45.800 they had known at first i thought they didn't know i thought that they i was just you know a guy that
00:38:51.680 talks out but they knew and so then they took me down to the basement and they did how did they treat
00:38:56.620 you i would they're pretty good yeah very nice yeah were you handcuffed as they led you to the
00:39:03.020 basement yeah yeah they handcuffed me so i knew i was going to to jail because they handcuffed me and
00:39:10.960 then they took me downstairs they did an extensive um search and then they had their uh some new kids
00:39:18.980 that had never done searches so they used me to to practice their searches so i got searched by like
00:39:24.400 three different people did anyone explain why you were being handcuffed and arrested
00:39:28.460 in search for saying your son's name no no no that wasn't until i got back to the capitol police
00:39:34.920 but um at the capitol police they asked uh you know they i turned in all my stuff they they take it
00:39:44.080 and um the two the one of the boys that was just in his his his suit was asking me questions like you
00:39:52.280 you know my my name and everything and then afterwards secret service and another guy from
00:39:58.000 capitol police come in and then they read me my miranda rights and asked me if i wanted to talk to
00:40:04.500 him and and let me know that look you know you'll probably be out of here in an hour um it's fifty
00:40:11.320 dollars and you know do you want to talk to us and i said yeah i'll i'll talk to you what do they ask
00:40:17.140 you so he asked me so the one gentleman that wasn't that worked for capitol police asked me why
00:40:22.860 i had done what i did and so i'm crying you know i'm telling them and both of these kids
00:40:28.880 um were service members ex-service members i think he was a soldier and the secret service guy i think
00:40:37.060 he was in the air force and uh so i was telling them you know my story you know like hey this guy's
00:40:44.420 never said my kid's name i lost my kid in afghanistan and you know i'm really emotional you
00:40:49.920 know but that capitol policeman he kept every five minutes he would say kareem would just look at me
00:40:59.780 and say my kid's name and he would tell me i'll never forget you know like every five minutes he
00:41:04.820 would just say this to me and uh to come for you yeah good man yeah i was a great man then
00:41:11.720 you know asked me hey have you gotten any help i'm like no i don't need any help i'm just right
00:41:18.700 now you know i'm feeling this way and then um
00:41:22.460 he had told me that uh he had told me that um
00:41:29.480 well we you know if you say something and then we tell you to be quiet and then you don't then we
00:41:37.280 arrest you again then we arrest you and i said well nobody ever told me to be quiet you know i
00:41:42.840 never i never was afforded that opportunity and then he left and then they asked me more questions
00:41:49.580 the other kid when the suit you know just basic questions um sex weight and stuff like this and
00:41:56.060 then he came back and he said that again and then he said well there's two ways like we can ask you
00:42:01.900 and then ask you again and arrest you or we can just arrest you and he's all you don't want to be
00:42:09.760 that because that's a felony so i felt like he was kind of throwing me a bone you know like and i kind
00:42:15.320 of picked up on that and i was all all right you know i i appreciate that yeah i guess um they did
00:42:21.960 tell me when did they let you go so what happened was was that you know as we're talking and he's
00:42:27.760 telling me this stuff he says the congressman is outside so we i was invited by congressman
00:42:32.720 brian mast and brian mast bailed me out of jail like was there and he's all the congressman's right
00:42:40.860 outside the door and i felt like like a million dollars because i knew like all right i'm all right
00:42:48.640 now you know i mean i've got the congressman you know to help me um and so yeah he he got me out
00:42:56.060 and walked me and had met you know had met him we've met him several times he's there's only you
00:43:03.900 know there's there's four congressmen that i call the four horsemen and they're military men so they
00:43:10.400 understand it's isa mills mast and waltz and then they're all led by um um the the chairman michael
00:43:19.680 mccall so he he's he's the chair of the house of foreign affairs and he's the one that's able to bring
00:43:25.780 these hearings and then these guys are just you know they're the ones that we're telling our stories
00:43:32.020 to and they're helping do whatever they do in washington to get get the message out so the fact
00:43:38.660 that he was there meant a lot to me like like all right you know i'm not so because to be honest with
00:43:45.440 you from what i see on tv you know yeah hey she can't we love you but the next day i'll be on my own
00:43:51.600 this is my i'm thinking you know i'm like yeah i'm gonna be all by myself you know this is great
00:43:55.920 for tonight but come the 28th when i've got to go to court i'm gonna be by myself but the fact that he
00:44:03.280 was there and you know he's a man of god and we prayed before i don't know if we prayed before but
00:44:10.920 we talked about like what we're talking about in our in our the the spiritual you know road that
00:44:20.180 that i've taken with my son and uh it was i was just really blessed that he was there and he got
00:44:28.380 me out and then when i got out um you know isa waltz all of them we're not gonna let anything happen
00:44:35.740 you you know we're gonna stand by and even they telling me this i still felt like oh a week from
00:44:41.880 now i'm gonna be by myself you know i never really had any you know true belief like hey these guys are
00:44:49.040 gonna be here till the end but they were i mean every couple days they would they would do what
00:44:53.760 they have to do and and from what i understand um they found out that because their gavel wasn't hit
00:45:00.100 that i didn't i didn't obstruct congress so the fact that and mike johnson helped that so ken calvert
00:45:07.280 mike johnson um waltz and um they're all isa and to some extent mast and mills they you know
00:45:15.720 helped to get this out like hey he didn't he didn't obstruct anything because the gavel wasn't hit
00:45:20.740 what's your life been like at home since your son died yeah so yeah the my personal life has been
00:45:36.060 very bad it's better now but you know at the beginning when this first happened was was just
00:45:45.360 devastating i didn't really have a home where i could recuperate from this you know my son and i
00:45:53.280 you know kareem's real best friend was his little brother steven and he was like 15 when this happened
00:45:58.880 and uh so i just said focus i'm focusing on him like you know he's and he's so strong and so brave
00:46:06.820 you know he's uh he was 15 when his brother was killed he's 15 and they were best friends and um
00:46:14.960 man he's a rock you know you know kareem was a uh brazilian jiu-jitsu champion steven is one
00:46:22.400 uh they they wanted to be in mma and fighting so they're not they're not um they're not weak in that
00:46:33.060 aspect but you know they're very compassionate to the underdog they're very quiet um you know kareem
00:46:41.040 was a little guy growing up so he sometimes would be bullied and that that was one of my concern when
00:46:47.580 he started to learn how to fight you know i was like hey you know i don't ever want to hear that
00:46:53.380 you're bullying anyone or you're doing any of this and and luckily that never happened you know um
00:46:58.980 he was always compassionate to the underdog and and and the people that couldn't speak for themselves
00:47:05.400 so you know our home life was just it was just chaotic for the first year and but but i think maybe
00:47:16.940 the lord had that happen to keep me from
00:47:20.840 ruining myself to understand what i'm saying like all that probably happened just so i wouldn't
00:47:30.480 ruin whatever you know i just i just went in my room and and just focused on the little things you
00:47:38.400 know my son and and whatever i could and because there's a there's a lot of oh we want to do this
00:47:45.320 for your kid and we want this interview and and this and that and for me to mitigate like how could
00:47:54.000 how could these parents not like feel some sort of like pride or something after all this right
00:47:59.960 and i remember telling my kids look you know be careful how you deal with this because it won't
00:48:06.360 always be there and then you're going to resent the fact that it's not there that's right and don't
00:48:10.980 forget there's tens of thousands of service members who died that don't have you know
00:48:16.740 shootery boards at their front doorstep with a knock i mean there it was just insane stuff at your
00:48:22.940 front door cards we love you money um checks you understand and and every check every cash ever got
00:48:31.140 i still have it so i never spent any of that and i and every card that we got i not probably every one
00:48:37.940 of them because it was just too much but i wrote you know back to them i remember telling my kids hey
00:48:45.220 you know watch out how you how you process this and what you do with it because um it's gonna ruin you
00:48:53.200 in your faith um another thing um that that two other things today is our anniversary where my sons and
00:49:02.320 i got uh baptized we got baptized on uh march 26 2017 and we got baptized together in the same pool
00:49:14.680 and uh in the year so the other thing is is that like when you lose someone like when i lost my mom i
00:49:23.200 lost my dad within a week like if they died on a thursday next thursday you'd bury them and and that was
00:49:28.460 it you know i mean you start trying to put your life together and this situation didn't really
00:49:35.040 happen i mean it was like five weeks they brought back his body and you know things come up certain
00:49:43.500 little things would come up like i know that they had the uh um and when these things come up you kind
00:49:50.400 of focus towards that so you repress your feelings and everything for this one event right and you're like
00:49:56.400 okay well this event's coming up and i'm gonna i'm focusing on that and one of the events we had
00:50:02.180 in november was the um the memorial at camp pendleton now since he was he lived we live like 45 minutes
00:50:11.460 from camp pendleton he came home every weekend so the only time i never seen him was when he actually
00:50:16.560 deployed you know and he'd bring his marine friends home with them and i felt bad because some of them
00:50:22.740 lived in iowa there was no way they could see their family so if we could give them a weekend
00:50:27.660 where they felt at home then i was all for that you know it was kind of like around covid so we were
00:50:35.520 cooking breakfast and couldn't really go to church and i had the uh sometimes i'd have the tv on uh with
00:50:44.380 our preacher our pastor and they'd play games and they'd do whatever you know and my son would take
00:50:52.700 them on hikes and they would drink on fridays you know whatever they however they had their own mind
00:50:59.480 you know they were able to do it at our house and i was i was blessed that that we could provide that
00:51:05.100 for them and so we had this memorial for the marines right and um you know i never did any interviews
00:51:12.580 or anything i didn't want to be i didn't that wasn't right for me and um so i focused all my
00:51:21.480 heart towards this memorial which was in november and surpassed all my feelings and everything and
00:51:27.580 and well i'm just going to focus on on that part and we went to the memorial and it was beautiful and
00:51:32.860 they had the missing man formation with the helicopters that went over the the mountain where
00:51:38.840 he would hike over there in camp pendleton and then and that i think that was either on a thursday or
00:51:44.100 friday and then on that sunday i just i felt like a lot of remorse i felt like grief you know and for
00:51:54.260 me but my religion which is christian isn't you know for me to i felt like for me to display
00:52:03.160 grief is me saying i don't believe in the lord you know is that weird i don't know and
00:52:11.960 so i'd never really just had any grief i'd never had any sorrow except for that day i remember i was
00:52:20.740 in my master bedroom and it was the sunday and there was nothing else to look look forward to there
00:52:27.500 was no other event that was the last event and i remember just like
00:52:33.020 feeling you know immense grief sorrow and i was like lord why and i'm looking out at the mountains
00:52:41.880 that he would put weights in his rucksack and hike and i was like lord you know why do i have this
00:52:48.760 feeling you know why do i have this why why am i feeling this way and then he said hey the holy
00:52:55.120 spirit or the lord told me hey look at the day that you went to harvest festival so harvest festival
00:53:02.300 so we gave our lives to jesus christ together all right in this place and in in angel stadium
00:53:08.180 um by a fellow named uh greg lorry who does the same thing that um um i forgot his name but
00:53:18.980 evangelical in the 70s billy graham billy graham would do the same thing so they'd go to these
00:53:25.280 stadiums they'd preach the gospel and you had an opportunity to give your life to jesus christ there
00:53:30.560 and a lot of people did this and in billy graham's um things he's doing the same thing he's been doing
00:53:36.040 it for like 20 years so if i could just go back in like 2015 i realized that my kids didn't have the
00:53:44.260 same faith like like i did you know like yeah i said you need to be christian and once in a while
00:53:50.160 i would say but i didn't lead and i didn't tell them about so my kids were already older you know
00:53:56.900 so i didn't have a i didn't have an opportunity to indoctrinate them when they were younger these are
00:54:01.040 teenage boys and i was praying you know lord please you know i failed you know give me an opportunity
00:54:07.400 and he did you know uh kareem started asking about a church and like um in 2015 we started going
00:54:15.700 and i knew that i could tell them hey you got to do this but they i had to change you know i had to
00:54:22.320 make an a concerted effort to make a change and be sincere with the faith so that they would follow
00:54:29.960 because i can't just tell them something you know i have to lead by example and so that transformation
00:54:34.980 happened it took a year or something and the the pastor was like hey you know um they're you know
00:54:42.360 greg lori is having this thing down there and we we encourage everyone to go so i'm thinking lord this
00:54:49.300 is our opportunity thank you you know and they're that we're going to church every weekend me and my
00:54:54.000 sons every sunday and we're working through i'm working through the different things and and being
00:55:00.220 real with them you know ties you know how do you deal with ties right like at first i was like i'm
00:55:06.340 not giving them any money you know and and uh my pastor had said something at the time he's all like
00:55:12.860 well do you guys like in this weeks later he had said well do you guys like air conditioning and that
00:55:17.620 just i realized like my ties are for the air conditioning and it made me so i made a point to
00:55:23.720 yeah i talked bad about the ties before i'm gonna make a point to show my kids that look i've i've
00:55:30.520 changed i realized and we're gonna start giving ties so the boys i would give them their money so that
00:55:35.940 they would know to give ties so every sunday we would be given our ties and that's just an example
00:55:40.980 of how we work through some of the obstacles in our faith you know and and we're real about it you
00:55:47.320 know we weren't just saying it we were acting upon it and um so we went to gray glories and we all gave
00:55:57.460 our lives to jesus christ you know steven shiler steven uh kareem me and shanna we all gave our lives
00:56:05.300 to jesus and um and i felt blessed you know i was like wow like this doesn't happen you know i mean
00:56:12.940 who gets this opportunity i failed and then but i prayed for a solid year you know please lord please
00:56:20.000 and just such a blessing and then from that blessing you know we were we always went to church you know
00:56:26.420 it was it was became part of our background and me telling and preaching to the boys you know
00:56:32.460 you know about the gospel as well as our our pastor and then fast forward to that time when i was right
00:56:39.920 right after the um right after the camp pendleton memorial the lord and i'm looking out in the
00:56:49.220 backyard and i'm feeling grief and i'm just feeling horrible you know the first time in like eight
00:56:54.020 months or whatever and i'm like why do i feel this way you know i i you know and the lord said hey steve
00:57:01.380 look at when you went to harvest that's the that's what it's called and we only went on fridays
00:57:08.800 because uh sunday would be people wouldn't go to church so they'd go saturday same thing but friday
00:57:16.820 would be after work so i just knew like hey we we went to the first time we went was on friday and then
00:57:21.380 every other time we went on fridays so i knew that it was on a friday and i googled you know when was
00:57:28.020 when was the harvest festival and it was august 26 of 2017 which is five years to the day
00:57:38.520 and like i got goosebumps and like all my grief went away and it just let me know that the lord
00:57:45.800 had planned this for me and and that was verification you know that on august 26 2016
00:57:54.720 we gave our lives to jesus christ and on august 26 2021 he took my son
00:58:01.820 and that was uh that's pretty powerful you know to let me know you know and that was just for me
00:58:10.820 like we had done some events where you know they had honored and greg lorry had done um
00:58:17.080 that year had done his harvest festival and honored my son and he only had one that year was october
00:58:23.460 third or fifth because of covid and they had done a big page thing and they honored my son
00:58:29.460 and uh um and he didn't know this otherwise he would have been all over it you know everybody
00:58:34.560 would have been all over that uh i would assume but that was just for me that was just for me you know
00:58:41.060 that the lord told me that like to let me know that you just gotta show up you just gotta show up
00:58:48.900 and i'll take care of everything else
00:58:50.360 i appreciate you taking all this time thank you i know it's hard but i appreciate you thank you thank
00:58:58.900 thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you
00:59:10.360 Thank you
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00:59:16.060 Mr. Director St. 872 Radio Weons
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00:59:24.140 And thank you
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