Category: Camera phone
‘Humiliation ritual’: What the FBI did to this whistleblower should terrify EVERY American
Telling the truth inside the federal government now comes with a price — and Steve Friend has paid it over and over again.
“I received news right before Christmas that you had been fired by the FBI,” BlazeTV host Steve Deace tells Steve Friend on the “Steve Deace Show.”
It all started when Friend was assigned to what he calls “the most important, highest-priority case in the history of the FBI” — January 6. This ultimately led to Friend becoming a whistleblower in 2022 when he saw the way the government was weaponizing the law to go after American citizens.
“What I found was that so few people who are currently in the employ of our federal government, in the employ of the FBI, were willing to actually stand by my side when I brought forward my concerns,” Friend tells Deace.
“And that resulted in my ultimate suspension and eventually having my security clearance suspended and permanently revoked,” he explains.
While Friend was promised that things would be different under the Trump administration, it hasn’t changed — and has ended in his termination from the FBI.
“I get a phone call Sunday night, December 7, from the FBI that says I am to report to work the following day. And I did. I reported to work Monday, December 8,” Friend tells Deace. “Was actually driven to Jacksonville. I was not the recipient of a gun because I didn’t have an active security clearance.”
“The FBI, in fact, told me they couldn’t assign me any work, and I had to be escorted around like a prisoner through the facility because they couldn’t allow me to have unfettered access to their facility. I didn’t have access to a computer, a cell phone,” he continues, noting that he did receive credentials and went to work the next few days.
“I had no insurance information, no back pay, and finally was told, ‘You have 400 hours of vacation time. Feel free to use it,’” he adds.
When Friend decided to use the vacation time to take his wife to Tampa for a Christmas event, he got a call asking him to come back to the office — to which he responded that he was out of pocket and couldn’t be there.
“They said, ‘Okay, come back on Monday.’ An hour later, got a text message from Caitlin Doornbos, a journalist from the New York Post, that said she was working on a story about the FBI planning to fire me and wanted a comment,” he tells Deace.
“So, apparently, the plan was in that they were going to bring me back as a sort of humiliation ritual to fire me, but they didn’t execute it properly because they leaked it to the media to besmirch my reputation before they had actually fired me,” he says.
“Wound up getting a termination letter signed, autographed by Kash Patel himself dismissing me as an FBI agent,” he continues, adding, “and then 90 minutes later, the New York Post dropped their story, and then MAGA Inc. influencer crowd went to work to try to besmirch me and say that I had issued some sort of a veiled threat to the director but somehow got a credential and badge 72 hours later.”
Want more from Steve Deace?
To enjoy more of Steve’s take on national politics, Christian worldview, and principled conservatism with a snarky twist, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.
Racial double standard? White QB under fire for snubbing female reporter
ESPN sideline reporter Laura Rutledge went viral this past December when she had to press Chargers quarterback Justin Herbert to answer her postgame questions — and BlazeTV host Jason Whitlock is impressed with her refusal to give up.
Herbert initially brushed off the reporter when she approached him, saying, “I’m trying to celebrate with my team.”
Rutledge wouldn’t take no for an answer and pressed him further, eventually pulling some answers out of the quarterback.
“Steve, I know you’ve covered a lot of sporting events. Have you ever seen that level of rudeness directed at a reporter? I just, that was incredible. She deserves a Purple Heart,” Whitlock asks BlazeTV contributor Steve Kim on “Fearless.”
“I have a question for those who were coming out and piling on Justin Herbert, who probably played the most physically taxing game I’ve seen any quarterback [play] this year. He’s probably banged up. He’s probably drugged up with all the pharmaceuticals, right, to get him out there,” Kim says.
“If that was a black quarterback, would those people dare have the same type of words for Justin Herbert like they would, let’s say its Lamar Jackson, and I’m just using him in this example,” he continues.
“I think Justin Herbert, being a white quarterback, it takes off some of the restrictions in terms of criticizing that particular athlete. I believe that Justin Herbert was banged up. He really doesn’t feel like talking, but at the end he said, ‘You know what? This is my job, I did it,’” he adds.
Whitlock sees both sides.
“I don’t blame her for not following protocol; as a reporter, that’s not what you do. Overtime game, it’s decided late, there’s an interception, and then you just go into scramble mode, and you just do what’s necessary to get the job done,” Whitlock chimes in.
Want more from Jason Whitlock?
To enjoy more fearless conversations at the crossroads of culture, faith, sports, and comedy with Jason Whitlock, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.
Tim Walz ‘blames everybody but himself’ for Somali fraud — especially ‘right-wing conspiracy theorists’
Less than four months after announcing his re-election campaign, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D) has had a major change of heart.
“This is really, really sad news that Tampon Tim Walz announced this morning that he is dropping out of the 2026 Minnesota gubernatorial race,” BlazeTV host Sara Gonzales comments on “Sara Gonzales Unfiltered.”
“Tim Walz is out. He’s out in 2026. And he actually is out in large part due to Nick Shirley, a YouTuber who exposed a rampant Somalian fraud that is happening in Minnesota. And I don’t want to call him a random YouTuber guy to discredit him,” she continues.
“He heard about the fraud that was happening in Minnesota. He went out there. He had a guy that gave him all of this research of all of the fraudulent day care centers that are stealing millions of taxpayer dollars,” she says.
In videos posted to YouTube and social media, Shirley knocks on the doors of these Somali day cares and asks if he can speak to someone about his son potentially attending. Each time, he’s either shooed away or told that his son cannot attend the empty day care.
“So Tim Walz has some explaining to do. And instead of that, in his announcement, he blames everybody but himself actually. He said, ‘We’ve got conspiracy theorist right-wing YouTubers breaking into day care centers … and demanding access to our children,’” Gonzales comments, shocked.
Walz went on to claim that President Trump is demonizing “our Somali neighbors” and “wrongly confiscating childcare funding that Minnesotans rely on.”
“I came to the conclusion that I can’t give a political campaign my all. Every minute I spend defending my own political interests would be a minute I can’t spend defending the people of Minnesota against the criminals who prey on our generosity and the cynics who prey on our differences,” Walz added.
“So he’s actually saying, ‘No, no, no, no, no. It’s your fault. And actually, the criminals are the victims,’ is what Tim Walz is saying,” Gonzales says.
“I would highly encourage people to continue finding all of this fraud that is happening and connecting all of the dots because I feel like it’s a pretty good bet that it can all be connected to Ilhan Omar and Tim Walz,” she continues, adding, “And by the way, Tim Walz should have been gone a long time ago.”
Want more from Sara Gonzales?
To enjoy more of Sara’s no-holds-barred takes on news and culture, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.
Why the Somali day-care journalist fears arrest in the UK
Journalist Nick Shirley’s name is on the tip of everyone’s tongues after his massive exposé of Somalian day-care fraud plaguing the taxpayers of Minnesota under Tim Walz’s watch — but that’s not the only event he’s covered.
“I’ve spent a lot of time in London,” Shirley tells BlazeTV host John Doyle at AmFest.
“I’ve been to a few of the marches that have been held there. I originally went there just to see what was happening cause I’ve heard of illegal immigration — or mass migration, not even illegal, because a lot of their immigration is legal — but how mass migration has shifted London,” he explains.
“Do you have to worry at all while you’re over there getting that kind of content that, like, the police are going to arrest you for hate speech or something?” Doyle asks.
“Yeah, that’s the thing that’s interesting about being in London. You don’t have to worry about being attacked per se. You have to worry about being arrested for the videos you make inside of London. So, I always film, and then I post them once I get out of London,” Shirley says.
And recently, Shirley has been impressed with the amount of people who have been taking to the streets to protest censorship or mass migration.
“They had, like, over a million people out in the streets of London. That was pretty incredible just to see how many people are actually very, not as much interested, but more so impacted by what’s happening in their country that a million people came out to support,” he explains.
This protest in particular was about both free speech and mass migration.
“Were people more or less happy to see an American over there in support of them?” Doyle asks.
“Very much so, because they say that if it wasn’t for Donald Trump, who knows what would happen with the West,” Shirley says.
“They feel a lot more safe, and they feel like their country is going to be in a lot better position,” he continues, “because Trump does stand for Western values, and he doesn’t want to see these other countries get diminished.”
Want more from John Doyle?
To enjoy more of the truth about America and join the fight to restore a country that has been betrayed by its own leaders, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.
Glenn Beck: Why Trump’s capture of Maduro IS ‘America First’
President Donald Trump’s capture of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has shocked the world, but Blaze Media co-founder Glenn Beck believes that Trump’s true motive is much bigger than the speculation surrounding it.
“I want to give you a completely, I think, different perspective on what happened in Venezuela. Let me just say this: It is not about the oil. It’s not about drugs. It’s not about terrorism. It’s not about China. It’s not about communism, Marxism, or socialism,” Glenn says. “It’s about all of those things.”
“So, if anybody tells you that this is really all about the oil, just listen to them, because they might have a very good point on the oil thing, and go, ‘OK, well, that’s cute.’ But that’s not all it’s about,” he continues.
What Glenn believes Trump is really doing with this move is “playing to win.”
“And I mean win all of it. Never have I seen this before. Donald Trump has been saying, ‘America First,’ ‘America First’ his entire life. It hasn’t been a slogan. … It’s his worldview, and it always has been,” Glenn says.
“This is truly about who sets the table and the agenda for the next 100 years. Who’s it going to be? A global government, the Chinese government, AI, some technocratic government, or the American government?” he continues, pointing out that Trump’s latest move is making it much more likely that the ruler will be the last on that list.
“We’re going to look back at this time, assuming that it works, and we’re going to say, ‘That was brilliant.’ Do you know that because of Venezuela, we don’t need the oil? I’m going to get into this here in a second. We don’t need the oil,” Glenn says.
“Do you know that this is the first time since FDR that the world’s resources are now back under American, not control, but in friendly territory, that we’re the ones that dominate not just our oil but the resources?” he continues.
“It wasn’t like that two years ago. A year ago, it wasn’t like that,” he adds.
Want more from Glenn Beck?
To enjoy more of Glenn’s masterful storytelling, thought-provoking analysis, and uncanny ability to make sense of the chaos, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.
Will Trump’s unconventional plan to stop the UN climate elites work?
When President Trump boycotted the U.N. climate summit, many Americans who aren’t buying the elites’ climate fearmongering were pleased, hopeful that Trump’s move might weaken the globalist plans.
But after the global elites appeared to use the president’s absence to push extreme climate policies, some are wondering if the president could have made a mistake.
“We’ve got Trump in the White House, and of course he actually boycotted the summit. We reached out to the State Department. They told us they deliberately chose not to send anybody. So there was no U.S. delegation for the first time in 30 years of these, and that made for a very interesting situation,” journalist Alex Newman tells Blaze Media co-founder Glenn Beck.
“And you know, a lot of Americans thought that was great. Hooray. And a lot of the climate skeptics also thought so. But some of the globalists at the U.N. conference also said, ‘Hey, this is a great opportunity, because the United States is still involved in the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change, but they’re not here to obstruct passage of an ambitious deal,’” Newman explains.
“‘So let’s do some great stuff, and then when Trump is gone in three and a half years, we’ll impose that on Americans,’” he adds.
And the agreement they passed without Trump’s presence included “mention of a carbon budget.”
“They claim that four-fifths of the CO2 that humans can be allowed to emit has already been emitted,” Newman tells Glenn.
“I think the strategy for these people, Glenn, is ‘Hey, we’ve got Trump for three and a half more years. Let’s just keep our heads down. We know that he doesn’t believe us. We know that the American people don’t believe us. So let’s just not talk about it too loudly,’” he adds.
“So was this a mistake by not showing up?” Glenn asks.
“I don’t know,” Newman answers. “I know some of the people down at the U.N. summit thought this was a good opportunity for them, but you know, Trump’s not done.”
“I’ve spoken with people at EPA; I’ve spoke with people at the State Department, who have said that they are seriously considering the possibility of withdrawing from the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change,” he continues.
“We have to,” Glenn interjects.
“Yeah, that seems like a no-brainer. … In fact, before he went into the White House, he said one of the top priorities for the MAGA movement and the United States needs to be to decisively crush this climate hysteria hoax,” Newman says, adding, “So he’s really serious about it.”
Want more from Glenn Beck?
To enjoy more of Glenn’s masterful storytelling, thought-provoking analysis, and uncanny ability to make sense of the chaos, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.
White House reporter REVEALS the true story behind Trump’s ‘Biden-autopen portrait’
When the White House unveiled the Presidential Walk of Fame, which features a portrait of former President Joe Biden replaced with the image of an autopen, one reporter was especially excited to see it.
“Every time I walk by it, I laugh to myself because I helped the president decide whether or not he should hang that photo of the autopen in Joe Biden’s spot,” Daily Caller White House correspondent Reagan Reese told BlazeTV host John Doyle at AmFest.
“I interviewed the president in August. I sat down with him for an hour in the Oval Office, and in the middle of the interview, he says, ‘Have you seen the work I’m doing in the Rose Garden?’ I’m like, ‘No, Mr. President, I haven’t,’” she continues.
That’s when the president decided to show her.
“I walk out to the Rose Garden with him, and he’s showing me everything, and we walk back inside and he has assistants on hand, and he says to them, you know, ‘Go show Reagan the portraits; get Reagan the portraits,’” she tells Doyle.
“So in walk his assistants, and they have these giant gold frames, and it’s George Washington, it’s Abraham Lincoln, it’s Ronald Reagan, who I told the president I’m named after. And I say, ‘Mr. President, are you going to hang Joe Biden’s portrait?’ And he was like, ‘All right, show her,’” she explains.
The president then had his assistants show her the photo of the autopen.
“He’s like, ‘I want to hang this photo in the place of Joe Biden’s portrait. Do you think I should do it?’ And I was like, ‘I think it would be very you, sir. I think you have to do it,’” she recalls.
“And he was like, ‘I think I will,’” she adds.
Want more from John Doyle?
To enjoy more of the truth about America and join the fight to restore a country that has been betrayed by its own leaders, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.
Autism isn’t a superpower — or a dead-end: A story of tough love
In the modern world, a diagnosis is often worn as if it’s a badge of honor.
But not everyone sees it that way. And Leland Vittert, an American journalist and anchor for NewsNation, certainly doesn’t.
Vittert, who is diagnosed with autism, tells BlazeTV host Allie Beth Stuckey that the adversity his diagnosis caused him did not hold him back, but rather helped him become the successful journalist and reporter he is today.
Vittert didn’t speak until he was “well past 3,” and he had “lots and lots of problems in typical school.”
“If a kid touched me or looked at me the wrong way or whatever, I’d turn around and slug them,” he tells Stuckey, explaining he was “pretty aggressive” and had “big sensory issues.”
“Dad’s idea was to hold my hand through the adversity. And I think what he realized was that I was going to face that adversity later in life, which I did. … I had to learn how to adapt and how to interact with the world as the way the world interacted, not as the way I wanted to interact with it,” he explains.
And it was a struggle, he tells Stuckey, noting that he “couldn’t figure out how to relate to people emotionally the way they were emotionally.”
“I couldn’t figure out how to, you know, read a room, when to stop talking. All of these things I was going to have to learn,” he says. “And if you’re put in bubble wrap and told how wonderful you are all the time, you’re never going to learn that, right?”
That’s when Vittert’s father decided to prioritize self-esteem.
“So, when I was 5 or 6 years old, I was doing 200 push-ups a night. And after a couple months of doing that, you get some kind of reward. But my dad wanted to teach me that self-esteem is earned, not given, which is a very different philosophy, I think, than what we see now,” he tells Stuckey.
After self-esteem, Vittert’s father prioritized teaching him “how the world works socially.”
“So, my dad started spending hundreds of hours with me. Thousands of hours. Still is my best friend. … We’re recording this a little before noon, and I’ve already talked to him, I think, three times today,” he tells Stuckey.
“So, he would then take me out to lunch, and we’d go out to lunch with any of his friends. And because I spent so much time with him, I could sort of talk about business and politics and news and those kinds of topics,” he recalls.
“But as soon as we’d sit down at some diner for cheeseburgers and milkshakes, as soon as his friend sat down, I would either start blasting him with questions or blasting him with stories about my push-ups. And my dad would tap his watch. And that was my dad’s way of saying, ‘OK, be quiet,’” he explains.
“And the idea was, later on, as we were driving home, it was like, ‘OK, when Mr. so-and-so was talking about his weekend and you interrupted it to talk about your push-ups, why did you think he would be interested in that?’” he continues, telling Stuckey that he and his father would then role-play how Vittert could have asked the friend more questions about himself.
“It was this very minute-by-minute teaching of the emotional and human dynamic,” he adds.
Want more from Allie Beth Stuckey?
To enjoy more of Allie’s upbeat and in-depth coverage of culture, news, and theology from a Christian, conservative perspective, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.
The demographic CLIFF: The fertility CRISIS no one is ready for
America is approaching a civilizational breaking point as young men abandon the left to move right, while young women drift further left. This has left a massive gap that’s not only threatening the future of marriage and family formation, but even basic population replacement.
“This has come to a head to some degree. Now, I will say this, if you are a conservative young woman entering into marriage years, it is a good time to be you. … The market is very much in your favor,” BlazeTV host Steve Deace explains at AmFest.
“Countrywide, you’re unicorns,” he says, noting that despite their existence, “all these things eventually have to come to a head somewhere.”
“Someone is going to have to change, right?” he asks.
BlazeTV contributor Todd Erzen believes that there will need to be “incentivizations.”
“I just don’t think the mere biological cliff we are falling off, that realization is enough because that’s baked into the cake. That was the point all along. That is the dark success story of all of this,” Erzen says.
“I think there may ultimately need to be incentivizations that are kind of like a steroid that wake enough of the culture up to keep things going,” he continues.
However, “Steve Deace Show” executive producer Aaron McIntire disagrees.
“The bad news is, you look at countries like Japan, South Korea, they have faced the same sorts of demographic cliffs that we’re about to maybe go over. They have done all of these technocratic policies, you know, trying to actually animate, trying to just get people in the frame of mind of, ‘Hey, this is going to have a tax benefit for you. This is going to have some economic benefit for you if you have more children,’” McIntire says.
“They’re trying to encourage this, and it really hasn’t had much of a difference,” he says, adding, “So, I don’t think there’s any sort of technocratic solution that you can put in place.”
Want more from Steve Deace?
To enjoy more of Steve’s take on national politics, Christian worldview, and principled conservatism with a snarky twist, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.
A supernatural encounter with Jesus saved his life — now he’s reaching a generation
Bryce Crawford is an evangelist whose supernatural encounter with Jesus not only stopped him from taking his own life, but has catapulted him into a position where he’s helping transform a generation.
“I became a Christian when I was 17. I had depression and anxiety for years. Grew up in a Christian environment, went to a Christian school, but I had a supernatural encounter with Jesus when I was 17. Stopped me from taking my life,” Crawford tells BlazeTV host Allie Beth Stuckey at AmFest.
This happened in 2020, when Crawford had gone to Waffle House for his “death row meal” on Christmas Day.
“I went to Waffle House, and I was at this table. No one preached to me. No one shared the gospel with me. The total opposite happened actually. This grown man dumped his life issues on me, and he said, ‘I’m losing my wife. She’s divorcing me and taking my kids,’” he explains.
“And then he said, ‘There’s no growth in a relationship if the love isn’t mutual.’ And when he said that, time stopped. And I had learned about Jesus all my life. … And for the first time, I thought to myself, maybe I don’t know God loves me because I haven’t given myself a chance to love him back,” he says.
“And so I prayed a crazy prayer. I said, ‘Jesus, if you’re real, take away my anxiety and depression because this is the reason why I want to take my life,’ and I haven’t had that crippling anxiety or depression since that day. It’s been almost five years,” he continues.
This was what led Crawford to Christianity and ultimately where he is now — preaching the gospel.
“The Bible says we plant seeds and water seeds. It’s not my job to save anyone. It’s not your job to save anyone. And so I found listening and being intentional with people is the greatest tool of evangelism,” he says. “It’s not love-bombing. It’s just caring about people.”
Want more from Allie Beth Stuckey?
To enjoy more of Allie’s upbeat and in-depth coverage of culture, news, and theology from a Christian, conservative perspective, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.
