The Karol Markowicz Show: From Mechanic to Investigative Journalist: Walter Curt on Swatting, Government Fraud & Exposing Hidden Networks
2/20/202622 mincomplete
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0:47Call 844 -844 -iHeart. Hi, and welcome back to the Carol Markowitz Show on iHeart
0:58Radio. My guest today is independent investigative journalist, Walter Kurt.
1:03So nice to have you on, Walter.
1:05Thanks for having me on, Carol.
1:07So how did you become an independent investigative journalist?
1:10What was the path to this?
1:13Not the normal path, I would say that.
1:15You know, I was actually a mechanic for 10 years.
1:19Wow. Yeah, I was really not the normal path.
1:22Yeah, definitely not. Well, I grew up in D .C.
1:24So I grew up in the political world and determined, I hate it.
1:28It's terrible. All these people suck.
1:31It's all these people are all terrible.
1:33I hate all of them.
1:33So I decided to move away from it.
1:35And I thought I would be able to get away with that.
1:37And no, it didn't work out like that.
1:39You know, it took about 10 years before life caught up to me.
1:42And then COVID happened. And then the world started falling apart in my eyes.
1:47And I was like, OK, I don't have a choice.
1:49I got to do something.
1:50Right. So I started my own sub stack in that.
1:52And it just grew and grew and grew and grew and took off.
1:56Wow. You only started during COVID?
1:57Like, I feel like I've been reading you and listening to you for far longer
2:01than that. It's really only been that long?
2:03Well, it's funny that you say that, Carol, because I followed your account for a
2:06long time and read all your work for a long time.
2:08So it's interesting to me that you say that, because to me, I started, you
2:12wouldn't believe this, but last year, in November of last year, I think I had
2:172 ,000 followers on X.
2:19Wow. Yeah. That's a quick growth.
2:21Yeah. Yeah. Well, it was a hell of a ride.
2:24So definitely, definitely quick growth.
2:26So what was your biggest breaking story?
2:29Like, what propelled you to that kind of growth?
2:32Well, I had a couple of things go viral during the Doge stuff.
2:36But the biggest thing was definitely when I got swatted.
2:38So I got swatted with the group.
2:41There was about 15 other journalists all got swatted at the same time.
2:44And ever since then, you know, it's just been rocket ship afterwards.
2:47So it's just been nonstop.
2:49Do you have any idea who did that or what the motivation was?
2:52I mean, I know what the larger motivation was, but why did they pick you?
2:56Why me? That's a good question.
2:57Because I think at the time I had, I think I had about 30 ,000
3:00followers or 40 ,000 followers.
3:01I have no idea. You know, my only thought was it was something to do
3:04with what I was writing about at the time.
3:06I was talking a lot about Ukraine.
3:08Yeah. And there were some government contracts I was going through.
3:12I actually got a cease and desist around the same time period.
3:15But, you know, I don't know if it was all the same thing or not.
3:19I mean, someone wanted everyone to stop doing the Doge stuff.
3:22I'll tell you that much.
3:23Interesting. It's pretty obvious. Okay.
3:25I guess that makes a lot of sense that it was the Doge thing that
3:27might have led to that.
3:29But you never know, right?
3:30People become obsessed with you or they become obsessed with what you're working on, even
3:35when it's not super big.
3:37Like I can think of instances, like I think my career really blew up during
3:41COVID. But before that, I had a column in the New York Post for years.
3:44But I would have like obsessive people get really into what I was writing about,
3:49even though I also didn't have that many followers.
3:51And I wasn't like, you know, famous by any estimation.
3:56So you really don't ever know.
3:57Any regrets about leaving your mechanic job and going into this crazy thing we do?
4:03Well, you know, at first it was something that I wasn't sure if it was
4:07something I wanted to do.
4:08You know, me, I was supposed to be essentially a D .C.
4:11circuit lawyer is what my family wanted me to be.
4:13I grew up in politics.
4:14So, you know, I just I despised it.
4:17But, you know, now that I'm back into it, it's like, you know, this is
4:19just what I'm supposed to do.
4:20I can tell that this is where I'm supposed to be at because things just
4:23keep happening in that direction.
4:24I mean, as of now, I'm full time into this now.
4:27It's been about a few months now of me doing it like this.
4:29But it's it's it's definitely been wild.
4:32Do I regret it? I don't know.
4:33I miss the simple life.
4:35I'll say that much. The anonymity, you know, not getting swatted.
4:39Yeah, not getting swatted, not having, you know, death threats like every single day.
4:43You know, those things are not a great part of this world.
4:45But but at the same time, it's just, you know, I miss the the more
4:49thing I miss is the working in the shop with the guys.
4:51I love doing that. You know, I was I was a good mechanic.
4:53I was a master mechanic.
4:54So I love doing that.
4:55Awesome. Yeah, it was. That's what I definitely say I'd miss.
4:58But at the same time, it's just this is just nonstop.
5:01Go, go, go, go, go now.
5:03So I just don't know.
5:04There's no there's no real time to think about that for me, I guess.
5:07What's your favorite part about it?
5:09Probably that aspect of it.
5:11You know, it's probably the constant.
5:13No matter what I think I'm doing, I've always got 25 other things that I'm
5:16supposed to be doing. It's never ending, which, you know, is to me, that's just
5:21kind of how my attitude's always been.
5:22I'm always someone that likes to work.
5:23Oh, God. Thank you. anyway.
5:24So I kind of like that.
5:26What's your favorite kind of beat?
5:28Do you have something specific you love to chase down?
5:31Yeah, I really like financial crimes and stuff like that.
5:33So, you know, fraud stories or government corruption stories.
5:36The biggest story I had this past year was the two the two girls in
5:40Fairfax County, the abortion scandal.
5:42That was the largest story I had last year.
5:44And but that's just that's another corruption scandal.
5:46Tell us about it because I feel like Fairfax County could be any number of
5:50stories. So in the middle of the summer, around I think it was late July
5:55and summer, there was a teacher there that got me a story said that there
5:59was two young girls that were they the school facilitated getting them abortions and didn't
6:04tell their parents about it.
6:05And I remember this. Yeah.
6:07And the allegation further than that was that that they had used school funding to
6:11pay for it. Wow. And that's you know, they've got it all written down and
6:15had a lot of sourcing behind it.
6:17But, you know, there was a state police investigation opened.
6:20But I assume that now that Spamburger's in there, that's not that's probably dead.
6:24Right. That's my guess. Yeah, I guess that kind of thing should be bipartisan.
6:29Like who wouldn't want to know their school is overstepping in that way, even if
6:33you are a liberal, right?
6:34Even if you're a liberal, you're pro -choice.
6:36If the school is stepping in and taking your kid to get an abortion, like
6:40who could possibly support that?
6:42That's what I don't understand.
6:43Here we are. Yeah. I mean, to me, the biggest question I asked everybody, I
6:46mean, these girls were not like they're these girls were, you know, 15, 16 years
6:50old at the time when this happened.
6:51I said, do you want, I mean, one of them was apparently when they wanted
6:54to give their abortion, she didn't go through with it.
6:57One of them didn't. Wow.
6:58But she was in like second trimester, trimester, like five months pregnant.
7:02I was like, so that would have been anesthesia.
7:05You know, that wouldn't have been a simple search.
7:06So do you want your daughter on getting anesthesia on a surgical table without you
7:11knowing about it? Mm hmm.
7:13I mean, for any reason.
7:14Right. Exactly. Yeah. That's what my thought was.
7:16Do you think we're in an era where people are taking financial crimes more seriously?
7:22Like it feels like that, but it's always hard to tell if it's just in
7:25our conservative world, people are having their eyes open to just how bad financial crimes
7:29have become or if it's kind of the normies have gotten the message to.
7:34Maybe. I mean, I think the I definitely think that normal people are angry about,
7:38especially when it's tax dollars.
7:40Yeah. People, people expect there to be like financial crimes all over the place.
7:44Right. They expect it. Yeah.
7:45But not, they don't expect it to be so bad that there's, you know, a
7:49quality leering center. Let's just put it that way.
7:52I mean, that's the kind of things they don't expect.
7:54Yeah. Yeah. That's I think that's probably right.
7:56And something like that really jars people awake and says to them, like, there's much
8:01worse going on that you don't even know about.
8:03Exactly. Exactly. I mean, that's what I, that's what my comment is.
8:06I mean, these are the stupid ones.
8:08What about the smart ones?
8:09That's what my thought is.
8:10Right. If you weren't doing this, if, or if it hadn't worked out, would plan
8:14B go be, go be a mechanic again, or did you have something else in
8:19mind? No, I'd probably go back and just be a mechanic again.
8:22I mean, I still have, you know, I've got more tools than you can possibly
8:26imagine. I've got a toolbox the size of my garage.
8:29So if I needed to, I mean, the great thing about this is that if
8:32this doesn't work out, I can always go do that.
8:34You know, it's, it's, it's an easy fallback and there will always be work for
8:38those people because while AI takes over the world, it's not going to be able
8:42to fix your, your radiator in your car.
8:44Yeah. So what about that district court job?
8:47No, not, not thinking about it.
8:49So are your parents happy with what you're doing or do they still dream of
8:52you being a judge someday?
8:54No, no, they, they, they definitely like my path now.
8:58They were okay with what I was doing before, but the moment I stepped into
9:01this, they were like, finally, he, finally, he came back.
9:03And that's what I think their, their comment really is.
9:06So do you feel like you found your kind of purpose?
9:09Absolutely. Yeah. I definitely feel like that.
9:12I mean, to me, what I was doing before I was good at it, but
9:14you know, there's, there's always a little nagging feeling that tells you you're supposed to
9:17be doing something more, especially if you are supposed to be doing something more and
9:20you know it. And that definitely happened over the past.
9:23It was really the birth of my daughter that pushed me in this direction, to
9:26be honest with you. So it brings me to a question.
9:28I ask all of my guests, what are you most proud of in your life?
9:33Definitely my kids. Definitely my kids.
9:35My daughter is my whole world.
9:36How old? She is two and a half.
9:39That's awesome. That's a good age.
9:41So what is it? What is it about having children that fills you with pride?
9:46Well, it's the next generation is important, but watching them grow is something amazing to
9:51me. You know, it's, and it's not been easy.
9:53I mean, the strange thing about all this is that when I got into this
9:56world, the family life that I had was much simpler and my wife and I
10:00didn't, she did not get along with what I've been doing.
10:02And since I got into this, but I did this because I felt like I
10:05needed to make a better world for my daughter and I was walking away from
10:08it and she did not like what I'm doing.
10:10So it's been difficult in getting around that and getting through that.
10:14But you know, I mean, it even resulted in us separating, but at the end
10:17of the day, it's, it's been rough, but at the same time, I would never
10:20trade any of it because to me, the only thing that matters is the future
10:24prospects. And I don't want my daughter to grow up in a world that is
10:27falling apart. I mean, I want her to grow up in the same world that
10:30I grew up in. And it, my thought is, it seemed to me that if
10:33I didn't do something to try and fix it, that it would.
10:35Are you optimistic? Do you think that the future looks brighter or?
10:40Absolutely. No, I definitely think that I don't like the people that go full negative
10:44black pill. There's no hope whatsoever because the reality is that as long as there's
10:49somebody doing something and there's a number three.
10:51There's more people doing things now than I've ever seen before.
10:55Right. It's amazing to see, really.
10:57I mean, everywhere I go, I've got 25 people that are all interested in doing
11:00things. And that didn't happen before.
11:02Normally, it was, I mean, for the first few years that I was doing this,
11:04it was just me. I mean, there's no one else helping me.
11:07There's no one else talking to you about it.
11:09And it's not because I wasn't trying to get involved with people, but it was
11:12mostly people that wanted to talk about problems instead of actually do anything about it,
11:16which is, you know, that doesn't help you.
11:18Yeah. What do you think the next frontier is in exposing fraud?
11:23Do you think you continue down the financial path?
11:26Well, I think the real part about it to me, which is I've got a
11:29big presentation I'm supposed to do on this in a couple on the 11th.
11:33I'm supposed to be in Florida to talk about this.
11:36The big thing to me that everyone's kind of missing is that the fraud seems
11:40to follow where these giant riots are, which are all locations of all of the
11:45Torch Network, which is Antifa.
11:47So to me, I don't know what it is, but something about it tells me
11:51that it's all related and I haven't been able to prove it yet.
11:54But that's what I think.
11:55I think this story is going to eventually end up in fraudulent networks are supplying
12:00the activists that are rioting in the streets and it's all paid for by the
12:03top. And that's what I think.
12:04So interesting. Yeah. Even if like, let's say giving them the benefit of the doubt
12:08that it's not fraud, which I totally think it is.
12:10Don't get me wrong. But like, it seems like it's been a works program, you
12:16know, that's been exposed over the last year where everybody's getting paid.
12:20Everybody's collecting a check from the government.
12:22And the fact that that spigot has been somewhat turned off, I think that also
12:26leads to people rioting in the street and the encouragement of that kind of thing,
12:31because this money fountain has been essentially shut off.
12:34Oh, yeah. Well, I mean, if you really look at the numbers on it, and
12:37this is kind of shocking stuff when you realize it is that 10 percent of
12:40the workforce, right? 10 percent of the workforce works for NGOs.
12:46Now, that's a large number, 12 .8 million.
12:49It's a huge number, but it gets a little bit more refined if you go
12:52through it. So, you know, you can't say that all of those people are the
12:54people out in the streets.
12:55That's not true, because a lot of them are, you know, like hospitals and places
12:59like that that are considered nonprofit organizations.
13:02But if you really refine the numbers down onto the bottom of it, there's still
13:06about a million to two million people that work for activist -specific NGOs.
13:12Right. I mean, and that means you've got a million people, and you can take
13:16that number, and they become force multipliers in every city they're in.
13:19They can work with all their little local NGOs and everything else.
13:22So everywhere they go, so if they send 20 ,000 people to City B, and
13:27City B immediately starts doing huge protests everywhere, well, the 20 ,000 people just helped
13:31it, and they're all paid, you know, $120 ,000 a year.
13:35How do you expose a network like that?
13:37It seems impossible. Well, the deal is the network is already really exposed.
13:42What you need to do, and this is something that I've been telling everybody recently,
13:45is, you know, a lot of the people on the political right, what they do
13:48is they say, oh, it's all Soros.
13:50Cool. I mean, like, yippee.
13:52Everyone knows that, but that doesn't help you.
13:54What you need is to prove what's happening on the ground, which is, I think,
13:58is starting to happen. It's starting to happen now.
14:00The journalists, independent journalists are starting to figure this out, and that's why they're all
14:03over the place. I mean, they're in Minneapolis, they're in California, they're in, you know,
14:07they're in Texas. They're all over the place now going and looking for this stuff,
14:10because the big key is going to be figuring out how do the people on
14:14the ground get there? I mean, they show up there.
14:18They're there. We know that we see them in multiple cities, but how do they
14:21get paid? Someone pays them.
14:23Someone pays them for something, and that's stuff that no one knows yet.
14:26So, you know, I think the problem is we've been trying to go from the
14:29top down, and we should be going from the bottom up and trying to figure
14:31it out. We're going to take a quick break and be right back on The
14:34Carol Markowitz Show. This podcast is brought to you by Wise, the app for international
14:40people using money around the globe.
14:42With Wise, you can send, spend, and receive in over 40 currencies with no markups
14:47or hidden fees. Sending pounds across the pond, spending REIs in Rio, or getting paid
14:52in dollars for your side gig.
14:54You'll get the mid -market exchange rate on every transaction.
14:57Plus, most transfers arrive in less than 20 seconds.
14:59Join 15 million customers internationally.
15:02Be smart. Get Wise. Download the Wise app or visit wise .com.
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15:35That's iHeartAdvertising .com. How do people on the right support independent investigative journalists like you?
15:43The best way you can is if you find somebody that you trust is to
15:46subscribe to them and help them by, you know, you can also, I tell everybody
15:50that you can be a researcher, send stuff.
15:52I mean, I get tons of stuff sent to me all the time.
15:54Not all of it's useful, but I try to read it anyway.
15:57I mean, I try to read every message that people send me.
15:59Now, it's nearly impossible. You know, I remember hearing that Charlie Kirk read every email
16:03I ever got. And I'm like, wow, I don't know how on earth he ever
16:05did that. I mean, to me, you know, I get 50 ,000 DMs in a
16:09week and I'm like, I don't know.
16:10I try. I try to keep up with people, but there's no way I can
16:13do it. But in terms of supporting people like us, if you go to go
16:17to our platforms, I mean, all of us.
16:19or some sort, some form of independent platform that you can operate on or subscribe
16:23on. I've got subscriptions on X.
16:25I've got, I've got the sub stack, the sub stacks best.
16:28And there's even tip jars.
16:29I mean, financial support doing this stuff is dangerous, but more, it's not just the
16:34dangerous part of it. Everyone forgets that the travel aspect is probably the most expensive,
16:39right? Being able to move between city to city to city.
16:41That's the expensive part. I don't have the point where I need security or not
16:45yet, but you know, some of these guys do need security too.
16:48I mean, if you're well -known people like Nick Sorter and Nick Shirley, both of
16:51them, they probably have to have security anywhere they go now, which is just, you
16:55know, that's the unfortunate thing really, isn't it?
16:56When you finally make it, what do you look forward to?
17:00All of your earnings that you would get is you have to pay for security,
17:03which is just terrible. It's so wrong.
17:05And it doesn't, it just doesn't happen on the other side in the same way.
17:09As somebody rises through the ranks of kind of reporting on the left, they don't
17:14suddenly become targets for people on the right.
17:16No, no. It doesn't happen that way.
17:18No, I've never, I've said this all the time on my show.
17:21I've, I don't think I have ever heard of a riot at a left -wing
17:26commentator's speech. Right. Or home or anything like that.
17:30Seriously. I mean, like, I mean, just when's the last time Jake Tapper had a
17:33riot outside of his house?
17:34Right. Right. Yeah. That doesn't happen.
17:38Do you think you have a book in view?
17:40Yeah, at some point. You know, I wrote something last year.
17:43I was trying to refine it down, but you know, I'm going to run out
17:46of time. My intention was to try and have it published before this summer.
17:50It was going to be a, you know, a handbook type thing.
17:52It was going to be a short book that was designed for ground activists.
17:55I mean, it was going to be, you know, there's the old book, the Alinsky
17:58book, The Rules for Radicals.
17:59It was going to be Rules for Radical Patriotism is the name of the book.
18:02So you should definitely do that.
18:04Yeah, I was trying to get it done.
18:05I was trying to get it to the point where it was 90 pages.
18:07I wanted it to be small enough.
18:08People could carry it with them.
18:09That was the intention. I love it.
18:11Yeah. I just getting the amount of things that I'm working on now.
18:14It's impossible to keep up.
18:16So that'll be done eventually.
18:17Maybe I'll get it done for 28.
18:18That'll be the hope. Yeah.
18:19That's a really good idea.
18:20I think you should absolutely do that.
18:22Give us a five -year out prediction and it could be about anything at all.
18:27Five -year out prediction. Anything.
18:30Politics, music, whatever. Politics is probably the only thing I think about enough to be
18:35able to give some sort of five -year prediction.
18:37A five -year prediction would be, I might say that we possibly lose the House
18:42in 26, hold the Senate.
18:4428 is actually going to probably be okay because the Democrats still don't have a
18:48platform to run nationally on.
18:50They may be able to flip to independent districts, but I don't know how they're
18:53going to be able to do a national campaign, especially, and this is just a
18:57theory, so I can't truly make the allegation, but I'll say if we prove that
19:02there are politicians that exist out here that accept large amounts of money from government
19:08sources, essentially, that, you know, it goes washed out one way, washed back in the
19:12other way, and we clean the voter rolls up.
19:14I think 28, we win again.
19:17I think Vance or Rubio, I don't necessarily believe that, you know, Vance is going
19:22to just walk right into it.
19:23I know he's popular currently, but I think personally that it would be better if
19:27President Trump didn't step into the primary at all and said, you two are the
19:31candidates, the people pick who can do that, and that does a few things.
19:35That proves who can build the best actual coalition to win on a smaller scale
19:39before you do it on the national scale, and I think that's much more important.
19:42So I'm hoping that's what happens, and then if we win in 28 again, then
19:46I believe we actually might have a chance to fix a lot of the problems
19:50that we have right now.
19:51That would be definitely, four more years would be very important.
19:54I agree with you, though.
19:56Primaries are not a bad thing, and they kind of reiterate what the party stands
20:01for, and they get a lot of the negative approaches that the candidate's going to
20:06face in the general. They're going to get to see it in the primary.
20:09I mean, if you don't have a primary, you sometimes end up with like a
20:12Kamala Harris candidate, and that's a real problem.
20:15Well, I mean, it's more than that.
20:17The deal is the primary is important for us for a number of reasons, because
20:21the primary, we need a candidate that can stand up to the scrutiny, because unlike
20:25the left, the left, they don't care who they run.
20:27It means nothing to them.
20:29They can put a dead guy, they can put Kamala Harris, they could run a
20:32goldfish. I mean, they really could.
20:34It doesn't matter to them who the candidate is.
20:36That's irrelevant to them. They spin up the machine, and then it fires along all
20:40the way, and that's just what they do.
20:42But on the right, everyone likes to complain about the candidate, but to me, not
20:46complaining about the candidate, more important to that is, can the candidate actually handle the
20:50pressure? Because the pressure is significant, and it's much worse than it is on the
20:54other side. So much worse.
20:55Yeah, it's not even comparable.
20:57Basically, the Democrats don't get to try out their arguments, and they often are surprised
21:03to hear the argument from the right when they get to the general, because their
21:07primaries are just so not like ours at all.
21:09Well, I have loved this conversation, Walter.
21:12I've loved learning more about you.
21:14Leave us here with your best tip for my listeners on how they can improve
21:18their lives. Best tip to improve your lives would be never give up on a
21:24goal of yours. If it's worth doing, you should pursue it no matter what.
21:28I love that. Thank you so much.
21:30He is Walter Kurt. Check out his amazing investigative work and support his journalism.
21:35Thank you so much, Walter.
21:36Thanks for having me on, Carol.
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