Editor’s Pick: Spectator’s Foldi Interviews Gold Star Father Arrested During Biden SOTU

March 11th, 2024 10:45 AM

Our great friend Matthew Foldi had a story Sunday night at The Spectator that served as Steve Nikoui’s first interview since the Capitol Police arrested him on Thursday night for shouting at President Biden during the State of the Union about the infamous Abbey Gate and his late son, Karrem Nikoui.

Karrem Nikoui, a United States Marine, was one of 13 Americans murdered by Islamic terrorists in Kabul on August 26, 2021 during the Biden administration’s cataclysmically horrendous withdrawal from Afghanistan. Two and a half years later, Biden has yet to say their names.

Steve Nikoui told Foldi that “what” in Biden’s speech “set me off” and led to him shouting “[d]o you remember Abbey Gate”:

“When he was talking about kids, in one moment, they’re glorifying these abortions… you know, he aborted my kid by giving him none of the things that he needed to do his job correctly, not listening to any of the advice of the professionals.”

“I said, ‘Do you remember Abbey Gate?’ I believe I said ‘Abbey Gate’ twice,” he recalled. “Then I said his name, and then I said ‘United States Marines,’ and I thought it was important to get Second Battalion, First Marines, so I did all that. I didn’t hear any boos, maybe there was, maybe there wasn’t. I felt like that was a blessing. All of us just ultimately want our country to come together.”

(....)

Nikoui...brought along something to read — his son’s Bible, which now bears a huge signature from former president Donald Trump, who met with Nikoui and several other Gold Star families last summer.

“The Lord put me in a very pronounced seat, a pronounced position of the House,” he said. “I was directly… looking at the speaker, the vice president and the president. So for me, I’m honoring God. Look at this position the Lord has given, like I have got the best seats in the house.” As the evening progressed, he found himself thinking, of the many gathered politicians, “none of them would exist without men and women like my kid.

“They’re able to play their games because of kids like ours, and that kind of infuriated me… I felt like I was in the Coliseum. We’re all in the upper tier. And here are the players down there.”

Steve went onto say he “didn’t think you’d be arrested for saying something” and, after his arrest, the Capitol Police officer leading him away even apologized, saying “you’ve done nothing wrong”.

Following “a couple rounds of questioning” by Capitol Police (leading them to become emotional) and waiving his Miranda Rights, he was free to go and “is set to have some powerful back-up, with several members of Congress making plans to appear on his forthcoming Zoom court appearance if needed”.

Capitol Police explained to Military.com that “Nikoui was charged with crowding, obstructing, or incommoding, “a routine charge on Capitol Hill” and such individuals “typically are released after they pay a $50 fine, so the misdemeanor charge is resolved without going to court.”

In subsequent stories on Friday morning and over the weekend on the flagship morning and evening newscasts, ABC and CBS never mentioned Nikoui’s ordeal with only a footnote on the Friday edition of NBC’s Today.

MSNBC similarly saw zero interest in this miscarriage of justice while there was one paltry mention on CNN during Friday’s The Lead with Jake Tapper.

In contrast, Fox Business Network, the Fox News Channel, Newsmax, and NewsNation all mentioned Nikoui multiple times between Friday and Monday morning.

To read more of Foldi’s powerful interview, click here.