The Karol Markowicz Show: From Mechanic to Investigative Journalist: Walter Curt on Swatting, Government Fraud & Exposing Hidden Networks

Summary

The Karol Markowicz Show:
From Mechanic to Investigative Journalist: Walter Curt on Swatting, Government Fraud & Exposing Hidden Networks
iHeartPodcasts | February 20, 2026

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Episode Overview

In this episode, Karol Markowicz sits down with Walter Kurt, an independent investigative journalist who took an unconventional path—from mechanic to prominent truth-seeker. The conversation covers Walter’s journey into journalism, his experiences with swatting, government fraud, whistleblowing, and the networks fueling activism across the country. Walter shares personal anecdotes, insights into the perils and rewards of independent investigative journalism, and his perspective on the future of political movements.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

Walter’s Unconventional Journey to Journalism

• Background: Walter grew up in Washington, D.C., around politics, but found it distasteful and left the scene to become a mechanic for 10 years.

  “All these people suck. Yeah, it's... All these people are all terrible. I hate all of them...I thought I would be able to get away with that. And no, it didn’t work out like that.” (Walter Kurt, 02:23)

• Return to Politics: The COVID-19 pandemic spurred him to start his own Substack, leading to rapid growth online.

  “It took about 10 years before life caught up to me, and then Covid happened, and then the world started falling apart in my eyes, and I was like, okay, I don't have a choice. I got to do something.” (Walter Kurt, 02:46)

• Quick Rise: From 2,000 followers on X in late 2023 to tens of thousands a year later.

Breakout Moment: Swatting Incident

• Swatting Explained: Walter and 15 other journalists were “swatted” (false emergency call sent to authorities) in a coordinated attempt to silence their reporting, particularly related to the “Doge” story and coverage on Ukraine and government contracts.

  “There was about 15 other journalists that all got swatted at the same time. And ever since then, you know, it's just been rocket ship afterwards…” (Walter Kurt, 03:34)

• Motivation & Impact: Walter speculates this was orchestrated to stop their reporting on sensitive topics and describes the frightening reality of being targeted for investigative work.

Regrets and Rewards of Leaving a “Normal” Life

• Sacrifices: Walter misses the simplicity and camaraderie of working as a master mechanic, but feels driven to pursue journalism.

  "Do I regret it? I don't know. I miss the simple life, I'll say that much...I miss the working in the shop with the guys. I love doing that." (Walter Kurt, 05:40)

• Biggest Challenge: Constant busyness and stress, especially the threats and lack of privacy.
• Favorite Part: The non-stop, multi-front nature of the work suits his personality.

Investigative Beats & Major Stories

• Focus: Financial crimes, government corruption, and fraud are Walter’s specialties.

  “I really like financial crimes...fraud stories or government corruption Stories.” (Walter Kurt, 06:32)

• Fairfax County Abortion Scandal (Summer 2025):
  • Allegations: Two students reportedly received abortions facilitated by their school without parental consent, with school funds used for payment.
  • State police investigated, but a political change likely killed the probe.
  • Parental rights and misuse of public funds brought to the forefront.

  “Two young girls...the school facilitated getting them abortions and didn’t tell their parents about it. And...they had used school funding to pay for it.” (Walter Kurt, 06:52)

The Public’s Changing Attitude Towards Financial Crime

• Growing Awareness: Increasing frustration over misuse of taxpayer funds, public corruption.

  “People expect there to be...financial crimes all over the place. They expect that, but not...so bad that there's, you know, a quality leering center. Let’s just put it that way.” (Walter Kurt, 08:42)

Personal Sacrifices and Motivation

• Family Impact: Journalism led to marital strains and eventual separation, but Walter is motivated by a responsibility to create a better future for his daughter.

  “…the birth of my daughter that pushed me in this direction…my wife and I, she did not get along with what I've been doing since I got into this...it even resulted in us separating...But at the end of the day, it's been rough...but I would never trade any of it because...the only thing that matters is the future prospects.” (Walter Kurt, 10:28, 10:47)

Exposing Activist Networks and Fraud

• Fraud & Activism Networks: Walter outlines a theory that financial fraud and the operations of left-wing activist networks (such as Antifa) are interconnected and possibly funded via NGOs and government grants.

  “The fraud seems to follow where these Giant riots are...the same locations of all of the Torch network, which is Antifa...fraudulent networks are supplying the activists that are rioting the streets, and it's all paid for by the top.” (Walter Kurt, 12:28)

• Scale: Approximately 12.8 million people in NGOs, with 1-2 million in activist-specific roles, acting as “force multipliers” across the country.

  “That means you’ve got a million people...in every city they're in…they're all paid, you know, $120,000 a year.” (Walter Kurt, 14:17)

Methods & Challenges in Investigative Journalism

• Ground-Level Evidence: Advocates for a “bottom-up” approach—proving who is paid and how, rather than blaming well-known funders without tying it to direct actions.

  “What you need is to prove what's happening on the ground, which I think is starting to happen. The journalists...are starting to figure this out...” (Walter Kurt, 14:41)

• Danger and Logistics: Funding for travel and, for some, personal security are major challenges.

  “Everyone forgets the travel aspect is probably the most expensive.” (Walter Kurt, 19:39)

Supporting Independent Journalists

• How to Help: Subscribe, donate, and send useful research or leads; financial support especially crucial due to travel and operational costs.

  “The best way you can is if you find somebody that you trust is to subscribe to them and help them...send stuff. I mean, I get tons of stuff sent to me all the time.” (Walter Kurt, 18:43)

Media Bias and Threats

• Asymmetry: Journalists on the left rarely face targeted violence or threats compared to those on the right.

  “I don't think I have ever heard of a riot at a left wing commentator’s speech.” (Walter Kurt, 20:19)

Future Plans and Predictions

• Book Project: Walter is writing a “Rules for Radical Patriotism” handbook for activists, hoping to finish by 2028.
• Five-Year Political Outlook: Predicts tough House races for GOP in 2026, but optimism for a strong Republican candidate (Vance or Rubio) and a win in 2028, especially if fraud and election integrity issues are addressed.

  “If we win in 28 again, then I believe we actually might have a chance to fix a lot of the problems that we have right now.” (Walter Kurt, 22:51)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Discovering His Calling:

  “There's always a little nagging feeling that tells you you're supposed to be doing something more, especially if you are supposed to be doing something more and you know it.” (Walter Kurt, 10:11)

• On Parental Rights in Schools:

  “Do you want your daughter...getting anesthesia on a surgical table without you knowing about it?” (Walter Kurt, 08:10)

• On Optimism:

  “Absolutely. No, I definitely think that I don't like the people that go full negative black pill...as long as there's somebody doing something and there's...more people doing things now than I've ever seen before.” (Walter Kurt, 11:41)

• Biggest Tip for Listeners:

  “Never give up on a goal of yours. If it's worth doing, you should pursue it no matter what.” (Walter Kurt, 24:19)

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Key Timestamps

• Walter’s Background & Path to Journalism – 02:08–03:23
• The Swatting Incident & Its Impact – 03:34–04:25
• On Regrets, Missed Simplicity, and Rewards – 05:05–06:10
• Fairfax County Abortion Scandal – 06:32–08:16
• On Financial Crimes & Public Awareness – 08:18–09:11
• Personal Sacrifices / Family Impact – 10:28–11:37
• Fraud Networks, Antifa, and Riots – 12:28–15:33
• Supporting Investigative Journalists – 18:39–20:05
• Media Bias & Safety Asymmetry – 20:19–20:36
• Book Plans: "Rules for Radical Patriotism" – 20:40–21:19
• Five-Year Political Predictions – 21:28–23:55
• Advice for Listeners – 24:19

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Episode Tone and Takeaways

The conversation is frank, candid, and driven by Walter’s sense of purpose and righteous indignation at the abuses he uncovers. Karol’s tone is supportive and curious, with both hosts expressing concern over threats faced by conservative journalists and optimism that grassroots efforts continue to gain strength. Walter’s journey is portrayed as both inspiring and cautionary—a reminder of the personal and societal costs of speaking truth to power, and a call for greater public involvement in supporting independent journalism.

For more, follow Walter Kurt’s work on Substack and social media, and consider supporting independent investigative journalism.

Transcript

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[Carol Markowitz]

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[Walter Kurt]

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[Carol Markowitz]

Hi and welcome back to the Carol Markowitz show on iheartradio. My guest today is independent investigative journalist Walter Kurt. So nice to have you on, Walter.

[Walter Kurt]

Thanks for having me on, Carol.

[Carol Markowitz]

So how did you become an independent investigative journalist? What was the path to this?

[Walter Kurt]

Not the normal path. I would say that, you know, I was actually a mechanic for 10 years.

[Carol Markowitz]

Wow.

[Walter Kurt]

Yeah, I was really.

[Carol Markowitz]

Not the normal path.

[Walter Kurt]

Yeah, definitely not. Well, I grew up in D.C. so I grew up in the political world and determined. I hate it. It's terrible. All these people suck. Yeah, it's. All these people are all terrible. I hate all of them. So I decided to move away from it and I thought I would be able to get away with that. And no, it didn't work out like that. You Know, it took about 10 years before life caught up to me, and then Covid happened, and then the world started falling apart in my eyes, and I was like, okay, I don't have a choice. I got to do something. So I started my own substack in that, and it just grew and grew and grew and grew and took off.

[Carol Markowitz]

Wow. You only started during COVID Like, I feel like I've been reading you and listening to you for far longer than that. It's really only been that long.

[Walter Kurt]

Well, it's funny that you say that, Carol, because I followed your account for a long time and read all your work for a long time. So it's interesting to me that you say that, because to me, I started. You wouldn't believe this, but last year, in November of last year, I think I had 2000 followers on X. Wow,

[Carol Markowitz]

that's a quick growth. Yeah.

[Walter Kurt]

Yeah. Well, it was a hell of a ride, so definitely quick growth.

[Carol Markowitz]

So what was your biggest breaking story? Like, what propelled you to that kind of growth?

[Walter Kurt]

Well, I had a couple things go viral during the Doge stuff, but the biggest thing was definitely when I got swatted. So I got swatted with the group. There was about 15 other journalists that all got swatted at the same time. And ever since then, you know, it's just been rocket ship afterwards, so it's just been nonstop.

[Carol Markowitz]

Do you have any idea who did that or what the motivation was? I mean, I know. I know what the larger motivation was, but why did they pick you?

[Walter Kurt]

Like, why me? That's a good question. Because I think at the time, I had. I think I had about 30,000 followers or 40,000 followers. I have no idea. You know, my only thought was it was something to do with what I was writing about at the time. I was talking a lot about Ukraine.

[Carol Markowitz]

Yeah.

[Walter Kurt]

And some. There were some government contracts I was going through. I actually got a cease and desist around the same time period. But, you know, I don't. I don't know if it was right. If it was all the. The same thing or not. I mean, someone wanted everyone to stop doing the Doge stuff. I'll tell you that much. Pretty obvious.

[Carol Markowitz]

Okay, I guess that makes a lot of sense that it was the Doge thing that might have led to that, but you never know, Right? People become obsessed with you, or they become obsessed with what you're working on, even when it's not super big. I can think of instances like, I think my career really blew up during COVID but before that, I had a column in The New York Post for years. But I would have like obsessive people get really into what I was writing about, even though I also still didn't have that many followers and I wasn't like, you know, famous by any estimation. So you really don't ever know any regrets about leaving your mechanic job and going into this crazy thing we do?

[Walter Kurt]

Well, you know, at first it was something that I wasn't sure if it was something I wanted to do. You know, in me, I was supposed to be essentially a D.C. circuit lawyer is what my family wanted me to be. I grew up in politics, so, you know, I just, I despised it. But, you know, now that I'm back into it, it's like, you know, this is just what I'm supposed to do. I can tell that this is where I'm supposed to be at because things just keep happening in that direction. I mean, as of now, I'm full time into this now. It's been about a few months now of me doing it like this, but it's, it's, it's definitely been wild. Do I regret it? I don't know. I miss the simple life, I'll say that much.

[Carol Markowitz]

The anonymity, you know, not getting swatted.

[Walter Kurt]

Yeah, not getting swatted, not having, you know, death threats, like every single day. You know, those things are not a great part of this world. But. But at the same time, it's just, you know, I miss the. The more thing I miss is the working in the shop with the guys. I love doing that. You know, I was, I was a good mechanic. I was master mechanic, so I love doing that.

[Carol Markowitz]

That's awesome.

[Walter Kurt]

That's what I definitely say I'd miss. But at the same time, it's just. This is just non stop. Go, go, go, go, go now. So I just don't know. There's no, there's no real time to think about that for me, I guess.

[Carol Markowitz]

What's your favorite part about it?

[Walter Kurt]

Probably that aspect of it, you know, it's probably the be constant. No matter what I think I'm doing, I've always got 25 other things that I'm supposed to be doing. It's never ending. Which, you know, is to me, that's just kind of how my attitude's always been. I'm always someone that likes to work constantly anyway, so I kind of like that.

[Carol Markowitz]

What's your favorite kind of beat? Do you have something specific you love to chase down?

[Walter Kurt]

Yeah, I really like financial crimes and stuff like that. So, you know, fraud stories or government corruption Stories. The biggest story I had this past year was the two. The two girls in Fairfax County. The abortion scandal. That was the largest story I had last year. And. But that's just. That's another corruption scandal and that's.

[Carol Markowitz]

Tell us about it. Because I feel like Fairfax county, it could be any number of stories.

[Walter Kurt]

Oh, so. So in the middle of the summer around. I think it was late July in the summer, there was a teacher there that got me a story, said that there was two young girls that were. They. The school facilitated getting them abortions and didn't tell their parents about it. And further.

[Carol Markowitz]

Remember this?

[Walter Kurt]

Yeah. And the allegation further than that was that. That they had used school funding to pay for it. Wow. And that's, you know, they've got it all written down and had a lot of sourcing behind it. But, you know, there was a state police investigation opened. But I assume that now that Spamberger's in there. That's not. That's probably dead, right? That's my guess.

[Carol Markowitz]

Yeah. I guess that kind of thing should be bipartisan. Like, who wouldn't want to know that a school is overstepping in that way? Even if you are a liberal.

[Walter Kurt]

Right.

[Carol Markowitz]

Even if you're liberal, you're pro choice.

[Walter Kurt]

You.

[Carol Markowitz]

If the school is stepping in and taking your kid to get an abortion, like, who could possibly support that?

[Walter Kurt]

That's what I don't understand.

[Carol Markowitz]

Here we are. Yeah.

[Walter Kurt]

I mean, to me, the biggest question I asked everybody, I mean, these girls were not like, these girls were, you know, 15, 16 years old at the time when this happened. I said, do you want. I mean, one of them was apparently when they wanted to give their abortion, she. She didn't go through with it. One of them didn't.

[Carol Markowitz]

Wow.

[Walter Kurt]

But she was in, like, second trimester, trimester, like five months pregnant. And I was like, so that would have been anesthesia. You know, that wouldn't have been a simple surge. So do you want your. Your daughter on.

[Carol Markowitz]

Right.

[Walter Kurt]

Getting anesthesia on a surgical table without you knowing about it?

[Carol Markowitz]

I mean, for any reason. Right.

[Walter Kurt]

Exactly.

[Carol Markowitz]

Yeah.

[Walter Kurt]

That was what my thought was.

[Carol Markowitz]

Do you think we're in an era where people are taking financial crimes more seriously? Like, it feels like that, but it's always hard to tell if it's just in our conservative world, people are having their eyes open to just how bad financial crimes have become or if it's kind of the normies have gotten the message too.

[Walter Kurt]

Maybe. I mean, I think the. I definitely think that normal people are angry about. Especially when it's tax dollars.

[Carol Markowitz]

Yeah.

[Walter Kurt]

People expect there to be, like, financial

[Carol Markowitz]

crimes all over the place.

[Walter Kurt]

They expect that, but not. They don't expect it to be so bad that there's, you know, a quality leering center. Let's just put it that way. I mean, that's the kind of things they don't expect.

[Carol Markowitz]

Yeah, that's. I think that's probably right. And something like that really jars people awake and says to them, like, there's much worse going on that you don't even know about.

[Walter Kurt]

Exactly. Exactly. I mean, that's what I. That's what my comment is. I mean, these are the stupid ones. What about the smart ones? That's what my thought is.

[Carol Markowitz]

Right. If you weren't doing this or if it hadn't worked out, would plan B go be. Go be a mechanic again? Or did you have something else in mind?

[Walter Kurt]

No, I'd probably go back and just be a mechanic again. I mean, I still have, you know, I've got more tools than you can possibly imagine. I've got a toolbox the size of my garage. So if I needed to, I mean, the great thing about this is that if this doesn't work out, I can always go do that. You know, it's an easy fallback. And there will always be work for those people because while AI takes over the world, it's not going to be able to fix your radiator.

[Carol Markowitz]

Exactly. Yeah. So what about that district court job? No, not thinking about it. So are your parents happy with what you're doing, or do they still dream of you being a judge someday?

[Walter Kurt]

No, no, they definitely like my path now. They were okay with what I was doing before, but the moment I stepped into this, they were like, finally he came. That's what I think their comment really is.

[Carol Markowitz]

So do you feel like you found your kind of purpose?

[Walter Kurt]

Absolutely. Yeah, I definitely feel like that. I mean, to me, what I was doing before, I was good at it. But there's always a little nagging feeling that tells you you're supposed to be doing something more, especially if you are supposed to be doing something more and you know it. And that definitely happened over the. It was really the birth of my daughter that pushed me in this direction, to be honest with you.

[Carol Markowitz]

So it brings me to a question I ask all of my guests. What are you most proud of in your life?

[Walter Kurt]

Definitely my kids. Definitely my kids. My daughter is my whole world.

[Carol Markowitz]

How old she is?

[Walter Kurt]

2 and a half.

[Carol Markowitz]

That's awesome. That's a good age. So what is it? What is it? About having children, that fills you with pride.

[Walter Kurt]

Well, it's. The next generation is important, but watching them grow is something amazing to me. And it's not been easy. I mean, the strange thing about all this is that when I got into this world, the family life that I had was much simpler. And my wife and I, she did not get along with what I've been doing since I got into this. But I did this because I felt like I needed to make a better world for my daughter. And I was walking away from it, and she did not like what I'm doing. So it's been difficult in getting around that and getting through that. But, you know, I mean, it even resulted in us separating. But at the end of the day, it's been rough. But at the same time, I would never trade any of it because to me, the only thing that matters is the future prospects. And I don't want my daughter to grow up in a world that is falling apart. I mean, I want her to grow up in the same world that I grew up in. And it. My thought is, it seemed to me that if I didn't do something to try and fix it, that it would.

[Carol Markowitz]

Are you optimistic? Do you think that the future looks brighter or.

[Walter Kurt]

Absolutely. No, I definitely think that I don't like the people that go full negative black pill. There's no hope whatsoever. Because the reality is that as long as there's somebody doing something and there's a number, there's more people doing things now than I've ever seen before. Right. It's amazing to see, really. I mean, everywhere I go, I've got 25 people that are all interested in doing things. And that didn't happen before. Normally it was. I mean, for the first few years that I was doing this, it was just me. I mean, there's no one else helping me. There's no one else talking to you about it. And it's not because I wasn't trying to get involved with people, but it was mostly people that wanted to talk about problems instead of actually do anything about it, which is, you know, that doesn't help you.

[Carol Markowitz]

Yeah. What do you think the next frontier is in exposing fraud? Do you think you continue down the financial path?

[Walter Kurt]

Well, I think the real part about it to me, which is I've got a big presentation I'm supposed to do on this on the 11th. I'm supposed to be in Florida to talk about this. The big thing to me that everyone's kind of missing is that the fraud seems to follow where these Giant riots are, which are also the same locations of all of the Torch network, which is antifa. So to me, I don't know what it is, but something about it tells me that it's all related. And I haven't been able to prove it yet, but that's what I think. I think this story is going to eventually end up in fraudulent networks are supplying the activists that are rioting the streets, and it's all paid for by the top. And that's what I think.

[Carol Markowitz]

So. Interesting. Yeah. Even if, like, let's say, giving them the benefit of the doubt that it's not fraud, which I totally think it is, don't get me wrong. But, like, it seems like it's been a works program, you know, that's been exposed over the last year where everybody's getting paid, everybody's collecting a check from the government. And the fact that that spigot has been somewhat turned off, I think that also leads to people rioting in the street and the encouragement of that kind of thing, because this money fountain has been essentially. Shut up.

[Walter Kurt]

Yeah, well, I mean, if you really look at the numbers on it, and this is kind of shocking stuff when you realize it is that 10% of the workforce, right. 10% of the workforce works for NGOs. Now, that's a large number, 12.8 million. It's a huge number. But it gets a little bit more refined if you go through it. So you can't say that all of those people are the people out in the streets. That's not true because a lot of them are hospitals and places like that that are considered nonprofit organizations. But if you really refine the numbers down all to the bottom of it, there's still about a million to 2 million people that work for activist specific NGOs.

[Carol Markowitz]

Right.

[Walter Kurt]

I mean, and that means you've got a million people, and you can take that number and they become force multipliers in every city they're in. They can work with all their little local NGOs and everything else is. So everywhere they go. So if they send 20,000 people to city B and Citib immediately starts doing huge protests everywhere. Well, the 20,000 people just helped it. And they're all paid, you know, $120,000 a year.

[Carol Markowitz]

How do you expose a network like that? It seems impossible.

[Walter Kurt]

Well, the deal is the network is already really exposed. What you need to do, and this is something that I've been telling everybody recently, is, you know, a lot of the people on the political. Right. What they do is they Say, oh, it's all Soros cool. I mean, like yippee. Everyone knows that. But that doesn't help you. What you need is to prove what's happening on the ground, which I think is starting to happen. It's starting to happen now. The journalists are independent. Journalists are starting to figure this out and that's why they're all over the place. I mean, they're in Minneapolis, they're in California, they're in, you know, they're in Texas. They're all over the place now going to, looking for this stuff because the big key is going to be figuring out how do the people on the ground get there. I mean, they show up there, they're there. We know that, we see them in multiple cities. But how do they get paid? Someone pays them. Someone pays them for something and that's stuff that no one knows yet. So I think the problem is we've been trying to go from the top down and we should be going from the bottom up and trying to figure it out.

[Carol Markowitz]

We're going to take a quick break and be right back on the Carol Markowitz Show.

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[Carol Markowitz]

How do people on the right support independent investigative journalists like you?

[Walter Kurt]

The best way you can is if you find somebody that you trust is to subscribe to them and help them by, you know, you can also I tell everybody that you can be a researcher, send stuff. I mean, I get tons of stuff sent to me all the time. Not all of it's useful, but I try to read it anyway. I mean, I try to read every message that people send me. Now it's nearly impossible. I remember hearing that Charlie Kirk read every email I ever got and I'm like, wow, I don't know how on earth he ever did that. I mean, to me, I get 50,000 DMs in a week and I'm like, I try, I try to keep up with people, but there's no way I can do it. But in terms of supporting people like us, if you go to our platforms, I mean all of us are some form of independent platform that you can operate on or subscribe on. I've got subscriptions on X, I've got the substack. The substack's best. And there's even tip jars I mean, financial support. Doing this stuff is dangerous. But more, it's not just the dangerous part of it. Everyone forgets the travel aspect is probably the most expensive.

[Carol Markowitz]

Right.

[Walter Kurt]

Being able to move between city to city to city, that's the expensive part. I don't have the point where I need security or whatnot yet, but some of these guys do need security too. I mean, if you're well known people like Nick Sorter and Nick Shirley, both of them, they probably have to have security anywhere they go now, which is just, you know, that's the unfortunate thing really, isn't it? When you, you finally make it, what do you look forward to? All of your earnings that you would get is you have to pay for security, which is just terrible.

[Carol Markowitz]

It's so wrong. And it doesn't, it just doesn't happen on the other side in the same way. As somebody rises through the ranks of kind of reporting on the left, they don't suddenly become targets for people on the right. No, it doesn't happen that way.

[Walter Kurt]

No, I've never, I've said this all the time on my show. I don't think I have ever heard of a riot at a left wing commentator's speech.

[Carol Markowitz]

Right. Or home or anything like that.

[Walter Kurt]

Seriously. I mean, like, I mean, just when's the last time Jake Tapper had a riot outside of stuff?

[Carol Markowitz]

Right, right, yeah.

[Walter Kurt]

Stuff doesn't happen.

[Carol Markowitz]

Do you think you have a book in you?

[Walter Kurt]

Yeah, at some point. You know, I wrote something last year. I was trying to refine it down, but you know, I'm gonna run out of time. My intention was to try and have it before this summer. Was going to be a, you know, a handbook type thing. Was going to be a short book that was designed for ground activists and it was going to be, you know, there's the old book, the Alinsky book, the Rules for Radicals. It was going to be Rules for Radical Patriotism is the name of the book.

[Carol Markowitz]

So you should definitely do that.

[Walter Kurt]

Yeah, I was trying to get it done. I was trying to get it to the point where it was 90 pages. I wanted it to be small enough people could carry it with them. That was the intention.

[Carol Markowitz]

I love it.

[Walter Kurt]

Yeah, I just getting the amount of things that I'm working on now, it's impossible to keep up. So that'll be done eventually. Maybe I'll get it done for 28. That'll be the hope.

[Carol Markowitz]

Yeah, that's a really good idea. I think you should absolutely do that. Give us a five year out prediction and it could be about anything at all.

[Walter Kurt]

Five year out prediction, anything.

[Carol Markowitz]

Politics, music, whatever.

[Walter Kurt]

Politics is probably the only thing I think about enough to be able to give some sort of five year prediction. A five year prediction would be, I'd say that we possibly lose the House in 26, hold the Senate. 28 is actually gonna probably be okay because the Democrats still don't have a platform to run nationally on. They may be able to flip independent districts, but I don't know how they're going to be able to do a national campaign especially. And this is just a theory, so I can't really make the allegation. But I'll say if we prove that there are politicians that exist out here that accept large amounts of money from government sources, essentially that goes washed out one way, washed back in the other way, and we clean the voter rolls up. I think 28, we win again. I think Vance or Rubio, I don't necessarily believe that Vance is gonna just walk right into it. I know he's popular currently, but I think personally that it would be better if President Trump didn't step into the primary at all and said, you two are the candidates, the people pick who can do that. And that does a few things that proves who can build the best actual coalition to win on a smaller scale before you do it on the national scale. And I think that's much more important. So I'm hoping that's what happens. And then if we win in 28 again, then I believe we actually might have a chance to fix a lot of the problems that we have right now.

[Carol Markowitz]

That would be definitely four more years would be very important. I agree with you though. Primaries are not a bad thing. And they kind of reiterate what the party stands for. And they get a lot of the negative approaches that the candidate's going to face in the general. They're going to get to see it in the primary. I mean, if you don't have a primary, you sometimes end up with like a Kamala Harris candidate. And that's a real problem.

[Walter Kurt]

Well, I mean, it's more than that. The deal is the primary is important for us for a number of reasons. Because the primary, we need a candidate that can stand up to the scrutiny. Because unlike the left, the left, they don't care who they run. It means nothing to them. They can put a dead guy, they can put Kamala Harris, they could run a goldfish. I mean, they really could. It doesn't matter to them who the candidate is. That's irrelevant to them. They spin up the machine and then it fires along all the way. And that's just what they do. But on the right, everyone likes to complain about the candidate. But to me, not complaining about the candidate, more important than that is can the candidate actually handle the pressure? Because the pressure is significant and it's much worse than it is on the other side.

[Carol Markowitz]

So much worse. Yeah, it's not even comparable. Basically, the Democrats don't get to try out their arguments and they often are surprised to hear the argument from the right when they get to the general because their primaries are just so not like ours at all. Well, I have loved this conversation, Walter. I've loved learning more about you. Leave us here with your best tip for my listeners on how they can improve their lives.

[Walter Kurt]

Best tip to improve your lives would be never give up on a goal of yours. If it's worth doing, you should pursue it no matter what.

[Carol Markowitz]

I love that. Thank you so much. He is Walter Kurt. Check out his amazing investigative work and support his journalism. Thank you so much, Walter.

[Walter Kurt]

Thanks for having me on. Carol,

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[Walter Kurt]

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[Walter Kurt]

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This is an iHeart podcast.

[Carol Markowitz]

Guaranteed Human.