Sponsored

Theo Von ‘Shook’ After DHS Video Prompts Government To Offer Security

By No Comments
Theo Von
Photo Credit: Lisa Gansky from New York, NY, USA, CC BY-SA 2.0 , via Wikimedia Commons

Conservative podcaster Theo Von says he was blindsided when a federal agency turned a casual joke into political propaganda, leaving him rattled and questioning what comes next.

The comedian revealed on his podcast “This Past Weekend” that the Department of Homeland Security used a clip of him without permission in a social media post promoting deportations.

The short video showed Von saying, “Heard you got deported dude, bye,” a throwaway line he says was taken completely out of context. The clip went viral before being deleted the following day.

Von told his audience that the ordeal was overwhelming. “This was just f**ked up. It was f**ked up, and it was everywhere — it was like on all platforms and stuff. So that had me really kind of paranoid, you know.”

According to Von, the government’s response only deepened his unease. He described waking up to a message from what he called a “high government official.”

“I had the curtains in my house kind of closed. I was just like, you know, you’re paranoid,” he began.

“I woke up the next morning to a text from a high government official saying, ‘Hey, if you need uh some extra security in your neighborhood, um, or some extra police cars on patrol, let me know,’” Von recalled.

With the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk fresh on his mind, the offer of security pushed him into an unfamiliar and unnerving position.

“I’m like, ‘What? What are you talking about? Extra security?’ I don’t have any like, you know, I don’t even know the code to my Ring camera,” he remarked.

“Like, I don’t even know how to log in. So, it’s like and then and like what you just going to put police cars in my neighborhood?”

Von said the suggestion left him concerned about how his neighbors would perceive police patrols outside his home.

“That, that like really kind of shook me. It really kind of shook me,” he admitted.

“But you just, you keep marching on, you know, and you start getting security and then now, but now you have security, right? And the thing is, you just don’t know. You just don’t know, right?”

The comedian added that the presence of protection created its own tension.

“Now you’re — if you’re walking on a security guy, then that’s kind of uncomfortable ‘cuz now you’re like, it kind of makes you spooked. You’re like, what’s going on?”

He drew a direct link between his own unease and the killing of Kirk, which was caught on video and spread across the internet.

“So there’s just like all of that’s happening and then we get to just the the job, right? Like which is performing, speaking in front of strangers — like, you had just seen this thing with Charlie Kirk, right?” he asked.

“It’s like — like we all watched somebody get lit up. We all watched somebody get murdered casually on our phones, right?”

Von said that as he prepared for his upcoming Netflix special, the combination of fear and pressure was taking a toll.

“Like you just sometimes you don’t know what stress you’re holding,” he explained, calling it “a lot of stress going on,” some of which he didn’t even realize at the time.

On the podcast, Von also opened up about his family’s history, noting that his father immigrated to America from Nicaragua.

“My father immigrated here from Nicaragua. One of my prized possessions is, I have his immigration papers when he came here,” Von said.

“I have them in a frame [from when] him and his siblings came here. So, I have tons of thoughts about it.”

He clarified that immigration is an issue he views with complexity. “Everyone is [going to] have to be on the books,” he predicted, suggesting that America is turning into a “surveillance state.”

Von also shared the backstory of how the DHS clip came about. Roughly a year and a half ago, a woman in a parking lot approached him and said her friend had been deported.

She asked him to record a message. Von admitted he played along but wasn’t sure if the story was genuine.

“I didn’t know if it was real or not,” he said. “I was just joking around.”

After DHS posted the video, Von made his frustration clear on X. “Yooo DHS i didn’t approve to be used in this. I know you know my address so send a check,” he wrote.

“And please take this down and please keep me out of your ‘banger’ deportation videos,” Von added.

“When it comes to immigration my thoughts and heart are a lot more nuanced than this video allows. Bye!”

He later described the incident as an “intense thing” and pressed the question of why the government would create such content in the first place.

“And why is the government even making these [videos],” Von asked. “I don’t know. But that’s where we’re at in the world.”

Von has long aligned himself with President Donald Trump, promoting Trump, Vice President JD Vance, and Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on his show.

He even attended Trump’s inauguration in January, highlighting his position as one of the few comedians openly supportive of the administration.

Watch the full episode of “This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von” here:

Leave A Reply