Christian nationalist C.Jay Engel doesn't want you to believe me. You can see the evidence yourself.

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WTVF) — Podcaster C.Jay Engel thinks I’m part of a grand conspiracy, twisting his words and the views of his Christian nationalist partner Andrew Isker, apparently taking orders from what he calls "the American Regime."

"The media is basically a front for the American Regime, and the American Regime does not have our best interest in mind,” Engel said during a recent interview with a fellow podcaster. "They love to scare people because when you scare the masses you create the type of division that only the government can be there to solve."

That's why Engel wants you to believe that, when it comes to legacy media, "nobody believes them anymore."

Those bizarre claims follow NewsChannel 5’s recent investigation, which revealed Isker and Engel are serving as ambassadors for an effort to draw like-minded Christian nationalists to Jackson County, Tennessee. Located about 90 minutes northeast of Nashville, the county is where Isker has declared “we're building a town… we're building a community there.”

Those revelations came as a shock to the people who already call Jackson County — and the county seat of Gainesboro — home.

Watch my original story in the player above.

“Does Phil Williams, does he actually believe this stuff? Like, is he a true believer or is he just kind of, like, an operative?” Engel asked during that podcast interview. “I think he actually believes this stuff. I think he himself is actually scared of some kind of imminent fascist takeover from the world of Christian thinkers.”

Engel, 34, has referred to me as “Antifa adjacent,” “BLM friendly,” a “rabblerouser” and an “activist masquerading as a journalist.”

“He loves to be a fearmonger,” Engel said in that interview. “He loves to rile people up and set fire to small peaceable towns.”

In fact, as Isker and Engel face blowback from the community to which they are relocating, the evidence suggests Engel is trying to mask the controversial ideas espoused by him and other individuals who are trying to recreate Jackson County in their own image.

NewsChannel 5 Investigates analyzed that recent podcast interview, as well as an earlier interview with a minister in the Jackson County area and Engel’s social media posts, and uncovered repeated examples where Engel minimizes what he admits are “edgy” ideas.

CLAIM: “I’ve actually never called myself a Christian nationalist…. We just live in a world where that sounds like a really scary label. So they like to throw it around.”

Watch video excerpt in player below:

FACT: On at least two occasions, Isker has referred to his and Engel’s podcast as the “Number One Christian Nationalist Podcast in the World.”

And, during a November 2023 episode of their Contra Mundum podcast focused on “the next phase of Christian nationalism,” Engel celebrated a critic's recognition of the accomplishments of that movement.

“That's good — we’re making headway,” he added.

In April 2023, Engel tweeted that he was “gonna Christian Nationalist even harder."

That September, he wrote of policies that “no Christian nationalist supports,” adding “many of us actually support the breakup and crushing of the United States regime, and we are willing to use political means to do it.”

Back in June, Engel posted on X: “I consider myself ‘Christian Nationalist adjacent.’ I’m a traditionalist right winger.”

Regardless of terminology, Engel’s views reflect traditional Christian nationalism, including his desire for a Protestant dictator.

"There's an imperative for like-minded Christians to gather and fight with us,”Engel said during an October podcast when asked about the pair's plans for Jackson County.

"We need Christian nationalism in one state.”

CLAIM: Engel denies that his views are based on white supremacy or race. “I very much am not a racist, but a culturalist.”

Watch video excerpt in player below:

FACT: The podcaster’s views of “culture,” as he defines it, are strongly tied to race.

“I really care about the continuity of culture and, as it happens, in the outpouring and development of history, there are ethnic correlations there that I don’t think that we can just pretend don’t exist,” Engel said in the recent podcast interview.

In espousing his views that America should only be open to “Heritage Americans,” Engel has argued that the “founders thought that the white European race had produced the best civilization and that they were uniquely situated and intelligent to rule the western hemisphere – and spoke about non-Europeans as intellectually inferior.”

Engel — who repeatedly calls for a return to the America imagined by the founders — did not condemn that view.

“The founders created a country for their people (their posterity),” he wrote in another social media post. “They were very clear on this. That’s why the radical left attacks them for being ‘racist.’ I’m simply echoing our founding ethos.”

He has also argued that “the majority of blacks have demonstrated that they cannot function within the old European cultural standards” and that the phrase “’one race, the human race’ is actually ... an attempt to avoid very difficult discussions.”

“My Twitter is directed at a niche audience of friends,” Engel recently responded. “Whether you consider random things derogatory is on you.”

Isker, a right-wing minister from Minnesota, has also argued that "the very concept of 'racism' was literally a creation of communists."

CLAIM:  While Isker and Engel have called for a repeal of civil rights legislation passed in the 1960s, Engel denied in the interview with the minister that he “wants to go back to where the Black people had to ride in the back of the bus.”

Watch video excerpt in player below:

FACT: “I too want to return America to how it was before the civil rights movement,” Engel said in a post on X. He has also argued that Dr. Martin Luther King was “an agent of revolution” and that “you cannot have both MLK and Heritage America.”

In August 2024, he reacted on X to a photo of a Whites-only diner in the 1950s, declaring: “The 1960s ruined everything.”

Yet, responding to NewsChannel 5’s reporting about that post, Engel accused me of being the one who was biased.

“All Phil can see in expressions of the past is, of course, the racial makeup of the images. Literally. A diner was posted. Phil sees White People," he argued.

"This is a known sickness called ‘Race Brain.’”

Yet, in another post, the podcaster argued that “conservatives, ingrained [with] egalitarian values [have a] hard time digesting the old case against Civil Rights era suffrage.” He added, “Civilization was better before we mandated equality in political ‘rights.’”

Asked by the local minister about whether he desired to go back to an era of segregated buses, Engel replied: “No, but we do want to go back to the Constitution and resolve those things in different ways.” That, he said, means leaving it up to the states to decide.

A caller pressed him on his willingness to leave it up to the states who might decide to reimpose racial segregation. “You’re comfortable with that possibility?”

“What I’m comfortable with,” Engel answered, “is the fact that states should, they should be aware of the fact that the government has taken way too much control of our lives, and I think they should push back on those structures and if other things come up, then I think that the states should address those things with the resources that they have.”

CLAIM: Engel denied he and Isker had laughed uproariously about the 1955 kidnapping and lynching of 14-year-old Emmett Till, as depicted in NewsChannel 5's initial report. Engel claimed they were actually laughing about a colleague who simply admitted he did not know Till’s name.

Watch video excerpt in player below:

FACT: The podcasters began laughing when reading a critic who had denounced Isker’s “dismissiveness” of Till’s murder.

A link in the original article shows the critic was actually referring to the following social media post in which Isker mocked the story of Emmett Till:

About that same time, Stephen Wolfe — a highly educated Christian nationalist — had posted on Twitter: “Ok. I’ll bite. Who’s Emmett Till?”

Wolfe later added mockingly, “Yeah I’m supposed to care about some 1955 event that all the libs care about. Their minds are captured.”

Responding to his own lack of interest in such an important historical event, Engel had tweeted that such “’seminal moments’ are politically chosen, rather than happening spontaneously.”

On top of it all, in his interview with the area minister, Engel claimed: “If you go back and you listen to this episode, both of us were explicitly clear that this was an outrage, that nobody should be the victim of vigilante justice and that … this has no role in a just society.”

NewsChannel 5 checked that recording and could find no evidence that those words of condemnation were ever spoken, and Engel did not respond to a request to provide evidence to back his claim.

NOTE: After this analysis was posted, Engel tweeted a link to another podcast episode in which he and Isker conceded the execution of Till was "wrong" and "bad." Isker mockingly referred to Till as "the great martyr" and questioned "the outrageousness of the story."

Isker responded to the above post with the following: "Why does Radical Child Genital Mutilation activist, Phil Williams, want to use the brutal murder of a 14-year-old from 70 years ago to push the idea that all white people are racist?"

He added, "That's what this has always been about.

In 2024, Engel also mockingly posted: “OK I’ll bite. Who is George Floyd?”

CLAIM: During the interview with the local minister, Engel denied that he or any of his associates would discriminate against members of the LGBTQ community, African-Americans or Latinos in hiring for their business.

Watch video excerpt in player below:

FACT: After making that statement, Engel immediately began to hedge.

“I do think I’ll hire someone that fits with the ethos of the town and [with] our families and the consumers around here too.” He did not explain how he would determine who “fits.”

But in July 2024, Engel argued on X that discrimination should be legally protected, adding “it’s called freedom of association.”

“Gay people need to work on not being gay and then we can employ them. Pretty simple,” he posted.

Confronted on social media with that contradiction, Engel changed his focus from “hiring” to “selling.”

CLAIM: Engel denied NewsChannel 5’s reporting that he and Isker have advocated the deportation of immigrants who are not “Heritage Americans” — even if they were legal immigrants, even if they have become U.S. citizens.

Watch video excerpt in player below:

FACT: Arguing that America is only for “Heritage Americans,” Engel has posted that “peoples like Indians, or South East (sic) Asians or Ecuadorians or immigrated Africans are the least capable of fitting in and should be sent home immediately.”

In September 2024, the podcaster argued that “salvaging what remains of the American people will require increasingly courageous action to deal with immigration.” He added that there was a need to “roll back 70 years of development.”

“Legal immigrants (green card holder, people on a visa, birthright citizenship beneficiaries and more) on the other hand will require enormous political will and a sense of political destiny by a Heroic figure,” he added.

“It will require a reversal of legal precedent and retroactive application of new rules.”

Isker also appeared to approve of another Christian nationalist’s post that called for the review of the citizenship status of anyone who came to the U.S. after 1965. Among the grounds for deportation, the man suggested, would be “working for Left causes.”

“Deported for anti-Heritage American activities,” Isker replied.

CLAIM: “I’m not against college-educated White women.”

Watch video excerpt in player below:

FACT: On Aug. 7, 2023, Engel posted: “People who call me racist are innately incapable of comprehending the extent to which I detest the specific impact of college-educated white women on the culture of the world around me.”

Two months earlier, he had posed the poll question: “Should college-educated white women have the right to vote?”

More than 90% of his followers voted “no.”

He has also argued that men need to “propagandize your wife… training her to like the things you do, to agree with you that they are good. Women need you to set the vision.”

Isker has expressed similar views.

CLAIM: “I don’t think we should approach these things like it’s wrong for them (women) to vote.”

Watch video excerpt in player below:

FACT: On Nov. 1, 2024, Engel posted on X: “Women were happier and lived more fulfilling lives before they got the vote.”

A year earlier, he approvingly quoted political theorist Paul Gottfried regarding the 19^th Amendment that gave women the right to vote.

Engel later responded that Gottfried’s opinion “reflects a very basic and mainstream view of civil-political dynamics that has been held in American since the beginning.”

CLAIM: Engel claimed that NewsChannel 5 dragged his “small family … through the mud” and labeled them as Nazis.

Watch video excerpt in player below:

FACT: NewsChannel 5’s reporting never mentioned that Engel has a family. Instead, the report noted that Isker and Engel’s rhetoric was reminiscent of the neo-Nazis who had paraded through Nashville chanting: “They hate White men, deport every Mexican.”

Engel did not directly respond to a question about those similarities when given a chance to comment prior to the airing of the story.

In fact, the podcaster has interacted positively with neo-Nazi accounts on X, including one with a profile that declares the need to “secure the existence of our people and a future for White Children.”

That message was followed by two SS lightning bolts.

X

Responding to a post from that account that said Black people were part of the American story but “not in a good way,” Engel assured the person: “I promise you we’re allies.”

Engel has also created an audiobook company that has promoted works by Belgium Nazi collaborator Leon Degrelle and New Zealand white supremacist and Holocaust denier Kerry Bolton.

“Phil Williams thinks I’m a Nazi for my disinterest in Democracy but actually I’m just a good old-fashioned American,” he insisted.

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Do you have information that would help me with my investigation? Send me your tips: phil.williams@newschannel5.com

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