Television host Mike Rowe said that the General Services Administration (GSA) recently revoked his permit to shoot a new episode of “Dirty Jobs” and wondered whether it was done for “political reasons” or as an attempt to “yank my chain,” which he said the move failed to do.
In a lengthy message posted Monday on Facebook, Rowe explained why he didn’t appear at the job site this week as scheduled to shoot an episode highlighting a woman-owned company in the boilermaker trade. Rowe said that to his both surprise and disappointment the shoot was canceled “at the last minute” when the GSA “suddenly revoked our permit.”
“I just wanted to assure you guys that this decision had nothing to do with me, Discovery, or my production team,” Rowe wrote. “This decision was made solely by the GSA, who oversees the location where you are currently working, and required us to apply for a permit months ago. Obviously, we did. The necessary permits were quickly issued, and we were assured several times over the last few months that everything was still good to go.”
“Then, just two days before I was scheduled to arrive, we received a phone call from a woman at the GSA who informed us that our permits were being revoked,” he added. “When we asked for an explanation, she said, ‘security concerns.’ When we asked her what kind of security concerns, she said she didn’t know. She only told us that the decision had come down from ‘the very highest levels within the GSA.'”
The TV host did not specify the location of the scheduled shoot but posted pictures of what appeared to be M&M Welding and Fabricators, the company his show had planned to feature in the episode. Rowe went on to reference other places where the show “has filmed in many sensitive environments under government control,” citing previous permits obtained from the Army, Navy, Air Force, and NASA, adding, “We even got a permit to film inside the National Security Agency!”
“What’s really going on here?” Rowe asked in his post.
Rowe said his crew later received a call from someone he said “sounded credible” who claimed the permit was revoked because of Rowe’s viewpoints.
“According to this caller, someone at the highest levels of the GSA, ‘doesn’t like Mike Rowe’s personal politics,’ and used their power to deliberately string us along until the last possible second, for the express purpose of ‘yanking my chain,'” Rowe wrote.
Rowe added that his “personal politics are not a matter of public record, and Dirty Jobs has no political agenda whatsoever.”
“However, I do happen to have a hit show on Fox Business,” Rowe wrote. “It’s called How America Works, and not everybody is happy about it.”
Rowe admitted he can’t say for sure if what the caller told him was accurate.
The Daily Wire reached out to GSA for comment but did not immediately receive a response.