STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL Lew Olowski has enjoyed the kind of meteoric rise in government that only a Trump loyalist can dream of. After blogging for years for sites like the Daily Caller and the Federalist and working in the Department of Homeland Security in the first Trump administration, he joined the Foreign Service in 2021 and did a single tour as a consular officer stamping visas in China.

Then, earlier this month, he was appointed acting head of the State Department’s Bureau of Global Talent Management—making him the director general of the U.S. Foreign Service, a role typically reserved for senior diplomats with decades of experience.

The American Foreign Service Association blasted the Olowski appointment in a press release, saying they were “deeply concerned” about his lack of experience.

“This would be akin to placing a junior military officer, who has not yet completed a command tour, in charge of the Pentagon’s personnel system,” the union representing foreign service officers said.

But Olowski has been undaunted by his critics, assuming his post with customary MAGA swagger and even, apparently, glee. On April 7, he delivered a speech at a swearing-in ceremony for the Foreign Service Orientation class that left attendees shocked and befuddled—both because it contained references to talking dolphins and Kendrick Lamar’s hit song accusing Drake of being a pedophile, and because he filled his remarks with religious references and Trump reverence.

The Bulwark obtained a Zoom-recorded transcript of the speech and confirmed its authenticity with two other officials. The State Department didn’t respond to requests for comment. But one State official who saw the remarks described them as “some weird shit.”

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A notable portion of Olowski’s speech featured references to hip-hop. Welcoming the new foreign service officers to State, Olowski advised them to take a cue from Lamar’s “Not Like Us” when they hear someone criticize their new employer.

“For critics that have not sworn our oath, sing the song literally sung in the arena in New Orleans for the Kansas City Chiefs and the Philadelphia Eagles,” Olowski said. “That song goes, ‘They not like us. They not like us.’” Olowski then added some rap-styled advice of his own: “Don’t hate the diplomat, hate the Great Game,” an apparent reference to the nineteenth-century diplomatic conflict over Central Asia between the British and Russian empires.

Olowski’s invocation of Kendrick was not the only hip-hop reference he included in his remarks. He earlier appeared to cite the Jay-Z song “Dirt Off Your Shoulder.”

“Mudslingers will mar your face by dust, but don’t carry a chip on your shoulder,” he said. “Get that dirt off your shoulder.”

Olowski’s speech did drift heavily into politics. Though he called the Foreign Service corps a representation of the United States and the Constitution, he made clear his belief that foreign service officers’ task was to embody and promote Donald Trump’s agenda. He described State Department employees as Trump’s “diplomatic agents,” calling Trump the “living avatar” of the presidency.

“When we swore this oath, we entered into a covenant similar to President Trump, who, under Article II, Section 1, clause 1, is the living avatar of the executive power of the United States,” he said, according to the transcript. “‘The executive power shall be vested in a president of the United States of America.’ The executive power is vested in nobody else. There is no president but the president, and we are his diplomatic agents under the supreme law of the land.”

Olowski said he prayed for the success of Trump administration agenda items like the trade war, deportations purportedly targeting members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua, and the fight against “enemies that endorse or espouse Hamas’s terrorist activities.”

“Our leaders who are prosecuting, ending, and preventing multiple wars in multiple operational theaters, who are blunting the weapons of economic war waged against the American middle class by unfair barriers to trade overseas,” were also on his prayer list.

When entreating the Lord about topics like tariffs and efforts to combat fentanyl smuggling, Olowski said, he sometimes thinks of Abraham Lincoln’s second inaugural address and the abolition of slavery.

FOR THOSE WHO SAW THE SPEECH, however, the Trump adulation isn’t what stood out most. It was the weaving in of overtly religious messaging. Olowski started his remarks by telling attendees that the government would “protect your religious accommodations,” listing some topical scenarios: “Whether you need an exemption from vaccine mandates, whether you wear a hijab or a yarmulke, or you simply hold different religious viewpoints.”

But after stating his desire to not force religion on anyone, Olowski’s speech veered toward just that: He made heavy use of references to God and the Bible, as when he noted that the new officers were at the start of their State Department careers.

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“In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God,” Olowski said, quoting the beginning of the Gospel of John. “Yet every beginning has an end.”

The power, or lack thereof, of “words” was a theme for Olowski. And it brought him, occasionally, to some weird places. While discussing the act of swearing an oath, he detoured into an observation about dolphins.

“Oaths and words are different,” Olowski said. “Words are for talking. Dolphins can talk. Oaths are covenants. Animals do not covenant. Only God and man can make covenants.”

Naturally, word of Olowski’s talk spread pretty quickly across the department. One official said that within a few hours, foreign service officers stationed in Africa were buzzing about it. Another State official who was not there relayed the reactions of fellow staffers.

“Quite possibly the least appropriate quotation of Kendrick Lamar ever,” read one.

“What kind of drugs was this guy on and where does one procure them,” read another.

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