Episode 406 - Spotlight on Matt K. Lewis - Voices In My Head (The Rick Lee James Podcast)

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Welcome to Voices in My Head, the official podcast of me, Rick Lee James. I'm a recording artist, a singer, a songwriter, an author, a worship leader, and an ordained minister in the Church of the Nazarene. The Voices in My Head podcast is where I discuss music, movies, books, pop culture, theology, and more with friends, colleagues, and sometimes just by myself. Now make sure to let me know what you think of today's episode by leaving me a review on iTunes or by tweeting at me @RickLeeJames on Twitter. And please join my mailing list at RickLeeJames.com where you can receive an email every time a new episode is released. By the way, in case you're interested in a daily dose of kindness and encouragement beyond this podcast, I also run the Twitter account @MrRogersSay where I post daily quotes from Fred Rogers, one of the voices in my head. Well, I guess that's it for the intro, so sit back, relax, and listen to the latest episode of Voices in My Head.

Welcome back to Voices in My Head. As always, I'm your host Rick Lee James, and I'm so glad that you're here with us this week for what I know is going to be an another great conversation. My guest this week on Voices in My Head is Matt Lewis. Called a first-rate talent in the Washington Post and super smart by John Heilemann, Matt K. Lewis is a center-right critic of American politics and pop culture. As a journalist, Lewis has earned a reputation as an independently minded and intellectually honest commentator. He is a senior columnist for the Daily Beast, and his work has appeared in the Wall Street Wall Street Journal, GQ, The Washington Post, The Week, Roll Call, Politico, The Telegraph, The Independent, and The Guardian. He previously served as senior contributor for The Daily Caller, and before that as a columnist for AOL's PoliticsDaily. Lewis dissects the day's issues in conversation with other thinkers, authors, and newsmakers on his podcast Matt Lewis and the News and co-hosts The DMZ Show with liberal pundit Bill Scher. He is a political commentator for CNN, has appeared on C-SPAN, PBS NewsHour, ABC's Nightline, HBO's Real Time with Bill Maher, and CBS News' Face the Nation, and has contributed to radio outlets including NPR and the BBC. Kirsten Powers described Lewis's 2016 book, Too Dumb to Fail: How the GOP Went from the Party of Reagan to the Party of Trump, as a lively and fascinating read for any person confounded by the state of of today's Republican Party. In 2011, Lewis released The Quotable Rogue: The Ideals of Sarah Palin in Her Own Words, an edited compilation of the Alaska governor's much-discussed public utterances. He's here today so he can share a bit about himself with our listeners. Matt Lewis, welcome to Voices in My Head.

It's great to be here, and I'm reminded of the George Costanza line: If you took everything I've done in my whole life, and condensed it into 30 seconds. It's okay, it's decent.

It's a lot, and I need to re-record the intro. I kept stumbling over— there's so much there to say, it's actually quite impressive. And you really have had quite a storied career. I know there's lots more to come, but you've really had a lot of great accomplishments, and it's a different kind of career than most of us really have probably experienced in our day-to-day life. Most of us who listen to podcasts or watch television shows or just listen to the radio from day to day, we're unaware of the type of job that you do. And most of us don't see a college career path for becoming a critic of American politics or pop culture. And so today, I wanted to talk to you sort of about your story and maybe ask you about some of the highlights of your career and some of your backstory, because you really have had quite a career. You've run political campaigns. You've also done things like work for Roy Rogers Restaurants, But at the same time, you've also worked for Tucker Carlson, and then you've hosted this great podcast that you have every day that comes out, Matt Lewis and the News, and you really have some wonderful guests that come on your show and you have some wonderful and very lively conversations. So I guess what I wanted to do today is really just have a chance to showcase Matt Lewis. I know sometimes because I do these shows all the time where I'm interviewing people, it's fun when I get to go on a podcast occasionally and they ask me just some questions about myself. I wanted to give you that opportunity today to just talk about you and kind of share some of your story. So, so let's talk about some of that backstory.

What are—

what would you say are some of the— your highlights of your career and some of your backstory that kind of led you to where you are today?

Oh, well, let's see. So, I mean, one part of my backstory is that I was a musician. Not a great musician, but an aspiring musician. It's funny, I found that a lot of people who do what I do are sort of failed artists in some way. I was at a breakfast with 3 or 4 of my Daily Beast colleagues, and it just happened, it just came up that like, I think 4 out of 5 of us at the table were pretty serious musicians.

Oh, nice.

And that's something I just didn't even know. But playing music, my dad was a correctional officer in Hagerstown, Maryland. And he was a really good, he used to play in a country band called Irene and the Country Rascals. And he's a really good kind of bluegrass picker. Nice. And gospel singer. He played in a band called the Gospel Travelers in Frederick, Maryland. So he taught me how to play and then I started when I was a little older playing in bands and that taught me so much amazingly about things that I still do today, whether it was promoting a band or performing, kind of getting over the nerves of getting up and performing, working together collaboratively with other people in a band is something that's very similar to what I do now with everything, my writing, even though my name is on the headline. It takes a village. So, you know, that's just one of the things that sort of led me where I am. I always loved politics. And if I had, you know, I didn't have the talent to make it in music, but if I ever had, I would have wanted to be sort of like a Bono type of musician, like someone who actually used their platform to achieve some sort of virtuous goals and somewhat political goals. So it didn't happen that way, but the Lord works in mysterious ways. And I think my parents at some point must have thought I was going to be a loser and that I was wasting my time. But amazingly, that time, it was well spent. It was actually training me very much for what I do today.

Yeah. So I can imagine your parents first starting out as, "I want a career in music," and then, "No, I want a career in politics." I think both in the same way that they would probably—

most parents would think, "Oh, boy." I mean, now that I'm a parent, now that I'm a dad, I can so identify with the pain and the fear and the difficulty of cutting the apron strings. The weird thing too is I went to a very small little school, Shepherd College in Shepherdstown, West Virginia. And I actually was a political science major, but it never occurred to me because again, my dad was like a prison guard and we didn't have any friends who were like lawyers or politicians. Like that was just, it would be like saying if you had told my dad that I was gonna, you know, your son's gonna grow up and be like on TV talking about politics and writing books, it would've been pretty much as outlandish as if you said like, your son's actually gonna be a rock star or gonna be like, a professional baseball player or something.

Sure.

It was just beyond our experience. So I went to, I went to college to learn about politics, but, um, but never did an internship, never volunteered on a campaign the whole time I was in college and really had no exit strategy, no plan to parlay that into a job. In fact, my idea for how you got a job was you look in the back of the Frederick News-Post newspaper for wanted ads. And that's what I tried to do. And, That's why I ended up working at a fast food restaurant.

Yeah. Well, tell us a little bit about that because when you graduated, I believe, was when you started working at a fast food place called Roy Rogers. And here in Springfield, Ohio, where I live, we don't have those, but I've done enough traveling as a musician myself. I've actually stopped at Roy Rogers restaurants on occasion when I've been in the areas. But tell us a little bit about that experience.

If you've ever seen The Americans, The TV show The Americans about these Russian spies, there's a big episode that actually I think takes place at a Roy Rogers, if memory serves. But anyway, Roy Rogers is actually a really good fast food chain and they've got great roast beef sandwiches and they got the Fixin's Bar. Before Panera and Chipotle and those sort of restaurants, came on the scene, Roy Rogers was sort of like an upscale fast food restaurant, just a little bit nicer than Wendy's, let's say, or McDonald's. That was the space they were going for. I had done work like that before. I mean, I worked at a fried chicken restaurant called Watson's in Frederick, Maryland. I worked at a gas station for 5 years. I worked at an awesome pizzeria in Frederick, Maryland that I still frequent called Il Forno's Pizzeria. So, I had done that but I was in college at the same time, right? So, that wasn't my career. That was just me working my way through school.

Sure.

But then, I graduated and I had no way to get a job. So, I started working at this Roy Rogers as training to be a manager. And they were great to me. I have nothing but good things to say about the franchise but I was miserable because it was not what I was called to do. I really, for the first time, I really kind of hit rock bottom and went through some depression at that period of my life.

Yeah. Well, and that isn't— oh, I'm sorry. I think I accidentally muted my microphone. I had to cough, so I just— pardon me.

As a podcaster, I've done that so many times.

Well, I was just going to say, yeah. In a job, even if it's one where they treat you well and it's not one that you really feel that your heart is in and one that you even feel called to, it can be such a miserable thing sometimes, even if they're treating you well and you're working with good people. So you're at this point where you have your degree at this point, correct? And your degree is in— and what was your degree in?

It was in political science.

Political science, and you're working at a Roy Rogers restaurant because you really just kind of went to the want ads after you had graduated. At this point.

Right, because I never had— I mean, because of the blue-collar background that I had, my parents knew enough to say, "You got to go to college. We want our son to go to college." But what they didn't know is— and years later, a couple of years later when I finally was interning at a place called the Leadership Institute, one of my fellow interns gave me a book called Dig Your Well Before You're Thirsty. The Only Networking Book You'll Ever Need by a guy named Harvey Mackay. It taught me about networking and not the dirty, slimy, skeevy networking, but really what we would just call making friends. It was a foreign concept to me. I literally had to read a book to understand that most people don't get hired by sending a resume. I had no experience in that. Even though I had the degree, I had I was not equipped in any way to actually do anything with my life.

So where in the timeframe of working this job at the restaurant to actually starting to work on a political campaign or actually pursuing a job from reading this book, how did you make that leap from finding this book and learning about making the connections? What was sort of that timeframe and how did you make that leap?

So, what happened is— so, we're in like 1998. I'm working at this Roy Rogers fast food restaurant and I'm just miserable, absolutely miserable. And I went to my dad who, again, this sort of blue-collar, pull yourself up by your bootstraps guy who had endured so much crap from me. He's passed away in 2004, by the way. But he was someone— I put him through a lot, I'm sure.. And I told him I wanted to quit. And I remember expecting him to basically be like, "Hey, look, man. I've been supporting you for years. It's time for you. Life's not supposed to be fun. Suck it up." And instead, he was like, "Okay." And so, I quit. I quit that job. And so, I'm actually a believer that quitting is sometimes a very good thing. I'm a fan of quitting. Then I have to be honest, I really hit bottom and I prayed. I very sincerely said, "Okay, God, I do not know what I'm doing. You tell me what to do because obviously I don't know what I'm doing." Before I tell this next part, I just want to make clear, I'm not one of these people who believes that God calls people to be president or that kind of thing.

Sure.

But I can tell you, I do think he cares about us and the affairs of men. And I said, "You tell me what to do." And I had this weird, immediately epiphany that I should volunteer on a campaign. And I had this feeling of comfort. And I can tell you, I've literally never in my life, thought about, even though I was a political science major, I'd never volunteer on a campaign, never thought about volunteering on a campaign. And suddenly I had this piece and see, I'm actually, you may not realize this, people probably don't think it because I get up and I give public speeches and I go on TV, but I was like a very shy person. And so shy that like I literally would not go make change. Like if I can buy something at 7-Eleven, you know, because that interaction with the cashier made me too nervous. And so, but suddenly I had this calmness and this peace and I did volunteer on a campaign. And the person said, the candidate said, actually, I need you to be my campaign manager. And so I went from being, I went from being unemployed to managing a pretty high-profile state senate race. Wow. That opened every door everywhere I am today. That began— that, that was the beginning of it. It opened all these doors. And in fact, that's what led me to intern at the Leadership Institute where this other intern gave me that book, Dig Your Well Before You're Thirsty. And I guess I should just say, I know at some point you may ask me for books, so that would be one of them maybe that changed my life.

Sure, yeah, that's great. And I also wanted to just kind of interject in there and say that really doesn't surprise me that much either to find out about you being an introvert, because I have a little bit of that myself. And what I know from a lot of my friends who are creative types, whether they are writers or singers or songwriters or people who do public speaking, it seems like We thrive pretty well on platforms or places where we're in front of people, but as soon as we're off the platform, it's like, boy, am I drained. I need to go and hide somewhere. And I feel like a lot of us are doing pretty well during this pandemic, just kind of in our homes, you know.

I've been training for this my whole life.

Yeah, our time has come, for sure. So, well, you're totally right.

I think that's the definition, I think, of introverted. It's that, do you gain energy from being around people or lose it? And I can tell you, I spent 4 years working at this pretty amazing organization called the Leadership Institute where I literally went around the country recruiting, organizing, and even conducting seminars, getting up in some cases and speaking for hours and hours. And I got to be very, very good at it, and it would just wipe me out though, totally wipe me out.

Wow.

And I bet it would, yeah, because it does put a real drain on you when you're in those times and you need a lot of time to kind of recharge your batteries kind of by yourself after you're with people all the time like that too. So that can be a tough thing. I do kind of want to interrupt in this part of the story real quick and maybe jump back on at this part in just a few minutes. But I did want to ask you, because you, you had stopped to say that you had, had really spent some time in prayer at this point in your life, and, and I did want to kind of ask you about kind of your, your faith journey up to this point in your life and kind of really what role your faith has played in shaping you really as a person, maybe from your childhood. And you talked about your dad playing gospel music and different things. What was kind of your, your background in your family, um, as far as your faith goes? Because I'm, I'm convinced that in some ways, um, our family background plays a lot into the kind of people that we become, not only in sometimes our politics, but sometimes with the kind of, of faith that we grow into in, in life later on. And sometimes we turn away from that, sometimes we lean into it. And I'm just curious as to, to what what role faith plays in your life.

Well, I mean, and let me start with the caveat that I am far, far from a perfect person. But no, I grew up in a Christian household. But it's sort of a weird background. Like, I grew up really close to a Brethren Church named after a family, interestingly. Grossnickel Church of the Brethren. I've never heard of a church named after a family. It's not like Trinity or it's, you know, it's that. So it, but it was a Brethren church. And as you may know, Brethren were pacifists. Okay. I don't think anyone who goes to that church today is a pacifist. I mean, they're just your normal Trump voter, I would imagine. But that was part of it. But I also, my dad grew up in that church, but, you know, he believed that he actually was not saved. Until he heard, you know, some Pentecostal preachers on the radio. And so he also injected that sort of theology into me as well. And we attended— and one of the sort of sad things is, you know, we didn't really have necessarily a home church my whole life. My dad, we would go from church, kind of church, would go for a couple years to a church and then move to another. It would say something that wasn't quite exactly in line with my family's theology at at the time. And so we would move on to a different church. So I had a lot of diversity. But my dad was consistently a believer. When my dad died in 2004, you go through their stuff and, eh, if you go through people's stuff, you might never know what you might find, right? You might find a letter from a mistress or whatever. When I went through my dad's stuff, all I would find are like Bible verses that he had like handwritten. I'm talking about every— his drawers, his book, like whatever. You just keep finding all these like— he was incredibly devout. And if anybody is in heaven, he's one person I'm pretty confident, very confident. If he's not there, there's not a lot of hope. That's pretty neat. So he really provided that really great witness and testimony for me. And then I would say as I as I got older, just as my politics matured, I think my faith did as well, where I started, you know, I became, I started listening to a lot of like Timothy Keller.

Okay.

The pretty famous pastor for Christ Redeemer in New York. And so that wasn't just the, you know, the churches I used to go to when I I was a kid were very much geared towards salvation. So in other words, there was an altar call at every single sermon, every service, and every service was preached to you as if you were a sinner who had never accepted Christ. That was the ultimate goal, and I totally understand it. But in some cases, there were only like 10 of us there, and we've been going there for 20 years. So instead of that, I might have enjoyed what Tim Keller provides, which is, I think more of a guidance of how do you actually live the Christian life and how do you grow and become an adult Christian, an adult believer. Um, and so, um, I, I, I, I, uh, since, you know, and I still have a long way to go. And now, of course, I'm a dad. And so, um, my kids both go to a Christian school. Um, they started off going to a Lutheran school, uh, which was fabulous when we lived in the DC area. Now they go to like a more fundamentalist type of school, um, but I supplement that with all sorts of other, uh, things that I, I just take the responsibility as a parent. I think, you know, being a teacher is, is a— being a dad is so important.

Yeah, I, you know, I find that too with, with my son. We're— I'm always trying to, um to stretch myself as a person of faith. I'm actually an ordained minister in the Church of the Nazarene, which is part of really the American Holiness movement, but I find myself leaning a lot more towards Catholicism and the Eastern Orthodox Church and a more liturgical background than I ever grew up with, and I find that there's a lot of benefit to that. And so I find that even with my own son, who is 8 now, I'm trying to give a good, like, smorgasbord, you know, and not just one thing because there's such a richness to the faith that I don't want to neglect any part of it. You know, I feel like that we can learn a lot from each other.

So totally. I used to tell people that I'm temperamentally Catholic and theologically Pentecostal, and I feel this way in everything. I mean, my kids right now are My oldest boy takes jiu-jitsu, but I want him to take judo and taekwondo as well. And I think if you got very proficient at those three martial arts, you'd be a pretty tough hombre.

Sure. Well, and I think that that kind of openness theologically, it probably serves you well with— we'll jump back a little bit more into your career story here as well, but I think it probably serves you well in sort of the life and conversations that you're having you're having in your career and you being a conservative. But in many ways, I think the Conservative Party has kind of left you, you know, in some ways. And we can talk about some of that. But I think in many ways, just in reading what you've written and kind of listening to you and the conversations that you've had, especially over the last 4 years, it's been interesting to kind of watch the ways that I feel like maybe because of your openness to others who are not of the same political ilk of you, um, I think it's, it's been neat to kind of watch you grow and stretch and, and find, um, maybe some, some newness that, that you maybe would not have been open to before. But because of, of, of your openness to, to some new relationships that, that maybe you wouldn't have been to before, um, there's been some actual real growth there too, you know, which, which maybe we can talk about that as some part of the stories with these good like conversations that you're getting to have. And so maybe we can jump back in when I kind of veered us off course to talk a little bit about your faith journey. We talked about you running this political campaign. I don't think I asked you though, was it a success? Did you win the campaign?

Well, so it's so funny. I live in West Virginia now and my congressman is a guy named Alex Mooney. Rick Lee James. And he was my state senator in Maryland. This is the guy. So he moved states just like I did. So first of all, I don't want to get— I was— I don't want to give the— when we say that I ran his campaign, I was the campaign manager, but running his campaign entailed everything from cleaning out his car to driving him to writing his speeches. It was very all-encompassing. So it was not I said the glamour of— I wasn't Karl Rove. So I ran his campaign in the sense that I drove him often. But it was just an amazing experience. And he did win. He was— Alex was 26 years old. He beat a 16-year incumbent, a guy named Jack Durr, who had been the minority whip of the Maryland State Senate. And it was a great It was a great experience. And Alex said to me when I first started working for him, he said, if you're gonna run my campaign, you need to learn what you're doing. There's this place called the Leadership Institute I want you to go to. And they do training. They train conservatives.

Okay.

How to be more effective in public policy, including how to run campaigns. Actually, it's funny. Um, I do a school for them still. You mentioned that there's no, that there's no college, uh, degree in, in doing what I do. Mm-hmm. That's true. But there is a seminar cuz I teach it.

Okay.

There's a seminar and if anybody wants to attend on Zoom, I think we're doing another one this summer. It's got the unfortunate name, How to Be a Pundit, which sounds very sketchy, but it literally is everything I've learned about how I do what I do. And so, if someone out there wanted to do what I do, that would be the crash course.

Yeah, very interesting. Now that's cool. So tell us how you got from, you know, take us a bit on the journey then from running a campaign to some of your other jobs that led you to where you are now, because there's several moves in between there.

Yeah, right. So I did that campaign, we won. I would have loved to have worked for Alex in Annapolis. He ended up, thankfully, He picked someone else to sort of be— they get like one assistant in the state Senate when you're a freshman at least. And so I ended up interning at the Leadership Institute. I ended up working there for 4 years. And that was like the equivalent of getting a PhD in practical politics, like in campaign politics. I went all over the country and taught about politics and also listened. It would be me and like a couple political consultants, like top strategists.. And I would sit in the audience and listen to them give the same lectures. How do you develop a persuasive message? How do you develop a campaign strategy? And I heard these things hundreds of times in the Q&A, and eventually, it was just a great training ground. Then I moved to North Dakota. And, you know, while I was working at the Leadership Institute, I had on my own time, I had run several state rep races and school board races and had a lot of success. But I never managed a statewide campaign. So I moved to North Dakota and tried to do that. And it was probably the— now keep in mind, after I hit rock bottom in 1998 at Roy Rogers, I'd had this kind of meteoric rise. I'm getting up in front of audiences, giving speeches, getting applause, you know, all of a sudden things seem to be great until I moved to North Dakota. And like the first week I'm there, the wind chill's like 80 below zero. It's literally colder there, colder there than Antarctica, literally. Um, find out that my candidate had misled me on a whole bunch of stuff that I didn't know till I got out there. Um, I'm out there, my dad, that's the year that my dad died, uh, which, which was really hard, uh, for me. Reagan died that year. The next month, political father, uh, died. Um, and my campaign lost. And, and so, uh, I, I kind of hit, hit rock bottom. But one really cool thing happened on that campaign for me. And it was, I don't know if you remember, but around 2003, 2004 is when Howard Dean started running for president.

Yeah.

In the Democratic Party. And he started blogging. He was Howard Dean and Joe Trippi, his campaign manager, whom I've since become friends with. Were doing these meetups on the internet and they were blogging and blogging. So I started blogging on my campaign and that introduced me to writing and got me a little bit more experience in writing about politics. And then after that campaign ended, I wrote some case studies about politics and I found that, you know, a lot of journalists didn't have any practical experience. They'd never worked on a campaign. They'd never run a campaign.. So I started writing pieces about how to win an online campaign and things like that. So that basically served as a bridge. The internet served as a bridge. Blogging served as a bridge for me to transition from being a campaign guy, which I sort of learned at some point I wasn't cut out for. I thought because I love working at the Leadership Institute where I was teaching people how to run campaigns. I thought that I loved campaigning. What I later learned is I love teaching. It wasn't the campaign part that I loved. It was the helping people, the teaching people part that I loved. It didn't matter so much what I was teaching them. So that's kind of what I do now with my writing. So the internet, as much as I lament the rise of social media and modern technology, there are a lot of great things about it, including the fact that, that someone like me, I could have never broken in, uh, in the old— the National Review wouldn't have hired me, the Washington Post wouldn't have hired me. I didn't have the credentials and frankly wasn't that knowledgeable or talented back then. Uh, but it provided a way for me, a bridge for me to transition from being a campaign guy to being a guy who writes about campaigns.

Sure.

No, that— and that's amazing. And so it was you— it was really your, your blogging then that got you noticed. And by some of the more, more like national outlets and things like, like National Review and like, like you had talked about. And there maybe weren't as many people at that time doing the blogging as there are now. It seems like everybody and their brother has, has a blog today, or, or podcasting has, has really taken off for sure.

But yeah, I really benefited from kind of being an early adopter That's key. Also, being willing— I started off doing it for free. I started off— The first place I wrote was Human Events Online. They were so far behind. They just launched their website in 2003 or '04. They were looking, so I volunteered and they let me write for them for free. Then I got hired to go to Townhall.com. But here's the funny part. They actually hired me to be the director of operations. Which was sort of a crummy job, to be honest with you. It was a thankless, difficult job, but I negotiated that, like, if I will take this job, if you let me write on the blog.

Hmm.

And so I wasn't getting paid to write. That was the fringe benefit, but oh, the writing started to catch on. And what, what really happened for me then is everyone else at townhall.com and like including Hugh Hewitt, who was part of the Salem family. They were all like in the tank for Mitt Romney. They loved them some Mitt Romney. I never liked Mitt Romney, to be honest. I, I like him now, but I was never a Romney fan. And in fact, I argued that John McCain was more conservative.

Hmm.

Because remember, Mitt Romney had been like pro-choice in the past. Mitt Romney had supported this Obamacare, Romneycare sort of stuff in Massachusetts. So I started writing, blogging stuff about McCain and the McCain people found me and they were desperate back then. If you were back then, there was a sense that the blogosphere really mattered. And so the McCain people started inviting me on their calls. I got to go to New Hampshire and ride on the Straight Talk Express and interview McCain. And that really opened, that was a big moment for me as well.

Yeah. Oh, I bet that was. What was that like, just getting to spend some time with McCain?

It was awesome. It was awesome just for two reasons. First of all, just the experience. Remember in 2000, he had the Straight Talk Express and he sort of tried to recapture that magic in '08 and it was— I could tell you it was magical. The guy was completely— available. Like he didn't hide away. He was on the record the whole time. If we were driving from Concord to Nashua or whatever, you would be riding, sitting right next to him in the back and he'd be making fun of you and joke. That was sort of his shtick and you calling you idiots or, you know, whatever. But it was all in good fun. And he would be eating like a hot dog and drinking a Coke and, and just, you were on the record the whole time. So It was just sort of personally rewarding and fun. The son of a prison guard, next thing you know I'm riding the Straight Talk Express with John McCain. But then the sort of benefit from my job is, you know, I would go to these— he would driving from— he didn't have any money. Remember John McCain had gone broke in 2008. He started off as the front runner and then ran out of money. And the next thing you know, he was like carrying his own bags at airports. But the you don't need a lot of money to win New Hampshire. It's a small state. All he needed was a bus. And so he was going and speaking at all these town hall meetings. And so I got to see him at these town hall meetings and it occurred to me he's gonna win New Hampshire.

Hmm.

Or at least he has a really good shot. And so then I come back to DC and I'm like the only guy who thinks McCain's gonna win, you know? Hmm. And so that gave me a competitive advantage over—

Sure.

Over everyone else in the game. And so I was writing like, hey, don't be surprised if McCain wins New Hampshire. And sure enough, he did. And I was in New Hampshire that night. It was pretty amazing. Wow.

That's pretty cool. And what great stories to be able to share too. I mean, just, and especially now with sort of the, I mean, he's kind of become a legend at this point, especially after his passing and And being one of the people that, you know, after his passing and even with his funeral, you know, it's sort of being that he was one of the few guys to really in the Republican Party that still was willing to kind of take a stand on principle, you know, for who he was and still be kind of true to who he was, you know, right there at the end. So I'm glad you had that time to spend with him and that you found him to be kind of that true genuine person. That's really a neat thing.

Yeah, it was great. It wasn't idiots, it's jerks. He would be a bunch of jerks. You probably heard him say that. But it's a term of endearment.

Yeah, sure. Yeah. He's a guy that has so many stories about him. I mean, both good and bad. I'm sure that there's all kinds of—

I think he did have a super bad temper. I have no doubt about it. I would not have wanted to end up on the wrong side of him screaming at you. But he also was incredibly charming.

Yeah, you know, I think the thing about it more than anything else, I just—

the whole—

aside from him being a politician that was, you know, all the years that he was, I just still go back to so much respect for anybody who was a POW. And I just go back to because of who his father was, he had a chance to probably get out of that, you know, out of that prison camp that he was in and chose to not use, you know, his father as who his father was. That just speaks volumes, I think, about his character as a person. And I don't know, it seems rare to see that kind of character today. Anyway, we've probably spent too long talking about him, but I just think it's a neat story and I'm glad you had a chance to spend with him. It's rare that I meet people that had a chance to rub shoulders with the likes of him, for sure. Well, you know, I'd love to talk a bit, and we're really— gosh, we've already spent like 40 minutes together. I don't want to waste all of our time, but, you know, it may surprise some of the listeners of our show to find out, especially if they listen to your show very much, because you tend to not be on the Tucker Carlson side of things these days, you know, when it comes to your view of politics. I would still say you're very much a conservative, and I loved your definition when I was reading through your book, and I highlighted it, and I just wanted to read just a little bit from Too Dumb to Fail real quick before I ask this next question. One thing that you wrote in Too Dumb to Fail, you said conservatives— excuse me— conservatism is about conserving the good things about Western civilization. It's about a rejection of utopian schemes and moral relativism, a humble acceptance that life is too complex for elites to plan. It's the belief that Western civilization didn't merely happen but was instead the result of accumulated wisdom of our ancestors. And I really like that kind of definition about that it's really something to be preserved and that we're hoping to hold on to the good things, you know. And I like that, and I was thinking about I think it was actually an interview that I heard with you with Justin Giboney. I believe it was on your show a while back, and it was talking about politics for the common good and just thinking through some of those things. And I feel like that's kind of where maybe you come down when I think about kind of your view on what it means to be in politics and what it means to be a conservative. Is that it would mean that really this is all about for the common good, that we are here for the welfare of people, and that we would take care of each other, and that we're here really, if we want to boil it down to sort of a gospel message, politics, the way we structure ourselves, really we could boil it down to loving our neighbor, you know, and we disagree on how we do that, But I think it really is about that. If we cut through all of the, you know, all the stuff that surrounds, maybe it sums up that. And so often it gets to be about fighting. And so anyway, all this is to say, at one time Tucker Carlson was your boss. Yeah.

And can I jump in real quick before we get—

Sure.

Yeah, please.

I think this is a fundamental difference between my worldview worldview and the MAGA Trump worldview.

Sure.

Like, I truly believe that the conservative philosophy that, that I advocate and that I grew up with is the best for everybody and that it can help lift people up and help them, uh, flourish. Right? I don't think Trump's people believe that. I think they believe that it is a, uh, a zero-sum game and that politics is about power and that everybody can't benefit or everybody can't gain. You can't grow the pie. And so, It's about picking winners and losers and they want to be the winners. And so that is a fundamental difference of how I view politics and how I think the Trump folks see it.

Sure. Well, and so, so that being said, like in 2016, when you wrote the book Too Dumb to Fail, like Trump was the presumptive nominee at that time and you were making some predictions that ended up, you know, being true.

So when I wrote, actually, when I wrote the book, when I wrote the book, Trump, I wrote the book before the New Hampshire primary ever happened. So Trump was—

Oh, wow.

Now the, the, you may have the paperback.

Okay.

So the paperback, so the book was written, I probably, uh, I probably gave the, the final draft to my publisher in like November of 2015.

Okay.

Before the primary had even begun. In earnest. But you have the paperback maybe, and that came out like in say May of 2016. And it included— the paperback includes like a brand new foreword that I updated. That is when Trump was the presumptive nominee.

Yeah, that must— I bet I have that one. I actually have it on my Kindle, so it might be that version that came through on Kindle. That I'm reading about. Anyway, for whatever it's worth, it's a great read and I want to recommend it to people. But I can only guess that, you know, it would have been an easier journey as a conservative. And you being a pundit, being one who is, you know, always on the news shows and talking, I imagine that would have been easier for you in many ways career-wise to become sort of part of the MAGA group, you know, and, and not become sort of a critic of President Trump, but to just kind of go along with it. Um, and so I've been fascinated with you, uh, in particular, and, and people like you. I've been a big fan of people at The Bulwark, for instance, because they are what I consider a group of center-right people as well, um, who really, I feel like, have stood by their principles and have given me a place as somebody who— I'm not actually a super political person, but I'm a person of faith, and I care about things that often I feel like I side a lot more with conservatives, but I don't feel like there's really much of a place for me in the Republican Party anymore. And so I feel like in many ways people like you, people at The Bulwark, have been kind of a place that have been kind of a haven for me to feel like, well, I guess I don't feel crazy, you know, you know, at this point when I have these conversations. But, but I, I guess leading up to this question, I can only imagine how much maybe it has cost you in some ways. And I wonder what it has been like for you to remain faithful to your principles as a conservative and not jump on the Trump, the Trump train. Has it felt like career sabotage for you in any ways by doing this?

Well, it is weird because so like cable TV, right or wrong, they want to have, um, right versus left, or, you know, they, a normal cable TV segment, they want it to be like, this person is defending Trump, this person is attacking Trump.

Mm-hmm.

And it's clear to understand, and it's not really fair to Trump to have someone ostensibly a conservative defending him when they don't really like him. Right. So, mm-hmm. So then, and, and the other problem too is that branding basically says you have to pick a side, pick a tribe. And so if you're someone who's saying like, well, look, I disagree with Trump. I think he's a bad person, but I think these conservative judges are good. Like that, that doesn't really work. It needs to be Trump is evil, bad. Everything he does is evil and bad, or Trump is great. He's the second coming. So it has been, it put me in a, um, in a weird, difficult spot. Like, I truly believe if Hillary Clinton had won the presidency in 2016, um, I would've become one of the probably leading voices advocating, uh, how to fix the Republican Party and the conservative movement to become a winning party and movement again. Or if Rubio, like if Marco Rubio, let's say, had, had won the nomination and the presidency, I might've been one of the leading conservative voices kind of championing Rubio Nomex or the Rubio Revolution or whatever it would've been called. Trump did create a weird dynamic for me to try to stay relevant and put food on the table. To be honest with you, it was a weird time. But no, there was never a temptation to go Trumpy because I just can't. Like even if I wanted to, even if I was like totally Machiavellian and just about getting paid, I just couldn't do it. Like I just, I just, even if I tried, I couldn't become something that I'm not. So that part never, that was never really a temptation. The hard part for me has been what I would call almost the identity crisis of really, and the acceptance of really accepting the fact that so much of what I thought about my fellow conservatives and my fellow Republicans was wrong.. And what else? If I was wrong about that, what else was I wrong about? And grappling with that and grappling with people that I know and love and friends and just, you know, I was part of the conservative movement and still am to some degree. And like, that is infrastructure. That's like your next job and your fam. It's like a fam. It's like family.. And so that part was more, it wasn't, it was never a temptation for me to, to go to the dark side. But it was an emotional struggle, I would say, more than anything else to grapple and deal with, with what happened to it. Just all my assumptions about what the right and the conservative movement was, were kind of ripped apart.

Hmm, and that has to be hard too, and I've felt some of that as well. And there are times that you maybe see people's character for the first time, you know, and you think, man, I had no idea. I thought, you know, I thought you would stand up more for this than you did.

Yeah.

For me, it goes all the way back to the very beginning when I think I started seeing even fellow ministers defending things like the Access Hollywood tape with like, "Well, it's just locker room talk." And never, never in my whole life had I ever heard a fellow pastor that would have defended that. And just said, "Right." And immediately I knew something was wrong. And that led to 4 years of still seeing that and even to to the point of being told and called out several times, "Don't you ever dare say anything negative against our president. He's God's Messiah," basically. It's a weird place as a pastor, and again, as not even a political guy myself, just trying to be true to the gospel at times. I find that even when you're trying to talk about something like the fruit of the Spirit it can get so heated sometimes because, like, stop talking against our president. You know, it's like, right, I'm—

yeah, every single thing Trump is the opposite of.

Yeah, exactly. It's like, I'm not talking against him. It's like, if you see it there, then it's just there, you know. So it's interesting. Hey, I have a couple more questions, but we have gone over just a little bit. We're— you have just a few more minutes to hang around? Okay, good. I'm sorry, this is, this is great, and I'm enjoying what you have to say. Um, well, I've appreciated, appreciated what you've had to say, and Matt Lewis and the News has been one of my go-to podcasts over, over, over time, and I've really appreciated your conversations with people from, from different angles and different conversations. And, um, but it would be great, I, I just love to have your kind of perspective on where things are right now. And at the time we're recording, it's gonna— we're about a week out. Actually, the time we're recording today, tomorrow will be the actually the inauguration of the new President Biden. So who knows when actual impeachment stuff is going to happen and things like that. So nobody really knows, but I'm just interested in your opinion. Just as you know more than I do probably, so why not? You're as smart as— smarter than I am. So I'm just gonna ask Now that the House has voted to, like, impeach Donald Trump for the second time and he's not in office, he won't be in office anymore, I'm just curious, how do you see things going this time around? Like, is it important, do you think, for an impeachment to happen even though, you know, even though he's not in office anymore? Just, I'd love to get your thoughts on this.

Well, the first thing I'll say is that nobody knows anything.. The so-called experts don't know any more than you do, which is tough to admit, but it's true. If you watch the Super Bowl, you're going to see— it happens all the time, right? You'll have Tony Dungy or Joe Montana or Terry Bradshaw or Howie. They're going to get up and they're going to say like, Tampa Bay is gonna win, and 4 out of 5 of them are gonna predict Shannon Sharp or whatever. Yeah, Tampa Bay is gonna win. And then, you know, Tampa Bay will lose. And yeah, and you can't say, well, Terry Bradshaw doesn't know what he's talking about. Um, but that's why they play the game and people don't really know, even, even if they're qualified and knowledgeable and do their homework, they, they actually don't know. What's gonna happen. So a little humility, I will start with, I'm humble about that. What do I think is gonna happen or what should happen? I think that they should vote to convict and remove and to, you know, this vote that would prevent him from ever holding federal office again, I think is really important. And look, I've gone back and forth on this for the last 5 years actually. Unbelievably. There's a guy who emails me once in a while. I don't think he's a fan. We'll call him a reader. There's a reader who emails me once in a while. And I remember in 2015, he emailed me and he was like, Republicans need to shut this Trump guy down now. They should. He's not a Republican. He's not a conservative. They should not let him on the debate stage. And I thought, look, I don't like Trump either, but that's heavy-handed and there'll be a backlash and he's probably gonna fade away anyway. But if we bar him from the debate stage, then he's gonna become like a martyr. It'd be better to give him enough rope to hang himself, basically. And I was wrong. We should have nipped that in the bud. And so I think that's the lesson that I've learned. And maybe it doesn't apply universally, but when it comes to Trump, I'm watching the Cobra Kai show on Netflix.

Oh, sure.

And it's no mercy. You know what I mean? Like no mercy toward Trump. Like he needs to be taken out of commission. As John Crease would say, sweep the leg, whatever it takes to get to keep Trump from running again. Within reason, I'm all for that.

Yeah. Well, and you know what, and just to bring it all around to an aspect of, you know, speaking pastorally here too, I've said for some time that the people who are the biggest supporters, especially the the people of faith that are supporters of Trump, I feel like love him the least. And, and what I mean by that is I feel like they must have the least amount of concern for the man's soul, um, because to me, if you really love somebody and are concerned for them, then you want to say to that person, if you see them in destructive behavior and if you see them in ways that you know is detrimental to their salvation living ways that are harmful to themselves and to others, especially if you're a minister. Like, your job is to look, man, don't you see you're going down this road that is leading you to destruction? You know?

Yeah.

And it seems like we've had 4 years of just, oh, you're great, you're wonderful, everything is good. And it feels like to me we've had so much of this, oh, you're just perfect and wonderful and lovely.

Yeah.

And to me, it's people people that say they love them that are not showing him that they, that they love him in any way.

The other thing too, the other thing too is consequences, right? So for me, in my life, the biggest moments of change have come when I kind of hit rock bottom, you know? Yeah. And I didn't have— I couldn't fake it till I made it. I didn't have Daddy to loan me $1 million for one thing, right? But I— but that was the best thing that happened to me. There were consequences. And but Trump has never really faced consequences. And, and we keep letting 'em off the hook by saying like, oh, it'll be too divisive, or we need, it's a time for healing. Like, no, every once in a while you need to basically put somebody in their place and give, show them that there are consequences and set, not only to force Trump to reckon with that, but to set a message to the next authoritarian demagogue that there will be consequences. So I'm in that, I'm in that tough love camp. Camp, shall we say.

Yeah, yeah. I think there needs to be a chastening for everybody's, you know, good. That, you know, maybe this— maybe him facing actual consequences might, might actually lead to his actual real salvation, you know what I mean?

More likely to happen if he does face consequences than if everything— if he's able to just pretend everything's great. And yeah, I mean, it's a fool's paradise.

As much as I've disliked him, I still hope for that. You know, I still hope for redemption for everybody, you know, and I do hope for that for him. Well, you know what, just a couple more questions and I'll let you go today. You've been so generous with your time and I've loved getting to hear your story again today. Tell me, what are a couple of books— you've already mentioned one— but a couple of books that you found to be the most important in your life and career? It doesn't have to be political. Necessarily, but just a couple of books that have meant a lot to you.

Well, I think, you know, Orwell's book 1984 changed me. I think it's kind of hard to read that book and not have it change you. I wouldn't recommend— I know high schools read it. I'm not sure if that's good. Kind of opens doors you can't close. But when it comes to, you know, my political philosophy, which part of it, not the entire part, but part of it is concerned about preserving freedom and standing up to authoritarianism. Certainly, it was formed partly by that. One book that really influenced me and if you read my book, Too Dumb to Fail, you're probably going to see a lot of references to it is a book called Crunchy Cons by Rod Dreher. And it's about— heck, it's probably 20 years old now. But it's a book about how— I think the subtitle has something about Birkenstock Burkeans. It's about people who are conservative, but they're not the kind of conservative who drive their SUV gas guzzler to McDonald's drive-through on their way home to their McMansion, right? They go to farmers markets and they eat arugula. They live in a small town with a walkable community and that book really inspired me and it's one of the foundational books that if you read Too Dumb to Fail, I think you'll see some crossover there.

Well, that's great. Well, I do want to recommend everybody read Too Dumb to Fail. It really is a good book and I think it could definitely use an updated version again because here we are 4 years later, and it really is a good read. It's been really great talking to you today, and we went over the time that I asked you, and you've been so generous with the time allotted. So listeners, if you haven't had a chance yet to listen to Matt Lewis and the News, I would recommend you go and check out that great podcast or any of the other great things that Matt has has going on. You can find him at mattklewis.com, and I will make sure and put links to Matt on my website. And you can find that either at voicesinmyhead.substack.com or through my website at rickleejames.com. And as always, on Twitter @RickLeeJames. You know how to find me, but we'll make sure and get all the links there for Matt. Uh, Matt, as I say to my guests every Thank you for being one of the voices in my head this week.

Haha, it was a great conversation, Rick. I really appreciate it, and thank you for all you do.

Thank you for joining me here this week on Voices in My Head. I hope you'll visit me on my website at rickleejames.com where you can find out more about me, get my music on vinyl and CD, follow my blog, and even schedule me for a concert or a speaking engagement. Better yet, even a book signing in your neighborhood. You can find all that and more at rickleejames.com. Also, it would mean a great deal to me if you could write a review of this podcast on iTunes. The more positive reviews that we receive, the more visible this podcast will be online. And now for the benediction: May the God of hope fill you with all all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope. God bless you, and thank you for listening to Voices in My Head.