Live from Music Row Thursday morning on The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy – broadcast on Nashville’s Talk Radio 98.3 and 1510 WLAC weekdays from 5:00 a.m. to 8:00 a.m. – host Leahy welcomed recovering journalist Clint Brewer in studio to comment on Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s new House caucus as the Biden family’s financial reports come under scrutiny.
Leahy: We are broadcasting live from our studios on Music Row in Nashville, Tennessee. Clint Brewer, recovering journalists, and all around. Good guy. Our good friend and all-star panelist is in studio. Clint, just to get warmed up here on this let’s talk a little bit about the Speaker of the House, Kevin McCarthy. It was the most bizarre election in modern political history.
Brewer: Remarkable political theater.
Leahy: Remarkable political theater.
Brewer: It was after 15 ballots.
Leahy: Elected speaker.
Brewer: I felt like we should all start speaking British or Italian or something. A British accent or Italian. It was like parliamentary shenanigans. It was really interesting.
Leahy: And in the end, though, he is now speaker. He seems to have consolidated his position as speaker, and he seems to be making a lot of, from a conservative point of view, good decisions. Your thoughts?
Brewer: Yes. I think he is, just in a very broad sense. He seems to have effectively tamped down some of the less effective wings of the House caucus.
Leahy: That’s funny. That’s funny. Clint has a smile when he says less effective wings. (Chuckles) Translate that into what you really mean.
Brewer: I’m getting ready to translate for you.
Leahy: Translate for us. (Laughs)
Brewer: He’s got some of the wing nuts pushed to the side. We’re not running out into traffic espousing too many conspiracy theories. (Leahy chuckles) I think the look of the party’s a little better than it was during the Speaker’s race. At the same time, I think there are some substantive things happening.
This is one of my pet peeves. I think a lot of Americans probably in some way care about this. I read about a set of hearings that are being had on the origins of the Coronavirus.
Leahy: Very important.
Brewer: And this lab leak theory that many in the mainstream media like to denigrate. It is just a remarkably huge coincidence that you have a virus that breaks out miles from a virology lab that’s studying the same kind of virus. You probably should ask some questions about that.
Leahy: I think asking questions is very legitimate.
Brewer: I think it’s a great thing.
Leahy: You framed it as a theory.
Brewer: But they’re all theories.
Leahy: It’s a theory that is perhaps gaining credence everywhere.
Brewer: It’s a theory that frankly makes some sense.
Leahy: It makes a lot of sense.
Brewer: But there are other theories that also make sense, but the very fact that the House is willing to have the conversation. I think is, that’s just one example, but Republicans wanted the House to come in and ask a bunch of these questions about any number of topics that just were not addressed and wouldn’t be addressed under a Democratic majority. I think there’s some substantive work being done. It’s nice to see, and there’s a lot less noise.
Leahy: He’s made some really good selections for committee chairs. Mark Green is doing a fabulous job as chairman of the Homeland Security Committee.
Brewer: I’m not sure people in the state and in his district perhaps understand the gravity of what Congressman Green has been asked to do. His chairmanship of Homeland Security is an incredibly important job in this country, and he’s doing very well with it now.
Leahy: Also in our neighboring state of Kentucky, a congressman of whom I’d heard very little before, James Comer, is heading up an oversight committee that’s looking into questions surrounding the financial conduct of Hunter Biden.
There’s something called a suspicious activity report that banks are required to provide when big piles of money come in from overseas. And reportedly there were about 150 that were related to Hunter Biden. And now the Treasury Department was not providing those to the House Oversight Committee, but now they’ve started to provide access to those reports.
And the first one that came out said that in March of 2017, $3 million bucks came into a fellow whose last name is Walker. And here’s what he said. This is from The New York Post. According to bank documents we’ve already obtained, we know one company owned by a Biden associate.
This fellow Walker received a $3 million wire from a Chinese energy company two months after Joe Biden left the vice presidency. Soon after, hundreds of thousands of dollars in payouts went to members of the Biden family. We’re gonna continue to use bank accounts and suspicious activity reports to follow the money trail. And apparently, those members of the Biden family were hunter Biden, James Biden, and a mysterious Biden.
Brewer: Is that a first name?
Leahy: Yes.
Brewer: Mysterious Biden. (Chuckles)
Leahy: Mysterious Biden. This all kind of confirms what Tony Bobulinski said way back in October 2020. He was on Tucker Carlson, but nobody in the mainstream media paid a lot of attention to it.
Clint, what would’ve happened if $3 million of dollars went to an associate of oh, Donald Trump Jr. and Ivanka Trump, and then there’s a record of them getting hundreds of thousands of dollars, and if this money came from a Chinese energy company controlled by the Chinese Communist Party? How would the press have reported something like that?
Brewer: It would’ve been remarkable that it didn’t come from Russia if it had gone to the Trumps.
Leahy: That’s a joke, folks. (Laughter)
Brewer: Joke, everybody. When you go into the White House and this, this goes back as far as what the Clintons possibly, and your family, and this is just part of the political landscape in this country. You can either applaud it or bemoan it. You’re under a constant state of scrutiny at the media level and eventually at the legal level.
I think a lot of these families who rise to power like this have broad business interests and entanglements, and they’re going to begin investigated and the opposition is going to investigate them. The media used to investigate them.
I think it’s part of the due course of being in office and the Trumps are being investigated all across the East coast. They’ve been subjected to an extreme amount of scrutiny. I think some of it due, some of it not. And for the Bidens, it’s your turn. And there’s a lot of smoke there.
Leahy: A lot. And of course, James Comer, the congressman, is turning out to be pretty good. Basically, he said why did all this money go to various Bidens? He said, “They don’t manufacture anything. They don’t sell anything. They don’t own any real estate. We don’t know what the business is.” My theory, he says, is its influence peddling, and if so, that’s wrong. Well, yes.
Listen to today’s show highlights, including this interview:
– – –
Tune in weekdays from 5:00 – 8:00 a.m. to The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy on Talk Radio 98.3 FM WLAC 1510. Listen online at iHeart Radio.
Photo “Kevin McCarthy” by Kevin McCarthy.
Live from Music Row Thursday morning on The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy – broadcast on Nashville’s Talk Radio 98.3 and 1510 WLAC weekdays from 5:00 a.m. to 8:00 a.m. – host Leahy welcomed public affairs specialist Clint Brewer in studio to comment upon Joe Biden’s latest gaffe and testimony surrounding the origins of COVID.
Leahy: Before we get to more about the CPAC and political issues of that type, our octogenarian, legal, but not legitimate Grifter in Chief Joe Biden. He continually says things that are, what’s the right word?
Brewer: Awkward.
Leahy: Awkward.
Brewer: Awkward.
Leahy: Cringeworthy. He was talking about nurses the other day. Did you, did you hear this?
Brewer: Yes.
Leahy: All right. Ladies and gentlemen, if you have children under the age of 15, cover their ears, but this is, this is our President of the United States talking about his experience with nurses. Here we go. Warning, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1.
(Biden clip plays)
“I had a nurse named Pearl Nelson, military. She’d come in and do things that I don’t think you could learn in medical school, nursing school. She’d whisper in my ear. I didn’t, couldn’t understand her. She’d whispered. She’d leaned down.
She’d actually breathe on me to make sure that I, there was a connection, a human connection. She even went home and brought back her pillow from her own bed because she didn’t want me uncomfortable. I’m not joking.”
Leahy: He’s not joking. Is that weird?
Brewer: Do you think he sniffed her hair? Probably.
Leahy: I mean, this guy is so weird.
Brewer: That’s just ah, I mean, that’s kind of hard to hear.
Leahy: It’s hard to hear. This guy’s the President of the United States. (Laughs)
Brewer: Here’s an idea.
Leahy: How did this happen?
Brewer: Let’s select somebody under the age of 75. What do you think?
Leahy: I’m all in favor of that. Well, look, it’s not, there are people over the age of 75 who are really with it.
Brewer: Yeah, sure. No, absolutely no question.
Leahy: This guy is not one of them.
Brewer: It’s just that none of them running for president are.
Leahy: But again, you know, so, so here we are. It is March of 2023. I think the House of Representatives under Speaker McCarthy, they’ve actually held some pretty good hearings, uh, I think, and are moving into the oversight arena a lot. Going on the special China select committee.
Mike Gallagher, doing really well. However, have you noticed this very bizarre thing where some of our Biden administration officials just cannot answer questions? For instance, this was in the Senate, not the house, but in the testimony of Attorney General Garland before Ted Cruz and Josh Hawley yesterday. It was embarrassing how dishonest and dissembling Garland was.
Brewer: And the Department of Energy report comes out earlier this week.
Leahy: Tell everybody what the report says.
Brewer: The report says that based on available information, the most likely explanation for the start of COVID-19 was the Chinese government’s virology lab in Wuhan, not, you know, bat soup at the market. Now in fairness, they said they had low confidence in this theory, but based on all the information available, it was still the most likely theory.
Leahy: Because they had even lower confidence in the bat soup theory.
Brewer: Right. And this Department of Injury report is the same conclusion that the FBI had already come to. These both happened under Biden’s watch these reports. And then the White House comes out and like says, oh, what’s not conclusive? Like they’re disagreeing with their own departments.
Leahy: The brazenness of the lies. This is what’s troublesome. How brazen the lying is.
Brewer: You know, I explained this to somebody the other day. I said, take COVID out of it. Imagine if a foreign government, another nation-state, took an action that led to the deaths of one million Americans. What would happen? It wasn’t a deliberate act, maybe.
Leahy: And, once it happened, covering it up, was deliberate.
Brewer: It was and they continue to cover it up.
Leahy: Three years later.
Brewer: News came out late last year of satellite photos showing these sorts of ghastly gatherings around cremation houses. We’re not talking about trying to decide if they’re UFOs. This is something that can be determined. It doesn’t have to be a mystery. And honestly, it’s a national security issue that we find out exactly what happened.
Leahy: Several republicans in the House have introduced legislation to make China pay. Presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy, our pal from Ohio, the guy who’s worth half a billion dollars, that guy, at the age of 37. You gotta admire that, right?
Brewer: Yeah, sure.
Leahy: Has said, time for reparations. I agree with that. The Biden administration, I don’t think they’re gonna push for reparations. Do you?
Brewer: No.
Leahy: Not those kinds of reparations.
Brewer: Or, maybe they could just forgive part of the massive amount of debt our country owes China. Maybe, maybe they just do that. Maybe they just cut a little bit off the principal instead of forgiveness.
Leahy: Off the principal. You know, forgive the debt we owe China. China would love that.
Listen to today’s show highlights, including this interview:
– – –
Tune in weekdays from 5:00 – 8:00 a.m. to The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy on Talk Radio 98.3 FM WLAC 1510. Listen online at iHeart Radio.
Live from Music Row Thursday morning on The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy – broadcast on Nashville’s Talk Radio 98.3 and 1510 WLAC weekdays from 5:00 a.m. to 8:00 a.m. – host Leahy welcomed public affairs specialist Clint Brewer in studio to discuss the 2024 presidential candidates and the victimhood mentality that is plaguing the conservative movement.
Leahy: In studio Clint Brewer. Clint, I think I mentioned to you that we’ve launched The Iowa Star. Our 12th state-based site. We’re just focused there, really mostly. It’s a special 2024 caucus edition. And you know the road to the 2024 GOP nomination goes through The Iowa Star.
Brewer: Oh, okay.
Leahy: Part of The Star News Network. Okay, we’re gonna say it until it becomes true.
Brewer: Will it into reality.
Leahy: We’re gonna will it into reality. But actually, you know, if somebody’s, if a presidential candidate’s in Iowa we’re covering ’em, we’re there, we’re on site. Matt Kittle, our great reporter, and national political editor is based in Des Moines.
The Democrats, they’re a ballot machine. There’s not gonna be true competition there. The machine is gonna pick the candidate, and that’s why they’re going to go to South Carolina first.
Brewer: Oh, yeah.
Leahy: So that they can put their stamp on the octogenarian, demented, nurse-loving, legal, but not legitimate, a Grifter-in-Chief Joe Biden.
Brewer: That’s a long title, Mike.
Leahy: I know.
Brewer: I’m gonna have to cut that down a little bit.
Leahy: You think so?
Brewer: You gotta lose part of that somewhere.
Leahy: I just like piling it on for that guy. All right. Donald Trump is headed to Iowa sometime in the middle of this month, and our guy will be there. Our pal, Viva was there, we got exclusives with him. Vivek Ramaswamy, who’s got a very bold anti woke agenda, anti-China agenda. Nikki Haley was there. She’s one of the munchkins and she’s not got a chance. The contrast between Vivek ran a campaign event and how Nicki was like night and day. Vivek was open and anybody could talk to him. Nikki. Control central.
Everything was scripted. It was a town hall, but the only people allowed to ask questions were Nikki Haley supporters. You’ve seen that kind of a play out at events. Trump is gonna be there in mid-March, so that’ll be interesting. And then the other people, Tim Scott, is probably gonna run, um, the other kind of munchkins, Mike Pence, he’s probably gonna run. But it will be embarrassing for him. He’s got no constituency. He also, by the way, said he’s not sure if he will back the GOP nominee if it’s Donald Trump. Bad move.
Brewer: He may not be alone.
Leahy: But it’s a bad move, Mike Pence. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. Thinking about it. Governor of New Hampshire, Chris Sununu; Larry Hogan from Maryland. I think Asa Hutchinson, former governor of Arkansas, has thought about it. I don’t think he’s gonna do it.
Brewer: Mike, let’s be fair. Anybody who’s been elected to the State House on up has thought about it.
Leahy: Well, you know, I’m only 68. In eight years I’ll be 76.
Brewer: Every member of every city council’s already there, or even talk show hosts already decided they can be mayor, and every mayor’s already decided they can be governor and every governor’s already decided they can be president.
Leahy: And you know, you see all these national polls, national polls are meaningless. Because the president is selected by the electoral college.
Brewer: State polls.
Leahy: State polls are what matters. If you look at the general matchup.
Brewer: The local snapshot gives you a better picture.
Leahy: As we sit here today since we live in the land of speculation. It’s Trump-DeSantis. I’ll throw in dark horse Vivek because I like him. And then the munchkins. That’s how I look at it. And if you look at it, Trump, for all of his stumbles post-presidency is remarkably resilient in these polls.
Brewer: Let me back up. If Senator Tim Scott gets in, he will not be a munchkin.
Leahy: Okay. We’re told he is gonna announce.
Brewer: If he announces he will not be one of the munchkins that will open the field up.
Leahy: We’ll see. We’ll see. We’ll see what he’s bringing.
Brewer: It’ll be two candidates from South Carolina, but, you know.
Leahy: It’s all right. As we look at this right now, Trump is remarkably resilient in the polls despite all of the stumbles post-presidency. My theory is that it’s because people know who he is and they know how he would handle foreign policy, and it’s the exact opposite of Joe Biden. People don’t like what Joe Biden’s doing in foreign policy.
Brewer: I don’t even think it’s that. I think he has a brand that people know. I don’t think there’s any particular part of the portfolio that people are clinging to. I just think that they like the general idea of Trump.
Leahy: And so that’s what, 35 percent of the Republican Party? 40 percent maybe?
Brewer: Yes, maybe something like that.
Leahy: Ron DeSantis got his book.
Brewer: Just kind of getting geared up at the national level. About to go on a book tour, doing his book tour instead of CPAC the Florida Yes.
Leahy: And going to The Breakers with the Club for Growth. But not going to CPAC, which is not such a big deal. They’re taking the Florida blueprint to America. He’s lost 20 pounds. Probably in June, he announces. It seems to me one of his great lanes to go after would be, I opened up during COVID and everybody else was closing down.
Brewer: I completely agree. I think that’s a great line for him. I think it runs very counter to what President Biden will have to stand by.
Leahy: President Trump. I mean, if you look at it, he was the president when all of these lockdowns took place and he let Anthony Fauci run the show. It was kind of a disaster. But he let that happen.
Brewer: You know, conservatives have a big decision to make this time around. You look at DeSantis and you look at a guy like Senator Scott from South Carolina, who’s just a total rising star like DeSantis is in conservative politics.
Then you look at former President Trump. My concern is that in some way, some warped way, the culture of victimhood in this country has seeped into conservative politics.
Leahy: They like to be aggrieved.
Brewer: There’s a slice of the party and the broader conservative movement that, in their hearts would rather be perpetually aggrieved and victimized. And they’re more comfortable not winning these elections and complaining about it for another two to four years. Then just saying okay, this is the person that can win. Let’s go with this person.
Leahy: I’m afraid there’s some truth to what you’re saying. This is anecdotal. And I know this from the people that I talk to. I, I hear, well, this is bad. This is bad. Well, what are you gonna do about it?
Brewer: Or, or, we can’t win. We can’t win. They’ve fixed it. We can’t win, which is just not true.
Leahy: It’s not true. However, where we stand, March 2nd, 2023. We are 16 months away from the nominee. That’ll be July of 2024.
Brewer: And there are people who’ve been conditioned under former President Trump to accept failure.
Listen to today’s show highlights, including this interview:
– – –
Tune in weekdays from 5:00 – 8:00 a.m. to The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy on Talk Radio 98.3 FM WLAC 1510. Listen online at iHeart Radio.
Live from Music Row Thursday morning on The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy – broadcast on Nashville’s Talk Radio 98.3 and 1510 WLAC weekdays from 5:00 a.m. to 8:00 a.m. – host Leahy welcomed public affairs specialist Clint Brewer in studio to comment upon the Nashville mayoral field of candidates and the significance of State Senator Jeff Yarbro (D-Nashville).
Leahy: Clint Brewer all-star panelist and a good friend Clint. On Friday, State Senator Jeff Yarbro announced that he’s running for Mayor of Nashville. He’s a state senator who represents parts of Davidson County right now. So he’s already got name recognition. He’s relatively young. He’s 46. He’s got a very impressive background.
Harvard undergrad. University of Virginia Law School. Has worked and continues to work at Bass, Berry, and Sims, which is really the premier law firm in Nashville. Very expensive, very good. And so now he’s served in the state senate for 10 years. He was young when he was elected and announced that he wants to run for mayor. Said he’s all in to serve as the next mayor of Nashville.
Already in the race, Freddie O’Connell. Can I tell a story about Freddie? Can’t. Okay, Freddie. Come on in. You can tell your story. How about that? Freddie O’Connell and Metro Council member at large Sharon Hurt, Natisha Brooks, Matt Wilshire, and carpet bagger Jim Gingrich from Alliance Bernstein. You grimace, but it’s true. Carpet bagger Jim. You’re welcome to come in. Carpet bagger Jim has lived here for at least three years and moved from New York City.
Brewer: I hear a salsa commercial now, folks. (Chuckles)
Leahy: And Fran Bush, who was in here yesterday.
Brewer: Former school board member.
Leahy: Former school board member. But Yarbro is interesting in this sense. He has name recognition.
Brewer: Did you say Matt Wilshire?
Leahy: Did I say Matt Wilshire? Yes. Matt Wilshire raised a million bucks. So he’s in the raise. We’ve talked about money. You’re going to need $2 million, $3 million. I think, in this particular race. The election is August 3rd. Top two, if nobody gets 50 percent, goes to a runoff September 13th.
You need $2 million. Of the people that we’ve talked about here, who’s going to get to $2 million? Matt Wilshire? I don’t think Freddie will get to $2 million. Maybe he will. I don’t think so.
But Sharon Hurt won’t get there. Natisha won’t get there. Jim Gingrich could take his carpet bagger bank account and get the $2 million, but I don’t think it’ll help. And Fran Bush is not going to get the $2 million.
Brewer: Let’s talk about Jeff, and then let’s talk about who can be competitive in the race.
Leahy: Let’s do that.
Brewer: So, Jeff, Senator Yarbro is a significant addition to the field. All the things you said about him, spot on. His district is Sylvan Park to Antioch. It’s a great district for a mayor’s race.
Leahy: He probably currently represents about half of Davidson County.
Brewer: Yes, he does. And he’s been on the ballot three times.
Leahy: Name ID is there.
Brewer: So he’s got the name ID. He’s got, obviously, the infrastructure to run countywide immediately. It’s a name people know. The other thing is he can run without penalty because Metro’s elections are in odd-numbered years, and so he doesn’t risk losing his Senate seat.
I think it’s a really significant addition to the field. I would hesitate to call him the front-runner right off the bat, but I think he and Matt Wiltshire pull pretty even pretty quickly.
Leahy: I think you’re probably right in terms of because Wiltshire has raised a million bucks.
Brewer: Matt has got a really substantial network in Davidson County. He grew up here, went to high school here, and his career has been here.
Leahy: Jeff’s from Dyersburg and didn’t arrive here until after he got out of law school.
Brewer: You look at those two things and sort of the juxtaposition between those two candidates, I think it’s a pretty fair match right now. I think there are people in the field who can come on and be players. I think Jim Gingrich is one of those.
Leahy: You think he can?
Brewer: I do.
Leahy: I think he’ll never get past the carpet bagger thing.
Brewer: He’s got an opportunity to self-fund, which none of the other candidates in the race do. Well, that’s not true. I think Matt can self-fund to a certain extent.
Leahy: So some of that money is self-funded for Matt?
Brewer: I think there’s $400k in there.
Leahy: So he’s really only raised $600k.
Brewer: I think he’s at $1.4. So that would be a million. I think I think Jim Gingrich can self-fund. I think that is probably his best play.
Leahy: I can’t wait to get Jim Gingrich in studio.
Brewer: Jim Gingrich is a delightful guy. You would like Jim Gingrich.
Leahy: He’s not going to come in.
Brewer: He’s incredibly intelligent.
Leahy: He’s going to sit next to me, and I’m going to call him a carpet bagger. And he’s going to go ohh.
Brewer: I don’t know that he would do that.
Leahy: Here’s the gauntlet down. Jim, come on in.
Brewer: Jim is a very intelligent guy. He’s very accomplished. He’s run a very large company. A lot of the management skills we could use in Metro Nashville.
Leahy: Did I mention he’s a carpet bagger? (Chuckles)
Brewer: He has a lot of the serious, hard management skills that could be applied to a large metropolitan city and have a good effect.
Leahy: So I have a question about Jeff Yarbro. Can he take the pay cut? He must be a partner by now at Bass, Berry, and Sims.
Brewer: I don’t know.
Leahy: He’s making bank.
Brewer: He’s obviously willing to. In his law career, if he were to be elected mayor, a former mayor is a really nice person to have in your law firm.
Leahy: If you look at it, 46 year old guy,
Brewer: It’s the back end.
Leahy: Serves a couple of terms, and then he would easily become a senior partner at a law firm.
Brewer: And I think that right now where we are in the history of Metro, Nashville, and the state of Tennessee, and I know a lot of people who disagree with me about this, and they don’t think Metro has done anything wrong. But job one is to tamp all this stuff down with the General Assembly and make the relationship productive again. And it hasn’t been for some time.
Leahy: They’re at odds.
Brewer: When you go and ask the state government for half a billion dollars to build your football stadium, you’ve bought yourself a partner is what you bought.
Leahy: And they said yes.
Brewer: And they said yes.
Leahy: They should have said no. But they said yes.
Brewer: All the things that the state legislature is considering doing with the city of Nashville, from changing its election runoff laws to shrinking the size of its council to taking over fiscal control of the convention center, this is a partisan reaction to a partisan action.
The Metro Council said the Republican National Convention was not welcomed here. They rejected 50 percent of the voters in this country’s convention. I don’t know why anybody would be surprised. And so the next mayor has got to fix that, right? The next mayor has got to mend a new fence.
Leahy: State Senator Jeff Yarbro would have that history.
Brewer: He’s uniquely positioned to do that.
Listen to today’s show highlights, including this interview:
– – –
Tune in weekdays from 5:00 – 8:00 a.m. to The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy on Talk Radio 98.3 FM WLAC 1510. Listen online at iHeart Radio.
Photo “Jeff Yabro” by Jeff Yabro. Background Photo “Nashville City Hall” by Nicolas Henderson. CC BY 2.0.
Live from Music Row Thursday morning on The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy – broadcast on Nashville’s Talk Radio 98.3 and 1510 WLAC weekdays from 5:00 a.m. to 8:00 a.m. – host Leahy welcomed public affairs specialist Clint Brewer in studio to discuss the candidacy of GOP presidential candidate Nikki Haley.
Leahy: Back in the saddle again Clint! It looks like all the little gremlins out there, all the little Chinese balloon problems, have been cleared up.
Brewer: I think so. Maybe smoke on the water. (Leahy laughs) I’m not sure.
Leahy: Clint, it’s so much fun having you in here every Thursday at 6:00 a.m. Clint, let’s shift gears. Nikki Haley announced her candidacy for president yesterday, and she’ll be in Dallas County, Iowa on Monday. We’re going to be there. The Iowa Star will be there.
Brewer: Nice!
Leahy: By the way, I don’t know if you noticed. We launched The Iowa Star.
Brewer: Congratulations. It’s fabulous.
Leahy: We broke some news about Kari Lake when she was out there.
Brewer: Saw that.
Leahy: And it turns out that there was a crazy man out there who wanted to drive his Jeep into the venue. There was a police report on that.
Brewer: I saw that. Interesting.
Leahy: And by the way, the road to the 2024 GOP nomination goes through The Iowa Star. Because obviously, Vivek Ramaswamy is clearly going to be out there. We’re going to be with him, and we’ll be at the Dallas County event in suburban Des Moines.
On Monday, Matt Kittle will be there interviewing Nikki Haley. Your take. Now, we have two announced candidates. Donald J. Trump and Nikki Haley. Now, I’ve seen some people describe Nikki Haley as George Bush in heels.
Brewer: Oh, I don’t think that’s fair.
Leahy: It’s not fair to George Bush?
Brewer: No. (Leahy laughs) It’s not fair to George Bush. She was somebody whose star was pretty high towards the end of the Trump administration.
Leahy: She was the governor of South Carolina.
Brewer: She’s been off the scene.
Leahy: And when she was the U.S. ambassador before she resigned early, her star was up. She did a good job in her speeches there.
Brewer: She did.
Leahy: I thought.
Brewer: I thought she did a good job as ambassador.
Leahy: But she had no foreign policy experience until Donald J. Trump gave her that job, in essence. So that gave her the foreign policy cred. In 2021, she said, I will not run for president if Donald J. Trump is running for president. Well, Donald J. Trump is running for president, and this will shock you. Shock you. She’s a politician. Did she break her word or change her mind? How would you describe it?
Brewer: I think Trump’s cachet has diminished significantly, so maybe the calculus isn’t the same there. She’s not pledging not to run against the same guy she was when she made the pledge. He’s a very different political commodity.
Leahy: He’s the same guy. It’s going to hurt her. I will say this.
Brewer: Look, I don’t know that she’s she is not, I mean, there a lot would have to happen in the world, and a lot would have to happen in politics for her to be a top three candidate.
For her to be a competitive candidate, she’s going to have to catch fire in a primary in a state like Iowa or South Carolina. Of course, it’s her home state. She’s going to have to place. Her path is to overperform in a primary in a key state.
Leahy: A caucus like in Iowa.
Brewer: A caucus and come in second or third.
Leahy: Did I mention that the road to the GOP nomination goes through The Iowa Star?
Brewer: The Iowa Star. Absolutely. Maybe she gets the endorsement of The Iowa Star, I don’t know.
Leahy: We will not be endorsing anybody. But we will take all their advertising dollars.
Brewer: My point is, she’s going to have to have she’s going to have to create for herself a moment, and it’s going to have to be through real retail politics because she’s not going to have the donors. She’s not going to have the super donors are not going to go with her. She’s not going to have that kind of money. So can she catch fire?
It’s kind of like what Huckabee did that first time he ran. And so she’s going to have to do that. I think she positions herself for a vice presidential slot, maybe, although Kari Lake or somebody like that might be or Kristi Noem, might be more in that role and bring more to a ticket. Maybe she’s jockeying for a cabinet member position I’m sure if you ask.
Leahy: I’m told Chris Christie aspires to be Secretary of Commerce. That’s a very low objective.
Brewer: I’m sure if you asked the former governor, she’d say, no, I’m in it to win it because that’s what they have to say. But I think she’s trying to bring her political career back.
Leahy: Speaking of bringing political careers back. So, Donald J. Trump, we say it’s Trump, DeSantis, and the Munchkins. DeSantis has not yet announced. I have to say, as many mistakes as the former president has made in his post-presidency, he’s still actually performing fairly well in the polls. Relatively. I’m surprised at how well he’s performing. I think he’s going to be in this game to the very end. Your thoughts on Donald J. Trump?
Brewer: No, I think he is, too. I think he’s going to take it to the edge of the cliff. (Leahy laughs) I think he’ll run it out. That’s what he is. That’s what he does. We don’t know the field yet. There’s a lot that needs to happen. You’ve got Governor Youngkin in Virginia out there. You’ve got Senator Tim Scott in South Carolina.
Leahy: Now there is a name that I think, if I had to guess, the political person from South Carolina who would go further in this race than Nikki Haley is Tim Scott. I think Tim Scott will play better with GOP voters than Nikki Haley if Tim Scott runs. And I’m hearing that he’s thinking of running.
Brewer: Yes, same. I think he’s a compelling choice for Republican primary voters. He’s done very well for himself in his time in the Senate.
Leahy: He’s an extremely very nice fellow.
Brewer: People love him.
Leahy: People like him a lot. But does he have the policy chops? Does he have the leadership chops?
Brewer: None of these guys do or ladies do before they get there. Being President of the United States is the biggest on-the-job training experience in history. No one’s really prepared for it. If you look at the pedigrees and the resumes of people who’ve done it, there are only a handful in history who were truly prepared, and they didn’t even necessarily do a good job.
Leahy: Who would there be?
Brewer: I think probably if you just look at the pedigree of George W. Bush, he was really well prepared to be President of the United States.
Leahy: And even his dad, George H. W.
Brewer: Well, that’s what I meant, George. I didn’t mean to say W. I meant to say H. W. I think you’re right. First, Bush, I mean, he’d been director of the CIA.
Leahy: And he was a below-average president.
Brewer: But he had been director of the CIA. Being a senator. He’d been an ambassador to China. So, I mean, you don’t get more prepared for that than that. Nixon was pretty well prepared. You just look at that and you go, well, okay, so you have all this policy experience. You get in there, and you’re not a very good president.
Leahy: Boom.
Brewer: And Nixon was good until he was corrupt.
Listen to today’s show highlights, including this interview:
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Tune in weekdays from 5:00 – 8:00 a.m. to The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy on Talk Radio 98.3 FM WLAC 1510. Listen online at iHeart Radio.
Photo “Nikki Haley” by Nikki Haley.
