The Daily Signal - #322: Eric Bolling on the Demise of 'Never Trump' Republicans

Episode Date: October 20, 2018

On today’s show we feature an interview with Eric Bolling, host of the CRTV show “America.” Bolling spoke at The Heritage Foundation’s recent President’s Club meeting. Afterward, he sat down with The Daily Signal to discuss his career, the economy, “Never Trump” Republicans, and more.Also on the show:• We feature clips from The Daily Signal’s recent trip to an Ohio rally with President Donald Trump. Find out what these devoted Trump supporters are saying.• Your letters to the editor. Don’t forget, your letter could be featured on our show; write us at [e-mail] or call 202-608-6205.The Daily Signal podcast is available on the Ricochet Audio Network. You also can listen on iTunes, SoundCloud, Stitcher, or your favorite podcast app. All of our podcasts can be found at DailySignal.com/podcasts.If you like what you hear, please leave a review or give us feedback. Enjoy the show! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is The Daily Signal podcast for Monday, October 22nd. I'm Jenny Malta Bono. And I'm Rob Blewey, editor-in-chief. On today's show, we'll feature an interview with Eric Bowling, host of CRTV show, America. We'll share our listeners' letters and some of Jenny's interviews at President Trump's recent rally in Ohio. Eric Bowling, thanks for joining the Daily Signal. You're a man of many talents. You're a former baseball player, commodities trader, TV hosts, in many ways.

You're an example of the American dream. Tell our listeners what drives you. I think that's it. I came from a very, very lower class, not even lower middle. It was lower class, humble beginnings in Chicago in the city. It was tough. I remember a day where my mom couldn't have been more than seven or eight years old. We went to a place called Valueville in Chicago, which was like a little mini department store,

kind of Kmart before Kmart. And she's like, let's go get some sneakers. And I went and I got pro keds. And I'll never forget the look on her face when she told me we couldn't afford the pro-Keds. And that was like my first exposure to wow, you know, the classes. Like we didn't have what other people had. So all my friends had pro-Keds. And I think that was really the beginning of just a drive to want to succeed.

And it's kind of stayed with me from that day forward. So I just went from baseball, which we never been able to afford college if it wasn't from baseball, baseball, to my trading career. and then now into TV. And then I wrote a couple of books on the way. So it's a drive that started very young. That's what motivates me to continue. Eric, you launched your show on CRTV on July 4th of this year. It's called America.

Tell us how it's going in the past few months. By the way, we launched it on the rooftop in Heritage. That's right. And it's been amazing. So we're four months and a week into it, and it's just doing great. I mean, just the people are loving it. What we do is it's almost like the part. Parts unknown, that Anthony Bourdain type show for politics in D.C.

So we're going into Congresspeople, congressmen and women and senators' offices. We'll go and just talk to them about the topics of the day. We'll go on the Supreme Court in Kavanaugh. I would spend time in the middle of all the protests. So I go around D.C. with whatever the topic of the day is and just talk to people about what's happening. And also mixing in Trump administration officials to get their side of the story.

It's really been kind of fascinating to see. It's a new education for me too because it's a digital show and it's completely, you program it completely differently than you do with a cable news show. In cable news, you have your captive audience. They pay for cable and all you're trying to do is get someone from another channel to come over and watch your show. In digital, you literally have to get out there and show something different and new and show value to get people to subscribe and come sign on to the show. So it's a new world, but it's a lot of fun.

And how do they subscribe if they want to watch? Well, CRTV.com slash Eric, thank you. Excellent. Good job. We're friends forever now. Eric, former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi says that if Democrats take control back of the House, they're going to pursue campaign finance reform, gun background checks, protect dreamers, essentially restrictions on the first and second amendment.

And amnesty, is this what the American people really wants? I don't know what the American people really want. I know conservative Americans don't want that. But boy, you hear her. I saw I read those comments. I mean, it's literally almost this whole socialism narrative is exploding. And as I said in the remarks earlier inside, what happened in the last 10 years where when I 10, 15 years when I first came into the media, socialism was a bad word. It was awful.

I mean, I remember saying Obama is a socialist and I got called to the office saying, be careful, you know, be careful what you say. That's pretty rough language. Now, Democrats are running as Democrats socialists. I don't know how we've made such a fast move. Maybe people just like free stuff and they're not concerned. They don't, you know, it's possible that we've spent 10 or 15 or 20 years with decent or pretty good economies where younger people are saying, well, you know, what can possible, how bad could it possibly be?

It could never have been as bad as it was. Meanwhile, I lived through the first crash in 1989. I lived through the 2005 financial crash. crisis and almost wiped this out completely the global financial market so I see where we're younger people are saying hey maybe this is the place to go I can get free stuff but I think there's an opportunity to kind of show them that it's not always going to be this way there are risks to giving away everything and one day you're going to have to pay taxes and pay for all that stuff anyway so someone's going to have to have to pay so there's there's an opportunity to pick up

republican conservative young people well I'm glad you raised that issue We talked to Betsy DeVos here at The Daily Signal and asked her why it is, as an education secretary, what she's observing, why young people are gravitating towards socialism. She said it's because they're really not getting that basic foundational education about civics and government, K to 12, and then when they go to college, they're not able to debate with these professors who are obviously coming from a socialist perspective. Are there other factors that you've seen in your own work as to why both young people and Democrats are moving in this direction? I don't know if they totally are. I think on the coasts they are,

and I think they tend to be the more high-profile candidates and or elected officials. I think the general, like it said, when you travel the middle part of the country, even the south, the west, central, it's not like that. It's still center-right, and they're still pro-Trump,

and they're still generally conservative. It's just that there are pockets of populations on the coast that lean far, left. They're just liberals slash socialists that they're looking for it. So I just talked to a gentleman inside. I said, you know, Oklahoma, the red estate in the union. I said, well, yeah, there's a lot of red states. He said, well, we were the only state that had not one county that voted for Hillary Clinton. They were all Trump voters. They all went Trump. So when you look at middle America, if you look at that county map where the red versus blue in the counties, it's crazy. It's like 90% of the counties

or 80-something percent of counties voted pro-Trump, voted Trump, not Hillary. So, you know, look, the system is set up that it's population-driven. I get it. But that's what happens is the media centers are on the East Coast and the West Coast. And those are the ones that are getting the most attention. They're all liberal. From your recent travels from your show, which issues would you say are conservatives most fired up about right now?

The base conservatives? The wall. I mean, I'll go to events. It's the wall. I think, I honestly think they're not fired up enough about the midterm elections. I think they are more fired up than they would have been if Brett Cabinor didn't get seated. So that I think they'll show up. Like I said, inside, I think the Senate may pick up one or two Senate seats, which contrary to what the liberal media will tell you that, you know, they're going to go, it's going to be Democrats picking up seats. I doubt. I think it's Republicans. but I also think the Republicans hold the house too.

But there needs to be a little bit more energy. Let's get out there. Well, certainly the economy is doing very well, and that could fuel some people who like the Trump administration's policies. What do you attribute the success to that we've seen in the last two years? I got to tell you, the first thing Trump did when he got into office. I think he was sworn in on a Saturday maybe by Sunday or Friday or Saturday. That's right.

Yeah. And by the weekend, he was already rolling back regulation. I'm literally like starting to roll back regulation after regulation. That frees up the business community. There isn't, I can't emphasize enough how businesses, boardrooms, and I've been on the board of directors of the New York Mercantile Exchange, spent five years on there and you have a business outlook going forward a year, a five year, and a 10 year plan. And when it, when the, when the, when the environment is so regulatory, you know, just

regulatory overblown, strangling your business. You don't plan too far ahead. You don't hire as many people as you look to hire or spend money on your own business. But when those regulations come down where you're feeling a little bit better about being able to expand into a new area of business or you spend more money on research and development,

on capital investment in your own company, and then finally hiring. And that all works its way into the system on unemployment. When people are employed, they spend more. That's just the way it is. So you have economy that unemployment's falling. It's more spending. and what that does is it raises GDP.

So like I said earlier, when was the last time we had GDP exceeding the unemployment rate by this much and for this long? Let's not forget. Three years ago, Obama said one and a half percent GDP was going to be the new norm. The new norm. Now we're in excess of 4 percent, in excess of 3 percent for several quarters. It wasn't the new norm. It was just him explaining why he was 1.5 percent for eight years. You mentioned Brett Kavanaugh earlier, and I wanted to ask you, what do you think the lasting impact of that entire ordeal will be?

A Supreme Court that's conservative for 30 years, 20, 30 years plus, and I think the Kavanaugh issue goes, it becomes boring. I mean, liberals will look for the next thing to complain about. If you remember, you know, it was Russia collusion, and all of a sudden Kavanaugh gave everyone's attention, you know, and then that went away. So pretty soon it's going to be back to Russian collusion. They'll forget about Kavanaugh. Until the first major, you know, lying in the sand, conservative, liberal decision at the Supreme Court, and then they'll say, oh, it should be thrown out because of his,

because of what's going on, the nonsense that's going on over the last couple of months. Eric Gallup has a new poll out. It shows trust in media among Republicans is just 21%. Contrast that with Democrats, where it's 76% of Democrats trust the media. What does this tell us about the state of our media in this country? That Trump is right, that the media is wildly biased towards the left, on the left and against Donald Trump. I mean, there's no question about it. You saw this Harvard studies about how much negative attention, negative stories about Trump versus positive is like 80%.

And how many people in media donate to Democrat causes versus Republicans is 80, 90%. So the media clearly is left. Of course, Republicans aren't going to trust them. generally they're liberal. There are very, very few conservatives and probably fewer fair down the middle media types. Even the news people who are supposed to be straight down the middle aren't. They pick aside.

But generally, the sway is that far. I wanted to ask you next, what do you think has happened to the never-Trump Republicans? President Trump has had so many wins. Do you think any of them have been swayed at all? I think NeverTrumpers are on a slow path to destruction. So when Trump came in, I thought the, and they were, the Never Trumpers were more dangerous than the liberals. You knew where the left was on Trump, but the Never Trump crew was undermining, it was awful.

When you had a Republican taking shots and undermining Trump agenda was awful, terrible. And so I talked about, for example, John McCain, John. Jeff Flake and Lindsey Graham, Ben Sasse, among others, which probably four of the most vocal, never Trump or Republican senators, I talked about running against Lindsey Graham. I bought a house in South Carolina to primary Lindsey Graham, and I was going to do it up until it's Kavanaugh hearings,

and he found his voice. Now, did he find his voice after McCain passed, perhaps? Maybe he just didn't have it in him to have that voice when John McCain, his very, very good friend, was here to, you know, to keep. keep an eye on them. But I think slowly, and I saw Ben Sass this morning on MSNBC, and he was kind of even almost pro-Trump, not quite pro-Trump, but not taking shots at the president anymore. These are people who are really detrimental, hurtful to the president, and his candidate,

his presidency, and his agenda, and now seem to be realizing that, hey, how do you argue with 4-plus percent GDP and under 4-percent unemployment? You don't. Don't go back to your districts or your states and try and run against that. You're, you'd be, it's political suicide. So I think the never Trump, a portion of the swamp is draining itself. Ginny mentioned earlier your many talents. Is politician in the future then? I don't, it was.

It was very close. Like if, like you said, I'm very serious. I bought the house with the express purpose of running in 2020, primary in Lindsay Graham, until he was so vocal and so influential in making sure Brett Kavanaugh got seated. That was, you know, during the campaign for presidency, I would continually implore people, conservatives to vote for Trump who couldn't stand him, just vote for him because you needed a conservative Supreme Court. It will outlast the Trump legacy by decades. And that came, that was really, the Supreme Court was the most important thing for me. Trump's my friend.

I thought he would be a good businessman, and I thought the economy would do well. But for me, the most important reason to vote for Trump was a Supreme Court. He was the only one was going to be Hillary and we needed conservatives on the Supreme Court. So when Lindsey Graham stepped up and put it out there, put it all in line, I was like, you know, maybe I won't. But he is not the most loved senator in the union. I mean, you travel South Carolina. They don't really love them that much. I think he re-earned his political, his conservative credentials in the Kavanaugh hearing.

So I decided to let's do something else. Congress recently passed a bipartisan opioids bill. I know it's a issue that's very close to your heart following your son's death. Do you think that we're making progress on this issue? We are. Not enough, but we are. So I think we made a lot of progress. And I think Trump wants to do a lot of interesting things on the enforcement side.

with the drug dealers closing the border to illegal drugs coming across, doing some Kirsten Nielsen at Homeland Security is doing some things with the Postal Service to catch opioids as they come and other drugs as they come. So the enforcement side is doing real well. I'm very vocal about saying the administration needs some help on the awareness side. So young people need to realize how dangerous drugs are. My son passed from an accidental overdose of a, there's an issue. illegal fentanyl in a Zanix tablet that he bought on campus.

So I think young people need to understand how dangerous they are. And we need more of that. We need more, you know, PSA is on television. We need more people talking about it. And parents need to understand that it's a conversation you have to have. Really, we need to remove the stigma of opioids. Like, people think heroin and they think, you know, needles and veins and dark alleys, it's not that anymore.

It's literally tablets on the street that are $5 or $10 that high school are buying to get high instead of it's cheaper than marijuana or cocaine, and some of it's bad. It's some of it's deadly. I mean, 74,000 people died last year, and the number's going up, not down. So there needs to be more, yeah, enforcement, but much more awareness. We appreciate the work that you're doing to help raise some of that awareness. I know you've appeared in some of those White House videos to help raise awareness about the issue. So thank you, Eric.

We truly do appreciate that. It's not, these questions are hard, but they need to be spoken about, need to be answered. So we'll continue that path as well. Eric, thank you so much for joining us again at the daily single. Thank you guys. Thank you guys both so much. Appreciate it. Any time, by the way. Thank you. Do conversations about the Supreme Court leave you scratching your head? Then subscribe to SCOTUS 101, a podcast breaking down the cases, personalities, and gossip at the Supreme

Court. Thanks for sending us your letters to the editor. Each Monday, we feature some of our favorites, both on this show and in our Morning Bell email newsletter. Ginny, what do we have this week. Well, first up, Bert Chapman says, sorry to see Ambassador Nikki Haley lead the United Nations as Fred Lucas reports. She has done a terrific job advancing U.S. values and interest at the UN and has a skies-the-limit future. I can understand her wanting to spend more time with her family and relax after several years in the public limelight. She would be an awesome president if that opportunity presents itself. Wouldn't it be wonderful to see leftist how if she becomes the first female president? Well, it's certainly what, Ginny. And we have another letter from Erica

Frye, who writes, I don't think I can go see Gosnell, but I applaud Anne McElhaney for making the movie starring Dean Kane and Michael Beach. This story needs to be seen and exposed. This is the reason for all of the state laws requiring abortion clinics to be sanitary and abortion doctors to have admitting privileges at a hospital. We want these children to have loving parents and a good education and to make something of themselves, not be destroyed by Margaret Sanger's ideological minions before they have that chance. Your letter could be featured on next week's show. Send an email to Letters at DailySignal.com or leave a voicemail message at 202-608-6205. I'm Rob Blewey, editor-in-chief of The Daily Signal. And I'm Jenny Maltabano.

Each weekday, the Daily Signal delivers the morning bell email direct to your inbox. We created the morning bell to be your one-stop source for credible news reporting and insightful commentary on the issues that are shaping the agenda. You can subscribe today and get it delivered to your inbox each weekday morning. Sign up now at dailysignal.com. Just click on the connect button at the top of the page and subscribe today. Our Daily Signal team loves getting out of Washington and we recently traveled to Ohio for one of President Trump's rallies. Ginny, you were there. Tell us about your experience.

It was a great experience. I went with our digital special. Morgan Walker, and we talked to these average, ordinary Americans who are at this rally about what's important to them, what do they think about the media, and what has President Trump done for them? That's most important. And they had some really, really interesting answers. And we want to play some of those clips for you right now. What is your favorite thing that President Trump has done so far as president? I like that he doesn't back down. He just keeps going, keeps going, and just goes right

back at him. So I think he's doing great. The tax cuts are awesome. The moving an embassy to Jerusalem. Love that pipeline, all the pipelines that he's approving. I mean, I don't know that he could be doing any better. Probably, I think, the way that he has, the way he's bringing all the jobs back, you know, that's the main thing. The economy, unemployment, 3.2%. It's pretty phenomenal. Honestly, his sense of humor, because, and, you know, I mean, it's funny because they show that as a negative, but for us, the people that have taken the time to really pay attention and get to know him, that is his sense of humor. That is what we love the most, I think, about him. That's him making light of what's really going on. Well, I like having conservative judges on the

Supreme Court. I like him keeping his word about things he's going to do. You know, like he, you know, put the embassy in Jerusalem and he said he'd do it. All other presidents said they would do it and never did it. For me, I like how he shows his faith. I haven't seen that in a leader in a very long time, but I love how he shows his faith and his love for God and his love for country. Tax tariffs. I think that's great.

He's redone NAFTA. He's done a wonderful job. And truthfully, what he's doing with the tax tariffs, he's going to bring more jobs back to the United States. Amen with that one. Hi, this is Rob Lewy, the editor-in-chief of The Daily Signal. If you liked hearing about the issues that Washington's not discussing, check out underreported, a brand-new video series from The Daily Signal

looking at other issues that the mainstream media forgot to mention. We're going to leave it there for today. The Daily Signal podcast is available on the Rurkishay Audio Network, along with problematic women and the right side of history. All of our shows can be found at dailysignal.com slash podcasts. You can also subscribe on iTunes, SoundCloud Stitcher, or your favorite podcast app. And if you like what you hear, please leave us a review or give us feedback. Be sure to follow us on Twitter at DailySignal and Facebook.com slash the DailySignal News.

The Daily Signal podcast will be back tomorrow. Have a great week. You've been listening to The Daily Signal podcast, executive pre-signal. Produced by Kate Trinco and Daniel Davis. Sound design by Michael Gooden, Lauren Evans, and Thalia Ramprasad. For more information, visitdailysignal.com.