The Daily Signal - #374: A Bold Conservative Who Is Breaking News and Bringing People Together

Episode Date: January 12, 2019

On today’s show, we feature an interview with BOLD founder Carrie Sheffield. Based in New York City, Sheffield discusses her political activism, the importance of civility, and what it's like for a conservative living in Manhattan.Her digital television network is comprised of three shows, one of which is co-hosted by Clay Aiken, who is famous for his performance on "American Idol." "We are trying to break news, but we're also trying to bring people together," Sheffield tells The Daily Signal.Also on today’s show:• We share some of your letters to the editor. Next week your letter could be featured on our show; write us at [e-mail] or call 202-608-6205.• Christian radio station WGTS 91.1 is stepping up to help during the partial government shutdown. With many federal workers at home, WGTS organized a cleanup of the National Mall where trash has been accumulating.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, January 14th. I'm Rob Blewey, editor-in-chief. And I'm Jenny Maltabano. On today's show, we're featuring an interview with Carrie Sheffield, the founder of Bold. I recently visited Carrie in Bold's New York City headquarters to chat about how her digital news network is reaching young people and what it's like to be a conservative living in Manhattan. We also have your letters to the editor and we share a good news story about a Christian radio station taking action during the partial government shut down. The Daily Signal podcast is coming to you today from the bold offices in New York City.

We're joined by Carrie Sheffield. Carrie, welcome to the show. Thanks, Rob. Great to be here. Thanks for having me. Well, I want to begin. Tell us, tell our listeners about yourself, who you are, how you became a conservative, and what you're doing here in New York.

Sure. Thank you. So I am a conservative activist. I was raised in a very conservative family. My family is originally from Utah, and my grandfather was the Republican Whip in the Utah legislature. So very red state, deeply red state politics in my family. And that was the heritage that I had. And I also grew up immersed in the ideas of government and just public service and the idea that we should always give back

and that we should always try to seek the public good and to fight for the most vulnerable among us. That's the way I was raised. And so that's why I'm conservative. As far as what I do, I'm the founder of a digital television network called Bold. You mentioned we're here in the office. We're in the heart of Manhattan right near Grand Central in the Helmsley Building. And we are a bipartisan digital television network. We have three talk shows, bold politics, bold business,

bold life. So the politics show, as I mentioned, is bipartisan. I've been hosting our political talk show streaming live here for the last two years with Clay Aiken, who is a very vocal Democrat who ran for Congress from his home state of North Carolina.

But he's also famous for his American Idol work and his celebrity apprentice work. And we're trying to model for the country what we like to say is the beloved community, which Martin Luther King talked about. And that is the sense that you can disagree very strongly in policy, but you can do it in a way that is, as I like to say,

profiting off of collaboration instead of profiting off of conflict. I think the old school models of media and communication are broken in that way, where everyone is so siloed and fractured that that has broad implications for the civic fabric. From a commercial standpoint, this makes sense. It's the mystifications. We like choice, right? We're conservative. We don't want you to say, thou shalt have command and control at the media level.

But I think that as an entrepreneur, I want to know what is this for-profit enterprise having? What type of impact is it having on the country? Well, Carrie, there's so much there to discuss. I want to begin with a conservative from a deep red state here in a deep blue city. And what is it like to be in an environment where you're probably outnumbered most of the time when it comes to the beliefs? But as you said in your answer there, you're somebody who approaches conversations in a way not to be disagreeable, may disagree about the policies, but to have constructive conversations. So what's it like being a conservative here in New York? Well, I saw a speech from Nikki Haley.

She talked about when she did the Al Smith dinner here in New York. She said, people ask her, what was it like growing up as an Indian American girl in the South? And she said, well, it was great preparation for being a Republican in Manhattan. So I think for me being from Utah, but living in other parts of the state as a Mormon, where I was outnumbered as a Mormon and in some ways marginalized as a Mormon. And also in other schools that I lived, I was in the racial minority as one of the only white kids in my middle schools, a couple of my middle schools that I had attended. And I was picked on for being the white kid. And my friends who were black were picked on for being friends with a white girl. So I think I have always sort of grown up as an observer.

and in some ways on the margin. So I went to 17 public schools and homeschool. So lived in many different parts of the country. So I think I've always been able to observe my environment and find a way to analyze it and just understand what's happening. And so I feel that way about in Manhattan where I observe what's happening.

And then I just do my best to be part of the solution rather than to create conflict. People on Twitter would say otherwise about me because I go on El Sharpton Show, for example, and I'm not afraid to express myself conservatively, but I just think there's a way, I think it really starts with intent of how you approach things. Is your intent to inflame, is your intent to aggravate,

or is your intent as, in the prayer of St. Francis of Hacisi, is your intent to really, where there is hatred, so love, where there's doubt, so faith, and that sort of thing. Well, Carrie, thank you for that answer. And I think one of the things that I enjoy most about Bold and the show that you do on politics is that you approach issues exactly as you answered that question. When it comes to booking guests, tackling topics, talk about both the mission of Bold and the ways that you approach the job. Sure. So I'm the co-host of the politics show.

So I'll just briefly mention the business show and the lifestyle show. The business show is really at the intersection of business and diverse. diversity. So we want to empower entrepreneurs, as I like to say, the rising stars and the risen stars, having them talk with each other. I think that's true diversity is generational diversity, racial diversity, gender diversity, men and women, also geographic diversity. So people from red states or rural states, middle America, urban states, talking with each other about business and startups. And then on the lifestyle show, it's about helping you live your boldest life. And we work with a lot of Hollywood celebrities and entertainment celebrities.

And as a conservative, I know historically there's often been this kind of approach of being against Hollywood. And I think there's a way to find a Venn diagram where they're universal values, which we should all as Americans be able to agree upon. And so how do we find those values in the lifestyle space? And that's what we're working on. On the politics show, since I'm the host of that, as far as booking, we really do look to break news. So last week's show, for example, we had Corey Lewandowski, also had Congressman Roe Kana, very liberal Democrat.

So we really had pretty much polar opposites in the same program. We also had an author who wrote a book on, I forget the exact title, but basically saying that collusion is absolute. There's, you know, no question that it happened. And so I really think it's important. And it's interesting because a lot of times for the progressives, when they come on the show, it's the first time maybe they've been in an actual dialogue with a real human conservative as opposed to just on Twitter. And Congressman Kana, for example, last week, he said, I appreciate the thoughtful questions and I'd like to come back.

He said this on the show. And, you know, I challenged him on some things he had said about, he had compared abortion to a civil right. And I said, I find that to be completely aflimate. lot analogy and I think that that is just as a pro-life person I think that's really not appropriate to make that analogy because you're talking about a human life at stake and we had a respectful back and forth about it and a number of other issues too so I think that we are trying to break news but we're also trying to bring people together so I think in some respects is that an impossible duality I don't think so I think we're very

we're going strong. Well, and we appreciate you having the Daily Signals, Kelsey Harkness on the program, and the Heritage Foundation's Elizabeth Slattery. Yes. Well, and Kelsey, if your viewers want to, your listeners want to pull up the tape, she had, I think, a very strong, sharp dialogue with a young progressive on the show. And I think that was the first time he had been in a situation like that. And so I think it was, I think, what did you think about it? Oh, we enjoyed it. And tell our listeners how they can find the show. And more about bold. Sure.

So we're on the web at our website is www.bold.global. There's no.com. So I like to joke.com is 20th century. So, and then we stream on Facebook and on Twitter, on Periscope at Bold TV. We're also on Instagram at Bold TV as well. Now, you talked about how sometimes it's challenging to have conversations on social media. And I completely agree with that, trying to have. a discussion or debate with somebody in 280 characters on Twitter is just not feasible, really.

But at the same time, you know, I'm the editor of The Daily Signal, which is a digital multimedia platform. Bold is a digital platform. How do we, in our news organizations, go about creating a sense of discussion and dialogue that can be productive with some of the limitations that you might have on these social media platforms, or even in the case of Facebook and Google and others, you know, the accusations of censorship or suppression that some conservative feel exists. Yeah, no. I mean, I love the Daily Signal from the beginning. It was a big fan. So I think you all do a great job of breaking news and doing strong reporting, but doing in a way that's substantive, and sometimes that's missing in other places.

So I think that that's a good model that your listeners should look at. But I think that as far as, I think of the Internet as a tool. It's just a tool as like anything else. And if any tool is used in excess, then it can be used for wrong. So the Internet should be used in that way, in a responsible way. In terms of the, you know, Twitter and the characters, I mean, obviously the benefit of being able to access a large audience immediately and to spread an idea very quickly, that's empowering. and that's, I think, good for democracy.

The question of censorship, I think it's interesting because, you know, fundamentally, the tech companies are private companies, and so they should be allowed to have whomever they wish on their platforms. It does seem to be there are inconsistencies and how they apply their standards and who they allow on and who they don't allow in terms of the content. And for, I'll just, they're an example of anti-Semitic content from the left that is somehow, seen as acceptable, but it should be unacceptable, regardless of the ideology, I believe. And in terms of search and Google, potentially suppressing conservative results, or putting to the surface very, you know, if you search Republican, then you come up with Nazi and things like that. I mean, that's just, I think it will backfire for the tech companies because then,

you know, the consumers at the end of the day are the ones who are going to be using it. and if the customers, or if the companies want to have trust with the consumers, they need to be responsible creators and business people at the end of the day. I agree with you. And I think one of the things that's perhaps most frustrating to me is that you do have people who are doing responsible journalism, like bold, like the Daily Signal, substantive work, that in some cases, it seems like we're being punished because we're not as sensationalistic.

And, you know, you don't have the clickbait headlines. And at the same time, it seems that, you know, maybe we're finally entering a period of time where the tech companies are talking about being more responsible. I don't want to see any government action now either. I know that there are some conservatives who have reached the point where they would be willing to accept that. But in any case, Carrie, I just want to applaud you because I think that the work that you're doing at Bold is important. And I hope that our listeners will check it out. Now, I wanted to ask you, as a conservative woman, we just came from an election here where

Republicans were, in many cases, decimated across the board, but one of the big areas that there's a glaring lack of is women in Congress. The Democrats now have a much more diverse. There are a lot more women. There are very few Republicans. It's created a situation where they're asking themselves, what do we need to do? What is your advice for them? Yeah, so I just wrote an op-ed in CNN on this very topic. And yes, the number of women, I believe it's falling from 24 or 25 this term to 13 Republican women in the new term. And I find that to be very disappointing. And to me, it's not about pandering. And that's what I mentioned in the column. It's not about playing identity politics. It's about winning. And the fact that the Democratic Congress is going to have many more.

women running the house, that's the margin of victory, I believe. I should do the math. But in any case, it's substantial dozens and dozens of new democratic women who are going to be newly minted in the new Congress. So I think that's a big problem just from a sheer winning standpoint, nothing to do with pandering. I think it really should have to do with your message. And thinking of the marketplace of ideas, if our marketplace of ideas is really, you know, resoundingly telling us our signal, if you will, is not effective with female voters. We need to change the message. It's not about changing our policy.

It's not about weakening a robust belief in freedom, strong defense, all of the values that heritage and myself hold dear. That's not what it's about. It's about how do you communicate that? And I think that Ronald Reagan is an excellent model for being that great communicator and knowing how to this conservative policy and translating it and transmitting it through communication. So I think that's what we really need. I think tactically also we need to have something similar to Emily's List. You can look at the data of when Emily's List started and the number of Democratic women in Congress and it shot up. And it was remarkable. The founder of Emily's List, she was an heir to the IBM

fortune and she was able to use her resources and the connections she had to create this enormous monetary source for liberal women, and the Democratic Party has never been the same. We don't have that on the right. It's really scattershot. There are some women who are doing excellent work. I mentioned the constellation of the groups that are currently out there, like winning for women. Right now, Women PAC, MAVPAC has the women's initiative. There are a number of groups, but unfortunately they have not reached the sheer power and volume of Emily's list. Susan B. Anthony's list is another one on the right. And I think they're doing God's work, but it's not enough.

And I think that the conservative movement, the Republican Party can and should do more. Again, not to pander, but to just be smart. Because also as conservatives, if we believe that women and men are biologically different, then why wouldn't we think that there are differences in how we communicate? That's a great point. Well, I want to ask you for our listeners, is there a, conservative woman politician that you look up to and admire and think is doing it right? I really love Nikki Haley. She's one of my favorite communicators. I don't know what she's planning

to do when she leaves office. If she becomes the one who can help catalyze the resources and the message to reach women, that would be something that I would be fully on board with. So I hope if you know her, Rob, please tell her that message for me. Well, I don't personally, but she is a good friend of the Heritage Foundations and spoke there recently. You know, it's one of those things where we saw, particularly in the suburbs, Republicans were decimated in this past election. And I think women were a big reason why. I think that there were a number of other challenges. But then you look at other places, like Florida.

You had two Republicans win there by narrow margins. Ron DeSantis defeated Andrew Gillum. and even in that case you had a situation where Ron DeSantis was able to garner a greater percentage of the black vote over compared to Rick Scott, the Republican running in the Senate race. Why? Even though Andrew Gillum himself, the Democrat, was black, the issue of school choice really resonated. And Ron DeSantis was a strong supporter of the school choice program. Andrew Gillum wanted to end the program. And so it just is an example of what you were saying about talking about your message and tailoring it to a community that really sees value in a policy that originated from conservatives. Yes. I think that's a really great example of what's possible about focusing knowing your audience at the end of the day. And I think structurally, the Republican Party for a long time did not need to do much outreach to minority voters in order to win Congress in the White House. Those days are.

going to be in the rear view very soon. If you look at my generation as millennial, we're 44% non-white. And the massive voter deficit with Republicans or conservatives among minority voters, it's a problem right now. So I think finding those issues, like you mentioned, school choice, that's a strong issue. There are, last I heard from the National School Choice Week, about a million names on waiting list for school choice and to get into charge. schools. That's remarkable. So I think school choice, I think also, you know, protecting

faith-based institutions, having a strong and robust civic society as a means for human flourishing as opposed to government is really how we should be focused on what are we for instead of what are we against. I think that there, historically within the Republican Party, was the focus on welfare as, you know, being against welfare as opposed to what we should be focusing on is what are we for? We're for self-reliance. We're for families flourishing because they control their own destinies. And it's not about shame and shaming someone because sometimes people do fall on hard times. You need a safety net, but it's become this web where people get stuck.

And we need to change our tone and our message around issues like welfare, for example, about what is the alternative and how do we, empower people instead of shaming them. Carrie, I want to ask, we've been talking a lot about different types of demographic groups. As you've watched Bold Grow, who is the audience? How would you describe your audience? Yes, our biggest audience segment is the biggest chunk of the age group is 25 to 34. On average, we're probably slightly older than that, but we're probably about half what cable is, which to me is a win, because the average, for example, five,

consumer is 65 years old, according to Nielsen ratings. And I think that's a problem demographically and only about 1% of the Fox audience is African American, whereas the country's 13% African American. So if you look at, again, the demographics of the country, so that we can have that audience age, I think, is a win. We're fairly evenly split on gender, about half and half. Facebook and Twitter do not provide racial data on audience consumption, but I can say that we are able here in New York, for example, to bring together some of the most prominent brands within the African American community,

including Essence Magazine, Black Enterprise, the Griot, and work with very prominent Latinos in the community. So I'm really proud with what we've been able to do. I think that's a problem with the conservatives, is because we're just not showing up. I think what happens is that we just show up right before Election Day, and people, they don't buy that. It's not sincere.

They know that you don't know anything about their community, and you're not part of the fabric. And that really gets to the beloved community that I mentioned at the beginning about Martin Luther King. That's his whole message of creating the beloved community. That means to be part of a community means everyone belongs, and you're not there. It's not the beloved political parachute air drop right before November. It's not what he said.

It's about beloved community. And I think that's what we need as conservatives when we're reaching minority. And in the future, it'll be a majority minority. So there's a lot of work to be done. I'm so glad you mentioned that part about showing up. I mean, that's a big priority for us at the Daily Signal. I want you to share with our listeners here as we wrap up the story about you going to Harlem because this just struck me and I appreciate you the connection that you made to Clayton

Banks and the work that he's doing were Silicon Harlem. But tell us about why that was important for you to go into that community and perhaps not an easy thing to do at first, but how you've been really welcomed and received. Yeah. So if your listeners don't know about Silicon Harlem, I hope you'll look it up. It's a tech and startup and incubator community in Harlem. That's really geared toward putting Harlem on the map for technology, STEM careers. Actually, they put an A in there. They want to call it Steam because they include arts. There's just a strong arts history. Harlem is such a rich historical location within the African American community of Harlem Renaissance and all these amazing works of art and jazz and music that came out of Harlem. So they appreciate

that legacy with Steam. And so they've created co-working spaces. They have an app boot camp for high schoolers to learn how to code and create an app. They have brought in, you know, venture capital funding. They've worked with the city and the federal government issues around broadband and the digital divide. It's interesting because I think that the poor rural parts of the U.S. have the same problem that poor, very urban parts of the U.S. have, and that's less access to internet technology. It really is the more suburban and the wealthier parts of the urban areas that have the best axis and so that's I think a unifying issue and Harlem Silicon Harlem has been at the forefront of that here in Harlem and the very first event that I went to I felt very out of place I'm white

and I remember feeling very self-conscious about the event and it was a panel discussion of some type and I think there may be like 100 or 200 people in the room and I was maybe one of only just a few handful other white people. And I felt really, really out of place. And but they were just so warm and kind and gracious. And the founder Clayton Banks, who you mentioned, he had just, he's an inspiring individual. And his family, he's African American,

his family had been in the military. And one thing that I've talked a lot about with him is that legacy for him, where his father dealt with racism in the military, but, you know, overall, though, it was really about how many stars or bars you had on your shoulder. It wasn't about your race. It was really much more based on merit. And he also instilled in him a deep love of country and not this sense of anger and hostility toward our founding fathers. Just to understand that they did not get a right when they said the three-fifths, you know, counting of African-Americans at the time. And just, you know, to understand we're on the march toward a more perfect union.

Are we perfect? No. but in the grand scheme of things where the United States was, to reject a monarchy was earth-shattering at the time. Also, there were a lot of white men who couldn't vote. It was only the property-owning white males who could vote. So let alone, you know, non-property-eering white men and then women and minorities. So it's been this constant progress, march toward a more perfect union. So Clayton understands all of this, and he brings that to Silicon Harlem, which I love.

And so he's been able to work with a number of conservative speakers who I've been able to bring in for him to Silicon Harlem, including a friend of mine who works for Ben Carson at HUD and a number of other conservative speakers. And he has an annual conference, and I was helping him plan his annual conference after I'd spent time in the community. And it was funny because by the time the conference rolled around, I had helped him fill out a lot of his speaker rosters. And I was there on the conference day running around. and I remember feeling like, like it seemed like someone, some people were looking at me a little weird,

like, they used this white girl like telling people what to do. And I'm like, yeah, I'm white, I forgot. So it's, I think that that's, and I felt like I really belonged, you know, and that's my city. I live here. And so I think that the more we can have those moments where it really becomes about ideas, it becomes about community, It becomes about the universal values that we all strive for to create opportunity, to have strong families.

The more we'll come together as a country, the more we focus on those ideas. Thank you for sharing that story, Carrie. Finally, I want to ask earlier this year, you and I were recognized with the Buckley Award. Congratulations to you. And it was for the work that you've been doing at bold and in communities. what did that honor mean to you? It was a special honor. I really liked it because William F. Buckley had created a media company

when he was, I think, 30 or I created a bull when I was in my early 30s, the 32. So it was an honor to receive that an award named after him because he fundamentally changed the trajectory of the conservative movement. And so it's something that I can only aspire to in a very small way. but I also think what he did with television was really innovative and how he brought his very smart. He brought smarts to the masses. And I think that that was revolutionary of what he did.

And so it was an honor to get the award. Well, congrats again. Thank you for spending time with The Daily Signal. Thank you, Rob, and thank you for all you're doing. Do you have an opinion that you'd like to share? I'm Rob Bluey, editor-in-chief of The Daily Signal, and I'm inviting you to share your thoughts with us. Leave us a voicemail at 202-608-6205 or email us at

Letters at DailySignal.com. Yours could be featured on the Daily Signal podcast. 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's in the mailbag? Well, first up, Bill King of Pittsburgh writes, great podcast by Rob Blewey and Jenny Maltabano on Teaching Civics.

I am proud to see my alma mater, Arizona State University, push for civics being taught. As a former intern of John McCain's first Senate campaign, I am excited by the bill recently introduced by Senator Jim and Hoff and Senator Angus King to have civics introduced in K through 12 schools all over America. With both good citizens and good government, the United States of America will always remain free and strong. yes, we can restore our republic and keep alive that glorious liberty document, our amazing constitution. And Vera Parsad writes, Pawan Kalyan is not only an actor or a political leader, he is a great human being, as your podcast reveals. The sky is the limit for his humanity.

Kalyan helped a lot of poor people, helped cancer patients, and addressed people with issues to government. He is definitely going to play a vital role in Indian. Indian politics. God bless India, the United States, and Pawan Kalyan. 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. Liberals have pretty much cornered the market on 101-style podcasts that break down tough policy issues in the news. Until now. Did you know that every week, Heritage Explains, Intermingles personal stories, news

clips and facts from heritage experts to help explain some of today's hardest issues from a conservative perspective. Look for Heritage Explains on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play, or wherever you get your podcasts. Christian Radio Station WGTS 91.9 is stepping up to help during the partial government shutdown. With many federal workers at home, WGTS organized a clean-up of the National Mall where trash has been accumulating. We went to the event and spoke to some people about why they chose to help out. What made you decide to come out today and join these people? Well, first off, it was a beautiful day. And second of off, when I was listening to the radio station, it sounded like a good opportunity to get out and help the community. I drove by here the other day

before the cleanup happened last night, and it looked kind of messy. And I'm a resident. I'm an American. I want my net in my backyard to look really good. That's awesome. You know, things can be so uncivil right now. What does it mean to you to see a group? It's a pretty nice eyes. They've decided to come together and do this. Well, you know, anytime you pull a group together, right, we have like-minded interests, so that's always nice to see. And, you know, purposely with a good purpose, right? I mean, you're not going out to do something bad. You're doing to do something good and you're trying to help out, you know, a broader community. Last question. Do you have any thoughts on the wall in the situation that's going on right now?

The wall, like Pink Floyd, huh? You know, I think national security in every form is critical, and so whether it's a wall or a something you don't see, those are all parts of how we, you know, protect our citizens, and by goodness

if it's something that we think is important, we should do it. Thank you so much. We're going to leave it there for today. The Daily Signal podcast is broadcast from the Robert H. Bruce Radio Studio at the Heritage Foundation. You can find it on the Rickusay Audio Network along with our other podcasts. All of our shows can be found at dailysignal.com slash podcasts.

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