The Daily Signal - Todd Starnes on ‘Residual After-Effects of the Barack Obama Presidency'

Episode Date: March 12, 2024

In 2007, Todd Starnes was working at Fox News and covering then-Sen. Barack Obama’s presidential campaign.  “I just felt like that was going to be the historic campaign, and it turned out to be,” says Starnes, a bestselling author and nationally syndicated radio host.  The political climate facing America right now is in part due to the “residual after-effects of the Barack Obama presidency,” according to Starnes. The former Democratic senator from Illinois was president from 2009 to 2017. “First, Obama categorized all of the [2008 GOP opponent Sen.] John McCain supporters … [as] the folks that cling to their guns and their religion,” Starnes said. “He called them ‘bitter’ Americans. He made those remarks in a speech in San Francisco. And then you had Hillary Clinton coming out and talking about the irredeemable ‘deplorables.’” Starnes says both Obama and Clinton “were trying to dehumanize their opponents, their political opponents.”  Second, Starnes points to Obama’s pledge to “fundamentally” transform America.  In his new book, “Twilight’s Last Gleaming: Can America Be Saved?” Starnes explains how America arrived at the political division it finds itself in right now, and just how much time he thinks the nation has to right its course before it’s too late.  Starnes joins “The Daily Signal Podcast” to explain more.  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 Tuesday, March 12th. I'm Virginia Allen. Can America be saved? That is the question that Todd Starnes is asking in his brand new book, Twilight's Last Gleaming. Starns lays out where we are right now in the state of the country and pulling on his expertise and political experience explains how we arrived at the moment we are today in the United States politically. and offers a little bit of hope for a path forward. Stay tuned for my conversation with Todd Starnes after this. Looking for quick conservative policy solutions to current issues from America's outpost here in Washington, sign up for Heritage's weekly newsletter, The Agenda. You'll get top conservative research, a rundown of important events happening here at Heritage that you can watch online and hot takes from our experts. sign up at heritage.org slash agenda or at the link in the show notes.

Well, it is my pleasure today to welcome to the show, Beth Selling author and nationally syndicated radio host, Todd Starnes. Todd spent 15 years at Fox News Channel. He's covered three presidents. He was named by Barna as one of the most influential voices for evangelical Christians. and his brand new book, Twilight's Last Gleaming, Can America Be Saved, is out on March 19th, but it's available right now for pre-order. Todd, I want to welcome you to the show. Thanks for being with us. Well, thank you for that great introduction. Really appreciate it.

Well, I would love to begin the conversation today with a little bit of your background, actually. I'm sure many of our listeners have heard you on the radio. They've seen you on TV, but they might not know your story. Did you always know that you wanted to be in the field of news and specifically doing radio? Well, yes and no. I knew as a small kid, this is what I wanted to do. My very first job was sweeping the floors of our local newspaper. We had a weekly newspaper in our small town. And that was really my introduction to journalism.

I loved radio and always dabbled in it throughout most of my career. but I never realized you can actually make money and make a living doing radio. So one day somebody convinced me to give it a shot, and I'll tell you, it was really amazing. And it was, I realized, you know what, this is what I want to do. Spent some time out in California anchoring at KFBK, which is the station where Rush Limbaugh launched his national show back in the day. And then from KFBK went directly to Fox News in New York City. Well, you got hooked early on, which that's neat to see just the evolution. And congratulations on a career that has really just exploded over the years.

As you mentioned, you joined Fox News back in 2005. And just two years later in 2007, you started covering Obama's campaign. Yeah. What did you learn in those early years on the ground covering campaigns? So I had a blast. And really, you know, I looked at this as being a part of the team that was writing that first draft of history. I remember the bosses at Fox gave me a choice. They said, you can either cover McCain or you can cover Obama. And I didn't even think about it. I said, I want to cover Obama. I just felt like that was going to be the historic campaign. And it turned out to be. And for me, it was when I was covering and I was thinking about how do I do this?

How do I go about covering this massive campaign? And really, I looked at it as being the eyes and ears for my family back home in Tennessee and covering the story for them and, in essence, then covering it for the rest of the country. I just had an absolutely great time. They were good to me. You know, I mean, I was the Fox guy. And I'll never forget there was a moment. I think it was Halloween.

It was Halloween because I was dressed up as Joe the plumber on the campaign. and someone from one of the other papers, conservative papers, was dressed up as Sarah Palin. And we were all getting on board the plane or the bus. We were somewhere in the Midwest. And that was the day that I guess three publications wrote these really, you know, critical op-eds about Obama. And they kicked them off the campaign trail. And I think it was Jake Tapper, one of the guys turned around and said, Starns, are you next? And I thought, oh, geez, allude.

But fortunately, they kept me around. Otherwise, I'd have to hit your ride out of Iowa. There you go, dressed as Joe the Plummer. Exactly. That was a fun time. Oh, wow. Well, you've certainly seen a lot in your time in covering politics, in covering campaigns. Now, I think, though, that as Americans, we can all agree that what we're experiencing right now in American politics, it feels distinctly different.

I haven't been in the political game too long, you know, in retrospect. but yet even I can say, gosh, things have changed a lot just within the last five to 10 years. What do you think is so different about the political climate right now? Well, a lot has changed, but a lot hasn't changed. And I think what we are dealing with now is the residual after effects of the Barack Obama presidency. Out on the campaign trail, Barack Obama, there were two distinct moments that I think have really shaped where we are as a country right now. First, Obama categorized all of the John McCain supporters. And that's why I think this is almost humorous looking back at it, because John McCain was a moderate Republican at best.

And he said that those people, those are the folks that cling to their guns and their religion. He called them bitter Americans. He made those remarks in a speech in San Francisco. And then you had Hillary Clinton coming out and talking about the irredeemable deplorables. I think that's how she framed. what Obama was doing, what Hillary Clinton, they were trying to dehumanize their opponents, their political opponents. Hillary Clinton said that we, that Trump supporters, and I happen to be a Trump supporter, that we were beyond redemption. Those are some pretty, that's some pretty harsh rhetoric. When Obama was in Philadelphia, the suburbs of Philadelphia, said when they bring a knife to the fight, we bring a gun.

And then they immediately turn it around and they direct, you know, the charges of violence at their political enemies. One of the things I always tell people is when the left is out there accusing you of doing something, typically, they're doing the exact same thing behind the scenes. But going back to the other thing that Obama said, he said that he was going to fundamentally transform America. And I'm not sure people really understood what he was talking about because this was something that was happening, this weaponization of the government agencies. That actually started in the Obama administration with Lois Lerner and the Internal Revenue Service, intention. targeting conservatives. You know, for the first time in the history of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, they faced an audit from the IRS. And the reason why is because they took out a full-page ad supporting traditional marriage in North Carolina. So I think that's when it really sort of

got turbocharged. And now we are dealing with the full-blown weaponization of the federal government. And let's be honest, right now they're targeting conservatives. And that's a big problem. Did Obama succeed in that mission of fundamentally changing America at some level did he succeed? Oh, absolutely. And again, it's a brilliant strategy. Everybody thought all these white liberals were going out and voting for Obama thinking they were part of the new civil rights movement. And even Obama himself promised to usher in this, what, post-racial America. And in fact, it actually further divided the country because Obama knew that if he really wanted to be impactful, he was going to have to ride that divide. And he did. And quite frankly, not only was it not the post-racial presidency, I think it really reverted us back to even before the civil rights movement itself. I mean, race relations, I think, are in a pretty rough spot right now. And it's really because of the policies of the policies of the government. the Democrat Party. They want to keep us divided. Wow. Well, your book, Twilight's Last Gleaming, Can America Be Saved? You're addressing that big question of can America be saved and you're explaining

this is where we are in the nation. This is how we got here. And you point out in the book that we're at a time of choosing in America, that we have a path before us. We can take a path towards freedom or we can take a path that leads towards tyranny. You know, as I was thinking about this, I was wondering, can Americans all even agree on what a path towards freedom looks like and what a path towards tyranny is? What do you think? Can we get consensus so that as the American people, we can make the right decision on that?

Or are Americans so divided that it's almost impossible to even get a solid definition that all American people can get around of saying, yes, this is the path to freedom and yes, this is a path towards tyranny that we don't want to go down. Yeah, I sure hope we get it figured out. Otherwise, I'll be, I'll be the first guy in the, what, the re-education camps. And I don't think I would do well in a prison setting. So I hope we get it figured out. But I don't know. You know, that's the big question. Ronald Reagan in a speech many years ago, and this is how I came up with the title of the book, many years ago, he was giving a speech and he made an interesting about our national anthem. He said, you know, it doesn't start out with a declarative statement,

like America is the greatest. No, it asks a question. And then it asks a series of questions, O'Say, can you see by the dawn's early light, is the star-spangled banner still flying? I mean, that's the gist of it. Is the flag still there? Are we still in the fight? Reagan, years later, would deliver another speech where he talked about freedom not being passed along in our bloodstream. So every generation has to fight for freedom. And I'm afraid that we've got a couple of generations here that do not understand that idea. And they have been educated in public schools that America is not worth fighting for. That we're just a bunch of colonialists.

We're invaders. And we have to be repelled back to wherever we came from. And so I wrote this book to talk about that and to say, okay, here are the choices we have here, guys. where are we going to go? Where are we going to take all of this? But I also wanted to infuse a lot of humor and satire into the book to make it fun because, you know, if we're heading off to the gulags, we at least need to share a chuckle together. How much time do we have? Do you give a timeline in the book of, you know, we have X number of years before maybe it's too late and we can't turn things around? Yeah, I think November is the day. I think that election cycle is going to

determine, you know, the fate of the country. Look, this is an important moment for Americans to decide, okay, do we want to save the country? And if we do, we've got to get out, we've got to vote on election day. We've got to engage in our civic responsibilities. You and I are talking today, which happens to be Super Tuesday, before I came in to do the interview, went over in the primary. You know, we've got to take those moments, those opportunities, and engage the culture. How do we do that? We've got to do it by going and voting. And we've got to instill that value. And we've got to instill that value into our kids. Now, obviously, you work in the political space, but you're obviously also very open about

your faith and very bold in speaking about your faith and the importance of faith even within that political sphere. So given that, how much do you think is writing on just, I would say, a promotion of good policy and those issues versus how much is writing on a renewal of faith in America, would you say? And that in order for the country to truly be saved, we need a renewal of faith. Well, we do. And isn't that really what this is all about, you know, going back to the foundations of the country. And I was working with a publisher and just a terrific team and we were trying to come up with a book title. And we thought, you know, maybe focus on the toxic masculinity issue.

Working title was Mommy. Why is Daddy wearing Spanx? We have a chapter in the book on transgenderism, Jack and Jill. went up the hill, came down gender neutral. And we had debated calling the book American Homecoming, you know, coming back, going back to the foundations of the country. And that's really what it's all about. You know, I'm, look, I am a gun-toating, Bible-clinging, flag-waving deplorable. I'm not one of these people that wants to turn my church into a political arena. I do believe that pastors should have the freedom to talk about the issues from the pulpit. And I do believe that, you know, we should be engaged. In the early days of the country, there would actually be church services on election day.

So you would go to church, you would hear the sermon, and then you would go, and you would cast your ballots. And I think there's something unique in that, because it really does help you focus on what's important. Unfortunately, I think many churches have become disengaged. They've been accused of being Christian nationalist, as if that's a bad thing. I don't even think that's a real thing. I believe you can be a Christian. You can still love your country and not be a bad person. But I think they're using those kinds of words and terms to basically neutralize the church. And because a lot of the pastors these days don't want to be offensive. They don't want to cause waves.

And they just want to kind of be meek little people there and their church houses. And I don't think those are the kinds of churches we need in America. Well, given that, given that climate that we are seeing that you say we're seeing right now in America within the church, do you think that it's possible that we could see a renewal of faith and kind of a strengthening of the body of Christ in our country within the next one, two, three, four years when it really is something that I do think many people are longing for. I hope so. I really do. I was troubled in the pandemic by not necessarily the virus itself. I was more concerned by our reaction to it. The government came and said, we know how to keep you safe, but we have to take away some of your civil liberties.

And we, the people, said, okay, do whatever you have to do, take away our freedom as long as we're going to be safe. And people eventually wanted to go back to work. And they said, no, you can't go back to work. But we're going to give you a little money so that you'll have something to spend. You'll be able to buy groceries. And the problem with this philosophy is when the government, what the government takes away, the government will not give back or it's very slow to give back. And when they came to the churches and the pastors and said, hey, we need you to shut down. You know, it made sense for the first month. But then it was like, wait a second, what's going on here? And that concerns me. And because the government, if nothing else, they realized, hey, we can do this. If it ever happens again, we have the ability to shut down the churches and the people are not going to object. I want to briefly end our conversation by talking about former president Donald Trump here for a minute. Trump has called your brand new book absolutely terrific and a must read. You actually just recently.

had Trump on your show. Americans have very, very strong opinions about the former president. Why do you think that the former president is viewed in such opposing ways in America? You know, that is a great question. And I've really thought long and hard about that. I know he's a billionaire. I get that. But he acts like one of us, right? Like he would be, you know, at the drive-thru at Chick-fil-A, I think he's a regular guy, or at least he comes across like that. But what I love about Donald Trump, and I think this is really why he resonates, is that he is his authentic self. I remember when Mitt Romney, there was a great story in the 2016, I'm sorry, the 2012 presidential cycle. There was a fierce Republican primary going on. And Mitt Romney

was down in the southern states, and he was trying to, you know, get his southern street cred on by telling everybody how much he loved grit, which it's, you know, it's, you know, grits is grits. The S is very important. But then the traumatic moment, and this caused such chaos, he was given a plate of fried chicken. And, you know, the first thing you do when you eat fried chicken in the South is you eat the skin. But he took the skin of the chicken off and set it aside and then commenced to eat the chicken, which led Governor Mike Hockabed, literally call a press conference condemning Mitt Romney for basically desecrating the gospel bird.

And Donald Trump, I mean, and again, he was trying, you know, Hillary Clinton, you know, when she puts on the black preacher gospel voice, she's not authentic. But Donald Trump, where did he do one of his very first rallies, Mobile, Alabama. And he was the same guy in Mobile, Alabama, as he was in Queens, New York. And I think people love that. And I think they really respect that. Well, Todd, we so appreciate your time today. We appreciate the work you're doing. Tell us, how can we follow your work?

How can we listen to your show and keep up with what you're doing? Well, thank you for that. Toddsterns.com is my website, and we have lots of free stuff for folks. The podcast, they can listen to our interviews with folks like Trump, Jim Jordan, Marsha Blackburn. And also, we have a great newsletter that comes out as well, again, free of charge. And you can get a copy of Twilight's Last Gleaming, really, wherever you buy your books. Excellent. And it's available for pre-order right now.

It's out officially on March 19th. So make sure to pick up your copy of Twilight's last gleaming, Can America Be Saved? Todd Starnes, thank you so much for your time today. Thank you. And with that, that is going to do it for today's episode. Thanks so much for joining us here on the Daily Signal podcast. If you've not had the chance, make sure that you check out our evening show. Every weekday, we bring you the top news of the day.

These are the headlines that you don't want to miss to stay informed on what's going on in our world. So make sure to catch the Daily Signal's top news around 5 p.m. today and every weekday. With that, I hope you have a great rest of your Tuesday and make sure you hit that subscribe button so you never miss out on new Daily Signal shows. We will see you right back here around 5 p.m. for our time news edition. The Daily Signal podcast is brought to you by more than half a million members of the Heritage Foundation. Executive producers are Rob Bowie and Kate Trinko. Producers are Virginia Allen and Samantha Asheras. Sound design by Lauren Evans, Mark Geinney, and John Pop. To learn more, please visit DailySignal.com.