CNN’s Scott Jennings: The Conservative Movement’s Identity Crisis

This week, guest host Billy Binion is joined by Scott Jennings, a political analyst best known for his viral debates on CNN, where he is often the lone conservative voice. Jennings is also the author of A Revolution of Common Sense, a new book arguing that President Donald Trump's political comeback is rooted in what Jennings calls a common-sense governing platform.

Jennings and Binion discuss whether Trump's policies on such issues as tariffs, deportations, and foreign affairs live up to that description a year into Trump's second term. They also talk about Jennings' experience working at CNN, his criticisms of the legacy media, and why he feels Mitch McConnell and Donald Trump are more similar than they appear.

The conversation also turns to the growing civil war on the right, including recent public infighting among conservative factions and influencers. Jennings explains where he draws lines within the conservative movement, his views on free speech versus free association, and why he believes some figures are doing lasting damage to conservatism's ability to articulate a coherent set of values and priorities.

The Reason Interview With Nick Gillespie goes deep with the artists, entrepreneurs, and scholars who are making the world a more libertarian—or at least more interesting—place by championing free minds and free markets.

0:00–Introduction
0:59–Being a conservative at CNN
6:53–The future of media
17:01–Going from Trump critic to Trump supporter
19:53–The influence of Mitch McConnell
24:00–Limited government and the One Big Beautiful Bill
30:25–The Trump administration and free speech
39:31–Trump's immigration and tariff policies
56:45–The shortcomings of DOGE
1:01:24–Antisemitism and conspiracy theorists on the right
1:09:08–Alignment between the GOP and libertarians

Transcript

This is an AI-generated, AI-edited transcript. Check all quotes against the audio for accuracy.

Billy Binion: Scott Jennings, thank you for talking to Reason. 

Scott Jennings: Hey, glad to be here. Thanks for having me in.

So you've been very critical of the mainstream media, and you're also on one of the most visible mainstream media networks. So I'm wondering, what is your objective at CNN? And do you think that you get a fair hearing on those panels?

Well, my objective is to participate in debate. I think debate is good. I think the country was founded on debates—and some muskets—but also debates. And I think to the extent that we can foster more debates in our political culture, it's gonna be a good thing for America.

CNN used to, years ago, sort of pioneer this. You know, this was the network of Crossfire. And then we got away from it, and there's really not that much debating content out there on the air. And so last year, they decided to do this debating show. And I thought, "This is a great idea." And it's worked. I think it was supposed to be a temporary thing. And then it was so popular, they left it on the air, and it's still going here over a year later.

So my purpose is to participate in debates. My purpose is to give half, or more than half, or sometimes 90 percent of the country, like, somebody who can argue and articulate on their behalf. And I just—I'm here to pop bubbles, you know? I think it's bad when we get stuck in our ideological bubbles. I meet a lot of people in this line of work who—I might be the only Republican they know. That's a bad thing, ok? This is not a good thing for America. And so that's my purpose.

Do I get a fair hearing? I mean, I think I make it more than fair out there for my point of view. I mean, certainly, there are more people out there who would disagree with me than agree at the table. And none of the hosts agree with me, of course. But no one's ever censored me. No one's ever told me, "You can't articulate that view." No one has ever put a script in front of me and said, you have to do this. So to the extent that I get to do what I do and say what I wanna say, it happens every time. 

To that point, why do you think that the makeup is always you being outnumbered? Do you think it would be better if it were just 50–50? What do you think about that?

Well, I don't know. I'm not a television producer. I mean, I think it actually is sort of interesting when you have one person, you know, fighting a mob, you know? I mean, just for television. I mean, to me it's kind of interesting. And certainly people who are of my political persuasion like it that way. They think it's kinda neat that one guy can disarm, you know, four or five people at the same time.

At the same time, I think you could probably do quite well, you know, putting an even-handed thing out there. But for what CNN is trying to do and what they have done, I don't have any criticisms at all because they're the only network that actually has stepped its foot back into the idea that debates are a good thing to platform.

I go all over the country. I hear two things: I love you and I love the debates. I don't care for you, but I love the debates. The commonality is the debates. And so CNN and our CEO, Mark Thompson, realized this and they decided to put some debates on the air. And most of the time, I think it works pretty well.

Could you make a go of it with a totally evenly split show? Probably. But that's not what they've chosen to do. And that's…for me right now, that's perfectly fine. I do think there could be other evolutions of this and other iterations of it, but that—that's above my pay grade.

How do you think the legacy media is doing covering Trump this time around? Do you think it's better or do you think it's worse, the same?

Not great. I mean—no, look. I think… Trump broke a lot of people—he broke a lot of institutions and he warped a lot of things. One of them is institutional media, which has decided that it needs to defeat Trump, that it needs to subdue Trump, that it needs to finally get Trump. That's different than covering Trump. And it's been that way for 10 years.

And so do I think there are people out there covering him fairly? Yeah, I do. Do I think that there are people out there who are grinding axes and basically executing on a political agenda? Absolutely. And I think—look, I mean, don't take my word for it. Look at the Gallup poll. You know, they take this confidence-in-institutions survey every year. Trust in the mainstream media is lower than it's ever been. There's a reason for that.

And so I think there is a way to cover Trump where you can tell the truth, and where you can be critical, and where you can shine lights. And I think there's also a way to do it where you can appear to just be grinding an ax to fit a narrative. And I think a lot of times the ax grinding and the narrative building is what you get, right?

The show versus tell quandary.

Yeah. And I also think, you know, a lot of mainstream media is very insular. And they don't really consider the viewpoints of people outside of their little bubble. And that's not good either.

So look, you know, I think—I believe you asked me, why am I at CNN? I believe in a free press and a trusted free press at that. I also believe in popping ideological bubbles. And I also believe that conservatives need to be represented in news organizations.

So there's a lot of reasons for someone like me to do this. But one of the ways that they could reform themselves is to take a little bit of an introspective look at: How are we covering not just Trump but all conservatives, all Republicans? How do we cover that movement or that political persuasion versus our preference?

And if they were able to do that, I think, and do it, you know, with a really critical eye, they might find some shortcomings in what they've done. And it would help explain why people don't trust them, or why they have fled to independent journalism or independent news sources. And it might be a little bit of a roadmap back.

That is a perfect segue to something I wanted to ask you. In your book, Common Sense, you talk a lot about how the influence of the mainstream media has receded over the last few years. How have you experienced that shift? And what do you think the future of media is?

Well, I've experienced it for the last 25 years in politics. You know, I'm in media now, but really, for the last quarter century, I have been a political operative. I've worked on presidential campaigns, Senate campaigns, all kinds of Republican politics stuff. I've been in public relations, and now I'm with CNN and Salem Radio.

So I've seen this from all angles. And for most of my career, what the mainstream media said in a presidential campaign mattered a lot. You know, the narratives that they would strike, the storylines, the vectors—what they said mattered a lot. It mattered, frankly, more than TV ads, or the paid advertising.

That just wasn't true in 2024. I mean, you think about what you heard in October of '24 about the narratives that were closing out the campaign—you know, all the Puerto Ricans are mad and Harris is going to win Pennsylvania because of it, or there's a poll in Iowa, or…You kept hearing these things. What they wanted people to believe the vector or the momentum of the campaign was was something altogether different than what was actually happening in the country. That was borne out on election night.

And so what I learned in 2024 is that, probably in my career, this was the least influential the mainstream media has been in a presidential campaign cycle. Not to say that there isn't influence, and not to say that the mainstream doesn't have an impact. But in terms of overall influence, if you look at the way Trump ran around them and did all sorts of things in alternative formats, that obviously was extremely helpful to him.

And if you looked at the ways Harris kind of ran towards the mainstream media—I mean, all she was really capable of doing was standard-issue mainstream media stuff. And even at that, she didn't do it very well. But she was not really capable of the unscripted, outside-of-the-mainstream.

Right, the criticism of her was that she was inauthentic.

Exactly. And you have to have some of that in order to participate in the new media stuff. Trump obviously did it, and his people understood it. And they kind of ran circles around it. And so they just didn't live or die by the narratives of the mainstream media. They created their own communications ecosystem outside of that. It obviously worked.

And so that's why I argued in the book that it seems to me that in 2024—and I said this on election night—this was kind of the death of the political information distribution complex, which has heretofore controlled the narratives in our politics. But I don't think that's true now.

We're seeing this White House prioritize some of these independent creators, smaller right-leaning outlets, which I think is interesting and good in a lot of ways. I will also say, though, some of the people who have gotten the opportunity to be in the briefing room who otherwise wouldn't have been have gotten some criticism for using the chance to kind of lob more softball questions. You know, like there was one guy who asked about, like, "Will Big Balls get the Medal of Honor?" or that kind of thing.

I very much agree with you that the mainstream media has squandered a lot of credibility by being very deferential to one side—and very obviously so. And so I'm wondering what you think the right's role is in rectifying that.

Well, I agree with you that it's good for the White House briefing room to be reformed. I think it's good that they brought in other people.

Look, a lot of these people—and I'm new to this—but a lot of these people I'm learning have millions upon millions of followers. And they get lots of views. And in some cases, they have more views than certain mainstream outlets.

Totally, yeah.

I mean—and so in terms of audience, if I'm the White House—and the, you know, the White House that I worked for, we came just before the advent of social media. Bush 43 was kind of the last old-world White House before 24/7. You know, I think Politico came out in 2007 and then social media comes shortly thereafter.

And so that was basically the dawn of Twitter. Right.

Exactly. And so we existed before. But if you had told me back in those days, well, you have all these different channels where you can talk to hundreds of thousands or millions of people without having to get, you know, hammered by The Washington Post or whatever, I would have taken it in a heartbeat.

So it's smart for the White House to do this. It's also good, because there's a lot of people that get news and information that way. So that's a good thing.

You know, the right's responsibility here, I think, is to produce honest, true content and understand that we're in a moment where the marketplace is desirous of new political content. They want it presented in authentic ways. They have questions they'd like to get answered.

And so my only advice would be: Do something creative. Do something authentic. Do something that's pleasing to the viewer. I mean, after all, it is a business. But do something with your time if you're given a seat in there. Ask a good question. Think of something that no one else has asked.

I try to do this on the shows that I'm on: What is nobody else saying? What is the question that no one else wants to ask that would lead to a line of conversation that might be new and unique to your deal?

That will enhance your position in all this. I don't want to single out or be critical of anybody who's gotten a seat in there, because I think it's good what they're doing. But if I were giving any of them advice, it would be: What's the thing nobody else is willing to ask in here that actually might be illuminating to the overall conversation? That's a good way to do it.

So right now, CNN is in the spotlight with this merger. What do you make of Trump's role in the media merger and, you know, purporting to have a voice in CNN's future?

Yeah, he has lots of opinions about lots of things in the media business, and that's not gonna stop—

He's a showman after all. 

I think it is hard. He's a television producer…

Right, exactly.

I mean, in some of the interactions I've had with him and observing him over the years, I think he—and look, he had one of the most successful television shows out there. He knows a little about the TV business. And so I'm not surprised that he has opinions about it.

And of course the federal government does have some regulatory oversight here in terms of how this goes. So I don't really know how to answer that, other than to say: not surprised Trump has an opinion. And it's a little bit above my pay grade. You know, when you're talking about this amount of money, it's way above Scott Jennings' pay grade. But I don't know who's going to own it. I don't know what it's going to look like. But do I think Donald Trump is going to continue to voice an opinion about what he sees on CNN? One hundred percent.

I assume he will not answer this, but I'm going to ask it anyway. Do you have a preference?

I do not. I have no answer for that question, other than to tell you that I'm quite happy with my deal and quite happy with my role. And as I said earlier, for all the criticisms of the right of CNN—some warranted—it was CNN and Mark Thompson who brought back the debating format that ultimately put conservatives in a position at CNN to articulate our viewpoint.

And look, I think that show and what we've been able to do there has actually made CNN safe again, you know, for some conservatives to watch it and to come back on it. I've noticed since we put that show on the air, there are now more Republican elected officials who are willing to come on and do interviews and do things.

You've been there since 2017. Did you feel like they were skeptical before of coming on?

Yes. Oh, I think we went through a period where a lot of Republicans did not want to come on. They didn't feel like they were going to get a fair hearing. And I think we were having trouble booking Republicans at one time. I mean, there's always, you know, a person here or there. But now it feels to me—and I don't have any metrics to back this up—it just feels to me now like there are more Republicans willing to engage with CNN.

I attribute some of that to what we've been doing with the debates, because it shows that CNN actually does have a commitment to allowing people with authentic conservative views to voice those views and not feel like they're just going to be shouted down or run out of the room or, you know, maligned for eight minutes or however long they're on there.

So I'll just say, however this goes, whatever happens, it is CNN right now that's giving the American people debates. And I don't think anybody else is doing that.

For the listeners who are very online, they may know that sometimes there is like a gossip cycle when, you know, when you are pictured with someone like Kaitlan Collins or something like that. Before we move on to, you know, politics in general, can you just talk about the relationships off the camera? Why you think that animates people so?

Yeah. Well, first of all, the people who work at CNN—we're very collegial internally. We have a community. In fact, it's one of the best parts of the job, actually, is the people who've been there together for a number of years. We spend a lot of time together, and in some cases we even travel a lot together.

My two best friends at the network are Van Jones and David Axelrod—interestingly.

Staunch Dems. 

And I love them both and have really benefited, I think, from knowing them and conversing…

David Axelrod was an Obama guy, right? 

He was Obama's chief strategist.

Right, right, right.

And Van Jones, you know, is one of the most prominent left-wing commentators, Obama White House staffer, and has been aligned with a lot of left-wing causes and organizations.

But I think they're both—look, the best debaters and commentators have experience, are thoughtful, they listen. I mean, you can always tell the difference between the good and the bad out there. The people who can only sort of say what they wrote down in advance versus the ones who listen and can engage in the debate.

Van and Axe are debaters, and they listen and then they can react. Those are the best kinds.

But off the air, those are my buddies. And with the anchors—I mean, I have great relationships with the people that I'm on the air with. I mean, I think we have some interesting and sometimes heated exchanges, but I respect what they do. I think they respect what I do. And the community of CNN has actually been quite a pleasant thing to be involved in.

I want to talk about the changing GOP. Something that's always kind of fascinated me. And I would like to preface this by saying I do not mean this as a gotcha. You know, in preparing for this interview, I saw that in the 2016 election, you weren't necessarily Trump's biggest fan. 

Nine years ago, correct.

And you were worried that he might have some authoritarian tendencies. For the record, I mean it when I say I don't want this to be a gotcha, because there are a lot of Republicans who share that—our vice president being one of them—who has kind of had this evolution over time. And I'm wondering for you what that journey was like, if there was like an aha moment, if there was something that really changed your mind, or if it was gradual. How did that happen for you?

Well, in 2016, like a lot of Republicans, I didn't really know Donald Trump other than just Donald Trump the entertainer, the businessman, whatever he was. And I wasn't trained in his style of politics. I never thought of him as a Republican political actor. I didn't know him. And he comes along, and I guess the best way to describe it is, I just was completely and totally unfamiliar with him or with an election cycle where someone from outside the party would come and take control of the party.

So in 2016—my unfamiliarity with him and, you know, questions about him—I did have a lot of questions about him. I did vote for him. Voted for him three times, actually. And probably just fast forwarding to 2024, felt closer to him in '24 than I ever felt. And I'll get to why that is in a moment.

But back in the early days, I, along with millions of Republicans, were somewhat skeptical and didn't really know what to make of it.

I'll tell you one thing: Had he not won the election—you know, I wonder what would have happened to the Supreme Court, for instance. And that was one of my motivating things about my vote for him. I actually think it's one of the reasons he won the election. Mitch McConnell holding open that Supreme Court seat—I think this is one thing that a lot of Republicans looked at and said, you know, "I don't know a lot about Trump…"

I remember that news cycle. It was very controversial. 

"I don't know a lot about Trump, and I'm not a little sure about it, but I sure as heck don't want Hillary Clinton filling this." And so, I mean, that changed everything. And so that was persuasive to me at the time.

So, you know, Trump—there's not a politician alive that I agree with 100 percent of the time. Not even the ones that I like very much. And certainly Trump has done things over the years that I, you know, wish he hadn't done that, or I would have done it differently. The same was true for George W. Bush. The same is true for Mitch McConnell.

But I'll tell you this: If he does 95 percent of what I want, and the left does 0 percent of what I want, it's an easy choice for me every time.

You mentioned McConnell, who was one of your mentors, correct?

I would not have gone to college, I don't think, if it hadn't been for Mitch McConnell. 

Why is that?

Well ok, I'm a poor kid from west Kentucky. I'm the son of a garbage man and a factory worker. I didn't have much.

And I got a scholarship to go to the University of Louisville at the McConnell Center for Political Leadership. They give a scholarship to 10 kids a year. I got one of them, and it's a full ride to the University of Louisville. Now, this changed my life. It changed the trajectory of my life.

And so—he doesn't pick the kids, and he raises the money for the scholarship. But had that not existed for me, I don't know what would have happened to me. And later on, I did work on his political operations and political campaigns over the years. He's been a mentor.

What was the most important lesson you learned from him in politics? And do you think that there was a failure of that version of the Republican Party that left open this opening for Trump? Or is that a misunderstanding of why Trump is now kind of the leader of the Republican Party?

What did I learn from Mitch McConnell?

Number one: focus. I think in campaigns, it's easy to chase every tail out there. You know, it's like—lots of things happen. What actually matters, and what do you have to focus on? So don't chase your tail. Focus is important.

Number two, in terms of just tactically—you know, McConnell's kind of famous for: If you throw a pebble at me, I'll throw a boulder at you. And in some ways, he and Trump are actually quite similar in that. Now, they're different attitudinally…different disposition. McConnell's not a showman, Trump is. But in some ways, I perceive similarities in their desire to thoroughly destroy their political enemies in the heat of a campaign.

I recognize that trait in both of them. But really, it's focus and a willingness to do what you have to do to win. McConnell never lost a race, even in a state that, when he started, was extremely Democratic. There's a reason for that. And so I really, you know, as a political operative, learned a lot from Mitch McConnell on that.

Do I think he led to the rise of Donald Trump? No. I think that—

I didn't mean him specifically. I more so just mean that kind of older version of the Republican Party. There was something that was missing.

Oh, well, I think that a lot of people voted for Trump and liked Trump because of the way he handles our perceived enemies—whether it's the media or whether it is the Democrats. I think there was a perception, certainly in 2016, that in coming out of the 2012 election—which I also worked in—that the party had just, you know, basically rolled over to the left, rolled over to the Clintons, rolled to the media, whatever.

And you talk about in your book kind of like how when you were an operative, compassionate conservatism was the response to a lot of these things, right? Like you just need to be nicer.

Well, yes. But, you know, as a tactical matter, I think there was a belief among Republicans that we just sort of turned the other cheek all the time to people who were never going to do the same for us or give us the benefit of the doubt. Why should we do that for them?

And look at 2012. I mean, most Republicans would tell you that Mitt Romney was eminently qualified, eminently moral, had good ideas—and what did they do to him? They called him a murderer. They assailed him for having the controversial idea that he might appoint more women to the government.

These are the things that made Mitt Romney history's greatest monster. And we just did not effectively understand what we were dealing with. And Trump comes along and says, "No, no. I get it. I am going to fight these people to the end." And it was that fighting spirit that people believed the 2012 operation lacked, the '08 operation lacked, that even back in the Bush years—you know, why do you allow yourself to be consumed by these entities that exist only to consume and destroy Republican presidencies and Republican presidential candidates?

So I think what Trump provided was, "Hey, whatever happens, whatever we do, I promise you I will not be consumed by these people who have eaten up everybody else we've nominated for years."

In your book, you talk a lot about the Republican Party being the party that takes a stand against big government. And I think particularly emblematic of that in the book is—you talk about Elon Musk's kind of fracture with Donald Trump over the One Big, Beautiful Bill.

And, you know, Elon Musk, of course, being the tech entrepreneur who was very close to Trump with the Department of Government Efficiency, leading that agency for a time before he left a few months into the administration. Elon Musk famously said that a bill can be big and it can be beautiful but it might not be able to be both.

What do you make of that? The criticism, I guess, of the One Big, Beautiful Bill was that over 10 years it was going to raise the national debt by somewhere between $2.4 and $3 trillion. Is that compatible with a party that wants to spend responsibly?

Well, the White House disputes that. I mean, the White House's disputing of that is: Look, we're locking in permanent tax rates. We're deregulating energy. We're creating, effectively, an engine for more economic growth, which will create more tax revenue, which will not explode the deficit. I mean, that is their counterpoint to your argument.

But Elon—I interviewed him for the book on Trump's 101st day in office. And I could tell he was a little bit out of shape with Washington generally at the time. I don't think he believes he found anyone in Washington who shared his urgency for all the things—particularly fiscal—that he thought were going to lead to the downfall of the country. And he obviously did not agree with this bill.

I do think maybe he had some misunderstandings about the vehicle of reconciliation and what the purpose of this bill was versus other things that he might want to do that I don't actually think are mutually exclusive. I think you can do the Big, Beautiful Bill, and I think you can also meaningfully tackle our fiscal situation. But they weren't going to happen in the same vehicle.

And so, you know—anyway, I guess it's water under the bridge now, because they're back together. But I think, just to focus on the book for a moment, my impression of Elon is that he believes one of the things that is going to lead to the downfall of America is this debt that we have, and that it will lead to the devaluing of our currency, and that this will put us into a fiscal spiral when combined with mass migration, when combined with low birth rates.

You can see these huge forces rapidly leading to the decline of America. That's what he believes. But a lot of it is wrapped up in the idea that we have this debt, we're not dealing with it, no one here cares about it all that much, and I'm kind of frustrated with Washington over it.

Right. I edit an economist for Reason, named Veronique de Rugy, who's a very talented economist at the Mercatus Center, she wrote something along the lines of—and I would wonder if you'd agree with this, being a former political operative—"The House agrees to spend one dollar, the Senate agrees for two dollars, and then we end up spending three dollars?"

You know, the idea being that somehow spending is just—I mean, what is the solution to that?

Well, the one issue that we've never sort of dealt with is, three-quarters of federal spending is non-discretionary. It's basically on autopilot. And then you have a quarter of it that's discretionary. So you can adjust that and change that, but if all you're ever dealing with is the quarter that's discretionary, and you don't ever touch the non-discretionary piece, you can see how you'll never meaningfully get your arms around it.

Ultimately, if you really wanted to tackle this, it's going to require some pretty massive structural changes in entitlements and other things that are effectively just on autopilot right now. That, coupled with some kind of long-term period of growth, would—in a conservative's mind—make a difference in this. We just haven't really grappled with the idea that roughly three-quarters of the federal budget is just on autopilot, and tinkering with the 25 percent is never really going to catch up on it.

Totally. And there seems to be misunderstanding that you can get away with not reforming things like Social Security and Medicare and that kind of thing. I mean, it feels like a political death wish to even suggest it. You know, Rand Paul is—I feel like—the only person who's like, "Hello?" Thomas Massie, that kind of strain of the Republican Party.

Interestingly, by the way, just to cut in for a moment. When I asked Elon, for the book, "Did you meet anyone in Washington that you actually think gets it?" He only gave me one name, and it was Rand Paul.

Interesting. What do you think of that?

Well, they're both more libertarian, right? I mean, they come from that wing of the conservative thinking. If Elon—I didn't really ask him what he considers his political ideology to be. I assume he would describe himself as more libertarian than anything. But that was the one person that he named.

And then again, they tend to think about our fiscal situation in more drastic terms than the average, you know, other Republican. Or at least more drastic terms in what they're willing to say about it. Plus, you have Trump on top of all that, who's made a long-term campaign promise: I will not cut Social Security and Medicare. That's not something I'm interested in doing. He got ahead of that early on and has really never wavered from it.

There was one quote from Elon Musk in the book that I wanted to see if you—I wasn't sure what he meant. He said something to the effect of: "Not all Democrats are criminals, but all criminals are Democrats." What do you think he meant by that?

Well, he believes that Democrats and the Democratic Party have gone all in on protecting illegal alien populations on the one hand. And on the other hand, they have dedicated themselves to criminal justice reform that seems to be only aimed at allowing violent criminals to roam the streets and let them out of jail, and so on and so forth.

So he's looking at these two issues saying, "What is it about the Democratic Party that they're coddling illegal populations and coddling violent criminals? And this seems to be where all their energy is."

Frankly, I think he's onto something here, as a political matter. I think it's one of the things that's holding down Democrats' ability to rise up above where they currently sit. I mean, the image of the Democratic Party is quite low, and it has been low now coming out of the 2024 election.

To me, those two issues I mentioned are a big reason why people look at them and say, "Well, you don't really seem to spend any time on just the average law-abiding American citizen, but you spend a lot of time on illegal aliens, and you spend a lot of time letting people out of jail. What are you doing for me, the person who follows the laws, pays his or her taxes, and just is trying to make it in this world?"

I think it's one of the biggest anchors around their party right now.

I want to talk a little bit about free speech. In your book, you say that Trump's respect for free speech is something that connects him to some of your former bosses. You said that's something that will help preserve Western civilization, which is a big theme in your book.

I think Trump has gotten some criticism for not being super friendly towards free speech. A few examples being, this woman from the Tufts entering deportation proceedings over an op-ed that she co-authored, the Jimmy Kimmel thing, where the FCC had, you know, I guess there was a—and there was schism in the conservative movement over this too, right? Whether that was jawboning or not.

Similar to the Biden administration trying to pressure social media companies to censor certain types of content. And then you have people like Stephen Miller saying things like, you know, calling someone a fascist—which is often an inappropriate thing to call someone—but that that is an incitement to violence, which is not compatible with, in my view, a reading of the First Amendment.

Because the First Amendment is also supposed to protect, you know, kind of detestable speech. If it was just popular speech, you wouldn't have it. How do you think that the actions comport with the First Amendment?

So let me just start with the Millers, because I know them a little. Stephen and his wife, Katie, have to live on a military base because they can't live in a house like you or me, because they're under constant security threat. So I'm a little defensive of them on this.

I will say that's terrible. Unacceptable.

And I sit at a table a lot of nights where I hear people throw around words like "fascist" and "Nazi" and "white supremacist," and so on and so forth. That's the go-to insult to people who they just politically don't like. And they often ascribe it to Stephen Miller and Katie Miller. And I think it's wrong.

And so I think their perspective is quite different than mine and yours, which is, you know: Gosh, is it an incitement to violence? I don't know. I'm the one living on a military base because I can't raise my children out in the open. So that's number one.

And look, I think if you look at some of the violent attacks that have emanated from the left—I mean, they tend to use the language that you just used. Either etching it on the bullets or, you know, in describing their worldview: "I'm going to get the fascist." You know? I mean, there does seem to be a connection between that language and the violent attacks on that front.

I think you could pick out any individual moment and say, "Oh, what about this? What about that?" Generally, my argument is: Trump is friendlier to speech and friendlier to the First Amendment and friendlier to the press than virtually any other president in my lifetime.

Look at the number of questions this man takes on a daily basis. Look at how open his Cabinet secretaries and his staff are. They're in constant, open dialogue with the press all the time. I mean, I actually regard this as a good thing. It's a transparent thing.

The people asking the questions may not like all the answers, but compare that situation that we have today to the Biden years. When you can't talk to the president. And when you are talking to him, it's not—I mean, he's reading notes off of cards that his staff has handed him about who he's talking to and what he needs to say to that person.

It was embarrassing. And then I'll tell you one other thing. I talked to that character Chris Whipple the other night, who—

Vanity Fair.

Yeah, who interviewed Susie Wiles now to great fanfare. And he was saying, "Well, you know, honestly, she's transparent, she's candid, she's blunt." And then he was comparing it to his time trying to interview the Biden people.

And he said to me, he said, you try to interview them and it's like, "Well, I'll do it, but it's gotta be on background, you can't use my name, and you have to send me all the quotes in advance for approval"—the opposite of transparency.

And so when I think about the way this government operates and how transparent it is to the average American—love it or hate it—it's very transparent to you. I think you can make a really fair argument that his commitment to free speech and the First Amendment is really high.

Can you pick out anecdotal moments where you could make an argument that they didn't adhere to that? Absolutely.

Ted Cruz, for instance, took them on over the Jimmy Kimmel thing. Now, I think Brendan Carr had a point on the Jimmy Kimmel thing. And all the late-night shows, you know, they get away with portraying themselves as, you know, the "get-the-news" carveout or whatever. And so that means they can have on 275 Democrats and never have on a single Republican. And it's kind of ridiculous.

And what Jimmy Kimmel did in that monologue everybody was mad about was also blatantly false and kind of ridiculous.

Is Jimmy Kimmel still on the air? Yes. Did anything materially bad happen to Jimmy Kimmel? No. And so, do I think it's ok for the administration to have a point of view about people who may be abusing their position in that way? Sure.

So, you know, without quibbling over every single moment, I would say that, looking comparatively at Biden and also looking comparatively at Obama—their transparency to and treatment of the press and the media in general—far more open, open kimono, than what you got out of the last two Democrats.

What do you make of some of the lawsuits, like the lawsuit against 60 Minutes, for instance? I would be interested to hear your thoughts on that. For listeners who don't know, he had sued 60 Minutes for allegedly deceptively editing an interview with Kamala Harris. That was his view.

Well, I think his view is that some mainstream media does things to help his opponents instead of presenting information fairly to the public. And so, you know, he filed a lawsuit over it. You know, my view is, if they were so sure they hadn't done that, why not fight it out?

Could part of that, though, like—you know, there is some, I think, anxiety in the business community over whether or not he will approve some of these business deals and that kind of thing. Could that be part of it?

I mean, look, I don't know. I'm not those people. All I know is that I don't know that 60 Minutes necessarily has the cleanest track record over time when it comes to how they present information to the public.

And look, Trump has also, as a tactical matter, said, "I have priorities, and sometimes I'm going to use the courts to enforce those priorities." He's done the same thing with universities when it comes to what they're allowing on their campuses as it relates to antisemitism and violence around antisemitism.

And so, you know, look, I think if you felt real clean about this and you felt great about what you did, you wouldn't have had any worries at all stepping into a courtroom or into a deposition. Maybe they felt otherwise.

You mentioned the Vanity Fair profile, briefly. I would be Interested to hear your general thoughts on it.

Yeah, I first of all, I think Wiles…

His chief of staff.

Susie—is, I mean, incredibly blunt, transparent, and candid. And sometimes I think the chief of staff, or top sort of consigliere for a president, can say things that presidents can't say. Maybe there's a message in that. I don't think she does anything by accident. And I think everything she does is intentional and meant to ultimately serve the president's interests as she sees it fit, trying to execute his agenda and deliver messages. I don't think any of these things happen by accident.

Look, I'll go back to my answer previous. Do I think it's a good thing that this administration is pretty darn transparent and has opinions and views, and they're not afraid to air those views? Quite interesting. I actually think it is good. 

That was my take, for the record.

I don't know what the problem is. I mean, I think in Washington, it's so unusual for administrations to be transparent instead of, say, opaque and sycophantic like you had during Biden, that it freaked everyone out. But out in the country, it was like, wait a minute, she just answered questions honestly? Ok, what's the problem with that?

I mean, to me, the biggest problem with the deal was the photographer.

I was gonna say, the photos were ridiculous.

It was terrible. 

It was mean-girl behavior.

Exactly. And so, you know, we talked earlier about the press. What's the state of the press right now? That's the state of the press. So you get the White House chief of staff and these senior staffers to participate with you, and what do you do? You mean girl them with these photographs.

I mean, doesn't that just prove to the average conservative that there's no reason to engage with the mainstream media? I mean, here the Trump people show up and say, "Ok, we'll do it, we'll participate." And you reward that behavior and that attitude with, you know, putting like a super close-up picture of Karoline Leavitt in there. I mean, it was ridiculous—

Where you can see every pore.

I mean, look, so the next Republican administration, whoever that is—J.D. Vance or whatever—and Vanity Fair is gonna come calling, what would you say if you were their press people? Look what they did to Trump. They're gonna do it to you too.

And so I think there's a lesson in this for the mainstream media, which is, do you want engagement with Republicans or do you not? Because that kind of behavior tells me, perhaps you don't.

Another interesting part of your book was the idea that Trump essentially would workshop policy at crowds. You had talked about your experience with polling and how it's very unreliable—and not very, but it can be unreliable—and how he would kind of workshop ideas, like measure the applause. Which is interesting to me.

There has been some polling that has come out recently, that Americans—though they voted for Trump in large part on his immigration policy—are uncomfortable with some of the deportations and the kind of, you know, very muscular approach to them. I think the last poll that came out was from Pew Research, and its 53 percent of Americans are not so sure about it anymore, which has been steadily growing. Does that mean that he should change course?

Well, first of all, I think Americans are being lied to, frankly, about what they're doing with immigration. I think there is a propaganda campaign going on out there to mislead people. I sit in these debates sometimes, and I hear flippant things said like, "Well, you know, they're detaining and deporting Americans every day," which is just simply not true. Absolutely not true.

And I think certain situations are portrayed to make it look like ICE agents are doing things untoward, when, if you looked at the situation in context or you looked at all the details, you would say, "Oh, that—that's actually what a reasonable person would have done."

The one the other day about, "Oh, they raided a daycare center." Well, no. They were chasing an illegal alien who then pulled into the daycare center and ran inside. And then—you know—or, "They're zip-tying children," which didn't happen. But they do sometimes separate children from dangerous situations, where they're—I don't know—in a building with a bunch of MS-13 people.

So I think the way this is being portrayed is having an impact on the polling. That's number one.

Number two, I think if, after 10 years, you're unsure about what Donald Trump's intentions are on immigration, I don't know what to tell you. I mean, this is the number one motivating and animating issue for this man since he started his running for president back in 2015.

He has signaled forever that he intends to deport illegal immigrant populations, that he intends to close the border, and that he intends to enforce existing laws. We haven't passed any new laws on immigration since Trump became the president—zero laws. We are simply enforcing the ones that are on the books.

And I—my personal view is it's still his best issue. It is still the expectation of the people who voted for him that he would do this. And again, I think he's up against quite a propaganda machine right now to portray what ICE is doing as something untoward or illegal or un-American, when in fact all he's really told them to do is simply enforce the existing laws.

Sure. The poll referencing it was essentially drawing a distinction between, you know, deporting the violent criminal and deporting the gardener who's been here and been otherwise law-abiding. Do you see those as distinct, or do you think, "Oh, you're in this country illegally, you gotta go?"

Well, look, I think they're two different kinds of people. And I think they are deporting violent people. Again, I think part of the propaganda of this is to say, "Oh, they're ignoring the violent criminals and they're only deporting—" 

Yes, they have definitely deported some violent criminals. One hundred percent, they have.

But do I think there are two different types of people? Yes.

I think the question for them—and I'll put myself in position as defending their position, which is: How permissive do you want to be? Because a permissive attitude on any part of it then emboldens people to come here.

And I think they would argue that the permissive nature of our immigration enforcement is what led people to come here by the millions in the first place. And so when you start to loosen up on it and say, "Well, you might be ok if you came here," or "Well, this kind of person might be OK if they broke our laws"—then all of a sudden, you get back to a permissive situation where people start showing up saying, "Well, maybe I'll fit into one of the permissive categories."

I don't think it's unreasonable for them to assume that any permissive attitude would immediately reopen the floodgates.

So, look, I give them a lot of latitude here because they inherited a complete and total mess. The border was open. Millions of people came here.

Also, look how hard it is to get rid of people. I mean, Kilmer Abrego Garcia somehow is still in the United States. The man's seen 20 judges, has an existing deportation order, and all sorts of bad evidence—and somehow is—the so-called "Maryland man" is somehow still here in the United States.

All these people came here. It's very difficult to get them out.

I think for a Republican voter, for someone who thinks he's basically right about immigration, I give them some latitude.

I'll just say one other thing. I know he hears about this issue from people in agriculture and also people who are in trades that depend on immigrant labor. And so his base is not unified on exactly what to do.

His administration isn't either.

Yes. He's got different voices in his ear—internally and externally—about what to do and how to do it. And there have even been stories in the first year where it sounded like there were internal deliberations, specifically when it comes to agriculture, about: Ok, well, what do we do about this particular sector?

So even, I think, in his own mind, he's probably hearing from people who are saying, like, "Well, we like basically what you're doing on immigration, but you're going to have to carve out X so that we can continue to do this kind of business."

I know he's hearing about that. I don't know that they've really settled on that internally about how to deal with it. But this is a situation where Trump has a pretty large coalition. And on this issue, I think there's a lot of agreement that it was broken. There's a lot of agreement that he needed to do something about it.

And there's some disagreement about, Ok, what to do about it as a prescription here. Because there are some interests inside of his coalition that probably tend towards more permissive than "deport them all."

I will add with the Kilmer Abrego Garcia case—and that was initially because he was deported to a country that he was not supposed to be deported to, correct? El Salvador—he had withholding of deportation from the country, which has made this process longer than it otherwise would have been. I just—I feel the need to…

And why was he—and why was—why did he get a withholding? Because he claimed it was unsafe for him to go there. OK.

I mean, look, I don't want to make the whole interview about this particular case, but to the average person, this is ridiculous.

The guy came here in, like, 2011 or 2012, lived in the country illegally for 13 years, at some point got a deportation order, still was somehow living in the United States because they argued he couldn't go back to where he came from.

And since that moment, his lawyers, I guess, successfully have argued he's not able to go anywhere else either.

That's how hard it is to get rid of one illegal alien who is clearly, you know, not an upstanding—well, citizen's not the right word. He's clearly not an upstanding person, if you believe the evidence that's come out against him in a lot of different fronts. And yet still in the United States.

So, look, I see why Trump gets latitude from people on immigration. Because they look at that case and they say," I don't get it. If you came here illegally and you lived here illegally, and yet you did get due process because a judge saw your case and gave you a deportation—even if the Trump people messed up by sending him back to one country—why isn't he being sent somewhere else?"

And then, at the same time, they look at a United States senator like Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, who spends his time flying down there to meet with this guy. I mean, he's an illegal alien living in Maryland. This is not your constituent, ok? Like, this is not who you are elected to represent, and yet that's—you've made this your cause of the year.

I think it's confusing to most Americans.

I do think if there's one thing we can agree on in this issue area, it is that the immigration system is incredibly red-tapey and it's bogged down by an enormous amount of cases and not enough judges. I think that is something that would be—Republicans, Democrats, Libertarians, whatever—would be interested in addressing that.

Well, look—also, it's not just one judge or one part of it. In Wisconsin the other day, you had a state judge in Wisconsin who was convicted of helping an illegal immigrant—an illegal alien—in her courtroom evade ICE. And this happened back in April. And all the liberal legal intelligentsia came out and said, "Oh, this will never make it to a jury. This is an outrageous abuse of power."

She was convicted of obstruction. She may go to jail for five years. So you have elected judges in certain places who think it's their job to help illegal aliens somehow evade federal law enforcement.

So it's more than just red tape. It's more than just bureaucracy. It's malign actors in the system who are supposed to be upholding the laws who are helping illegal aliens evade the laws.

Again, just put yourself in the shoes of an average American citizen. You're looking at this thinking, "If I broke laws like this, would a judge help me evade law enforcement?" I doubt it.

I would like to think that most judges are doing their best.

I know you'd like to think that. And I would like to think that as well. Unfortunately, we keep getting examples of judges who believe it's their job to upend Trump's stated policy as opposed to uphold the law.

This is where I have a problem. Even if you are a judge who's very liberal and you hate Donald Trump and you hate everything he did…

You're supposed to be applying the laws as written.

Yes. And it seems to me that a number of judges and a number of parts of the bureaucracy have said, "Well, I'm going to put my political interests ahead of my duties to the law." That's wrong.

And it would be wrong if a conservative judge were applying their views to a Democratic president. I mean, the thing is, you're either a nation of laws or you're not. And in this case, we have parts of our judiciary that have decided, "I'm applying politics. I'm not applying the law."

And it's happening even at the Supreme Court. When you look at the decisions and the renderings of a Ketanji Brown Jackson—I mean, she clearly believes she was put there to be a political actor, not apply the law. And she's pretty open about that. That destroys confidence in the rule of law and in our overall judicial system.

As an aside, I will say that Congress could do its job and change the laws that people are unhappy with.

They could. Well, on immigration, you're 100 percent right. If you don't like that we deport people, you can change the laws.

That's always my argument is that the Congress is supposed to be the one making that call.

Trump has passed no immigration laws. He is enforcing laws that have existed and that he inherited. And somehow people are mad at him.

I interviewed Todd Lyons, the acting director of ICE, earlier this year for my radio show. He's been with the agency for a long time. He told me during Biden, they were instructed not to enforce the laws. Trump simply said, "Just enforce the laws."

Wouldn't most people think it was reasonable to enforce the laws as they're written? And if you're mad about it, ask Congress to change them. I couldn't agree with you more. But right now, the laws are what they are. They should be enforced. 

Congress should do something. On trade, I want to talk about trade. Your book is called A Revolution of Common Sense. I think some would argue that the tariff regime has not necessarily been commonsensical. Like on Liberation Day, when tariffs and that sort of thing—the tariff regime has changed a lot. It's oscillated a bunch. And that has created, I think, some instability in the private sector. You know, and also we've seen manufacturing lose jobs for seven months in a row when it was supposed to help manufacturing.

How do you reconcile that with common sense? Is that common sense?

So the tariff—I write about this extensively in the book. I'm of two minds on it. One, as a Republican political operative for the last 25 years from the pre-Trump era, I was not trained to believe that tariffs or taxation was a good economic model. We believed in the Ronald Reagan theory on this. This was the way the party had existed for decades before I came along—and certainly after I came along. And I write about that in the book.

On the other hand, as someone who grew up in rural western Kentucky with parents who were in and out of factories and who dealt with layoffs and dealt with sort of the hollowing out of our manufacturing economy, I understand the impulse to try to do something about that, and the impulse of some voters to look at the situation and say, "Well, they told us that if we engaged in all this free trade, it would inure to our benefit. But all we've ever seen is job losses and outsourcing and so on and so forth."

I also understand that. I personally lived it.

So—and I also think that it's true that when it comes to Republican orthodoxy, this is the area where Trump has changed it the most. I mean, I can't think of another area where…

…it's kind of 1950s protectionist Democrat vibes.

Well, 1990s protectionist Democrat.

I mean, look, a lot of the Clinton—my dad's one of them; I write about him in the book—a lot of the biggest Clinton guys, the union Clinton guys, are now the biggest Trump guys. 

We inherited all those people and some of their economic theories.

That's the biggest change to the Republican platform—is Trump's belief in tariffs. I think in his heart of hearts, if he could reorganize everything, there'd be no IRS, there'd be no income tax. We'd just be a tariff-based nation. We would do everything based on tariffs. That's what he believes. He's, by the way, never going to change.

Well, he's believed that since, like, the '70s.

It's his longest-held belief. It's his most deeply held belief. And even though he's negotiated around the edges, he would also tell you it's not just an economic theory.

For him, he would say that most of the peace agreements that he's negotiated this year have been based on the use of—or threat of the use—tariffs. He would say it's a tool of diplomacy, and it's a tool just of the projection of American power to be able to level and levy tariffs.

By the way, I don't know what the Supreme Court is going to do on this. The arguments did not go well for the administration. They haven't rendered a decision yet. We'll see what happens. But I'll tell you this: If they throw it out, he'll be very unhappy. Like, it won't be pretty. If I were John Roberts, I wouldn't check my Twitter that day.

So for me and a lot of Republicans, reconciling this has been interesting. Because on the one hand, it's not traditional conservative economic theory. On the other hand, a lot of our constituents actually believe somebody's got to do something about the hollowing out of middle America.

And so it's probably one of the things I've had to think about the hardest, in terms of: How am I going to debate this? How am I gonna argue it?

It is one of your longer sections in the book.

Yeah. Well, and I think for a lot of Republicans, it's the thing they've had to sort of learn about the most and come to grips with the most with Trump. He has basically done most of what you would expect a Republican to do: cut taxes, reduce regulations, put conservatives on the judiciary. I mean, these are all things you would expect a Republican to do.

On tariffs, that's the one thing you wouldn't expect a Republican to do. And so to absorb that and to learn about it—I get the theories behind it. He would sit here and argue to you that we're bringing in all this revenue, and it's going to help us do a lot of different things. And so we're going to have to see how it works out.

I will say one more thing about it, and that is, what they're doing overall with the economy is not a quick-fix thing. I think people—you know, I used to have a boss years ago in politics who said, "Instant coffee ruined the world." People wanted an instant fix to a very, very deep hole. What they're trying to do is completely reorganize our economy and reorganize the way we do business with the rest of the world. This will take a very long time to fully flesh itself out.

And that may not comport with what voters want in November, or what they decide they want in November of 2028. But I think what they're doing was not designed to work in 30 days. It was designed to work over years. And they would say, "Look, of course it's designed to work over years because it took years to dig this hole—for America's manufacturing economy. It took years to dig this hole in forgotten America. And it's going to take us years to dig out of it.

But this is the way out."

Again, the great question in politics is—whether you're right or wrong is almost irrelevant. It's whether the voters are patient enough with your solutions. And in this case, what they have put forward is a long-term restructuring of our economy that again may not ultimately comport with the