Live from Music Row, Tuesday morning on The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy – broadcast on Nashville’s Talk Radio 98.3 and 1510 WLAC weekdays from 5:00 a.m. to 8:00 a.m. – host Leahy welcomed all-star panelist Dr. Carol M. Swain to the newsmaker line to comment upon President Biden’s divisive “soul of the nation” speech, November midterms predictions, and her upcoming projects.
Leahy: We are joined on our newsmaker line right now by our very good friend, all-star panelist, former Vanderbilt professor, and currently a distinguished senior fellow for Constitutional Studies at the Texas Public Policy Foundation, Carol Swain. Good morning, Carol.
Swain: Good morning, Michael.
Leahy: Are you traveling today?
Swain: I am not.
Leahy: You’re here in Nashville? We have to get you in-studio sometime. I know you have a very busy schedule but we wanted to have you on because you had a very definitive reaction to what I call Joe Biden’s fascist totalitarian speech from Hell delivered last Thursday. What are your thoughts about that speech?
Swain: Well, first of all, Michael, I feel my nerves, and I reminded myself that I was a political scientist, and a political scientist would watch the presidential speech.
And so I sat down to watch the speech and I don’t think it was three minutes into the speech before he started attacking people like me. I was stunned.
Leahy: Has there ever been a sitting president of the United States of America ever delivered a more divisive speech than Joe Biden did last Thursday in Philadelphia?
Swain: I’m not aware of that ever happening. I got into a debate with one of my far-left friends who loves me, and I love her, but we fight all the time. She said Richard Nixon gave speeches like that.
The only thing I remember about Richard Nixon’s speeches that the Left didn’t like was that he called for law and order, and that was seen as a code word for race. He called for law and order, I believe.
Leahy: And Spiro Agnew, his vice president, who was later disgraced and resigned and just barely avoided jail time. Spiro Agnew, using the frame from the language of Pat Buchanan, criticized the media as nattering nabobs of negativism. Remember that one?
Swain: (Chuckles) Well, I don’t know. I was struggling for survival during the Nixon years before I started college, so I don’t remember a lot about those years. And I was a Democrat, so I wouldn’t have noticed as much.
But I can tell you that I went on a Twitter storm as I was watching that speech, and I posted a tweet that said, I’m a MAGA Republican, I believe in law and order, the Constitution, and America’s Judeo-Christian roots. And it went viral.
Leahy: According to Joe Biden, the legal but not legitimate president of the United States, you and I are a threat to democracy.
Swain: I know. And everything he said about us is true of progressive Democrats. He said that we didn’t believe in law and order. We want to overthrow the Democratic way. Everything that you can imagine that was evil, that’s how he described us.
I think of myself as a Christian, but at that moment, I knew I was a MAGA Republican because, to me, the ones that I know are people that believe in God, faith, and family. That was describing me, and he described me in that speech as an enemy of the state. I felt like I had a big target on my back.
Leahy: I think we all feel like we have big targets on our back from Joe Biden. And then you’ve got a highly politicized Department of Justice and a highly politicized FBI and a highly politicized Internal Revenue Service that now, according to the new law, will hire 87,000 new agents to go after people like you and me and middle-class Americans.
Swain: Michael also, the reason I posted what I did was I felt like this was not the time for us to shrink back, that we needed to stand strong. And I believe that if I step out, there’s an army behind me. And so that’s what I did, and it certainly went viral.
And as far as the FBI, the DOJ, and all of those agencies that have been taken over, I learned this morning on Twitter that President Trump’s medical records were seized. Forty years of medical records were seized in that FBI search.
And so it’s just horrible. I never thought I would see these types of activities taking place in America and that the agencies of government and the people in the Democratic Party that I thought – and there were a few of them that I thought cared about America, I don’t see them pushing back. They’re trying to justify what happened. You cannot justify what is happening in our country and be a good American.
Leahy: Yes. Let me ask you this. We’re two months and two days from our midterm elections. What do you see for the future? Will the Republicans take back the House? Will they take back the Senate? And how will the left-wing autocrats and authoritarians react?
Swain: I can tell you that the Republicans, as you know, they’re great at snatching defeat out of the jaws of victory, but I believe that they’re poised to take over.
The progressive left, I think that they will do what they do, but I think the American people will breathe a sigh of relief because most Americans, regardless of a political party, have good common sense, and they’re not on board with what is taking place in this country.
So I think that unless the election is stolen in ways that we can’t imagine, the Republicans are poised to take over. But I don’t have any confidence in the Republicans in Washington. For most Republicans that I know – I’m getting into dangerous territory now, so I’m not going to say most Republicans – but some Republicans have not proven to be any better than the Democrats. So I’ll leave it there.
Leahy: Tell us a little bit about your own personal agenda. What are the projects that you’re currently working on?
Swain: I don’t like the word agenda. I don’t have an agenda. I have a life. (Laughs)
Leahy: Tell us about your life, Carol. (Laughter)
Swain: At 5:30 p.m. this evening I’m speaking at the Wilson County Library for Moms for Liberty.
Leahy: Oh, that’d be great.
Swain: We are kicking off the fall semester. So that’s taking place today. And I have a packed September. October is a little better. November is a little bit better. But my life is very full. I’m working on numerous projects and my life is dedicated to this. There’s no retirement for me. There’s no rest for the weary.
I worked all during Labor Day. Lots of media opportunities, and the media opportunities, the speaking engagements, the writing and tweeting on my social media, that’s a full-time job. It’s like two or three full-time jobs.
Plus, I have a new business, Unity Training Solutions. And we are offering school board training. We have been approved by the state of Tennessee to offer a course about the prohibited concepts for new school board members.
And that class starts November 1st. And so people, if you’ve been elected to the school board, you need to ask your school board secretary to send you the information so you can sign up for the course.
Leahy: That sounds great. Where will that course be delivered?
Swain: It will be held in Brentwood.
Leahy: Do you have any sign-ups yet from school boards?
Swain: I’m not monitoring that closely, but it’s newly elected school board members, under the state law, they have to take a course.
Listen to today’s show highlights, including this interview:
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Tune in weekdays from 5:00 – 8:00 a.m. to The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy on Talk Radio 98.3 FM WLAC 1510. Listen online at iHeart Radio.
