Live from Music Row Wednesday 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 Tennessee Sen. Marsha Blackburn to the newsmakers line to discuss the launch of her new podcast FreedomRingsPodcast.com.
Leahy: Crom Carmichael in the studio with me. And on the line right now with some big news, Senator Marsha Blackburn. Senator Blackburn, thanks so much for joining us today.
Blackburn: (Chuckles) Good morning! It’s good to be with you.
Leahy: You’re doing something innovative. Today you’re launching a podcast. FreedomRingsPodcast.com. I’ve actually had a chance to listen to several of the episodes. You interviewed Nancy Mace the new woman who’s representing South Carolina in the House of Representatives. Rick Scott, Kelly Loeffler. Very nicely done. Seventeen minutes each podcast. You perhaps have talent beyond being a United States Senator. Very good on air.
Blackburn: (Chuckles) Well, I gotta tell you I would regularly talk with people across the state and they would say, Marsha, who is up there helping you? Tell me about these people because everyone is so concerned and especially right now with the races in Georgia. They’re so concerned about this push for socialism that the Democrats have been making here in the country.
And I would begin to tell people their stories. And finally listening to a podcast one day, I thought you know what? We should do a podcast and put the focus on all of these happy warrior freedom fighters that are out here working to save this country. So, you know what? I said nobody’s going to do it unless I do it. So here we go.
Leahy: Are you the first Senator to have a podcast?
Blackburn: No. Ted Cruz has a podcast on issues. And I think one other has one they do through their official office.
Leahy: Well, officially I’m saying that yours is the best. (Chuckles)
Blackburn: Well, thank you. I appreciate that. You know, I just wanted people to get to meet these individuals who are really out here fighting. Because as you well know the mainstream media is never going to give the attention or press or coverage to someone who is not on the left. They just don’t do it. So I thought if these good hard-working people are going to get any attention it is going to be up to me. (Laughs)
And so I said let’s figure out how to do a podcast and I started looking into it and figured it out. And our guests have been so receptive in the first three that we launched our Senator Kelly Loeffler from down in Georgia and she is in this re-election battle right now. And of course, you have Senator Rick Scott who lived in Nashville for a while and who now represents Florida. And you mentioned representative-elect then Nancy Mace. And what an amazing story there. She’s the first woman to ever graduate from The Citadel.
Leahy: Your quality on the podcast, the audio quality is quite good on the Freedom Rings Podcast. Where do you record these and how often will episodes come out?
Blackburn: You know, you’re going to see new episodes coming out about every three weeks. And over the next month, we’re going to roll out some new episodes. We’ve got about a dozen that are ready to go out. And there is an entity here called Conservative Partnership Institute and they have a facility that we can use to put these up. But yeah, you’re right. FreedomRingsPodcast.com and then, of course, I’m at VoteMarsha and TeamMarsha on all the social media, and people can follow us and pull these down and listen in and get to know some of these fighters.
I love Kelly Loeffler’s story as she talks about how when she went to first grade and she had a mask over one eye and braces on her legs. And she trained herself to run and then to play basketball. She was the first person in her family to graduate from college. She went to college on a sports scholarship and took everything she owned and put it in her little car in Indiana and drove to Atlanta to work for a new start-up company. The company goes public and then she buys a woman’s NBA team.
Leahy: How about that! She’s got a tough race ahead.
Blackburn: Well isn’t that just the ideal American Dream story and those stories that we love to hear? And you know we want to know how people have been informed and how they got to the point that they care so much about these issues. And they care so much about freedom and doing what Ronald Reagan instructed us to do. Preserve it and pass it on to the next generation. And of course, it’s something that I am so passionate about. So for me doing this podcast is so exciting because it provides the opportunity for just 1,000s of people to listen.
Leahy: Senator Blackburn, we know you have to break off for another interview. But thank you so much for taking the time. FreedomRingsPodcast.com Senator Blackburn thanks so much for joining us. Please come back soon.
Listen to the full third hour here:
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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.
