Tomi Lahren & The State Of The Republican Primary
32:25 Share

This episode is brought to you by Shopify. Forget the frustration of picking commerce platforms when you switch your business to Shopify, the global commerce platform that supercharges your selling wherever you sell. With Shopify, you'll harness the same intuitive features, trusted apps, and powerful analytics used by the world's leading brands. Sign up today for your $1 per month trial period at shopify.com slash tech, all lowercase. That's shopify.com slash tech.

All right, boys and girls, we are back with another edition of the Ben Domenech podcast brought to you by Fox News. You can check out all of our podcasts at foxnewspodcast.com. I hope that you'll rate, review and subscribe to this one and share it with a friend if you find it of interest.

Today I have a conversation with the host of Tommy Lahren is Fearless, Tommy Lahren, who has a new podcast out every Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday. You can find it on OutKick's YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook. Tommy has been a commentator for some time now. She started out at a very young age and has really grown into being a prominent voice on conservatism, on feminism, on

She's also become someone who is really kind of at the dividing line on the line between support for former President Donald Trump and support for Florida Governor Ron DeSantis. She has a unique perspective on a lot of the different things that are going on in the world today and has really suffered a lot of slings and arrows for the kind of prominence that she's had as a commentator who's never shy about throwing a bomb or making her opinion known.

Tommy Lahren spoke to me from the set of her show, Tommy Lahren is Fearless, and we had a good conversation about some of the things that she's learned over the years since she started in the industry. Tommy Lahren, coming up next.

Ryan Reynolds here from Intmobile. With the price of just about everything going up during inflation, we thought we'd bring our prices down.

down. So to help us, we brought in a reverse auctioneer, which is apparently a thing. Mint Mobile, unlimited premium wireless. How did you get 30, 30, how did you get 30, how did you get 20, 20, 20, how did you get 20, 20, how did you get 15, 15, 15, 15, just 15 bucks a month? Sold! Give it a try at mintmobile.com slash switch. $45 upfront payment equivalent to $15 per month. New customers on first three-month plan only. Taxes and fees extra. Speed slower above 40 gigabytes each detail. Tommy, thank you so much for taking the time to join me today.

I'm happy to be here. You know, always something in this wild world of politics. 2024 can't come soon enough. But then again, it's also going to be exhausting. I wanted to talk to you about a number of different things. But first off, I wanted to ask you kind of a perspective question. You jumped in to the world of political media at a very young age, you know, both feet, you know, right into the water.

What are some of the things that you would tell the younger version of yourself that started in this business back then that you've learned since?

For me, I've always stayed true to myself. And that has taken me to many different networks, many different places to get me to Fox News. And now being at Fox News, this is my sixth year there. So I've grown a lot since age 21 when I started off at One America News. But I've always stayed true to myself. And so the thing I would tell young people who are getting into this business or getting into podcasting or any type of conservative influencing, because that's a new kind of genre now, I would say,

It is a lot easier to play to the hits. It's a lot easier to just go with whatever the fad is, whatever that's going to get you the reply money on Twitter X or whatever is going to get you followers or views and be really sensational. But you have to have something to back that up and you have to have a firm core where you stand. It can't just be going with whatever's popular or whatever is trending that day. And it's gotten me

far, but it's also gotten me a lot of backlash from both sides, left, right, center. I mean, I've taken a lot of incoming, but to me that says that I'm sticking to what I truly believe in, what I truly feel, and I wouldn't change that for the world. So I would tell a lot of these young people that are starting off in conservative media, you have to have a foundation and you have to be true to yourself because if you're not, you're always going to be chasing the next grift. And I don't think that's going to be fulfilling. I don't think that's going to make for a very lasting career.

You know, I am friends with Ann Coulter. I've known her since I was 15 and was interned for her and others at human events. And one of the things that she told me, not specifically about you, but that she was saying generally about sort of conservative women coming into media is she said to me a couple of years ago, one of the things that these young girls don't realize is that

I didn't start out where I was. I didn't start out as this bomb thrower. I sort of became that over time. And you don't leave yourself a lot of runway if you start off as the bomb thrower. It seems to me like that's something that is a real way to get clicks, like you said, but it also doesn't really allow you to grow and mature and learn more as you're doing the work, does it?

Yeah. And for me, you know, I did start off as a bomb tour. At least that's what people knew of me because I started off at 21 right out the gate with my final thoughts that I still do to this day. And people know that my segments are they're very fast. They're sometimes very aggressive. They're hard hitting. That's also just my personality, though. I think

there's a big difference that when you're putting it on for a show and you know a lot of people have thought for many years that I do this for the show for the shock value but I think as I've been in this business a number of years now people realize that this really is just me and sometimes I am very aggressive and very direct and very fired up other times I'm sarcastic I'm funny I'm chill I'm calm but sometimes

I think you just have to be true to what you're really feeling and don't ever put it on for a show. I know a lot of people think that I do that, but I really never have. And I think people are starting to maybe realize now that I'm being very honest about what I see in the 2024 election as it relates to Donald Trump.

I think maybe people are finally starting to see, at least with me, that I'm not chasing the fads and I'm not chasing the grift. I really am trying to be as authentic and honest about what I see coming down as I possibly can be. So that's always where I've sat, and I'm never going to waver from that. Do you argue in your home life the way that you argue on television?

My husband would say so, but unfortunately, he has not learned to back down yet. So that's still an ongoing struggle. He still tries to fight with me. But, you know, I'm...

And people even here in the studio will tell you. You stop him and say, look, I do this for a living. But he tells me that he's Cuban Latino, so it doesn't matter. So apparently that's the same thing. I like it, though. I need somebody like that. I mean, I'm sure, you know, in your own relationship as well, like you have to have somebody that puts you in check when you're used to being kind of the final word on things.

So, yeah, but I'm also much more calm when I'm not doing media. And that's not because this is an actor or show. It's just because if you're at 100 all the time, you will give yourself a literal heart attack. So you have to take a break every once in a while. You have to be able to turn it off, at least to some extent. And I know that you know that as well. Otherwise, it will consume you. What has...

How has it helped you to stay outside to a great degree of the Acela corridor during your time, not just now without kick, but avoiding kind of that New York sensibility that tends to set in?

I think it would be really hard for me to have that because I've never lived in New York or the East Coast. I've never really spent any time in D.C. or outside from working. I haven't lived in those places. I have lived a lot of places, but I'm born and raised in South Dakota. So there's only so much South Dakota that you can get out of me.

That's always going to be my roots. That's always going to be where my family is. That's what really grounds me because those are the people that I come from and those are the people that I ultimately care most about, those forgotten Americans. But I did live in California for a number of years. And I'll tell you, Ben, it's very humbling when you live in a place like California and your average person that would see me really hated me.

That's humbling. You don't get a big head when people are physically kicking you or they're throwing things at you or they're calling you names. And that's just a typical Friday night for me when I lived in L.A. So that's something that has always really grounded me. You know, you get a lot of fans, but you get a lot of people that hate you and you just have to take the good with the bad. And I think it's balancing.

The aspect of working with OutKick, I'm curious just in your perspective sort of how sports has played a role in your life, obviously your husband's connection to it. What are some of the things about sports that really appeal to you and talking about it?

Especially nowadays in the context where everything is politicized, we've seen the people who have exited ESPN, including some of your colleagues over the past couple of years as it's become more and more of a political channel. How do you interact with sports in your daily life? And is it still something that gives you joy or has it become so political that it's hard to get past that?

So I love baseball and I've always loved baseball. And that was, you know, long before I met my husband, I've always just been a fan of the game. I enjoy it. But beyond that, I mean, anybody here at Outkick will tell you, I'm not necessarily a sports enthusiast, but what I am really passionate about is talking about pop culture and culture and sports are hand in hand now along with politics. So that's kind of a three-way situation there, sports, politics, and culture.

So I really kind of had a big viral moment when I talked about Colin Kaepernick back in, I believe it was 2016, 2017 at that point. And for me, it's about addressing that. I wish that sports never got political. If Colin Kaepernick never got political or LeBron never got political.

I would have been just happy with leaving sports out of the political conversation. But that's what we do at Outkick as well, is we address woke sports because we wish that you would just leave sports alone. But unfortunately, since that doesn't seem to be happening anytime soon, we like to call it out and especially the double standard, you know.

I talk about it on our OutKick special that aired on Fox News on Sunday night, but the double standard here. Do you want your athletes to be activists or do you want them to be athletes? Because if you want them to be activists and have a platform for social change, you have to let

all of them have their platform, whatever that social change might be to them. You know, I have good friends like Anthony Bass, who was a pitcher for the Toronto Blue Jays, who was released because he reposted a video about the Target and Bud Light boycotts. So you have to apply it evenly. That's where my passion comes, is calling out the wokeness and calling out the double standard.

You know, one of the big things that obviously is part of that is kind of this lane that has developed. I don't think we ever expected to see the kind of controversy affecting women's sports all the way down to the local level that we've seen play out over the past several years because of the trans agenda.

This is obviously something that's concerning to me. I have two daughters. You know, my sister was an NCAA athlete. You know, there's a number of other athletes that, you know, I've been friends with over the years who, you know, now are talking about how uncomfortable they would be in locker rooms if they had the kind of policies that they have in some places.

Talk to me about how you feel that fight is playing out. Do you think that it's one where the right side of that argument is winning? Or do you feel like it's still kind of minor victories up against a vast network of media and corporate America and the like that is very much opposed to the idea that there are two genders or that women should be protected when it comes to the locker room?

So I think that the right is fighting the good fight on this. But unfortunately, because it's been really the right that's been fighting this battle, it's going to be labeled as a right wing issue. But it shouldn't be. You know, in our Outkick special and in here in Outkick, we have Riley Gaines, who's been kind of the foremost speaker on this. Obviously, it impacted her personally. And she's doing a fantastic job. And she's also proving that this issue really shouldn't be as divisive as it's been made out to be. But I think

what it's really going to take to change this in all honesty is it's going to take some A-list athletes to come out and say something. Right now, you've got a lot of people that are being vocal. You've got Riley Gaines out there fighting the fight. And you've got some along the way who are being honest about it. But it's going to be when the major players come out here, maybe major celebrities come out and say, this is too far. That's unfortunately probably when we're going to start seeing the change. I wish we had the same...

passion about this and protecting women's sports as they had about the Me Too movement, because I think that that would make a big impact. You know, for years they lectured about consent and everything was Me Too, consent, feminism, female empowerment, protect

women, protecting women's spaces. That's been all pushed away and has fallen by the wayside, but it's only because popular culture has made this into a right-wing issue. We just got to bring it back home and show people that this is actually not right-wing at all. It's just common sense and it's fighting for women. We are the new feminists now and we should carry that torch proudly.

You know, one of the things that has been interesting in recent years is we've seen, you know, the explosion and the change in media, the landscape of streaming, for instance, uh, and everything else that comes out of that. Uh,

And while we don't have the knowledge about how many people tune in and watch some of these really woke programming, you mentioned Colin Kaepernick's work before. One thing that we do notice is that whenever it comes a time where Netflix has a bad quarter or something like that, it's all of those projects that get cut. They all get cut off at the knees. And the idea is basically that, you know, some people have rolled out there, including my friend Ethan Strauss, you know, the NBA writer, is that,

There's nobody actually watching these things, that there's no one actually tuning in for this pop culture kind of element of wokeness, that it's way less popular than they certainly pretend.

The concern that I have is there's no kind of right of center alternative to that to a large degree. We've seen the exceptions. We see sound of freedom. We see some of these other things that have been pushed out there. But that pop culture dominance of the left in terms of what gets produced, what gets pushed out through these platforms is something that we still seem to have to live with. How can we change that dynamic? I know that culture matters so much to you. How can we get to a point where there's at least stuff getting put out there, stories getting told?

Alternate sort of messages being pushed than just that dominant to the exclusion of anything that is reasonable, particularly when it comes to things like gender.

I think podcasting is going to be a big tool in the toolbox for conservatives. You know, I really started my career, although I was at a network, primarily people know me from social media. I think people thought for years that my job was Facebook. In reality, it wasn't. But that's where people saw me. That's where they interacted with me. That's where they saw my clips.

So I think that's going to be a big part of it. And not just me, but a lot of conservatives coming up, young conservatives, old conservatives, it doesn't matter, getting into these spaces where young people are, where culture is formed. That's going to be really the key to all of this. Now, the barrier that still stands in the way is the censorship. It's the algorithms.

that is going to be a big problem. Luckily, I think that we are fighting back against a lot of that. I know that Jim Jordan is working on it with the Facebook files. I know that they have lawsuits coming out of Louisiana and Missouri that are trying to target the Biden administration for targeting conservatives and conservative speech.

So I'm hoping that we make some headway on some of that legally. But beyond that, we're just going to have to saturate the system, to be honest. We're going to have to have a lot of young people that are very vocal, that are on there, that are streaming, that are interacting on social media, making sure that their viewpoints are seen. And that's the only way we can compete is to just get out there and also physically showing up at college campuses. You know, you're going to get pushback.

You might even be physically attacked like I have been many a time, but we still have to show up because that's going to be part of it as well, making ourselves visible to people that otherwise might not see us.

You know, it's an incredible thing. You know, when Barry Weiss walked away from the New York Times, I feel like that was like a singular moment. It just kind of suggested that you could reach the pinnacle within, you know, the entity that you were at, but it was actually better for you to be outside of it. That idea just seemed completely bonkers at the time to some people, but I think it's certainly been shown to be the case. One thing that I am curious about from your perspective is about this generational shift that's happening.

When Donald Trump won in 2016, you know, more than half of the voting electorate was born before the age of 1960, before the year 1965. Now going into this next election, more than a third of the electorate is expected to be people born after 1980.

How do you think that Republicans, conservatives, people who love liberty should be talking with this next rising generation of the voting electorate that's going to be very active, that they're going to spend and have a lot of money in terms of the impact that they have on the donation side of things, that for that chunk of people who are in their

Basically, it's from their late 20s to their mid 40s where we've seen kind of a shift rightward in many ways over the past couple of years. How do you see the agenda being crafted that appeals to them and their concerns?

I think it's going to be a lot focused on the economy, and we're going to have to break this down and make it very simple for people. Look what you could afford if not for all these regulations, if not for the big green agenda, if not for the COVID lockdowns, which I think they're going to try to bring back, the mandates.

I think that's speaking to young people. There's nothing that young people detest more than being told what to do. So it's up to conservatives to remind young people that if you like liberty, if you like freedom, if you don't like being told what to do, then you better start voting Republican because that other side...

They don't care about your independence. They don't care about your autonomy. They want groupthink. They want you to exist in a monolith. So if you truly want to think for yourself, live for yourself, and be this independent-minded person that you seem to want to be, then you're going to have to vote differently. And economically, a lot of young people out there right now, they

cannot afford their rent. They would love to buy a home, but they can't because they can't afford a down payment. And their rent is so sky high that they can't afford to put money away for a down payment. So they're in a real problem right now. A lot of people moving back home, having to live with their parents. If we can show them that there is another way, it doesn't have to be like this. I think we can make some real gains when it comes to young people. But also we're going to have to better navigate our conversations around two things. And I know it's difficult for us.

Climate change, unfortunately, we're going to have to address this a different way because just telling people it's a hoax, unfortunately, isn't working. I personally believe that a lot of it is a hoax. But to talk to young people who are so passionate about this issue, we have to remind them that you can be a conservationist without wanting to destroy industries and that you can want to further Mother Earth and nature without completely kowtowing to China and other places.

Giving them the reality of the situation is going to be important. And number two, Roe v. Wade, abortion. We've got to talk about abortion better. I think Nikki Haley at the debate the other night did a fantastic job of that. Be realistic with people. Be honest with people. And I think that can be a winning issue if we change the way we frame the discussion. Those are going to be two very important things. Let me follow up on that second point because I was going to ask you about it anyway. When it comes to that issue,

It's been striking to me how many like D.C. Republicans essentially have coalesced around this idea that Dobbs is a puric victory, that it's going to ruin Republican, you know, sort of electoral chances and a lot of lots of states for the foreseeable future. And it seems to me like a lot of them have kind of given up.

In a way that surprises me because they haven't even tried to talk about it. They haven't even tried to kind of figure out a way to connect with people to be both sympathetic and understanding, but also to be reasonable in terms of the expectations. And when we see these polls that show us so many people coalesce around a position that is well to the right of the Democrats' leftist extremism on this point,

Why is it that Republicans are so nervous about talking about this, that their politicians who have been, you know, touting their pro-life 100 percent ratings for so long, you know, turn into turtles and, you know, hide? Why what can be done to sort of convince them you have to talk about this issue? Because if you don't, the left's going to define things for you and they're going to make you sound like the extremists.

Yeah, so and I think part of the problem here as well is that for so long pro-life conservatives have been fighting Roe v. Wade because they wanted to send it back down to the states where it belongs. And then we won that battle. We got that victory. And now I hear so many saying that they want to send it

back up to the federal level again. So unfortunately, I think that that's going to be a losing argument. It's too extreme for a lot of people. But you're right about this. The left is actually on the extreme on this issue. If you advocate for abortion up until birth, you are the extremist. If you advocate for late-term abortions, you are the extremist. So it's going to be up to conservatives to talk about the issue, to be reasonable.

Nikki Haley, I don't really like Nikki Haley, but she said it great the other night. Let's be honest with the American people where we are. We are not going to have a federal ban on abortion. It's not going to happen. We don't have the votes for it. We're probably never going to have the votes for it. So let's be honest and realistic. Let's have the states really take the lead on the issue. And let's have an approach that is maybe a little more moderate than some pro-lifers would like.

But let's find the American people where they are on this issue, and let's get away from the extremes on both sides. I think that's how we come to a happy medium. We still fight for life, but we don't do it through the government route as much. If you want to be a pro-life hardliner, then let's talk about that issue in our communities, in our churches, through outreach, through philanthropy, through faith. I think that's a better route than saying we're going to have a federal ban on abortion. I just don't think that's ever going to be a winning issue on the national level.

Well, I also think that it's not representative of where we are as a country. It's, you know, we, there is such a huge difference between New York and California and, and, you know, Florida and Texas, you know, it's about, we shouldn't, we shouldn't act like they have the same rules when it comes to so many other areas of policy. And then my other argument would be, you know, because I care so much about this issue, once you set any kind of weak policy,

Then you negotiate backward from that point and you can work on people and try to convince them and say, okay, well, wait a minute. Now that we've agreed to 15, will you admit that this is arbitrary and that maybe we should be doing it earlier than that? Maybe we should, you know, can we shift things around? And the other thing is, frankly, that I just think that that's something where we need that leadership. We've had so many people who've hidden behind the fact that they couldn't do anything on this.

for so long because of Roe. And now they can, and it just seems like they're running scared, with the exception, obviously, of Mike Pence, who just wants to run right into the teeth of that. So anyway, before I let you go, Tommy, I'm curious about something. You...

You obviously are someone who is not just, you know, a woman in conservative media, but you're a recognizable conservative voice in media. And there's so many women who I know who have gone into that area of work, you know, whether they worked on Capitol Hill and then did it or whether they did some other aspect of political work and then did it or whether they just came into it as a commentator who have had to suffer just the slings and arrows to a degree that, you know,

I'm not going to say no man, but very few men have ever experienced. How difficult is it for you as a woman in this line of work to just keep your head up and not get down after the kind of experience that you talked about having in California, feeling like, you know, you're just surrounded by people, at least online, who hate you on a daily basis? How do you keep your head up?

I think we have to draw a really big distinction from social media and the real world. So in the real world, the people that know me, they know me. The people on social media, to some extent, know me, but they don't really know me. So if they're telling me I'm the greatest thing since sliced bread or they're telling me that I'm the devil and I'm ugly...

I think that's where the balancing act once again comes in. Yes, and I will be honest, women in this industry, women in TV, women in politics, we have a whole separate set of issues than men have because our appearance gets brought into it more often than it would a man. I think Chris Christie might be the only person whose appearance gets...

talked about as much as any woman who's ever done anything in media or in politics. So that's something that we have to confront. But honestly, for me, this stuff doesn't bother me so much because I'm so used to it at this point that you have to have like a rhino thick skin. I've developed that over the years. It doesn't mean that it doesn't get to me every now and again. It honestly bothers me more when conservatives come after me because I consider them to be my people, right?

But it's okay. And I use this Gen Z phrase that I just learned. Go outside, touch grass, everything's going to be okay. Social media is not always the real world. Don't let it run your life. And that will do you well and will keep some shred of sanity in your life, in your business, in your professionalism, in your personal life. That's what I've learned to live by. And it's worked for me thus far. Tommy, thank you so much for taking the time to join me today. Thank you, Ben. I really appreciate it.

More of the Ben Domenech podcast right after this. This episode is brought to you by Honda. When you test drive the all-new Prologue EV, there's a lot that can impress you about it. There's the class-leading passenger space, the clean, thoughtful design, and the intuitive technology. But out of everything, what you'll really love most is that it's a Honda. Visit Honda.com slash EV to see offers.

So I think that it's certainly interesting to see how things have played out since the debate that happened between Republican candidates up in Milwaukee.

We've already seen some initial polling reactions to it from a number of different sources. And the most interesting thing that seems to have happened is that the former president, Donald Trump, who was not on the stage, has taken a little bit of a dip. The Emerson College poll has him down from his height. He's still at 50%. But you also see the growth and the increase in support for Florida Governor DeSantis. The support for Nikki Haley also popped.

Surprisingly, at least somewhat to me, Mike Pence also saw his numbers improve and Vivek Ramaswamy actually saw his, at least in Emerson's polling, dip a little bit.

One of the things that I think is interesting coming out of this whole experience is that people really do want to see their candidates on stage. And one of the things that I think that Donald Trump is doing by not taking the debate stage is supplying in people's mind the idea that he may not be able to focus on this presidential campaign as much as people would like him to.

namely that he's distracted by all the different legal cases that are surrounding him at this moment and will continue to surround him

in the weeks and months ahead. We have the start times for all of the different cases that he's facing now, and we're looking at March and May primarily being the points where they get off the ground. This is going to put him in a lot of courtrooms. It's going to put him away from the campaign trail at the very moment that people are making their voting decision about whether he ought to be the Republican nominee again.

I don't know how that's going to play out. I don't know if it actually is going to be enough in people's minds to create an opening for someone else. But I do think it was a mistake for him to skip the debate. I think it's a mistake for him to continue skipping debates because I think that this assumption –

He can just sweep in there on the backs of all the people who really do want him to be the nominee again and just automatically assume that he's going to have their support. I think that diminishes over time. It reminds me a little bit of Rudy Giuliani's choice back in 2008. And it's something that I think certainly was proven wrong on his part to wait out the early campaign scenarios and jump in in Florida as he had planned to.

that's something that didn't work out for him. And I don't think it'll work out for Trump. I think that what he really needs to do is show people, not just that he can be out there defending himself in more scripted comments that are probably written for him by his lawyers, uh, who care very much about him not saying anything that will, uh, you know, hurt him in any of these court cases, uh, but that he can actually take the debate stage, defend his, uh,

as not just the odds-on favorite for the nomination, but someone who deserves the nomination and someone who can win come next November. It's going to be a very different scenario than we've ever experienced in American politics to have a former president under such legal strife

in the midst of it, trying to fight a winning presidential campaign, especially one where he's not even going to, in all likelihood, even be able to debate his opponent on the other side. We'll see what plays out. But from my perspective, getting on that stage would do a lot to encourage his Republican supporters and would do a lot to win over some of the other people who are perhaps looking at people like Vivek Ramaswamy, even people like Governor DeSantis,

back to his fold by proving that he can do two things at the same time, fight the Democrats and all this lawfare, and then fight them politically once he is potentially, again, the nominee of the Republican Party. I'm Ben Domenech. You've been listening to another edition of the Ben Domenech Podcast. We'll be back soon with more to dive back into the fray. Listen ad-free with a Fox News Podcast plus subscription on Apple Podcasts. And Amazon Prime members can listen to this show ad-free on the Amazon Music app.

The Fox News Rundown, a contrast of perspectives you won't hear anywhere else. Your daily dose of news twice a day. Featuring insight from top newsmakers, reporters, and Fox News contributors. Listen and subscribe now by going to foxnewspodcasts.com.