The Scott Brown Interview That Changed The Story

Okay, first before we give you the facts of the day, run hide fight infadels is streaming now only on daily wire. It's an ode to the great action movies of the 80s and 90s. There's even a love story which nobody expected. And you can support daily wires mission to continue making movies that people actually want to watch. Go check it out. Hello, I'm Tim Rice and welcome to another edition of Behind the Story. So at this point, we've been doing this podcast for a number of months and I appreciate everyone tuning in each week as I talk to one of our intrepid daily wire reporters. And we get the story that went into one of their big scoops, one of their big headlines. But today, we thought we would do something a little different and turn the tables. I actually did a little reporting myself recently on the campaign trail. And so I'm going to go behind the story and to help me do that is my friend and our fearless editor-in-chief at the daily wire Brent Sher. So Brent, the show is yours. Wow, this is so fun. Well, Tim Rice, the story is America needs more Scott Brown. Says Scott Brown. So I think the first step to getting behind this story is getting behind the reason that we did it. Who is Scott Brown? And I mean, to get already into a bit of your answer, why is he running in New Hampshire? Right. So Scott Brown was some of our older listeners may remember and I loop us in that group. He was the senator. He ran for and won the Massachusetts Senate seat that was vacated when Ted Kennedy died. Now, this was right around the time of the Obamacare fight. And this was a massive upset because Ted Kennedy was going to be the 51st vote on Obamacare. Scott Brown was a tea party leader. That's very important. Two things that are important there. He was in Massachusetts that he was a tea party leader and his entire campaign was basically I will be the last vote against Obamacare. I will be a tea party senator. I will be your senator. And he won in kind of a shocking landslide. His whole thing was that he was an every man. I'm Scott Brown. I drive a truck that was his whole thing. And then he sent it career sort of fizzled out. He was obviously he couldn't stop Obamacare and he lost in the next election. He then moved to New Hampshire where he says that he is from. He was born and tried to mount another Senate campaign which was unsuccessful. He was an early Trump supporter and was named ambassador to New Zealand in the first Trump administration and then went back in the private sector. But he's now running again in New Hampshire and the whole reason that this story even started is that he released one of the first A.I. ads of this cycle. He was in the Republican primary running against John E. Sonunu, the son of and brother of two former governors of the state of New Hampshire. And he released this A.I. ad of him beating up John Sonunu in a boxing ring. I a different program commented that I thought that ad was a smart use of A.I. It got written up in a local New Hampshire paper. The brown campaign saw it. They reached out to me and said, do you want to interview the candidate? And of course I said, yes, I lived in New England. I lived in Massachusetts during the brown campaign. Scott Brown is a legend. I was excited to talk to him. I was excited to hear from him. And so that's how we got the interview. Yeah. And I remember this. And I actually remember the day that you called me to tell me that Scott Brown wanted to speak with you. And we were both so excited to Scott Brown was he ran one of the most legendary Tea Party campaigns of that of that whole political era. And I mean, of course you say, yes, so we go into the interview. And I just want to make this clear. You thought you were going to write a very positive story about Scott Brown's next attempt at a revival. And there are a lot of things going on in the country that are, I'm going to call them parallels, but it was just, it was interesting for you to digest what Scott Brown was doing today. And that's why we took it. Yeah, exactly right. And again, to your point, I assume it would be positive, not a posth piece by any means. I don't particularly, but do respect to the people of the grand and state. I don't really care what happens in New Hampshire, Republican primaries. I don't have any skin in that game. But yeah, I mean, that Scott Brown emerged out of a massive moment of change in the Republican party, a moment of a populist shift from the kind of Bush Reagan consensus to what was then the Tea Party. This is when we also got folks like Ted Cruz, Brent Paul. And now, of course, it's a similar moment in that, you know, there's a Republican party is being challenged, you know, that is at JD Vance. The future is more coruvio. There are these populist elements, but of course, mega populism is very different from Tea Party populism in a lot of ways. They're less suspicious of the government. They're more willing to pay taxes if it's for government programs, like things they support, like incentivizing people to have kids. So I was very interested, not just to, again, talk about this man who is still in the arena, this man who really wants to keep running for Senate, really wants to serve an elected office, but also to get his take on how populism in the Republican party and conservative movement has shifted in the 15 years since he lost ran, since he first ran from the Senate. And then you met Scott Brown. And I'm, I, I, there's a line I'd like to read from your story. It, it comes after a description of what how Brown positioned himself the last time he ran. He positioned himself as a crisis candidate. If you elect Scott Brown, Scott Brown will be the one to take down Obamacare. And now he was doing the same thing. He's saying if you elect Scott Brown, Scott Brown will be the candidate in New Hampshire and New Hampshire will be that pivotal state that keeps the Senate for Republicans, which may be true, but isn't entirely true. And you had a line that is just very memorable to me. You say like a high school quarterback with dreams of walking on the college team, Brown has convinced that he's just moments away from reclaiming the glory days that maybe never were. Tell me a little bit about what's behind that. Yeah, I was, I mean, it's exactly what you said in the interview that I have, but it talks for about 30 to 40 minutes. And I was, I was shocked. Not only did he not have answers to my questions about how things had changed and the lessons he learned from his past campaign, which, you know, was disappointing, but a little bit to be expected, right? He's a politician. He was in a tough primary. He wants to give a polished interview. Maybe he doesn't necessarily want to ruminate on the shifting Republican party. He, but he didn't even have a new message. Every single word out of his mouth could have been lifted from a transcript of a campaign rally he held in 2011, which to your point, right? I mean, sure, maybe New Hampshire would be the pivotal vote in that it's a slim majority in the Senate for Republicans. Any of these states that have a Senator up for election in the midterms could be the pivotal vote. But that was a very unique set of circumstances, right? The Kennedy seat, as they called it, was the Democrat's message was get a Democrat in and we get Obamacare, Republicans' message was get a Republican in and we can stop it. Like, the eyes of the nation were on that special election. Massachusetts and the junior Senator for Massachusetts was going to become one way or the other an important player in this massive legislative debate. So the two things that I was trying to capture in that sentence are one, that's obviously not what's happening now, right? So Brown kept telling me, you know, I'm going to be that last vote again. I'm going to be the one who stands up. It wasn't clear what he was standing up to, right? You have, if elected, he'll have two more years of a Trump presidency. Hopefully you're a Republican majority. There was no legislative crisis, but the other thing that I sort of alluded to this earlier was Scott Brown was actually very many ineffective in what he can't be able to do. Now, it wasn't entirely his fault. Obviously, this is how the Senate works. The legislation gets passed, the deals get made, the Supreme Court rulings come down. But again, as I said, Scott Brown famously did not stop Obamacare and he lost two years later that Massachusetts Senate seat to Elizabeth Warren whose whole campaign was based on, all right, I know that you were all afraid of Obamacare. So you elected this guy, but you know, that's done. Obamacare's a thing. Don't you want to pay less? Don't you hate the banks? This was the middle of financial crisis. So in a way, it's not just that he failed at his standard objective. There's also an argument to be made that he paved the way for an even more liberal senator who is now an even more liberal progressive player in the Democratic Party than if Martha Coakley, the former Attorney General of Massachusetts, who would run against him. You know, there's a universe in which Martha Coakley is now in her fifth term in the Senate. And we Elizabeth Warren is still in teaching antitrust at Harvard and the Democratic Party looks a lot different. Yeah, I mean, you bring up a interesting point there that I think has reflected well in your piece that Scott Brown is basically running the same playbook that he tried to run 15 years ago. There's a line here, which is a quote to you after he's attacking his opponent, Senuno, as this silver spoon elitist. He says, listen, my mom was married and divorced four times each. My dad was married and divorced three times each. I'm a sexual assault survivor, a domestic abuse survivor. I was arrested at 12 for stealing records. I was drinking driving and stealing at 12. First of all, just incredible pros for Mr. Brown. What a rap sheet. You point out just after that that maybe he was saying that in 2012 and or 2010 and it was good line but since that he's a former senator now he spent 2017 to 2020 as the ambassador to New Zealand and another country maybe Samoa I think so yeah but he's a ambassador lawyer and all he's trying to do is still be a truck driver yeah it's so and there are two things that are odd about that right the first is that three things the first is that he obviously is no longer just scout brown who drives a truck national guardsman which is which is fine right he became the United States senator he was successful like that that's what happens obviously again like we can list off you know Ted Cruz Rand Paul later folks like Josh Hawley right people who are very populist and serve in the senate and obviously you know look their politicians every politician has to roll up the sleeves and put on the ball cap and do the cringey on an everyman guy and we all sort of wink wink through it but also you know when push comes to shove they're like they admit that they're a senator the the second crazy thing is that one of the ways that the conservative movement and the Republican Party has changed is the Tea Party is that megapopulism is much more comfortable with successful people Donald Trump is a millionaire or a millionaire right I mean it's everything is covered in gold Donald Trump likes successful people he likes business men in his cabinet he likes business men in congress like being a yeoman farmer who is running just because you can't stand the national debt is no longer the way to get into the Republican Party being a handsome successful businessman or lawyer or judge or academic all of which scout brown is or former political appointee right this is how you get elected and the third craziest thing and that's that line really stopped me in my tracks and as you and listeners of this podcast know it's not often that I'm stuck to silent um this was because he was trying to argue that Chris the johnson new knew was wrong for New Hampshire because he was part of this new hamster political dynasty he was rich and so he was trying to say I'm don't worry about the fact that I use a little bit of Massachusetts I'm actually the most new hamster candidate here because and then he read that rap sheet so his argument was almost look guys I'm just like you I'm also in a like in a survival a criminal who survived abuse and how to hard life which you kind of get what he's going for but it was a really weird move to basically be like no like I'm a dirt bag just like the people of New Hampshire which is essentially what he was saying though I don't think he realized how it came off yeah and I tend to some of my political expertise here from my background before being an editor was a campaign reporter and especially senate campaigns his attack on johnson new knew who by the way the election was last week which is why we're doing this today one the race over scott brown he more than doubled his vote sanunu got 69% scott brown got around 27% sanunu is a republican who because of his history in the state and his family history in the state is able to compete in new hamster with democrats the state that democrats traditionally win and I'll give you the headlines today the headline in the Boston globe from lean democrat to toss up here's what's happening in new hamsters senate race what's happening is that sanunu ended up with the nomination and sanunu has incredible name recognition and value to voters there because they've seen what he's done as a governor so it's it's just interesting that scott brown's one attack on john sanunu may in fact be the biggest reason to nominate john sanunu if you're a republican in dc who's just looking at it as another vote in the hundred and towards the fight to get 50 and that's and that's sort of what I was trying to get out with the whole piece and certainly with the headline that you read at the top right because that's the thing like if again we already said it's not entirely accurate to say that the fate of the senate and the country rests on who gets elected in new hamster but that was the argument that scott brown was making and so if that's the argument that you're making wouldn't you want to clear the way for the guy who is obviously going to win I mean there was never a moment when scott brown was ahead of sanunu in these polls I don't think he ever broke double digits uh and he like he in our interview tried to you know oh you know we're america is tired of the clitons and the Kennedys and the bushes the sanunu family isn't that kind of political dynasty there a dynasty because they work in new hamster and they serve new hamster and people in new hamster like them because of that like it's a very different thing and he wasn't you know he wasn't trying at no point was was john sanunu trying to say you got to give me the seat because you know my dad was the governor I mean he's you know he's an accomplished politician in his own right um and it was just a very there were so many contradictions too the other thing you know new hamster is is a trump is not very popular in new hamster right now uh we've seen uh sanunu actually handling this so for republicans right it's it's sort of a hard new hamster republicans have to try to square that circle how do you you know not run as a trump guy um while not seeming like you're going to distance yourself from trump both to avoid incurring the wrath of the national party but also to not seem you know kind of cowardly sanunu has been doing it great and uh he actually just last week had kind of a moment that really encapsulates how great he did it uh he so trump and dors sanunu we should also say that right trump and dors john sanunu and um you know someone he was giving it at a campaign event and he was talking about how you know he likes the president he likes what does good things he doesn't like when he does bad things he'll support the policy see agrees with he'll push back on the policy he doesn't agree it's very political answer and someone said well how can you say that when they're so proud to have his endorsement and sanunu says what is the president of the united states is the leader of my party of course i'm proud to have his endorsement but i'm not like a trump lackey i've never even met the guy any laughs and he got a big laugh that's a great way to handle it brownie was trying to um the most magna guy you've ever met but i will never agree with the president but the president tapped me to be his ambassador but he adores john and he was just sort of saying these things the way i'm saying them now they were never connected to each other there was never a period on them there was never a a therefore there was never a final point it was again almost like he didn't know what argument he was trying to make of he was still trying to process this stuff live on camera like he had not thought about any of these contradictions previously which was crazy i mean i interviewed him two months before his primary election and again this guy's been in national politics for 15 years this is his third senate campaign you think he would be ready to answer like pretty expected questions from a reporter who was certainly not setting out to write a critical piece it was again the whole thing was was very very strange you know uh john sanunu is like a political jedi knight to me he he really is incredible let me just run down some some stats about sanunu for you sanunu managed to outperform Donald Trump by 150,000 votes in 2020 independent voters in new hampshire favor him over democrats this was back the last time he ran 84% to 8% Donald Trump loves john sanunu people that hate Donald Trump love john sanunu it's why there's been speculation that john sanunu himself should maybe run for president and they've talked about it in about 2016 and 2020 and it came up in 2024 so just again the idea that scott brown would need to be the guy to rescue new hampshire from the chance of having new john sanunu at the top of the ticket is is just spectacularly delusional um tim rice this piece was just such a joy to read um again it was american needs more scott brown says scott brown and it was so fun going behind the story with you for once thank you brad thank you for taking me behind the story and thank you everybody for tuning in we'll be back next week