The following is a transcript of this interview on the Pro America Report.
Ed Martin: Welcome back, Ed Martin here on the Pro America Report. Our next guest is… nobody… he doesn’t need an introduction. His name is Mark Meadows. For the last year of the Trump administration, he was right at the center, probably the most extraordinary… absent maybe World War Two or a period of time where the country was at war. There might have never been anything like it because we had the coronavirus come screaming into our lives, the pandemic. We also had the most extraordinary election cycle, probably in history, certainly back to rivaling some of the great early elections of our time.
And Mark Meadows was the chief of staff to President Trump during that time. He’s written a new book, it’s called The Chief’s Chief. It’s out in about five weeks, and it will be, I imagine, a massive best seller because of the insight. It’s publishers All Seasons Press. And we’ll make sure to put it all up on social media. So welcome, Chief Mark Meadows. How are you, sir?
Mr. Meadows: Well, it’s great to be with you and all your listeners and bluntly, it is not a time to retreat. It’s a time to reengage. And it was an honor serving President Trump. And in the book, I tell some of the behind the scene stories. But as you know, that last year of President Trump’s first term was really just a dynamic one, a difficult one. Every decision was key. But I tell how the President made not only quick decisions, but some of the best decisions that saved lives, saved our economy, and ultimately put America first.
Ed Martin: We’re talking with Mark Meadows. He’s now over at the Conservative Partnership Institute. And a lot of the folks who have been guests on this show, Rachel Bovard is one of them, Cleata Mitchell, as you said, are charging towards the fight. Back in your time, you’ve been a businessman, successful businessman, ran a campaign for office. One, served in Congress, been a leader up there, but there’s nothing like being chief of staff. I did the governor stint, but you’re at the presidency. But when you look at how exhausting that year was for the
Conservatives, a lot of people, a lot of Conservatives felt like, man, we put it all out there. Whether it was stolen or not, doesn’t matter. We put it all out there. We tried our best. We trusted the system. It didn’t work for a lot of people. What you said at the beginning, we’ve got to sort of take a deep breath and get ready to charge in because part of their game is to exhaust us.
Mr. Meadows: Well, it is to exhaust us and to discourage us. And I’ll be the first to admit on January 20, when the President and I said goodbye from the last time, as our professional side of things – I still talk to him almost daily now – it was depressing. It was discouraging. We had seen some voter fraud that had not only affected the outcomes but could potentially continue to plague us, and that we’re working hard to make sure we correct that. But here’s the other thing. The left will not win if we stay engaged. There are more of us than there are them from coast to coast, across the shining Plains of the Midwest, all the way to the coast of California.
But here’s the other thing that we’ve got to understand, Ed, is when we stay engaged and when the voice of the American people continue to get highlighted, it makes a difference. It’s making a difference right now in Virginia, where you see, the Republican candidate for governor has sided with parents, parents that this DOJ and some in the establishment of the Democrat Party have said are domestic terrorists. And yet Youngkin has sided with them. McAuliffe has sided with the teacher’s unions. And what we’ll see, I believe, is a Republican governor elected in Virginia.
Ed Martin: Yeah, and I live in Northern Virginia now. So my listeners hear me often talk about exactly what you said. The engagement people are fired up, as you say. And I think it is going to be a big day. Tuesday. The book, again, is The Chief’s Chief. It’s coming out in about six or eight weeks or so. We’ll promote it more as we get closer. But I want to ask you for a second about the experience of being in that White House, in this sense. Five years ago now, I asked one of America’s most decorated army men, his name is General Jack Singlab, and he turned 100 a few months ago. And I asked him about the deep state. This is about five years ago. And I said, What’s the deal with the deep state?
Now he was a founder of the CIA, the OSS. He was a kid in the OSS. He went all the way up through. He got fired by Carter, all kinds of things. And he said, it’s not so much, Ed, that there is one set of meetings where they talk about what to do. It’s that the bureaucracy ends up against the position, the conservative position.
And we’re talking again to Mark Meadows, Mark, when you’re in that White House and you’re watching a lot of big government being used against the duly elected President. Like, you may not like it, but if the guy wins the big job, he gets to say, I’m going to go this direction. I think a lot of the success he had was in spite of that. But I’d shake my head and wonder what would have been like if there hadn’t been the Russia, Russia, Russia hoax, the Mueller investigation, if there hadn’t been some of the DOJ and FBI shenanigans. And you know, you’re sitting in a chair, you have to do your job and get briefings on a million things, not just one thing, but it is extraordinary to see how much the bureaucracy seemed to work against President Trump.
Mr. Meadows: Well, it did. And I cover that in the book. And here’s the interesting thing is, the general was right. It’s not necessarily that they hold a meeting and say we’re going to go after this particular issue. It’s just constant throughout the entire bureaucracy. And sadly, even in the Trump administration, where some of the people that were hired early on did not have the President’s back. And when I told the President leading into September, October of 2020, I said, sir, we’ve got to be prepared to let a lot of people go and rehire.
And he said, Mark, I wish we knew then what we know now. And here was a business guy coming from New York coming in. And yet they tried to cancel his voice out each and every time, whether it was at the State Department at Foggy Bottom or the Department of Defense over at the Pentagon, they wanted to fight back oftentimes against the President that really had a mandate from the American people to get things done, just like they try to cancel your voice out.
And all those that are listening right now, the left would love to make us silent. And we cover this in the book. We talk about how we need to continue to speak up in spite of the left trying to, this cancel culture kind of mentality that’s going forward.
Ed Martin: Excuse me. We’re talking with Mark Meadows and Mark Meadows, of course, the chief of staff to the President of the United States, President Trump, in the last year, the incredible year. He is now one of the leaders of the Conservative Partnership Institute. He’s over there with Jim DeMint doing important stuff and CPI.org. A lot of the good folks there. Mark, you ere in business. Actually, I love this part.
You had a restaurant first, then you were a real estate guy, then you went to Congress. So you weren’t, you weree in Congress, I think, for six or seven years, not for 28 years, like a lot of people. So you’ve seen this whole thing. When you look at what’s happening in this country right now, when you look and you say, okay, we got inflation. You were in the restaurant business. I mean, I keep hearing from my friends that when inflation goes, when food prices go up, it just gets passed right on. There’s no way you can hide when the price of cooking oil is up 40%.
When you look around this country, as much as we all feel like our basics are good, we have smart workers, we’ve got the right kind of people and all, the system of living together. Ultimately, it feels like we’re sliding a lot and quickly. And can that be stopped before we’re in real trouble?
Mr. Meadows: Well, we are sliding quickly. Can it be stopped? The answer is yes. Will it be stopped? I’m not as optimistic. Joe Biden has kind of a knock on wood mentality. He doesn’t have a plan or strategy. President Trump and I were talking about this just the other day. There are a number of things that could be done to make sure that gas prices come down, that the price of groceries come down, that the supply chain is fixed.
And had President Trump been in the Oval Office when some of these things were confronting us, we would have been working around the clock to get it done. Joe Biden is… what is he going across the pond to hopefully get more favorable press from the Pope? The Pope wasn’t even willing to put him on live TV for fear of what he might say. He knows that falling polling is not good for him either.
But here’s the interesting thing. When we look at what could and should happen, we’ve actually got to embark on a plan. We’ve got to quit begging OPEC for lower gas prices. We need to unleash the might of the American business community to actually do what we know how to do is put people to work and quit paying people not to work.
And sadly, all the policy coming out of Washington, D.C. right now is going the wrong direction. But it is time again that we reengage all those that are listening right now. All the folks that are listening to the sound of our voice, if they will not give up… We’ve seen tougher times than this in our history. I’m optimistic that 2022 and 2024 will bring some better results.
Ed Martin: Right. All right. We’re talking with Mark Meadows. I just got a little bit of time, but I can’t resist plugging my favorite idea. First of all, I want to make sure to say the book again is called The Chief’s Chief by Mark Meadows. It’s out in a few, maybe five or six weeks. We’ll make sure to plug it. And it is everywhere you buy books, of course.
But here’s the thing, Mark. If we win the House next year, you know the speaker of the House doesn’t have to be a member of the House. I floated the idea of Speaker Trump, but that may be too much for people to take or he may not want. How about Speaker Mark Meadows? Because I’m being serious when I say this, let me say why I’m serious. I really don’t mind who’s the speaker. But if we get a speaker who does the same old, same old, they come out and say, we’re going to have a really good tax plan. We’re going to have a really good regulatory plan. The MAGA differential in this country needs to see that the speaker is going to be bold, right? I just don’t know, if we don’t go bold, I fear 2024.
Mr. Meadows: Well, I couldn’t agree with you more. And you’re right, the speaker doesn’t have to be someone elected to Congress. Here’s what we have to do. It cannot just be a speaker with an R behind their name. The auditions are happening now. I can’t tell you, you and I know each other well, we know from a standpoint I am one that believes that actions are what is required. People are tired of electing the same people and getting the same results, regardless of whether they’re a Democrat or Republican. And so I’m all in. The audition is open for who the next speaker is going to be. And if we can’t find a member of Congress, we need to find somebody outside of Congress to become that speaker.
Ed Martin: Perfect.
Mr. Meadows: I like that. Speaker Trump. That’s pretty good. It may be too bold, but I like that pretty well.
Ed Martin: And then you could be chief of staff to the speaker of the House, too. This gets more and more historic. I’ll leave you go. Mark Meadows again. He’s over a very important CPI.org, the Conservative Partnership Institute. I told you, Ed Corrigan is over there. Cleta Mitchell, Rachel Bovard, people that really know how this works. And Mark Meadows is leading there. And again, his book is The Chief’s Chief. We’ll have you on again, sir. Thank you for the time. And keep up the fight. We’re encouraged by your words.
Mr. Meadows: We will to keep up to fight yourself. God bless you. Take care.
Ed Martin: Okay. Thanks very much. Mark Meadows, everybody. I’ll put it all up on social media. We’ll take a break and be right back. It’s Ed Martin here on the Pro America Report, back in a moment.
