The Scott Brown Interview That Changed The Story

0:00Okay, first, before we give you the facts of the day, run Hyde 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. Tired of your car insurance rate going up even with a clean driving record, you're not alone. That's why there's Jerry, your proactive insurance assistant. Jerry compares rates side by side from over 50 top insurers and helps you switch with ease. Jerry even tracks market rates and alerts you when it's best to shop. No spam calls, no hidden fees. Drivers who save with Jerry could save over $1,300 a year. Switch with confidence. Download the Jerry app or visit jerry.ai slash wire. Who says Halloween only lasts one day? With Wayfair, one night of Halloween becomes a whole season at home. From larger than life yard decor and moody lighting to festive accents for every room in the house, Wayfair has what you need to make Halloween feel like magic all in one place.

1:03Because the best Halloween memories aren't made in just one night, they're made all season long. Shop Halloween decor now at Wayfair.com. Wayfair every style every home. 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. Brad sure. So Brad, 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

2:07we 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. Scott Brown was some of our older listeners, may remember, and I loop us into 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 this, he was a tea party leader. That's very important. Two things that are important there. He was in Massachusetts, 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.

3:07And 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 AI ads in this cycle. He was in the Republican primary running against John E. Sonunu, the son of a and brother of two former governors of the state of New Hampshire. And he released this AI ad of him beating up John Sonunu in a boxing ring. I a different program commented that I thought that ad was a smart news of AI. It got written up in a local New Hampshire paper, the brown campaign saw it.

4:09They 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 for 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. And to Scott Brown was he ran one of the most legendary Tea Party campaigns 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

5:11today. And that's why we took it. Yeah, exactly right. And again, to your point, I assume it would be positive, not a puff piece by any means. I don't particularly, but do respect to the people of the Grand 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, Rand Paul. And now of course, it's a similar moment in that, you know, there's, the Republican party is being challenged, you know, that is a 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

6:14office, 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 Rand. And since he first ran from the Senate. And then you met Scott Brown. And I'm, I, there's a line I'd like to read from your story. 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.

7:15You say like a high school quarterback with dreams of walking on the college team, Brown is 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 with it. We talked for about 30 to 40 minutes. And 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 is 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 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

8:15in 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 Democrats message was get a Democrat and we get Obamacare, Republicans message was get a Republican in and we can stop it. 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? If elected, he'll have two more years of the Trump presidency, hopefully your 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 ineffective in what he can't be able to do. Now, it wasn't entirely his fault. Obviously, this is how the Senate works.

9:15The legislation gets passed, deals get made, 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 said it's 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 state or 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 Morpha Cochley, the former Attorney General of Massachusetts, who would run against him. There's a universe in which Morpha Cochley is now in her fifth term in the Senate and we've Elizabeth Warren is still in teaching antitrust at Harvard and the Democratic Party looks a lot different. Yeah, I mean, you bring up an interesting point there that I think is reflected well in your piece that Scott Brown is basically running the same playbook that he tried to run

10:2115 years ago. There's a line here, which is a quote to you after he's attacking his opponent, Sanuno, as this silver spoon, a leadist, 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 prose from Mr. Brown, what a rap sheet. You point out just after that, maybe he was saying that in 2012 and 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. But he's a ambassador, a lawyer and all he's trying to do is still be a truck driver.

11:27Yeah, 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 Scott Brown who drives a truck, national guardsman, which is fine, right? He became the United States senator. He was successful. That's what happens. Obviously, again, we can list off Ted Cruz, Rand Paul, later folks like Josh Hawley, people who are very populist and serve in the Senate. And obviously, look, their politicians, every politician has to roll up his sleeves and put on the ball cap and do the cringey on and every man guy. And we all sort of wink, wink through it, but also, when push comes to shove, they admit that they're a senator. The second crazy thing is that one of the ways that the conservative movement and the Republican Party has changed into the Tea Party is that magma populism 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

12:31you 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 Scott Brown is or former political appointee, right? This is how you get elected. And the third craziest thing in that line really stopped me in my tracks and as you and listeners of this podcast, no, it's not often that I'm stunned silent. This was because he was trying to argue that Chris, that John Sonunu was wrong for New Hampshire because he was part of this New Hampshire political dynasty. He was rich. And so he was trying to say, I'm, don't worry about the fact that I use the word that I'm actually the most New Hampshire 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, a criminal who survived abuse and had a 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

13:33was 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 John Sonunu, 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. Sonunu got 69%. Scott Brown got around 27%. Sonunu is a Republican who because of his history in the state and his family's history in the state is able to compete in New Hampshire 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.

14:34Here's what's happening in New Hampshire's Senate race. What's happening is that Sonunu ended up with the nomination and Sonunu has incredible name recognition and value to voters there because they've seen what he's done as a governor. So it's just interesting that Scott Brown's one attack on John Sonunu may in fact be the biggest reason to nominate John Sonunu if you're a Republican in DC who's just looking at it as another vote in the 100 and towards the fight to get 50. And that's sort of what I was still 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 Hampshire.

15:35But 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 Sonunu in these polls. I don't think he ever broke double digits. And he in our interview tried to, you know, oh, you know, America is tired of the clitons and the Kennedys and the bushes. The Sonunu family isn't that kind of political dynasty. They're a dynasty because they work in New Hampshire and they serve New Hampshire and people in New Hampshire 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 John Sonunu 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. And it was just a very, there were so many contradictions too. The other thing, you know, New Hampshire is, is, Trump is not very popular in New Hampshire right now. We've seen Sonunu actually handling this. So for Republicans, right, it's sort of a hard New Hampshire Republicans have to try to

16:37square that circle. How do you, you know, not run as a Trump guy 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. Sonunu has been doing it great. And he actually just last week had kind of a moment that really encapsulates how great he did it. He, he, so Trump and George Sonunu, we should also say that, right? Trump and George John Sonunu. And, 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 what he does bad things. He'll support the policy. He agrees with, he'll push back on the policy. He doesn't agree with very political answer. Someone said, well, how can you say that when they're so proud to have his endorsement? And Sonunu says, what is the president of the United States? He's 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, I'm 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.

17:40And 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, a, a, therefore. There was never a final point. It was like, yeah, 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, John Sanunu is like a political Jedi knight to me. 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

18:49in 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 John Sanunu at the top of the ticket is just spectacularly delusional. Tim Rice, this piece was just such a joy to read. Again, it was America needs more Scott Brown, says Scott Brown, and it was so fun going behind the story with you for once. Thank you, Brent. Thank you for taking me behind the story.

19:49And thank you, everybody, for tuning in. We'll be back next week. Who says Halloween only lasts one day? With Wayfair, one night of Halloween becomes a whole season at home. From larger than life yard decor and moody lighting to festive accents for every room in the house, Wayfair has what you need to make Halloween feel like magic all in one place. Because the best Halloween memories aren't made in just one night. They're made all season long. Shop Halloween decor now at Wayfair.com. That's w-a-y-f-a-i-r.com.