In this episode, Tony Kinnett shares his journey from being a passionate middle school teacher to becoming a national correspondent and broadcaster. He discusses the evolving landscape of education, the intersection of faith and politics, and the challenges of navigating emotional populism in contemporary society. Kinnett emphasizes the importance of understanding citizenship and the role of media in shaping public discourse. The Karol Markowicz Show is part of the Clay Travis & Buck Sexton Podcast Network - new episodes debut every Wednesday & Friday.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Hi, and welcome back to.
Speaker 2 (00:03):
The Carol Marcowitz Show on iHeartRadio. My guest today is
Tony Kinnitt. Tony is national correspondent for The Daily Signal
and host of the nationally syndicated Tony Kinnitt Cast and
The Daily Signal's Top News in ten.
Speaker 1 (00:18):
Hi, Tony's so nice to have you on.
Speaker 3 (00:20):
Hi. Sorry about the mouthful there.
Speaker 1 (00:21):
I love it. I feel like you deserve every one
of those words. So it's okay.
Speaker 3 (00:27):
It's any consolation.
Speaker 4 (00:29):
I tried very hard to originally when it was just
a tiny radio show in Indianapolis, to have it named
anything else at all, and the station manager said, no,
it needs to be branded to your name, kid, and
so it's stuck forever.
Speaker 2 (00:41):
Yeah, I mean, I hear you, Carol Marcowitz Show, right,
you have to put.
Speaker 1 (00:46):
Your name right in it.
Speaker 2 (00:48):
So tell me about your path to getting into this
thing of ours.
Speaker 1 (00:52):
I know you were a teacher. How did you make
the change?
Speaker 4 (00:56):
Man? I mess around with a like video and do
stuff and politics. As a kid, I always enjoyed it.
When I was in college, I worked in a Governor
Scott Walker's office in Wisconsin a little bit, did a
little bit of theater and acting stuff. Not as a
major god forbid, but just as yeah, just someone that
just you know, kind of over on the sidelines, enjoyed
(01:16):
a little bit of everything. And I got into teaching
mostly because I knew I wanted to do some science
y something. I thought it was a path to it
at first, because everyone likes d majors. But I got
into teaching in college the first couple of times and
fell in love with it. The click moment, like when
it all makes sense, like the light bulb just turns on.
Speaker 3 (01:35):
I fell in love with that.
Speaker 4 (01:36):
And so I really enjoyed teaching middle school students, which everyone.
Speaker 3 (01:40):
Else said was the worst, basically courting.
Speaker 1 (01:43):
Death, Yeah right, the worst.
Speaker 4 (01:45):
Yeah, but I looked because they were they were smart
enough to zip up their own pants, like they didn't
need help doing any of the basic skills. But they
also were not too cool for school yet where they
hated you and they hated your class. So they were
smart enough you get the concepts, and not cool enough
to get excited about it.
Speaker 3 (02:01):
And I loved it.
Speaker 4 (02:03):
So if you've ever seen the movie Hoosiers, I started
my teaching career two years teaching in the school that
they shot that movie in which was a really cool experience.
Speaker 3 (02:13):
Loved it. Got Teacher of the Year my first two years,
and that was not a wow. I must be God's
gift to education.
Speaker 4 (02:22):
As much as I thought something might be a little
wrong here because I'm not like miss Frizzle, you know,
seat belts everyone, I wasn't.
Speaker 1 (02:30):
Like, I'm pretty good at this, I don't know.
Speaker 4 (02:33):
I didn't think I was all that in a bag
of chips. I thought that's a little strange. This girl
that I had dated a little bit in college, who
was a granddaughter of this Wisconsin representative, invited me to
write for this tiny publication that had just started called
Lone Conservative. Formerly Cassie Dylan now Kassie Akiva was running,
(02:53):
and I.
Speaker 3 (02:53):
Wrote a couple of articles for it. Loved it.
Speaker 4 (02:56):
I just fell in love with writing. Got to master's
degrees in education because I enjoyed it.
Speaker 3 (03:01):
I don't know.
Speaker 4 (03:02):
Something about getting in there and writing about what we're
talking about, doing the research and getting things solved, making improvements.
It's that ambition that I think comes naturally to a
lot of young men and women in the United States.
Something about the last of the millennials has this surge
of a desire for achievement that is really never been quantified,
but it's a really incredible thing to look at. So
(03:25):
got married and then moved to Indianapolis to this school
I always wanted to teach at that was not my expectation,
and then became a science administrator way too early, so
I was over like two hundred teachers in Indianapolis public schools.
The director of science and this up young, up and
coming administrator the NPR affiliate wanted to have me on
(03:45):
to talk about distance learning and all of this other stuff,
and I just I couldn't stand it.
Speaker 3 (03:51):
The stuff we were.
Speaker 4 (03:52):
Being asked to do, ironically enough, was the stuff that
I was studying in college kind of as a Some
people watch those like fail videos online or like bad construction,
It falls apart and you just get hooked on watching it.
Speaker 3 (04:06):
That was me with critical race theory. I loved it.
I couldn't tear my eyes away.
Speaker 4 (04:10):
And so eventually, by that point we had started this
education publication called Chalkboard Review because I couldn't get my
education writings published in Edweek or chalk Beat or any
of them, which was crazy because I wasn't even writing
political pieces, which I know that you have a passion
for being able to write and talk a politically in
(04:32):
the normal life, you know, like not just always going
all in all the time.
Speaker 3 (04:36):
So we started that publication.
Speaker 4 (04:38):
It took off because again it was an open forum
where our audience would decide whether the article was good
or not not my editing team. And eventually I just
couldn't take it at ips anymore that we were being
asked directly to lie to our parents and teachers. That's
not an exaggeration. They gave us a script and told
us how to do it. And I also would see
people who I studied and in the classes of while
(05:01):
I was at college in Wisconsin being brought in to
laugh at parents and teachers, again almost overtly. Right.
Speaker 3 (05:09):
So one morning in October of.
Speaker 4 (05:12):
Twenty one, I woke up and I just decided I'd
had it as something snapped, I think, so I went
this little tiny court.
Speaker 1 (05:19):
Twenty twenty one was kind of a rough time.
Speaker 4 (05:22):
Yeah, it was right before Youngkin's election. I remember because
Nicole Wallace had said critical race theory, which isn't real,
and like that was there's gas lighting and then there's
like napalm light.
Speaker 3 (05:32):
Yeah, that's what that was.
Speaker 4 (05:34):
And this little tiny corner of a spare bedroom that
we had that I had thrown up a twenty dollars
home depot fake wood panel. Now I have the sixty
dollars fake panel.
Speaker 3 (05:43):
Enough in the world.
Speaker 1 (05:44):
Yeah it looks good.
Speaker 3 (05:45):
Actually, thank you.
Speaker 4 (05:46):
I sat down and said, when we tell you that
critical race theory isn't in schools, were lying to you.
Keep looking and I showed all of these citations because
I was a former science teacher. Citations were how I
did my stuff, how I did my writing. And it
went viral, and you know, by that afternoon it was
blowing up. I'm sitting there at work in my office
thinking how long is it going to be until I
(06:06):
get the HR email?
Speaker 3 (06:08):
And so went on Tucker.
Speaker 4 (06:09):
Carlson, I think the next night, and I just went
downhill from there.
Speaker 3 (06:14):
They banned me from coming back to the school.
Speaker 4 (06:15):
They said I had caused psychological trauma to my colleagues,
whom I hadn't named, didn't It was very strange. Took
them two months to fire me while my wife was
pregnant with our first They actually fired me while she.
Speaker 3 (06:27):
Was in the delivery room. Wow, which was you know,
of course, Yeah, a little traumatic, right right.
Speaker 4 (06:33):
And so after that just kind of hopped into this
thing full time. Ran an education nonprofit for a while,
started guest hosting and doing segments on a local radio
station in Indianapolis, which turned into a Saturday show, which
then turned into a weeknightly show, and then The Daily
Signal acquired it, and now it's amazing nationally syndicated broadcast.
Speaker 2 (06:54):
Well story, that's incredible. Do you still consider education kind
of your be Yeah?
Speaker 3 (07:00):
Us and know I love education.
Speaker 2 (07:03):
Because associate you with education. Well, I know you talked
about lots of stuff, but a lot.
Speaker 1 (07:09):
Do think of you as an education guy?
Speaker 4 (07:11):
Well, I mean when you get involved in education and
you're writing alongside Corey DeAngelis, I used to run an
education publication. You know, you work with Christopherfoon and I
work together a long time, it's very easy to still
and I still do, talk about a lot of education.
Most of my obsession these days is probably in developmental
and pattern psychology. So I really enjoy, for example, right now,
(07:31):
in covering just a lot of the riots and things
around the country, the psychology of these events and what
they mean to the American people is deeply fascinating to
me and the media ecosystem behind it. I've become kind
of a media hawk, and though education is still a
huge part of that because education was the focus of
the media in the last ten years, now it's kind
(07:54):
of expanding beyond that. Education is a huge part of
every policy issue, and so is media moved from education
stuff into kind of general commentary. It remains a bit
of flavoring that I can add to conversations here and
there which do take my debate opponents on like network
TV hits off guard. You know, it's it's it's a
(08:17):
pretty minor part of what I do now, although I still.
Speaker 3 (08:20):
Do love it.
Speaker 2 (08:22):
I feel like there's education is just one battleground in
the omni cause thing that's going on around the country,
you know, you.
Speaker 3 (08:31):
Know, choice of words, the.
Speaker 1 (08:32):
Riots and all of that.
Speaker 2 (08:34):
It all comes down to it's like a one blob
of all these different issues, and education is just one
kind of subsect of it.
Speaker 1 (08:44):
It's like they they.
Speaker 2 (08:45):
Push the agenda, their agenda in schools, but they also
push it on the streets, and they in media and
all these different places. So I don't see education as
a separate front as all I'm saying.
Speaker 4 (08:57):
No, I think I think that's fair when I when
I say that education isn't my main focus. I do
a little bit of education policy advising, and I used.
Speaker 3 (09:06):
To do a lot more of it.
Speaker 4 (09:07):
I don't really throw all of my weight into that anymore,
just like I don't really do investigative column work and write.
Speaker 3 (09:14):
As much as I used to, although I miss it.
Speaker 1 (09:15):
Yeah, me too.
Speaker 4 (09:18):
There's a lot of broadcast work that just involves being
plugged in, and when you're not plugged in, your reading,
and so there's very little time for me to investigate
everything cranny. But the pattern recognition kind of the developmental
psychology that's a huge facet of health science right now,
or the LGBTQ plus two IA and the transgender hormone
(09:39):
stuff is appealing to me as a science teacher. But
it's so like you said, it's all part of this
omni cause to an extent where even if I'm covering,
you know, some kind of a pro Hamas riot, it's
very likely I'm still going to touch on the hormone
stuff regarding trans issues.
Speaker 1 (09:55):
Right because it all does tie together.
Speaker 3 (09:57):
Unfortunately, Israel is that war.
Speaker 2 (10:00):
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and even the United States off the map. In a
necessary act of self defense, Israel struck Iranian nuclear facilities,
military targets, and top leadership. Right now, the International Fellowship
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(10:25):
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(10:48):
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(11:11):
What do you think is kind of the next frontier
that we're going to be talking about that maybe we're
not talking about quite yet, Like like I think, for example,
trans sports really came in hot, and that's been a big.
Speaker 1 (11:27):
Topic for the last few years.
Speaker 2 (11:28):
Like we're recording this my episode's air several weeks after
I recorded, But we're recording this right after the Simone
Biles Riley Gaines thing happened. Do you see something big
like that on the horizon.
Speaker 4 (11:41):
I think that it's more likely than kind of digging
into a specific sports area or a media era, because
a lot of the boycott economy driven style advocacy is
really lost touch.
Speaker 3 (11:53):
Where we are leaving that era in politics?
Speaker 4 (11:55):
Yeah, Instead, I think that we're probably going to kind
of a closer look at whether the country goes down
the road of emotional populism, which is where I see this.
Speaker 3 (12:05):
I don't like it.
Speaker 4 (12:06):
Therefore it changes for kind of a principles based this
is how things ought to be. I think that realistically,
in the next couple of weeks, by the time this airs,
we might be having a discussion along the lines of
what does it mean to have kind of constitutional rights
and what is and is not how we express that
(12:26):
as voters ergo? How involved does the average citizen need
to be? What does it mean to be a citizen.
Speaker 3 (12:31):
I think that's.
Speaker 4 (12:32):
Coming down the pike is kind of the next core
argument because fundamentally this is something that for years Americans
agreed on. We no longer agree on, and so we're
peeling away all of the outgrowth of that, and that
will eventually be the core that we have to address.
Whether that's a month from now or a year from now.
Anybody's guess, that's so interesting.
Speaker 1 (12:49):
How do you see us addressing it? That's a very
good take.
Speaker 2 (12:53):
Like I think I hadn't thought of that as kind
of the next frontier.
Speaker 1 (12:57):
What do you think that will be?
Speaker 2 (12:59):
Well, I mean, will there we think pieces in the
New York Times about it?
Speaker 3 (13:03):
Yeah, but no one's going to read them.
Speaker 4 (13:05):
I mean, there'll be think paces everywhere because that's how
and there will be the TikTok and the Instagram videos
of people giving their right ninety second two minute views,
and they'll all be very surface level, and they'll all
misconstrue and mis cite historical data and they have to.
Speaker 3 (13:20):
Yeah, right, from both sides.
Speaker 4 (13:22):
Unfortunately, from the populace and kind of the more establishmentarian
views on this, I can't really say where it's going
to go. That's why what's coming next has captivated me,
so that we are as a nation going to have
to figure this out. I mean, my personal views on
this have shifted. My favorite book has stopped being the
Count of Monte Cristo, and has started being a book
(13:44):
called Starship Troopers by Robert Heinlein, which is a political
philosophy book very narrowly masquerading as a sci fi novel
out of the late fifties, and it's the political discussion
in there about what it means to be a citizen.
Kind of my outlook on politics as a whole a
couple of years ago, and I think that now that
(14:05):
we're heading into that, a lot of my anticipation, my predictions,
perhaps are clouded by already thinking about what I'm going
to bring to that conversation because I'm used to working
with the establishmentarian, the populist, the libertarian, the traditional whatever's.
So it's really open game here because you've got to
think about it. You've got Rubio Advance, very different people.
(14:26):
I mean, you've got in the media sphere, you have
huge entities who are very separated from each other ideo ideologically,
although on immigration and law enforcement there's a lot of unity.
When we just saw Elon Musk and Trump go apart
and then back together in the spans of like two weeks.
Speaker 2 (14:42):
I mean, are they back together? We'll see, right, I mean,
those guys. I hope they find their way back to
each other for real.
Speaker 4 (14:49):
But now, kid, I mean I think that there's an
element again in a couple of weeks, Well, we'll know
whether I'm right or wrong. I don't think it matters
as much whether they're out seeing in you know, sugar, sugar, honey, honey.
I think that it's a better argument is Elon Musk
was already kind of phasing his way out anyway, because
Trump is busy, Musk is busy. There are other things
(15:10):
to attend to that with Elon Musk is sharing Trump stuff.
I guarantee you a week from now, Trump says something like yeah,
I said he.
Speaker 3 (15:17):
Could do it every once, and I think we're all go,
you know that kind of thing. That's that's where it
should be.
Speaker 4 (15:23):
I mean, I don't think that right now Elon Musk
gluing himself to Trump is what really either of them wants.
And so in a very ironic way, and I very
much disagree with it was all planned maneuver, No, because
I don't think it.
Speaker 2 (15:36):
Was all planned that Elon is gonna call him basically
a child molester, like.
Speaker 4 (15:39):
Then come out and say he regrets yeah, yeah, yeah,
last night, said he last night, I whin we're recording
this came out and said he regrets saying like ninety
percent of it.
Speaker 3 (15:48):
Again.
Speaker 4 (15:48):
I think that the arguments at play here, no one
really knows how deep we're going to get into this,
because sometimes the populace like scratches the surface and makes
a good choice or a bad choice. Sometimes it's sticks,
and then we're just stuck in this cycle because of
some horrible news comment or a really silly trend.
Speaker 1 (16:06):
What do you worry about?
Speaker 4 (16:08):
I worry about the kind of manipulation of faith in
order to stress political points that have nothing to do
with the faith. In the last couple of months, we've
seen this like weird woke right debate, and I've seen
a lot of individuals who aren't a member of the
Christian faith make arguments about the faith that are basically
(16:29):
like the left saying they don't believe in Jesus, they
don't believe in a God or anything like that, but
they're going to lecture you on theology.
Speaker 3 (16:36):
I've seen that on the right.
Speaker 4 (16:38):
Problem that derives from that is that's yet another common
facet of culture that Americans once had, which was this
principles based understanding of theology that is now being eroded
away for cheap talking points, either against Israel or against
Protestants or against Catholics on the other side, And it's
not useful as someone who is deeply invested in seeing
(17:03):
individuals that develop a relationship with Christ. It's weird to
see this group of agnostics or cultural Christians who only
think that the name Jesus being spoken means that, like,
everything's hunky dory, right. I think that's one of the
things that worries me that I don't like seeing a
(17:23):
good cause basically dragged through the mud or attached to
things that are gross simply because the cause itself is
considered a good thing, so therefore I can staple it
onto my chest and now you'll think I'm a good person.
Speaker 1 (17:37):
Where do you see that going? Can Can it be fixed?
Speaker 3 (17:41):
Yeah, it can definitely be fixed.
Speaker 4 (17:44):
It's It's one of the things that I wrestle with
as a broadcaster because I don't want to come off
as someone who's just kind of doing street preacher level stuff.
Speaker 3 (17:53):
But at the same time, because.
Speaker 4 (17:54):
My show's not about, you know, shows that you were
not not you know, necessarily about proselytizing and witnessing. Yet
I'm called to be an ambassador for Christ. So it's
something that I I on a personal level. I'm trying
to figure out how best to get in these conversations
without steering whole groups away or getting into irreplaceable arguments
or that kind of a thing.
Speaker 3 (18:15):
So tough it is.
Speaker 4 (18:17):
As to where the country goes on it, I don't know.
I don't think that's decided. And that's why it's something
I worry about.
Speaker 2 (18:22):
What advice would you give your sixteen year old self
having to kind of do it all over again, what
a sixteen year old tony?
Speaker 3 (18:30):
Don't make plans? That's a bat answer.
Speaker 4 (18:33):
Oh seriously, every time I've made I've made so many
five year plans, and every single one of them.
Speaker 3 (18:37):
Have just been Nope.
Speaker 4 (18:39):
All of the stuff that I've done have have essentially
been opportunities that were plopped down at my feet. So,
you know, whenever I see that kind of advice question,
that that question that you'd send earlier, I did ponder
over that one for like three or four days.
Speaker 3 (18:54):
Yeah, and it's just don't, dude, don't make plans.
Speaker 4 (18:57):
Don't and it'll it will all happen, I know, that's
a kind of a weird thing that a lot of
adults say to teenagers, like it'll all happen, relax.
Speaker 3 (19:03):
But I don't know if there's a way.
Speaker 4 (19:05):
But yeah, yeah, I don't know if I could say
that to my younger self that I would believe me.
Speaker 3 (19:10):
But I mean, you know it's worth saying anyway.
Speaker 1 (19:12):
Man plans God laughs.
Speaker 4 (19:13):
Right, oh, and man, he's had quite a comedy show
with me and planning same.
Speaker 2 (19:19):
I mean, I moved into my dream house in Brooklyn
March twenty twenty and was like, I am never moving again.
Speaker 1 (19:26):
You know, I live in Florida now, so.
Speaker 3 (19:28):
Well, congratulations, and I don't blame me.
Speaker 4 (19:31):
We almost built a house in the last year and
then decided not to and then built this new studio
so that I could have a space where there wasn't
screaming and children the children doing the screaming. For the record,
I mean that that kind of the plans that just
continued to if I wasn't planning on being a broadcaster ever,
that was never something that I was. I thought all
of the people who majored in that would have all
(19:53):
of those jobs, so I never imagine and now I
mean it's I really am kind of taking a back
every day byside the change and everything.
Speaker 2 (20:02):
I love it well. I have loved this conversation. I've
been a big fan of yours for.
Speaker 1 (20:06):
A long time.
Speaker 4 (20:08):
Lee.
Speaker 3 (20:08):
That's very kind.
Speaker 1 (20:09):
Leave us here with.
Speaker 2 (20:10):
Your best tip for my listeners on how they can improve.
Speaker 4 (20:13):
Their lives for Carol's listeners, obviously, if you're for listening
to Carol, you're already doing a lot of things correctly.
I mean, I don't have to tell you that I've
been one of her listeners for a while, but I'll
say this. The best tip that I can give you
is there are a lot of fantastic books that you
can read and you can study, and you should be reading.
(20:34):
You should be practicing writing. It keeps you mentally healthy,
it keeps you astute. But make sure that one of
those books is in fact scripture, because that gives you
a closer touchtone to humanity, to what's going on, and
also better skills on analysis than just about anything that
you'll do.
Speaker 1 (20:52):
I love it.
Speaker 2 (20:52):
Read your Bible kids, it really does work. Thank you
so much, Tony he Is Tony Kennett. Check them out
at the Daily Signal and at the Tony Nedcast and
at top news in ten.
Speaker 1 (21:03):
On the Daily Signal site. Thank you so much, Tony,
Thanks Carol,
Hi, and welcome back to.
Speaker 2 (00:03):
The Carol Marcowitz Show on iHeartRadio. My guest today is
Tony Kinnitt. Tony is national correspondent for The Daily Signal
and host of the nationally syndicated Tony Kinnitt Cast and
The Daily Signal's Top News in ten.
Speaker 1 (00:18):
Hi, Tony's so nice to have you on.
Speaker 3 (00:20):
Hi. Sorry about the mouthful there.
Speaker 1 (00:21):
I love it. I feel like you deserve every one
of those words. So it's okay.
Speaker 3 (00:27):
It's any consolation.
Speaker 4 (00:29):
I tried very hard to originally when it was just
a tiny radio show in Indianapolis, to have it named
anything else at all, and the station manager said, no,
it needs to be branded to your name, kid, and
so it's stuck forever.
Speaker 2 (00:41):
Yeah, I mean, I hear you, Carol Marcowitz Show, right,
you have to put.
Speaker 1 (00:46):
Your name right in it.
Speaker 2 (00:48):
So tell me about your path to getting into this
thing of ours.
Speaker 1 (00:52):
I know you were a teacher. How did you make
the change?
Speaker 4 (00:56):
Man? I mess around with a like video and do
stuff and politics. As a kid, I always enjoyed it.
When I was in college, I worked in a Governor
Scott Walker's office in Wisconsin a little bit, did a
little bit of theater and acting stuff. Not as a
major god forbid, but just as yeah, just someone that
just you know, kind of over on the sidelines, enjoyed
(01:16):
a little bit of everything. And I got into teaching
mostly because I knew I wanted to do some science
y something. I thought it was a path to it
at first, because everyone likes d majors. But I got
into teaching in college the first couple of times and
fell in love with it. The click moment, like when
it all makes sense, like the light bulb just turns on.
Speaker 3 (01:35):
I fell in love with that.
Speaker 4 (01:36):
And so I really enjoyed teaching middle school students, which everyone.
Speaker 3 (01:40):
Else said was the worst, basically courting.
Speaker 1 (01:43):
Death, Yeah right, the worst.
Speaker 4 (01:45):
Yeah, but I looked because they were they were smart
enough to zip up their own pants, like they didn't
need help doing any of the basic skills. But they
also were not too cool for school yet where they
hated you and they hated your class. So they were
smart enough you get the concepts, and not cool enough
to get excited about it.
Speaker 3 (02:01):
And I loved it.
Speaker 4 (02:03):
So if you've ever seen the movie Hoosiers, I started
my teaching career two years teaching in the school that
they shot that movie in which was a really cool experience.
Speaker 3 (02:13):
Loved it. Got Teacher of the Year my first two years,
and that was not a wow. I must be God's
gift to education.
Speaker 4 (02:22):
As much as I thought something might be a little
wrong here because I'm not like miss Frizzle, you know,
seat belts everyone, I wasn't.
Speaker 1 (02:30):
Like, I'm pretty good at this, I don't know.
Speaker 4 (02:33):
I didn't think I was all that in a bag
of chips. I thought that's a little strange. This girl
that I had dated a little bit in college, who
was a granddaughter of this Wisconsin representative, invited me to
write for this tiny publication that had just started called
Lone Conservative. Formerly Cassie Dylan now Kassie Akiva was running,
(02:53):
and I.
Speaker 3 (02:53):
Wrote a couple of articles for it. Loved it.
Speaker 4 (02:56):
I just fell in love with writing. Got to master's
degrees in education because I enjoyed it.
Speaker 3 (03:01):
I don't know.
Speaker 4 (03:02):
Something about getting in there and writing about what we're
talking about, doing the research and getting things solved, making improvements.
It's that ambition that I think comes naturally to a
lot of young men and women in the United States.
Something about the last of the millennials has this surge
of a desire for achievement that is really never been quantified,
but it's a really incredible thing to look at. So
(03:25):
got married and then moved to Indianapolis to this school
I always wanted to teach at that was not my expectation,
and then became a science administrator way too early, so
I was over like two hundred teachers in Indianapolis public schools.
The director of science and this up young, up and
coming administrator the NPR affiliate wanted to have me on
(03:45):
to talk about distance learning and all of this other stuff,
and I just I couldn't stand it.
Speaker 3 (03:51):
The stuff we were.
Speaker 4 (03:52):
Being asked to do, ironically enough, was the stuff that
I was studying in college kind of as a Some
people watch those like fail videos online or like bad construction,
It falls apart and you just get hooked on watching it.
Speaker 3 (04:06):
That was me with critical race theory. I loved it.
I couldn't tear my eyes away.
Speaker 4 (04:10):
And so eventually, by that point we had started this
education publication called Chalkboard Review because I couldn't get my
education writings published in Edweek or chalk Beat or any
of them, which was crazy because I wasn't even writing
political pieces, which I know that you have a passion
for being able to write and talk a politically in
(04:32):
the normal life, you know, like not just always going
all in all the time.
Speaker 3 (04:36):
So we started that publication.
Speaker 4 (04:38):
It took off because again it was an open forum
where our audience would decide whether the article was good
or not not my editing team. And eventually I just
couldn't take it at ips anymore that we were being
asked directly to lie to our parents and teachers. That's
not an exaggeration. They gave us a script and told
us how to do it. And I also would see
people who I studied and in the classes of while
(05:01):
I was at college in Wisconsin being brought in to
laugh at parents and teachers, again almost overtly. Right.
Speaker 3 (05:09):
So one morning in October of.
Speaker 4 (05:12):
Twenty one, I woke up and I just decided I'd
had it as something snapped, I think, so I went
this little tiny court.
Speaker 1 (05:19):
Twenty twenty one was kind of a rough time.
Speaker 4 (05:22):
Yeah, it was right before Youngkin's election. I remember because
Nicole Wallace had said critical race theory, which isn't real,
and like that was there's gas lighting and then there's
like napalm light.
Speaker 3 (05:32):
Yeah, that's what that was.
Speaker 4 (05:34):
And this little tiny corner of a spare bedroom that
we had that I had thrown up a twenty dollars
home depot fake wood panel. Now I have the sixty
dollars fake panel.
Speaker 3 (05:43):
Enough in the world.
Speaker 1 (05:44):
Yeah it looks good.
Speaker 3 (05:45):
Actually, thank you.
Speaker 4 (05:46):
I sat down and said, when we tell you that
critical race theory isn't in schools, were lying to you.
Keep looking and I showed all of these citations because
I was a former science teacher. Citations were how I
did my stuff, how I did my writing. And it
went viral, and you know, by that afternoon it was
blowing up. I'm sitting there at work in my office
thinking how long is it going to be until I
(06:06):
get the HR email?
Speaker 3 (06:08):
And so went on Tucker.
Speaker 4 (06:09):
Carlson, I think the next night, and I just went
downhill from there.
Speaker 3 (06:14):
They banned me from coming back to the school.
Speaker 4 (06:15):
They said I had caused psychological trauma to my colleagues,
whom I hadn't named, didn't It was very strange. Took
them two months to fire me while my wife was
pregnant with our first They actually fired me while she.
Speaker 3 (06:27):
Was in the delivery room. Wow, which was you know,
of course, Yeah, a little traumatic, right right.
Speaker 4 (06:33):
And so after that just kind of hopped into this
thing full time. Ran an education nonprofit for a while,
started guest hosting and doing segments on a local radio
station in Indianapolis, which turned into a Saturday show, which
then turned into a weeknightly show, and then The Daily
Signal acquired it, and now it's amazing nationally syndicated broadcast.
Speaker 2 (06:54):
Well story, that's incredible. Do you still consider education kind
of your be Yeah?
Speaker 3 (07:00):
Us and know I love education.
Speaker 2 (07:03):
Because associate you with education. Well, I know you talked
about lots of stuff, but a lot.
Speaker 1 (07:09):
Do think of you as an education guy?
Speaker 4 (07:11):
Well, I mean when you get involved in education and
you're writing alongside Corey DeAngelis, I used to run an
education publication. You know, you work with Christopherfoon and I
work together a long time, it's very easy to still
and I still do, talk about a lot of education.
Most of my obsession these days is probably in developmental
and pattern psychology. So I really enjoy, for example, right now,
(07:31):
in covering just a lot of the riots and things
around the country, the psychology of these events and what
they mean to the American people is deeply fascinating to
me and the media ecosystem behind it. I've become kind
of a media hawk, and though education is still a
huge part of that because education was the focus of
the media in the last ten years, now it's kind
(07:54):
of expanding beyond that. Education is a huge part of
every policy issue, and so is media moved from education
stuff into kind of general commentary. It remains a bit
of flavoring that I can add to conversations here and
there which do take my debate opponents on like network
TV hits off guard. You know, it's it's it's a
(08:17):
pretty minor part of what I do now, although I still.
Speaker 3 (08:20):
Do love it.
Speaker 2 (08:22):
I feel like there's education is just one battleground in
the omni cause thing that's going on around the country,
you know, you.
Speaker 3 (08:31):
Know, choice of words, the.
Speaker 1 (08:32):
Riots and all of that.
Speaker 2 (08:34):
It all comes down to it's like a one blob
of all these different issues, and education is just one
kind of subsect of it.
Speaker 1 (08:44):
It's like they they.
Speaker 2 (08:45):
Push the agenda, their agenda in schools, but they also
push it on the streets, and they in media and
all these different places. So I don't see education as
a separate front as all I'm saying.
Speaker 4 (08:57):
No, I think I think that's fair when I when
I say that education isn't my main focus. I do
a little bit of education policy advising, and I used.
Speaker 3 (09:06):
To do a lot more of it.
Speaker 4 (09:07):
I don't really throw all of my weight into that anymore,
just like I don't really do investigative column work and write.
Speaker 3 (09:14):
As much as I used to, although I miss it.
Speaker 1 (09:15):
Yeah, me too.
Speaker 4 (09:18):
There's a lot of broadcast work that just involves being
plugged in, and when you're not plugged in, your reading,
and so there's very little time for me to investigate
everything cranny. But the pattern recognition kind of the developmental
psychology that's a huge facet of health science right now,
or the LGBTQ plus two IA and the transgender hormone
(09:39):
stuff is appealing to me as a science teacher. But
it's so like you said, it's all part of this
omni cause to an extent where even if I'm covering,
you know, some kind of a pro Hamas riot, it's
very likely I'm still going to touch on the hormone
stuff regarding trans issues.
Speaker 1 (09:55):
Right because it all does tie together.
Speaker 3 (09:57):
Unfortunately, Israel is that war.
Speaker 2 (10:00):
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and even the United States off the map. In a
necessary act of self defense, Israel struck Iranian nuclear facilities,
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scale distributions of life saving food, first aid and emergency kits,
(10:25):
especially to Israel's most vulnerable people, the sick, the elderly, children,
and families in great need. The Fellowship is also making
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(10:48):
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(11:11):
What do you think is kind of the next frontier
that we're going to be talking about that maybe we're
not talking about quite yet, Like like I think, for example,
trans sports really came in hot, and that's been a big.
Speaker 1 (11:27):
Topic for the last few years.
Speaker 2 (11:28):
Like we're recording this my episode's air several weeks after
I recorded, But we're recording this right after the Simone
Biles Riley Gaines thing happened. Do you see something big
like that on the horizon.
Speaker 4 (11:41):
I think that it's more likely than kind of digging
into a specific sports area or a media era, because
a lot of the boycott economy driven style advocacy is
really lost touch.
Speaker 3 (11:53):
Where we are leaving that era in politics?
Speaker 4 (11:55):
Yeah, Instead, I think that we're probably going to kind
of a closer look at whether the country goes down
the road of emotional populism, which is where I see this.
Speaker 3 (12:05):
I don't like it.
Speaker 4 (12:06):
Therefore it changes for kind of a principles based this
is how things ought to be. I think that realistically,
in the next couple of weeks, by the time this airs,
we might be having a discussion along the lines of
what does it mean to have kind of constitutional rights
and what is and is not how we express that
(12:26):
as voters ergo? How involved does the average citizen need
to be? What does it mean to be a citizen.
Speaker 3 (12:31):
I think that's.
Speaker 4 (12:32):
Coming down the pike is kind of the next core
argument because fundamentally this is something that for years Americans
agreed on. We no longer agree on, and so we're
peeling away all of the outgrowth of that, and that
will eventually be the core that we have to address.
Whether that's a month from now or a year from now.
Anybody's guess, that's so interesting.
Speaker 1 (12:49):
How do you see us addressing it? That's a very
good take.
Speaker 2 (12:53):
Like I think I hadn't thought of that as kind
of the next frontier.
Speaker 1 (12:57):
What do you think that will be?
Speaker 2 (12:59):
Well, I mean, will there we think pieces in the
New York Times about it?
Speaker 3 (13:03):
Yeah, but no one's going to read them.
Speaker 4 (13:05):
I mean, there'll be think paces everywhere because that's how
and there will be the TikTok and the Instagram videos
of people giving their right ninety second two minute views,
and they'll all be very surface level, and they'll all
misconstrue and mis cite historical data and they have to.
Speaker 3 (13:20):
Yeah, right, from both sides.
Speaker 4 (13:22):
Unfortunately, from the populace and kind of the more establishmentarian
views on this, I can't really say where it's going
to go. That's why what's coming next has captivated me,
so that we are as a nation going to have
to figure this out. I mean, my personal views on
this have shifted. My favorite book has stopped being the
Count of Monte Cristo, and has started being a book
(13:44):
called Starship Troopers by Robert Heinlein, which is a political
philosophy book very narrowly masquerading as a sci fi novel
out of the late fifties, and it's the political discussion
in there about what it means to be a citizen.
Kind of my outlook on politics as a whole a
couple of years ago, and I think that now that
(14:05):
we're heading into that, a lot of my anticipation, my predictions,
perhaps are clouded by already thinking about what I'm going
to bring to that conversation because I'm used to working
with the establishmentarian, the populist, the libertarian, the traditional whatever's.
So it's really open game here because you've got to
think about it. You've got Rubio Advance, very different people.
(14:26):
I mean, you've got in the media sphere, you have
huge entities who are very separated from each other ideo ideologically,
although on immigration and law enforcement there's a lot of unity.
When we just saw Elon Musk and Trump go apart
and then back together in the spans of like two weeks.
Speaker 2 (14:42):
I mean, are they back together? We'll see, right, I mean,
those guys. I hope they find their way back to
each other for real.
Speaker 4 (14:49):
But now, kid, I mean I think that there's an
element again in a couple of weeks, Well, we'll know
whether I'm right or wrong. I don't think it matters
as much whether they're out seeing in you know, sugar, sugar, honey, honey.
I think that it's a better argument is Elon Musk
was already kind of phasing his way out anyway, because
Trump is busy, Musk is busy. There are other things
(15:10):
to attend to that with Elon Musk is sharing Trump stuff.
I guarantee you a week from now, Trump says something like yeah,
I said he.
Speaker 3 (15:17):
Could do it every once, and I think we're all go,
you know that kind of thing. That's that's where it
should be.
Speaker 4 (15:23):
I mean, I don't think that right now Elon Musk
gluing himself to Trump is what really either of them wants.
And so in a very ironic way, and I very
much disagree with it was all planned maneuver, No, because
I don't think it.
Speaker 2 (15:36):
Was all planned that Elon is gonna call him basically
a child molester, like.
Speaker 4 (15:39):
Then come out and say he regrets yeah, yeah, yeah,
last night, said he last night, I whin we're recording
this came out and said he regrets saying like ninety
percent of it.
Speaker 3 (15:48):
Again.
Speaker 4 (15:48):
I think that the arguments at play here, no one
really knows how deep we're going to get into this,
because sometimes the populace like scratches the surface and makes
a good choice or a bad choice. Sometimes it's sticks,
and then we're just stuck in this cycle because of
some horrible news comment or a really silly trend.
Speaker 1 (16:06):
What do you worry about?
Speaker 4 (16:08):
I worry about the kind of manipulation of faith in
order to stress political points that have nothing to do
with the faith. In the last couple of months, we've
seen this like weird woke right debate, and I've seen
a lot of individuals who aren't a member of the
Christian faith make arguments about the faith that are basically
(16:29):
like the left saying they don't believe in Jesus, they
don't believe in a God or anything like that, but
they're going to lecture you on theology.
Speaker 3 (16:36):
I've seen that on the right.
Speaker 4 (16:38):
Problem that derives from that is that's yet another common
facet of culture that Americans once had, which was this
principles based understanding of theology that is now being eroded
away for cheap talking points, either against Israel or against
Protestants or against Catholics on the other side, And it's
not useful as someone who is deeply invested in seeing
(17:03):
individuals that develop a relationship with Christ. It's weird to
see this group of agnostics or cultural Christians who only
think that the name Jesus being spoken means that, like,
everything's hunky dory, right. I think that's one of the
things that worries me that I don't like seeing a
(17:23):
good cause basically dragged through the mud or attached to
things that are gross simply because the cause itself is
considered a good thing, so therefore I can staple it
onto my chest and now you'll think I'm a good person.
Speaker 1 (17:37):
Where do you see that going? Can Can it be fixed?
Speaker 3 (17:41):
Yeah, it can definitely be fixed.
Speaker 4 (17:44):
It's It's one of the things that I wrestle with
as a broadcaster because I don't want to come off
as someone who's just kind of doing street preacher level stuff.
Speaker 3 (17:53):
But at the same time, because.
Speaker 4 (17:54):
My show's not about, you know, shows that you were
not not you know, necessarily about proselytizing and witnessing. Yet
I'm called to be an ambassador for Christ. So it's
something that I I on a personal level. I'm trying
to figure out how best to get in these conversations
without steering whole groups away or getting into irreplaceable arguments
or that kind of a thing.
Speaker 3 (18:15):
So tough it is.
Speaker 4 (18:17):
As to where the country goes on it, I don't know.
I don't think that's decided. And that's why it's something
I worry about.
Speaker 2 (18:22):
What advice would you give your sixteen year old self
having to kind of do it all over again, what
a sixteen year old tony?
Speaker 3 (18:30):
Don't make plans? That's a bat answer.
Speaker 4 (18:33):
Oh seriously, every time I've made I've made so many
five year plans, and every single one of them.
Speaker 3 (18:37):
Have just been Nope.
Speaker 4 (18:39):
All of the stuff that I've done have have essentially
been opportunities that were plopped down at my feet. So,
you know, whenever I see that kind of advice question,
that that question that you'd send earlier, I did ponder
over that one for like three or four days.
Speaker 3 (18:54):
Yeah, and it's just don't, dude, don't make plans.
Speaker 4 (18:57):
Don't and it'll it will all happen, I know, that's
a kind of a weird thing that a lot of
adults say to teenagers, like it'll all happen, relax.
Speaker 3 (19:03):
But I don't know if there's a way.
Speaker 4 (19:05):
But yeah, yeah, I don't know if I could say
that to my younger self that I would believe me.
Speaker 3 (19:10):
But I mean, you know it's worth saying anyway.
Speaker 1 (19:12):
Man plans God laughs.
Speaker 4 (19:13):
Right, oh, and man, he's had quite a comedy show
with me and planning same.
Speaker 2 (19:19):
I mean, I moved into my dream house in Brooklyn
March twenty twenty and was like, I am never moving again.
Speaker 1 (19:26):
You know, I live in Florida now, so.
Speaker 3 (19:28):
Well, congratulations, and I don't blame me.
Speaker 4 (19:31):
We almost built a house in the last year and
then decided not to and then built this new studio
so that I could have a space where there wasn't
screaming and children the children doing the screaming. For the record,
I mean that that kind of the plans that just
continued to if I wasn't planning on being a broadcaster ever,
that was never something that I was. I thought all
of the people who majored in that would have all
(19:53):
of those jobs, so I never imagine and now I
mean it's I really am kind of taking a back
every day byside the change and everything.
Speaker 2 (20:02):
I love it well. I have loved this conversation. I've
been a big fan of yours for.
Speaker 1 (20:06):
A long time.
Speaker 4 (20:08):
Lee.
Speaker 3 (20:08):
That's very kind.
Speaker 1 (20:09):
Leave us here with.
Speaker 2 (20:10):
Your best tip for my listeners on how they can improve.
Speaker 4 (20:13):
Their lives for Carol's listeners, obviously, if you're for listening
to Carol, you're already doing a lot of things correctly.
I mean, I don't have to tell you that I've
been one of her listeners for a while, but I'll
say this. The best tip that I can give you
is there are a lot of fantastic books that you
can read and you can study, and you should be reading.
(20:34):
You should be practicing writing. It keeps you mentally healthy,
it keeps you astute. But make sure that one of
those books is in fact scripture, because that gives you
a closer touchtone to humanity, to what's going on, and
also better skills on analysis than just about anything that
you'll do.
Speaker 1 (20:52):
I love it.
Speaker 2 (20:52):
Read your Bible kids, it really does work. Thank you
so much, Tony he Is Tony Kennett. Check them out
at the Daily Signal and at the Tony Nedcast and
at top news in ten.
Speaker 1 (21:03):
On the Daily Signal site. Thank you so much, Tony,
Thanks Carol,
Host
Karol Markowicz
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