July 23, 2025 • 20 mins
In this episode, Dustin Grage shares his journey from aspiring youth minister to political columnist at Townhall.com. He discusses his experiences growing up in Minnesota, the challenges of living in a blue state, and his hopes for the future of his family and community. Dustin emphasizes the importance of authenticity and staying true to oneself amidst external pressures, while also reflecting on the significance of family values and the desire to create a better world for the next generation. 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
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
Hi, Welcome back to the Carol Marcowich Show on iHeartRadio.
My guest today is Dustin Gregi, columnist with Townhall dot Com.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
Hi.
Speaker 1 (00:13):
Dustin's so nice to have you on.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
Thanks for having me, Carol excited.
Speaker 1 (00:17):
So how did you get into writing and being a
columnist with town Hall.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
That is a long journey, but I suppose it kind
of all started, I know, kind of you know, our
upbrains and where we kind of come with that. For
me personally, youth group is where it kind of all started.
For very early on in my life. My grandmother was like,
you're going to be a priest. So I went to
youth group and that's kind of where a lot of
(00:44):
where did you grow up? Just oh, Minnesota, here in
Right County, so we border Minneapolis. I'm about a thirty
five to forty minute trip from Minneapolis, so a little
bit on the suburbs exerbs of Minneapolis. But that's kind
of where that all started. Very early in life. I
got involved in youth group and I was on track
to be a youth minister for the longest time. Where
(01:05):
that ultimately kind of broke off a little bit was
when I was in that we were very mission ship oriented.
So like we went to like Warres, Mexico, Chicago, Illinois,
probably a dozen different locations. That was kind of my
big thing I was really into and I feel like.
Speaker 1 (01:23):
I was going to make a I was going to
make a war torn area joke there, but Juarez, I
don't want to insult them, you know.
Speaker 2 (01:29):
Chicago, Yes, well, Minneapolis has definitely up the anny a
little bit recently here in the last four and a
half years. Yeah, even more recently. We're still with it.
But no, I mean I've seen some crazy stuff. And
even when those riots hit in Minneapolis, it was pretty
crazy compared to even Warres were like, I mean, some
of these places you go to, you're like, man, we're
(01:50):
just in a completely different world. But when those buildings
come down burning, I mean it's also a completely different world.
When you just go down you drive to see the
aftermath of how that all comes very similar in many regards.
I mean, granted or As wasn't constantly burning, but the
buildings were completely demolished and there's retaining walls built out
of rubber tires, and you're just so resourceful in how
(02:13):
you're actually living day to day in that type of situation,
but that was kind of my calling early on. But
one thing that kind of brought me out of that
we actually had this massive regime change in our youth program.
We had a new convert kind of come in and
they had a new program, and we kind of rebelled
at that point. We're like, no, we won't have any
(02:33):
of this. We don't want to change this program. We
want to be mission centric, we want to do this
versus this new regime was kind of more like, well,
we want to do like Catholic retreats and kind of
kind of keep us in our own bubble. And we're like, no,
we have to go out. We have to be outside
this bubble and go out and angelize. And then at
that point I kind of had this breakout of where
(02:53):
I found myself jumping church to church. At one point
I was going to three or four different services a week,
just trying to explore a little bit and figure out
what was out there. How we find that more mission
driven focus, and which ultimately led me to politics. We
ended up breaking off from this and we started a
youth group and it turns out that one of the
(03:14):
kids we brought on ended up being the son of
someone who's running to be our local state representative that cycle,
and literally just the rest is history. I'd end up
becoming that reps campaign manager for a campaign, ended up
working for the state party here in Minnesota for the Republicans,
worked on some congressional and statewide campaigns, had a lot
of success in those. Ultimately, then this guy Tim Walls
(03:35):
ran and for vice president.
Speaker 1 (03:37):
Heard him.
Speaker 2 (03:38):
Then from there kind of gets a little crazy. Your
three thousand followers on Twitter becomes ninety thousand really quickly. Yeah,
millions of people all of a sudden care about your
opinion and your analysts on everything. You know, That's kind
of how we got here today with town Hall.
Speaker 1 (03:55):
Amazing. So you made the jump to journalism around that
time when Tim Walls became a national figure. Yes, what
was the first story you wrote?
Speaker 2 (04:05):
The very first story I wrote, I I it was
out now, I do recall. It is about how Tim
Walls came to rise to be Kamala Harris's running mate,
and ultimately the issue that really drove them to meet
each other was abortion driven Minnesota was going to be
pushing the most insane abortion law in the country, and
(04:29):
that was known as the pro Act Kamala Harris as
vice president, actually came to visit an abortion clinic in Minnesota,
the first vice president in US history to ever visit
one ever, And there is Tim Walls and they had
a shared press conference. They really hit it off from
there and they could be getting close. Sure enough, within
six months of that meeting, he ended up becoming the pick.
(04:50):
So that's ultimately where their rise kind of started. And
you know, just kind of being in Minnesota politics as
an operative, I just kind of had that knowledge. And
I think the first moment it kind of hit me
was Molly Hemingway, Like texts were like, ask for my
number and text me. She's like, man, I just you're
reporting so good and like she used that word, which
(05:10):
is amazing. Yeah, And I'm just like, Molly Hemingway just
appreciates my reporting, right, yeah, right, and honestly start to
I love that.
Speaker 1 (05:23):
You know. I talked to a lot of people on
this show who, especially in the last five years, have
left blue states to move to red states. It's been
a very common theme on this show. A lot of
people moved in the last five years, you know, the
great migration. But you are in Minnesota. It is a
blue state. You're you know, on the right. Why are
you sticking it out? And are you hopeful?
Speaker 2 (05:44):
I am a hopeful optimist to a fault, and I
will unfortunately probably be here as long as I possibly can.
I mean me and my wife. We just had a
family trip to Florida over to the Great Gulf of
America this last couple months.
Speaker 1 (06:00):
Live on the other side. But I went to the
a few times recently and I really loved it.
Speaker 2 (06:05):
No, it's fantastic, And like I was around the Santa's
guy in the primary, like, and I appreciate Trump and
all he's ever done, and greatly signed with him for
all these battles, and I'm happy to be a happy
warrior in that manner. But I really do appreciate like
a leadership like Governor DeSantis and all that. And it's
on our list. It's on the escape list. That is
one of the options.
Speaker 1 (06:26):
You're not escaping.
Speaker 2 (06:29):
The thankful good part about where I live, in particular
is Right County, Minnesota. At one point, my congressional district
was listed as one of the top ten most conservative
districts in the country when Michelle Bachman was our congresswoman.
Now it's Tom Emmer, who's the majority whip. But it's
a very conservative, very I mean just I know the
(06:50):
sheriff by first name, my wife and his wife have
had like a three year snap streak. At this point.
We know all the all hardcore red meat Republican. Our
catchphrase here is raised right with a W because just
everything's Republican out here. It's a twenty seventy thirty districts
all across the board. So we have great leadership here.
(07:11):
So we kind of live in a little bit of
a bubble where something might happen and had it in
Ramsey County, but it doesn't necessarily affect us as much
because we have that little bit of a bubble here,
So that is thankful. But ultimately, like I am Minnesota
and I do love Minnesota. I just hate where our
politics have gone. And that's the importunate part. We're pushing
back in that regard, and I guess one final piece
(07:33):
on that, I'm like the hope of it. You know,
we only had a couple of statewide races come within
one percentage point of winning last cycle, and I throughout
all this, you know, kind of adventure of Tim Walls,
kind of having this national attention is we do have
eyeballs in the state like we normally wouldn't have had,
and there's things gain exposed that normally wouldn't get exposed.
(07:53):
And I just have to think that that little bit
of push is enough to push over. You know, the
attorney in the state, Audior races last cycle and hopefully
we can dethrone Tim Walls in twenty twenty six. So
that's my hope and that's what we're fviting.
Speaker 1 (08:08):
Yeah, that would be amazing. You know, it never made
sense to me that Minnesota is a blue state, although
it is very long time blue state. Actually, for the
young people listening, the piece of trivia is Reagan one
forty nine states and the fiftieth state that he didn't
win was Minnesota. You know, I think people refer to
living in a bubble in a bad way, but I
(08:31):
am very pro bubble. I think that living in a
bubble is a very good thing. I especially when kids
are concerned. I love living in my Florida bubble. I
love living in somewhere where, yeah, where it's safe. And
you know, when we travel and they see homeless people,
it's like jarring to them.
Speaker 2 (08:48):
I love that.
Speaker 1 (08:49):
Why would I want them to get used to, you know,
the kind of things that I got used to growing
up in Brooklyn that I don't think are necessarily good
for kids. So I'm very pro bubble. I'm glad you
have have that bubble for yourself.
Speaker 2 (09:01):
In as my wife likes to say, she wants to
have a cornfield next to her and be surrounded by one,
but she wants to be within seven minutes of a target.
That's kind of her totally understanding. Don't ye problems out
in an area like this where it's conservative leadership, but
also just it's that exurb living and you know it's
eight You can bring your kids to the park and
(09:23):
not worry.
Speaker 1 (09:23):
That's all people want, right, It's not that much to
ask for. So would you have been a priest?
Speaker 2 (09:30):
Is that?
Speaker 1 (09:30):
Would that have been the plan? B if you know,
journalism didn't work out or something?
Speaker 2 (09:35):
So like I am imagining my great grandmother who is
in her is my great grandfather ninety eight when he
passed a ninety nine, I should say, actually, and she
would tell me how she would because this used to
be really long hair I was. I was a skateboarder
in middle school. Yeah, and she'd come over and be like,
I'm going to chop your hair off. I mean her
house was directly across the street from the Catholic church
(09:56):
like our Dartch Diocese, and my priest would be like,
you know, you make a really cool priest and you
don't have to be one of those boring ones. You
could be really cool like Father Schmidt's, which is the
famous one who does the year round Bible podcast. You
could be a cool priest like him. And I gave
it a little bit of a thought for a while,
but ultimately at the end of the day, like kids
(10:17):
and marriage were on my mind on my call. Yeah,
you know, we kind of don't expect to fall into,
you know, these different areas that we kind of expected.
My mom had always been on council and she even
served as mayor of our local town here for a while.
She always told me, you know, you're gonna be the
politician of the family. I'm like, no, that's not I
will never do what you are doing. I will never
(10:39):
do that. Right and now now here we are, But
you know, I always thought it was gonna be youth ministry.
At the end of the day. That was kind of
if I if I didn't end up doing this, it
would be probably youth ministry, or it would be some
type of music like working, doing some type of prison
worship band. Stuff that proud you would have been more
(11:01):
my route is what I would have went. But you know,
I'm thankful for this because now we have a platform
and we can do good things with it. You know,
we just got to be smart about it and how
we go about everything.
Speaker 1 (11:09):
Right, do you play an instrument?
Speaker 2 (11:11):
I am. I have a guitar player. I medle with drums,
but my wife does not like drums, so we do
not do drums right now, No, until we can go
get a private So there's.
Speaker 1 (11:21):
No such thing as a wife who likes drums.
Speaker 2 (11:24):
No even pulling out the guitar every once in a while.
It is kind of challenging, especially when you run out
of room and start to have kids. Yeah, and then
you're out of time because all this stuff is busy too.
But you know, try to keep up with it as
much as I can. But I try to get as
much private time as I can with my guitar or
just trying to get some miles in on the road.
I'm now the runner as well, so those are kind
of my two escapes there, but yeah, those that would
(11:47):
probably end up being my calling if that ended up going.
But prepood, there was a little bit there, but at
the end of the day, youth ministry was definitely there.
Speaker 1 (11:54):
What do you worry about?
Speaker 2 (11:55):
I definitely everything that surrounds my life that I worry
about is, without doubt, my family and my kids. How
do you give them the life that you know, while
I had a great childhood and a great life, especially
with my wife who didn't necessarily have the greatest childhood
growing up, our entire focus and likelihood is on giving
(12:16):
them what we didn't have and how we can always
do better and kind of you know, eliminate some of
those generational things that you don't want to carry over
to the next generational samplem that I've said, like her grandmother,
I mean she had kids when she was eighteen, her
mom had her when she was eighteen. Wow, you know,
how do you break some of those cycles? And while
(12:37):
that's not a bad thing, Like we care about life
and we want to and we're extremely prolfed and never
consider anything like that. We do everything we can to
push the battle pro life. But you also want to
try to do things as responsible as you can to
give your kids the best opportunities you possibly can. But
everything I think about, whether it's the policies of this state,
(12:58):
you know, or something else national, everything surrounds about like
how do we give our kids a better tomorrow than
we had growing up. That's definitely the one thing I
worry about, and in this state, that's why we continue
to fight. I mean, my family's all here. I mean
I have a lot of family in Alabama as well,
and they have a little bit more gifts down there
in terms of leadership. But you know, we try to
(13:20):
fight as much as we can here and think of
it because a lot of people can't escape. In many cases,
you're kind of forced here. May cases you bout your
house twenty five years ago and you're stuck in that mortgage,
like you can't leave. For so many people, escape isn't
an option while it's on our It's like we rent
right now and have that option to do that at
any point. But you know, we're trying to hold out
(13:40):
as much as we can because you don't want to
just move, you know, grandparents away from kids and all that.
Try to fight for everything. Right.
Speaker 1 (13:48):
We just did it, and it's it's it's very hard.
I mean, the grandparents do come visit a lot. They
kind of you know, it's pretty close. It's like two
and a half three hours away from New York, but
still used to be like my mom was in my
house every single day. She'd let herself in at six
in the morning and like take the kids to school,
and it just it's very tough to make that move.
So when people online are like, oh, just move, like
(14:10):
you live in a blue stage, just move, it's not
quite so easy. And I get that. But so you
talk about giving kids, you know, a better world, are
you optimistic.
Speaker 2 (14:20):
About that that I said, I am a gross optimist
to a fault. Granted, like there's some good data points
in there to point out that this is all very possible,
and you know, we're finding as much as we can
to do give those opportunities to them. You do worry
sometimes when you see kind of this, you know, inner
city growth coming out even to us in Wright County,
(14:42):
which is just a river, separates us from the craziness
and that's pretty much it. But you do have that
little bit of a bubble and that's kind of why
we're here. And maybe if we do end up moving.
Maybe it's just further west versus out of a differ
not to start things out. But you just try to
hold out as much hope as you can and you
fight as much as you can to kind of create
(15:02):
those better scenarios. But at the end of the day,
it all comes down to the kids. That that's the
only thing I truly worry about today. But at least
in my individual life, that's what my focus is. But
there's you know, there's a greater good you want to
fight for too. Granted I experience it firsthand in Minnesota
because we are a lab of craziness. We are we
(15:25):
are cold. California is a really good way to practice, Like, wow,
there's these horrible policies and all these people are just
fleeing California beautiful those Yeah, but you're choosing to stay
in the cold version of that, like isolated, you know,
but you know, you just do as much as you can.
You fight for the future, and yeah.
Speaker 1 (15:47):
Yeah, amazing. We're going to take a quick break and
be right back on the Carol Marcowitch Show. What advice
would you give your sixteen year old self if you
had to kind of do it again? What a sixteen
year old Dostin need to know.
Speaker 2 (16:03):
That's a really good question, And I thought about that
one a little bit. One I obviously just say keep
being yourself and just do all of that, but keep
me and your your health prioritize that more. Like I
think back, like especially going to like college, like I
was a very competitive track and cross country athlete, Like
(16:24):
I could break a five minute mile, I could break
a nineteen minute five k. I put a lot of
work and effort into that, and then I actually in
college trained for my first marathon. I ended up slashing
my foot on chicken wire. It was a horrible experience
just before I think maybe a month month and a
half before the actual race. I'd put like a thousand
miles at that point, and I pretty much stopped running
(16:45):
after that. Then kids come along, marriage comes along. You
lose track of time, and you'll lose your health a
little bit. And thirty four, you know, probably a decade later,
I'm really starting to get back into it again. Yeah,
and you realize like all of that sorry loss because
you just don't sleep as well anymore, you're not moving
around as efficiently, all that loss energy you could have
(17:09):
had in some of these scenarios and how it could
have just dramatically changed things. But yeah, when you come
into adversity, I guess I should say is to just
keep being consistent and push on because I mean, that
was a really rough time in life. When I reflect
on and I'm like, Dan, you know, I had that
mental fortitude at one point and then I just kind
(17:31):
of lost it at some point. Thankfully I'm there again,
I think, probably late. You know, it's not too late.
I mean I act like I'm old and I'm dying.
I'm still pretty da young. But no, but I hear you.
Speaker 1 (17:44):
When you take a long break from something, it's very
very hard to get back in.
Speaker 2 (17:48):
Yeah, but you know the greater message there be consistent
and you're going to run into adversity. But despite that adversity,
you just got to keep going. But that's the one
thing I in particular think about is like my running,
Like there was at one point and you know, I'd
put in close to sixty seventy mile weeks just running
(18:12):
one hundred and twenty pounds later, basically a lot of
lost energy and like, but once you have those kids
and they start running around, you realize truly, like how
much energy you want, And thankfully you know that's that's
taken a dramatically different turn in the last like twelve months,
and I'm kind of really back in fighting shape again,
and I could just say like the day to day
(18:33):
stuff of like balancing, like, hey, we're doing this reporting,
we're working with these candidates, like I've got my hand
in like five different things right now. But and then
maybe that's a little bit of the ADHD still working
that time. I really just figured that out the last
couple of years that I have that. But you just
kind of learned that if you had had that energy,
(18:54):
you'd be able to do so much more and you'd
even this much further. And that's one thing I definitely
look at.
Speaker 1 (19:00):
Yeah, I totally hear you. I think for anything, and
it doesn't even just have to be like, you know,
a sports thing or anything. I think anything you take
a break from for that long, it's tough to come back.
But thirty four is still very young and you have
a lot of time to figure it out. I like
that answer. So I've loved this conversation. I love your columns.
(19:21):
Leave us here with your best tip for my listeners
on how they can improve their lives.
Speaker 2 (19:28):
Two degree, I kind of I guess think I answered it.
But one thing that just generally comes back that and
I think I mentioned it briefly, is just be yourself,
especially in this world of all of these outside voices
just screaming in each of your ears like oh no,
you gotta do it this way, you gotta do it
this way. Whenever I look back and see like, oh,
(19:49):
when did I make kind of those big pushes and
jumps into the next thing, Because life's like this, it's
up and down. But those real moments where you really
just shoot up, it's just because you're your genuine self
and you're putting yourself out there. At the end of
the day, that's what people want. They want you to
be genuine, whether they like you or not. And I
(20:10):
guarantee I found the South the hard way because I
love to people, pease and be liked by everyone. As
your platform grows and as you've get more successful, you're
only going to grow more haters. You will only grow
more haters over time. Yeah, and just embrace it. Be yourself,
your genuine self, and life will find its way after that.
(20:33):
God will give you a path.
Speaker 1 (20:34):
That I love it. Be yourself be genuine. Here is
Dustin GREGGI check him out at townhall dot com. Thank
you so much for coming on, Dustin.
Speaker 2 (20:42):
Thank you, Kern
Hi, Welcome back to the Carol Marcowich Show on iHeartRadio.
My guest today is Dustin Gregi, columnist with Townhall dot Com.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
Hi.
Speaker 1 (00:13):
Dustin's so nice to have you on.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
Thanks for having me, Carol excited.
Speaker 1 (00:17):
So how did you get into writing and being a
columnist with town Hall.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
That is a long journey, but I suppose it kind
of all started, I know, kind of you know, our
upbrains and where we kind of come with that. For
me personally, youth group is where it kind of all started.
For very early on in my life. My grandmother was like,
you're going to be a priest. So I went to
youth group and that's kind of where a lot of
(00:44):
where did you grow up? Just oh, Minnesota, here in
Right County, so we border Minneapolis. I'm about a thirty
five to forty minute trip from Minneapolis, so a little
bit on the suburbs exerbs of Minneapolis. But that's kind
of where that all started. Very early in life. I
got involved in youth group and I was on track
to be a youth minister for the longest time. Where
(01:05):
that ultimately kind of broke off a little bit was
when I was in that we were very mission ship oriented.
So like we went to like Warres, Mexico, Chicago, Illinois,
probably a dozen different locations. That was kind of my
big thing I was really into and I feel like.
Speaker 1 (01:23):
I was going to make a I was going to
make a war torn area joke there, but Juarez, I
don't want to insult them, you know.
Speaker 2 (01:29):
Chicago, Yes, well, Minneapolis has definitely up the anny a
little bit recently here in the last four and a
half years. Yeah, even more recently. We're still with it.
But no, I mean I've seen some crazy stuff. And
even when those riots hit in Minneapolis, it was pretty
crazy compared to even Warres were like, I mean, some
of these places you go to, you're like, man, we're
(01:50):
just in a completely different world. But when those buildings
come down burning, I mean it's also a completely different world.
When you just go down you drive to see the
aftermath of how that all comes very similar in many regards.
I mean, granted or As wasn't constantly burning, but the
buildings were completely demolished and there's retaining walls built out
of rubber tires, and you're just so resourceful in how
(02:13):
you're actually living day to day in that type of situation,
but that was kind of my calling early on. But
one thing that kind of brought me out of that
we actually had this massive regime change in our youth program.
We had a new convert kind of come in and
they had a new program, and we kind of rebelled
at that point. We're like, no, we won't have any
(02:33):
of this. We don't want to change this program. We
want to be mission centric, we want to do this
versus this new regime was kind of more like, well,
we want to do like Catholic retreats and kind of
kind of keep us in our own bubble. And we're like, no,
we have to go out. We have to be outside
this bubble and go out and angelize. And then at
that point I kind of had this breakout of where
(02:53):
I found myself jumping church to church. At one point
I was going to three or four different services a week,
just trying to explore a little bit and figure out
what was out there. How we find that more mission
driven focus, and which ultimately led me to politics. We
ended up breaking off from this and we started a
youth group and it turns out that one of the
(03:14):
kids we brought on ended up being the son of
someone who's running to be our local state representative that cycle,
and literally just the rest is history. I'd end up
becoming that reps campaign manager for a campaign, ended up
working for the state party here in Minnesota for the Republicans,
worked on some congressional and statewide campaigns, had a lot
of success in those. Ultimately, then this guy Tim Walls
(03:35):
ran and for vice president.
Speaker 1 (03:37):
Heard him.
Speaker 2 (03:38):
Then from there kind of gets a little crazy. Your
three thousand followers on Twitter becomes ninety thousand really quickly. Yeah,
millions of people all of a sudden care about your
opinion and your analysts on everything. You know, That's kind
of how we got here today with town Hall.
Speaker 1 (03:55):
Amazing. So you made the jump to journalism around that
time when Tim Walls became a national figure. Yes, what
was the first story you wrote?
Speaker 2 (04:05):
The very first story I wrote, I I it was
out now, I do recall. It is about how Tim
Walls came to rise to be Kamala Harris's running mate,
and ultimately the issue that really drove them to meet
each other was abortion driven Minnesota was going to be
pushing the most insane abortion law in the country, and
(04:29):
that was known as the pro Act Kamala Harris as
vice president, actually came to visit an abortion clinic in Minnesota,
the first vice president in US history to ever visit
one ever, And there is Tim Walls and they had
a shared press conference. They really hit it off from
there and they could be getting close. Sure enough, within
six months of that meeting, he ended up becoming the pick.
(04:50):
So that's ultimately where their rise kind of started. And
you know, just kind of being in Minnesota politics as
an operative, I just kind of had that knowledge. And
I think the first moment it kind of hit me
was Molly Hemingway, Like texts were like, ask for my
number and text me. She's like, man, I just you're
reporting so good and like she used that word, which
(05:10):
is amazing. Yeah, And I'm just like, Molly Hemingway just
appreciates my reporting, right, yeah, right, and honestly start to
I love that.
Speaker 1 (05:23):
You know. I talked to a lot of people on
this show who, especially in the last five years, have
left blue states to move to red states. It's been
a very common theme on this show. A lot of
people moved in the last five years, you know, the
great migration. But you are in Minnesota. It is a
blue state. You're you know, on the right. Why are
you sticking it out? And are you hopeful?
Speaker 2 (05:44):
I am a hopeful optimist to a fault, and I
will unfortunately probably be here as long as I possibly can.
I mean me and my wife. We just had a
family trip to Florida over to the Great Gulf of
America this last couple months.
Speaker 1 (06:00):
Live on the other side. But I went to the
a few times recently and I really loved it.
Speaker 2 (06:05):
No, it's fantastic, And like I was around the Santa's
guy in the primary, like, and I appreciate Trump and
all he's ever done, and greatly signed with him for
all these battles, and I'm happy to be a happy
warrior in that manner. But I really do appreciate like
a leadership like Governor DeSantis and all that. And it's
on our list. It's on the escape list. That is
one of the options.
Speaker 1 (06:26):
You're not escaping.
Speaker 2 (06:29):
The thankful good part about where I live, in particular
is Right County, Minnesota. At one point, my congressional district
was listed as one of the top ten most conservative
districts in the country when Michelle Bachman was our congresswoman.
Now it's Tom Emmer, who's the majority whip. But it's
a very conservative, very I mean just I know the
(06:50):
sheriff by first name, my wife and his wife have
had like a three year snap streak. At this point.
We know all the all hardcore red meat Republican. Our
catchphrase here is raised right with a W because just
everything's Republican out here. It's a twenty seventy thirty districts
all across the board. So we have great leadership here.
(07:11):
So we kind of live in a little bit of
a bubble where something might happen and had it in
Ramsey County, but it doesn't necessarily affect us as much
because we have that little bit of a bubble here,
So that is thankful. But ultimately, like I am Minnesota
and I do love Minnesota. I just hate where our
politics have gone. And that's the importunate part. We're pushing
back in that regard, and I guess one final piece
(07:33):
on that, I'm like the hope of it. You know,
we only had a couple of statewide races come within
one percentage point of winning last cycle, and I throughout
all this, you know, kind of adventure of Tim Walls,
kind of having this national attention is we do have
eyeballs in the state like we normally wouldn't have had,
and there's things gain exposed that normally wouldn't get exposed.
(07:53):
And I just have to think that that little bit
of push is enough to push over. You know, the
attorney in the state, Audior races last cycle and hopefully
we can dethrone Tim Walls in twenty twenty six. So
that's my hope and that's what we're fviting.
Speaker 1 (08:08):
Yeah, that would be amazing. You know, it never made
sense to me that Minnesota is a blue state, although
it is very long time blue state. Actually, for the
young people listening, the piece of trivia is Reagan one
forty nine states and the fiftieth state that he didn't
win was Minnesota. You know, I think people refer to
living in a bubble in a bad way, but I
(08:31):
am very pro bubble. I think that living in a
bubble is a very good thing. I especially when kids
are concerned. I love living in my Florida bubble. I
love living in somewhere where, yeah, where it's safe. And
you know, when we travel and they see homeless people,
it's like jarring to them.
Speaker 2 (08:48):
I love that.
Speaker 1 (08:49):
Why would I want them to get used to, you know,
the kind of things that I got used to growing
up in Brooklyn that I don't think are necessarily good
for kids. So I'm very pro bubble. I'm glad you
have have that bubble for yourself.
Speaker 2 (09:01):
In as my wife likes to say, she wants to
have a cornfield next to her and be surrounded by one,
but she wants to be within seven minutes of a target.
That's kind of her totally understanding. Don't ye problems out
in an area like this where it's conservative leadership, but
also just it's that exurb living and you know it's
eight You can bring your kids to the park and
(09:23):
not worry.
Speaker 1 (09:23):
That's all people want, right, It's not that much to
ask for. So would you have been a priest?
Speaker 2 (09:30):
Is that?
Speaker 1 (09:30):
Would that have been the plan? B if you know,
journalism didn't work out or something?
Speaker 2 (09:35):
So like I am imagining my great grandmother who is
in her is my great grandfather ninety eight when he
passed a ninety nine, I should say, actually, and she
would tell me how she would because this used to
be really long hair I was. I was a skateboarder
in middle school. Yeah, and she'd come over and be like,
I'm going to chop your hair off. I mean her
house was directly across the street from the Catholic church
(09:56):
like our Dartch Diocese, and my priest would be like,
you know, you make a really cool priest and you
don't have to be one of those boring ones. You
could be really cool like Father Schmidt's, which is the
famous one who does the year round Bible podcast. You
could be a cool priest like him. And I gave
it a little bit of a thought for a while,
but ultimately at the end of the day, like kids
(10:17):
and marriage were on my mind on my call. Yeah,
you know, we kind of don't expect to fall into,
you know, these different areas that we kind of expected.
My mom had always been on council and she even
served as mayor of our local town here for a while.
She always told me, you know, you're gonna be the
politician of the family. I'm like, no, that's not I
will never do what you are doing. I will never
(10:39):
do that. Right and now now here we are, But
you know, I always thought it was gonna be youth ministry.
At the end of the day. That was kind of
if I if I didn't end up doing this, it
would be probably youth ministry, or it would be some
type of music like working, doing some type of prison
worship band. Stuff that proud you would have been more
(11:01):
my route is what I would have went. But you know,
I'm thankful for this because now we have a platform
and we can do good things with it. You know,
we just got to be smart about it and how
we go about everything.
Speaker 1 (11:09):
Right, do you play an instrument?
Speaker 2 (11:11):
I am. I have a guitar player. I medle with drums,
but my wife does not like drums, so we do
not do drums right now, No, until we can go
get a private So there's.
Speaker 1 (11:21):
No such thing as a wife who likes drums.
Speaker 2 (11:24):
No even pulling out the guitar every once in a while.
It is kind of challenging, especially when you run out
of room and start to have kids. Yeah, and then
you're out of time because all this stuff is busy too.
But you know, try to keep up with it as
much as I can. But I try to get as
much private time as I can with my guitar or
just trying to get some miles in on the road.
I'm now the runner as well, so those are kind
of my two escapes there, but yeah, those that would
(11:47):
probably end up being my calling if that ended up going.
But prepood, there was a little bit there, but at
the end of the day, youth ministry was definitely there.
Speaker 1 (11:54):
What do you worry about?
Speaker 2 (11:55):
I definitely everything that surrounds my life that I worry
about is, without doubt, my family and my kids. How
do you give them the life that you know, while
I had a great childhood and a great life, especially
with my wife who didn't necessarily have the greatest childhood
growing up, our entire focus and likelihood is on giving
(12:16):
them what we didn't have and how we can always
do better and kind of you know, eliminate some of
those generational things that you don't want to carry over
to the next generational samplem that I've said, like her grandmother,
I mean she had kids when she was eighteen, her
mom had her when she was eighteen. Wow, you know,
how do you break some of those cycles? And while
(12:37):
that's not a bad thing, Like we care about life
and we want to and we're extremely prolfed and never
consider anything like that. We do everything we can to
push the battle pro life. But you also want to
try to do things as responsible as you can to
give your kids the best opportunities you possibly can. But
everything I think about, whether it's the policies of this state,
(12:58):
you know, or something else national, everything surrounds about like
how do we give our kids a better tomorrow than
we had growing up. That's definitely the one thing I
worry about, and in this state, that's why we continue
to fight. I mean, my family's all here. I mean
I have a lot of family in Alabama as well,
and they have a little bit more gifts down there
in terms of leadership. But you know, we try to
(13:20):
fight as much as we can here and think of
it because a lot of people can't escape. In many cases,
you're kind of forced here. May cases you bout your
house twenty five years ago and you're stuck in that mortgage,
like you can't leave. For so many people, escape isn't
an option while it's on our It's like we rent
right now and have that option to do that at
any point. But you know, we're trying to hold out
(13:40):
as much as we can because you don't want to
just move, you know, grandparents away from kids and all that.
Try to fight for everything. Right.
Speaker 1 (13:48):
We just did it, and it's it's it's very hard.
I mean, the grandparents do come visit a lot. They
kind of you know, it's pretty close. It's like two
and a half three hours away from New York, but
still used to be like my mom was in my
house every single day. She'd let herself in at six
in the morning and like take the kids to school,
and it just it's very tough to make that move.
So when people online are like, oh, just move, like
(14:10):
you live in a blue stage, just move, it's not
quite so easy. And I get that. But so you
talk about giving kids, you know, a better world, are
you optimistic.
Speaker 2 (14:20):
About that that I said, I am a gross optimist
to a fault. Granted, like there's some good data points
in there to point out that this is all very possible,
and you know, we're finding as much as we can
to do give those opportunities to them. You do worry
sometimes when you see kind of this, you know, inner
city growth coming out even to us in Wright County,
(14:42):
which is just a river, separates us from the craziness
and that's pretty much it. But you do have that
little bit of a bubble and that's kind of why
we're here. And maybe if we do end up moving.
Maybe it's just further west versus out of a differ
not to start things out. But you just try to
hold out as much hope as you can and you
fight as much as you can to kind of create
(15:02):
those better scenarios. But at the end of the day,
it all comes down to the kids. That that's the
only thing I truly worry about today. But at least
in my individual life, that's what my focus is. But
there's you know, there's a greater good you want to
fight for too. Granted I experience it firsthand in Minnesota
because we are a lab of craziness. We are we
(15:25):
are cold. California is a really good way to practice, Like, wow,
there's these horrible policies and all these people are just
fleeing California beautiful those Yeah, but you're choosing to stay
in the cold version of that, like isolated, you know,
but you know, you just do as much as you can.
You fight for the future, and yeah.
Speaker 1 (15:47):
Yeah, amazing. We're going to take a quick break and
be right back on the Carol Marcowitch Show. What advice
would you give your sixteen year old self if you
had to kind of do it again? What a sixteen
year old Dostin need to know.
Speaker 2 (16:03):
That's a really good question, And I thought about that
one a little bit. One I obviously just say keep
being yourself and just do all of that, but keep
me and your your health prioritize that more. Like I
think back, like especially going to like college, like I
was a very competitive track and cross country athlete, Like
(16:24):
I could break a five minute mile, I could break
a nineteen minute five k. I put a lot of
work and effort into that, and then I actually in
college trained for my first marathon. I ended up slashing
my foot on chicken wire. It was a horrible experience
just before I think maybe a month month and a
half before the actual race. I'd put like a thousand
miles at that point, and I pretty much stopped running
(16:45):
after that. Then kids come along, marriage comes along. You
lose track of time, and you'll lose your health a
little bit. And thirty four, you know, probably a decade later,
I'm really starting to get back into it again. Yeah,
and you realize like all of that sorry loss because
you just don't sleep as well anymore, you're not moving
around as efficiently, all that loss energy you could have
(17:09):
had in some of these scenarios and how it could
have just dramatically changed things. But yeah, when you come
into adversity, I guess I should say is to just
keep being consistent and push on because I mean, that
was a really rough time in life. When I reflect
on and I'm like, Dan, you know, I had that
mental fortitude at one point and then I just kind
(17:31):
of lost it at some point. Thankfully I'm there again,
I think, probably late. You know, it's not too late.
I mean I act like I'm old and I'm dying.
I'm still pretty da young. But no, but I hear you.
Speaker 1 (17:44):
When you take a long break from something, it's very
very hard to get back in.
Speaker 2 (17:48):
Yeah, but you know the greater message there be consistent
and you're going to run into adversity. But despite that adversity,
you just got to keep going. But that's the one
thing I in particular think about is like my running,
Like there was at one point and you know, I'd
put in close to sixty seventy mile weeks just running
(18:12):
one hundred and twenty pounds later, basically a lot of
lost energy and like, but once you have those kids
and they start running around, you realize truly, like how
much energy you want, And thankfully you know that's that's
taken a dramatically different turn in the last like twelve months,
and I'm kind of really back in fighting shape again,
and I could just say like the day to day
(18:33):
stuff of like balancing, like, hey, we're doing this reporting,
we're working with these candidates, like I've got my hand
in like five different things right now. But and then
maybe that's a little bit of the ADHD still working
that time. I really just figured that out the last
couple of years that I have that. But you just
kind of learned that if you had had that energy,
(18:54):
you'd be able to do so much more and you'd
even this much further. And that's one thing I definitely
look at.
Speaker 1 (19:00):
Yeah, I totally hear you. I think for anything, and
it doesn't even just have to be like, you know,
a sports thing or anything. I think anything you take
a break from for that long, it's tough to come back.
But thirty four is still very young and you have
a lot of time to figure it out. I like
that answer. So I've loved this conversation. I love your columns.
(19:21):
Leave us here with your best tip for my listeners
on how they can improve their lives.
Speaker 2 (19:28):
Two degree, I kind of I guess think I answered it.
But one thing that just generally comes back that and
I think I mentioned it briefly, is just be yourself,
especially in this world of all of these outside voices
just screaming in each of your ears like oh no,
you gotta do it this way, you gotta do it
this way. Whenever I look back and see like, oh,
(19:49):
when did I make kind of those big pushes and
jumps into the next thing, Because life's like this, it's
up and down. But those real moments where you really
just shoot up, it's just because you're your genuine self
and you're putting yourself out there. At the end of
the day, that's what people want. They want you to
be genuine, whether they like you or not. And I
(20:10):
guarantee I found the South the hard way because I
love to people, pease and be liked by everyone. As
your platform grows and as you've get more successful, you're
only going to grow more haters. You will only grow
more haters over time. Yeah, and just embrace it. Be yourself,
your genuine self, and life will find its way after that.
(20:33):
God will give you a path.
Speaker 1 (20:34):
That I love it. Be yourself be genuine. Here is
Dustin GREGGI check him out at townhall dot com. Thank
you so much for coming on, Dustin.
Speaker 2 (20:42):
Thank you, Kern
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