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Speaker 1: You're listening to the Buck Sexton Show podcast, make sure

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Speaker 1: you subscribe to the podcast on the iHeartRadio app or

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Speaker 1: wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, everybody, Welcome to the

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Speaker 1: Buck Brief. Tim Murtta joins us on this episode. He

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Speaker 1: was a the communications director for the Trump twenty twenty campaigns.

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Speaker 1: Got a new book out we're going to discuss as

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Speaker 1: well as Trump twenty twenty four prospects. The book is

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Speaker 1: Swing Hard in Case You Hit It, My escape from

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Speaker 1: addiction and shot at redemption on the Trump cam paign.

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Speaker 1: Let's start with the title. Actually, I'm writing a book

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Speaker 1: myself right now and titles have put me into title Hell,

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Speaker 1: Swing Heart in Case You Hit It? What do you mean?

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Speaker 1: How'd you come up with this? What's the book about?

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Speaker 2: Well, the book is about two things. Really, It's about politics,

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Speaker 2: and there's a whole lot of stories on the Trump

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Speaker 2: twenty from the Trump twenty twenty campaign that haven't been

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Speaker 2: published or written about before. But it was also to

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Speaker 2: tell the story of my decades long struggle to beat alcohol,

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Speaker 2: which I did in twenty fifteen May fifteen, and I

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Speaker 2: thought when I was in rehab there was plenty of

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Speaker 2: times I went to Reap five times, by the way,

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Speaker 2: and I spent a lot of time in the bookstore,

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Speaker 2: and I just devoured the books that were written by

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Speaker 2: people who were telling their own stories about how they

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Speaker 2: made it through their battles with addiction. You know. They

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Speaker 2: were like medical textbooks and things that talk about what

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Speaker 2: it does to your body and all that, but I

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Speaker 2: liked the people's personal stories better and I thought they

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Speaker 2: really helped me. And I thought, if I ever write

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Speaker 2: a book about my experiences, that's what I want to

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Speaker 2: tell what I went through because those kind of books

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Speaker 2: helped me. And I thought, if somebody picked up this

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Speaker 2: book and this is it swing Hard in Case You

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Speaker 2: Hit It. If somebody picked up this book and flipped

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Speaker 2: through it for ten minutes and in those ten minutes

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Speaker 2: didn't take a drink, then it was worth writing. And

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Speaker 2: to be honest with you, I had the title in

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Speaker 2: my mind for a long time because that phrase Swinghart

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Speaker 2: in case you hit it is something that my father

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Speaker 2: used to say to me when I would leave the

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Speaker 2: house to go to baseball practice every day. And I

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Speaker 2: came from a baseball family. My grandfather, Auther was manager

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Speaker 2: of the Pittsburgh Pirates for fifteen years and won the

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Speaker 2: World Series twice, and my dad played tripa a baseball

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Speaker 2: and so when we went out to when I was

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Speaker 2: going to leave it no house, he'd say, swing hard

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Speaker 2: in case you hit it. And he's trying to be funny,

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Speaker 2: you know, but if you think about it, that's actually

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Speaker 2: really a pretty good philosophy for life, because if you're

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Speaker 2: engaged in any kind of activity and you're making an

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Speaker 2: effort to do something, you might as well put a

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Speaker 2: lot of effort into it, because if you succeed, your

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Speaker 2: success will be greater if you really tried, as opposed

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Speaker 2: to just sort of going through the motion. So swing

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Speaker 2: hard in case you hit it. There you have it.

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Speaker 1: When you're going to rehab the first time the second time,

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Speaker 1: I think people can even if they've never struggled with

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Speaker 1: addiction themselves, I'll understand what the mentality would be like

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Speaker 1: at some level, right like I'm going to get try

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Speaker 1: to get this problem fixed and addressed. He should even

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Speaker 1: five times? How did you Why did it work? The

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Speaker 1: fifth time? Is really what I wanted? Like what finally changed,

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Speaker 1: what finally happened? How did you get clean?

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Speaker 2: Or so well? You know, each time I went and

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Speaker 2: I went to the same place twice and then another

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Speaker 2: a few other places one time each, and they were

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Speaker 2: all good, and I learned things. You learn good habits.

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Speaker 2: You learn different ways to organize your thinking, You learn

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Speaker 2: different motivations, you learn little tricks, all kinds of stuff.

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Speaker 2: You learn about the biology of addiction and all that stuff,

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Speaker 2: and so every bit of it helped. But there wasn't

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Speaker 2: one time at rehab for me that just clicked. You know,

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Speaker 2: everybody's different. Some people get it the first time. Some

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Speaker 2: people never need rehabs. Some people say, you know what,

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Speaker 2: I better quit drinking, and they just do right. But

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Speaker 2: everybody comes to it their own way, and the way

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Speaker 2: that I don't recommend the way that I went about

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Speaker 2: it as a matter of fact, because you know, while

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Speaker 2: rehab helped, that's not what got me to stay sober.

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Speaker 2: Every time I went to rehab, I relapsed not terribly

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Speaker 2: long afterwards. What really got me was I was on

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Speaker 2: probation for my second of two duys. I had served

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Speaker 2: ten days in jail for this second duy, but I

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Speaker 2: still had eighty days of jail time suspended hanging over

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Speaker 2: my head, and I was on probation for three years

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Speaker 2: as long as I kept my nose clean. I never

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Speaker 2: had to worry about those eighty days well being a

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Speaker 2: raging alcoholic. While I was on probation. On May sixteenth,

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Speaker 2: twenty fifteen, I went out and got drunk, and has

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Speaker 2: happened frequently with me, or frequently enough. Anyway, I'd got

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Speaker 2: popped for a drunken publicer or a public intoxication, something

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Speaker 2: of that nature, a lesser alcohol efense, but still an

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Speaker 2: alcohol efense. And if I had been convicted of that,

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Speaker 2: it would have triggered that I would have to serve

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Speaker 2: the eighty days of suspended time that I were still

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Speaker 2: hanging over my head. And so I was faced with

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Speaker 2: going to jail basically for three months. And if that

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Speaker 2: had happened, I would have I was working on Capitol

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Speaker 2: Hill at the time for a congressman named Lou Barletta,

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Speaker 2: who was one of the great heroes of my story.

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Speaker 2: Lu should have fired me many times and never did,

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Speaker 2: and saw me through rehab a couple times and all

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Speaker 2: that stuff. He never gave up on me, and I

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Speaker 2: love Lou Barletta. I would have lost that job if

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Speaker 2: I'd gone to three to three months, but I would

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Speaker 2: have lost my career, my brand new wife was fed

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Speaker 2: up with me at that point. Already my family was

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Speaker 2: about sick of me. It would have been the loss

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Speaker 2: of everything, everything personal and professional. And so I got

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Speaker 2: some good advice and I went to court. I had

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Speaker 2: before I went to court, I had gotten the alcohol

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Speaker 2: thing put back on my car, the ignition interlock device.

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Speaker 2: I had done about one hundred hours of community service

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Speaker 2: at an animal shelter. I had gone to many, many,

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Speaker 2: many dozens of AA meetings, and I had been to

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Speaker 2: an outpatient rehab facility again yet another but that would

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Speaker 2: make it the sixth sixth rehab actually one out payment

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Speaker 2: and five inpatient, and the judge said in the prosecutor agreed, listen,

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Speaker 2: keep your nose clean. We will not prosecute you on

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Speaker 2: this more minor charge. Keep your nose clean and don't

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Speaker 2: get in trouble for the rest of your probation, and

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Speaker 2: we don't want to ever see you again. And I

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Speaker 2: never looked back. I never took another drink. And that's

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Speaker 2: my sober date, May sixteenth, twenty fifteen. So for me,

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Speaker 2: I needed to be threatened with the loss of everything

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Speaker 2: and going to jail for an extended period of time,

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Speaker 2: rehab or anything else, nothing else, nothing else worked. It

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Speaker 2: was it was straight up fear. That's what did it

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Speaker 2: for me.

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Speaker 1: For anyone who's listening or watching who themselves or or

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Speaker 1: a loved one is going through alcohol addiction right now,

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Speaker 1: which is what what can you offer us perspective to

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Speaker 1: let them know that they can get through to the

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Speaker 1: other side as you have.

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Speaker 2: Well, there's a there. I'm not evangelical really necessarily about AA.

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Speaker 2: There are It does so many great things, and I

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Speaker 2: don't want to push it on anybody else, But we

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Speaker 2: learn so much in AA about about that. And the

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Speaker 2: fact is that there is a way out. There is

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Speaker 2: always a way out. Not every path is the same.

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Speaker 2: And this book, my book that I wrote Swinghart in

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Speaker 2: case you hit it, it is not a how to guide.

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Speaker 2: It's just my version of what got me through it right.

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Speaker 2: And I would say that the best thing I can

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Speaker 2: tell you is that in the in what's called the

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Speaker 2: Big Book, in the Alcohol Anonymous Book, there's a list

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Speaker 2: of promises if you get sober, these things will happen

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Speaker 2: to you in life. And they're just different, different benchmarks

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Speaker 2: really of how your life will improve. And the fact

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Speaker 2: is all those things are true. Your job will get better.

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Speaker 2: Your finances will get better, your relationships will get better,

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Speaker 2: your attitude will get better, your health will get better,

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Speaker 2: both but you know, physical and mental. The fact is

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Speaker 2: there is a way out. You can stop and your

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Speaker 2: life will get better no matter how bad it seems.

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Speaker 2: There's there's always a way out, and every path is different,

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Speaker 2: no one takes the same way out. And so this

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Speaker 2: is this is the half of the It's basically half

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Speaker 2: of the book is my alcoholic journey to sobriety, and

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Speaker 2: the other half is basically my promises what came true

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Speaker 2: for me. It's my life in politics, most of it

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Speaker 2: on the twenty twenty presidential campaign working for President Trump.

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Speaker 2: If I had not gotten sober, that part would not

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Speaker 2: have been possible.

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Speaker 1: And I want to talk to you about the redemption

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Speaker 1: component of the story here, or in the case of

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Speaker 1: your title, escape from Adiction, Addiction and shot at redemption

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Speaker 1: of the Trump campaign. We'll get to that in just

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Speaker 1: a second. But you know, I am a big Second

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Speaker 1: Amendment believer everyone, as you know, I own a lot

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Speaker 1: of firearms, I train with them, I deployed with firearms

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Speaker 1: overseas for my country. I appreciate a sport of shooting

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Speaker 1: the fun of it. I go on the weekends do

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Speaker 1: some tactical training. So all around, I'm a Second Amendment guy.

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Speaker 1: And this is why I think you need to check

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Speaker 1: out Bear Creek Arsenal. I'll be honest with you, a

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Speaker 1: lot of people haven't heard of Bear Creek Arsenal, and

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Speaker 1: you really need to, because if you're talking about high

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Speaker 1: end firearms with precision craftsmanship that comes at an unbelievably

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Speaker 1: competitive price, nothing's going to be Bear Creek Arsenal. I've

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Speaker 1: got two of their guns here at home. They're phenomenal.

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Speaker 1: They work so well out of the range for me,

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Speaker 1: I've already made my modifications to my ar to sort

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Speaker 1: of customize it a bit for me. You will not

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Speaker 1: what the prices are. Once you see there's a lot

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Speaker 1: of really expensive ars out there. I've got one of

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Speaker 1: in case you hit it. My Escape from Addiction and

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Speaker 1: Shot at Redemption of the Trump Campaign. Part two of

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Speaker 1: this interview, which focuses on the Trump campaign. Tim, you

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Speaker 1: had a shot at redemption? How did it go, what

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Speaker 1: did you learn? And we'll talk about where we think

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Speaker 1: it's going for twenty twenty four.

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Speaker 2: Well, I got to tell you, the whole thing was

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Speaker 2: really eye opening, the entire I started on the Trump campaign,

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Speaker 2: the twenty twenty campaign in February of twenty nineteen, so

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Speaker 2: and I lasted beyond. I don't know if you know this.

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Speaker 2: It was covered pretty extensively in the news. The campaign

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Speaker 2: really did end on election Day twenty twenty. It went beyond.

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Speaker 2: So I was actually I actually worked on the campaign

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Speaker 2: for twenty four months, two full years, and I really

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Speaker 2: wasn't ready to. I mean, I knew what the national

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Speaker 2: media was all about, but I had never worked on

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Speaker 2: a presidential campaign before. And I guess their brazen partisanship

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Speaker 2: on the part of many of them was really what

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Speaker 2: caught me by surprise. I mean, I knew that they

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Speaker 2: were biased, and I knew that they wrote things through

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Speaker 2: the prism. They've view issues from the left, from the

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Speaker 2: left's perspective, and they always adopt the left's framing on

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Speaker 2: different things. I get that, but there were so many

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Speaker 2: of them that just where the Jersey for the Democratic Party.

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Speaker 2: They're not. They're not just liberals or leftists. They're active

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Speaker 2: partisan Democrats. And I guess I just wasn't ready for,

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Speaker 2: you know, how viciously opposed and how angry President Trump

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Speaker 2: made them, and so, you know, every day it was

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Speaker 2: just an uphill slog fighting against you know, the great

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Speaker 2: tar of negative press. I mean, I bettionally our negative

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Speaker 2: press total was I mentioned, ninety percent of the stories

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Speaker 2: were negative, you know, and I think I know that

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Speaker 2: a lot of reporters when they heard I was writing

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Speaker 2: a book about something that's half about my experiences on

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Speaker 2: the Trump campaign, you know, they thought, oh, here's here

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Speaker 2: comes another one here, you know, because in the Trump era,

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Speaker 2: all these books that a lot of the books that

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Speaker 2: have been written are tell alls and they try to

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Speaker 2: get clicks and sell copies by bashing Donald Trump, and

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Speaker 2: that's not what this is. Working for President Trump on

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Speaker 2: the twenty twenty campaign as this communications director is the

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Speaker 2: highest honor of my professional career. And I'm very grateful

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Speaker 2: for President Trump for giving me a chance. He knew

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Speaker 2: about my record of alcoholism, and he likes a good

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Speaker 2: redemption story, likes a good comeback story, and so I

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Speaker 2: mean into that, I guess the first eye opening thing

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Speaker 2: was really just how the media wanted to be active

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Speaker 2: participants and take sides. And that's what we did and

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Speaker 2: that's what we're I mean, I think I say this

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Speaker 2: to my friends jokingly all the time, and I don't

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Speaker 2: know how Republicans ever get elected to anything anywhere, but

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Speaker 2: the media like it is, you know, I mean the

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Speaker 2: way you guys are. I mean, I know a lot

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Speaker 2: of people turn to folks like you just for some

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Speaker 2: honesty and some truth from time to time because they're

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Speaker 2: sure not getting it from the mainstream.

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Speaker 1: I appreciate that. I mean, in terms of platforms, as

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Speaker 1: you well know, we're out numbered ten to one, justies

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Speaker 1: bodies in left wing newsrooms and on TV channels and

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Speaker 1: all the rest of it to what we have. It's

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Speaker 1: probably more than ten to one, really, and it is remarkable.

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Speaker 1: I think that we just should assume that there is

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Speaker 1: a several point advantage baked into every national election because

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Speaker 1: of the slant of the media right. If there was

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Speaker 1: any attempt at ones coverage, Republicans would have a much

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Speaker 1: easier time. But in terms of what I would call

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Speaker 1: the election machinery, you know, the apparatus of the election,

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Speaker 1: there were a lot of let's just say, and we

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Speaker 1: don't want to get kicked off of YouTube for the

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Speaker 1: like fourth time here, so let's just say that there

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Speaker 1: were concerns over how some things went in twenty twenty.

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Speaker 1: Let's again, because we don't want to get kicked off

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Speaker 1: again from the platform early. Let's assume let's assume that

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Speaker 1: we're just looking at twenty twenty four. With what you

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Speaker 1: learn from being on that twenty twenty campaign, what has

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Speaker 1: to happen this time for Trump to end up in

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Speaker 1: the Oval office in January of twenty five.

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Speaker 2: Okay, well, without you know, delving into any of those

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Speaker 2: things that are in the category of stuff that YouTube

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Speaker 2: doesn't like to have. Yes, platform, I read, Yeah, I

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Speaker 2: understand what you're saying I think that in I think

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Speaker 2: there needs to be and I understand the way the

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Speaker 2: Trump the Republican base and the Trump base, I guess

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Speaker 2: you would call it with the way our voters look

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Speaker 2: at the world and they don't trust the electoral system.

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Speaker 2: And I get that and a lot of them in

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Speaker 2: states where things like universal mail in voting is permitted,

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Speaker 2: like let's say Pennsylvania, the law is now that you

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Speaker 2: can vote by mail for you know, no excuse mail

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Speaker 2: in voting, a lot of our voters are still very

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Speaker 2: skeptical of it and they won't participate in things like

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Speaker 2: that early voting. They also a lot of people say, oh,

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Speaker 2: I like to vote on election day, and that's fine.

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Speaker 2: But I think we're in places where early voting is permitted,

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Speaker 2: where universal mail is permitted, where ballot harvesting it's another

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Speaker 2: thing that our people really hate, and I agree it

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Speaker 2: is a ripe area for fraud. Ballot harvesting is there's

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Speaker 2: no controls, no controls over who's gathering these ballots and

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Speaker 2: what they're doing with them. I get it. Where it's legal,

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Speaker 2: our people have to be able to take advantage of

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Speaker 2: what's opportunity, what the opportunities are under the law because

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Speaker 2: you know, the Democrats are doing it. They are going

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Speaker 2: to do it, and we can't just forfeit part of

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Speaker 2: the battlefield because we are ethically opposed to some form

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Speaker 2: of voting that is legal in that particular state. You've

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Speaker 2: got to do it if it's legal, because the other

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Speaker 2: side is going to and I think that's you know,

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Speaker 2: I know we're going to have our lawyers and they're

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Speaker 2: going to be looking out and fighting back on every time.

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Speaker 2: The Democrats are always in court trying to loosen controls

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Speaker 2: and loosen safety measures, loosen security of elections. That's what

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Speaker 2: this guy, Mark Elias, that's what he does for a living.

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Speaker 2: He's gotten very rich undercutting election security. Our lawyers have

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Speaker 2: to be in court fighting that every time. And so

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Speaker 2: you know, the Democrats they win the war, the messaging war,

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Speaker 2: because Mark Elias is in court trying to actually loosen

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Speaker 2: election security. But somehow he's got this mantle of the

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Speaker 2: great election defender because the media are on his side.

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Speaker 2: But what he's trying to do is make it easier

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Speaker 2: for people to not obey the rules. Right, Yeah, it's

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Speaker 2: I'm just saying we've got to follow the law and

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Speaker 2: where things are permissible under the law. You got to

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Speaker 2: do them. I understand your ethical opposition to it, but

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Speaker 2: you got to do it because they're gone.

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Speaker 1: Tim Mertau Swinghart. In case you hited, Tim, give me

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Speaker 1: one second. We'll have a closing thought for you here.

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Speaker 1: But who is there for the heroes or the families

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Speaker 1: that are left behind when a service member? For our

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Speaker 1: heroes rather or their families, when a service member's left behind,

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Speaker 1: or a first responder dies or severely injured in the

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Speaker 1: line of duty? Who helps our country's homeless veterans? And

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Speaker 1: who helps our nation to never forget nine to eleven?

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Speaker 1: Let me tell you the Tunnel the Towers Foundation. The

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Speaker 1: Foundation's gold Star, Fallen First Sponder, and Smart Home and

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Speaker 1: Homeless Veteran programs comprise their in the Line of Duty programs,

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Speaker 1: all dedicated to honoring our nation's heroes and their families.

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Speaker 1: The Foundations Never Forget programs engage people in nine eleven

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Speaker 1: remembrance across America in so many ways. Over eighty runs

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Speaker 1: walks and climbs a year, dozens of golf outings, and

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Speaker 1: the Tunnel The Towers nine to eleven Institute is educating

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Speaker 1: kids in K through twelfth grade. To help our nations,

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Speaker 1: vow to never forget. Ninety five cents of every dollar

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Speaker 1: you donate ghosts to Tunnel the Towers programs. Never forget

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Speaker 1: the sacrifices of America's greatest heroes. Donate eleven dollars a

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Speaker 1: month at T two T dot org. That's T the

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Speaker 1: number two T dot org. Tim, just this one for you.

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Speaker 1: I promise we'll probably only revisit this if you're right.

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Speaker 1: So don't worry because you know people will forget. But

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Speaker 1: if you're right, we'll have you back. Say, hey, you're right.

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Speaker 1: Does Trump win? Do we win the Senate? Do we

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Speaker 1: win the House? What is? What are your predictions on

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Speaker 1: the Big Three?

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Speaker 2: Listen, I I think if the eleven men answer, though,

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Speaker 2: I'm going this is kind of be kind of a copout.

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Speaker 2: If the election were today, Trump wins and I think

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Speaker 2: we increase the majority in the House, and I think

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Speaker 2: we take control of the Senate. There, we have no

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Speaker 2: idea what's going to happen between now an election day.

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Speaker 2: Let's say the way my book opens, it was December

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Speaker 2: of twenty nineteen when Trump was impeached the first time, right,

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Speaker 2: and we thought, oh my gosh, This is going to

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Speaker 2: be the defining issue of the campaign, This impeachment. Well,

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Speaker 2: we didn't know anything about COVID, We didn't know there

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Speaker 2: was going to be another several two different Supreme Court vacancies.

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Speaker 2: We didn't know all kinds of things. We didn't know

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Speaker 2: any of those things were going to happen. We didn't

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Speaker 2: know the whole country, the whole world was going to

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Speaker 2: be shut down by a pandemic. None of those things

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Speaker 2: were knowable, And so we just don't know what's going

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Speaker 2: to happen. If things are fair, things are fair, and

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Speaker 2: and the addition amounts to a side by side comparison

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Speaker 2: of the Trump presidency and the Biden presidency, then President

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Speaker 2: Trump wins again and President Trump will be the president.

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Speaker 2: I'm still betting that it's a coin flip race. There's

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Speaker 2: going to be three four states separated by maybe ten thousand,

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Speaker 2: twenty thousand votes in each of those states, just like

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Speaker 2: twenty sixteen, just like twenty twenty. I think it's going

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Speaker 2: to be a razor thin coin flip election. And I

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Speaker 2: do think, I do think President Trump's going to come

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Speaker 2: out on top of it. Is going to be really close,

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Speaker 2: and it's going to be really painful getting there. I

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Speaker 2: can tell you that much.

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Speaker 1: Timurta swing heart in case you hit it. Good luck

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Speaker 1: to you, Tim, Thanks for joining US. I appreciate you.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, thanks for the opportunity. Thanks Buck,