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July 16, 2023 - Huckabee Today
45:21
The 2024 Republican Debate is Going to Be AWFUL! Here’s Why + DR. PHIL! | FULL EPISODE | Huckabee
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Well, folks, the first Republican debate is going to happen in a few weeks and broadcast on Fox.
Now, I got to tell you, I am not optimistic that it's going to be a good and helpful forum for GOP voters to pick their presidential candidate for 2024. Having been through that process twice in 2008 and 2016, I personally think that the so-called presidential debates as they're conducted is absolutely horrible.
I mean, it's not about the candidates.
It's not about the Republican voters or the issues that people care about most.
No, it's a TV show staged to give the network ample time for its anchors to focus on themselves at the expense of the candidates who are reduced to participating in what amounts to a game show pretending to be a presidential debate.
I actually went to Chicago at a meeting of the Republican National Committee earlier this year, and I appeared before the Committee on Debates, and I urged them to change the way these spectacles are staged.
Because I fear that for the most part, there was polite listening, but there was very little taking to heart the suggestions to make this whole process a legitimate means for Republican voters to choose their nominee.
In the first place, the debates and the entire primary should belong to the party, not to a TV network.
I'm telling you, every network, I don't care who it is, they care about ratings because that drives revenue.
So it's generally all about the dollars.
Now, the network will stage the debate for the benefit of their ratings, not to genuinely inform the voters.
The networks determine which candidates make the stage and where they stand.
TV executives choose the people who are asking the questions.
And TV people choose the questions.
Most of the time, those questions aren't what you care about.
It's what the TV people think will be most controversial.
Or maybe will create a mud fight among the candidates.
And when a TV anchor takes two minutes to ask a question, and then they say to the person who actually has the guts to run, okay, you have 30 seconds to answer, then you should know it's about making the TV person look smart, not about making the candidate or where he or she stands on an issue clear for the voter and the viewer.
The allocation of time during the debate for the various candidates is often determined by who will attack the other candidates and create some kind of sideshow.
Some candidates will end up with 20 minutes of airtime, while one who doesn't attack his fellow candidates will be lucky to end up with 90 seconds of total time.
I mean, nobody can advance to the nomination or the presidency if the candidate gets minimal media access and is ignored in favor of more bombastic candidates.
My suggestion is they're simple.
Here they are.
Don't have a so-called moderator.
Don't have one.
Let the candidates draw for positions and give each one of them who qualify for the debate exactly the same amount of time.
A candidate can use his or her time any way they desire, but when their clock has no more time, their microphone is cut off and they're done.
A candidate who attacks another loses 30 seconds of his or her time, and then that 30 seconds is added to the person who was attacked so they can respond.
Candidates would pick their own topics to discuss.
After all, shouldn't voters find out what the candidates care about instead of finding out what the prima donnas of TV care about?
I mean, to give every candidate a fair shot, stage placement and order of speaking would be determined by drawing for positions.
Now, these are just some of the suggestions that I truly feel would make the process more fair, more informative, and frankly, more helpful to the actual voters.
Because the debates are about the people who are running and the plans they have if elected president.
Instead, we get egocentric TV personalities asking childish questions and insulting candidates with topics that are designed to call attention to meaningless minutiae and sometimes resorting to asking for a show of hands as if the TV anchor is some third grade teacher.
Here's what I think.
Voters should demand a change in the process.
And if a TV personality wants to make a presidential debate about himself or herself, then he or she can simply run for office themselves.
it would certainly change the way they feel about what it takes to actually run for office.
We've got a lot in store for you tonight.
Pete Bilbrey, why don't you tell these good people what they can expect?
Well, you got it, Governor.
Coming up next, Dr. Phil talks about his early days before fame.
Then later, Ron Hart shares his take on the 2024 presidential race.
Don't go away.
You're watching Huckabee.
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AdGov Mike Huckabee.
Well, I had a chance to sit down with Dr. Phil recently, and we dove into his meager upbringings in Northern Texas on the football field.
Take a look.
Because a lot of people see Dr. Phil on television, they've listened to your advice, they've taken your advice.
They may not know your own journey.
You know, you didn't just one day show up on television and start giving advice.
There's been a long career of education and clinical practice.
And then one day you met Oprah Winfrey and the rest is, as they say, history.
So if we were to ask this simple question, who is Dr. Phil and where did he come from?
What would be the Wikipedia version of that?
Wow.
Depends on who's writing Wikipedia that day.
Yeah, there's some stuff in there not always right.
You know, I never had any intention of being on television, I can tell you that.
And I grew up in Texas and Oklahoma.
And I've always been really fascinated.
And I may have started my first psychological journey when I was 12 years old.
Because...
It was at that point that I was playing football on a little junior high team, they call it middle school now, and we had a game rain out on a Saturday, and so on Monday, the coach from the Salvation Army called our coach, and we were really good, and all you had to do was ask us to find out.
True Texas football, right?
Absolutely.
And so they said, listen, we know you had a game right now.
Could we come over and scrimmage you?
And the coach said, yeah, sure.
So they came over and piled out of a couple of pickup trucks, and we're over there snickering because...
The kid that lined up across from me had on a button-up shirt, and he had the four, his number four on it, in masking tape.
And we're going, how dumb is he?
Why not put it on there with magic marker?
We're so dumb, we don't realize he didn't put it on magic marker because that's his shirt.
That's not a shirt, that is his shirt that he has to wear to school tomorrow.
And he had blue jeans rolled up to the knee so they looked like football pants.
And we had black uniforms with silver stripes down the side.
Shiny helmets, none of theirs matched.
They snapped that football.
That kid hit me so hard it still hurts when it rains.
And they ran up and down that field.
It looked like a track meet.
We're watching them go by and I got in the car afterwards and looked at my dad and I said, what happened?
And he said, well, son, you just got handed to you on a platter.
And I said, well, I was looking for a little more index answer.
And he said, they were hungry.
They wanted it more.
Those kids were just so glad to have a grass to play on.
And in that moment, something happened in my life that changed me forever.
I got fascinated with why people do what they do and don't do what they don't do.
And from that day forward, I have been focused on analyzing why people do the things they do and don't do the things they don't do.
And think about it.
If you understand that, you have a huge advantage in life.
If you can understand what motivates people, why some of these angry people today are so angry that they're attacking every institution That has made this country so great.
And people say, you know, Dr. Taylor, you say you love this country.
Do you not recognize that there's racism and poverty and homelessness and all of these problems?
Yes, I do.
I do recognize that.
I love this country enough that I don't have to be defensive about its shortcomings.
It is a work in progress, and to whom much is given, much is expected.
I hold myself to a high standard of working on making this country a better place.
And I do everything that I can think of to make that better, but I want, I don't believe you have to tear this country down from the inside and do our enemies' work In order to make America better.
I think we can do it if we all work together.
And, you know, we can do it out of love, not anger and fear.
And that's what's important to me.
And I've been, since I was 12 years old, I've wanted to know what made champions champions.
I want to know what made criminals criminals.
I want to know what made failures failures.
I've been focused on that my entire life.
And that's why I think I have great hope for this country.
I have great hope for all of us.
And if we work together, we can change this.
And that's been my journey, is figuring out how to make things better in this world.
You said something I thought was very revealing when you said those other kids on that football team, they were hungry.
And it was their motivation, that sense that they knew that they didn't have the nice uniforms, they hadn't been trained as well, but they came to the line of scrimmage hungrier than the team that thought they had it in the bag.
Oh my, did they ever.
And how many, but how many kids grow up Without that hunger, without thinking that there's something that even matters if they're hungry, they don't realize that if they're willing to work hard, treat people right, get a decent education, that they can overcome their circumstances.
And we're making a big mistake in America right now.
You don't reward bad behavior.
If you said...
If you ask me, what's the most fundamental psychological truth that you could say, psych 101, what do you boil it down to?
It would be, don't reward bad behavior.
And if you were going to translate that into policy or government, and I'm no politician, I could care less, red, blue, Republican, Democrat, I don't know enough about it to speak.
But I can tell you this, you don't reward bad behavior, And you don't subsidize behavior you don't want more of.
That's exactly right.
That's not really that difficult to understand, is it?
It's really not.
And, you know, single mothers in the 60s, you know, we had like that percentage.
Now, in the 20s, 2020, it's like, why?
It's that percentage.
Why?
Because we pay now if you're a single mother.
We didn't pay single mothers back then.
We pay them now.
And if they get married, we stop paying them.
You're subsidizing behavior you don't want and not subsidizing behavior you do want.
It makes no sense to me.
This is chestnut checkers, but you've got to stop and think, are we doing things that are fundamentally against what will make this country stand up tall again?
And we are.
We're subsidizing the wrong things.
We're rewarding bad behavior.
We need to stop doing that.
We need to start rewarding those that work hard, and we need to start enabling...
Good things, not bad things, and give people a track to run on.
That's all we've got to do here.
You know, I think a lot of people can relate to what you just said.
What you said is common sense.
And most everybody, when you say it, is like, yeah, I get that.
But we're not doing it.
And that's the big challenge I think that we face as parents, as business leaders, as pastors, whatever role we play in the country, that's a big, really big challenging part of it.
We are very much enjoying the optimism and encouragement that Dr. Phil is bringing to our audience.
Now you can stay up to date on all of the things that Dr. Phil is up to by a simple visit to the website Huckabee.tv where we provide a direct link to Dr. Phil and his many activities.
Keith Bilbrey, I'm going to let you tell us what we can also look forward to as we continue tonight's show.
Coming up, we cover the news that falls through the cracks with In Case You Missed It and later a special performance from Craig Portley and the Music City Connection.
You're watching Huckabee.
Well, many of you are on vacation right now and overindulging in fun things.
So that means it's time for a supersized scoop of cool, refreshing, goofy news on In Case You Missed It.
All right.
This week, I've got more Huck's criminal masterminds than you'd find in Congress.
Yes.
First up, They're just now getting that.
It's okay.
I picked up on it immediately.
First up is an 82-year-old man in Orich, Germany, who was convicted of selling marijuana for the 25th time.
Oh, my goodness.
Yeah.
Now, I know what you're thinking.
Willie Nelson.
Yeah!
What's Willie Nelson doing in Germany?
Well, you'd think by now the old guy would know that pot is illegal, but for some reason, he just keeps forgetting.
I wonder why.
Anyway, through 25 prior convictions, he got nothing but suspended sentences, and the judge just did it again.
Man, I didn't know George Soros funded Germany's legal system too.
Now, before you ask, what's the judge been smoking?
The defendant claimed that he can't live on his government benefits, so he has to make money somehow.
And the judge told him this was his last warning.
Seriously.
And if he's caught selling pot a 26th time, he's going to jail.
Finally, some rent-free government housing.
There you go.
That works.
Hey, speaking of your brain on drugs, here's a story that you're going to get a charge out of.
A charge out of.
A woman in Hernando County, Florida...
Looked out her window and she saw a strange man who had broken into her patio and was just sitting out there charging his cell phone.
Okay.
Yeah.
Well, police said he had had several bags of drugs and appeared to be, quote, very relaxed.
He claimed he thought he was at his girlfriend's house, but he must have really been relaxed because he couldn't remember her address.
So good news, ladies, he might be available.
Hey look, Keith, he wants to steal your heart.
Yeah.
Can you imagine what it's going to be like when all the California potheads with electric cars start doing this?
I mean, that guy's another Einstein compared to the thief who broke into an electronics repair shop in New York.
He wanted to hide his face from the surveillance cameras, so naturally he wore a box over his head.
Yeah.
He's the only New Yorker who doesn't have a face mask.
But he made one tiny mistake.
He forgot to cut out eye holes in the box.
Oh, no!
Come on.
Hey!
Stumbling around.
Yeah, no problem.
He just lifted the box off his head to see what he was doing.
Keith, you know, it was pretty easy for the police to catch him.
Really?
Yeah, well, of course.
They not only had his face on video, but they found him close by, drinking at a liquor store in the very same strip mall.
In fact, that was the first place they looked.
Oh, man.
Yeah.
In other news, someone recently stole a loaded moving truck from outside the Calvary Episcopal Church in Memphis.
Fortunately, the truck was recovered after it was abandoned with its load intact, nothing taken.
Because see, the thieves didn't know that the truck was filled with about 2,000 88-year-old organ pipes that were on their way to Boston to be restored.
So in this case, the Lord did not help those who helped themselves.
Now the organ pipes are being restored and the church has called off its search for an organ donor.
There you go.
I knew it was coming.
I knew it was coming.
You knew that was going to land right there.
All right, this next story has a lot of pennies, but it just doesn't make sense.
See what I did there?
Uh-huh.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Okay, a Los Angeles man was cleaning out his father-in-law's hoarder house, you know, person who hoards all this stuff, and he found this.
Now, these bags are filled with approximately one million pennies.
Whoa.
Now we know why there's a coin shortage, yeah?
Anyway, I don't know what he was saving them for, but I guess a hernia operation probably was.
Okay, well I love stories about crazy modern art and this one is especially appealing to me.
I want you to look at this picture.
Does that look to you like someone just stuck a banana on the wall with duct tape?
Yeah.
Well, you're a Philistine!
That is a piece of art by artist Maurizio Catalan, called Comedian.
And it was on display at the Liam Museum of Art in Seoul, South Korea.
Well, it was until student Ngo Hunso showed up.
He'd skipped breakfast.
Uh oh.
So he ate the banana and then taped the peel back on the wall.
Genius!
I say he's not a student, Keith.
He's an art critic.
I thought you said that he bought the banana with a bag of pennies.
No, no, no.
Anyway, the art he ate, now get this, that little piece of art was valued at $120,000.
Really?
Lucky for no, the banana peel he taped back on the wall is now valued at $200,000.
Man, that sounds like a lot, but by the time Biden leaves office, we'll all be paying $200,000 for a banana, right?
You know, we don't like to think about this, but we've all got to go sometime.
So why not make a statement with your coffin?
A Dutch company is giving new meaning to the term going organic by selling a sustainable biodegradable coffin made of mushrooms and hemp.
I bet they were on mushrooms and hemp when they thought of this idea.
Now, Keith, this is very popular with environmentalists and musicians who want to do something, you know, they compose while they live and then they decompose after they die.
I got that, yeah.
Did you get that?
I thought it was funny.
Anyway, they say this organic mushroom coffin not only saves trees, it completely degrades within a month and a half.
So, if you want a burial that's truly degrading, there's your coffin.
There you go!
I get it, though.
Some people would rather use their coffins to say, I'm going in style.
Now, if this sounds like you, then contact the UK company called Go As You Please.
They design coffins based on whatever you loved most when you were alive.
That's right.
You can get a coffin that looks like a pint of beer, or a bottle of whiskey, or a sausage roll, and you can be buried in the thing that killed you.
There you go.
I have an idea.
You can even be buried in a Doctor Who telephone booth, which is handy if you're not really dead.
And they've got Star Wars and Harry Potter coffins, a walking dead coffin.
I guess that's for optimists.
And a coffin that looks like a VHS copy of Games of Thrones for people whose lives came to a disappointing conclusion.
Yeah.
Here's my favorite.
That's sad.
People who believe that in the end we all return to dust can be buried in a Dyson vacuum cleaner.
Oh!
Or just use a real Dyson box.
It's cheaper and it's biodegradable.
There you go.
Finally, which is your favorite word for these, finally it's summer and everyone loves playing in the water, even animals.
Like this parrot who loves bathing in the sink.
Every time his owner turns the water off, he turns it back on.
Now it's cute, but their water bill is $3,000 a month.
Anyway, that's still better than what this family in Gatlinburg, Tennessee, is dealing with.
Every day, when the heat becomes unbearable, a mother bear and her two cubs hop their fence and take over the family swimming pool.
They don't even shower first.
Oh, no.
Anyway, the family doesn't mind.
Well, except when it's time to clean the hair out of the pool filter.
Do it, yeah.
But of course, not every animal loves water sports.
This cat was lounging in the kitchen sink when he accidentally turned on the water.
Yikes!
Hey, can we see this again in slow motion?
Here he goes.
Wow.
I've watched that all day.
Wow.
But I can't, because before someone turns a hose on us, I'm going to wrap this up.
But until next time, remember, we read the news.
So you don't have to...
Well, coming up, Ron Hart sizes up the 2024 election, and later, Trey Corley and the Music City Connection perform Don't Go Away.
Ron Hart is a syndicated columnist seen in New York.
newspapers all over the country.
He's also a fan favorite at the Huckabee Show.
He's back with us tonight to share his thoughts on how 2024 is shaping up.
He says if aliens were to land in America today and say, take me to your leader, well, it'd be very embarrassing for all of us.
Would you please welcome back to the show one of our very favorites, Ron Hart.
Ron, good to have you back.
Thank you.
I think that's probably right.
They might just get back in the spaceship and take back off.
It's scary.
You got a president who only about 5% of the country would let them watch their kids as they went to the store to get cigarettes.
I mean, it's kind of sad.
You know, you can kind of see his ads in the fall.
It'll be like, I'm Joe Biden and I forgot my message.
Well, he's obviously running.
He's made that clear.
He can barely walk.
So...
Touché.
Yes.
You're right about that, technically, yes.
But he does have some opposition.
Robert Kennedy Jr. is getting a little traction in the Democrat Party, even though the Democrats, they want nothing to do with him.
No debate.
They're not going to have any oxygen in the party.
I love his uncle, John F. Kennedy, the president.
Yes.
Wrote Profiles in Courage.
And it took a lot of courage to take on Marilyn Monroe with a bad back.
To his credit, one of my heroes, you know, Pete Davidson maybe now.
But, yeah, but so, yeah, look, they're not going to have a debate.
The Democrat Party has discipline that the Republicans do not have.
We've got the Libertarians, you've got religious rights, you've got physical conservatives, hawks, doves in the Republican Party.
A lot of voices.
Democrats are a monolithic machine, right?
Headed by the Clintons at some point in time, exactly.
Hillary's in the wings waiting for him to trip again.
She's got all these nefarious things around Hillary Clinton.
She's actually the first Methodist ever to run a crime family in America.
Another historic first.
We'll see what happens.
The problem is with the Democrats, if you're a Democrat, you've got no bench.
If you look down the hallway, there's crazy on the left of me, crazy on the right of me.
I mean, everything's nuts on the Democrat side.
You know, we mentioned RFK Jr. He is not a conventional candidate in the sense that he's taking on a lot of the issues, big government, big pharma.
I've got to respect him for that.
We're hoping to get him on the show.
I want to talk to him because I admire him for that.
Joe Rogan feel to him, right?
Anti-vaxxer, Aaron Rodgers backed him as well.
And then on the Republican side, who knows?
DeSantis, obviously, is the contender.
You've been through this before.
You know what it's like.
You don't know he's a real contender, DeSantis, until the FBI raids his house.
We don't know that quite yet.
Trump goes to Iowa, does the Iowa thing.
He's picking up boats left and right.
He's signed up people quicker than the FBI can take down their names.
He's doing well.
Mike Pence pulling around 2% right around skim milk.
You know, Jody Ernst, Josh knows it, but Jody Ernst hosts this big roast in Iowa.
The Roast and Ride.
Roast and Ride.
Yeah, exactly.
And they have 1,000 pounds of Iowa beef, 2,000 ears of corn.
They have a big feast.
They devour this big feast, and all the politicians come there.
The only troubling thing The banjo player is missing.
He's been missing for a week or two after that.
So it's a big Iowa festival.
The Democrats are moving theirs out of there.
Tim Scott declared.
I like Tim Scott a lot.
Good man.
Great man.
Good guy.
Yeah.
Terrific guy, good for the party.
If elected, he'll be the first bachelor in the White House since Bill Clinton.
Oh!
Too soon.
Is that too soon?
Oh, no, not too soon.
You got other candidates, you know, coming along the way.
I'm more libertarian.
I'm more of a Rand Paul type of person, so...
We got some Rand Paul fans out here.
Yeah.
So hopefully, you know, the problem you have, as everyone knows, is conventional wisdom.
Crowded field, Trump wins.
Yeah.
He's got a solid 30, 35% of the vote.
And so, you know, if he gets to the general, I'll vote for him.
You know, but I prefer someone else.
I think it's time for fresh leadership.
I mean, he's almost 80. Biden will be, I don't know what Biden is, 81 or 2 or 3. They're going to hold the next debate.
In the Muffet Theater in the balcony.
Get off my lawn!
It's kind of what we're up against.
I think we can do better as a country with candidates, you know?
You should run again.
Tucker Carlson, I'd love to see him run.
Yeah, well, Tucker, I'll clear the field, let him have it.
This boy ain't running again.
Done?
No, you know, you can only mortgage your house so many times to go out there and run, and then your wife threatens you with a hole right through here that's a nine millimeter, and you just say, it ain't worth it.
A lot more money in politics than when you did it.
No?
No.
Not really?
No, you can't.
You can't take a paycheck.
Right.
And so, you know, unless you're independently wealthy when you run, it's a huge sacrifice.
People don't understand that.
And you open your family up to everything, exactly.
So it's a tough one.
It's gotten so ugly, unfortunately.
I hope DeSantis and Trump don't just beat each other up.
I just don't see how that's going to work.
It's not good.
Trump, you know, he's the only viable candidate, DeSantis is, and, you know, Trump views him as a viable candidate.
You know that because he's given a nickname.
He's the only one he's given a nickname to.
So it's like the eighth grade.
You're running for eighth grade president.
We can do better, I think.
So the Republicans need to field someone who can do better.
I like DeSantis.
I think he has all the policies of Trump without the personality.
And he's done a great job in Florida, as you well know.
Yeah.
He has done a great job there.
You know, one of the things that I do...
What I think is that if Trump is pushed out because people say, oh gee, we don't like his personality because all these clouds are hanging over him.
I think my concern, we will bring that upon every candidate we ever have.
And the new strategy will be, hey, we don't have to beat him at the ballot box.
We're just going to beat the stuffing out of him through the FBI and all the intelligence agencies and the press.
And we'll make that person, if we can't take him down, we'll make him wish he was.
I worry about that.
It scares good people from coming into politics.
It does.
Because Washington, D.C. voted 90% for Democrats, Biden, Hillary, whatever.
So the FBI has become a weaponized arm.
It scares people.
I don't care how clean as you are, you don't want to go before the FBI. They need to decentralize the FBI, move it to the regions, decentralize D.C., great people, great officers, but it's been politicized and co-opted.
And to the detriment of every case they bring now, because everybody doubts them now.
No one believes the FBI after what's happened.
So this Hunter Biden thing, they're selling their hands on that for a long, long time.
When you bring charges on that, I mean, how corrupt do you have to be?
Will they ever, you think, bring charges against...
They're still mad at Hunter Biden.
They're going to indict Jared Kushner.
I mean, that's how they operate, unfortunately.
I think the American people hopefully see it.
You've illuminated it here and other people see it.
I think it's frightening when the government, the deep state turns against you.
It's scary for the average Americans.
And Trump is just...
His personality aside, he is a proxy for the anger in America.
Yeah.
No, there's no doubt about that.
And I think he's spoken for a lot of people who feel like nobody has been willing to take on the deep state at the level that he has.
And I do think that's been his strength all along.
Ron, we always love having you.
Please promise that you will come back regularly.
Anytime.
I love it.
We'll look forward to it the next time.
For our audience, you can read all of Ron's columns at the Daily Caller.
I read them every single week, wouldn't miss them.
And you can also read them in newspapers nationwide.
But we've got the links so that you can follow all of those columns.
Plus, you can follow Ron on social media at Huckabee.tv.
Keith Bilbrey is going to tell us what's still coming up on the rest of the show.
Coming up next, artist Steve Pendley shares some of his colorful paintings with us, and later, a special performance from the Music City Connection.
Don't go away.
Go to Huckabee.tv and get your very own made in the USA.
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*music* We've been telling you about the Steps of Paul Mediterranean Cruise.
It's coming up.
There are just a few cabins remaining.
Now, there is still time for you to sign up for this once-in-a-lifetime cruise, October the 29th through November the 7th.
We'll be making stops in Italy, Greece, Turkey, and Malta.
Don't wait to book your cabin because it will sell out.
For more information, go to thegreatesttrip.com.
Would love to be with you on that trip.
Steve Penley is a brilliant artist.
He's been called the Da Vinci of the GOP. His works hang in Republican state offices all over the nation, and even in my own office, very proudly, I would say.
Please, welcome to the show for the very first time, the amazing Steve Penley.
Steve, great having you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
I love an applause.
Well, you know what?
Painters don't often get applause.
I never get an applause like that in my studio, so...
That would be weird.
By golly, Steve, it's high time you get some applause.
These people are going to give it to you!
Yes!
I want it!
Thank you.
I'm a narcissist, so I like that kind of thing.
I don't ever think I can remember an artist whose works just captured the imagination of so many American patriots.
I don't want to make it like this.
It gets me in trouble, too.
I bet it does.
You know, you're one of the most conservative people that I think probably breathes today, but your artwork transcends your own politics in that it's really about America.
And that's what it is.
Whenever I talk to people, On left or right about my work, I'm trying to, you know, what I always say, reconstruct the deconstructed America.
And I'm not ever trying to attack anybody of any political standpoint.
Well, I am too.
But I try to do it nicely.
The worst thing, if I'm giving speeches or if I'm doing anything publicly, the last thing I want to do is offend somebody.
I would like to persuade, but jamming my opinions down somebody's throat will never change anybody's mind.
But I do love my country, and every day that we spend in America, it's like paradise.
And I can't believe that people don't recognize that.
Thank you.
It's true.
Thanks.
And that's what I think endears all of us about your artwork.
Every piece that I've seen of you, I just feel like there's something attractive.
Well, you know what it is?
It's not my work or my talent or whatever.
It's that I share a common interest with you and people like us.
You know, and people like this.
I share...
Common experiences, and all these subjects are common experiences that we all share, and sometimes we put different tags on each subject in our brains, but still, it's a common experience we share as Americans.
So it's not so much that I'm that good, it's that we all share the same.
And these are things that remind us about why we're here, what we should be doing, and what a great country this is, and how thankful we should be.
Well, but you make us more thankful by the way that you express the things that really depict America.
Did you start painting when you were very small?
When did this all start?
When did you know you had a gift?
You know, I'm not usually this positive unless I'm on television.
If I'm on television, I'm a very positive thinker, you know, and all that stuff.
But when I'm at home, I'm just grouchy.
I'm like Archie Bunker, you know?
But just complaining about everything.
But no, I started when I was, as long as I can remember, my first memory of being an artist is no memory at all.
I can't remember it.
But it's, I did a barn down my parents' hallway with every animal, scribbled, and I was so proud of myself, they say.
This was not an authorized art expression.
No, it wasn't unauthorized.
It was street art in the hallway, inside the house.
Yeah.
So, I'm sorry.
I'm sure that went over real well with your parents.
And they said, oh, we have a budding artist in our home.
I got the beating of Lifetime.
Yeah.
Back in the days when they did it.
Look what it's turned into.
You're one of the most successful artists alive in this country.
By what definition?
Well, I mean, you are beloved.
Your artwork is some of the most valued.
Where's the money?
I don't know, but everyone tells me that when they try to buy one of your paintings, they have to sell a kidney to get it because it's so valuable.
I'm kind of lazy, too, so...
All right, you brought some of your artwork, and I want to take a look at some of these.
So let's look over here.
We got one.
I got Reagan right there.
He's my hero.
You know, and I think he's one of the greatest presidents, of course.
Yes.
Because it's obvious.
And, you know, I hate to be so gung-ho, jingoistic, but, you know, conservative-sounding, but, I mean, you can't help but love the guy.
And if you're somebody that thinks like we do, I mean, how do you not love Ronald Reagan?
And what he really stood for, you know, I was surfing Google the other day looking at images of Reagan, because I'm always trying to find these photographs I've never seen before.
But while I'm looking at it, I see all these articles by...
You know, all these magazines from the major mainstream magazines trying to reconstruct Reagan as being really a leftist that was trying to compromise and He was basically just in the Republican Party.
All kinds of different...
They're trying to make Reagan something he wasn't.
Reagan believed what he was saying, and he really was a conservative.
I mean, he had to make a lot of compromises like any president would.
But, you know, I'm no one to give people a historic lesson about politics or, you know, anything like that.
But I'm just saying, as an image, to me, he represents...
Everything great about this country.
I agree with you.
And this will get me in trouble saying this on TV. Speaking of great things about this country, the next one is maybe one of my very favorites of all.
This is the pinnacle of all success, of all mankind.
The moon landing was that moment where really America, and I hate to be, you know, put down everybody else, but we're so much better than everybody else.
I don't even argue that point.
I agree.
This is the greatest country on God's screener.
I don't see Putin with any man planting a flag on the moon.
I mean, there's no Chinese guy up there planting a flag.
They did it with a robot.
It's like one of those little robots, and it's not even a good-looking flag.
So I don't give him credit.
Your next piece is the dollar.
I don't like the dollar.
We need one that size now, given with inflation, for it to be worth a dollar anymore.
Well, you've got to go crypto or something.
When I think about the dollar though, it represents everything good and bad, and you can project whatever.
With a lot of these icons, we project our values and our experiences onto these icons, and they can mean so many different things to so many different people.
Sometimes people have a very scary, you know, take on what these icons mean to them.
There's no one, and I mean no one, doing the kind of absolutely inspirational artwork like Steve Penley.
There's a few of them.
I know, my family.
No, no one.
I'm serious.
I don't know of anybody who's doing it like that.
But they're all kept down by the IRS. You know what I mean?
Yeah, well, let's keep them that way because we want you to stay where you are.
Now, for our audience, if you want to see more of Steve Penley's artwork and maybe buy some for yourself, we got links to all of it on our website at huckabee.tv, and it is spectacular.
That's why I cherish the one that he did of me probably 15 years ago.
You're my muse.
Yeah.
You know?
Yeah, I was a young guy.
I wish I still looked that young.
Before electricity, you looked great.
Yes, exactly.
Right now, Keith Bilbrey is going to tell us what's coming up next.
Keith, take it away.
After the break, our very own Trey Corley of the Music City Connection perform.
It's coming up on Huckabee. - Hey, tonight we've got a special treat.
Trey Corley and the Music City Connection has whipped up a song just for us.
But before they play it, I kind of wanted our audience to get to know all of the band a little better.
And no one to do that better than our very own Trey Corley.
Trey?
Thank you, sir.
I started to say, welcome to the show!
Welcome to the show.
You've never missed one.
I have not missed, that's true.
And you better not.
I'm not missing, yes, sir.
You know, I think one of the most powerful parts of the entire show How you and the band just bring energy and life to the room through everything that you do.
Thank you so much, sir.
And our people take you for granted, I think.
I don't.
Keith does.
That's the way this goes.
Governor, we have a lot of fun getting to play with you and truly mean that.
We've had such a blast.
I mean, you know, we're about to start season seven in just a couple months.
It's hard to believe.
We've done 300 episodes.
And Keith, too.
300 episodes.
I love you, Keith.
300. Wow.
Yeah.
That's crazy.
Absolutely crazy.
But, you know, most people don't know.
They just see the faces in the band when we kind of go over there with the camera.
Tell us who is in our band.
Well, I'll tell you what.
I'll start right here.
This is Mr. Kelly Back right up here on guitar.
Yeah.
Pretty amazing.
That's my family.
That's his family, he said.
And of course, right here, you're probably your favorite, Lori Syke.
Absolutely.
Because she's a bass player.
A bass player.
We got that.
Tyler Summers on sax.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah.
Exactly.
Yeah.
He brought his fan club.
Alton Gibson on organ and keys.
Mm-hmm.
And we had Dan Needham tonight on drums, and he's filling in also for Mr. John Hammond, who plays with us a lot here as well.
Dan's played with us a ton, and as you know, Governor, every musician that is up here, man, they've played on some of the biggest records, some of the coolest stuff.
You know, I mean, last week we've had Mr. John Schlitt on.
Yeah.
I mean, Dan produced that song that we had last week.
I mean, he's...
Just kind of crazy.
Well, what a lot of people may not realize is that every person on this stage that plays in the band, they're all session musicians in Nashville.
Which, if you understand anything about music, if you're a session musician in Nashville, you're the best there is.
If you can make it in this town and doing session work, you are as good as good can get.
I agree.
And that's why we always are blown away by the music that the Music City Connection comes up with.
Thank you, sir.
Never disappoint.
Super honored.
Well, tonight we have a selection for you.
We have started a hymns record.
I don't know if anybody likes hymns out there, but hymns for us are...
All of us grew up in church and listening, and actually we did It Is Well With My Soul a few months ago.
Yeah.
And we did that selection and made this arrangement of it.
We'd been working on a hymns record.
And Matt Crouch came up to me and said, listen, I listened to that song, no joke, I listened to it 12 times.
We watched it over and over again.
And he said, we want more of that.
Could you do more of that?
And I said, oh man.
Actually, yes, we can.
So hopefully we're going to play something a little different for you tonight that I think you will really enjoy.
You've never done anything I did not enjoy.
I'm sure that's going to be the case.
We're going to leave Trey alone to get ready for his performance.
Right now, Keith, hey, we've been entertained by Trey and the Music City Connection for over 300 shows.
I'd say we've grown maybe a little spoil, haven't we?
Well, you can say that again, Governor.
If you'd like more information on Trey, the Music City Connection, all their awards, just go to our website, huckabee.tv.
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