American Free Press: You are celebrating the 20th anniversary of the founding of the show. How did it all begin?
James Edwards: I got my start with the Buchanan for President campaign of 2000 when I was 19 years old. I started as a volunteer and then quickly worked my way up to become treasurer of the effort in Tennessee, a delegate to the Reform Party nominating convention, and a member of the National Committee. By the end of that year, I was making local media appearances as a campaign spokesman. I still vividly recall a television debate that I participated in. I was matched up against the chairmen of the Republican and Democratic Parties of Tennessee, respectively. It was probably the political equivalent of young boys trying to defend Berlin against the battle-hardened troops of the Red Army. I have a VHS tape of it in the attic, though I can’t bear to watch it. But that year changed my life forever. After the campaign ended, I wanted to keep the band together and most of the Buchanan supporters in the region stuck around to support me in my 2002 bid for a seat in the Tennessee state legislature. I lost but received over 15% of the vote as an independent, which was unprecedented. As it turned out, I did just well enough to receive a call from a local AM radio station that was switching formats from music to talk, and the rest is history.
AFP: Did you have an idea in mind from the very start about the kind of broadcast that you wanted to present?
Edwards: In 2004, when the show debuted, I was still looking for ways to stick it to the uniparty in Washington. I had absolutely no interest in becoming a local “conservative” talk radio host. By that I mean, the idea of trying to be or sound like Sean Hannity was repulsive to me. Guys who read press releases from GOP headquarters are a dime a dozen. While I very much wanted to succeed, it had to be on my terms. I wanted to advance populism and nationalism. I committed to talking about the issues that I was passionate about, which also turned out to be the issues that nobody else in broadcast media was talking about back then. I wanted to ask provocative questions and start productive conversations. For instance, why did every race, ethnicity, and sexual orientation seem to have spokespeople and advocacy organizations except for the founding stock of this country? I also wanted to talk with interesting guests who had unique viewpoints and weren’t being given access to media platforms. This set The Political Cesspool apart very quickly.
AFP: How long did it take before you began to gain notoriety?
Edwards: Al Sharpton came to town just a few months after the program debuted to conduct a march advocating for changing the names of three city parks that honored the Confederacy. I took out a permit to hold a vigil in defense of the Confederate-named parks at a location located along Sharpton’s planned march route. According to the Southern Poverty Law Center and local media coverage, we attracted about 200 participants while Sharpton attracted a few dozen. We were quickly added to the SPLC and ADL list of “hate groups”, where I have proudly remained ever since. National media attention followed and from there I was able to quickly build a reputation, for better or worse, as a reputable voice for the dispossessed majority. I even once enjoyed a short-lived stint as an on-air contributor to CNN, which, looking back, was pretty remarkable. They didn’t agree with me but were looking for someone who would articulate dissenting viewpoints during primetime debates about racial issues. “Mainstream” media doesn’t offer invitations like that to men like me anymore. But in those days, they did, and I was able to plant a flag.
AFP: Readers might be interested to learn about some of the more surprising guests you’ve interviewed. Would you be willing to share some names?
Edwards: For starters, I am very proud of our interview with Drue Lackey. He was the police officer pictured in the iconic photograph fingerprinting Rosa Parks on the night of her arrest. He went on to become the Chief of Police in Montgomery and later wrote a book called Another View of the Civil Rights Movement, in which he used his eyewitness recollections to outline the so-called “civil rights” movement as being nothing more than a forerunner to the kind of violence and unrest we’ve seen from Black Lives Matter rioters in more recent times. But I have been fortunate enough to talk to a lot of interesting people over the years. Mel Gibson’s father, Hutton, made several appearances before his passing. Hollywood media attacked him furiously for it, but he never backed down. AFP readers might remember that Hutton Gibson was also a friend of Willis Carto and spoke at some gatherings that Willis organized. In another Gibson connection, I interviewed Lt. Gen. Hal Moore, who was made famous during the Battle of Ia Drang. Mel Gibson played Moore in the 2002 film We Were Soldiers. Speaking of movies, Sonny Landham, who starred in several of the top action films of the 1980s became a very good friend of mine and was a regular guest. Keep that in mind the next time you see him as “Billy” opposite Arnold Schwarzenegger in the movie Predator. Sadly, everyone I’ve just mentioned has gone on to receive their eternal reward. Musicians like Ted Nugent have also stopped by. We have interviewed other celebrities and historical figures over the years but only those with whom we could find some common ground without having to surrender our position on the issues. That’s the key. Pat Buchanan also did a series of interviews with me before he retired, which meant a great deal to me personally.
AFP: Haven’t several U.S. Congressmen also appeared?
Edwards: It’s true. The first one was U.S. Rep. Walter Jones of North Carolina way back in 2012. He was making news for breaking with the dominant neoconservative ideology of the GOP at that time. We had a very engaging discussion. More recently, former U.S. Reps. Steve King and Steve Stockman have been making regular appearances. Both are great guys. Steve King and I spent a few days in Florida earlier this year where we spoke at a conference together. There have been a few others. Of course, to be fair, I have been denounced by a far greater number of congressmen than I have worked with. But I have also worked with many former and current elected officials in Europe, like Nick Griffin and Filip Dewinter, who run circles around most of their American counterparts in terms of courage and vision. But talking with politicians for the sake of talking with politicians was never something that interested me unless they had something interesting to say. And most of them don’t. Hundreds of local talk radio guys can ask microwaved questions to boring politicians and get the same uninspired answers. That’s not who I am. I want to talk to the sharpest minds on our side. We need to build our own media and our own spokesmen. Just to give you an idea, in terms of the number of appearances logged, my top three all-time guests are Jared Taylor, Kevin MacDonald, and Sam Dickson. Believe me, it’s those men and others like them who I am most remembered for having worked with and I wouldn’t have it any other way. That said, for our movement to grow, we need to be able to make inroads with elected officials, artists, and other members of the elite. That is something that I think I have been uniquely positioned to do and have had some relative success with.
AFP: Your interview with Donald Trump Jr. sparked a national media firestorm. What do you remember about that?
Edwards: This was one of the most interesting stories of my career so far. I applied for press credentials to attend a Trump campaign event in February of 2016. I was granted the press credentials while many were not, vetted by the Secret Service, and then permitted by the campaign to broadcast my program live from the “press pen” while then-candidate Trump was giving a speech. The next day, I was contacted by the campaign and asked if I would interview Donald Trump Jr., which I happily agreed to do. We taped the interview on Super Tuesday of 2016, which was, at that time, the most important day in Trump’s political career. It was a wonderfully agreeable interview. But that’s not how the media covered it. To say it was “covered” would be an understatement. It was its own news cycle and then some. In March 2016, it seemed that every media outlet in the country and many more around the world were writing or talking about the “white supremacist” that Trump Jr. had spoken with. Having been in media for well over a decade at the time of the unrest in 2016, I naturally assumed that the “story” would die down after a few days as they always do. It did not. The James Edwards-Donald Trump Jr. interview stayed in the news until Election Day. For eight months. During one random week in September, more than six months after the interview, three stories in the New York Times and the Washington Post were published that cited it. Even CNN, the network that used to fly me to Manhattan and put me up in posh hotels in Central Park, assembled panels to discuss it. Like Frankenstein’s monster, the entire thing took on a life of its own. The odious Media Matters listed me alongside Ann Coulter as being one of the “Top 20 right-wing media fixtures” responsible for Trump’s nomination, which was absurd. By the time it was over, the media had so wildly exaggerated our conversation that the legend became fact. During the final days before the election, Hillary Clinton ran a campaign ad stating that if Trump became president “extremists” like James Edwards would shape the country. Trump Jr. later said that the interview would follow him for the rest of his life. To this day, his official Wikipedia page questions whether he believes in the Great Replacement or was just pretending to during our conversation for political gain. It was all very surreal. That whole year was. I later stood just a few feet away from the president when he was being sworn in. Once again with press credentials. But they always maintained plausible deniability.
AFP: In your opinion, how has media coverage changed in the past two decades?
Edwards: On the one hand, as bad as it always was, it has gotten much worse and more hysterical. There is simply no tolerance for the diversity of opinion from the establishment-controlled press. The days of seeing someone like me or Peter Brimelow on TV are long gone. They might still talk about us, but never with us. On the other hand, in the past decade, there has been an explosion of content creators who have taken advantage of streaming platforms and podcasts. When I first went on the air YouTube and Twitter didn’t even exist yet. It’s a whole new ballgame now and there is a proliferation of talent that simply did not exist twenty years ago, and it is shifting the narrative in our favor.
AFP: Let’s come full circle and get back to your recently held 20th-anniversary conference. What can you tell us about it?
Edwards: The days are long, but the years are short. It does not seem like it has been twenty years. But the anniversary event was just fantastic. It was a packed house which was made even more remarkable considering we cannot publicly promote these events because of the threats of violence that come from the so-called social justice warriors. In 2008, such people threatened to blow up a hotel and murder the general manager and his family at his home if they refused to cancel our contract. Since then, we have had to hold strictly private events in the land of the free for the safety of our supporters and venue staff. But we have adapted quite nicely and can have large events with trusted supporters. My audience is like extended family and our conferences have always taken on a family reunion type of atmosphere. The camaraderie and spirit of togetherness are very palpable. We had great speakers, including program mainstays Dickson and Taylor. Nick Griffin also spoke. Harry Cooper gave a historical presentation, and several others also gave enthralling talks. True to form, we sprinkled in a celebrity speaker who shall remain nameless, but he really stole the show. It was held at a first-class facility and a good time was had by all. Great food and musical entertainment. We had it all.
AFP: Where do you plan to go from here?
Edwards: Every day that I’ve been able to do this has been a gift. None of us know how much longer anything will last but I can tell you that I’m still as passionate and full of vigor for this fight as I’ve ever been. Funding is always a concern. We do need support. But I will endeavor to stay in this struggle, without retreat or apology, for as long as folks think we are providing something of value to the cause.
