Armstrong Williams has had a front row seat to 30 years of conservative politics. He's come to some conclusions.
Armstrong Williams has had a front row seat to 30 years of conservative politics. He's come to some conclusions.
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He’s a GOP Insider and Trump’s Friend. He Says Vote Your Conscience.
ByDavid MarcheseOct. 26, 2020
He’s a G.O.P. Insider and Trump’s Friend. He Says Vote Your Conscience.
By David Marchese
For more than 30 years, Armstrong Williams has been a Zelig of American conservatism. In the 1980s, he worked as an aide to Clarence Thomas when Thomas was the head of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Then Williams popped up again alongside Thomas in the early 1990s, acting as a spokesman during Thomas’s  contentious Supreme Court nomination hearing. From there, Williams moved to TV and radio, hosting nationally syndicated talk shows as well as writing op-eds, also nationally syndicated. He got widespreadnegativeattention in 2005 when it was revealed that he’d been cheerleading for the No Child Left Behind Act without publicly disclosing that he was being paid by the Department of Education to promote it. The controversy slowed Williams, who advised Ben Carson during his 2016 presidential campaign, relatively briefly: “The Armstrong Williams Show” currently airs across the country, mostly on affiliates owned by the right-leaning Sinclair Broadcast Group. (The same Sinclair from which Williams bought several TV stations starting in 2013 under very, very favorable terms.) And last month, President Trump tapped Williams, who recently published a new book, “What Black and White America Must Do Now,” to conduct one of his first interviews after announcing his administration’s economic plan for Black Americans. “There is no way that someone who’s liberal and who happens to be Black could get a chance to sit down and talk to the president,” Williams says. “That’s just the way politics work.”
You’ve been deeply involved in conservative politics for a long time. You just published a book about race.How has President Trump changed the dynamics there?This is going to shock you: There has been no person who I’ve been up close to that has been more serious about the Black vote than Donald Trump. This guy has had real relationships, whether it was Al Sharpton or Jesse Jackson. He had a relationship with Oprah Winfrey, with Don King. He may not always use the best rhetoric, but I don’t get bogged down in what he says — even what he did with theCentral Park Five.This guy has real relationships in that community.
Can you think of a relationship the president has with a Black person who isn’t rich or famous?His chauffeurs. I can’t get into it, because that’s personal. You may think that he brags about everything, but the relationship he has with everyday Black people, where he empowers them, he wants no credit for it.
You mentioned the Central Park Five. President Trump started talking about the death penalty around their case. So it’s probably an understatement to say he wasn’t using “the best rhetoric.” But more to the point, isn’t the quality of a president’s rhetoric important?I didn’t say it was not important. If you’re the president of the United States, what you say is critical. You instruct the nation. You can move markets. It’s important what you say and how you say it, but President Trump is different. He doesn’t understand the impact of his own words.
What do you make of your being able to say, about the president, that he doesn’t understand the impact of his own words?Wedon’t understand the impact of our words. We’re human beings. You can learn.
If Trump loses re-election, and particularly if he loses decisively, will there be any conservative soul-searching about the best way to move forward?Here is my answer: There are two types of Trump supporters. One is a cult following; they support him no matter what. Then there are the other ones. Much more intelligent. Much more sophisticated. They may not like his character, but they think,I’m going to hold my nose because it suits my agenda. That’s the calculation they make. As a Christian, I have a lot to pray about, because there are things about the president that I turn a blind eye to. I realize that I’m dumbing down my values in the process. So we make this calculation: It’s about the economy. It’s about deregulation. It’s about creating an environment where entrepreneurship and business can thrive. But when I go to bed at night and I get on my knees and pray, I never lie to myself. Because I know exactly what he is.
So what is he?He is flawed! This man, the fact that he was demanding to go back to the White House, where he could expose people to the coronavirus? He should be selfless. How can you even think about exposing people? That bothers me. He goes out on the debate stage, and hedoesn’t condemn white supremacy?Just condemn them! I can’t believe I’m being so blatant about this with you, David. I don’t know if he’s capable of being normal. People are trying to say he wasfaking having Covid-19.I know this man got the virus, OK? You know how I know? My videographer, a few days after the interview with the president, said hewasn’t feeling well.I said, “Where do you think all this started?” He said, “With the interview of the president.” I had to stop to think. What if he’s right? So I do know this man got it. There is no doubt in my mind.
You think your cameraman caught the coronavirus from the president?I’m not going to speculate. Listen, I was saying the same thing the president was saying about masks. I’m not saying that any longer. They must wear masks. I got a reality check. Who would be in that space with the president, and then your videographer contracted — I can’t ignore that. It hit home.
I’ve readyour books,which have to do with the idea that the Black electorate is fundamentally socially conservative. But Gerald Ford in 1976 was the last Republican presidential candidate to get even15 percentof the Black vote. What accounts for that disconnect?I’m glad you asked. I’ll tell you this: Most Blacks are socially conservative. There’s just one issue that they don’t believe the Republican Party can get right. It’s not the economy. It’s not creating more jobs. It’s not creating wealth and economic opportunity. They don’t trust the Republican Party on the issue of race. For some reason, they believe that if the Republicans win, they’ll turn back the clock. The Democrats have done a good job of making the community believe that. They referred to Donald Trump as a racist when he ran for president. So did they with Mitt Romney, George W. Bush, his father, Ronald Reagan, John McCain. That’s what is assigned to Republican candidates: They’re racist, they’re cold, they’re insensitive and they don’t care about us.
And that has nothing to do with policy?No. It’s perception. Look at the policies that uplift people and sustain them. Capitalism is the best instrument to uplift people out of poverty. People have to learn to work and do for themselves. They need to know how to create and use their hands to take care of their households. For me, I’man entrepreneur.I get into communities, find these young people, give them opportunity, let them know that corporate America is for them. It’s not racist.
I think some people on the left have a hard time understanding the calculation that goes into a person of color’s continuing to support a Republican Party that seems so intent on being the party of white grievance. What’s your response to that confusion?I’m a third-generation Republican. I never left the party of Lincoln. But I don’t feel that I belong to the Republican Party. The Republican Party belongs to me. No matter how flawed it may be, we must be a people where we always have someone at that table. You’ve got to have people inside the house. If we were not at the table, it would be frightening. It’s the things that I know — that if I had not been at the table, it could have been disastrous.
What’s an example?I saw it withSenator Strom Thurmond.He had so many people against his support of Martin Luther King’s birthday as a holiday. He didn’t see its value initially. I said: “But it has value. Do you understand what this country has done to Black people? You’ve got to right those wrongs.” I challenged him. I said, “Meet with Coretta Scott King, and that will give you a perspective.” Not only did he support it, he became the advocate for it. He was willing to get away from his peanut gallery to listen to a different perspective. That’s important.
You got an interview with Trump after he announced hiseconomic plan for Black Americans.Why did he go to you?I got a call saying, “We’re doing this, and the president thinks you’re the best person to do it.” I was a little uptight because I never said I would consider him a friend, because I don’t know howhefeels. So during the interview, he says: “Oh, we’ve known each other a long time. We’ve been friends a long time.” But in terms of a broadcaster, they were looking for the best vehicle for his message. Somebody who will not go and do some puff job, who is going to ask him tough questions.
I watched that interview. What do you think was the toughest question you asked?I said to him: “You know, Atlanta — it’s the bedrock of civil rights, the home of Martin Luther King. Martin Luther King talked about civil rights but said the next paradigm would be economic empowerment and entrepreneurship, and this is what you’re doing.” The president knows that I’m not out to do some “gotcha” question. And the more I asked, whether it was about the importance of entrepreneurship or homeownership, he really answered the question.
In that interview, he also said, “We were seeing amazing unity before the virus” and “We saved millions of lives because we closed up.” Did you think those were statements not worth following up on?I have so much I want to follow up on with the president, and I would love to have that opportunity.
Fifteen years ago, you had your scandal with the George W. Bush administration’sDepartment of Education.Would that situation have played out differently today? The fact that you had been a paid consultant — I feel like now people would almost take that kind of partisanship for granted.I’ve got to explain this to you. The fact that I was working with the Department of Education was disclosed. If you do your homework and look at what really happened, there’s nothing I did that was unethical or illegal. The only thing I did was decide to do business with the government while being in the media.
That was the unethical part.But I didn’t know that at the time, believe it or not. You have to also understand: I never wanted to do business with the government. I never should have accepted that contract, because in my heart I didn’t feel good about it. I went against my own judgment to engage with the government for No Child Left Behind. No one has to tell me when I screw up.
What would you like people to be thinking about when they’re in the voting booth on Nov. 3?That’s a good question. That’s one I did not anticipate. We’ve invested so much in our political parties that we’ve lost our own view of right and wrong. You must do an inventory of yourself and get away from Republicans and Democrats. You must ask yourself, What is best to move our country forward? What works best for your value system and where you see us going with the economy? We must vote our conscience.
And where does your conscience lead you?I never share with people whom I vote for. I like Trump. I do. But I’m going to do what’s in the best interest of the country. No matter what happens on Nov. 3, whether Donald Trump is re-elected or Joe Biden is our president, I will support him and accept the will of the people.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity from two conversations.