Joe Walsh was elected to Congress as a Republican in the "Tea Party wave" of 2010 and served one term in the House, where he was a vocal and harsh critic of Barack Obama. After losing his re-election campaign in a redrawn district in 2012 (to future U.S. Sen. Tammy Duckworth), Walsh became a nationally syndicated right-wing radio host and, a few years later, a leading supporter of Donald Trump.
When Trump was elected president in 2016, Walsh already had doubts: He didn't love Trump and didn't hate him, as Walsh told me in the first part of our recent interview. But he was rewarded for his loyalty with access to the highest levels of power in the Trump White House and the MAGAverse, before ultimately deciding that Donald Trump represented an existential threat to American democracy and the future of the country. At significant personal and professional risk, Walsh turned against Trump and his movement, even running against Trump (albeit very briefly) as a 2020 Republican presidential candidate.
