Joe Walsh on his presidential campaign, how he explains his most messed-up statements, and what happens if he accidentally gets himself elected president. A conversation with Olivianuzzi
Joe Walsh on Capitol Hill in 2012. Photo: Alex Wong/Getty Images If you’ve never heard of Joe Walsh, well, that’s about the only thing he has in common with many of the people who are currently running for president — that, and the fact that now he’s running, too.
It’s not clear how much of an appetite Republican voters, 80 percent of whom approve of Trump, have for such contrast. But Walsh is making a bet that the president is more vulnerable than the surveys suggest. Whether that’s the case, politics is showbiz, baby, and the telegenic Walsh — who looks like a cross of Will Ferrell, Rahm Emanuel, and a loyal beagle — is giving the cable networks and click-mongers a bit of the precious, precious drama that they need to survive.
You know what’s funny, Olivia, and I don’t want to sound naïve: I didn’t know he was this big of an ass. I didn’t know he was this unfit. I just always figured he was a goof. Not a very smart guy. But he’d at least hire some good people and maybe a few good things might happen. But I didn’t know that, financially, the guy was an absolute disaster, that he’d lost more money than anybody in the country.
You think that? I think a lot of people on the left would disagree with that assessment of the Democratic Party. Uh, sort of. If you were saying that we all have our implicit biases because of our worldview and the way we were raised and our race and gender, maybe everyone has a bit of intolerance on some level?
Okay … But in terms of people of Muslim faith. How do you feel, generally, about people of Muslim faith? I grew up in a post-9/11 world. The right was very successful in fearmongering about Muslims, broadly, and not making any distinctions between terrorists and people of Muslim faith — regardless of what George W. Bush’s rhetoric was in the immediate aftermath of the attacks. But we’re talking about billions of people. It’s a lot of fucking people. And most of them are definitely not terrorists.
There seems to be a pattern of you “stepping over the line” when it comes to Muslims, but I don’t see a similar pattern of you stepping over the line when it comes to Christian extremists or extremists of other faiths, and that’s why it’s hard for me to accept the idea that you were not trying to be outrageous and sound a dog whistle to racists on the right.
What do you say to people who remain skeptical of you, who hear your apologies or hear you clarifying and say, “I don’t believe him?” When I look at 2016, it’s pretty clear to me that a lot of what motivated people to vote for Donald Trump was a racist backlash to Barack Obama. Do you think that’s a fair characterization?
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