Guest
Taylor Marshall is a popular Catholic author and commentary. He has written several books, including Infiltration (Crisis Publications) and Antichrist and Apocalypse: The 21 Prophecies of Revelation Unveiled and Described (Saint John Press). His YouTube channel has almost 500,000 subscribers.
Links
- Taylor Marshall (website)
- Taylor Marshall Running for President: What Does This Mean? (article)
Transcript
(Note: We provide this transcript as a service to our readers, but we do not guarantee 100% accuracy in the transcription. Feel free to contact us if you notice any errors.)
Eric Sammons:
Popular Catholic author and “Dad with a Webcam,” Taylor Marshall, announced last week that he’s running for President of the United States of America. We’re going to talk to him today by his candidacy and what he hopes to accomplish.
Hello. I’m Eric Sammons, your host, the Editor-in-Chief of Crisis Magazine. Before I get started, please smash that like button and subscribe to the channel. That’s how the algorithm knows that you like us and lets other people know about us. You can also follow us on social media at Crisis Mag at all the various places, and we’re in the midst of our fundraising campaign. We do two a year. This is one of them. So go to crisismagazine.com/donate. We’ve been very happy with how things have gone this one, but we still would like to get over the hump, and so go ahead and donate to that if you can. Okay. Let me pull this off the screen now. Okay. So we have Taylor Marshall here. Welcome back, Taylor.
Taylor Marshall:
Great to be here. Great. Good to be with you, my good buddy, Eric Sammons.
Eric Sammons:
That’s right. I’m looking forward next time I can come down to Dallas and hang out again.
Taylor Marshall:
Absolutely. You have to come here and we’ll do an interview.
Eric Sammons:
Yeah. That’s right. We weren’t able to do it last time I was in town. We got to work that out so I can. Okay. So my first question just has to be, are you serious about running?
Taylor Marshall:
I’m serious about preparing the run. There has to be a form filed officially, and that form has not been filed. So until that happens, it’s not on ink, but I am meeting with clergy, consultants, lawyers, other advisors that I trust, and we will be putting out a platform on the 4th of July. Today, I will leak out some of those points and we’ll discuss some of the platform that I’m running on, but we’re doing the feasibility study and I do intend to file that paperwork.
So this is real, and really hoping to change the discourse and the debate amongst conservatives, amongst Republicans because, Eric, you and I both know conservatives, Republicans, their commitment to key issues like the definition of matrimony and human life and the preservation of sanctity of human life, those are eroding and we’re moving away from those issues and moving away from the base. Everyone needs to get energized, activated, and excited and prayerful about if we’re going to be conservative, if that word even means anything, what are we conserving?
If God is not there and matrimony is not there and human life is not there, there is no point. So we need to move the Overton window back to these issues. I really believe, whether it be myself or another candidate or someone in four more years or eight years or 12 years, I really believe that we still have time to stress these issues because I do believe there is a majority who will vote this way.
We just need to be active and prayerful and confident, not ashamed. We don’t need to be appealing to the alphabet soup to try to get 1% of their vote. Let’s just energize those people who believe in God, our Lord Jesus Christ, holy matrimony, the sanctity of human life. If everybody votes for that, we win.
Eric Sammons:
Now, is your plan to run as a Republican or independent or what when you file?
Taylor Marshall:
That’s really the delay. What we’re discussing is what is the best way to position these talking points and to position this platform. Is it to go third party or is it to join in and try to get on the stage with the Republicans and into the primaries and into the debates? So that’s really, I think, the main question of not moving forward aggressively yet is that has to be decided.
Eric Sammons:
Okay. Now, you very publicly supported Donald Trump in 2020. I believe you spoke at one of his events even. So what’s changed your mind why you wouldn’t say, “Let’s just get behind Trump again”? Why is it that you think you should run instead of just backing Trump this time?
Taylor Marshall:
Well, I just want to take a moment to thank President Donald Trump and Amy Coney Barrett and the justices for the huge win with the overturn of Roe v. Wade. That is something that most of us did not expect to happen. I think one of the really disappointing things is the leftists, the socialists, the Marxists, the alphabet soup people, they have a win and they used the momentum to get another win and then another win. So if it was redefining marriage, they used that and then they go a little bit further. I feel that Christians in particular, Catholics in particular, we said, “Oh, we overturn Roe v. Wade, pat ourselves on the back and we’re done.” That’s not how the opposition works. They push more. They snowball their success. We have not done that.
I was officially on the Catholics for Trump campaign and was at events, met with people, and my primary or maybe only goal in that was to be a Catholic voice saying we need to move towards a pro-life candidacy and to be aggressive with justices and with legislation on this issue, and I don’t regret it. It was very difficult. There were things that I didn’t agree with on the Trump platform, but on that, I did believe it and we had tremendous outcome.
So I’m very delighted and happy to have been affiliated because the one issue I did believe we did really put the football down the field, maybe even scored a touchdown. Didn’t win the Super Bowl. See, I think that’s a thing. They think we overturned Roe v. Wade, we won the Super Bowl, let’s have the ticker tape parade. It’s really not that. We are still in the game. We’re still at halftime in the Super Bowl, and it’s not won yet.
So I’m not against Donald Trump. I am concerned that the GOP, the Republican Party, and the advisors are looking at the numbers and they’re … You’re already sensing this. Everyone who’s watching politics they say, “Ooh, maybe overturning Roe v. Wade was too aggressive. Maybe we need to back off on this. Maybe we’re going to lose the middle.” So you’re starting to see a little bit of that on Republican platforms, and I think that is the exact opposite direction that we need to go.
We’re about to witness in the month of June an avalanche, a tsunami of, for them, success in moving the Overton window to their political positions. I want to just explain briefly what the Overton window is. The Overton window, it’s the idea that there is a window, a space of issues, policies, legislation that is permissible for politicians on the left and the right to discuss on a stage or on a microphone or on TV.
So for example, in the 1920s there, the Overton Window did not allow for there to be a public civil discussion on civil rights. That only happened because Rosa Parks and a bunch of other events that happened at a certain moment of time, and then it opened up this discussion. If you went back to the 1990s, Eric, you know if we went and talked to Barack Obama or the Clintons and said, “What do you think about same sex marriage?” what would they say?
Eric Sammons:
They’d say, I mean, they were saying they’re opposed to it.
Taylor Marshall:
Yeah. They would say, “Oh, no, that’s ridiculous.”
Eric Sammons:
That’s right.
Taylor Marshall:
“Same sex marriage, that’s ridiculous.”
Eric Sammons:
“Marriage is only to a man and a woman.” That’s what they would say.
Taylor Marshall:
Yeah. Exactly.
Eric Sammons:
Obama’s literally saying that in 2011, I think, as late as that.
Taylor Marshall:
Exactly. So why is it that in the ’90s, 2000, and as late as maybe 2011 the most liberal Democrats in the country did not feel confident or safe to go on a camera or go on a stage and say, “We need to fight for same sex unions,” but now everything is rainbow and they like the White House and …? So what happened there? Until we Catholics, we Christians, we conservatives understand that, we will not win. Here’s what happened. They aggressively, by being united and funding themselves, they moved the Overton window from where it was in 1996 over to where it became in the 2000 teens.
How did they do that? They did it through media. They did it through political campaigns. One of the things that the Democrats do really well is if they want to move policy over here, they will go very extreme like three miles beyond to the left. It’s so extreme, but what happens is people will say, “Well, that’s ridiculous,” but they’re still dragging people towards their ideal Overton window.
Why aren’t we conservatives, people who believe in God, Jesus Christ, sanctity of human life, the importance of the nuclear family, why aren’t we trying to drag the Overton window? You see, that’s where you get politicians. Politicians are going to come and go. I’m going to be dead one day. You’re going to be dead. We need to shape and move that Overton window so that we can have discourse. One of the things we have to do is we have to not be ashamed of appealing to Jesus Christ and the Catholic church.
Eric Sammons:
Okay. You have a platform already. You’re the most popular Catholic podcaster out there. You have your books, influenced a lot of people. I’ve told this story before to you, but I’ve told to others that your name and Scott Hahn’s are the two I hear the most of people saying, “This guy really helped me become better Catholic, live my faith more.” So why is it that you feel like going from this platform you have right now that you want to now get into politics, which as you insinuated just before, politics is a very messy business? Can’t you just push this Overton window as much as you can with your current platform? Why do you feel a need to get into the political realm to do it?
Taylor Marshall:
Yes. I would say both you, Eric, and me, Taylor, and Scott Hahn, everybody else, they are in their ways shifting the Overton window. We all are. Crisis Magazine, Sophia Institute Press, all these institutions and people by all of your activity are moving and shifting and holding an Overton window. I think because I have been granted by generous people who buy the books and watch the YouTube channel and the podcast, I am very blessed. I realize that it’s not just me talking on a webcam, it’s hundreds of thousands of people who hit the like button and subscribe and purchase a book or sign up for a new St. Thomas Institute or donate on Patreon. That is a massive privilege.
Since I do have a certain connection and a visibility within Catholic circles in a political context, somebody has to do it. Now, it could happen, Eric, that this whole thing fails. I don’t get even 0.01%. I never get on a stage. All my critics laugh at me and they wag their finger like, “What a dork, Taylor-“
Eric Sammons:
Which they’re all waiting to do.
Taylor Marshall:
They’re all waiting to do it. I see them out there, “How are you?” and it may very well happen, and I’m completely fine with that. They can make fun of me, but if we can energize hundreds of thousands or millions, millions would be the goal, to say, “Well, why is marriage between a man and a woman?” I know the Overton Window tells you and me, Eric, we should not talk about Jesus, the Book of Genesis or the Bible. Overton window shames us and says, “Do not say that. What you want to do is you want to make appeals to natural law and talk a lot about Aristotle. That’s what you want to do.” That’s what the Overton window tells us Catholics to do in 2023.
I haven’t had a prominent bishop say, “Man, it’s really good, Taylor, that you did a PhD’s dissertation on natural law because we can’t really talk about Catholicism to the public. So by doing natural law, you can get into that.” All the liberals are citing Marx, Nietzsche. They’re citing all their socialist heroes, their feminist heroes, their socialist journals and books. They’re citing all of that as dogma, the experts say, and we just sit around and go, “Yeah, okay, okay. Might disagree with that, whatever.”
Why are we ashamed to say, “God says”? There was a time in the Overton window where everyone would’ve said that, and we have been moved like a frog in a pot who’ve been boiling slowly, getting hotter and hotter and hotter. Every June when we go to the store, we walk around Target or turn on social media and it’s just rainbow blind everywhere. We have been trying to do this culture, natural law, subtle debate with these leftist, liberal, Marxist, and we’re losing.
There is no neutral battlefield. There is no vacuum of ideas. If you take Christ and you take the logos and you take the good, the true, and the beautiful out of the public discourse, that vacuum will bring into it everything you see right now, and just saying, “Ooh, that’s gross,” or, “I think Dylan Mulvaney is cringe,” is not going to ever win the culture war, win office, change laws or move the Overton window. We have to be explicit.
Eric Sammons:
Now, one thing you’ve been explicit on over the years, you’re a convert to Catholicism and you’ve made very clear that you believe, like I do, that Catholicism is the one true faith, that you can’t be saved outside of it. Why would a non-Catholic vote for you even if they’re conservative because you clearly think that non-Catholics should all become Catholic? Is your plan to make them all convert when you become president or something like that? Why should a non-Catholic support you?
Taylor Marshall:
This is why I’m working on the platform, and we can maybe talk a little bit about the platform-
Eric Sammons:
Yeah, we’ll do that.
Taylor Marshall:
… but the platform is not to erect an inquisition or coerce conversions and say, “You must be baptized. You must receive the Eucharist. You must do these things.” You look at someone like Blessed Karl of Austria. He had Eastern Orthodox, Jewish, Muslims, et cetera, under his reign. He was a devout Catholic. He promoted Catholic with taxes and public works and all these things, but there’s always been not a right, but a toleration of these other practices. None of this is to … Again, we aren’t even in a Christian monarchy. So none of this is to coerce or create a mandatory obligation.
You know what? A lot of Protestants are going to look at who I am and be like, “That guy is so Catholic. I would never vote for that Mary-worshiping papist, red-worshiping, works righteousness person,” and that’s fine, but if everybody who said when a sperm and a egg meet and there’s conception, a human person is created with a soul, and every person who says marriage, matrimony is one man, one woman until death do us part, if everyone who believes those two truths voted for me, I believe I would be the president or if not me, someone else.
I don’t think that we have lost that opportunity yet. We may get to a point where we lose that opportunity. We’re getting pretty close, Eric. We’re getting pretty close. So we either try to force that discussion and move the Overton window, and maybe we should be doing these things at the same time, digging out our catacombs and preparing our necks for martyrdom because that’s what’s before us.
Eric Sammons:
It sounds like, to be blunt, you sound more optimistic than me about that people would support that. I hope you’re right. I worry that you’re not, that people have, because of the shift in the Overton window over the years, people have been brainwashed to think that marriage is just two people or three people or however many people who like each other and want to live together, and that basically the mom decides when life begins, whenever she feels like it, and those things. So I hope you’re right about that. Now-
Taylor Marshall:
Let me counter to that real quick. What if we were sitting here in 1990 and we were talking about the Democratic platform and we’re like, “Yeah, I just don’t see them going for gay marriage. It just seems so crazy,” or we were sitting in the year 298 AD and we were having discussion, “Well, what if the empire became Catholic? Well, that’s just crazy. They’re killing us right now.”
Eric Sammons:
That’s crazy talk. That would never happen.
Taylor Marshall:
It’s crazy. There’s no way an emperor would be baptized. There’s no way an emperor would give civic buildings to the Pope in Rome like the latter in palace to become the cathedral of Rome. That’s just crazy talk, Eric. So it can happen.
Eric Sammons:
Yes. I do know, obviously, through the grace of God, anything can happen. I would say though, the entire woke establishment, the woke regime is against us. In 1990, they did start in the 1990s pushing homosexuality. You had the show Will and Grace and things like that, which were the soft push.
Taylor Marshall:
Even in Seinfeld and-
Eric Sammons:
Not that there’s anything wrong with that, yes.
Taylor Marshall:
Exactly, and FRIENDS, although there’s some-
Eric Sammons:
There’s that soft push.
Taylor Marshall:
So I want people to understand, while you were watching those shows in the ’90s, the Overton window was pulling all of us along and you didn’t even know it.
Eric Sammons:
Which is amazing because if you watch them now, they would get criticized for being politically incorrect and not strong enough. My wife and I were watching Frazier not that long ago, and they were making jokes about crazy people, men who dress like women, who act like they’re women. It was just this joke, but we also noticed, especially as the season went on, getting further on in the early 2000s, they were starting to normalize homosexual relationships. It’s like that very subtle thing. So that’s the reason why I admit my optimism probably doesn’t match yours because you have this entire establishment that’s pushing that window, continue to push it. I’m not saying we shouldn’t fight it. I’m not saying that. Like I said, I hope you’re right.
So obviously, your platform is going to be life begins at conception and needs to be protected, that marriage is between a man and a woman for life. Obviously, I would assume it’s something like a man is a man and a woman is a woman. What are the other big points though of your platform?
Taylor Marshall:
So I’ll release, God willing, the whole thing 4th of July, Independence Day, but one of the points that I’m working on is, basically, if you’re familiar with what’s going on in Hungary, and a lot of Americans aren’t, but Viktor Orbán in Hungary, and Viktor Orbán is not a Catholic, by the way, in Hungary, his family policy is remarkable. What I’m advocating is we just basically copy and paste what he’s doing there.
Eric Sammons:
I’m reading a book right now about Orbán and Hungary, and it’s fascinating what’s going on over there. I’m planning on interviewing somebody who is working with the Hungarian government doing a think tank with him, something like that, to talk about what’s going on in Hungary, but why don’t you tell us a little bit though about generally … I think a lot of people won’t know what they’re doing over there.
Taylor Marshall:
So here’s some of the policy, and one of the things that I’m saying is as I say these things because people are limited by our Overton window in America, they think that’s crazy talk like this doesn’t make any sense, but then you say, well, right now in 2023, this is happening in Hungary and they’re instituting this, and you’re like, “Wow, that’s remarkable,” or another one is pornography. Japan has banned pornography.
Eric Sammons:
Is that right?
Taylor Marshall:
Do you know that?
Eric Sammons:
I didn’t know that.
Taylor Marshall:
Yeah. It maybe won’t be as perfectly airtight and successful, but if they can have those measures, why can’t we? People say, That’s crazy. How could you police that? How could you ban pornography?” Yet they police and ban … We saw over a certain health issue in the last couple years how successful they were in monitoring and banning and restricting. So you’re telling me that all that effort couldn’t go into banning pornography, which is destructive to children, marriages, on and on and on? I mean, it’s a net damage to human civilization.
Back to Hungary, this is actually being done. So here are just some of the policies that are going on in Hungary. It’s their family policy in Hungary. Newly married couples receive an allowance per month for the first 24 months of marriage. Did you know they were doing that?
Eric Sammons:
No.
Taylor Marshall:
It’s remarkable, right? Now, if you would say that in America, you’re like, “That’s crazy,” but Hungary is saying, “You know what? We prioritize and we believe in the institution of matrimony, of marriage, and so we want to create incentives to help marriage, to move it along.” Now, people are going to respond and say, “Well, I’m not married. Why am I not getting a benefit?” Well, look what’s going on in America. The alphabet community is having their flag on every embassy, every monument, every city square. They have all the corporations, and that’s a minority. I don’t know what the numbers are. I see different ones, 2%, 5%, and yet all of this government attention and focus and money goes to that small minority. I’m just saying, “You know what? If you believe in Jesus Christ, you’re part of a much bigger minority. Why can’t our values be amplified and assisted by government?” Another-
Eric Sammons:
I was going to say, I assume there’s something like a credit for married couples. You’d had to start with, of course, making sure marriage was defined first because you’re not be wanting to pay and give a credit to gay couples who are, quote, unquote, “married” in the eyes of the law.
Taylor Marshall:
Exactly. Exactly. Another part of the Hungarian family policy is there is a housing benefit, and it can be used by married couples for newly built houses and apartments based on various rates and based on whether they have one, two, three or four or more children. So there’s a housing benefit. There’s also a maternity benefit. The mother receives a 225% of the minimal pension at the time of the birth of the child, and if she has twins, she gets 300% of what would be the pension. Parents get extra paid vacation, and it scales based on whether you have one, two, three or four children. Parents of three or more children receive seven extra paid vacations per year.
There’s also the grandma law, and this is a program that assists grandmothers who agree to spend time and help with their grandchildren. So instead of subsidizing daycare programs, let’s do subsidiarity. Let’s help grandmothers assist their daughters or daughters-in-law with the care of the grandchildren. That makes sense from a natural law point of view and from a Christian point of view. Hungary has thought of that and said, “Let’s put that into practice,” and they’re doing it. Then of course, there’s also tax advantages to having a family.
We know that the family is the basic unit. It’s the building block of the nation. So we should be watering those seeds with our time and attention and our money. So that’s a policy that I think Americans should be discussing. Now, does that mean I’m going to win the presidency and be able to instill that? That’s a very long race to run, but what if several million people in America, and what if Tucker Carlson and Laura Ingram and all the talking heads and the podcast starts talking and running stories on the Hungarian family policy and millions and millions of people learn about it and we start thinking the same way?
Eric Sammons:
Yeah, because the practicality of it is going to be different between a smaller country like Hungary and our large country and, of course, the federal state system, but I guess what you’re saying is basically even as a president who’s pushing it could get states to be implementing such policies to local communities, things like that. Even if, for example, California’s want nothing to do with that, if you still get Texas and other states doing it, that’s better than nobody doing it, right?
Taylor Marshall:
Yeah. Oklahoma may do it. Oklahoma may do it. So subsidiarity is definitely in play on all these things, but I think the very most important thing is realizing what is possible and what is actually being done on planet Earth. Another part of the platform is creating moral alliances with other nations that are family friendly and Christian friendly like Hungary, like Poland. I would even like to say like the Vatican, Vatican City state, not alliances based on war, but a lot like NATO, but based on a commonality of shared goals for the common good of humanity. I don’t think that that’s ever been discussed or promoted. If we started having moral alliances and promoting and helping those countries, that’s another thing that we could start discussing.
Eric Sammons:
I think that brings me to something I have to bring up because it’s of great interest to me, and that is our alliances with other countries, foreign policy, what’s going on in Ukraine and all that. I know on Twitter you have been critical of Zelenskyy, of a lot of our relationship with them, which, of course, means people will call you a Putin puppet and things of that nature. I’m with you on being called that, but what is … So you hinted at right there.
So is that your idea of foreign policy being more like, “Okay. Let’s reach out to countries that we want to have a moral relationship with like a Hungary, like a Poland.” Those are probably the best two examples in Europe. There might be in other places as well and relate to them, but also then specifically … Just all our relations are based on war, on the military industrial complex, frankly. So what’s your foreign policy, just big picture, when it comes to those relationships?
Taylor Marshall:
Yeah. I’m a generally non-interventionist. I don’t think we should be policing and patrolling the globe. In the ’80s and the ’90s under Reagan and the Bushes, there was this crusade for democracy and capitalism. There was this idea. It’s amazing to think about we can impose our economics and public policies and even places like North Africa democracy on people who don’t even want it or aren’t even asking for it, right?
Eric Sammons:
Point a gun at them and they’ll accept it.
Taylor Marshall:
Yes. I’m not even advocating that we would do that with moral values or Catholicism or Christianity or anything like that, but I do think if in the ’80s and the ’90s we were forming political alliances based on ideologies of capitalism and democracy, why can’t we form alliances based on, “Wait, you want to help end abortion, we want to help end abortion.” Why can’t those also be international alliances as well?
Eric Sammons:
I think you know. I don’t think it’s going to shock you that your candidacy, if you end up filing and everything, is quite a long shot. It’s not-
Taylor Marshall:
You think? Is it really? I’m just joking.
Eric Sammons:
Okay. Good. He’s not delusional. Okay. It’s a long shot. Now, I will say in 2015, every person on earth thought Donald Trump had no chance. Of course, he did have millions and billions of dollars behind him, and I thought that he had no chance. I admit it freely. So practically speaking, how do you see this actually taking off where people are like, “Yeah, this is actually something I want to back. Taylor Marshall, I like what he’s saying,” and people start talking about you because you have a very big audience in a small world, in the world of Catholicism, people who care about Catholicism in America and outside this country. I know everybody knows your name, but you go to the average person on the street, they have no idea who you are, obviously. So how do you break that? What’s your vision for breaking into the general public to get your message out there?
Taylor Marshall:
Well, this message will either grow and resonate, and even if I don’t make it or whatever happens to me, if a Tucker Carlson runs the story on Hungary or on Japan banning pornography or even begins to float the idea of moral alliances or, you know what? A lot of … I’ve heard conservatives say this, Eric. Back 10 years ago I thought, “Yeah, we can redefine marriage. It’s not a big deal. We Christians will have our understanding of matrimony. We’re not going to fight that fight. Let that go.” There were people who said that 10 years ago. Now, they’re 100% opposed because they realized, “Well, bake the cake,” turned into elementary school teachers assigning the gender of your child without informing you because if you can redefine matrimony, you can redefine sex, male and female. It’s the same philosophy, it’s the same logic. It’s madness.
So I think a lot of people thought, “I’m not going to die on that hill.” Now that we live through everything in our face from libraries to the month of June and elementary schools and all these things, people are saying, “Okay. Wow. We gave up some high ground 10 years ago and maybe we need to start recapturing that.” There’s a lot more conservatives right now, I think, willing to entertain the idea of, “Nope, let’s go back and redefine matrimony.”
Eric Sammons:
You see, let’s be blunt, I know you supported him in 2020 and we say he had some good things he did, but Trump, he’s already attacking DeSantis for the six-week abortion ban that that’s too harsh. He’s not really been ever strong on the LGBTQ, ABC issues. DeSantis seems like he probably is going to be better on that, but where do you stand on that between DeSantis and Trump? Are you just saying even DeSantis, he’s al also part of the Overton window? Is that where you’re saying that we need to keep pushing even further than that?
Taylor Marshall:
All right. Eric, you and I are both part of the pro-life movement. We know hundreds of people. We know Abby Johnson and all these people. How many pro-life people that are involved are like, “I’m happy with anything past the six-week window. Let’s go for that”? Do you know anybody in the movement who’s okay with that?
Eric Sammons:
As a step towards the eventual goal, maybe, but nobody’s like, “That’s what our final goal is.”
Taylor Marshall:
Exactly, right? So what’s the problem is is on the conservative side, we will actually say what you just said, “Well, yeah, maybe not personally, but maybe if it’s a step towards the end.” Okay. Now, let’s go to the left. Are they ever willing to compromise like that? No.
Eric Sammons:
Well, let me give you an example. Right here in Ohio, of course with the after Dobbs, the six-week heartbeat bill went into effect, the governor signed it. God bless him. Of course, it’s been challenged in the courts, but what the left has done is they have an abortion amendment coming up in the fall that you we’re going to vote on, and it’s 100% abortion all nine months for any reason, 12 years old, if you’re 12 years old, and they even have it written such that a 12-year-old can get a gender reassignment surgery without permission, and that’s allowed in the Constitution. So that’s just perfect example of they go the whole way.
Taylor Marshall:
They go the whole way, and I’m going the whole way too, and I want everybody else to go the whole way and say, “Jesus Christ is king. This is a human life. This is matrimony. This is decency.” Well, why is that? Because God made man and woman, period. I don’t need a sociology study from Harvard. I don’t need experts say. It’s time that Christians are bold as line and say it. I know the Overton window right now, it makes us feel uncomfortable like, “Citing the Bible, that seems so fundy,” but we do need to appeal to the truth. If we really believe that Jesus rose from the dead, and Jesus said a lot of political things, then it’s okay for us to talk like that.
The left, they’re not ashamed of, “We just made up these pronouns three years ago. Let’s enforce them on all of humanity.” It’s totally insane, but they will do it, and we’re like, “Well, I believe Jesus rose from the dead, and he’s the King of kings and Lord of lords, and he lives in my heart, but we will never talk about Him in any of these debates.” That’s actually madness on our side.
Eric Sammons:
What about the argument? I’ve already seen some people pop this up about you. Now, it depends on if you ran third party independent or Republican, but even Republican, the idea is that you’re just taking votes away or you’re damaging … Let’s say you go Republican. You’re damaging potentially the candidate who’s going to actually be the nominee. If you go independent or third party, you’re taking votes away. You’re really just giving your vote to Biden at that point. What do you say to that argument that you’re just really damaging the more likely to win conservatives?
Taylor Marshall:
Before I would answer that question, I would say, what do the Democrats in the left do? They run hard. They run hard. If you say, “Hey, I’m a GM or Ford or Target or whatever, and we were going to run these rainbow ads at the Super Bowl, but we have a little pushback, and so we’re not going to do that,” what would they do? What would those groups-
Eric Sammons:
They would crush them.
Taylor Marshall:
They would crush them. They would crush them so hard. We’ve seen a little bit of that with the Bud Light. All right? What if we did the Bud Light and we just went 20x? We could do it. There’s enough of us. We could do it. We could crush them. We should have presidential candidates having meetings, regular meetings like, “Oh, yeah, if we do that, if we say that, man, our 17% of Catholic registered voters are going to go ballistic on us, and they’re going to crush us,” because that’s what happens on the left. All of these people are so afraid to back down on anything that has to do with that agenda. They are so afraid. Even Bud Light is so afraid to say, “We were wrong.” They won’t do it because they know what will happen to them.
It’s just like if you went into the Town Square and started cursing Muhammad and ripping up a Quran, we know what would happen. We Christians, we, for some reason, have been trained to not respond. Honestly, I don’t want to lose an election. That’s not the point of this, but we should be at a point where the Catholic contingency, we should be making demands, and politicians, whether they’re Catholic or not, should know, “Yeah. Those people right there, they are a major voting block, and they have very strong beliefs on these topics. We need to listen to them. We need to poll them. We need to consult them, and we need to make sure our policies are online with them or we’re going to have a group that doesn’t show up or doesn’t vote.”
This is really how you get politics done. I think so often we’ve been trained to just compromise, compromise, move a little to the left, move a little left, and look where we’re at today. Again, maybe I’ll fail. Maybe I’ll look like a real big idiot. I’m okay.
Eric Sammons:
Hey, no offense, but it wouldn’t be the first time.
Taylor Marshall:
True.
Eric Sammons:
For any of us. So I’m sure your kids tell you that all the time. They sit there, like mine, they do
Taylor Marshall:
I got four teenagers right now.
Eric Sammons:
Is your slogan going to be Make America Christian again or something like that?
Taylor Marshall:
No, because I honestly don’t believe America has been authentically Christian in the past.
Eric Sammons:
Very good.
Taylor Marshall:
You can say that countries like France, the Roman Empire, Armenia, places that politically submitted to Christ were Christian, but America has never been a Christian nation. So to say, MACA, Make America Christian Again, I don’t think that that’s the right thing. My motto, my standard is just Christ is King. Christ is the King. He’s the King of all of humanity. He’s the King of kings and the Lord of lords, and whether we acknowledge His kingship or not, it doesn’t change it. Christ wants matrimony to be defined the way He and the Father and the Holy Spirit define matrimony. That’s in accordance with natural law as God embedded it in nature and in our human nature.
It’s also revealed in scripture, and it’s also rational and reasonable. I don’t think that we should be ashamed or afraid of that. We should be a vocal, convinced, powerful group of people, and we should be more bold than the alphabet soup contingent. Why would we be less zealous for Jesus and allow them to be more zealous for making your entire human identity based upon sexual activities? Why would we really be outdone by that?
Eric Sammons:
Sad.
Taylor Marshall:
Sad.
Eric Sammons:
Now, okay, we’re going to wrap it up here in a minute. So the plan is, it sounds like, is you’re still making decisions about Republican, independent, third party filing platform, and the calendar is by July 4th. That’s all going to be laid out and announced, correct?
Taylor Marshall:
The platform July 4th is the plan.
Eric Sammons:
Then do you plan on filing though by then or do you know if there’s any deadlines that you have to hit for that?
Taylor Marshall:
We have the forms, looking at them. It’s actually not that difficult of a process. It’s remarkable how easy it is to file, but when you file, you really say, “This is it,” and that’s a life-changing moment.
Eric Sammons:
Now, don’t you have to do something in each state in order to be on ballots in each state?
Taylor Marshall:
Yeah. So once you start, there’s Iowa and all of these thresholds and landmarks that are then going to lead to the Republican convention, which then leads to the actual nominee. So that right there is running through an enormous maze, right? So that’s part of also the consultation and the strategy is, what are the goals? What is trying to be achieved? Then it’s just like a war theory. You have to say, “Okay. These people are doing wrong. We should try to stop them, but St. Augustine says, ‘If literally you have a zero or a 0.0000001% chance of having any victory, it’s actually fool hearty. It’s actually wrong to run into a battle with your men, even though it might be a noble cause and you’re fighting for everything that’s good and true and beautiful in the world.
So that’s also part of the consultation of achieving because it’s very clear the GOP is not going to just say, “Man, look at that Taylor Marshall guy. We should just right now a year out pivot to him.” So how is it initiated? How is it carried through? Then how has it ended? These are important discussions that have to be had. So that’s why everything’s just not right out the gate at the beginning because there is a strategy of how it has to be done.
Eric Sammons:
I assume you have people like advisors that have been through this process before?
Taylor Marshall:
Yes.
Eric Sammons:
Okay. My final question is because I’ve seen everybody talking about there are people … I do not know why, but you really trigger some people, and I just-
Taylor Marshall:
I do? Really? Me?
Eric Sammons:
Yeah, I know.
Taylor Marshall:
Weird.
Eric Sammons:
I don’t quite get it. I can see people disagreeing with you, but why you trigger them so much I don’t quite get, but anyway, you do. So there are people saying, “This is just about Taylor Marshall, just about building your brand, just a way for you to market more books or whatever, sell more stuff. What would you just say in response to that?
Taylor Marshall:
Grift, more grift, more grift, to have more grift.
Eric Sammons:
Yeah, more grift. That’s the word we got to use. You’re just grifting at a higher level now than you were before.
Taylor Marshall:
Right. So here’s the response. Doing this creates so much risk, so much instability, so much potential downside that if it were just for that, it would be a bad strategy to open yourself up because this is not just saying, “Hey, Catholics, get on board, buy a book.” This is exposing your heart and your neck to the entire nation. This is exposing yourself to the alphabet soup mafia and the Antifa. This is moving well out and beyond our enclave of … Let’s be honest with ourselves, Eric Sammons. I might have popularity and bestselling books in the traditional Roman Catholic space, a big fish in a very little pond. This is much bigger. It’s not like by running for presidents, suddenly people are going to be like, “That guy wrote Crucified Rabbi about the origins of Judaism in the Catholic church. I’ll go get that book.” That’s not going to happen in a presidential-
Eric Sammons:
They’ll just call you anti-Semitic from writing the book.
Taylor Marshall:
Yeah, whatever, whatever. So the risk/reward thing here is way skewed against me. If people want to think it’s a grift … People are going to say that I’m a grifter no matter what I do. Even if I didn’t do this, they were going to say I was a grifter. They’re going to say, “He has a new conspiracy,” or whatever it is. I think you’ve known me for a long time, Eric. I think one of the things that makes me different, and I think you said I trigger people and you don’t know why is because I don’t care. You can say all these things about me on Twitter, and I never have a fit. I never go to war. I never go down into the mud pit and wrestle these people.
I’m just, honestly, I’m trying to just live for God and live for Jesus, and for my family and for the future and for what’s best for the Marshall family, what’s best for the state of Texas and what’s best for America, and that’s it. So people out there, if they want to call me all the names, grifter, schismatic, whatever, I don’t care. Ultimately, I’m going to have to answer to Jesus Christ.
Eric Sammons:
Now, for people who do want to support you, what can they do right now?
Taylor Marshall:
So again, I’m not asking for money. I’m not asking for people to show up at anything. The only thing that I’m doing right now, it’s very minimal, is if you go to my website, taylormarshall.com, and you want to get information and be notified when we release the full platform, you can just go to taylormarshall.com. At the very top of the page, you can insert your email address and then we can contact, we’ll send you the platform and send you some updates. I’m not going to sell your email address to any political group or share it or anything like that. It’s just for this purpose, very minimal buy-in. Nothing’s being asked of you. So you go to taylormarshall.com, put in your email address, and then we can just be in touch as we get closer to the 4th of July.
Eric Sammons:
Okay. Sounds good. Anything else you want to tell people about your campaign or anything that’s going on?
Taylor Marshall:
I’d like people to pray for me, at least pray a Hail Mary or maybe even a full rosary. There’s already a lot of tax that come with this. I think whether you agree with this or not, I think that all of us can shift the Overton window and we can be bold as a lion and discuss these issues. I think it’s okay to interject in the conversation, “Well, that’s just against the Christian faith,” or, “God is against that,” or, “That is a sin.” Using our language in conversation might be starling to people, but it’s just like saying, instead of saying Happy Holidays or Merry Christmas, you’re standing for something by the way that you speak and greet people.
The left, they’re not only just asking for you to say Happy Holidays, they want you to use certain pronouns or you go to prison or lose your job. So the aggression on their side is so high, and then our insistence is so low for our principles. If we could just get everyone watching to be confident in their Catholicism, be confident that Christ is King, even that would be a win for this project.
Eric Sammons:
I agree with what our friend Kennedy Hall wrote today at Crisis was that whatever you think of, you run or something, it’s a good thing when good Catholics enter into the battle. Even if you end up failing on an outward level, it’s a good thing because somebody has to fight in each of these arenas. So I would never, ever in my most insane moments even think about doing something like that, and I wouldn’t even want to run for my local dog catcher.
Taylor Marshall:
Let’s be honest. If you say it’s a grift, even I recognize that the outcome is most likely failure, total and complete failure. Unless there’s some miracle of miracles, a supernatural intervention, there will be failure, but like Mother Teresa said, “We’re not called to be successful, we’re called to be faithful.” Again, if it moves our culture closer to Christ, for me, that’s worth it, and that’s why I’m running for President of the United States of America.
Eric Sammons:
Amen. Well, thanks, Taylor. I really appreciate it.
Taylor Marshall:
Yeah. Thank you, Eric.
Eric Sammons:
It’s great. Good luck. You’ll need it. You’ll actually need grace more than luck, but good luck. I’ll put the link to the website so people can go and sign up to find out more about what you’re doing. I’ll also put a link to Kennedy’s article at Crisis today that talks about you running. So God bless you.
Taylor Marshall:
Great. Appreciate it, Eric. Thank you.
Eric Sammons:
Okay. Yup.
Taylor Marshall:
Christ is King.
Eric Sammons:
Amen.