Cliff Sims

Up until 2010, Republicans took over.

And so it was the first thing I'd ever done in politics was manage a campaign during that election cycle.

And coming out of that election cycle, you know, I had gotten to know everybody who came into power.

I knew the governor and the speaker of the house and the pro tem of the Senate and all these different people.

I didn't know what I was gonna do next, but I figured I was gonna keep kind of doing political consulting.

And so I started a blog that was basically the inside story of what's going on in Alabama politics.

And my thought was, if I can show that I know what's going on, maybe people will hire me to be a consultant for them.

And what actually happened was the thing exploded and just blew up into a full-blown news outlet.

And we had millions of readers and a statewide radio network.

And I hosted a daily radio show.

It was not nearly as good as the Sean Ryan show, but be that as it may, I had one.

And that's what I was doing.

And in 2015, one of the guests on my radio program was an upstart,

political candidate for president that people didn't really think had a chance.

His name was Donald Trump.

They thought it was a joke candidacy, some people did at the time.

And he was coming to do a big rally in Alabama.

And this rally is now kind of legendary now as the moment where people realize this is real because like 100,000 people showed up or something just like completely nuts in a stadium in South Alabama.

But Trump called into the radio show to promote that he was coming to the state.

It was the first time that I talked to Donald Trump.