Joe Walsh, Republican candidate challenging Trump, says he lost his radio show

Joe Walsh, Republican candidate challenging Trump, says he lost his radio show

• By Emily Tillett, Stephanie Ramirez

Updated on: August 27, 2019 / 11:35 AM / CBS News




Joe Walsh, the former congressman who's challenging President Trump in the Republican Party's presidential primary, said in a Monday night CNN interview that he lost his popular radio show and had just received notice before arriving to the studio for the sit-down. Walsh told CNN's John Berman that he expected the move because nearly "80 to 90%" of his audience supports the president.



"I am running for president. I oppose this president. Most of my listeners support the president," said Walsh. "It's not an easy thing to do to be in conservative talk radio and oppose this president."


The conservative had broadcast his show through Salem Radio Network. He also has a podcast connected to "AM560 The Answer" in Chicago. Salem told CBS in a statement on Tuesday that affiliates can continue to receive Walsh's program from a different syndicator "to be selected by Joe Walsh" after 30 days.


"This announcement does not affect Joe Walsh's local program airing on AM 560 The Answer in Chicago, however Walsh's program will have to be removed as soon as he becomes a viable and legal candidate for President," Salem added.


While he argued that that the 2020 race isn't about "the issues," Walsh contended that he's running to the right of Mr. Trump and believes in strong immigration policies. Walsh said he does not agree with Mr. Trump's tax cut and would have given a greater tax cut to the middle class. When asked about the lack of policy plans on his campaign website, Walsh focused on the president.


"I'm running against Trump because he's morally unfit. Period. It's about Trump. It's not about the issues. It's about Trump," Walsh said. "But on the issues, I believe in a wall. Trump hasn't built a wall. I believe in border security. Trump has botched the border. The border's a bigger mess now than it was when he got elected."


Walsh announced his candidacy for president during an interview on ABC's "This Week'" on Sunday. Also in the race against Mr. Trump is Bill Weld, a former Massachusetts governor.


Walsh won a House seat from suburban Chicago in the 2010 tea party wave but lost reelection in 2012 and has since hosted his talk show.


Walsh attempted to distance himself from past incendiary comments and make the case that he's not Mr. Trump. Walsh instead said some of his past controversial statements were made because he believes in free speech and "abhors" political correctness.


He admitted to saying racist comments and added: "I think we're all a little bit racist. We've all said racist things. I bet if you and I went through everybody's Twitter feeds, we're going to find things that are objectionable and offensive."



Walsh said that with the lack of a radio show, he now intends to campaign "full time" against Mr. Trump.


First published on August 27, 2019 / 8:51 AM

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/joe-wal...is-radio-show/

Leaving the Air to Run For Office –
What to Do With The Broadcaster Who Becomes a Candidate

By David Oxenford on February 4, 2010
POSTED IN POLITICAL BROADCASTING


As we enter the 2010 election season, questions are beginning to arise about broadcast station on-air employees who decide to run for political office, and what a station needs to do about such employees to avoid issues under the FCC political broadcasting rules.

For instance, in Arizona, talk show host (and former Congressman) JD Hayworth recently left his radio program and announced that he was planning to contest John McCain’s reelection by challenging him in the Republican primary.

On a local level throughout the country, on-air station employees are deciding to throw their hats into the political ring. And, whether that ring is a Federal office like the one that Mr. Hayworth is seeking, or a state or local elective position, whether it be Governor or member of the Board of Education or Water Commission,

an announcer-candidate can mean equal time obligations under Section 315 of the Communications Act and under FCC rules for a broadcast station.

We wrote about this issue last election cycle,here, and the rules have not changed. Once a candidate becomes "legally qualified" (i.e. he or she has established their right to a place on the ballot by filing the necessary papers), equal opportunities rights are available to the opposing candidates.

What this means is that, if the on-air broadcaster who is running for political office stays on the air, any opposing candidate can come to the station and demand equal opportunities within seven days of the date on which the on-air announcer/candidate was on the air, and the opponent would be entitled to the same amount of time in which they can broadcast a political message, to be run in the same general time period as the station employee/candidate was on the air.

So if your meteorologist decides to run for the city council, and he appears on the 6 o’clock news for 3 minutes each night doing the weather, an opposing city council candidate can get up to 21 minutes of time (3 minutes for each of the last 7 days), and that opposing candidate does not need to read the weather, but can do a full political message. So what is a station to do when an on-air employee decides to run for office?

In some cases, stations do nothing, and no one seems to mind. I’ve known broadcasters who appeared on-air every day, particularly in small towns, while they were serving as mayor or on the city council, and no opposing candidate ever bothered to ask for equal opportunities – either because they did not know the rules, or because they would have received bad publicity forcing the on-air employee/candidate out of his job during the election season.

Even in national races, that calculus often seems to be the case. As we wrote here and here, in the last Presidential campaign, we had candidates appearing on Saturday Night Live or on Law and Order (candidate Fred Thompson), and no opposing candidate asked for equal time. The jokes and negative stories that would have no doubt followed from such a claim (can you imagine what a target for jokes a candidate would become if they claimed equal opportunities to deliver a stale campaign message because Sarah Palin or Barack Obama appeared on SNL and triggered equal opportunities?) simply weren’t worth the few minutes that the candidate would have received.

But sometimes candidates do insist on their rights, especially less well-known candidates who may not have any other way to get their message out. Thus, many stations play it safe and don’t allow a candidate to continue to stay on the air once they become legally qualified (and sometimes even before they are legally qualified to even avoid the appearance of unfairness).

But there are other alternatives that can be pursued that lie between taking the risk of having to meet equal opportunities claims and taking the employee off the air.

These include:

• Obtaining waivers from the opponents of the station employee, allowing the employee to continue to do his job, perhaps with conditions such as forbidding any discussions of the political race
  
• Allowing the candidate to continue to broadcast in exchange for a negotiated amount of air time for the opponents

Another alternative is to give the on-air employee/candidate other duties that don’t trigger equal opportunities. If the candidate’s voice or likeness does not appear on-air, then there is no equal opportunities right.

Right now, the political rules do not apply to Internet appearances, so website work is an alternative.

Also, a move to a sister station with a service area that does not reach the district in which the candidate is running is another alternative.

Finally, as we are still in the primary elections in most states (save Illinois where primaries were held earlier this week), remember that equal opportunities only applies to the opponents of the candidates. In the primary, the opponents are only those candidates who are running for the nomination of the same party. Thus, if your on-air employee is running in the Republican primary, you only need to worry about his or her Republican opponents for equal time purposes. The Democrats don’t get equal time until the nominees of each party have been selected.

We’ll write more about equal opportunities in the coming weeks. For more information now, check out the Davis Wright Tremaine Political Broadcasting Guide, here.

https://www.broadcastlawblog.com/201...s-a-candidate/

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Unfortunately I don't believe Joe Walsh has a chance in heck of beating Trump out for the nomination. However, maybe his campaign will draw some much needed attention to the immigration issue.

Roque ‘Rocky’ De La Fuente is running for U.S. president — again

Quote:

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Originally Posted by MW

Unfortunately I don't believe Joe Walsh has a chance in heck of beating Trump out for the nomination. However, maybe his campaign will draw some much needed attention to the immigration issue.

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Unfortunately, Joe Walsh is not running on immigration issues.. or any issues actually. It is all Never Trumper language.

He may be controlled oppositions or part of a Favorite Son campaign to shield Trump.

Joe Walsh, former Tea Partier, says he’d support ‘socialist’ over Trump after dropping primary bid