The News
Randall Terry is running for president with no expectation, and no intention, of winning the election. For the second time, the 65-year old anti-abortion activist is waging a campaign as a way to get macabre ads on TV, taking advantage of FCC rules that allow candidates to air messages that networks might otherwise refuse to take.
After securing the nomination of the Constitution Party, Terry assured conservatives that he was not running to spoil anything for Trump — Democrats in several states tried to get him on the ballot, with that goal — and began recording graphic ads that mocked “stupid celebrities,” displayed images of aborted fetuses, and compared defenders of legal abortion to Nazis. Terry’s now expanding the campaign to Wisconsin, where his goal is putting ads in every single local media market, and he called Americana to talk about why.
Q&A
AMERICANA: So, what are you up to? What’s the strategy here?
RANDALL TERRY: Let me bring you up to speed. We’ve been running ads all week on “The View.” Last night, we ran the spot on Jimmy Kimmel. This is all nationwide. Tonight, we run an ad on ABC World News Tonight with David Muir. These ads are causing a shitstorm, an epic shitstorm, and we are calling on Black people, Black Democrats, and Catholic Democrats, to forsake Kamala. So we’re looking to shift a 1% or 2% margin against Kamala from Black and Catholic Democrats, especially in swing states. We’re about to begin a firestorm of ads in Wisconsin.So, if you put your DVR on “The View,” in about 20 minutes, you’re going to watch a Black man get on television and say abortion is “Black genocide.” My Twitter account is closed right now. The ad that I ran on “The View” shut down my Twitter account. That proves the strategy: You can say on TV what you can’t say on Twitter. Entertainment Weekly did a huge story. The Associated Press did a huge story. Newsweek did a huge story. People are flipping out.
You’ve said repeatedly that you are running to spread this message, not to hurt Trump. But are there people who still think you could hurt him?
It’s been the most difficult thing that I’ve ever done. I feel like I’m dealing with pro-life morons. I mean, come on: Watch the ad and then tell me how you think that this could possibly hurt Trump. I’ve got people who refuse to give us money because they say you’re gonna hurt Trump. Are you out of your freaking mind?
The last week has been good, though. There were people who said, “Oh, you’ll never get this on TV.” I said, trust me, I’ve done this before. And once they did see it run on TV, they said, “Wow, this works, here’s some money.” No thinking person is going to watch that ad and think it’s going to hurt Donald Trump. The other thing I’m doing, which is really fun, is offering my ads to anyone who wants to use them. I’ve got a candidate in Chicago that’s about to start running ads up there — a Republican who’s got no chance of winning. There’s another candidate in Phoenix, running on the Green Party line, and he’s running the ads for his campaign.
Has anyone in Trump’s orbit asked you to stop?
Some, low on the totem pole. But we’ve also had high ranking Republican activists say to us, this is awesome. Tom DeLay is helping us raise money. When we explained this to him and showed him the ads, he said: “Every Republican in the country should be giving you money. You are Trump’s secret weapon.”
Where in Wisconsin are you running your ads?
We’ve already run one ad in every city. Now we’re starting larger buys with all of the smaller cities: Eau Claire, LaCrosse, Green Bay. Then we’re marching south with our buy. We will deliver Wisconsin to Trump. You just watch Wisconsin. It will go to Trump. And anyone who knows what’s going on there is going to say this is because of the Terry for President ads. We are pounding the Catholics and the Black Democrats. We have an ad, done by a priest, who says to Catholics, “If you vote for Democrats, it’s like voting for someone who would kill Jesus in the womb.” I mean, that’s heavy. We are going to redefine what it means to be pro-life.
One of the most common ad strategies from Democrats this cycle, post-Dobbs, is putting a woman on camera and having her describe a medically necessary abortion. Are you trying to counter-program them, because they’ve been effective?
Hard cases make bad law. They are pulling on emotional strings that are attached to smoke. It’s never been illegal to get an abortion [save a woman’s life] if a woman is going to die. If a woman has an ectopic pregnancy, a doctor’s going to be able to save her life. What they’re doing is lying, and what we’re doing is telling the truth. People who are 50 to 80 years old, still consuming their news and their entertainment from traditional television — that’s my demographic. That’s who is going to cause Kamala to lose Wisconsin.
Back to Trump: He has been cautious when he talks about abortion. He has criticized states with abortion bans. What makes you confident that as President, he’ll deliver on this issue?
We have an ad that’s going to run in South Florida calling Trump to repent. I call balls and strikes. I am not a partisan hack. Trump needs to repent, and that’s what our ad says. When people see our ad, they’re gonna crap their pants, but they’re also gonna get the message to Trump. It’s directed right to him, saying: “I want you to win, sir, but you need to repent.”
There’s a God in Heaven. Trump gave us the three judges that overturned Roe, so anything is possible. I know that the people around Trump are going to be pro-life and that the people around Kamala are baby-killers. My mission is to redefine pro-life, to get rid of the grifters who don’t want to win, get rid of the hypocrites, and say: “We intend to make it a criminal act to kill a human being from conception until birth.” That’s the mission. No apologies, no equivocation.