Liz Wheeler is a political commentator, author, and podcast host. She is also the author of the book, Tipping Points: How to Topple the Left's House of Cards. She recently launched her brand new podcast, The Liz Wheeler Show, and it was such fun having her on to interview her.
00:01:19.780Or if you do know her, now you'll get to know her on an even more personal level.
00:01:24.000Before we get started, make sure that you're subscribed to my channel and hit that notification bell so that you can always see when I post videos just like this.
00:01:31.680I'd also love if you would consider subscribing to my Substack newsletter, where you'll get access to exclusive content and not available anywhere else.
00:01:39.240And I just want to quickly mention that my summer jewelry collection is now on sale, and the pre-sale actually ends this Friday, June 25th.
00:01:47.180So if you want to get the awesome sale price on the whole collection, you'll have to get it today or tomorrow or on Friday.
00:02:10.580I mean, I just enjoy talking to you, and I've talked to you on a personal level so much that it's really fun to do this in a way where it's like for people, for an audience.
00:02:20.780Yeah, both of us actually wearing hair and makeup to have a conversation.
00:02:44.240We just completed our fourth week of it.
00:02:46.220It's hard to believe that we've been doing it for a month already, and it's so much fun.
00:02:50.340One of the things that drew me to the video podcast format is I wanted a more personal connection with my audience that you don't get with the formality of cable news, as fun as that venue is, too.
00:03:01.560But I wanted a more personal connection with my audience, and so far, that's come to fruition through this podcast.
00:03:08.580So I can keep my trademark research and facts and present in sort of an unapologetic, let's go after the radical left way, but it's also more of a conversation with people where I can explain my thought process and show the research, show how I come to an opinion versus just presenting the news while putting a little opinion in there here and there.
00:03:32.420It also helps us, because it's my show and I can do it my way, it helps us get around big tech censorship that can be a problem, and we are dealing with that, by the way.
00:03:42.560And it also helps us get around any kind of corporate wokeism, if you will, any kind of control of cable news networks that can sometimes be non-ideal for conservative commentators.
00:03:54.440So going independent is really, right now, it's the best of all worlds.
00:04:41.560And it's weird to think that I've been involved in something a long time since I'm only 31.
00:04:45.940But I got involved in politics in late high school, actually.
00:04:49.420I was raised in a conservative Catholic Christian family.
00:04:52.960So my parents were open with us about the way that they voted and what their political beliefs were.
00:04:57.040But it wasn't something that I took part in.
00:04:59.700We weren't going to rallies or being involved in any kind of activism as a child.
00:05:05.100But around late high school, when it was actually 2007, I think, when Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton were battling it out for the Democratic primary, I started paying a lot closer of attention.
00:05:15.880And I realized that I really liked the kind of argumentative politics.
00:05:43.340This was when political Twitter was in its infancy.
00:05:46.720So very, very much different than it is now.
00:05:49.280But it was a way back then to get involved in conversations with political thought leaders because it was such a small community at the time that you could talk to prominent figures and discuss and debate different policy topics.
00:06:04.520And you could actually be seen and heard because it was smaller.
00:06:22.480But it's really backed up by the research that you do.
00:06:25.660And that's, I think, a unique quality because you can see many.
00:06:30.080I mean, this is female and male commentators who don't know a lot.
00:06:34.000But we'll necessarily then be very like, this is what I think.
00:06:38.040And it's nice to see somebody take these really strong stands and also really know what you're talking about.
00:06:44.940Well, that's basically, I appreciate that because that's basically the highest compliment that you can pay to me because that's what I try to do.
00:06:51.520I try not to be just a propagator of talking points.
00:06:55.660I try not to say, this is the right side.
00:08:14.120Study, you know, everything that's happened so far in our nation's brief history to see the ramifications and the consequences of the different types of policies that we've already tried.
00:08:23.680Look around the world and study that same thing.
00:08:26.080I mean, in the decade, in the past decade and a half, I've read as many books as I can get my hands on.
00:08:31.100I'm sure there's people out there who've read more than me.
00:08:33.200But it's really been amazing to see how sometimes years down the line, after I've read a particular book or studied a particular era of history, years down the line, I'll be like, oh, that's right.
00:08:45.880We've tried that already in some other country or in some other era, and some president had already done it, and this is how it turned out.
00:09:17.660I love the idea that exactly how you live your life, it is most important to know what you're talking about before.
00:09:24.640I think that we often get kind of caught up nowadays in the idea of getting involved in the fight, and just being involved at all is taking a good stand, and that's not correct.
00:09:34.260I mean, you have to take, you have to know what you're talking about before you take a stand.
00:09:37.880And then on top of that, it's really good advice to just, you know, get involved.
00:09:42.880Start, because so much of what we are able to do nowadays and get involved with is free.
00:09:55.140The places that you want to submit your articles to, there's no fee for you to pay if you want to submit an article or start a blog.
00:10:02.400I mean, all that stuff is free to you.
00:10:04.500So it's really up to you to take that first step.
00:10:08.080Right, and it also translates into activism in your community, too.
00:10:12.700If you feel called to run for school board or city council or mayor or state representative, if you feel called to join an organization, say a pro-life organization or your local Republican Party, and door knock and talk to people,
00:10:24.820all the experience that you've gotten from reading, learning about what policy topics that you're talking about or practicing these debate things on Twitter, that's going to translate into in-person, in-person activism and in-person participation as well.
00:10:38.340And we always need good, solid, principled conservatives to be involved in the public aspects of life as well, not just punditry.
00:13:37.140And I think that it's really important to talk about that pregnancy isn't the easiest thing because pregnancy doesn't have to be easy for it to be worth it.
00:13:45.380And I think there's this misconception that, you know, if you are pro-life, then that must mean that you think all pregnancies are just simple and easy and nice.
00:13:56.400Like, they're not—there's not a—a relation between how comfortable pregnancy is and how worthy a person is of being alive and being born.
00:14:06.540I mean, I think a lot of women probably feel guilty saying, well, I didn't really enjoy pregnancy because they think, oh, maybe that's—that—maybe that would be something personal against the baby.
00:14:23.200But I viewed it just as part of the sacrificial love.
00:14:25.560Like, by the time this little girl was born, by the time I gave birth to her, I had already poured so much love into her that we were entirely bonded, not just because she'd been in my body, but because day in and day out, I was sacrificing out of love for her.
00:14:40.980I didn't—I didn't feel bad for not enjoying the practicalities of it.
00:14:44.280I just thought, listen, this is—this is the active part of love, the part where, yeah, you feel it in your heart, but it's also a choice and a behavior that, you know, that you're faced with every single day.
00:14:54.000And I—I mean, I would do it all again for her.
00:14:56.980No, I—I think that's—I think that's so important, and I—I'm glad you talked about it.
00:15:01.180So are there any books on either pregnancy or motherhood that you would recommend for somebody who wants to be pregnant, who is pregnant, who's a mom, any of those things?
00:15:11.360Well, the two books I think that I found the most helpful—and believe it or not, I know I—this is a little contradictory because I just said that you should read as much as possible about what you want to know about and know what you're talking about.
00:15:23.120I personally was so anxious the first trimester of pregnancy because I had lost before.
00:15:28.240I had a hard time studying and reading anything about it.
00:15:31.520Pretty much the first half of my pregnancy, I will admit.
00:15:34.400But the two books that I found to be the most practically helpful were Ina Mae Gaskin's Guide to Childbirth.
00:15:40.280She's probably the most famous midwife in the country, and I wanted to give natural childbirth, which I did.
00:15:49.720It was not only helpful in the philosophical sense, but it was really—there were a ton of practical tips in there that a lot of times are left out of hospital births, I think.
00:16:01.700But a lot of that—it's almost like the art of childbirth has been lost.
00:16:06.400Mothers don't necessarily pass that on to their daughters the same as they used to.
00:16:09.760And so the practical tips in this book, which my mom ironically recommended to me because she also gave birth naturally, was really, really helpful.
00:16:18.320So Ina Mae Gaskin's Guide to Childbirth.
00:16:20.140And then the second one that was very helpful was the womanly art of breastfeeding.
00:16:25.880It not only encourages women to breastfeed and talks about the importance of it, it gives you practical tips for everything you need to know.
00:16:34.120Because it's actually not as easy as just give birth and the baby latches on.
00:17:34.040But I recently had a conversation with her, and she said that with the first, my brother,
00:17:39.380she had actually tried to do it naturally and had not had any, like, epidural or anything during the whole first, you know, 10 hours of labor.
00:17:48.560And she said, yeah, it wasn't that painful.
00:17:49.780I was like, okay, I guess you're just, I was like, I guess maybe if I'm similar to you and I can actually get a baby out because I'm 5'8 and you're 5'1,
00:18:32.760And sometimes it's very, very painful.
00:18:34.860But if you accept the pain, if you know that it's going to hurt to a certain extent, you know that it's going to be unpleasant, you know that it's going to be, as the name entails, labor, and you allow yourself to internalize that and kind of just say, okay, wash over my body versus trying to tense up your body and reject it, that made a huge difference for me in labor.
00:18:54.920Because if I hadn't read that, I would have had the attitude of, let's try to do everything we can to avoid the pain.
00:19:18.780And I mean, that again reminds me of my mom because she told me that the first hour she was in the hospital, she kept trying to walk it off.
00:19:27.600The doctors were like, you can't walk this off.
00:22:06.180I need to get better at because, you know, I try to eat vaguely healthy, but I probably could work on it more than I do.
00:22:13.340And so people who really do, you know, change their diet and see these amazing changes in their body, I'm like, I should just do that.
00:22:20.660Well, it's also, it's also, I don't know if I would have the willpower to do it if it weren't that binary option of bad health versus, you know, sacrificing eating junk food so that I can be operable in life.
00:22:34.780So if you're faced with that, I'm sure you'd be able to do it too.
00:22:38.360And, you know, I have my own version of it, but it's not so much of a choice, I suppose, which is like living kosher style and then, you know, eventually being kosher.
00:22:48.660You know, I grew up with it, so it doesn't feel like a choice, but it's something that I choose to do every day, I suppose.
00:22:55.380So I guess I have my mini version of it, my religious version.
00:22:59.680Once you get adapted to it, when I first started, it was very difficult because I didn't know what to cook and what to buy at the grocery store.
00:23:05.380But once you get adapted to it, it's just normalized.
00:24:11.580So as far as style, do you have any style icons that you try to emulate?
00:24:17.060I wish I could say yes, but I would say my style icon is my youngest sister, my 18-year-old sister, who has entire veto power over my closet.
00:24:29.560And she's been exercising that a lot recently post-baby.
00:24:33.980So she's refreshed my fashion a little bit since my body has changed somewhat over pregnancy and then obviously birth and breastfeeding.
00:24:44.780So not really in the fashion industry, no real icons, but man, that girl can style.
00:24:49.560Do you have any specific fashion rules that you follow?
00:24:53.900Like volume, if you're going to wear volume on top, you should wear something fitted on the bottom or stuff like that.
00:24:59.640Or do you have a specific kind of just look that you prefer, something more tailored versus something more drapey?
00:25:07.600Yeah, I would say for the bottom half, I try to go more tailored.
00:26:12.140You can pull off the midi dresses that come a little bit below your knee, just to your calf.
00:26:16.940I look ridiculous in those dresses because I'm pretty short.
00:26:19.980Yeah, no, I have—there are certain styles that are better for certain body types, for sure.
00:26:25.000Like, you know, I have a bigger bust, so if I try to wear anything that's, like, super boxy, it's just, oh, she weighs 40 pounds more than she does.
00:26:33.420But, you know, there are certain clothes that look great on your kind of body type and don't look as good on mine or vice versa.
00:26:40.520So, you know, it's figuring out how to dress your body and make it look the best that it can.
00:26:48.520That's the element of timelessness in fashion, I think, that I try not to let be overrun just by trends that might not look good on me.
00:26:56.000Yeah, I think that's the danger with trends.
00:26:57.920And it's something I try to steer my audience away from is don't just wear a trend because it's trendy because it may not be flattering for you.
00:27:45.360But, you know, I think that we can all figure out what works for us.
00:27:50.000So, as far as dating and relationships, I love talking about dating and relationships with the conservative women I have on my channel
00:27:58.500because I think we have a different perspective than so much of what you're getting in media.
00:28:04.000And I want to share that perspective with my subscribers because I think a lot of my subscribers are looking for that.
00:28:10.560So, what advice do you have for young women who are dating?
00:28:15.360Well, make sure you know what values are important to you in a spouse.
00:28:21.040Make sure you understand what you would want your future family to look like.
00:28:26.140And then be discerning when you're picking a dating partner because nothing's worse than falling in love with someone that you have nothing in common with
00:28:35.720because that happens because there are a lot of great people who don't share your values.
00:28:40.400You fall in love with their personality.
00:28:41.820You fall in love with maybe their mind.
00:28:43.620But if you don't share a vision for what you want your life to look like practically, then you are going to be very challenged, I will say, at the very least, entering into a marriage with that person.
00:28:52.740And I know that sounds kind of pessimistic or kind of negative, but I think it's very important.
00:28:57.120I mean, we all know people who have been in those situations.
00:29:00.040The other thing, though, and I think that this is something that conservatives tend to fall into this trap.
00:29:18.060But there's also a season of life that is appropriate just to enjoy dating that other person, enjoy getting to know that person before you're trying to apply them, copy and paste them into this preconceived notion about what you want marriage and a husband and a father of your kids and a life to look like.
00:29:34.780So don't be in a rush to, when you start dating someone, to immediately take it to the next level, to immediately get engaged, immediately get married as quickly as possible.
00:29:44.840I mean, I have friends that's worked for you and your husband got engaged much quicker than me and my husband did.
00:29:52.180And different things can work for different people.
00:29:54.500But the mindset of going into a relationship and skipping almost like the, I don't want to say courtship because that has connotations, I guess evangelical connotations of chaperones and all that kind of stuff that I'm not talking about.
00:30:07.400But the season of just enjoyment, of dating, of fun adventures, don't be too quick to rush through that because that's a really, that's a really special season of life.
00:30:16.780I, yeah, I think that's an also a new perspective I haven't heard on my channel before.
00:30:21.240And I think it's very true to go back to your first point, something I always say is you can't choose who you love, but you can choose who you don't love.
00:30:32.480And what I mean by that is you can't make yourself love someone who you don't have chemistry with.
00:30:38.500If you try and like, if you're compatible, but you just don't really get along, you can't, it's very difficult to make yourself have a deeper feeling for that person.
00:30:46.780But if you already have chemistry with someone and no compatibility with them, you can remove yourself from that situation quickly because if you don't, then that is the situation that you're describing where you are kind of in too deep with someone who you don't share values with and you don't share compatibility with.
00:31:05.720And that's really hard to make last and it's incredibly painful when it ends.
00:31:09.840It is, and I think that's one of the things, I was actually discussing this with a friend recently, I think that's one of the things that our society, and maybe this is the more religious aspect of society.
00:31:21.880So, you know, practicing Jews, practicing Christians, practicing Catholics, maybe this is conservatives in general, I don't know.
00:31:26.660But our society has moved away from friends and family giving their opinion and advice and even a blessing or approval to new budding relationships.
00:31:37.300And I understand why we moved away from that because we were too far the other direction where, you know, a father actually had to give permission for a young woman, a grown woman to get married.
00:31:48.560And, you know, I don't think any of us want to be told, oh, who we can marry or who we cannot marry.
00:31:53.520And we just course corrected a little bit too far.
00:31:55.980Instead of saying, hey, let's respect your independence and, you know, still be an active part maybe in advising on relationships,
00:32:02.940we've now excluded whether it's faith leaders, whether it's parents, even sometimes friends and family are hesitant to point out red flags or to say, listen, this is a situation that, you know, other people have experienced and it's a difficult situation.
00:32:16.660So, you know, maybe take some time and address that before you move forward.
00:32:20.360We've course corrected a little too far.
00:32:22.140And I think we'd maybe do well to be a little more opinionated about other people's relationships just because sometimes if you're in one of those situations, you don't know what the ramifications are should you marry that person.
00:32:35.680And I like the kind of the description you gave of that.
00:32:39.580I know that I've been involved with a friend of mine having a breakup where she had a situation where she was dating a guy who was not right for her and her family came on too strong, too hard, and she knew she needed to break up with him, but she couldn't hear it in that way.
00:32:57.140And having a friend come and sit with her and say, you know, I understand what you're going through.
00:33:01.920I totally know why this happened, but I don't think that long term this is a great choice.
00:33:41.500And that's why my best girlfriends I've been friends with since I was a child, because that's what we do.
00:33:48.100It's not just rah, rah, rah, let's be a girl squad and all like have each other's back in the validating sense.
00:33:54.940We're honest with each other and we're there for each other when times get hard.
00:33:58.560And those two things are compatible to be honest and to be there when when things are hard.
00:34:04.340And I like I said, I think that's been lost a little bit in the way that conservatives conduct relationships.
00:34:09.320And maybe we do well to, I guess, not be not be so sensitive if other people are giving opinions on on your relationship.
00:34:17.660And like I said, I'm not advocating for fathers to go back to giving permission to their daughter or for overbearing family members to constantly be criticizing.
00:34:26.160No, I'm talking about those you're closest with and honestly, the people that are in the relationship themselves may be being open to hearing an honest opinion about about their relationship.
00:34:38.040Well, actually, going off of what you were just saying, I'm curious, do you have any advice for how to find friendships that are long lasting?
00:34:47.640Because I think that's really hard nowadays to find maybe within faith circles.
00:34:51.780It's a little bit easier, but it can be difficult to find friendships that actually last because they're not just based on shared interests.
00:35:41.280But we always, always share a worldview on the important things, on the spiritual, on the—I don't even want to say political in just the Washington, D.C. politics way.
00:35:53.000But in the way that we're raising our families and the way that we're conducting our marriages and the way that we relate to people in the world, those things we share.
00:36:11.940I think that's—I think that the reason that matters is because then you can go to those friends for advice.
00:36:18.140If you have a friend who you only share interests with, then going to them for advice may not be the safest route because you don't necessarily trust their opinion.
00:36:27.460But going to a friend who does share your worldview and your perspective means that you can actually expect to hear something that would match with how you view the world.
00:36:38.780Plus, as we grow and evolve as individuals and, you know, as wives and as daughters, our interests are going to change.
00:36:48.240I mean, my interests now at age 31 are not the same as my interests at 16.
00:36:53.020They're not the same as my interests at 25.
00:36:54.460And I assume they're not the same as my interests at, you know, 40.
00:36:58.160Now, some of my interests might be consistent, sure.
00:37:01.480But if you're only friends with people who share your interests, then you're going to outgrow those friends when you outgrow those particular hobbies or those particular interests.
00:37:09.680It's going to be hard to create a lifelong friendship with someone like that.
00:37:27.340So how how how what have you learned in that time?
00:37:31.480Well, I feel unqualified here since I am such a newbie in marriage.
00:37:37.300I still feel like we're newlyweds in a sense, just under four years.
00:37:40.920I would say my biggest life lesson when our biggest lesson about marriage is that men and women are very, very different.
00:37:48.220Obviously, not just physically, but the way that we process things, our expectations are very different.
00:37:55.640And I've talked about these books written by Shanti Feldhahn before.
00:37:59.900These were perhaps the most eye opening relationship books that I've ever read.
00:38:03.580And not just romantic relationships, but any kind of relationship that you have with someone from the same gender or a different gender in the workplace and friendships in school, of course, in romantic relationships.
00:38:13.180But for men only and for women only by Shanti Feldhahn.
00:38:15.920And those are the most eye opening books out there, I think, because they just show how men and women interpret things, interpret the same thing differently.
00:38:24.860And how, from a religious perspective, how men really have built their entire, I don't even know how to phrase this well, actually, how men's entire worldview is about respect, while women's entire worldview is about love.
00:38:37.020Now, this is, of course, generalizing.
00:38:38.900But because we're looking at life and at relationships, at our partner, at our spouse, through these different prisms, we interpret actions and behaviors differently because we're looking at it through different prisms.
00:38:50.720And knowing that my husband interprets things through the prism of respect has helped me adapt my behavior so that he understands how much I respect him, so that he understands how proud I am to be his wife, so that I'm not just speaking in my own love language to him, but I can adequately communicate through words and behavior how important he is in our marriage and so that we don't have as many miscommunications based on, you know, speaking our own language.
00:39:18.240Yeah, I think that, and I think this all gets lost nowadays when we're trying to completely erase the difference between men and women.
00:39:27.040I think that's really not going to be helpful for women entering marriage when they realize, oh, oh no, no, men and women are very different.
00:39:45.980However, I know some women who enjoy this.
00:39:48.460I personally, and a lot of the people, women I know, do not enjoy this.
00:39:53.480They're less interested in the really intense strategic games and a little bit more interested in the social games, the ones where you're like, you know, charades and monikers and stuff like that.
00:40:04.720It's something that we talk about quite frequently because he'll want to play one of these intense strategic games, and I'm like, Monopoly?
00:41:13.860Yeah, we've watched some comedies together, but I also appreciate more of the, a good Jane Austen movie is probably the only one that's going to satisfy me.
00:41:23.400I'm actually, I'm not that big of a movie watcher anyway because I don't have the attention span for it.
00:41:27.520It either doesn't hold my interest or I fall asleep.
00:41:32.760I feel like once you get married, all of a sudden you start falling asleep at movies.
00:41:36.820I mean, that may have been the case for you before, but it definitely is the case for me now where I will watch a movie and all of a sudden I'm like, okay, let's finish tomorrow.
00:41:50.400So now that you're a mom and you have started your amazing podcast, how do you balance life and work?
00:41:58.720Because, you know, as women, we're constantly looking for that work-life balance.
00:42:02.720I think the fact is that it's true for men also, it's a more intense situation for women, but I am curious to know, how do you, how do you make that work?
00:42:11.840Well, I'm only four and a half months into motherhood, so I may not be the expert on this.
00:42:16.860What I've done so far is I've tried to do more of integrated parenting with work, meaning I try to, I'm lucky that I'm able to do a lot of show prep and a lot of my work from home at this time.
00:42:28.880And so I just, I do shifts with each one.
00:42:33.160I try to, try to wear two hats at the same time, you know, I'm breastfeeding my baby, so I'm not away from her.
00:42:38.720She's in the same room as I am when I am doing work and, you know, I pause when she needs me.
00:42:44.900And just, I, you have to be very able and willing, if you're going to do it the way that I'm doing it so far, to be able to stop your train of thought on one area and completely change it into the other area.
00:42:57.420Meaning you stop being a show host for a second and you start being a mom for a second.
00:43:01.800You stop breastfeeding for a second and you jump into a publicity strategy session.
00:43:05.680And going back and forth like that, I, I feel very calm about going back to work because as any new mom, I was very anxious about going back to work because I didn't want to, I didn't want to leave my baby.
00:43:17.960I didn't want someone else to be the primary caregiver, but I also am very passionate about what I want to do.
00:43:22.540So it's a very, you feel this very, this very, almost this torment.
00:43:27.360You feel torn about what you want to do.
00:43:29.160And doing this integrated work parenting schedule so far has just, I mean, it's worked out fabulously and it's been a big blessing in my life.
00:43:37.080Yeah, no, that's part of the reason that I wanted to transition away from opera, you know, professionally and traveling and all of that.
00:43:45.240And into working from home, making YouTube videos so that I would be able to do exactly what you're saying.
00:43:51.840This kind of, what do they call this, this synergy or something.
00:43:57.060Like, you've got the baby here, you've got your, your computer here, you're working back and forth.
00:44:02.720And, and just so that I could be more involved because I knew as soon as I had kids, if I wanted to be an opera singer, I would either have to take them away from their dad to be with me for six weeks while I'm traveling.
00:44:14.620Or I would be away from my baby for six weeks and someone else is going to be taking care of my baby.
00:44:18.500And that was never something I, I wanted, I wanted to be around.
00:44:22.720If you have that luxury, I mean, how lucky are we that we can, but it's, it's something that I feel is, I look forward to.
00:44:31.960And I'm, it sounds great how you're doing it.
00:44:34.140If you can handle it, it gives me hope for, for when I'm doing it.
00:44:37.440Well, check back with me in a couple of months.