The Populist Talk Show Host Taking Trump’s Message to Battleground States By Buying Up Radio Stations
By Rob Crilly, Chief U.S. Political Correspondent For Dailymail.Com In Oaks, Pennsylvania
BETHLEHEM, Pennsylvania–Radio Show Host, John Fredericks bought stations across Georgia and Pennsylvania after 2020, giving him a powerful voice in states that will decide the 2024 election.
The hotel parking lot is deserted but for the red, white and blue bus, decorated with the giant features of Donald Trump.
It is still dark outside, but through the window a lone figure, impeccably dressed in red tie, white shirt and navy blazer, is hunched over a microphone at 7am.
‘When you look at what is ahead for a Trump administration, cost cutting … inflation is going to go down,’ John Fredericks tells his listeners in battleground states around the country.
‘We’re going to rein in spending. He’s already said that they’re going to close the border, they’re going to deport the illegals. They’re going to get the criminals out.’
Democrats are now in desperation mode, he says. Everything they’re doing is desperate because they know they’re going to lose.’
A night earlier he was watching Donald Trump hold a town hall event in suburban Philadelphia.
After sleeping in his giant RV (decorated with a giant image of Trump) now he is broadcasting via the network of radio stations he owns or operates in the critical swing states of Pennsylvania and Georgia (as well as Virginia, where he started, West Virginia, Tennessee and all across the nation via the internet).
It gives the ‘Godzilla of Truth’, as he styles himself, an outsize voice in the election, reaching voters who could decide the outcome
That fact is not lost on team Trump.
Fredericks has interviewed Trump at least 75 times, as well as his running mate Sen. J.D. Vance. Campaign staff and former administration officials are regular guests on the show.
It is an extraordinary position for a 66-year-old who found his way into broadcasting only after declaring bankruptcy in 2011, when he lost his family home in the wake of the financial crisis.
His swing state strategy was born out of need and a savvy business model, he told DailyMail.com after wrapping his show.
‘Having the ability to go into swing states … it gives you access to a couple of things immediately: The key political movers and shakers in the area, because it is an important state, and then you’re going to get an audience, because they’re going to bring an audience with them,’ he said.
But first came rock bottom.
He and his wife Anne launched a newspaper, The Beacon, in 2007 to cover the Atlanta suburbs. A year later it was rocked by the financial crash and ceased publishing in 2011, leading Fredericks to bankruptcy.
READ THE FULL ARTICLE BY Rob Crilly, Chief U.S. Political Correspondent For Dailymail.Com In Oaks, Pennsylvania