← The Radio Free Hillsdale Hour
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From the historic campus of Hillsdale College in Hillsdale, Michigan, where the good, the true and the beautiful are taught, nurtured and honored.
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This is the Radio Free Hillsdale Hour.
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Bringing the activity and education of the college to listeners across the country.
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For a lot of people in the media, he broke them. You know, he convinced them that they're no longer supposed to be journalists, but they're supposed to be activists or they're supposed to be opposition to the president. I think you can cover him fairly and you can ask hard questions, but what we've seen is something that's gone well beyond that.
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This is your host, Scott Bertram. Welcome to the Radio Free Hillsdale Hour, part of the Hillsdale College Podcast Network. That was Scott Jennings, senior political commentator at CNN and also author of the new book A Revolution of Common Sense, How Donald Trump Stormed Washington and Fought for Western Civilization. We'll talk in depth with Scott about that book on today's program. Also later on, Ava Downs is with us, current Hillsdale student and 2025 USA Shooting Trap Junior Olympic champion. First, we're joined by Scott Jennings. He's CNN senior political commentator, also radio host for the Salem Radio Network. You can find him on xcottjenningsky. His brand new book is A Revolution of Common How Donald Trump Washington and Fought for Western Civilization. Scott, thanks so much for joining us.
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Hey, thanks for the time today. Honored to be with you.
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I don't know if you get this as much as maybe you did a year ago, but I still hear people say this, which is where the heck did Scott Jennings come from all of a sudden? Election 2024. Everyone's watching viral videos on X and elsewhere and this guy Scott Jennings is making points we all wish we could make when leftists make their arguments. So tell people a bit about your background. Where did Scott Jennings come from?
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Well, long time ago he came from Kentucky. I'm a western Kentuckian, grew up in a little town called Dawson Springs and also attended the University of Louisville. That's where I graduated from. And you know, years ago I thought I was going to be in journalism. I was a radio news anchor in Louisville while I was in College. But in 2000, I decided to join the Bush for President campaign and that began my journey in politics. But you know, I never really forgot about my love of the media, my love of broadcasting. And in 2017, I got a chance to join CNN. You know, for a few years. It was really a very much a part time job for me. But the 2024 campaign, plus the advent of this 10 o' clock debating show, which we now have for the last couple of years, really gave me a chance to do what I can do. And so I really credit cnn. Honestly, they decided they wanted to put a conservative who was going to fight hard for how half the country sees the world. And I'm doing that every day and making arguments and debating the left and doing it often, four and five on one. And honestly, I think it's working.
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People like you, I think, because you are measured and leveled and logical even in the face of perhaps some hyperactive activity from the left on the panel. What is going through your mind as you await your turn? Let your colleague finish before you rebut that argument. What are you thinking about?
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Well, look, I think the TV debates are for conservatives. I think the way we win is by keeping our wits about us and also arguing in good faith and in good humor. I don't think we win by just simply yelling louder than the other people. I don't really care for cross talk. I don't like it when the whole thing just gets tied up in a shouting match. I believe in conservative arguments, so I believe in letting these conversations unfold. And when you do that, then you get a chance to talk. And if you give me 60 seconds, there's a really good chance I'm going to explain why the left is wrong, why the conservatives have it right, and why our point of view right now seems to be ascendant in America. But I think a lot of people get into these debates, they get overly emotional, they can't control themselves and they stop making factual or logical arguments and they just start operating out of emotion or anecdote. And I just don't personally find that to be persuasive. And I think most people who watch debates and enjoy debates would rather hear someone argue from a position of fact and logic and reason as opposed to just constant emotional overreaction.
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Scott Jennings, the new book A Revolution of Common How Donald Trump Stormed Washington and Fought for Western Civilization. And Scott, as I read A Revolution of Common Sense, it occurred to me that this is a book as much about the president's cabinet as it is about the president himself. Scott Besant, Marco Rubio, Doug Burgum, Christopher Wright, Elon Musk for a time as well, in that inner circle, how do you explain that a guy who is painted as a dictator and an autocrat put so much trust in these advisors and cabinet members who are so sharp on the issues?
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Well, that's a great question. And the one big observation that I was able to make, I think after hanging around the White House and spending some time with the president and just talking to all these people is just what a premium Trump put on picking the right team this time around. I think that's one of the biggest differences between this administration and his first. He's got the correct team that match his leadership style. So you look at the people that he's chosen, Besant, Rubio, Bergam and the others that you mentioned, they best match how he wants to run the country. I think in the first term, he didn't quite have that. Not that those people were bad people. It's just when you have a leader, when you have a manager, the team has to match the style. And this time around, they got that right. I can tell you this. I don't know who was running the country really during the Biden years. I'm not sure any of us do. But I know who's running it right now. It's Donald Trump. And the way he's running it is out of the Oval Office, behind the Resolute desk, and surrounded by a cabinet and a team of advisors who are not there to execute their will. They're there to execute the President's will based on the results of the last election. So I really do think he puts a lot of trust in these guys. And he'll tell you, Rubio's been an all star, best since been an all star. And all these people he has put in place, what are they doing? They're taking his priorities that he clearly laid out to the American people, and they're executing them in their own divisions. And you know, my personal view is, is that Bessant and Rubio have been the all stars of the cabinet. And you hear that constantly from conservatives that you talk to around the country. They're just so impressed with these two guys and you look at their portfolios and, you know, a great chunk of the President's first year in office has fallen right in the lap of Rubio and Besson, and they have executed flawlessly.
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On Marco Rubio, the President has had some relationships with, say, older guard Republicans that have, that have fizzled after. After a time. R.A. rubio is a guy that sort of predates the President in terms of his political stature, but someone who seems to have grown in stature with the President and grown in trust with the president. Why is Rubio so strong inside the administration?
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Well, he has been, I think, both a skillful operator inside the building over at the State Department, but also externally. I mean, you look at all the serious issues that have come up on the world stage in the last year. I mean, the president has spent a lot of time on foreign policy. Rubio has been in the middle of all of it. You look at the peace agreements they've negotiated, you look at dealing with the migration crisis going on in our hemisphere. Across the board, usually on a weekly basis, Trump is doing something that involves the portfolio of the State Department. Look what's happening in the Middle East. Rubio's all over that as well. And so one of the reasons he's been able to grow in stature is just because the president has put so much on his plate and the president himself has focused so much on these issues, it demanded a secretary of state who could rise to the occasion. There's no doubt that Rubio has done that. And I think what conservatives love about Rubio is just how articulate he is at explaining, here's what we're doing, here's why we're doing it, here's why it's going to work. He is one of the smoothest communicators in the Cabinet. And as you know, with Trump, being able to communicate externally is a big part of what it means to work for him. And I just don't think anybody has communicated the America first worldview better than Marco Rubio. He has shown extreme skill set here, both in terms of internal management, but external communications. He's really the whole package right now and is doing a terrific job, in my opinion.
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Scott Jennings with us, CNN senior political commentator. You hear him hosting on Salem Radio Network as well his new book, A Revolution of Common How Donald Trump Stormed Washington and Fought For Western Civilization. You mentioned this first year or so has been a heavy foreign policy year for President Trump. Inside A Revolution of Common Sense. You make the point that it's actually surprising how not friendly the president has been to Russia since taking office. That, of course, goes against some conventional wisdom that says, oh, Trump's a Russian stooge. How has the president been perhaps an enemy to Russia during his time in the Oval Office?
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Well, I think this is one of the most sinister narratives, and it's left over from the beginning of his first administration, when every Democrat in the country convinced themselves that Russia had stolen the election, which of course we now know is completely, totally false and fabricated. But as a leftover of that era, they are now convinced that every foreign policy move the president makes is done so in service to Vladimir Putin. The record is exactly the opposite. Yes, it is absolutely true that he's trying to achieve a peace deal between Ukraine and Russia. I tell you one thing I learned about Donald Trump, the man is serious about peace. He hates war. He doesn't like war. He doesn't like the idea of people dying all over the world. And he believes if you have a strong American president, you could bring about peace in the world. And he has done that in several conflicts. But on the Russia piece, look what he's done with NATO, getting them to agree to go to 5% for their defense spending levels. That's never been done before. He has provided assistance and weapons to Ukraine. He's had Zelensky in the Oval Office. And although they've had difficult conversations, there's really no question, I think, where the president aligned with our allies in Europe, aligned with NATO, there's no question where he is on this. And he has, time and again, I think, grown more and more frustrated with Vladimir Putin, who is rebuffing his efforts to try to get to a peace agreement. I think the president knows what the score here is. He's dealing with a Russian president who only understands toughness. He only understands strength. And I think that's what the president is doing when he's helping our allies understand the wisdom of investing more in their own national defense. He has strengthened NATO far beyond what any president's been able to do when everybody was predicting the opposite, that he was going to destroy NATO. I just think time and again, these attacks have been hurled at Trump on the Russia stuff, and he constantly proves that it's not true. Yet this narrative persists. You sort of have this unholy alliance on this between Democrats and the media. They just sort of take it as an article of faith and they can go out and make these flippant comments, oh, the president, he likes Vladimir Putin. You have no evidence of that whatsoever, but you do have evidence to the contrary. It's just sad to me that they won't talk about it that way.
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That's Scott Jennings of CNN and the Salem Radio Network. We'll talk more with him about his new book in just a moment. But first, I want to invite you to help shape the future of the Hillsdale College Podcast Network, which includes this show you're listening to right now. Visit podcast hillsdale.edu click on the survey pop up and you can take our very first listener survey. By doing so, you'll help the Hillsdale College Podcast Network reach millions of Americans with the timeless truths that make this country great. But we need your help. Visit podcast hillsdale.edu click on the survey pop up to take the survey. Thanks for listening and thanks in advance for your feedback. We continue with Scott Jennings from CNN and the Salem Radio Network. His brand new book is A Revolution of Common Sense, the How Donald Trump Stormed Washington and Fought for Western Civilization. Scott Jennings, you mentioned the media. There's a chapter in which you coined the phrase political information distribution complex in the way that information flows from the legacy media, mainstream media, to the American public. Is that changing a bit? We see some changes at the Washington Post, both on the op ed page and among the papers reporters. We see changes at cbs. Barry Weiss and free press people coming in to the CBS network. Are executives realizing at last that something needs to change?
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Well, I think maybe yes. I think we have a long way to go, though. I think the American media is in such a deep hole with the people. You look at the confidence in institutions, measurements taken by Gallup, I mean, people don't have confidence in the institution of the media. People want there to be a trusted free press. I certainly do. I work in it. You know, I believe that we need a trusted free press. We just don't have that right now, but we could get it. And I think things are changing, but I think we have a long way to go. And I think Trump, unfortunately for a lot of people in the media, he broke them. He convinced them that they're no longer supposed to be journalists, but they're supposed to be activists or they're supposed to be opposition to the president. I think you can cover him fairly and you can ask hard questions, but what we've seen is something that's gone well beyond that. And I think in our political coverage, the reason I point that phrase, political information distribution complex is because on election night 2024, I made this long speech after finally declared Trump the winner on CNN about the death of the political information distribution complex and about how it had misled the American people about the state of the election, about what was happening in the last three weeks of the election, about the issues going on in the election. It had worked so hard to elect Kamala Harris and it had convinced people that she was surging at the end, when in fact we know the opposite was true. And so I think people have awakened to the idea that they're not always getting all the information from one source. And people right now are seeking out independent sources. They're looking at folks right now who are existing outside of the mainstream media space for information that is the market screaming at you to make changes. And so some of the things you mentioned, I think are good. There's a long way to go. I'm a huge Barry Weiss fan. I mean, she may save us all. We'll see. We'll see. But I think that's someone who understands. What are we trying to do here? We're trying to give people the truth. We're trying to tell people the truth. We're trying to get people information, not narratives. And I just think that's what people are hungry for. They don't want narratives. They want to know the facts, they want to know the information. But often what they get are narratives. Just like on the Russia conversation. They've been fed a narrative about that, but I'm not sure they've been fed the truth about it, but they get plenty of narratives. But I think there's something amiss here, and they're hungry for truth instead of narrative.
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Scott Jennings with us. His new book, A Revolution of Common How Donald Trump Stormed Washington and Fought for Western Civilization. The other big issue in President Trump's first year has been the southern border and immigration. And President Trump back in that first term, first campaign, of course, made the promise that we'd get tired of winning. And it was kind of a joke, of course. But I wonder, Scott, if the president has been too successful on the southern border, because that was a disaster and he cleaned it up very quickly. All it took was a change in the Oval Office, but. But now that has disappeared from the news cycle. It is not as big of a deal as it was perhaps six, eight, 12 months ago. Texas is redistricting, thinking that some of those Hispanic gains along the border will hold. And I just wonder if has the president been too successful on the southern border?
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Well, he has. There's no question. I think this has been the swiftest and most important accomplishment of his administration. I think the immigration issue is what propelled him in the first place when he first ran for office. At certainly propelled a big part of his campaign last year. And you're exactly right. All we needed was a new president. We hadn't passed any new laws. That's what's amazing about this. We've not passed a single immigration law. We're just enforcing the laws that exist. And that shows you the difference between this administration, which is simply enforcing the law, and the previous, which was instructing federal law enforcement not to enforce the law. They wanted a culture of open borders. And of course, you know, all the societal ills that flow from that. Trump shows up, changes the attitude, the border is closed. I do think we're having a pretty significant national debate about internal enforcement. But I still think President Trump is right side up on it. I still think the American people believe we let 20 million people into this country. We can't just turn a blind eye to what that means for our society. It doesn't mean that they're all bad people or that they're all violent criminals, but it does mean they all broke our laws. And it does beg the question, how permissive are we going to be? And the more permissive you are on amnesty for things like that, the more you encourage people to come here. I think Trump knows that. So part of the internal enforcement argument is not just we have to get people out because they broke our laws, it's that we cannot go back to sending a signal to the rest of the world. Just get here and it'll probably work out for you. That attitude's what got us in the mess in the first place. And so I totally agree with you that he's been successful. But honestly, I'm not sure the job is done. The internal enforcement piece goes on. Democrats are fighting hard against it. And honestly, if we ever got a new administration or people in charge that had a different attitude, you could see how quickly you could slip back into the old ways. Now, I think it's also evolving into this fight with the narco terrorists. They're sinking the boats out in our hemisphere now. They're amassing military power to do that. I think the signal goes beyond just simple immigration enforcement. The message is, we're just not going to allow the United States to be taken advantage of by Central and South America anymore. Whether that's via just simple immigration or whether that's via this narco terrorist system that exists that puts all this poison into our country that kills hundreds of thousands of people a year.
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Scott Jennings, There's a section in A Revolution of Common Sense on dei, and you expound on this thought. This quote from Chris Caldwell, who says that this rolling back of DEI is the biggest policy change in decades. Why is the activity against dei, the elimination of dei, both governmental and then the influence on the private sector, perhaps an under reported, underappreciated part of President Trump's second term?
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Well, one of the things that he has done is he has, you know, I think we had a wet blanket on us in the country. Everybody was sort of tiptoeing around, being forced to speak this language of dei, being forced to say things out loud, candidly on other cultural issues. On the transgender ideology. You look at how our culture had been overtaken by people who had just invented a new language and invented a bunch of nonsense and forcing everyone in government and in corporate America to live by these edicts. And of course, the Biden administration definitely, as a policy matter, installed this in the federal government. They pushed this. Nobody really liked it. Nobody really thinks it's a good idea to operate by the edicts of DEI or by the edicts of transgender ideology. And so Trump comes along and basically had the courage to say what everyone else is already thinking. He removes it from the federal government. It's no longer federal policy. What they want to do is find people who are best for the job, and that's the trait that they're looking for. Who's the best qualified person by doing that, I think he gave cover and courage to everybody in corporate America to say, yeah, we don't have to do this either. And I think the vast majority of Americans agree with the president on this. It is a major division between the two parties. The Democrats are captured by this identity politics, ideologies that are all wrapped around identity. And what he wants and what he would say is that that's just not common sense. You know, what's common sense is who's the right person for the job, who's got the best qualifications. Shouldn't that be what we're looking for? First and foremost, that is a common sense way to approach the job that most Americans agree with. And by ripping it out of the federal government, he basically created a permission structure for everybody else in America to do the same thing. And I think there is relief, absolute relief, across corporate America that Trump had the courage to finally turn us away from this ideology, which, by the way, it's bad for culture, it's bad for America, it's bad for people, and it's not a good way to run a government, certainly not a good way to run a company or any kind of an organization. Trump knew it, he ran on it, and he followed through on the promise. And I think people are appreciative of it.
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Scott Jennings, in A Revolution of Common Sense, you make the point explicitly at least once. And I think it comes through in different ways that Donald Trump, despite, again, media reports, is a very curious person and wants to know from people around him, you were inside a few of these meetings while researching and writing A Revolution of Common Sense. How does Donald Trump get his information? How does he want it presented to him? What questions does he want answered?
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That is a great question, and it is a big observation and takeaway for me, having written this book, observing the President In a meeting. I think the caricature of him portrayed by the media is totally inaccurate. He is extremely curious. He asks a lot of questions. He likes to watch debates between advisors, people who have slightly different opinions about things he does, asked for everyone's opinion in the room. I watched him do it in the Oval Office. I watched him do it on Air Force One when I went to Michigan with him on his hundredth day in office. He convenes people, he listens, and then he makes decisions. He's decisive. I think a difference between him and Biden. Biden was famously indecisive or uninvolved. Trump is involved. He's involved in the details. He's involved in how decisions are made. But once a decision is made, it's made. He's a decisive person. That is a trait that I think makes for a good presidency. So my observations are he absolutely likes to get information from people. He takes in a lot of information. He is as in tune with the daily news and cultural zeitgeist as anyone. And so when you think about, you know, what does the president know? Who is he talking to? He talks to a wide range of people, but they're not all yes men, and they're not all telling him what he wants to hear. There are a lot of people, I think, around him who are constantly debating about what the right thing to do is. But at the end of the day, they all know who the decision maker is. And the president also knows, ultimately, it's my responsibility to make a decision. You can't debate things endlessly. At some point, you have to decide what direction we're going. And I think he's been good at both, you know, sort of putting together these internal conversations, but then being decisive when the time came to make the decision.
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Yeah, we talked earlier that this has been a foreign policy focus presidency for much of this first year of the second term. And President Trump has a very different view about United States power than Joe Biden did. What does President Trump understand about US Leadership on the world stage and showing, and using, when necessary, US Power on the world stage?
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B
Great question. Well, first of all, he understands what it means to have a strong American president who's willing to engage and what it means to have a weak and indecisive president. That's what we had before. So he believes that if the American president is strong, he believes that if the American president projects confidence and strength and decisiveness, then, look, we are the world's superpower. We are the indispensable country in the world. Our engagement with a president like that can force people to the table, can bring people around and get people to, you know, do things. Look what's happening in the Middle East. I don't think there's anybody except for Donald Trump who could have convened the Arab states. His special relationship with Netanyahu, meaning the people that he had to get in the room, he gets in the room and he gets them to an outcome. Joe Biden couldn't figure that out. He's done that in little areas all over the world. The one area that eludes him is Russia, Ukraine, and he is working earnestly towards it. It's probably the most complicated situation that he has dealing with. But I know he's focused on it and trying to get to an outcome every single day. But in most cases, I think his view is that if the American president projects strength, if we say, we're not going to put up with nonsense here, we're not going to put up with bad actors, we're not going to put up with people, you know, agreeing to something and then violating it the next day, he says, we're not going to put up with narco terrorists in our own hemisphere. You need to help us with that. Look at what's going on with Mexico. We've had a massive drop in fentanyl coming across the border. Yes, the border is closed because of Trump. Some of that, though, remember at the beginning of the administration, he slapped the tariffs on Mexico and said, this is how serious I am about needing you to work with me on getting fentanyl down. I don't want it coming across the border anymore. That has been a major success. They're not covering it, but it's been a major success. None of this happens if these other countries don't take the president seriously. And you have to take Trump seriously. He has shown, if you don't take me seriously, I will take action. And people respect that. And so it goes into this idea of is the president strong or is he weak? Is the president decisive or is he constantly wringing his hands? Is he constantly indecisive? Right now we have a strong, decisive president and it's yielding results.
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Final question for Scott Jennings. His new book, A Revolution of Common Sense, is available. Now. A quote from the book. Trump has expanded the definition of Republicans, so it includes people who never have thought of them as Republicans until Trump invited them in. First of all, I think a great point that the invitation is such an important part of this process. You have to go ask for the vote. But this has led to a coalition, a wide coalition. It's led to people like RFK and Lori Chavez, de Rimmer in the cabinet and people who perhaps are not historically Republican type selections. So the big question, how do you hold this coalition together when Trump is not going to appear on the ballot anymore, and how do you convince Republican voters to go out and vote when Donald Trump is not on the ballot?
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Well, that's the number one strategic conversation that the Republican Party is wrestling with right now. What does our coalition look like in a post Trump environment? The thing is, though, presidents, the best presidents, the people who run the best presidential campaigns, they are by nature coalition builders. George W. Bush did this. You know, he brought people in in 2000 and 2004. Barack Obama did this. The ones that know how to get votes go out and find ways to get votes. Trump inherently understood this, but he now sits at the top of a political party that has everybody from RFK to Mitch McConnell in it. I mean, that's a wide berth, but that's how you win. You don't win by getting smaller. You win by making your party attractive to people who might not have otherwise considerate. The other thing he's done is he's brought people into the party who had no demonstrable history of voting or very little history of voting. They didn't think of themselves as political at all. When I was with him in Michigan on his hundredth day in office, I'll paraphrase, but he said in his speech, whether you're conservative or whether you're liberal, whether you're left or whether you're right, whatever it is, it's just common sense. And his point is, I'm gonna try to make common sense decisions. I'm not gonna try to say I only am interested in people of a certain. I'm just interested in making the best decision for the American people and what makes the most common sense. That branding has been so attractive to people who never ever would have imagined they would be voting for a Republican, but yet here they are. Look at the maha people, the Make America Healthy Again people. There's a ton of maha left out there. People who would think of themselves as being from the left, but Donald Trump made a space for them because he was said, well, some of what you're saying actually is there's common sense in that. I'm willing to adopt that, even though you're not necessarily of my political persuasion all of the time. That's pretty genius. How does the party replicate this in the future? Well, my takeaway is you can't replicate Donald Trump. He is singular, he is unique. The next group, whether it's JD Vance and Marco Rubio as a team, which seems like that's the direction we're headed right now, they're not going to be able to replicate his attitude. But what you can replicate is the idea that, hey, we have to be coalition builders. We have to find ways to make the party bigger, not smaller. I think sometimes, honestly in politics, you're fighting with people who want to get rid of folks. I want to excommunicate you from this. I want to get rid of you. Trump says, wait a minute, I actually want to bring people in. I need to add here to get enough votes to win. He did it twice. I think people would do well to look at his example. He didn't win by getting smaller. He won by making the party bigger. That's really the lesson for the future.
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Scott Jennings, you see him on CNN as senior political commentator. You hear him on the Salem Radio Network weekdays. You can find him on X. ScottJenningsky, the new book is fantastic. It's a Revolution of Common How Donald Trump Stormed Washington and Fought for Western Civilization. Scott Jennings, thanks so much for joining us here on the Radio Free Hillsdale Hour.
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B
Thanks for having me. It was an honor to write the book and I appreciate the attention today. Thank you, sir.
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A
Up next, Ava Downs is with us, current Hillsdale student and 2025 USA Shooting Trap Junior Olympic champion. I'm Scott Bertram. This is the Radio Free Hillsdale. Hey, it's Scott Bertram, host of the Radio Free Hillsdale Hour and the Hillsdale College K12 Classical Education Podcast. I want to know what do you think about the show you're listening to right now? Visit podcast Hillsdale Edu and click the survey Pop up to take our very first ever listener survey. Tell us what you like, what you don't like, and what you want to hear from us in the future. Visit podcast Hillsdale. Edu and click the pop up to take the survey. And thank you for listening. You know the Robertson family from the hit TV show Duck Dynasty. Now Hillsdale College offers you the unique opportunity to learn alongside the Robertsons as they dive deep into Hillsdale's online course, the Genesis Story. Every Friday on the Unashamed Podcast, the Robertsons will share their insights and perspectives. Learning from Hillsdale professor of English Justin Jackson. Take a trip down south to Louisiana for this one of a kind learning experience we call Unashamed Academy. Visit unashamedforhillsdale.com and enroll today. That's unashamed f f o r hillsdale.com to experience the Genesis story alongside the Robertsons. Welcome back to the Radio Free Hillsdale Hour. I'm Scott Bertram. We invite you to take a moment and subscribe to this show via Apple podcasts, Spotify or YouTube. We're joined by Ava Downs. She's a junior here at Hillsdale College, member of the Hillsdale College Shotgun team, and also 2025 Junior Olympic champion in international trap. Ava, thanks so much for joining us.
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C
Thank you for having me. I'm super excited to be here.
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A
For listeners who might not be familiar, tell us, what exactly is trap shooting and how does a typical competition work? How does, how does it play out?
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C
So there's two different kinds of trap. There's American trap and international trap. I specialize in international trap with USA Shooting and the Hillsdale College Shotgun Team. But we all shoot everything. We shoot the American disciplines as a team. And how an international trap match such as Jo Nationals works is they're typically 125 targets and we shoot three rounds the first day, two rounds the second day. And what international trap actually is is there's a physical bunker 10 meters in front of you in the ground with 15 machines in it. There's five stations. Each station has three machines allocated to it, a left, a right, and a straightaway. And the thing is, each of them are all very different. So they can be anywhere from 1 to 3 meters high at a certain distance out. So they can be high or low and anywhere from 45 degrees left to 45 degrees right. So they can really go anywhere and you don't know what's coming out. And they go 72 miles an hour. So that's the quick rundown.
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We'll talk a bit more about the Junior Olympic Championship in just a bit. But how did you first get into shooting sports? Was it something you grew up around or did you find it later on?
- [33:49]
C
So I grew up around it. We've always been a very gun heavy family. We go up north and shoot. And when I was seven years old, my dad went out with my uncle and shot sporting clays and I wanted to go along the next few weeks, so I went along and pushed the buttons. And then I decided I wanted to shoot and I said only if I had a pink gun. That was the only way I would do it. And so When I was 7 or 8 years old, I started shooting sporting clays with my dad and my uncle and some other family friends. And then when I was 12, I started competing. So I just grew up with it and had a lot of family involved in it.
- [34:28]
A
Is there something that drew you to trap specifically as a focus here?
- [34:33]
C
I really love all the disciplines, and I think that's the beauty of being on the team here, that I get to still shoot everything. But I love bunker just because I feel like it's so much fun. I feel like I'm not constantly striving for perfection. Like, there's always something I can work on. It's never good enough and just how far I can go with it. That I can go to the Olympics in 2028, and I get to travel around the world to World Cups and everything. So it's really incredible.
- [35:02]
A
What are some of the key skills that separate a good shooter from a really great shooter?
- [35:09]
C
It depends per person, but I would say just a lot of drive and determination because really, anywhere anyone can get where they need to be. But it's just how much they're willing to put in, how much effort and how much time at the range. And then also just love for the sport rather than just love for winning. Because if you just love winning, it's really not going to be that enjoyable over time. Like, winning is great and we all strive to do it, but if you don't love every step of the process, you're never going to really get there. So I think those are two things that definitely separate people.
- [35:42]
A
Talking with Ava Downs. She's a junior here at Hillsdale College, a member on the Hillsdale shotgun team, and 2025 Junior Olympic champion in international trap. To people watching, perhaps it looks relatively simple. What's tougher about what you do than what people might think?
- [36:01]
C
Well, it looks like we get a very good read on the target every time, or that we're connected. Sometimes they're really hard to see or you just have a weird move to it. Also, we don't know where it's going, so it. And it's so precise, so if you're just a little off, you can miss. So it looks so simple when we're doing it well, but when we're not doing it well, it's really complicated, even for us.
- [36:27]
A
What's your training look like to keep your focus, to keep your reflexes sharp, to stay consistent and compete at an elite level?
- [36:37]
C
For me, I'm out at the range almost every day leading up to a match, so I'll take like one or two weeks off after a big match. Such as after I got back from Greece, I took a week and a half off bunker. Now we have A selection match in a week. So I'm back at it every single day at the range, do meditation every single day and cut out time for myself to make sure that I have enough time to focus. And visualization is a huge part of really all sports, or it should be. And it can help you so much. So even when you're not physically doing it, visualizing yourself doing it and running your mental game consistently, even when you're not out there can be a huge help. So it's a lot of work on and off the range and a really constant commitment and just choosing to go there every day and work even if it's really difficult that day.
- [37:29]
A
Take us through the Junior Olympic championship where you won an international trap. That moment you realized you won. What was the whole experience like?
- [37:39]
C
Well, I started off the final not well. I shot a good match, but I started off not well. And I was kind of looking back at my coach and I was like, what is going on? I don't know what to do. This is not going well. And I was just like, I can't smooth out. And he looked back at me and was just like, just trying to motion for me to smooth out and calm down. And then all of a sudden it clicked. And then it was like, okay, I'm behind. I have a lot of ground to make up. And then I had a really great, like, back three quarters of the final and then by the last pass or so, I knew that I had won. So it was just really exciting and I just wanted to finish out my final with a good score and just see how much I could recover. And it was just a really great confidence boost. And it was very exciting because the next few days I left for a couple different matches, including a World cup in Italy. So it was really nice to have a win going into that, to have my mind straight for when I got there.
- [38:39]
A
What do you learn about yourself through the Junior Olympic competition, through the World cup competition in Italy? What is competing against the high level talent do for you?
- [38:53]
C
It always pushes me to be better and shows that no matter what, it's never going to be like good enough unless you keep trying. It's taught me how to really take care of myself and prioritize myself. It's taught me that I'm more than just my wins and losses and everything than that. Because competing at such a high level, it's very easy to forget that you're not just inherently tied to your sport. So it's taught me that and it's given me a lot of really great friendships and relationships with the people I travel with for Team usa, but also the people I've met overseas. So I've learned a lot about that. And I've learned how to win and how to lose, and I think that has been huge. And especially with the work I've done in my mental management training through the years, it's really been cool to see that come to fruition and learn how to adapt and change and know what I need on any given day.
- [39:50]
A
Abe is a junior here at Hillsdale College, in addition to being a championship shooter. And that's a challenge in and of itself, of course. How do you balance that, the college life and classes and coursework and also training and competing at the national level.
- [40:08]
C
So it's not always easy. But over time I've done a lot of different mental management work and training, including with Winning In Mind and Mental Management Systems with Brian and Lanny Basham. And that has been huge because when I was a freshman in high school, I decided that this was something I was going to lean towards pursuing. And Brian told me that anyone who's successful knows what they're doing any minute of every day. And that if somebody asks me what I'm doing at 2:30pm Two Thursdays from now, I better have a pretty good idea. So I've learned how to manage my time and learned how to actually integrate that into my life so I know when I need to get stuff done. I have like a planner and like calendar where I have all my due dates and just work through it. And sometimes it really sucks when I get back from a match and I have to take five exams in one week. But you just kind of gotta tough it out and embrace the suck and then it'll eventually get better.
- [41:07]
A
How do you think your time here at Hillsdale has helped to shape you as an athlete?
- [41:12]
C
It has really helped me. I've had so many opportunities through the team, but also it's. I can grow as a person here at Hillsdale. And that has helped me to be a better competitor and better person. And I really appreciate that. And it's impacted really every aspect of my life, including my training and competitions.
- [41:31]
A
And you mentioned 2028 a little bit earlier in the conversation. So what are your goals moving forward, both in competition and beyond?
- [41:41]
C
So my goals moving forward are the Olympics in 2028 in LA. That is the main goal. And I have a lot of different things leading up to that. So that's really the big goal. But then after that it would be 2032 and 20, 36 and continuing on. Yeah, and getting my degree from Hillsdale and being able to balance a professional life and an athletic life. Because Hillsdale has also taught me that I don't want to just be an athlete all the time, that I also want to be able to channel myself into other things. Otherwise it's very overwhelming and can be very easy to just tie your worth with your sport or not have another outlet for things. So I think being at Hillsdale and then also being in a sorority and being involved in other things has helped me with that and I want to be able to continue that through my time at Hillsdale and post grad from Hillsdale.
- [42:37]
A
What would you say to young shooters out there, especially young women perhaps, who might be interested in getting into the sport but aren't sure where or how to start?
- [42:46]
C
I would say to go find your local gun club, find your local shotgun range. They can, you can typically rent guns and rent instructors and just go out and give it a shot. Try it. I know we have liberty camps and stuff like that here at Hillsdale, so if you're in the area, it's really great to go to those and try it out. Or if you're at the college to try and do like we have basic shotgun classes, so there's a lot of entry. I got started in the ctp. If you want to start competing and to do that and just keep working at it, because if you put your mind to it, you can really accomplish something great, whether that be your end goal or all the steps along the way.
- [43:23]
A
Ava Downs is a junior at Hillsdale College and also member of the Hillsdale Shotgun Team, 2025 Junior Olympic Champion in international trap. Ava, thanks so much for joining us here on the Radio Free Hillsdale Hour.
- [43:37]
C
Thank you so much.
- [43:38]
A
That will wrap up this edition of the Radio Free Hillsdale Hour. Our thanks to Scott Jennings. His new book is A Revolution of Common Sense. Also, current Hillsdale student Ava Downes. Remember, you can hear new episodes every week on this station. You also can find extended versions of some of our interviews or listen anytime to the podcast. Find it at Podcast Hillsdale Edu or wherever you get your audio. Until next week, I'm Scott Bertram and this has been the Radio Free Hillsdale Hour.
- [44:11]
C
It.