Earlier this week, voters in Missouri’s 6th Congressional District elected Chris Stigall in the Republican primary to replace retiring Congressman Ralph Graves. In winning the GOP primary, Stigall is on a solid trajectory to be elected to Congress on November 3rd in the heavily Republican district.
In March of this year, Chris Stigall suddenly announced his candidacy for Congress… giving up his successful nationally-syndicated talk show on the Salem Radio Network in order to seek public service in the U.S. House of Representatives. In doing so, Stigall became just the latest in a long line of conservatives whose springboard into national politics was the Salem Radio Network.
The pantheon of leaders who have graced SRN’s microphones include Bill Bennett, Ronald Reagan’s Secretary of Education and the only talk host in America who was ever confirmed three times by the U.S. Senate; Rick Santorum, former U.S. Senator from Pennsylvania and Presidential candidate in 2012; current SRN host Larry Elder who stepped away to mount a 2021 campaign for Governor of California and Dr. Sebastian Gorka who hosted the “America First” talk show on SRN until January 2025 when he was tapped by President Donald J. Trump to become Deputy Assistant to the President and Senior Director for Counterterrorism.
SRN also plays host to current officeholders, the most prominent of which is U.S. Speaker Mike Johnson who appears weekly on the Salem news program THIS WEEK ON CAPITOL HILL with Tony Perkins.
Full disclosure: SRN has not posted a flawless record, host-wise. At one point we hired the then-Lt. Governor of Maryland Michael Steele, who acquitted himself nicely on-the-air but departed radio when he was elected the first African American chairman of the Republican National Committee. Steele maintained a high profile as one of America’s top black conservatives until the 2016 election of Donald Trump. At that point, some politically bad wiring in his head sent him to the left-wing cabal known as MSNBC (later renamed as MSNBC) where Michael still reaches literally dozens of viewers on a weeknight talk show creatively named “The Weeknight.”
Another dud on SRN was former Tea Party Congressman Joe Walsh, who piloted a nighttime talk show aimed at conservative listeners. But like Michael Steele before him, Joe apparently saw the lure of an MSNOW paycheck and suddenly morphed from a Tea Party right winger into the #1 Trump-basher on network TV. I guess principles come secondary to having the opportunity to occasionally be a sidekick on “Morning Joe.”
But of all the past and current personalities who have had a major impact on our national politics, nobody can hold a candle to Charlie Kirk. The founder of the student activist group Turning Point USA caught lightning in a bottle when he presided over his own midday Salem Radio Network talk show. Charlie’s on-air command of issues was unparalleled…and he consistently generated some of the highest ratings — and advertiser revenue — in SRN history.
All that came to a tragic end one year ago next month, when Charlie was killed while making an appearance among college students at Utah Valley University in Orem, Utah. His shocking death drew emotional tributes from President Trump, House Speaker Mike Johnson, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Vice President JD Vance and students literally around the world who saw Charlie as the leader of the next generation of conservative activists.
Talk Radio had not seen any similar phenomenon since the reign of the legendary Rush Limbaugh.
On Thursday, September 10th, SRN and our colleagues at the Salem News Channel will honor the one-year anniversary of Charlie’s assassination with a special documentary titled “FAITH OVER FEAR: The Charlie Kirk Story.” This broadcast will feature highlights of Charlie’s life as well as interviews with his SRN colleagues and excerpts from his radio show which was cut short all too soon by tragedy.
Even as the first anniversary of his death approaches, it still is hard for those of us who worked with Charlie Kirk to fully comprehend that he’s really gone.
It seems like a bad dream, though unfortunately not one from which we can awaken.
But even though Charlie was removed from the national scene by a cowardly act, SRN’s influence will continue to grow as hosts like Mike Gallagher, Larry O’Connor, Hugh Hewitt, Scott Jennings, Alex Marlow and Larry Elder continue to reach millions of listeners each day. And with our former colleague Chris Stigall now well on his way to Washington, I’m confident our impact will continue…within the marbled columns of Capitol Hill and beyond.
Tom Tradup is Vice President of News at Dallas-based Salem Radio Network. He can be reached at ttradup@srnradio.com