NewsNation’s Chris Stirewalt plays ‘nonpartisan political roaster’ at WV Chamber Business Summit
August 30, 2025
WHITE SULPHUR SPRINGS, W.Va. – “The job that Donald Trump was born to have is the sheriff of a coalfield county, 40 or 50 years ago.”
That’s what NewsNation Political Editor Chris Stirewalt told those in attendance Thursday, at the 89th annual West Virginia Chamber Business Summit. Political pundit and best-selling author of “Broken News,” Stirewalt was on-hand to speak about the “State of American Politics.”
“‘If it’s gonna happen, it’s gonna go through me,’” Stirewalt continued, speaking as Trump. “‘My people are gonna get paid, I’m gonna get paid, and it’s gonna work out the way I tell you it’s gonna work out.’”
“It is so weird,” Stirewalt added.
In referencing Trump, Stirewalt compared current D.C. politics to the West Virginia of the early 1980’s – when having the right legislative connections in Charleston, Stirewalt explained, was essential for doing business in the Mountain State.
“I cannot tell you how weird it is in Washington right now,” Stirewalt said. “I came outside of my building – my building where all of the news media gather together in awfulness – at 400 North Capitol Street. That’s where we laugh about our high salaries and bad reporting. Of course there was a group of paid protestors, screaming about Israel.”
“So I come out of my building the other day, and I was afforded the opportunity to meet a couple of National Guard members from West Virginia, who were in D.C.,” Stirewalt continued. “Now I’m not trying to get anybody in trouble, and I’m not going to say anything bad about anybody who’s in it, but they had no more idea why they were there than the man in the middle.”
“One of them (National Guard members) said something, and I thought that he was kidding,” Stirewalt added. “But they’re doing buildings and grounds work. They don’t have enough for the National Guard to do, so they’re re-mulching the beds in Washington right now – in part because they fired all the people at the National Parks Service who are supposed to do stuff like that.”
The audience, who had been fairly animated during earlier remarks from U.S. Senators Shelley Moore Capito and Jim Justice, fell largely silent during Stirewalt’s presentation.
“It’s an astonishingly weird moment,” Stirewalt said.
After expressing his opposition to the idea of an autonomous executive branch, Stirewalt turned his attention to more of a “meat and potatoes” issue – the controversy surrounding the rebranding of the Cracker Barrel restaurant chain.
“I feel that West Virginia has substantially been left out of the Cracker Barrel controversy,” Stirewalt said. “West Virginia doesn’t have the kind of Cracker Barrel representation that a lot of similarly-situated states have. It’s more of a Bob Evans state, right?”
“But I have a plan, because Bob Evans has been left out of all of this,” Stirewalt continued. “Rebrand as ‘Roberta Evans,’ go trans and freak everybody out, and then get paid on the flipside when you go back to ‘Bob.’ De-transition, and it’s gonna be great.”
“There you go, free idea,” Stirewalt added. “That’s free money for you guys.”
After rhetorically asking why so much has been made about Cracker Barrel’s new sign, and “Sydney Sweeney’s pants,” Stirewalt shifted his focus to West Virginia’s legislature.
“Why do people care so much about things that are unimportant?” Stirewalt asked. “I looked at y’all’s legislative calendar – wow. You must’ve solved all the other problems in the state, because what I looked at was a very interesting collection of key issues.”
“Okay, so how can I stand up on my motorcycle?” Stirewalt continued. “I wanna know.”
Stirewalt referred to these examples as “wedge culture-war issues,” before again questioning why people care so much about them.
“We are going through a phenomenon or mirroring,” Stirewalt explained. “Here’s what’s happening – the two parties are defining the bottom level of their conduct and performance by what they believe the bottom level of their opponent’s performance is.”
To make his point, Stirewalt referenced both California Governor Gavin Newsom’s recent mocking of Trump, as well as former President Barack Obama’s hesitancy to issue blanket deportations until his re-election year in 2008.
“Joe Biden – this is my favorite one – the moratorium on evictions during the Coronavirus Pandemic was expiring,” Stirewalt said. “And Biden said, ‘I think Nancy Pelosi, you and the Democratic majority in Congress should extend this.’ And she said, ‘Why don’t you just give it a shot and see if you can do it. It’s probably not constitutional, but what the heck? Throw it at the Supreme Court and see if it sticks.’”
“It didn’t stick, and Biden could say, ‘We’re gonna pack the Supreme Court,’ or something,” Stirewalt continued. “I don’t know, how about just do your job? How about instead of packing the Supreme Court, you do what you know is right?”
“And now, the mirroring continues,” Stirewalt noted. “The Republicans who complained and screamed about what Joe Biden was doing in abuse of executive power, are now cheering for Donald Trump taking ownership stakes in private companies as conditions of receiving funds that were appropriated by the Congress of the United States.”
“Nobody’s paying attention, because we’re only calling balls and strikes on the other team,” Stirewalt added. “We’re only paying attention to the wrong, illegal, constitutionally-obtuse wrong things that the other people are doing.”
The 89th annual West Virginia Chamber Business Summit concluded on Friday.
Story by Matthew Young, RealWV