The texts, emails and calls come regularly. At least once a week. Sometimes more.
“Jmart, I’m going to [fill-in-the-blank city], where should I eat?” friends, colleagues and sometimes folks I barely know at all will ask. Often, the question in reference is about New Orleans, America’s greatest city and the town my wife, Betsy, and I call home.
But just as frequently, it’s about somewhere else, where there’s a conference or wedding or news event. I’ve yet to meet the person who doesn’t want to find a good meal on the road.
Which is why this week I’m starting “On the Road with Jonathan Martin.”
After over 20 years of covering politics and visiting all 50 states along the way, I’ve eaten a lot of meals with politicians and those around them. Now I want to take you with me, have you watch and listen as I sit down and (quite literally) break bread at local joints with Democrats and Republicans alike.
My vision: Anthony Bourdain meets “Lunch with the FT” meets the Almanac of American Politics.
We’ll talk food, politics and place, delving into yesterday and tomorrow. It’s the great question at the heart of every political story, and it couldn’t be more relevant in America’s 250th year: How did we get here, and where are we going?
We begin at Wright’s BBQ in Little Rock, Arkansas, where I had the ribs (great rub), brisket and mac and cheese last week with Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders. More on that below. I’m headed to California next, where I’ll dip into some Dungeness crab with California Gov. Gavin Newsom.
My one rule of eating: When in Rome … Which is another way of saying, play to local strengths.
It’s no longer as easy a task as it once was, though, as both food and politics have grown increasingly homogenized. We live in an age where nearly all politics is national and the strip mall TGI Fridays is no different between Savannah and Seattle.
Thankfully for my mental health, if not for my waistline, some nuances and regional distinctions remain. Our politicians, our places and the menus therein do still vary. You can find a hoe cake at a BBQ joint in Nashville, but you probably wouldn’t a few hours west in Memphis (and they may look at you funny at Payne’s on Lamar Ave. if you asked).
More importantly, meals don’t just underscore our remaining differences. They’re also one of the last ways to remind us of our shared humanity. At a moment of profound division, there’s no better way to connect than over the one thing everyone adores: finding that great spot to eat that you’ll remember — and sharing it with the next friend who asks: Hey, where should I go when I’m in _____?
With that, I give you my discussion with Gov. Sanders.
And don’t forget, you can watch this on YouTube or listen to it as a podcast here.
The following conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
So this is the first of “On the Road” and the point is to talk to folks about food, politics, place, and I couldn’t think of somewhere better to do it than Little Rock, Arkansas and here at Wright’s, which has taken off, right?
It’s like an institution already. People absolutely love the food, love the service. There’s a great sense of welcoming and community that they bring to every location. I don’t know how they manage to do that.
The official barbecue of the Arkansas Razorbacks.
Exactly. So that’s all a plus. Now I do have a question for you. I know you’re supposed to be asking me the questions.
This is unbelievable. We’re less than five minutes in here, and she’s already switching the tables on me.
If you are starting at Wright’s in Arkansas on the day that the Razorbacks play the Longhorns, it will never get better. So you’ve really kind of done this backwards. You’ve set the bar too high.
Well, stay tuned, America. We’re gonna try and see where else we can go and look at that timing [food arrives]. Oh, there we go. We got some sausage, we got some brisket, we got ribs. The cool thing about Wright’s is it’s got a bit of a Texas flair to it. You got the sausage and brisket and you got the pickles and the onions, which is a bit of a Texas vibe.
So my husband, who’s from Kansas City, is a barbecue snob. And he loves Wright’s. And he gets so mad at me though, because I will say whether or not I like a barbecue restaurant based off not the meat, but the sides. They are crucial. I wanna know if they have good sides. And I think that Wright’s mac and cheese is fantastic.
Spoiler: I had some earlier, and it was awesome. So I want to talk to you about Little Rock and Arkansas, because I think some folks don’t fully know your backstory. Your dad was governor in the 1990s. You grew up in the Governor’s Mansion where you live now, and you grew up in the same bedroom as Chelsea Clinton did a decade earlier, right? So you grew up in politics, you grew up eating barbecue on the campaign trail and going to places like Hope, where your dad grew up and Bill Clinton grew up.
They had the watermelon festival there?
Still have the watermelon festival. Yeah, I spent my 40th birthday there ’cause it was in the midst of campaigning for governor at the Hope Watermelon Festival.
So do you judge the size of the watermelon there? How’s that work?
My youngest George, who was probably about seven at the time, entered into the watermelon eating contest. And crushed it. Got a trophy. And his prize was this 80-pound watermelon and a trophy, which we still have.
And with a family with deep ties to Hope, Arkansas, it is a very exciting point of pride…
As the kids say, a flex. That’s a big flex.
You were here in the nineties as a kid, and you went to [Little Rock] Central High School. Which is, of course, iconic in American history because of what happened there in 1957, and I think I’m right about this, but you were still a high school student in 1997 when then-President Clinton came back and your dad was governor.
It’s definitely one of the most memorable moments of my high school time. I was a sophomore at Central, and 1997 was the 40th anniversary. You have the president of the United States, who’s obviously from Arkansas and knows the history of the school really well. He comes back home. My dad is governor. All nine of the Little Rock Nine were living and present. Including Daisy Bates, who was one of the real civil rights movement heroes, certainly for Arkansas, and she helped really shepherd those nine students in there.
You see the doors that had been shut in their faces, and the crowds that were standing out in front yelling and screaming at these nine students were now cheering as they walked up the stairs. The doors are opened by the president, the governor, the mayor. It’s one of just the most vivid things I remember from high school and such a just visual reminder of how far we’ve come.
And you were old enough, you were a sophomore in high school, to understand partisan differences and the fact that your dad and Clinton were in different parties. How did they get along? When your dad was governor and President Clinton was president, was it awkward?
I mean, shockingly, they got along pretty well. Clinton’s first chief of staff, a guy named Mack McLarty — such a good person, is also from Hope, Arkansas. Vince Foster from Hope, Arkansas. I mean, there’s so many ties back to this little town of 9,000 people, where everybody knows everybody.
And so there’s a little bit of a greater sense of understanding and appreciation for who they are and what they’re doing. And while my dad and Clinton disagreed on a lot of things and still do, one thing that they always agreed on is how much they love Arkansas and wanted to see this state do really well.
When they were together, who would talk more?
Oh, that’s a good question. Because they’re both-
Talkers.
I would say probably Clinton. He’s probably a little bit of a bigger talker than my dad.
And they’re like telling stories, and the fish is getting bigger and bigger in every retelling.
You had both of them back last fall, right, for a fundraiser benefiting the Governor’s Mansion where you live now with your family. Every living governor was back there. Tell me about that.
We had all of the living governors, many of which have been political adversaries and have had many great public disagreements. But it wasn’t awkward, they got along. I mean, we all sat on a stage together. I’ll be honest, it was a little intimidating.
Was it?
Being the moderator for a former president, all former governors and a sitting ambassador [her father, Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee]. These are very successful and very talented communicators.
And they’re all dudes still.
So being about 30 years younger than everybody, the only female and the only one who is still running for something makes a little bit of a difference.
But it was a really special night because despite all the political differences, we have unique shared experience of living in that home, watching our kids or grandkids in the hallways, on those stairs.
Did you ever get in trouble there when you were a kid, by the way?
Yeah, I was in high school!
Could you sneak out?
It wasn’t easy. When we’re not on camera, maybe I’ll share the only way possible to make that happen.
Yeah, hard to hop that fence with state troopers nearby. But your dad is currently the ambassador to Israel, and we should talk about the biggest story in the world right now, which is the U.S. invading Iran.
You served President Trump, as folks know, as his press secretary in the first term. You followed his campaigns closely, all three of them. Were you surprised that he took the step that he did to preemptively go into Iran, given how he so emphatically ran in ’16 against the kind of Bush Republican, neo-conservative foreign policy?
Not really. I think he’s been very consistent in his message in reference to Iran. He’s been very clear that we don’t want, and we’re not going to allow them to have a new nuclear capacity, and that he is always gonna put American interest and American safety first.
And I think that’s exactly what you saw in his actions here. I really commend the president for his courage. I do not think this was an easy decision, but I 100 percent think it was the right decision. He had to take out their offensive capability. I’m proud and thankful that we have a president that actually stands up for the safety and security of our country.
How important do you think Israel was, Bibi especially, in trying to push Trump along on this the last two months?
Certainly, I think they play a part, but ultimately, I think for the president, this came down to a decision of: Does this help us protect America and American interests? And the answer was yes.
And he made a decisive, very courageous move to take them out. I think there are a lot of people that may say, ‘Oh, he has gotten us into this war.’ He’s ending a war that’s been going on for nearly five decades. And doing it for the right reasons.
You and I first met probably ’06 or ’07, when your dad was gearing up to run for president.
Neither one of us had gray hair
Exactly. But it was the end of the Bush years. His numbers were terrible, in part because the Iraq war had become unpopular and we were losing so many Americans.
If we started losing kids from Arkansas or kids from all over the country week after week here, the next few months, do you worry about the political impact of this on President Trump and your party?
I think anytime that you are taking military action, American lives are at stake. It’s a very difficult, tough decision. I know that’s something the president takes extremely seriously. It weighs on him heavily. And he’s going to do everything he can to prevent that from happening. And I think that’s a big reason that he decided to make the move he did, because he feels like if we get to do this on our terms and take out their offensive capabilities, then you’re protecting a lot more American lives. I think he is hopeful that they can get this done and move quickly instead of making the mistake that they, you saw in the Bush administration.
You don’t wanna see American boots on the ground in Iran, do I assume?
Yeah, I don’t think the president wants that. I think he’s been very clear in that he hopes that this can be done in a way that puts fewer American lives at risk, but protects them long term.
I got to ask you about your father and the interview he gave with Tucker Carlson in Israel, because you play a role of daughter, former staffer, now principal yourself, but you’re still a daughter at heart.
Was Sarah wondering, “God, why dad, why did you do that interview? Don’t feed the animals, man? Why sit down with him in the first place?
There’s part of me [that thinks that], but at the same time — I’m also really proud of my dad. Because he’s not afraid to do what he thinks is right.
And he’s known Tucker since Tucker was in Little Rock, right?Yeah, for 30 years, Tucker was a reporter for the newspaper here, they were colleagues at. Fox. He’s known him for a long time. Honestly, I’m shocked at how calm and measured my dad was.
Because you would’ve gotten pissed?
Um, yeah.
Or more pissed.
I think any person would have, because, it was — there are a lot of words I could use.
You think it was too adversarial or unfair?
I’m not worried about the fairness. My dad is more than capable of handling his own, and I think he did. What I don’t like is the dishonesty and the manner in which he conducted the interview. I didn’t think he was very respectful for somebody who was willing to sit down and have that conversation.
And just the way he questioned him. Frankly, I was really disappointed. Not only in the style, but also what he is pushing. Fundamentally and ideologically, he has moved so far outside of the scope.
But afterward, you had to say to yourself: ‘Why did he do that interview in the first place?’
No, I’ve watched my dad long enough to know he has a little bit of…
He likes the game?
I think that’s why he and the president get along well. These are two people who are not gonna sit on the sidelines. And my dad is coming from a place of deep conviction and belief that is grounded in biblical and spiritual truth. And I don’t think you saw that on the other side.
Do you think Tucker believes this stuff or is he an opportunist?
I don’t know. I think that’s a question you’d have to ask him.I don’t think he’d be honest, though. I don’t know the answer.Let me ask you about this deeper issue that’s incredibly relevant to [the GOP] and to the country, which is this drift away from Israel among Republicans, especially younger Republicans.
What do you think drives that, and how worried are you about that going forward?
A lot of that is probably driven by social media.
You are seeing this growing push online, whether it’s on that or a number of other topics. The algorithms are moving more and more people, and they’re living in these echo chambers where they’re constantly inundated with information, whether it’s accurate or not. That’s what they see all day, and it’s hard for people to see video and picture, made up or not, all day on any topic and not start to move in that direction.
By 2028, certainly down the road, you’re gonna play the role in the party going forward for the next few decades — you’re confident that it’s still going to be a firmly pro-Israel party going forward?
I think so, but I think the big mistake people make is they try to make this just a pro-Israel argument, but it’s really a pro-America argument.
How so?
I think that the relationship and the allied support is incredibly important. And what we’re doing now to work with them to remove, again — I think everybody thinks that this is about protecting Israel, but it’s about protecting American interests, about protecting American lives. Iran is the largest supporter of terrorism. If we just allow that to go unchecked… I mean, they held our military hostage. They have had targeted attack after targeted attack.
We’re not doing it by ourselves. And you’re seeing a lot of the other countries in the Middle East, thankfully, stepping up and agreeing and supporting and taking out a threat like Iran.
But this president is complicated. You know him as well as anybody. I was on Twitter, where I’m on too often earlier…
That’s your first problem — nothing is going to end well there.
Exactly. But it looks like he’s going to support Sen. John Cornyn [in his runoff bid], who’s firmly from the traditional Bush wing of the party. He started this war in Iran. He did a big high-end tax cut. In a lot of ways, in his actions, he’s a more traditional Republican than people have assumed….
You’re smiling! Is Trump real MAGA?
People have called the president a lot of things, I don’t know about traditional Republican.
But some of his actions are much more conventional, right?
I don’t know if conventional is the word that I would use, but he is implementing conservative policy. And he’s doing it at a rate and a speed, which I don’t think anybody anticipated.
But if you’re Steve Bannon, though, this is not what you expected.
But in what way? They wanted somebody who was not going to be a scripted politician — check. They wanted somebody who was gonna shake up Washington and actually hold our lawmakers accountable — check. They want somebody who says, if you threaten the United States, if you harm our people, there will be consequences. And we’re not just gonna say, oh, we’re gonna draw a red line, and then you can walk all over it and do nothing.
Well, they wouldn’t have wanted a new war in the Middle East and high-end tax cuts as the central domestic accomplishment of your presidency, which is what it is right now.
I disagree on new war. I think he’s finishing something, and he’s fully committed to getting the job done. And on the tax cuts: Imagine the opposite having happened.
Going over the cliff without renewing the rates?
Yeah, we go over the fiscal cliff. People are already struggling. We have a president who’s actually making life more affordable. and he’s been able to do it in short order. Instituting tax cuts, lowering gas prices, prescription drugs. We’re doing things like that in Arkansas. We’ve knocked 20 percent off of our state income tax in the last three years.
Not one, not two, but three different tax cuts — returning a billion dollars back to the pockets of Arkansans. We got rid of Arkansas’s most regressive tax and fully eliminated the grocery tax.
We’re sitting here in Little Rock. But just briefly, we ought to talk about what’s happening in northwest Arkansas, which is booming. Folks know Walmart is there, but it’s bigger than just Walmart now.
It’s much bigger. Walmart is an incredible company. They have been a great anchor for all of Northwest Arkansas. What I love about their presence is it’s not just their company, but it’s so many things that are built off of that. And the Walton family themselves invest heavily in quality of life issues and other things.
The risk is up there: It’s gonna be so incredibly successful and prosperous, they’re gonna become Democrats up there. You’re going to have a Democratic House seat up there pretty soon.
I don’t know. I think the better people do, the more Republican they become, because the harder they work, the more money they make, the less they want the government telling them how they can spend it.
You lived through 2018 working for President Trump. Is this inevitably gonna be a tough cycle for your party or is there a way that this is not a replay of 2018?
You know as well as anybody, midterms are hard for whatever party is in power. If anybody has the ability to break that cycle, it’s Donald Trump — if he engages, if he goes out and tells the story, talks about what he’s done specifically on affordability, making life easier for Americans.
But holding the House is gonna be a real challenge, though, for you guys.
Yeah, no doubt that the midterms will be difficult. We really have to lean into telling our success story. If we do that, I think we can outperform historical expectations. But a lot of that will depend, I think, too, on how much we see the president engage. How much he leans into individual races and how much of the war chest that he has that he invests in those races.
You’re running for re-election in a deep red state, but if you were in Wisconsin or Michigan, classic battleground states, would you want President Trump there with you in October?
I would.
Cause he can bring out your voters?
He can bring out your voters, and he’s still the most dominant voice and the best messenger in the Republican party.
Let’s look ahead to 2028 for a minute, because when President Trump is asked this question, he always says the same thing: ‘Well, we got Marco, we got JD. They’re doing a great job.’ I can kind of see the ticket in his head.
Yeah.
He’s sort of saying it out loud already.
I think so, but I think more than anything, there’s a big mistake in everybody trying to move on and talk about ’28. Our focus right now needs to be on ’26.
But you know how he consumes media, which is voraciously. He watched Marco Rubio’s speech in Munich at the security conference. He knows that Rubio’s speech at Charlie Kirk’s service went viral, when Marco gave his Christian testimony. How does the TV-critic-in-chief not at some point say out loud, as he’s given to do, ‘Well, JD, I’m sorry buddy, but Marco’s pretty damn talented. We gotta give it to Marco this time around.’
Look I think you have a president who has an incredibly strong group of people around him, right? Whether it’s the vice president, whether it’s the secretary of State…
But do we know today who the nominee is gonna be for your party in ’28?
Not at all.
It’s still an open race.
And I think it would be a mistake to focus on ’28 until we get finished with the midterms.
Does he want a primary or does he wanna do one-part “The Bachelor,” one-part “The Apprentice,” and have Marco and JD bring a rose to the West Wing and then go in and see him and put it all on TV?
You know, he definitely likes a little bit of a battle, but I think that’s a question you’d have to ask the president.
There’s obviously a lot of ambition in the party, but I think he wants to create the ticket himself because he can sort of see it already in his mind.
I think it’s less about him even creating the ticket, but he still has the biggest microphone anywhere in the country. People are going to look to him for leadership and guidance, and I don’t think he’ll have any reservations about sharing opinions. That’s one of the reasons people love Donald Trump
Bottom line, this is still an open race, and you don’t assume that Vance has this locked up?
Again, I think our focus is ‘26.
And if one of them wants to put you on the ticket in ’28, your game?
I’m just trying to get elected in Arkansas.
So one of our friends laid out a scenario to me: 2028 is gonna be tough to hold the White House after President Trump and whoever is the nominee — whether it’s Vance or somebody else — probably loses to a Democrat.
Gov. Huckabee finishes her term in January of ’31. She serves two full terms. She can do her memoir and then go out on the campaign trail and start running in ’32. Your kids will be grown. What do you think, how’s that sound?
I think that we have our hands full right now trying to do a really good job. In public service, your goal, your focus has to be to do a really good job in the role you have.
But we’ve known each other for a long time. You grew up in politics. Your dad ran for president a couple of times. You worked for a president. You can’t sit there and tell me you haven’t at least thought about the possibility one day of running yourself.
Certainly, things cross your mind.
Thank you.
But I never thought I would be the White House press secretary. Frankly, I never expected to be governor of Arkansas despite the fact that I grew up in a political family.
Why?
I was more about helping other people get elected and implementing on the policy side. It actually sort of happened by accident. I signed on to work for Donald Trump in 2016 as a senior adviser. My job was to do outreach to areas across the south, focus on evangelicals and women.
I was supposed to help build coalitions in those spaces, signed on to do that. I got called one day and asked if I was willing to go on CNN and do a daytime interview. But I was not smart enough to say no at the time.
Nothing wrong with dayside cable
Nice plug, I’m sure they’ll invite you back.
So I went on TV, and the campaign manager called and said, ‘Hey, you’re not that bad. Will you do it again tomorrow?’
But when’s the point when you’re at the podium as a staffer, you say: You know what, I can be a principal.
After two and a half years in the White House, I knew I wanted to come back to Arkansas. What that looked like, I didn’t know, but I wanted time with my family. I wanted a break from the intensity and the craziness of Washington, and as I was leaving and in those two weeks of telling the president, he was like, you should run for governor.
And I told him: I’m gonna think about it, I want to pray about it, talk to my family. He goes: ‘No, no, no, I’m just gonna put it out there.’ And here we are.
So March is Women’s History Month, and you’re the first female governor in the history of Arkansas.
This country obviously has not elected a female president in its 250 years, sadly. Do you share the view that a lot of folks have that the first female president in America will be a Republican, just as Margaret Thatcher became the first female British Prime Minister?
I don’t care as much whether the person is a male or a female. I want whoever is in the White House to be a Republican…
But you know what I’m saying.
I think it’s more likely. I don’t see a lot of Democratic women that could build the type of coalition needed to win.
I should mention this because we’re sitting here on a Wednesday. The primaries were yesterday here in Arkansas. You were involved in a few of these state senate races, and you lost some of those races. Do endorsements still matter in state politics?
I think it can matter. We won the vast majority of the ones that we engaged in. But you’re not gonna win every race.
I think the big story, though. That I didn’t have a primary and that shows, I think, that there is a lot of support for what we’re doing.
Speaking of Arkansans, Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) — when he didn’t take the Pentagon [after Trump’s election] and decided to stay in the Senate — did that tell you as a political observer that he wanted to stay and become Senate leader one day?
I think certainly he’s in a great position. He is in leadership now. I mean, he’s a very gifted senator, especially when it comes to national security. And we have a really good balance in Arkansas between Sen. Cotton and Sen. [John] Boozman (R-Ark.).
They get along famously, but they couldn’t be more different. Boozman played tackle for the Razorbacks, and Cotton was reading back issues of Commentary at Harvard. They’re so different.
When he didn’t take a cabinet gig after President Trump won, it told me that he wants to stay and try to become a leader one day in the Senate.
I don’t like to speak for other people, and I hate it when other people tell me what my future plans are.
