The Karol Markowicz Show: Stephen Yates on Losing His Daughter, Overcoming Grief, and Finding Purpose

Karol Markowicz (0:04)

Hi, and welcome back to The Karol Markowicz Show on iHeartRadio. My guest today is Stephen Yates. Stephen is the host of Nation States with Yates on the Clay and Buck Podcast Network on iHeart, just like this show is. He was Vice President Cheney's Deputy National Security Advisor for the first five years of the Bush administration, and spent many years as a state party chairman of the Republican Party in Idaho.

Hi, Stephen. So nice to have you on.

Stephen Yates (0:30)

Hi, Karol. Great to be with you.

Karol Markowicz (0:32)

I am a fan of yours, and I'm really glad to have you on and to learn a little bit more about you. How did you get into all of this? There's a lot going on here with Stephen Yates.

Stephen Yates (0:44)

Unfortunately, that's true. There is a lot going on.

It might be a little bit convoluted and distracting for the average person.

And I guess getting involved in all this, I guess it starts with what is all this?

Karol Markowicz (0:56)

When it comes to how did we end up... I say it's this thing of ours, you know?

Stephen Yates (1:01)

So if it comes down to the ever glorious and amazing Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Podcast Network, which I am genuinely grateful to be a part of, Buck Sexton and I crossed paths in somewhere around the 2010, 2011 range, I think. I had been several years out of the Bush administration, had been volunteering my time giving charitable contributions to the Fox News Channel.

Karol Markowicz (1:28)

Who among us, you know?

Stephen Yates (1:31)

There was this new thing that was starting up in New York City called the Blaze TV.

It was quite the amazing rocket ship for the first year or so of that. There was this young panel, which I sadly at the time was already aged out of.

There's this young talent, some of whom I had heard of, but many I hadn't. There was this show called Real News from the Blaze, and one of the regular anchors on that was this guy, Buck Sexton, who came out of the blue to me. He had been in the Oval to brief the president on some things related to Iraq. He had been in the counter-terrorism part of NYPD. He had opinions on a whole bunch of things. I thought, man, this guy's got opinions on everything. Yes, he does. Turns out, he had some pretty good opinions. And we just stayed friends. And I had continued to do things in life, in media, wasted some years of my life in politics, which was a whole other story.

Karol Markowicz (2:28)

Again, who among us?

Stephen Yates (2:32)

But then it really just came down to, I took Buck to Taiwan, a place that I first went almost 40 years ago.

I said, there's really some perspectives that the world doesn't get about this place. And I'd really hope that you could get some firsthand experience. He was all in, went with his brothers. We had a fabulous visit. He was able to interview the president. And he said, you know, would you like to do a podcast? And I said, well, I kind of have done some, but I mean, it's sort of this basement project. And he said, no, no, how would you really like to do a podcast? And he really nudged me in a direction that sort of got me to straighten up and fly straight. We're giving it a go and just been blessed so far that it seems to be working. We're not The Karol Markowicz Show, but we're working on things.

Karol Markowicz (3:15)

Yeah.

So it's actually very funny that The Blaze, that show was the very first time I was on TV. And it was with Buck Sexton, Will Cain, Essie Cuff. I remember Essie asking me, like, are you nervous? And I was like, I don't know, not, you know, I'm okay. I'm not that nervous.

Stephen Yates (3:32)

You didn't know to be nervous.

Karol Markowicz (3:33)

I didn't, I didn't.

And then Buck and I, Will and I became friends shortly thereafter. But Buck and I don't become friends for a very long time, basically until COVID where we start reading each other and listening to each other and be like, we should know each other for sure.

Stephen Yates (3:49)

Yes. And you should have. That's true. Yeah.

Karol Markowicz (3:51)

Yeah. I don't know. I don't know why we didn't before, but yeah. Now I feel like I was a big inspiration for him to move to Florida, if I do say so myself. And-

Stephen Yates (4:01)