Background

Paul Begala was born on May 12, 1961 in New Jersey and was raised in Texas. After earning an undergraduate degree at the University of Texas at Austin in 1983, he worked on the ’83 U.S. Senate campaign of Lloyd Doggett, who won the Democratic primary but was trounced by Republican Phil Gramm in the general election. While working on that campaign, Begala formed a friendship with James Carville, a then-struggling political consultant who would later become a major Democratic Party figure.

After completing his undergraduate degree, Begala in 1984 enrolled at the University of Texas (UT) School of Law. He would not earn his JD until 1990, however, because he took a great deal of time off in order to work on political campaigns with Carville.

Carville & Begala Political Consultancy

In 1989, Begala and Carville co-founded the political consulting firm of Carville & Begala, which was active until 1994 and helped bring about such Democrat triumphs as the 1988 re-election of U.S. Senator Frank Lautenberg in New Jersey; the 1990 gubernatorial victories of Robert Casey in Pennsylvania and Zell Miller in Georgia; the 1991 Senate victory of Harris Wofford, who overcame a 47-point deficit in the polls to defeat Dick Thornburgh in Pennsylvania; and the 1992 presidential election of Bill Clinton.

Working for the DNC & the Clinton White House

After the 1992 presidential election, Begala took a job with the Democratic National Committee and was also a regular fixture in the Clinton White House as a counselor to the president during his first term. But Begala was subsequently ostracized from Clinton’s inner circle after he supplied incriminating information about the president to author Bob Woodward for the latter’s 1994 book, The Agenda: Inside the Clinton White House – an unflattering portrayal of Clinton’s first two years in office.

Political Consultant & Professor

In 1995 Begala returned to Austin and joined the political consulting firm Public Strategies. He also taught a course titled “Politics and the Press” for the University of Texas’ Department of Journalism.

Helping Bill Clinton Prepare for Debates

When President Clinton ran for re-election in 1996, Begala personally helped prepare him for his televised debates.

Returning as Counselor to the President

In the summer of 1997, Begala was invited back to to serve, again, as counselor to the president. During the Monica Lewinsky sex scandal of 1998, Begala often filled the role of public spokesman for Mr. Clinton. At the time, Begala voiced his firm faith that the president was being truthful in maintaining that he had not had sexual relations with the young intern. “I pride myself on being a true believer,” said Begala. “… I am not a hired gun. I have an extraordinary [sic] high confidence level in him [Clinton].”

George Magazine

In the 1990s as well, Begala helped John F. Kennedy Jr. launch the monthly George magazine, where Begala worked as a contributing editor and columnist.

MSNBC Co-Host

From 1999-2000, Begala co-hosted the MSNBC program Equal Time with Oliver North.

Portraying Republicans & Conservatives as “Sociopaths,” “Idiots,” & “Bigots”

Over the course of his professional career, Begala has authored or co-authored several books. In one of those, titled Is Our Children Learning? (2000), he wrote that Republican President George W. Bush did not “have what it takes to be president” because he was “a few beans shy of a full burrito intellectually.”

In an article he wrote during the infamous Florida recount controversy vis-a-vis the 2000 presidential election, Begala suggested that a disproportionately large number of Republicans and conservatives were bigots who were highly prone to engaging in violence and cruelty. Specifically, he pointed to the solidly red (Republican) counties and states on the electoral map and said:

“You see the state where [African American] James Byrd was lynch-dragged behind a pickup truck until his body came apart—it’s red. You see the state where Matthew Shepard was crucified on a split-rail fence for the crime of being gay—it’s red. You see the state where right-wing extremists blew up a federal office building and murdered scores of federal employees—it’s red. The state where an army private who was thought to be gay was bludgeoned to death with a baseball bat, and the state where neo-Nazi skin-heads murdered two African Americans because of their skin color, and the state where Bob Jones University spews its anti-Catholic bigotry: they’re all red too.”

During a September 1, 2015 appearance on CNN’s Anderson Cooper 360, Begala condemned former Republican Vice President Dick Cheney for saying that then-President Barack Obama was responsible for ISIS‘s rise in Iraq because of his decision to pull all U.S. troops out of that country. After host Anderson Cooper played a video clip of Cheney articulating that opinion, Begala said: “Amazing. what a valuable piece of videotape. That is a portrait of a political sociopath…. I went and looked up on the Mayo Clinic website the description of that disorder, and it fits Mr. Cheney to a T — inability to ever express remorse, error — manipulative, dishonest. This point about ISIS, for example — ISIS exists because of the [the Bush-Cheney administration’s] invasion of Iraq. Iran is stronger because of the invasion of Iraq. We invaded Iraq because Mr. Cheney twisted intelligence to try to persuade the country to invade a country that was no threat to America. Now he sits there and actually has the gall to try to blame President Obama for trying to manage the damage.”

During a June 2016 appearance on Bill Maher‘s CNN program, Begala, with regard to Republican Rep. Louie Gohmert’s recent confrontation with congressional Democrats during their gun control sit-in, said: “But, you shouldn’t make fun of the mentally challenged, and Louie is a dope. He’s an idiot. No, he’s a first-class idiot. He’s from my state of Texas. And he’s just a fool and an idiot.”

Professor at Georgetown

After his second tour of duty at the White House was over, Begala was hired to teach at Georgetown University, where he would go on to spend 19 years as an Affiliated Professor of Public Policy.

Television Jobs

In 2002, Begala and James Carville teamed up to represent the positions of the political left on the long-running CNN debate program, Crossfire, which featured topical discussions in which the pair was pitted against conservatives Robert Novak and Tucker Carlson. Crossfire was eventually cancelled in 2005 due to low ratings. After that, Begala began appearing on CNN’s Inside Politics and, later, on that show’s successor, The Situation Room.

Teaching at the Georgia School of Law

In the fall of 2007, Begala joined the faculty at the University of Georgia School of Law as a Carl E. Sanders Scholar of Political Leadership.

Consultant to Freddie Mac

In the mid 2000s, Begala spent some time as a consultant to the mortgage lender Freddie Mac — an arrangement that ended in September 2008.

Begala Supports Hillary Clinton in 2008 but Does Not Work for Her Campaign

In January 2008, a report surfaced that Begala was being recruited to serve as a counselor and strategist for Senator Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign. Shortly after the story broke, however, Begala sent out an email denying the claim. “I am not coming in as a volunteer, or as an adviser or as a strategist or anything else,” he wrote. “I have contributed to her campaign, and am convinced she would be a great President. But I am not joining the campaign in any form or fashion.”

Begala & Priorities USA Support Obama

In 2012, Begala helped run Priorities USA, a super PAC that played an important role in the re-election of President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden.

Keynote Speaker for Battleground Texas

In mid-May of 2013 in Austin, Texas, Begala was the keynote speaker at a fundraiser held by Battleground Texas, an organization seeking to transform the traditionally Republican Lone Star State into a Democratic stronghold by “expanding the electorate by registering more voters [and] mobilizing those Texans who are already registered but who have not been engaged in the democratic process.”

Dismissing the Significance of the Hillary Clinton Email Scandal

In March 2015, after the publication of a spate of news stories about Hillary Clinton’s illegal use of a private email address and server through which she had transmitted thousands of classified correspondences during her tenure as U.S. secretary of state, Begala dismissed the stories as irrelevant: “Voters do not give a shit about what email Hillary used. They don’t even give a fart.”

During an August 17, 2015 CNN broadcast discussing Mrs. Clinton’s email scandal, Begala said of the Democrat’s Republican critics: “If they were smart, they would be talking about ideas and issues.… All they’re running on now is hate…. It’s just an easy, cheap thing to go and try to practice politics of personal destruction. Believe me, it never works.”

Begala & Priorities USA Support Hillary Clinton

In 2016 Begala served as a senior adviser to Priorities USA, a key supporter of Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign.

Effort to Build a “Ceiling” on the Trump Campaign

During a July 4, 2016 appearance on CNN’s The Axe Files podcast, Begala said that Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign was running television ads in battleground states designed to “define the Republican early” and erect a “ceiling” of political support that presumptive presidential nominee Donald Trump would be unable to rise above. He elaborated:

“With Trump, he wants to build a [border] wall. I want to build a ceiling. Right now he’s got his 40 — no not even 40 — 30, 35 percent of the vote and it is ironclad. And he is right when he says ‘I can go on Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody and not lose any of my voters.’ But that got him to 13 million votes. As you know, you need 65 to 70 million to win. The path between 13 and 70 is full of people who are not in his base—unmarried woman, college educated women especially, young people, people of color. I want to build a ceiling. And if you look, we’ve been advertising very heavily on the outrageous things that Donald Trump has said about women, about national security, most powerfully about the disabled, and that is building a ceiling. There is only one national poll out of ten or twelve that has him even over 40 [percent], and he has got to get close to 50.”

Added Begala: “If you think as a strategist, his [Trump’s] path forward has got to be to do better with people with college degrees, women with college degrees, unmarried women and young people. He has pretty much killed himself with people of color. His path has got to be to maximize the white vote among people with a college degree. Those kinds of comments—I think that builds a ceiling for Trump.” 

Begala’s Contempt for Donald Trump

Following President Obama’s final State Of The Union address to Congress in January 2016, Begala participated in a CNN panel discussion that included also Mike Rogers, a former U.S. congressman from Michigan. After Rogers warned critics of Republican presidential frontrunner Donald Trump not to dimiss the possibility that Trump’s campaign might be resonating with many Democrat voters, Begala said: “The notion that Trump is appealing to Democrats is myth, not math, tested the better part of today going through polls. Trump – he has a higher negative among Democrats than various forms of syphilis. I hate the guy. That’s why I want him to be the Republican nominee.”

During the April 11, 2017 broadcast of CNN’s Anderson Cooper 360, Begala called Donald Trump “a pathological liar” and falsely suggested that Trump had won the 2016 presidential race as a result of his campaign’s secret collusion with Rusian agents who interfered with the election. “Thanks to Mr. Putin, Mr. Trump got to take the Inaugural Address,” said Begala. Also appearing on the program was Ari Fleischer, who served as White House Press Secretary for former President George W. Bush. After Fleischer said that Begala could not accept the fact that Hillary Clinton had lost to Trump because she was so widely disliked by voters, Begala, in turn, said that Fleischer was overly “sensitive” because he had “worked for a guy who snuck in without winning the [popular] vote either,” and who therefore “was kind of essentially illegitimate as well.”

During a July 20, 2017 appearance on CNN’s New Day, Begala reacted to fellow panelist Jeffrey Lord‘s characterization of Trump as a “different kind of president.” “Jeffrey Lord says he’s a different kind of president,” said Begala. “Well he is, he is — O.J. Simpson is a different kind of football player. That doesn’t make him a better person, that doesn’t make Mr. Trump a better president.” “This is a man who has decided to make an all-out assault on the rule of law,” added Begala. “Why? Because it’s closing in on him because he knows he’s guilty” [of having colluded with Russia].

During the December 24, 2017 airing of CNN’s State of the Union, Begala said of President Trump: “He’s an autocrat who is trying to enrich himself in office, and he is succeeding. The Republicans seem to want to help with tha,t passing a tax bill that lines Trump’s pockets. Democrats are unwilling to do that.” 

On January 17, 2018, Begala appeared on CNN’s At This Hour to discuss Republican Senator Jeff Flake’s recent assertion that President Trump had “battered and abused” the truth by launching “shameful, repulsive” attacks on the American press. Said Begala:

“Senator Flake is one of the most conservative members of the Republican party. And I think the speech —he actually gave it on the Senate floor, I think it will be an important part of the history of this era. President Trump is only one year into a four-year no cut contract, but I think he has already distinguished himself as a liar. Remember Shakespeare said ‘Macbeth doth murder sleep,’ Donald Trump doth murder truth. Two-thirds of people think he’s not honest, leading members of his own party point that out. His first real act was to lie to the American people, about something stupid, as Senator Flake said today in his speech, the size of his crowd. He [Trump] is an extravagant, extraordinary liar who brought this moral rot to the American presidency and member of his own party calling him out I think is historically significant.”

On the same program, Begala added: “This president attacks the press. I would extend that, because he doesn’t only attack the press, but calls federal judges ‘so-called judges’ and attacks them because they are a check on his power; has said the FBI is in tatters because they are investigating him; says the CIA is like the Gestapo; and he attacks the press, he attacks any check on power, because he would to be like Duterte, Assad, Putin, Stalin. That is his goal. He is an autocrat.”

On April 26, 2019, Begala told CNN’s Jake Tapper: “[Trump is] sending, not just dog whistles, he’s sending foghorns to the ultra-right fringe, to the racist right. And it stains his entire party. His party was founded by Abraham Lincoln. They have such a proud history on issues of race. And he has taken them into such a dark place on this. And he’s doing it on purpose. He has chosen, and I think it’s a good point about broadening. Any other strategist would say, you need to broaden your support, he’s chosen to deepen it. It may work. I don’t know, it’s not what I would do. I think it’s bad politics, but I know it’s bad history and I know it’s bad ethics, because he seems to be drawn to these racially-divisive issues.”

During an April 29, 2019 appearance on CNN, Begala gave voice to just how deeply he despised President  Trump: “I’m a JFK Democrat. I will pay any price, bear any burden, support any friend, oppose any foe to ensure the defeat of Donald J. Trump. You could be for Medicare for all, or not. You can shoot my dog, and if I think you can beat Trump, I’m going to be for you.”

At the annual policy conference of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) in March 2020, Begala asserted that female voters and college-educated white voters were rejecting President Trump in droves. “There are swing voters still in America,” said Begala. “As the white working class has moved to Trump, college-educated white folks have moved to the Democrats. Barack Obama is a pretty good politician. He lost college-educated white voters by 14 [percentage points]. Democrats just won them overwhelmingly…. If you really want to drill down, it’s college-educated white women in the suburbs…. They are running from Trump. They are the ones who handed Nancy Pelosi the [Speaker of the Houese] gavel … I think you are going to see the same thing with Trump on the ballot. He polarizes those women. He frightens them, with good reason.”

Also at the March 2020 AIPAC conference, Begala predicted that Trump would name United Nations ambassador Nikki Haley to replace Mike Pence as his 2020 vice presidential running mate. “This is not a prediction,” he said. “It’s a certainty. On Thursday, July 16 — that’s the date the Democrat gives his or her acceptance address — on that day, to interrupt that narrative, Donald Trump will call a press conference at Mar-a-Lago. He’s going to dump Mike Pence and put Nikki Haley on the ticket to try to get those suburban moms. You watch. Guaranteed.”

In chapter 1 of his 2020 book, You’re Fired: The Perfect Guide to Beating Donald Trump, Begala not only portrayed Trump as a depraved reprobate, but he also reflected on the role that he (Begala himself) had unwittingly played in Hillary Clinton’s unexpected loss to Trump in the 2016 presidential race. Some excerpts:

• “I have some personal responsibility here for failing to stop the worst man who’s ever been president and I think also the worst president we’ve ever had. Here’s what I got wrong. I was so appalled by Trump’s sewer-level character, I couldn’t avert my eyes.”
• “I didn’t connect my attacks on Trump’s character, on the racism, the misogyny, the Islamophobia, mocking the disabled, mocking a PoW, to the lives of the voters. When you don’t close that loop, all you’re doing is saying, ‘He’s a bad guy.’ A lot of people said, ‘Gee, he’s a terrible guy, but I’m going to take a chance on him because he looks like he’s a wrecking ball we might need in Washington.’ So what I should have said is, ‘When you deploy a wrecking ball he very often destroys your house,’ and this is what I’m urging in the book for the Democrats to do.”
• “In addition to saying and doing racist things, there is a method to his [Trump’s] madness. He uses those things to distract us from the fact that he’s looting the treasury, wants to destroy social security and Medicare and Medicaid, has rained hell on farmers and working people, the very people who elected him.”
• “His [Trump’s] incompetence and his callousness and his corruption: these all now have a cost to me the voter, to you the voter. I think Joe’s [Joe Biden has] done a very good job of keeping the focus on voters and not every day rising to the bait of every crazy thing that Trump says.”

In August 2020, Begala portrayed President Trump as a mentally unstable individual who had worn out his welcome with the American people:

“Trump is batty. I don’t know if it’s age-related – maybe he’s always been batty – but Trump is completely unhinged. He’s not just unstable, he’s unhinged. Seriously, if we had a fully functioning mental health system, he’d be in a rubber room, not an Oval Office…. I think that the people who took a chance on Trump now are chastened…. I can’t count the number of people, including friends of mine, who said, ‘Look, I voted for Trump, I took a chance, I thought we could use a little business experience in shaking things up. But oh, my God, he’s been a disaster and we must never have him again.’ Hundreds of people have told me that. I never had one say to me, ‘I voted for Hillary but you know what, Trump’s done a really good job and we need to keep him.’ So I think that tells us something.”

On August 7. 2020, Begala declared that President Trump, in his re-election bid, was trying his best to secure the support of white nationalists and racists. “Trump seems to be drilling down on the white nationalist base,” said Begala. “I don’t think that’s a winning strategy. It’s certainly not worthy of a great country. But that is his strategy. At the same time, he’s sucking up to the white nationalists, he’s trying to call Joe Biden a racist. He doesn’t seem to have much coherent strategy…. It seems to be based on grievance. He really appeals to grievance.”

In November 2021, Begala claimed that the Republican Party in recent years had become a political death cult of personality around Donald Trump,” and that Trump and his allies represented “a threat to the republic, a threat to the nation.”

On June 26, 2023, Begala said that if Trump were to win the Republican primary for the 2024 presidential race, it would be a “catastrophe for the Republican Party” because he would likely be “unelectable in the general election.”

Questioning the “Legitimacy” of Republican-Appointed Justices

On October 5, 2018, Begala — noting that Trump nominee Brett Kavanaugh was likely to be confirmed to the U.S. Supreme Court — claimed that the Court’s “legitimacy” was becoming increasingly questionable. “This will be the fourth member of a nine-member court appointed by a president who lost the popular vote,” said Begala. “That’s extraordinary. The Supreme Court is heading into a crisis of legitimacy. And when—not if, when Judge Kavanaugh helps them to chip away at civil rights, voting rights, women’s rights, abortion rights, I don’t think this is going to sit very well with the country.”

Lauding Joe Biden

In August 2020, Begala sang the praises of Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden:

• “Too many Democrats were trying to be just as pugilistic in their way as Trump is. I’ve known Joe a very long time and I think his most dominant character feature is empathy. He’s bright and he’s experienced but he’s so empathetic. We’ve seen him through tragedy. He’s been very good to me and my family. If there were a time where we needed empathy, it’s now. He has experience, which used to be a bad thing. He has competence and empathy, and that’s exactly the opposite of Trump. So if we want the replica [of Trump], we’re not going to vote for Joe. But if we want the remedy – and I think we do – he’s very well positioned to win.”
• “I actually think Joe’s quite charismatic and I’ve seen him give terrific speeches but we can’t have stadiums full of people anyway. What we want is empathy and that’s what he has. At another moment, we want something else. But I think the Democrats did a very wise thing in picking this man at this moment.”

Claiming That Political Extremism Is a Feature of the Right, Not the Left

On August 2, 2020, The Guardian quoted Begala claiming that extremism in modern America was a characteristic of the political right, not the political left: “I do think it’s asymmetrical. The crisis in America is not both sides. It is one side that’s gone insane and seems to be consuming itself with hatred. My party has its problems, believe me, but it is not both sides. This negative partisanship from the right: they will do anything to ‘own the libs’.”

Praising the Democratic Party’s Left Wing

In August 2020 as well, Begala lauded leftwing Democrats for having recently injected new life into the party:

“I come from the Clinton wing, I’m a more moderate guy, but I got to tell you, the left of my party has been terrific in rallying to Joe and people like me need to note that and salute that. It’s been really impressive. My hat is off to the left wing of my party. They’re not taking their marbles and going home. They’re mobilising, organising, registering. It’s just been great. Now, will this last forever? Of course not. But for right now, nothing unites the people of Earth like a threat from Mars.”

Condemning COVID-Related “Misinformation,” and Supporting Mask & Vaccine Mandates

In September 2021, Begala condemned what he characterized as the large amount of COVID-related “misinformation” and “disinformation” that was being disseminated by “all these knuckle-dragging nincompoops on right wing-media who are lying to people” — i.e., questioning the efficacy of facemasks and the safety of the COVID vaccines. Most Americans, he added, “do support mandates — not just mask mandates but vaccine mandates” as well.

Political Donations

Between 1995 and 2021, Begala donated some $63,260 strictly to Democratic candidates and pro-Democrat organizations. Among the beneficiaries of these contributions were such notables as Rahm Emanuel, Al Franken, Barack Obama, and Hillary Clinton.