Donald Trump’s rise to the top has paved the way for plenty of MAGA influencers. But some have stood out. When it comes to Congressman Byron Donalds, some liberal media outlets have called him, “the most influential Black Republican in MAGA.” But to label him like that misses the larger point: Byron Donalds is a tea party originalist, constitutional conservative, and one of the best MAGA messengers out there.
In CBN’s nearly one-hour interview with Donalds, he hit on a number of topics. Being a finance guy, cutting spending is on top of the list, a key to America’s future. “There are members in both chambers who would say, oh, we can’t cut let’s do that later,” Donalds tells CBN News. “The problem is there is no later. There is now…this town has never cut spending. Ever.”
With blunt talk like that, Donalds is one of the few Republican congressmen holding town halls in this day and age of DOGE cuts. The critics come out to those events, but he doesn’t back down. He goes straight into the lion’s den.
“I’m not going to be intimidated by your yelling,” says Donalds. “If you want to have a constructive conversation, let’s do that. I’m all for that but if you want to yell, there’s the door. You can get out, and then we’ll continue…I could be political and just tell everybody what they want to hear but I’m not in this for politics. I’m in this to put the country in the right spot.”
How he even got to this spot in his life is compelling. Raised by a single mom on the mean streets of Brooklyn, New York, life wasn’t easy. “My mom just did everything that she could,” Donalds tells CBN News. “She really believed in me, believed in really my abilities…she laid a great foundation, a no excuses foundation, like, that’s her. She’s no excuses. Dot your I’s, cross your T’s, nothing’s going to be easy.”
And it wasn’t. When his mom lost her job, his grandma had to step in to help pay for private schools because they saw potential. Still, trouble came when Donalds went off to college in Florida. First came a charge for marijuana possession. Those charges were dropped. Then, a couple of years later, he pled no contest to felony theft for depositing a bad check. Those charges were eventually expunged from his record. “I’m not proud of it. Never have been proud of those mistakes,” says Donalds. “But in life, it’s not really how you fall down, it’s how you get up.”
His resurrection story begins with his girlfriend at the time, now wife, persuading Donalds to attend church. “It’s crazy, especially the first time you start going into church, you feel like the pastor knows your story, like he’s talking directly to you,” Donalds tells CBN News. “I’m thinking like, who called the pastor? Who called my mom? Who called my friends and started relaying the story? And I think that’s really where I started meeting the Holy Spirit.”
It all came together in the most unique of circumstances. Working at a Florida Cracker Barrel at 21 years old, Donalds was serving a large table made up of a church group. Leaving the table, he went back to rolling silverware and then it happened.
“The Lord spoke to me,” Donalds recalls. “It was like, ‘Stop running from Me.’ And so, it just knocked me back. So I went out to find the table, and they were all gone, and I could see through the windows that they were getting on their bus. So I walked out. My manager’s like, ‘Where are you going?’ I need a second. I walk out there. The last lady’s getting on the bus, and she goes, ‘Yo, man, you okay?’ And I go, ‘No, ma’am, I’m not okay.?’ She goes, ‘what?’ And I go, ‘The Lord is telling me to stop running.’ I still get emotional about it. And so there was a little tree that was right there next to where their van was pulled up, and they all came pouring out the bus. I mean, they just came from a revival. So they’re like, ‘Oh, praise the Lord, we got another one!’ So they pour out of the bus, and they all pray over me, and I gave my life to Christ in the parking lot of a Cracker Barrel.”
After that, his life began to take off. As a financial executive, Donalds began noticing flaws in how the federal government operated. He read the 1850 book, “The Law,” which preached the undergirding of morality and a free society. That gave birth to a passion eventually playing out during the Tea Party movement roughly 15 years ago.
Today, as an outspoken congressman, he doesn’t mind mixing it up with the left. But being a conservative who happens to be Black can make it even more challenging. What has that journey been like? “I’ll tell you, you better have the courage of your convictions,” Donalds says. “You better know what you’re talking about.”
Donalds is confident he is on solid footing when it comes to the political and moral issues of the day, but he questions the Democrat Party’s direction because he believes they’re leaving God out of the equation. “I think the issue for Democrats is their political views just differ, in my view. very greatly from what the Bible says.”
The courage of his convictions has made him popular enough among his Capitol Hill colleagues that he garnered a couple of votes for House speaker at one point. Now Donalds is moving on to greener pastures by running to be the next governor of Florida. His prayer goes as follows: “God, if this is not for me, close that door. And if it’s something that we should pursue, then leave the door open. And so in the steps towards running for governor, the doors just kept staying open, and other doors were closing.”
Floridians will see a candidate who has raised a family in the Sunshine State the last 20-plus years, but he will bring a taste of the Big Apple with him. Because you can take the guy out of New York, but you can’t really take New York out of the guy. Donalds agrees. “I joked with some old friends. They asked me what prepared me for politics. I said, ‘Growing up in New York…you’ve just got to be street smart.'” That is just part of an overall package that has Byron Donalds moving upward.
