Frenzied radio show host rocked by claim his MAGA politics are all for show

Conservative radio host Clay Travis is fighting back against a fellow talk star’s claim that Travis privately admitted his politics are an act.

FS1 host Nick Wright appeared this week on The Bulwark Daily with former GOP communications staffer Tim Miller and said that, after one of his first TV appearances alongside Travis, the two went to dinner. There, according to Wright, Travis told him he had worked for Barack Obama and that what he was now saying was simply for show.

Wright said he answered: “If what you’re saying is true, that you don’t really believe what you’re saying, it’s just for audience and enrichment, I actually think that’s worse.” He added that he told Travis he could never respect him.

Travis vehemently denied the accusation.

“Eleven years ago I was still a Democrat so this entire story is completely made up,” Travis shot back on X.

He pointed to his voting history, casting a ballot for Marco Rubio in the 2016 presidential primary, Gary Johnson that November, Marsha Blackburn in 2018 for what he called his first Tennessee Republican vote, then Trump in 2020 and 2024. In another post, he said he isn’t a good enough actor to fake his views on transgender athletes, masking and COVID vaccines.

Travis traced his falling out with Wright to 2017, when Wright posted private emails from him during a dispute over Black Lives Matter.

Wright fired back with specifics, placing the exchange in August 2016, in the lobby bar of the now-closed InterContinental hotel near the Fox lot. He said a colleague at the table could confirm it, as could their bosses at the time and the agent they shared, who all heard the story back then. Wright said they haven’t spoken in person since, and he offered to bet Travis $1 million that he was telling the truth.

The feud comes after Miller and Pablo Torre last month found that Travis’s Cheesecake Factory nostalgia didn’t add up, as the chain didn’t open in his hometown of Nashville until he was 26.