CJ Pearson is back and wants to be a ‘megaphone for conservative values’
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CJ Pearson isn’t the only Black conservative with a large social media following, but he may well be the only one who includes his age in his bio.
He’s 21 — young to be a commentator on PragerU and Fox News, but then Pearson was just 12 when his commentary first went viral in 2014. And he ascended the national stage the next year for another video critical of then-President Barack Obama.
Time magazine called him an “overnight sensation,” and a piece in The Washington Post said that Pearson had “shredded” Obama. There was talk of him speaking at a Republican National Convention. But within months, Pearson was saying that he was politically independent and CNN would headline a story “Viral YouTube star renounces conservatism.”
So why is Pearson again showing up in conservative media with such frequency?
In a conversation with Deseret, Pearson explained that after finishing high school, he enrolled at the University of Alabama. But three semesters shy of graduating, he moved to Los Angeles after accepting a position with PragerU, the conservative education platform founded by talk-show host Dennis Prager that is facing scrutiny for its pro-America, anti-“woke” agenda.
Pearson, now host of a new PragerU series called “Left Versus Right,” as well as a show called “The Wrap-Up With CJ,” has clearly not renounced conservatism.
He spoke recently with Deseret about what really happened after the 2015 video went viral, why he left college for PragerU, and why he believes conservatives should join him on TikTok, among other topics.
The conversation has been edited for clarity and length.
Deseret News: You’re in Los Angeles now, right? Why is that? I thought all conservatives were leaving California these days.
CJ Pearson: PragerU is based in Los Angeles, and a big reason for that is, we believe in fighting in the belly of the beast. I grew up in the deep South, went to the University of Alabama, I know what it’s like to live in a red state, and I loved it. But nothing reminds me of the importance of why we fight more than living in a place like Los Angeles. You see the homelessness, you see the crime, you see the destitution. You see the game plan that progressives have for all of America. And while, yes, we can flee now — we can go to places like Florida and Georgia, but what happens when you have nowhere else to flee? That’s why I think it’s so important to fight wherever you are, to help change the direction of your community and your state. I’m genuinely worried about what will happen if we allow the left to have their way with the country the same way they’ve had their way with California.
DN: Why did you leave Alabama so close to graduating?
CJP: I was in the middle of my junior year, and I loved college, I loved Alabama. It’s probably one of the more sane universities to go to in all of America these days. But when the opportunity opened up to join PragerU, it was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for me, and I jumped at it. For a long time, I’ve gotten messages from young conservatives, asking what they can do. PragerU is at the forefront of giving the next generation of leaders the arsenal that they need, the arsenal of truth to defend their beliefs and their values.
DN: Back in 2015, in one of the articles written about you, you said that you wanted to be a voice for young people, since they don’t have a voice at the table. With all the protests going on at campuses right now, it seems like young people do have a voice, and some would say too much of a voice — some are trying to lead an unwilling nation where the nation doesn’t want to go.
CJP: I always think it’s a good thing for young people to get involved but some of these people were apathetic about these issues until just yesterday. Some of them see a video on TikTok and think they’re a foreign policy expert. So I think it’s good for them to get involved, but before they get involved, it’s important for young people to listen. It’s important for them to read. It’s important for them to learn everything that they can before they speak about these really, really intricate and complicated issues as if they have a Ph.D. in international studies.
DN: You did not grow up in a Republican household. Can you talk a little bit about how you came to be a conservative?
CJP: I was raised in Augusta, Georgia, by my grandparents, who were lifelong progressives. They took me to church every Sunday. They taught me the value of a dollar ... all conservative values. While they were not card-carrying Republicans, they certainly acted like it in the context of our home.
But the start of what would soon be an epiphany was when I was in second grade. We had a mock election, and we had to research the candidates and watch the debate, and at the end of the week, we would vote for president in our second-grade class. I remember sitting on my grandma’s floor one night — and this is going to age me a little bit — but we were watching Candy Crowley moderate the debate between Barack Obama and John McCain, and I was just a little kid, I didn’t know anything about the issues. But I knew looking at that stage that what they were talking about were very important issues; that they mattered. And later in the week, I voted for John McCain, because my grandfather served 20 years in the U.S. Army — it was something I respected a lot — and I came home and told my grandmother who I voted for, and she looks at me and says, “CJ, you must think that you are white.”
I was super confused about that. I’m a little kid. I didn’t know anything about politics. I’m just a little kid. I didn’t know that the color of my skin should dictate my politics. I was just excited to cast a vote for someone who had something in common with my grandfather. After that was when the road to self-discovery began for me. I wanted to understand what a Republican was, what a Democrat was, what a conservative was.
DN: That’s not really typical for a kid in grade school.
CJP: I was definitely not the most normal kid back then. But I also had my regular interests — I loved going fishing and playing pick-up football in the backyard with my friends. But the same way that a lot of kids were crazy about watching sports and keeping up with LeBron (James), that was politics for me at that age.
And in terms of political involvement, that all started when I was 11 years old, and I was a Boy Scout and one of the requirements to move up in the ranks was to meet with an elected official. So I met with my then-congressman at the time, John Barrow, who was a blue-dog conservative Democrat who represented my hometown. So after that, I left the meeting and the next phone call I made was to his Republican challenger, Rick Allen, and I said I want to come help. So the next day I show up in a three-piece suit, which in retrospect was a terrible idea in the thick of a Georgia summer, and they put me out there, and we knocked on thousands of doors that summer, and made even more phone calls. And ultimately he did win, and that was my first good grassroots experience and I loved it. It confirmed for me that politics was what I wanted to do — talking to people and hearing what they’re going through. And also listening to the way in which so many politicians had failed them.
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DN: So how did your YouTube presence come about?
CJP: I got a Camcorder for Christmas, which turned out to be the most regretful gift my grandparents ever got me. And I turned it on, and I basically went off on Obama. ... And that video went viral overnight, and I joked with my friend that it was a Justin Bieber movement, because it was the first video I ever made, but it just took off. I didn’t even tell my grandparents that I made it. The way they found out about that video is because my grandfather has this incredible love-hate relationship with Sean Hannity — he loves to hate-watch him. So Sean Hannity was on TV, and the video had been blowing up all day, but my grandparents aren’t big internet people, so Sean goes, ‘up next, 12-year-old CJ Pearson from Augusta, Georgia, with some comments about Barack Obama,’ and the video he was intro-ing was mine. And my grandfather looks up at the TV, sees that it was me and screams my name. “CJ, what is this? You need to delete this. How can you talk about the first Black president like this?”
But he didn’t know YouTube too well. So I said, “Yeah, I’ll delete the video,” and I didn’t delete it. I’ve made a lot more videos like that over the years, and grown a great following over the years, I’ll now have the opportunity at PragerU to make even more videos.
DN: After another video went viral in 2015, a few months later there were headlines that said you had “renounced” conservatism. What happened?
CJP: I never wasn’t a conservative. I never walked away from conservatism. But at that age, I was a kid looking for the validation of his family. And at the end of the day, while I am pretty independent — that’s how my grandparents raised me to be — it was a source of contention in our household. And at a point, I thought this was something that would make them proud (to walk back his conservative statements). I thought, maybe I’m wrong, maybe Bernie Sanders isn’t the worst guy. But it wasn’t an epiphany for me; it was more that I thought it was something that would make my grandparents happy. But then I realized that in doing so, that’s just not how they raised me. They raised me to be independent and unequivocal about what I believed was right. That was my journey back you could say, although I never truly left. There were values I couldn’t ignore. Since then I worked for Ted Cruz’s campaign in 2016, and worked for (Donald) Trump in 2016 and 2020, and have been in the trenches of the conservative movement for almost a decade now, which is crazy to say when you’re 21.
DN: So do you have a good relationship with your grandparents now?
CJP: I do. I think college helped a lot with that. When your kid goes five hours away for school, you kind of prioritize that relationship over partisan bickering. And I think they are genuinely supportive of me doing something that I’m super passionate about. A lot of people wander about the world trying to find their passion, and sometimes they really struggle with that. I thank God that I was able to do it at such a young age, and that it has stuck with me. There’s nothing more important than the work that we’re doing at PragerU, than the work we’re doing in the conservative movement right now, to wrestle back control from the left. Because at the end of the day, we’re fighting for the type of nation we want our children to inherit. There’s no more important fight than that.
As for my grandparents, I don’t care if they vote Republican now, but I have got to be the first Republican they vote for.
DN: So do you have plans to run for office?
CJP: Maybe. But right now, I’m just focused on serving in the best way that I can, and doing all I can to be a megaphone for conservative values — to not just preach to the choir, but to grow the congregation. ... Any way I can serve in the future, I’m definitely open to that. I want to be as much a part of the solution as I can be.
IDN: And finally, this is a very important question — YouTube or TikTok?
CJP: TikTok! I’m on everything, but TikTok is where I spent most of my time. It has definitely contributed to some brain rot; I’m not going to lie about that. ... But we’ve got to reach young people where they are, and where they are is on TikTok. You can’t complain that the left is indoctrinating young people on TikTok if you don’t even create an account to refute those ideas. Facebook is not going to win this next generation for Republicans, but TikTok will give us a fighting chance.
