Sara Carter is an apex predator. As fierce as a mother badger defending offspring. Carter can intimidate the crap out of you, and will have no respect for you if you don’t hold your own ground. She speaks with such force, I urged her to avoid having a stroke.
After talking with her for half an hour, I found a chink in her armor. It took all that time to unearth her softer side.
“I love The Sara Carter Show,” she exclaimed. “It’s serious, funny, and we have great guests. Luis Elizando is a fantastic guest. Our show isn’t all political. Luis is a friend of mine and he’s talked to us about the mysteries out there we have no answers to. I like to have Gordon Chang on, to talk about what’s going on with China.”
Carter isn’t opposed to bringing on a chef to the show sometime. Deal with topics that aren’t always so dire and distressing.
“Maybe I’ll have Donald Trump on the show and give him the Pepsi Challenge,” Carter jokes. “See if he can identify his beloved Diet Coke.”
Carter said when she can, she likes to take her show to a lighter area.
“I love talking with attorney general Mark Brnovich about his being a Star Wars fan. I am too. We have Star Wars themes around the house. I love all the movies in the series. That’s something people might not know about me. I love the show What on Earth on Discovery. I love the series and the science. Fascinated by the universe. I love science fiction. I’m not into the mystical stuff, but I love Star Trek.”
Carter also loves to cook and knows all her mother’s recipes. All the Cuban cooking. I asked if she could make a good tamale. She can’t. But Carter said a lot of families do make very good tamales, recipes that are revered. Families take pride in their tamale recipes.
Carter is also a serious actor. The last big role she performed was Portia in Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice.
“That was my favorite role,” Carter said. “I also played Laura Manion in Anatomy of a Murder.” In the film version, this was the role played by the beautiful Lee Remick.
“I made choices in regards to playing Laura. I lost myself in that character. In the movie she was portrayed as a sexy siren. Wore revealing and provocative outfits. I chose to wear modest clothes as my costume. Sexy, but not over sexy. I was attractive, but not over the top attractive. I kept it in the center. I used to do plays all the time in college. I love reading. I just finished. Empire of the Summer Moon by S.C. Gwynne. It’s a brilliant book.”
Now we can visit the hardcore Carter. The apex investigator that is reluctant to take prisoners.
Carter is an award-winning investigative reporter who says she ‘takes back the story.’
Each week Carter shares her unique perspective as a mom, a wife to a wounded war hero, and a reporter who’s told stories from the darkest corners of the world.
Dark Wars: The Border is Carter’s 10-part series on the border between Mexico and the United States.
“I’m so excited about my new podcast and we’ve been talking about it for quite a while.,” Carter said. “We focus on a number of different underreported stories. We’ve released two episodes and are getting ready to release the third.”
The first episode is titled Behind the Border Lie. The second episode, China is the New Cartel, and the third is coming out soon. Carter said they will try to release a new story every couple of weeks.
“We have a great team working on our show,” Carter said. “This feels like such an important series of stories. Our focus is not just on the number of people coming across the border. We want to take the stories to another level. We talk with our neighbors to the south trying to find solutions.”
Carter said she’s attempting to lay out the groundwork for the entire series. She’s gone to Guatemala, El Salvador in search of answers.
“As I learned about the wall, I’ve realized It’s not just a 2,000 mile border between the U.S. and Mexico,” Carter said. “The border issue affects every single American. Are we dealing with parent’s loss of their kids to fentanyl? I don’t think we cover that side of the story enough. These drugs are being sold in underground markets of horrors. I want people to understand every single one of us is affected by these issues.”
This country has difficulty coming to consensus as to how to battle problems like the border and drugs.
“I think politics always plays a role,” Carter explained. “I can tell you this isn’t just about Joe Biden. I remember when I first started covering the border under the Bush administration. I”d break all these stories while working for the Daily Bulletin. My stories have led to a lot of congressional investigations.”
Carter, a fine writer, captures subtle nuances in her stories, evident in this clip from “Beyond Borders” about the border.
“Dilapidated corrugated steel fencing salvaged from Vietnam flanks the opening. The gulch envelops those who stay there. It twists its thorny desert branches around them, depleting their spirits and taunting them with the mesmerizing lights of a city out of reach. The migrants who call “Smuggler’s Gulch” home for months at a time watch and wait amid bad company, as smugglers of humans and drugs also call the canyon home. Those waiting to cross say corrupt Mexican state police and military personnel are among them.
Carter said the lack of national security along the Mexican border is of great importance to her. The growth of the cartels is also a concern.
“I was tough on the Bush administration with these issues,” she said. “Tough on the Obama administration as well. I worked well with the Obama administration when I worked for the Washington Times.”
It seems to Carter, no administration has been able to effectively battle the drug issue or border issue efficiently.
“I feel the Trump administration finally clamped down,” Carter said. “It might not have been perfect, but at least he was holding people accountable. It’s the people who are being lied to,” she said. “The American people. It’s a criminal crisis. A humanitarian crisis. If we don’t tell the truth as to what is happening, who will?”
In episode 2 of Dark Wars, Carter directs her focus, vitriol, and energy toward China.
“They are our adversaries,” she said. “China has taken advantage of all the chaos in the world. China is capitalizing on our border crisis. The Chinese government is aware the Mexican Cartels are manufacturing fentanyl, sending it to the United States. “The Chinese government is smart when it comes to playing this game of chess,” Carter said. “The Chinese are allowing Mexican cartels to benefit. The U.S. treasury has written a report on this.”
Carter said she’s spent time visiting shelters for victims of human trafficking, talking to young boys and girls.
“That’s the impetus of the work I’m doing right now. These children have confronted the most horrific monsters we can imagine.”
When she talks of the drug crisis, you can hear the empathy in her voice. “We lost 107,000 people to fentanyl last year alone,” Carter said. “Kids being poisoned.
Her mother was a daughter of the Cuban revolution, and her father died when she was just 13 years-old. People like her mother worked their tails off for a better life in the United States.
“There’s a lot to fight for here,” Carter said. “I watched my mom work hard like all Americans. I recall my mother coming home from her work at the factory. Her hands would bleed from all the chemicals she worked with on a daily basis. Her job was to assemble airline parts at a rubber company. I was always so proud of her and heartbroken at the same time. She loved this country and always told me if I worked hard I could do something with my life.”
If Carter could have a blank check to fight the border crisis, importation of drugs, she said she would first designate the very dangerous, target the biggest cartels.
“It’s time we label cartels terrorist organizations,” Carter said. “We have to disrupt their chain of finances, get cooperation from our neighbors. I think we’ve made a huge mistake ignoring the problem for too long. I don’t think it’s too late. I don’t think we can afford for it to be too late.”
Despite the daunting and heavy topics Carter addresses, she’s still got hope.
“I wouldn’t visit the sex trafficing sites if I didn’t have hope,” Carter said. “I tell these victims we’re not going to forget their stories. I want the cartels to know that it’s not just me, but all the mothers and fathers around the country will hold them accountable for what they’ve done to our children.”
Carter said manufacturing needs to be brought back to the United States.
“We should be the envy of the rest of the world. Trump had started to change things. I wish some things he’s done were different. I wish he had held firm on Title 42. Perhaps he could have focused more on Central America. Let them know we were done supplying them with money as other administrations had.”
Jim Cryns writes features for Barrett News Media. He has spent time in radio as a reporter for WTMJ, and has served as an author and former writer for the Milwaukee Brewers. To touch base or pick up a copy of his new book: Talk To Me – Profiles on News Talkers and Media Leaders From Top 50 Markets, log on to Amazon or shoot Jim an email at jimcryns3_zhd@indeedemail.com.
