With an ultimately positive attitude, Rich Valdes is grateful, humbled, and shocked to be awarded the number one Latino radio host by Metropolitan Magazine. “I was a little bit of a late bloomer, you know,” Valdes told Barrett News Media over a Zoom call.
“I was a little bit humorous. I was kind of all over the place, a little rebellious. It was really undiagnosed ADHD, I didn’t know, and it just manifested in different ways.” Of his youth Valdes noted, “I one of the few things I was really good at in school was speaking. So, I gravitated towards, you know, telling jokes and being around people and just being that kind of guy.” His way to the top, however, was quite unconventional.
During high school, Valdes began “drawing designs in people’s hair,” which he later turned into a business. After getting married and having a child he sold his barbershop business and became a corporate sales executive for Verizon.
For Valdes, it wasn’t enough. He then worked for college and post-secondary education schools. Rich Valdes said it combined “my passion for service and helping people with business.” He later added, “I did that for probably about eight years, and it was really cool. And that was how I ended up getting into politics in many ways.”
He worked for Chris Christie’s campaign. Once elected the administration offered him a job, which he said no to. They later came back with a different offer, “The role was director of Faith-Based affairs in the office of the governor. They said, we can give you something that’s a little bit more behind the scenes where, you know, you’re just another cog in government, but you can make a lot more.”
Taking the job, Valdes called it “an interesting time” because he didn’t realize how cutthroat politics is. “People ask me, what was it like working in the state Capitol, and I guess the way I would describe it is imagine walking through an entire city where every single person is holding a knife, ready to get you at any, at any time. They’re ready to like, uh, you know, and you don’t know these people, and you have no idea why they want to stab you, but they will.”
Valdes added, “And it’s just whatever, you know? Are you in their way? Do you have something they want? Whatever it is, you have no clue. And I never really fit into that mold because I didn’t want to hurt anybody. And I didn’t really have that killer instinct that that they did.”
Rich Valdes then began writing a monthly column for the Washington Times until, “I met somebody who said, hey, I know somebody who’s looking for somebody that has a background in politics and media. Maybe you’re a good fit for them. I spoke with them and it was James O’Keefe when he ran Project Veritas. I came on to manage a project, and then eventually he moved me up to being the national field director. So I was in charge of pretty much all of the undercover stories we were doing and hiring people to go undercover in these things. It was was really cool, really fun experience.”
Valdes was part of the team that aided James O’Keefe, dressed as Osama bin Laden, across the Rio Grande. There were no Border Patrol agents in sight.
The stunt caught the attention of Senator John McCain, and in Valdes’ own words, “Senator McCain had asked, I think, the deputy secretary of Homeland Security, ‘Are you aware of an American journalist named James O’Keefe that crossed from Mexico into the United States undetected?’ And they said, ‘No, he was detected. We saw him on our cameras.’ [Sen. McCain asked,] ‘Why don’t you stop him?’ And the guy had no answer, just no answer.”
Shortly after Rich Valdes took a leave of absence to take care of his parents.
“My mom got ill, and then she passed away. And as she was holding my hand, taking her last breath, she said, ‘Take care of your father.’” His father had fallen down months earlier and was living with a traumatic brain injury. Valdes said of the time, “It was very tough,” adding, “I took care of [my father]. I worked, and I would come home and help him, and I moved in with him. I got divorced at that time, so it was all happening at the same time. I got divorced, my mom died, then I became my dad’s official babysitter.”
For two years, Rich Valdes lived with his dad off of savings. “And then he passed away. And then it was like, wow, I have no job. I have no parents. Um, I have kids, uh, that live with me half-time. I’m divorced. What do I do?”
Valdes went through his Rolodex, “I started emailing people. I was like, ‘Hey, man, I want to get into talk radio. Who do you know? What do you know? How can you point me in the right direction?’” Those emails paid off, Valdes saying “Somebody put me in touch with Rich Sementa, [the executive producer of The Mark Levin Show.]”
Valdes recalled their first conversation, “[I was told] We’re looking for somebody who knows politics and can help choose the best callers for the live portion of the show where we take callers because we’ve had a lot of people, but they’re usually young people that are, you know, working for, for not a lot of money and radio and, and they don’t last. And we’re looking for somebody a little bit more stable.
“But the hours are crazy. You know, it’s nighttime afternoon and nighttime work and it doesn’t pay a ton. And I was at this, like, rock bottom place of my life, and I’m like, it sounds great. Tell me more.”
Rich Valdes later added “I looked at it as, you’re going to pay me to teach me the radio business. I’ll take it. Right. Because it, to me, was like the ultimate paid internship. And, uh, and I ended up being there for five years and getting raises throughout and really fitting in.”
A week into working on Levin’s show the Executive Producer pulled Valdes aside, “[Sementa] said, ‘Wow, you really talk a lot.’ And I was like, ‘Ok, thanks? Sorry.’ And he was like, ‘You know, we’re in the control room. Mark is supposed to be doing the talking. The host on the other side of the glass. We’re supposed to be really quiet, paying attention to what [Levin is] saying.’ I was like, ‘Yeah, it’s hard for me not to talk.’
“He’s like, ‘Well, we’re going to have to figure out a way for you to do all your talking before you get in here.’” Valdes added, “he literally, like, a little kid, grabbed me by the wrist and was like, ‘I want to introduce you to somebody down the hall.’ And we went over to a guy named Chris Libertini.”
Valdes recalled their interaction, “Libertini says, ‘Oh, yeah, Rich told me that you’re really, really smart, and you have a lot to say, but, um, you know, you have nowhere to say it.’ And I was like, ‘Ok, sure.’ I had no idea. [and Libertini’s] like, you ever thought of doing a podcast? And I was like, I don’t even know what a podcast is. Um, you know, if you tell me about it, I’ll consider it.” And the rest is history.
Valdes said of his five years working on the Levin show, “I learned a lot working with Mark. He’s a fantastic broadcaster. He’s a brilliant legal mind, an amazing author.” The now 45-year-old said the best advice Levin ever gave him was “Just be yourself. Nobody can be you better than you. And if you’re trying to be somebody else, you’re going to look like and sound like a cheap imitation of that person. But if you’re yourself, you’re golden and it hit in a different way.”
As for what comes next for Rich Valdes he told Barrett News Media, “I’m on contract till 2025 right now, and my expectation, my hope is that we’ll re-sign for another multi-year deal, and hopefully I can have a career that’s as long as (Jim) Bohannon, (Larry) King, and Levin’s and I’ll be a really happy camper.”
Krystina Alarcon Carroll is a news media columnist and features writer for Barrett Media. She has experience in almost every facet of the industry including: digital and print news; live, streamed, and syndicated TV; documentary and film productions. Her prior employers have included NY1 and Fox News Digital and the Law & Crime Network. You can find Krystina on X (formerly twitter) @KrystinaAlaCarr.
