President Donald Trump’s core environmental crusade — to roll back programs aimed at addressing climate change — was a central theme of KVOR’s Jeff Crank show for years before the Trump Administration embodied it, as were other elements of Trump’s core governing agenda, including shrinking federal health care programs, restricting abortion, endorsing military intervention, promoting conspiracies, attacking basic LGBTQ rights, and more, according to the Colorado Times Recorder’s analysis of over 800 hours of the Jeff Crank Show on KVOR from 2011 through 2021, when his show ended.
“It talks about, really, what is the greatest hoax of our time,” said Crank on KVOR in 2019. “Now, you might think it was this Russian investigation, and it probably, that’s a close second. … But as I said, that’s the second greatest hoax foisted upon us. The first is this issue of man-made climate change. And it’s really sad because you talk to people today. I’ve talked to people who should know better. But this latest generation has been bamboozled. They have been brainwashed into believing. In fact, I have people look at me and say, ‘You mean you don’t believe in climate change?’ Oh, I have people all the time who say that. Young people, who are in their 20s, who say, ‘What, you mean you don’t believe in climate change?’ Hey, listen, I believe in climate change in the way that yesterday was colder than it’s going to be today, and that over time, the climate changes and then changes again. It’s been going on for millennia. What I don’t believe is man-made climate change. I don’t believe in it. I think we have, I won’t say zero impact, but very negligible impact on the climate of this world. And I think it’s egomaniacal to think that we have some gigantic impact on this.”
Crank was an unrelenting denier of climate change on his radio show, writing off the most serious reports with irrational and irrelevant talking points.
“But see, Joe, here’s where they gotcha,” Crank said to a fellow climate-change denier who called in to his show in 2017. “Because even if it’s global cooling, it’s still climate change, you see? And they got you there, see? So they, I mean, it is, it’s a farce. This whole thing is just a, it’s just a game they play, really.”
Crank showed his denial of science more broadly, for example, when he equated the theory of climate change, which he rejects, to the theory of evolution, about which scientists long ago reached a consensus.
“You’re the denier because you just won’t believe their theory,” said Crank on air in 2017, explaining his anger at scientists who call him a climate change denier. “And their theory is just that. It’s a theory. It’s no different than the theory of evolution. Or lots of theories that are put out there. I mean, there was once a theory that the earth was flat, and I guess if you didn’t believe that, you were called a denier. So, you know, you just can’t win with these people. Because, like I said, they’ve stacked the argument in their favor. They have the media out there churning this up.”
Crank’s views on evolution may be influenced by his deep religious beliefs, which he weaponized against Democrats on his radio show, just as other MAGA Republicans have done in recent years, especially when it came to the issue of abortion.
If You Don’t Vote for Trump, “Stop Calling Yourself Pro-Life”
Trump’s rise to power was fueled, in part, by the anti-abortion activists, and Crank, who’s been consistently and stridently anti-abortion and favors a ban on abortion after four weeks, used the abortion issue on his radio show to mobilize voters for Trump, whom he repeatedly defended on his radio show.
In a May 9, 2020 episode of the Jeff Crank Show, imploring his fellow Republicans to vote for Trump, Crank emphasized the importance of Trump’s 2016 election in choosing anti-abortion Supreme Court justices. “Be thankful that we did that — we voted for Trump, because if we hadn’t done that and Hillary Clinton had won,” he said. “You know what? I hate to break it to you, but here’s the reality. This is just reality — the two justices who were just appointed by Donald Trump would not be on the Supreme Court right now. You wouldn’t have what I think are two pro-life justices on the U.S. Supreme Court. If it wasn’t for people like me and others who voted for Donald Trump, because we’re pro- life and that’s an issue that matters to us, Hillary Clinton would have won.”
Two months before the 2020 election, Crank said conservatives who don’t vote for Donald Trump can’t call themselves pro-life. “I see people who claim to be conservatives on social media, who go after Trump all the time, ‘Oh, I don’t like him,'” he said. “Whatever. You know, I’m telling you this. Take off your robe of righteousness. Stop calling yourself pro-life if, in this election, you don’t get out and vote for Donald Trump. Do not call yourself pro-life, period. Because if you want another justice, just like Ruth Bader Ginsburg. And again, she wasn’t a bad person. It’s her rulings that I disagree with, right? But if you want another justice just like her. I mean, she was a steadfast pro-abortion justice on the United States Supreme Court. Then you sit this one out, if that’s what you want. You can vote for Biden, you can sit it out, but you’re pro-abortion when you do it. Stop wearing the robe of righteousness and telling me that you believe in the sanctity of human life. Because this is your moment as a voter to stand up and say, ‘I am pro-life; I am going to vote for Donald Trump because he’s going to put someone on the Supreme Court that is going to interpret the Constitution and not rewrite it.'”
Crank carried his top crusades on the radio into Congress, and he prioritized his anti-abortion stance since he was elected.
Earlier this year, Crank voted against Affordable Care Act (ACA) subsidies — which led to a marked increase in monthly health insurance premiums for constituents — specifically due to his stance on abortion.
“I can never support an extension of the ACA subsidies without closing the biggest taxpayer-funded abortion loophole in healthcare,” he said in a Jan. 8 press release. “Taxpayer funding of abortions is something I will never be flexible on, and I will continue to fight for protections for the unborn.”
Jessica Killin, his Democratic opponent, has called his support for an abortion ban “extreme.”
“Jeff Crank has made clear what his priorities are,” said his Democratic opponent Jessica Killin following a Protect Our Care event in Colorado Springs in response to the ACA subsidy cuts last month. “He supports a federal abortion ban. It goes way beyond the Dobbs decision. He wants a full-on ban with no exceptions for rape, incest, life of the mother. To me, that is absolutely extreme. This is the opposite of what Americans want. They want practical solutions. They want practical policies. And Jeff Cranks has proven himself especially here to be extreme.”
Pelosi.
On multiple occasions, Crank denounced pro-choice Catholic Democrats, saying in 2019 that the Catholic Church should “excommunicate” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) because of her pro-choice stance.
“She doesn’t hate anybody, she says, I guess except for those little babies,” said Crank, referring to Pelosi. “Those little babies that [raises his voice] her Catholic faith tells her shouldn’t be killed in the womb. What about them? What about those little babies? She doesn’t hate anybody except for because she’s invoking her Catholic faith in this sort of political way. ‘I don’t hate anybody.’ What about the little babies that are being murdered? The unborn babies that your Catholic faith tells you are human beings … You’ll use your Catholicism when it’s convenient to you, when it is convenient to beat up on a reporter who, frankly, just asked a question. All you have to do is say, ‘No, I don’t hate the president.’ That’s all you had to say. But you only use your Catholic faith when it’s convenient for you to use it to get out of a little pickle like that, but when your Catholic faith calls on you to stand up for the unborn, when your Catholic faith calls upon you to stand up and do what’s right and to protect an innocent, innocent, unborn baby — you can’t do that. Don’t give me that. Don’t invoke your faith in that sort of way. I’ll tell you, when I heard that, that’s the first thing I thought of. Here she’s claiming her Catholic faith. They should excommunicate the woman from the Catholic church for what she does on abortion. Excommunicate her for that! They don’t, for whatever reason. They give her communion.”
Crank was often respectful to opponents on his show, but his harsh rhetoric, like the attack on Pelosi above, was common, as you’d expect from a right-wing talk radio host at the time and, later, as we’ve come to expect from MAGA leaders.
And he didn’t tone it down on other policies he opposed for religious reasons.
Crank once dramatically defended his position against euthanasia by saying if you’re not willing to “stick a pillow over the head” of a suffering person, why should you ask a doctor to perform medically assisted euthanasia on a loved one?
“You know, the other issue on this that I’ve seen so many times, people say, ‘Well, I think it’s okay if a doctor does it.’ You know, I’ve told folks, ‘Why would you ask a doctor to go do something that you’re not willing to do?’ You’re not willing to walk over to that person who’s laying in the bed and suffering; you’re not willing to walk over and stick a pillow over their head and kill them. So why would you ask a doctor to do that? Because you won’t do it because you know it’s wrong at the end of the day,” Crank said on air in 2019.
Crank: War With North Korea Needed and Inevitable
On foreign policy, Crank aligned with the interventionism that has partly defined Trump’s second term.
For example, on air in 2017, Crank said war with North Korea was both needed and inevitable, even though he thought it would be the “bloodiest conflict probably of our lifetime.”
Crank: What’s your thought, if we end up having to, and I think we are — I mean, again, because of us not focusing on this over the last 20 years, I think we’re going to have to go in and take military action in North Korea. What are your thoughts on what that’s going to mean? I mean, honestly, isn’t that the bloodiest conflict probably of our lifetime?
Caller: Oh, absolutely, and dragging our feet did us no good.
Crank: Right, but made it worse, didn’t it?
On the same show, he tried to convince reluctant conservatives that the war was needed, presaging the reasons for his future support for Trump’s war with Iran.
“There’s this wing of the conservatives in America who believe that, you know, war is always bad,” said Crank on his show as Trump was looking as if he was going to attack North Korea in 2017. “Listen. This is unavoidable. When you have a guy like Kim Jong Un who is doggedly pursuing a nuclear program and an ICBM capability for the sole purpose of delivering a nuclear device on the shores of the United States of America, you know, what in the world do we have a federal government for if it isn’t for that? I mean, this is a defining moment. Listen, I’m getting to be an old man. But I believe this will be the bloodiest conflict of my lifetime. I think it’ll be the bloodiest conflict potentially since WWII. But, again, do you want it here on our shores? Do you want, you know, a million people killed in Los Angeles because we wait too long? We had a president in this last president that literally had a plan called strategic patience. We just sit by and hope that they do something else. Oh, yeah, sure, we put sanctions that are kind of worthless on them and things like that, but let’s just sit and wait and see what happens. So we’re now having to deal with that policy that we had, not just for eight years. Let’s be honest. That’s what the Bush administration did. Now it was much earlier in the program, but for the last 12 years or longer — 16 really — that has been the American policy. The American policy has been one of, ‘Let’s just wait and let this whole thing work itself out.’ Well, that’s just not a military plan. It’s not a military policy.”
He added later in the show that Trump “won’t get out of his presidency without either a fight in North Korea or a nuclear missile hitting American soil. One of the others is going to happen. We have to confront this fight.”
He was obviously wrong, but, in fairness, he uttered over 5.3 million words (Crank’s own estimate) during his commercial radio career. Still, it shows an inclination toward military intervention that obviously expressed itself later in his support for the Iran War.
But whether he’s been right or wrong, Crank has been mostly (with exceptions like his opposition to pot legalization) a consistent and reliable MAGA voice, often aligning with the unexpected turns of Trump’s version of MAGA, like the war in Iran — as well as on the issues you’d expect (health care, social security, climate change, abortion, and more).
Crank has stopped talking so freely and voluminously in front of a microphone, but he stands for much of the same principles and policies — which are mostly reflected now in Trump’s governing MAGA agenda — as he did when he began at KVOR in 20008.
Crank’s early professional background is consistent with many of the policies he went on to embrace both on his radio show and later in Congress. Crank was an assistant to Rep. Joel Hefley (R-CO) from 1991 to 1998 and then worked for the Colorado Springs Chamber of Commerce until 2006, when he ran to replace Hefley. Crank lost his congressional bid in a vicious primary after voters were hit with misinformation, allegedly orchestrated by fellow Republican Jon Hotaling and others, that Crank supported the “homosexual agenda.” Crank has remained deeply upset about the incident, which may have helped usher U.S. Rep. Doug Lamborn (R-CO) into office in 2006. Crank challenged Lamborn again in 2008 and was again defeated in the primary. Crank won his congressional seat after prevailing over former state Rep. Dave Williams (R-CO Springs) in the 2024 primary and then defeating Democrat River Gassen in the general election to take Lamborn’s seat, which opened after Lamborn retired after 18 years.
Crank declined to comment on specific issues in this article or in our series about the Jeff Crank Show, but an adviser to his campaign issued a statement to the Colorado Times Recorder stating, in part, that the Colorado Times Recorder in this article is “cherry-picking whatever they possibly can twist to serve their partisan political purposes. These are the actions of campaign researchers seeking to achieve a cheap political hit, not journalism.”
RELATED: Read Part I in our series on the Jeff Crank Show: As a Talk Radio Host, Congressman Jeff Crank Embodied MAGA, Even Before It Existed
Reporter Sean Beedle contributed to this report, and Bryon Neitzel provided research assistance.
Tomorrow: Crank’s stance on gay marriage and women in combat in the military.
