TRACE GALLAGHER: Common sense isn't old-fashioned. It's exactly what America needs now
Since October 2022, I have anchored a TV show called "Fox News @ Night."
Monday to Friday, from 11 p.m. until midnight Eastern time, we cover the news that matters, interview compelling guests, and debate the hottest issues. And we do it all in a lively, fast-paced hour of plain-talk television, sending viewers off to bed with a solid grasp of what’s happening in the world and a smile or two as their heads hit the pillow.
It’s a modern show, and I don’t just mean the little @ sign in the name. I’m talking about our whole approach to the news. We boil it down and sort it out. We jump right in. And this last one is important: We call BS whenever it’s warranted. Which is often, given all the crap that’s floating around out there. And every night, we include a segment that has become the most memorable 75 seconds in our hour-long show. It’s called the Common Sense Department, and nothing I do on television brings me more joy.
TRACE GALLAGHER: COMMON SENSE IS ALIVE IN AMERICA. WE JUST NEED TO LISTEN
Every night, I pick something in the news, and I put it through my own filter of hard-earned common sense.
You know how TV news works. Every time a major news story breaks—especially a political one—the spin machines start cranking at maximum volume. Suddenly, you’ve got a "panel of experts" flooding your screen, telling you that what you just saw with your own two eyes isn’t actually happening. They’ll look you in the face and insist everything is "deeply nuanced" or "incredibly complex." But let’s be real: Most of the time, it’s not complex at all.
My job is simple, even if it’s harder than it looks. I react like a normal, intelligent person who’s been around the block a few times, seen the games people play, and isn’t buying the nonsense anymore. You see it, I see it, and we’re going to call it exactly like it is. That’s why we call it the Common Sense Department.
And how do I do it? That’s easy. I rely on the commonsensical lessons I can pluck from my own life and the lives of the people around me. The wisdom I was raised with. What personal experience has taught me along the way. The values of family, faith, sports, community, history, and patriotism. Insights drawn from stories exactly like the ones in this book. Just like life, it’s every-thing mushed together before it’s run through one person’s admittedly quirky brain.
Mine.
What a rare treat it is! Every night in the Common Sense Department, I really get to be me! And the viewers keep saying, "Give us more."
I know this from the ratings. I know it from the social media comments and the emails. I know it from the people I run across when I’m out covering stories and just living my life. And I know it from the mugs.
Yes, the mugs. At one point, we printed up some coffee mugs with the snarky slogan, "DID I OFFEND YOU WITH MY COMMON SENSE?" People couldn’t get enough of them. We keep needing to print more. Thousands and thousands and thousands more. The way things are going, our sarcastic call for common sense has really struck a nerve.
As I mentioned, our Common Sense Department segments are seventy-five seconds long. Not two minutes, not one minute—always seventy-five seconds. And that’s no accident. One time, we tried doing the Common Sense Department in a minute. It felt like a wind sprint. Another time, we said, "Let’s do two minutes." It felt like a drive across Texas with kids in the car.
"Are we THERE yet?"
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"No, we’re NOT there yet—and we’re not stopping at Buc-ees!" That’s one of the great things about common sense. You can pack it into the TV equivalent of a carry-on bag. It isn’t too bulky or hard to handle. And whenever you happen to need it, it’ll be right there.
I am not the first person to become a big fan of common sense. Thomas Paine beat me to it by almost 250 years.
Of all the Founding Fathers, Paine is one of the most unlikely and least understood. If you’d known him back in England, you never would have thought he’d amount to much. He washed out as a schoolteacher. His tailor shop failed. He was fired from his job as a tax inspector for "claiming to have inspected goods he did not inspect."
He had to sell his house to avoid debtors’ prison. He really, really hated taxes and wrote a pamphlet op-posing them. When an American named Benjamin Franklin showed up in London in 1774 as a voice opposing British colonial rule, the two men struck up an instant friendship. It was Franklin who urged Paine to move to Philadelphia, where the American said revolution was in the air.
Editor's note: Excerpted "TURNS OUT THEY WERE RIGHT ALL ALONG: Life Lessons I Learned…Eventually" by Trace Gallagher. Copyright 2026 by Trace Gallagher. Published with permission from Harper and HarperCollins Publishers.