Empower Mississippi's Grant Callen sits down with former Mississippi House Speaker Philip Gunn to trace his journey from Clinton’s small-town roots to state leadership. Gunn shares how a personal tragedy at Ole Miss Law upended his life, yet God’s faithfulness sustained him, strengthened his faith, and taught him resilience. From his 2003 House race to winning the Speaker’s gavel, he reveals lessons from the political trenches. They dive into his proudest wins: helping overturn Roe v. Wade, driving education reform, and changing Mississippi’s flag. Is a 2027 gubernatorial run next? Tune in for his answer and a vision for a thriving Mississippi where everyone can rise
41 comments:
We changed the flag and we changed the Speakah.
Yep. What a disaster.
Waiting for somebody under 80 years old to make a comment....
To the comment I didn't approve: You confused him with Mike Gunn.
Gunn is solid ! He always had solid leadership.
Three men decided to change the flag, set about that mission and were successful. The voice of 'the people' was mute, or rather unheard. I don't really want to piss on Kingfish's parade here, but this man is the most arrogant politician I have ever encountered.
Phillip Gunn is the most selfless public servant I have ever met. Truly the type of guy we need in office.
Changed the Speaker? When he didn't run again? That's like saying you changed day to night.
Yeah, another Beacon of Democracy, a true Voice of the People. Right.
He was a disaster as a Speaker of the House and will be a disaster as Governor if he runs. Hope we find a true conservative to run against him. He is nothing but a closet liberal.
Wow, the idiots in these comments. You are free to drape yourself in your flags of the losing side and keep wishing for the days when you could talk openly about keeping them folks in their place. Speaker Gunn was smart enough to see that idiots like you were holding us back and we moved on. He was only one of 3 or 4 in leadership and a whole bunch more supporting the change.
He is a really sharp guy and I can't imagine going through the tragedy he did with his family. I wish he hadn't left the Speaker's position, since I don't think there are any other good positions he wants and that he can get elected to in Mississippi politics.
11:03 AM ,
this is one of the "idiots". It always helps to insult anyone who disagrees with you, doesn't it?
Tell me one specific thing that has improved since Gunn's genius turn at the Speaker's position. I have lived here all my life and I can't see anything that's better with a new flag or with any of the other accomplishments listed.
11:44
Amazon and Marshall county deals and multiple economic development deals in the golden triangle were started right after the flag . All could and would have moved on without the flag change .
Most selfless? This is the same guy who put Mississippi 10+ years behind on Breweries and always killed the bills to have higher percentage alcohol beer in the 2010s. It wasn't until someone ran a story on how he backdoor worked for the City of Clinton to have resort status and yet hypocritically kept the rest of the state behind that he stopped killing beer-related legislation.
"Muh flaggggg!!!11"
You people still sound like idiots. If it weren't for Gunn's stand on changing the flag, we would NOT have the economic capital we've had injected in the state the past few years. Full stop. That tidbit of info comes directly from an executive of one of the major global companies that's invested in the metro area the past couple of years.
Gunn was willing to piss off some of his base for the betterment of the state as a whole. That's a real politician, not someone who panders to the mouth-breathers in his base. He was willing to make a gamble in order to try to claw Mississippi out of the 19th century. However, it's obvious some of you still want it to be 1875.
Signed, your fellow conservative who couldn't give two shits about a flag.
11:44-
Don't get mad at us for calling you out because you are willfully ignorant to see any of the progress being made in the state in the past several years.
Right and Nissan and many more businesses in this state wouldn’t be here either would they? Gunn and Reeves are whores to thr business interests and would sell their souls and their mama to benefit themselves.
Success isn’t measured by personal anecdotes. It is measured by measurable deliverables. Politicians NEVER deal in any sort of deliverable that you can measure. It is always something vague or emotional. Give me hard numbers. I can look around and see for myself that nothing is improving. Everything is getting worse. Yes, a few are getting rich. But at what cost?
PS I do not care about the flag at all. I only care about the gangs of ferals spreading machine gun fire by day and prowling/burgling our neighborhoods at night.
He changed the flag but didn’t change his heart. Didn’t Gunn help to unseat the African American state superintendent of education or was that done by the other men who rolled back women’s rights to control their bodies?
Very happy to not have that stupid flag anymore. Bring on the investment, idiots be damned.
I bet you also think the world is flat.
You clearly don’t know him.
I'll join this conversation for the fun of it. You "anti-flaggers" are as delusional as the "ignorant rednecks who want to keep the flag". Name one, just one, true economic investment that was not made as a result of the flag, and what human stated the reason for not making the investment was the flag. Then name one investment that was made after the flag was changed, and the human that stated the reason the investment was made was because the State changed the flag. You would be hard pressed to find a more liberal business than Delta Airlines which is headquartered in Atlanta, and the Georgia State flag, as well as the state flags of Alabama, Florida, Tennessee and North Carolina, has design elements reminiscent of the Confederacy. Atlanta's economy is flourishing, and wonder of wonders, no one is mentioning the flag.
Gunn will never have my vote and that of many silent others. Not until he directly addresses why he single handedly killed legislation in the 2010s over and over letting bills die in his committee that would allow for higher alcohol percentage beer sales. Put us a decade + behind in breweries as cornerstones in entertainment districts across the state.
Not until he was publicly called out for his hypocrisy of supporting Clinton to have "resort status" while killing state-level legislation did he stop this behavior.
It is a no for me.
And hey, we got the cream of the crop for SEC football and we got a few bowl games brought here also………oh, wait…..I’m wrong…..my bad……we did get some roguish gentlemen from the hood who made some good strides and took some cheap shots at some guys but, we gone be ok
Gunn is a non-starter....no matter how much KF supports him.
Word at the barber shop is he decided not to run again so he could write a book about all the companies and sports activities rushing to this state when he changed the flag.
I’ll never be Gunn-ing for governor. Ask me why.
The state flag didn't have squat to do with Nissan coming to town. That company broke ground in 2001, twenty-four years ago.
Tater says he wants Mississippi to compete with Texas and Tennessee. Tennessee is 'The Volunteer State', a Civil War Reference. Texas flies the Bonnie Blue (emblazoned on its state flag) which was a Confederate Civil War era flag. The Bonnie Blue flag (white star on blue background) flew over the capitol building in Mississippi the day after secession.
Good thing our system is a representative democracy and not an autocracy.
100% Agree
Gunn is a clown. Nothing has changed with his antics and end-arounds. He went against the will of the votes of the state. He’s garbage.
Where’s all this economic development?
Doesn’t the SEC still ban any championships to be played here?
Gunn is your typical Mississippi politician.
I hope you run Phillip!
People tend to connect the flag with economic development. Multi-million dollar corporations could care less about a flag. It's all about location, infrastructure, workforce, and tax incentives. You thing these corporations give two shits about a flag? Hahaha!!
I agree the flag needed changing, but they did it the wrong way. Gunn never gets my vote!
"I hope you run Phillip out of town!"
There...I fixed it for ya.
But most politicians will claim and did claim that 'the flag' ran away industrial prospects. I've been involved in that activity for a number of years and never heard a prospect mention a flag or school choice.
Gunn's all done.
August 2, 2025 at 8:58 PM
"Where's all this economic development?"
Proof you live under a rock stuck in 1869.
Like a Missourian, I want you to "Show Me" the economic development. The Jackson metro area has more unskilled labor jobs in the form of Amazon box packers. Maybe it pays more than paperwood hauling, cutting grass, working at Burger King, the catfish plant, etc.
We are still at the bottom of everything. 50th in everything good, 1st in everything bad. I see a lot of free stuff, handouts, and continued decay of most everything in the Jackson area. The surrounding areas do have more development, but most of that seems to be things moving out of Jackson.
There are way more educated and trained professionals leaving here for other places than there are staying here or moving here .
I like Mississippi and the South and I've never lived anywhere else. But these lying politicians aren't doing crap to help me.
Give me an example of a major business coming, or not coming, to MS because of the flag? Those earning major infrastructure and tax incentives don't count. Let me save you some time---the flag doesn't matter!!!
Examples please... and include the incentive package.
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