Cliff Sims, the founder of Yellowhammer News and a staffer in the first Trump administration, is being discussed as a possible candidate for U.S. Sen. Tommy Tuberville's (R-Auburn) soon-to-be-vacant Senate seat.
Tuberville's announcement that he would leave the Senate to run for Alabama governor threw a proverbial monkey wrench into the state's political scene. However, the field is starting to take shape, with politicians still making their picks for which office to pursue in 2026.
One of the first to mention Sims' name was Breitbart News' Washington bureau chief Matt Boyle, who claimed that "EVERYONE in Alabama" was waiting on Sims to make a decision.
In his speculative post, Boyle claimed "ALL OF TRUMPWORLD" would be aligned behind him lightning fast," because "Trump is mega popular in Alabama."
Sims, a University of Alabama graduate, has a complicated relationship with Trump. He first took a hiatus from Yellowhammer News to join Trump's first presidential campaign, and officially sold his stake when he took a permanent position in the White House.
In 2019, Sims published a best-selling memoir, "Team of Vipers: My 500 Extraordinary Days in the Trump White House." The book earned Sims no small amount of Trump's vitriol, who slammed the book as "boring" and "based on made up stories and fiction." He also claimed that Sims had violated a non-disclosure agreement and threatened to file a lawsuit.
Sims then sued Trump, alleging that he used his campaign organization to retaliate against former employees to prevent them from exercising their First Amendment rights.
All legal matters were eventually dropped, and Sims was reinstated within the MAGA fold.
According to Axios, "Sims has not only made peace with Trump but been brought back into the fold as an outside adviser on various initiatives," and that he was a "close ally of the president's eldest son Donald Trump Jr., the president's daughter Ivanka and son-in-law Jared Kushner, and Trump's close aide Hope Hicks."
In 2024, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) appointed Sims to the United States–China Economic and Security Review Commission for a two-year term.
Sims did not respond to attempts for comment from 1819 News. However, speculation of a possible Sims run has been met with moderate, generally supportive feedback. With the full field of candidates still forming, the Sims run would present an interesting dynamic.
In addition to his political efforts, Sims is also a self-promoted singer and songwriter.
"Long before working in the White House," Sims wrote of himself. "Before I was a New York Times bestselling author. Before I was the CEO of a company. Before I got a Top Secret security clearance and worked in the office of America's 'top spy.' I spent hundreds of days a year in a dark basement writing songs and in a giant white van touring around the country, performing for thousands of people one night and a dozen the next—sometimes with chart-topping artists, and other times with bands the world never got a chance to know. I had songs on the radio, on MTV shows, and in major motion pictures."
"Then my life took a series of bizarre and unexpected turns, from midnight rides in the bed of a pickup truck in a war-torn Middle Eastern village, to landing on an aircraft carrier in a helicopter with the President of the United States. I've broken bread with refugees in bombed-out buildings, met kings, conversed with princes, dined with diplomats, and shaken hands with some of the wealthiest people in human history. Now everything is coming full circle. I've once again spent late nights writing songs on a piano in a dark basement. I rekindled an old friendship with one of the world's top music producers, Ken Lewis (Kanye West, FUN., Bruno Mars, and others). I've gotten back in the studio, this time recording vocals on the exact same mic that captured hits by everyone from Beyoncé, Diana Ross and Ariana Grande to Kanye, 50 Cent and Jon Bellion."
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