Clay's Deep Dive with DeSantis

Clay sat down with GOP presidential hopeful, FL Gov. Ron DeSantis, for an exclusive interview that debunks a variety of false narratives -- and to also talk baseball, of course.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome in out kick the show.

Speaker 2 (00:01):
I teased yesterday we were going to have a special guest,
and he is with me here in my hometown of Nashville.
He is Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, running for the Republican nomination.
Has done a heck of a job so far as governor.
We've had him on a bunch of times over the
years on the shows. Now, and I want to start.
We're going to get into a bunch of different cool topics,
but I want to start with this. I was just

(00:21):
in Cooperstown, New York. My twelve year old is playing
in a tournament there over twenty fields. I know you
did little league baseball. You played in Williamsport. It was awesome.
All my eight year old wanted to do because the
twelve year old stay in bunks. All my eight year
old wanted to do was go buy baseball cards. And so,
not surprisingly, everywhere in Cooperstown sells baseball cards.

Speaker 1 (00:41):
And I know you are.

Speaker 2 (00:43):
A lifelong, long time baseball fan. I bet also you
loved baseball cards back in the day. So have you
gotten to share baseball cards at all with your kids?
I know the campaign did baseball cards. Have you shared
it with your kids yet are they interested? And when
you go back in time and think about when you
were a kid, what was your favorite baseball card set?

Speaker 1 (01:03):
What was your favorite baseball cards? What do you remember
about that.

Speaker 3 (01:06):
So I was born in nineteen seventy eight, I started collecting,
and probably eighty three eighty four, so you had like
the Don Mattingley Rokie, you know, and the tops and
Don Russ. You had the Wade Bogs eighty three cal
Ripkens I guess the year before. And then it got
into when the hobby really took off in like eighty six,
when they overproduced everything.

Speaker 4 (01:27):
You know, you're buying, like you.

Speaker 1 (01:28):
Could still buy those guys. I knows, it was crazy.

Speaker 3 (01:32):
Yeah, yeah, so you had and they had a lot
of good players in that year too, So we did
that and and and that that that kind of kind
of crashed. But then up or when Upper Deck came
in eighty nine, they had the crank Can Griffy Junior.
So that was kind of like the big deal for
that car that I have one graded ten that I
just keep for a souvenir.

Speaker 4 (01:50):
I mean, I'm not like, you know, trying to trade.

Speaker 3 (01:52):
Cards you I have not, But he's a Florida resident.

Speaker 2 (01:56):
So that card that you're talking about. Anybody who has
ever collect did baseball cards nineteen eighty nine Upper Deck,
first ever set they made for people who don't know
number one card, number one Junior. Do you remember opening
up the packs and how exciting that.

Speaker 3 (02:10):
Because they were so much nicer than the tops at
the time because they were glossy or whatever.

Speaker 4 (02:14):
But I'll tell you it was hard to pull a
griffy man.

Speaker 3 (02:17):
I mean, like I remember doing packs it up and
they were much more expensive than tops, tire ten to
fifteen packs, and you could get like nothing good. I
mean that was kind of the big, the big problem
with you know, I look back at at my childhood
and I just say, you know, why did you not
buy eighty six fleeer basketball and just squirrel.

Speaker 4 (02:34):
Some of that away? I mean imagine like if you
just would have done you know.

Speaker 2 (02:37):
Four five boy ten, the Jordan rookie card for people
out there in the eighty six fleer and there are
tons of great rookie cards because they had a couple
of years where they didn't do basketball cards.

Speaker 1 (02:47):
Did you have any of those at all? Because I
didn't never can't back.

Speaker 3 (02:49):
I don't remember even seeing them, and that may have
been a little bit before I liked basketball. I kind
of got into basketball once Jordan started winning the slam
dunk contests and stuff.

Speaker 4 (02:58):
But you know, it's a type of thing.

Speaker 3 (03:00):
If you just have an unopened box of eighty six Flayer,
it's over one hundred thousand dollars.

Speaker 4 (03:04):
I think it goes for so, I mean it's like believable.

Speaker 3 (03:06):
And that's actually one of those because I've seen people
open them. You will get a bunch of Jordan's, you know,
in that box, so you're just not that many. And
then the thing is is like, you know, you have
you have the Jordan rookie, which is obviously the top,
but I mean, you know, you had all these other
guys a La Jahwan like all the I mean, it
was like a lot of really good players with their
rookie cards.

Speaker 2 (03:23):
You said, you still have the PSA eighty nine, uh
number one card, the King Grify Junior. Are there any
cards that you don't own now that just based on
nostalgia you would like to own?

Speaker 1 (03:33):
Oh?

Speaker 3 (03:33):
Well, you know, I at one point I think I
think I traded it away. I had a Nolan Ryan
rookie in nineteen sixty eight Tops, and it just you know,
just because he's just the man and that that was
pretty cool to have. I don't think I I mean,
I liked it as a kid, but like now looking back,
I'm like, man, you should have just kept that like that.

Speaker 4 (03:50):
That's a that's a good one. And then you know,
we did.

Speaker 3 (03:54):
I actually did a lot of stuff with with with Tiger,
So I got a lot of Tiger rookie cards. Yeah,
you know, and those of those of held value pretty good.

Speaker 1 (04:02):
Over your wood you're talking, oh yea yeah, yeah.

Speaker 3 (04:04):
Yeah, when the golf came out. I should have gotten
more into some football back in the day. I didn't
really do that. It was kind of baseball. We started
to do a little bit of basketball in the nineties.
I don't think any of that's worth very much, but uh,
but I kind of wish I would have done some football.
I have done just since I was a kid, just
for kicks, like we've done I think it's like eighty
one tops football with Montana's rookie So I've actually gotten

(04:27):
Montana rookie cards, like as an adult. Yeah, I mean
this is probably like fifteen years ago. You're like one
of the it's just that like a sports show or
something like there happened to be one in town or something,
so I'd go, and I don't know how much it costs,
but you get it, and like I mean I got
some Montana's, I mean, like you know, so yeah, no,
it's a neat thing.

Speaker 2 (04:44):
We did because my boys are getting old enough now
they're fifteen, twelve, and eight. We bought the eighty seven
set that you're talking about, the top set.

Speaker 4 (04:51):
With the wood the wooden cards.

Speaker 2 (04:53):
Ef they're massively overproduced, but we opened them with my boys.
Have you gotten old cards and set around? That's actually
really fun because it's almost like you're going back in
time because you see the card today, but you also
remember being a kid.

Speaker 1 (05:07):
And like, for instance, we pulled the Bo Jackson future
Star call.

Speaker 4 (05:10):
That's right, that was a good one.

Speaker 2 (05:12):
So I was still excited as a forty plus year
old guy because it took me back to remembering when
I was eight or nine years old, and my kids
thought it was super cool. They have Barry bonds, like,
there's a lot of good cards. Even though that set
was mad, that was a lot of great plays.

Speaker 3 (05:24):
So my son, he's five, but for Christmas, he was four,
so you know, I got him a lot of stuff.
I did get him some cards. He kind of liked it,
but didn't get in. So I think he probably needs
another year, right, But I mean he got into I
mean he was so into football season and all that
we went. I took him to the Jags Chargers playoff
game and jackson that one well, because I was just
thinking to myself, I'm like, look, I'm a Bucks fan.

(05:45):
I grew up in the Tampa area Brady. But Brady's
gonna retire, the Bucks aren't going to be as good.
Jags have a young quarterback. So if my son's getting
in the sports, if he's getting into football, he can
follow the Jags. So we did it and that was
a great comeback, and so he had a good time.
So then I'm like, all right, well they're playing the Chiefs.
He's like, can we I was like, it's not in Jacksonville.
In Kansas City. It's like, oh, So I ended up
taking my six and five.

Speaker 1 (06:04):
I saw you guys walking around, So.

Speaker 3 (06:06):
We took him the Arrowhead and so that was the
first time I'd ever been in the Arrowhead.

Speaker 4 (06:09):
And I'll tell you what, it's a loudest as heck.

Speaker 3 (06:13):
I mean, it's a great stadium, and you know it
was you know, the Jags played him pretty good because
Mahomes got got hurt. But you know when they lost,
I mean, I'm carrying my four year old son. He's
crying leaving Arrowhead. He was so so disappointed. So I
think he's gonna need but anyways, so so he was
so into football, watch the Super Bowl everything. Then that
next weekend we took the kids to the Florida State
College home opener for baseball, and just like that, it

(06:35):
was all baseball, all the time. So he's now in
he's the youngest kid in the coach pitch, so he's
graduated from because you know, I pitched to him, and
so we were out there the other day for his
first game, and like, you know, I didn't know how
he was going to do and the coaches and then
they're not like underhand, the coach will just kind of
do that, and he's just cracking them because he's you know,
he's used to doing that at home.

Speaker 4 (06:53):
So it was good.

Speaker 3 (06:53):
So I think I think maybe this Christmas he probably
will get into baseball cards a little bit better.

Speaker 2 (06:58):
The coach pitch there's so much stress on the dad.
I know, you know, because you got to throw a
good pitch and you only get I've coached you only
get six pitches. So you got four or five and
they're not very good or they haven't swung yet. You
get to six and you make them have to swing.
I've been in games where they've had to pull the
dad because the dad is like long, like it gets
in his head and the dad can't throw.

Speaker 1 (07:19):
It to your head.

Speaker 3 (07:19):
It's just like, it's just like the catcher on Major League.
You can throw the ball the pitcher when you have
in baseball, you have the mental blocks. But I was
doing underhand with him and hitting, and then this league
was that, and he likes the overhead better, so I don't.

Speaker 4 (07:32):
I don't do overhand. I don't do underhand anymore.

Speaker 1 (07:34):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (07:34):
Speaking of the Baseball Hall of Fame, I'm curious what
you think because you played baseball at Yale.

Speaker 1 (07:40):
Sho heo Tani.

Speaker 2 (07:42):
Is he the most underrated, underdiscussed baseball player of a
modern era? Because I look at what he's doing and
the numbers are off the charts. He's basically the reason
why I was thinking about it so much is I
took my kids and we're standing in front of the
old Babe Ruth in jerseys and everything else.

Speaker 1 (07:57):
He's basically Babe Ruth.

Speaker 2 (07:58):
And I feel like we're under rating and underdiscussing how
incredible he is.

Speaker 1 (08:02):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (08:02):
I mean, whenever I'm asked about who the goat in
baseball is, I always say Ruth. And you know, you
can argue, like, you know, Willie Mays, you know, maybe
Ted Williams the best hitter all this, and I say, look,
Ruth was the greatest home run hitter of his era,
one of the best ever.

Speaker 4 (08:15):
But he was also one of the best pitchers of
his era. He just they just.

Speaker 3 (08:18):
Decided to move him to outfield one once he went
to Yankees. But I mean, this guy was a Hall
of Fame pitcher too, And to do both of those now,
Ruth kind of he started to hit and then once
he started to hit, he stopped pitching. Otani is doing
both right now, and I think he is the top
star in baseball, because how the hell do you do that.
No one's been able to do that at that level

(08:39):
in baseball history for the last hundred years.

Speaker 2 (08:41):
If you had had an opportunity to play minor League baseball,
You went on to graduate from Yale, went to Harvard
for law school. You've obviously been very successful. You're running
for president of the United States, kind of a big thing.
Would you have ever gotten into politics if you could?

Speaker 3 (08:55):
So this is the truth. So you know, I would
have done play baseball as long as I could. But
I knew, like you know that, you know Division one
base college players like ninety nine percent. Like if you
look at all the little league kids who start out,
you're in the top one percent. But to get the
big leagues, that's like the top point one or whatever,
and there's just a big difference there. So I was
realistic about that. But what my plan on doing law

(09:16):
school was to try to do baseball on the business side,
in the front office or something like that. But then
nine to eleven happened, and so then I ended up
joining the Navy, and I felt a calling to serve.
I wanted a volunteer, so I served in a rack,
I served all these places, and then that just kind
of took me in a different path. But had that
not happened, I think I would have gone into baseball
and been involved on that side of the house.

Speaker 2 (09:38):
Yeah, there's a multiverse out there where you never go
into politics instead go straight into that.

Speaker 4 (09:43):
I think so the front office, Sie, I think so.

Speaker 2 (09:46):
That leads us into I'm curious what you thought about this.
The All Star Game got pulled out of Atlanta. I
bet you had pretty strong feelings. Hank Aaron was going
to be honored. They decided to move it out to Denver.
Now there's talk that Rob Manford is going to bring
the All Star back to Atlanta because now they've acknowledged
Remember they pulled it because Joe Biden came out and said,
this isn't Jim Crow, this is Jim Eagle.

Speaker 1 (10:08):
And now there's a recognition.

Speaker 2 (10:09):
Oh, by the way, more people voted in the twenty
twenty two midterms in Georgia almost ever by far. Yes,
the data reflects that that was all a lie. Do
you think Rob Manfred, you're a baseball guy, I'm a
baseball fan. Do you think Rob Manfred should apologize to
Braves fans and say, hey, we got this wrong and
that's why we're wrong.

Speaker 1 (10:26):
Yeah?

Speaker 3 (10:26):
I mean, exactly what is wrong with just admitting that?
And what major League Baseball did? They responded to a
fake narrative, that's right, the Democrats lie, the corporate press
amplifies the lie. There becomes a frenzy, and then people
just gen reflect to that and that's not responsible. You
have to look to see whether this is truth or not.

(10:47):
And that's why a lot of those companies, Coca col Or, whatever,
a lot of people were not happy with them. That's because, like, look,
if they really did do Jim Crow two as a corporation,
speak out against it. I mean, that's fine, but that
was a lie. Yes, this was very common sense stuff.
It was not targeted at anybody. And as you say,
the elections that have happened since then, there was massive

(11:08):
turnout and there's zero zero truth to that. But if
you had read the bill at the time.

Speaker 2 (11:13):
You knew it was a lie then, which is what
Marce Camp said. Yes, and he told Rob Manford that
he's come on my radio show and said, I told him,
you're buying a false bill at Goods here. I just
wish there was accountability in some way, right. I think
sports fans and Americans in general, if he came out
and said, hey, I got it wrong, then I think
people would respect it more. Yeah, And instead he's just
gonna pretend he never said.

Speaker 3 (11:34):
It, but also accountability from the media, like they will
never admit a mistake. But I mean, that was a
false narrative, right, and it was knowingly false because if
you had done any research, you would have known that
wasn't true. And yet they create a narrative sometime on
Georgia you can't vote or whatever. That's right, and that
was an absolute lie. And that's just what they do.

Speaker 2 (11:54):
And speaking of absolutely, this is a good This is
a good segue. I want to read a couple of
quotes to you. Kamala Harris has come after you over
what she is saying is flawed reporting the new rules
for how to teach history in Florida, and I'm reading
directly from her Twitter account in the state of Florida,

(12:16):
they decided middle school students will be taught that enslaved
people benefited from slavery. They insult us in an attempt
to gaslight us, and we will not stand for it.
That's the Vice president, Kamala Harris. When you saw this,
When you hear this, what's your reaction.

Speaker 3 (12:35):
Well, obviously she's lying, but then you know that there
is going to be corporate press that are going to
run with that and try to create a narrative. Now
there's actually been some that have pushed back because it's
so egregious.

Speaker 4 (12:45):
Interesting.

Speaker 3 (12:46):
You know, when we got rid of critical race theory
a couple of years ago. We in the bill that
we did, we said, you must teach accurate history, you
must teach about racial discrimination, you must teach about all
aspects of African American.

Speaker 4 (12:58):
History, because we believe in true history.

Speaker 3 (13:00):
The left in the media at the time was saying
Florida doesn't want to have any African American history. So
the standards that were developed. These are black history scholars,
many of whom were African American themselves.

Speaker 4 (13:11):
They worked on this.

Speaker 3 (13:12):
There's like I mean, it's very very thorough, and it
is every little aspect of not just slavery, but the
black experience in America from colonial times the beginning. No
one can read those and think somehow that they are
shilling for them. I mean, it's ridiculous. So everybody knows that.
But she said that they said there was not going
to be any Black history. Now they're saying that somehow

(13:33):
this is not accurate, and the reality is, you know,
they're lying again. They're creating a narrative but you know,
you actually had some of these guys go on TV.
You know, one of them is an African American scholar,
and he's like, everything we did here is factual, it's truthful.
We are not doing an agenda. We're just telling the truth.
And I think the reason why Harris and Biden and
the left and the media react is because what they

(13:55):
see we're doing in Florida is we've kneecapped their ability
to use American history to advance their modern day agenda.

Speaker 4 (14:02):
That is not the appropriate use of history. So they're
doing that.

Speaker 3 (14:04):
Now they're saying, oh, well, there was a provision in
there that say somehow.

Speaker 4 (14:08):
This was good. No, that's not what it says.

Speaker 3 (14:10):
What it says was that there were slaves that developed skills,
which they did, but that was in spite of slavery.
That wasn't because of slavery. And then they use those
skills postbellum to be able to provide for themselves and
their families. And so this scholar who's been on TV,
you know, he said, that's my history, Like I'm not
going to let Kamala Harris erase my history.

Speaker 4 (14:30):
Like that's true, and that's what happened.

Speaker 2 (14:32):
Do you think she is making a decision to intentionally lie,
or do you think she's lazy and hasn't done her
research here, or do you think this.

Speaker 3 (14:41):
Ghost But she obviously is not doing any research. She
hasn't read the standard. She was given this probably by
an aid. She probably knows that given the fact of
how these standards came into being. You know, these are
serious people that developed them, They were vetted. You actually
have teachers unions now left wing teachers unions attacking it.
But the were involved in this, and they were complimenting

(15:03):
it as it was going on. It was done in
the open for many, many months, yep, and no one
said anything. And so then they figured, well, maybe we
can demagogue and do it so they know exactly what
they're doing. But look, the Biden Harris administration, they've been
obsessed with Florida since the day they took office. Anytime
they can come and think about it, she flies a
taxpayer expense to go down to Jacksonville to demagogue the

(15:26):
good work of these people who are not like my supporters,
these are serious scholars. She's not going to the border
to deal with that. That's supposed to be her issue,
and yet we have tens of thousands of Americans dying
from fetanyl, we have kids being human traffic and sex traffic.
She doesn't deal with any of that. She's not dealing
with anything on the economy. She's coming down to Florida
to try to demagogue. And the thing is is people

(15:48):
know the drill by now, they know kind of this
is what they do, and I think most people just
dismiss it at this point.

Speaker 1 (15:55):
So she's selling this false bill.

Speaker 2 (15:58):
Do you feel like, as you're running for president that
if Biden runs, Well, maybe i'll start here. Do you
think Biden will actually be the nominee in twenty four
I think.

Speaker 3 (16:07):
He wants to be, and I think if he can
drag himself up, then you know, as the incumbent president,
they can't just take it away from you. I mean
that's the issue, and he unless he goes willingly, I
think he will be the nominee.

Speaker 2 (16:20):
Okay, So if he's the nominee, I think Nikki Haley
came out and said she's running obviously as a Republican
primary contender as well, that she feels on some level
like she's running against Kamala because she thinks Biden will
step down and Kamala Harris will be president.

Speaker 1 (16:34):
Do you think they've worked through that.

Speaker 2 (16:35):
Do you think if Biden were re elected in twenty
four with Kamala as his VP, that Kamala would end
up president at some point?

Speaker 3 (16:42):
Well, I mean, look, you have to look at what's
the average mortality rate in the United States. Biden will
be eighty two, I think, when so, I mean, he's
already past normal life expectancy. So it's not like that
would be an unforeseen thing. And I think the American
people should know if you're voting for Biden, you know
you are effectively voting for Harris to likely be the

(17:03):
president of the United States over the next four years.
There's just a good chance that that happens. Given given
those actuarial tables, and as bad as Biden's been, I
think a lot of people would view Kamala's even worse.

Speaker 4 (17:17):
Yeah, that's possible.

Speaker 1 (17:18):
No, I think there's some truth to that.

Speaker 2 (17:19):
So, speaking on Biden for a minute, I'm sure you've
seen the revelations in the last week or so, which
are significant. We had double irs whistleblowers testify that essentially
Hunter Biden got a sweetheart deal that the FBI an
agent came out under oath and said they knew the
laptop was real. Argument that the FBI was tipped off
that Beisma had paid millions of dollars to both Hunter

(17:43):
and Joe Biden, potentially to get a prosecutor fired in Ukraine.
We also, on top of all that, now have Hunter
Biden's art selling for one point three million dollars. Okay,
you have been involved in impeachment before when you were
a congressman. It seems to me on many levels that
they impeached Trump for asking about what Biden was doing.

(18:05):
Should Kevin McCarthy, in your mind, in the House Republicans
open an impeachment inquiry into Joe Biden? Is that justified?
Based on the allegations that are out there, there's.

Speaker 3 (18:14):
Way more basis to do Biden than they had to
do Trump. I mean the Trump was very flimsy. Yeah,
they went ahead, guns blazing Biden. You're talking about really
significant corruption at stake with him and his family. And
it also raises the issue apart from that, because I
do think one of the issues is people see Kamal
awaiting in the wings and I don't know the Senate
would convict him, but they like, are we really trying.

Speaker 4 (18:35):
To pack through the path.

Speaker 3 (18:36):
So that helps Biden because she's good impeachment insurance for him.

Speaker 1 (18:40):
I mean, he actually had a really good VP. Yes,
there would be maybe yes.

Speaker 3 (18:43):
Yeah, no, no, So so there's that. But what this
shows with all the whistleblower is, you know, this weaponization
of these agencies. You know, on the one hand, it's like, Okay,
there's parents going to a school board meeting in Virginia,
let's stick the FBI, and that's clearly an abuse weaponization.
But the flip side of that is when you're connected
to the ruling club, the DC ruling class, you know,
you get away scott free with stuff so many things

(19:04):
should have launched a really serious inquiry, and it's like, Okay,
you know you're going to go guns blazing on some
of these offenses against people you don't like, like a
massive investigation in this. Did you even send a subpoena out?
Did you ever even go to a grand jury? I
mean it's kind of like with Hillary. You know, one
of the things that bothered me with Hillary was not
just the decision, which I disagree with, not not to go.

(19:26):
Comey said, no reasonable prosecutor that's not true. They never
in paneled a grand jury, they never did a search warrant.
They let Hillary's staffers look at the emails, and so,
you know, the weaponization is, you know, if they don't
like you, they'll get you for jaywalking. But the flip
side is, you know, if you're on the team, you
get out of jail free.

Speaker 1 (19:45):
So that builds on.

Speaker 2 (19:47):
I wrote about this because I'm fat you and I
are basically the same age.

Speaker 1 (19:50):
Washington Post, New York Times.

Speaker 2 (19:52):
Whatever you think of Bill Clinton, they went after him,
guns blazing over Monica Lewinsky. Certainly, Watergate was before you
and I were born, But they went after Nixon, and
you lived through what they went after with Trump. Why
do you think so many people Washington Post, New York Times,
the allegations I just ran through, they're far more significant
than the allegations I think against Trump or against Clinton,

(20:13):
even back to Nixon. Why do you think they're giving
Joe Biden such.

Speaker 1 (20:17):
A fair pass?

Speaker 3 (20:18):
Well, I think what happened was, you know, under with Clinton,
the press was liberal, but they they did want stories
and they wanted facts. Now we're in an air of
narrative journalism, so it's all about what narrative they can spend.
And so the Russia collusion, you know, while those allegations
quote unquote, yeah, if someone was colluding with a foreign country,
to that'ld.

Speaker 4 (20:38):
Beignificant, but there was never a basis for it.

Speaker 3 (20:40):
So and they knew there was never a basis for it,
and they would launder anonymous sources to try to keep
the feeding frenzy going. And it was like and the
whole idea was to basically mobilize the intelligence and law
enforcement federal communities against the sitting president or the aspiring
president than the sitting president. And so it's just a
massive abuse of power. So I think that their behavior

(21:01):
in that really I think showed who these people are now,
because not only were they furthering a false narrative, they
turned a blind eye to all the abuse that was
going on and they never cared about that. So what
they're doing with Biden is just a continuation they want
their narratives. This does not fit their narrative because they
want to focus on Republicans and all this other stuff.

(21:23):
So I think it actually flows from how they behaved
in Russia collusion. Because if Russia collusion, if the shoe
were on the other foot, they would have never given
that story a time of day.

Speaker 2 (21:32):
You mentioned media narratives. You're involved in a big media narrative.
It's who's going to be the next president of the
United States. How do you think the media is treating
the Ron DeSantis campaign?

Speaker 4 (21:42):
Oh?

Speaker 3 (21:42):
Well, look, and I'm not complaining about this. I mean,
I think it's actually somewhat of a good thing. You know,
they do not want me to be the nominee. I mean,
that's very clear.

Speaker 1 (21:49):
Why do you think they don't want you to be
the nominate?

Speaker 3 (21:50):
They know I'd beat Biden, but I think even more
importantly than that, they've seen what I've done in Florida
to transform the state, and they're like, this guy would
actually get this stuff done, and they don't want to
see that. We don't want to see things like the
administrative state unraveled. They don't want to see conservative policy
implemented in any way. They don't want to see, you know,
me fix the military, all these things that are really
important to border. They don't want any of that. So

(22:12):
they know that, and I think that that's there. So
so their narrative is to try to ding me, and
I think that's been the case, they've they've tried to
take me out for years, starting with COVID. I mean
it that was relentless, and you know, we just stood
strong on that and basically you know, wrote it out.
But then really as soon as I won reelection so big,
they're like, oh my gosh, this guy, we got to
deal with him. I mean it's been you know, constantly

(22:34):
negative since then, for sure, even leading up to this,
and now it's you know, whatever you do, it's like, oh,
you know this or that. So it's a sign of
strength because if they didn't see me as somebody who
was a threat, they would ignore me, they would not
be so fixated. And I've been attacked by corporate press
this year more than Biden has or more than Trump

(22:55):
has in terms of their narratives. I mean, I've been
the number one target on that, and I think you know,
sometimes you know, there's a great static and so you
don't want that in a campaign. On the one hand.
On the other end, our voters do know, you know,
who are their enemies. Yeah, one of their enemies is
the corporate press. And if I am the one that.

Speaker 4 (23:14):
The corporate press fears, that will help me in the
eyes of these voters.

Speaker 2 (23:18):
Another guy who's gotten attacked a lot. You mentioned COVID.
RFK Junior. You guys would disagree on a lot across
the policy perspectives. I think you would agree on a
lot associated with COVID. You got ripped front page article
in the Sunday New York Times about COVID my argument,
my mind.

Speaker 4 (23:34):
Which was just bizarre.

Speaker 3 (23:35):
I mean, like literally, they admit in the article Florida
had lower age adjusted mortality than the national average they omitted,
which they should have put. We had the lowest excess
mortality in the Sun Belt, including less excess mortality than California.
So that's just on the health stuff. And then what
about economy, education, quality of life. Clearly they don't even

(23:56):
want to discuss those because we were totally off the
charts on all of that. And they tried to hit
me on saying I wasn't forcing the vax on young people.

Speaker 4 (24:04):
Yeah, I was not doing that because it wasn't the
right thing to do.

Speaker 1 (24:08):
They didn't need it.

Speaker 3 (24:08):
They didn't need it, and in some of them, we
now see what the young men myocarditis and all this stuff.
So what they are attacking me for actually would have
been bad health policy, and it's an inappropriate role of
government to try to push this on people. So we
were right on that, And especially when you had the
vaxes rolled out in Florida, was all these voluntary A

(24:29):
lot of people thought it was working for for the
first four or five months, right, And I thought it
was because COVID did go down in like May and
June of twenty twenty one. Then you have this massive
wave across the South, the delta. Those vaxes did not
stop that wave, and there were enough people that.

Speaker 4 (24:44):
Had taken it.

Speaker 3 (24:45):
So at that point you got to look at that
and say, Okay, how are you going to do? So
we focused on treatment in Florida. I was rolling out
these monoclonal antibody clinics whatever given people the ability to
get treatment. That was a departure from the narrative as well,
and I got attacked for doing that at the time.
So their narratives on COVID they were so wrong on
almost every issue. And the thing is is like, it's fine,

(25:07):
you're wrong, but you go to some of these deep
blue cities you will still see people walking outside with
masks on and Phil, look, it's a free country.

Speaker 4 (25:15):
If that's what you like.

Speaker 3 (25:16):
But I can't help but think these people have had
this put into their head. Then unless they're wearing a
mask outside, that somehow they're going to get COVID and die.

Speaker 2 (25:25):
And that's not true. I was just on a college campus.
My oldest son is at the University of Michigan doing
a summer camp. I couldn't believe how many young people,
a teenagers and twenty somethings were still wearing masks. When
you see somebody who's a teenager or twenty something wearing
a mask, what do you think?

Speaker 4 (25:41):
I mean, honestly, I just shake my head. But there's
a reason they're doing it.

Speaker 3 (25:44):
Somebody has put that into their head that that's something
that is going to be beneficial to them, and it's not.
When COVID hit Florida, you know, we had you know,
the kids came back to school or whenever for the
university's July August of twenty twenty, and I put out
the edict, don't touch their social lives, don't social distance
these kids.

Speaker 4 (26:03):
Let them be kids.

Speaker 3 (26:05):
Oh, some of them are gonna get COVID. Yet you
know what they are going to get COVID. You're going
to see it. You're gonna see it, Spike, You're gonna
see it go down. There's gonna be immunity, and none
of them are gonna end up in the hospital. And
that's exactly what ended up happening. But in the places
where they tried to circumscribe people's freedoms, it was bad
for kids' mental health, for their academic achievement, for their
social development. And I developed the following in Florida a

(26:26):
lot of the college kids because they're like, you saved
our You saved our experience.

Speaker 4 (26:30):
And it's true, well not.

Speaker 1 (26:31):
Only that, also high school.

Speaker 2 (26:32):
You and I yet, when I was doing now kick
the Coverage show, you said, not only are we going
to open up schools. I remember a coming when you
came on the show. You said, kids are gonna be
able to play sports. And I think this is so
important because you know you went to school. You know
how many boys in particular stay in school so they
can go play on spassing Exactly. They don't have that coach,
they don't have that figure, they don't have that structure.

Speaker 1 (26:52):
They fall apart.

Speaker 2 (26:53):
You've seen that happen now all over the country because
the New York Times, while they're also ripping you for
COVID also will have a front page store. Sorry, hey,
learning loss is not gotten recovered from all the schools
that were shut down for so long.

Speaker 1 (27:06):
And so what I think is an interesting part.

Speaker 2 (27:08):
About this is they rip you, but you actually read
the studies yourself exactly. You actually did the research, and
so many other politicians just listen to the experts, and
I want to give you a thesis here and see
whether you buy it. What I saw happen that I
found so infuriating was you would have somebody who's a
CDC official, let's say the doctor Fauci's of the world,
the Rashoe Wolinsky's. They would come out and give you

(27:30):
a guidance, and then a politician would say, well, I'm
going to follow the guidance of the experts.

Speaker 1 (27:36):
And then when the experts like.

Speaker 2 (27:37):
Fauci get called on it, they say, well, we never
called for schools to shut down. So you have a
circle where no one accepts responsibility for the decision. My
thing is, you're elected as the governor. You're the ultimate
decider in the state of Florida. Right, That's how the
constitution works. But so many politicians out there pointed to
the so called experts who got everything wrong. The experts said,

(27:58):
we didn't do it. The politicians did. And it's like
there's never been consequences or reckoning for all those people
who got all those things wrong.

Speaker 4 (28:05):
Well that's the thing. I mean.

Speaker 3 (28:06):
You know, I'm in a situation where you elect me
to be the executive. You elect others and other parts
to be the executive. Nobody elected Fauci, Nobody elected these
health bureaucrats, and so it's fine to confer and listen
to what they're saying, but you ultimately have to make
the decision. And I started when I was doing this
because like literally three four weeks into COVID, I'm like,

(28:28):
kids need to be in school.

Speaker 4 (28:29):
I don't know what's going on here.

Speaker 3 (28:31):
In Fauci publicly reprimand you know, he attacked me and saying, oh,
kids are going to get infected and.

Speaker 1 (28:35):
They're going to die.

Speaker 3 (28:36):
Yeah, And then I'm just like, well, wait a minute,
I'm looking at Sweden, I'm looking at all this stuff.
We're making a big mistake here. And obviously we pivoted
very quickly, but you know, so he's attacking and all
this stuff. But I started looking back Dwight Eisenhower's farewell address.
A lot of people remember it military industrial complex weren't,
and that's a great warning. But if you read that,
he talked about kind of in the post World War

(28:58):
two era, you started to have this mingling of federal
money and scientific research, and he said there's a danger
given that power, that public policy could be captive to
what he called a scientific technological elite. And he warned
against that because he said, the job of a statesman
is not to subcontract out to those people. Job of
a statesman is to like listen, but listen to all

(29:19):
different areas and harmonize all that for the greater good.
So someone like Fauci, he did not care about your freedom,
That was not anything he cared about. He didn't care
about the viability of your small business. He didn't care
about your kids' education, the jobs, none of that. All
he was myopically focused on was this one virus. Which
even if that was the only concern, he still failed

(29:40):
with his prescription for that. But I'm sitting there saying, Okay,
wait a minute. These people have a right to work,
they have a right to do all that. So yeah,
when we when we really pushed against him in the
early part of COVID. I mean, I had the whole
world come down on me, the corporate press, the left,
the Democrats, a lot of Republicans even at the time
were saying, you know, we were nuts, but I'll tell you.
And I was getting hammered and I wasn't doing well,

(30:03):
and people said, oh, he's never going to do politics anymore.
He's done right. And then what happened. You know, a
few months later, Florida was the place to be. It's like, Okay,
your life's not good. Wherever go to Florida. I was
the first place people thought, and we've never done better
as a state as a result of that. But that
would never have happened if I just said and you know,
it's the politically easy thing to do, because you can
say a business owner comes up to you saying like, hey,

(30:25):
and I want to open my restaurant. Well, they're telling
me I can't trust me. I want you to do
it right, but they can't. So it was an easy
way for them to pass the buck. And that's just
not the way leadership is.

Speaker 2 (30:33):
What do you think would have happen if Andrew Gillham
had won in twenty eighteen.

Speaker 3 (30:37):
Florida would be like a New York or California, Illinois.
There's no question it would have been. It would have
been a California, Illinois New York style lockdown. The kids
would have been out of school for the whole year
because I know that because the teachers' union sued me
because they wanted the school's clothes and.

Speaker 2 (30:52):
We'd beat And now Randy Winingarten is claiming that she
always wanted to.

Speaker 1 (30:56):
I mean, that's one of the biggest lies.

Speaker 3 (30:57):
They literally had a protest and I think she was there.
But there's a bunch of union people in Florida where
they were haranguing me, saying how dangerous it was, and
the union would bring coffins and put coffins in front
of the Florida Department of Education.

Speaker 2 (31:11):
I was on the beach in May of twenty twenty,
so when everything's shut down, I said, screw it. I've
got a place on thirty A, which, by the way,
one of the most beautiful places in the United States,
by the way, maybe the best beaches, but we're full.

Speaker 1 (31:23):
Don't come down there.

Speaker 2 (31:24):
And I took my kids down there, and one of
the guys who I think ran for Secretary of State
in Florida as a Democrat, was walking around dressed as
a grim reap.

Speaker 1 (31:32):
That's right on the beach, literally.

Speaker 2 (31:34):
While I was there with my kids on thirty A,
you know, hanging out and enjoying the sun. But to
your point, they now all claim that they never said
what they did. And here's what's frustrating to me, and
I bet it's super frustrating to you. You at least
won by nineteen points, so that's a validation of some
point of your leadership.

Speaker 1 (31:51):
Not one Kretchen Whitmer got reelected. Gavin Newsom got reelected.
The only reason.

Speaker 2 (31:57):
Andrew Andrew Cuomo didn't get reelected because of a sex
harassment scandal. It wasn't because of his failures with COVID.
Not one incumbent governor lost in other than Nevada. Not
one person actually bore the consequences of their poor decisions.

Speaker 1 (32:14):
If you got.

Speaker 2 (32:14):
Everything wrong on COVID and then your voter still voted
for you, what does that tell us?

Speaker 3 (32:19):
Well, look, I think some of that as the Republican
Party dropped the ball in some of those races.

Speaker 4 (32:23):
I mean, that's just the reality.

Speaker 3 (32:24):
There's not strong leadership and it's just you got it
to beat an incumbent governor. It requires funding, it requires
a lot of stuff, and I don't know that they
necessarily got that done, but I think part of it
is in those states, the media gas lit.

Speaker 4 (32:38):
The media would portray this as necessary.

Speaker 3 (32:41):
So I think there was a resistance for some of
these voters to admit that all this was for not.
You know, wearing a mask for a year and a
half was all for not. Their kids being at a
school was all for not. I think that this human
but as a matter of human nature, they wanted to
believe that that made a difference. And I think that
was more of their inclination rather than and some would
say fight, you know, yeah, this was bad, But I

(33:03):
do think there was some who were kind of following
the guidance doing that, and I think they wanted to
believe that that it wasn't all for not. And so
by sticking with those governors, you know, that may be
a way to acknowledge that they may have been right
to follow it.

Speaker 2 (33:17):
Rand Paul has referred doctor Fauci for prosecution because he
thinks he lied to Congress in fatis he did.

Speaker 4 (33:22):
I mean, are you kidding?

Speaker 3 (33:23):
Me with the gain of function research, with all these
different things, how they sent that money to WU hand
what they did to try to cover up the lab leak,
because it was like, oh, it came from the lab.
And then immediately Fauci's trying to hit it down behind
the scenes, trying to say it was natural because they
knew that they got caught red handed on this and
it was reckless behavior, and he's made statements and so,

(33:47):
and then of course it's like, where's the accountability for
the damage you did to this country? And the fact
of the matter is Fauci was elevated to kind of
be the de facto ruler, where his pronouncement were viewed
as like the gold standard, and so like, yeah, I
was departing, but I mean I got hammered for doing that.
A lot of elected officials didn't want to have to

(34:08):
face that flack. And so he could go and say
schools shouldn't be open, and that was license for all
these school districts had just close in Florida. What I did,
I used emergency powers. You know, the governors were using
emergency powers to lock people down. I was using it
to pry open the schools. And they That's one of
the reasons they sued me. They said, you don't have
the authority to do this, and honestly it was contested.

(34:29):
But I'm not just gonna sit there and let these
kids toil. So I'm like, I have authority. Here's what
I'm gonna do. You do And I knew once the
kids got back in the parents would never let it
close again.

Speaker 4 (34:39):
And so that that's what we did.

Speaker 2 (34:41):
If you were president, do you think Fauci should be prosecuted, Yes.

Speaker 3 (34:44):
I mean he's he is guilty of lying before Congress.
I mean, give me a break now here. This raises
an issue that you because when I look at kind
of you know, how do you get good policy to
stick whatever? What are kind of the pressure points. One
of the problems we have in d C is if
you're part of the swamp like they tried to do
that guy. Durham tried to do that guy and prosecute him.

(35:06):
Got quitted because he has to he has to be
in Washington, d C. With an awful jury d C. Right,
So the DC that area jury pool is people like
Fauci would be protected in that. That'd be a huge,
huge turtle. I'm not saying it's not justified to go ahead.
But that'd be a huge turtle flip side. It's like,
you know, you're a Republican, you're jaywalking. Oh man, they're

(35:26):
gonna they're gonna get you. They're gonna go after you.
So so that that and what I think, what I've
said that we should do is a defendant American defendant
in d C should have the right to remove the
case to their home district. So like if they tried
to ding you, you can move it to Nashville and
I get what is this middle district of Tennessee or
in order to or something, So you could do that
and then do it.

Speaker 1 (35:44):
And I just think, by the way, I think they're
gonna ding me for something.

Speaker 3 (35:46):
There you go, you never you never know, I know,
you know that's it. Well, you know, if I get elected,
we'll land weaponization.

Speaker 4 (35:52):
You don't have to worry about that. But yeah, that's
the direction they're going.

Speaker 3 (35:55):
So you have so you have an imbalance and accountability
where if you want to hold the swamp accountable, man,
they have an ability to nullify that accountability.

Speaker 4 (36:05):
Very very bad.

Speaker 2 (36:06):
So that brings in We've talked about this, you've come
on Clay and Buck as well. So you have a
strong knowledge of the Constitution, right you graduate from Harvard
Law School. Some people in politics really don't have that
good of a knowledge. So Trump now is being prosecuted
in New York City, He's going to have a super
left wing jury there. There's no doubt he may well
be prosecuted in Atlanta, going to be a left wing

(36:29):
jury in Fulton County in Atlanta. He is going to
be prosecuted in South Florida. And now it seems, and
you probably know the data on this better than most,
that that actually.

Speaker 1 (36:38):
Might be a fair jury pool.

Speaker 4 (36:40):
I think it will be.

Speaker 3 (36:40):
I think if it's in Fort Pierce Saint Lucie County,
I think I want it by twenty points, so you
will absolutely be able to have a fair representation.

Speaker 2 (36:49):
Okay, So that's at least somewhat fair. DC would not
be if Jack Smith's the GC is.

Speaker 3 (36:54):
The most unfair jury pool in America, because Fulton County
seventy thirty yep, Manhattan's eighty twenty or eighty five fifteen,
DC's like ninety eight to two. I mean, and especially
when you're talking about anything related with the swamp, that
is not fair. So that's why I think you remove
that to home district, I think is fair. What we're

(37:16):
going to do with DOJ when I go into end weaposition.
There's a lot of things you do, but one of
the things we're going to do is also say, Okay,
what's our authority visa VI some of these local areas.
I think we're going to do civil rights against Soros
prosecutors because if they're weaponizing their office to let criminals
go and to go after political enemies, that's a civil
rights violation. You have a right in the Constitution to

(37:38):
live under republican form of government. That's not a republican
form of government. So we're going to lean in on
those folks because I think those local prosecutors are a huge,
huge problem. You know, the DOJ is a massive problem.
But if you go in there and spit nails and
you're willing to upset the apple cart, you can change
the direction of that. You know, I believe you can
do it if you're a determined president. But these local folks,

(38:02):
they get Soros cash, they get elected, and then they
just run wild and that's not.

Speaker 4 (38:07):
The rule of law.

Speaker 1 (38:08):
What do you think happened to Merrick Garland.

Speaker 4 (38:10):
You know, it's interesting because he wasn't.

Speaker 2 (38:13):
For people out there who don't know, he wasn't a
crazy zealog Well that's the thing.

Speaker 4 (38:17):
I mean.

Speaker 3 (38:17):
So I look back and think he was always portrayed
as a more moderate Is that wrong?

Speaker 4 (38:22):
It probably was. I mean I think that.

Speaker 1 (38:24):
If his rulings weren't like insane.

Speaker 4 (38:26):
But he was.

Speaker 1 (38:27):
But he was.

Speaker 3 (38:27):
He was an inferior court judge. He wasn't at the
court of last resort. And what happens with these guys
once they get on the Supreme Court on the left,
they cow tell to the intelligentsia, to the corporate press,
to to the law professors, and you look at how
so you have Sodomayor and Jackson. They are like like
they could be on MSNBC with their nonsense. I mean,

(38:49):
it is really scary. Yeah, you know, Kagan is very liberal,
but she I think at least tries to be, you know,
you know, at least grounded her version of the law.
The other two it's all political screeds, and so I
think Garland probably would have been voting with them one
hundred percent of the time. That being said, I do
think that he's become more partisan because of he didn't
get the Supreme Court's position.

Speaker 4 (39:10):
I do think that that's probably true.

Speaker 2 (39:12):
How do you think so he is You know that
you went to law school. I went to law school.
There are certain people who they love the law, right.
I used to talk about this is their highest aspiration.
There's a lot of other lawyers. They go to law school,
like I would put myself in this category. I love
the education. I knew that I didn't want to practice
law for the rest of my life. Merrick Garland is

(39:33):
a love the law person, right like he loves studying
the law and everything else. I look at him and
I wonder how does he sleep at night? Because what
he's done. They talk about how Trump or you or
somebody else is going to be an authoritarian dictator, right
if you end up in power. Merrick Garland is trying
to put the chief political adversary right now of his opponent,

(39:57):
Joe Biden, Donald Trump in prison for the rest of
his life.

Speaker 1 (40:00):
We've never seen anything like.

Speaker 4 (40:02):
That, and what to see think?

Speaker 2 (40:04):
What do you think I can't imagine being him like
and making that choice because I'm afraid and I'm curious
what you think is with this weaponization nobody, you know,
de escalates if once you set the opportunity of oh,
I can put my chief political rival in prison. You're
in Florida, Like, there's so many people who fled to

(40:24):
Florida to try to avoid that, because it happens all
over Banana republics in Latin America.

Speaker 1 (40:29):
How does he sleep at night? Like what's going on there? Well?

Speaker 3 (40:31):
And I think, you know, look with this DC case,
I immediate's report. Who knows whether there will be one?
I mean, I don't know, but if there is, I
think it's likely going to be they're going to talk
about everything that Donald Trump may have done, and they're
going to find some statute and stretch it to try
to do so. If you're going back to like a
reconstruction statute, like violation conspiracy against rights they call it,

(40:56):
and you're trying to apply it to that, you know,
here's the thing. No one's above the If somebody who's
been in high office robs a bank, we know that's
a crime. You rob the bank, they prove it. You know,
you have to pay the penalty. But when you contort
like Bragg did, the law to try to fit conduct
against somebody you don't like, that's kind of find me
the man and I'll find you the crime kind of deal.

(41:17):
And so so you know, if that's what's reported, I
think these are going to be charges that are not
traditional crimes. In other words, they're more obscure, and they're
trying to be shoehorned in here because you know, quite frankly,
the left is crazy about this stuff and they want
to do it, and that's what we got it. So
if you want to have a good justice system that

(41:37):
people have confidence in, you will have straightforward criminal offenses,
and particularly in a pretty politically charged environment, you will
not charge novel offenses given the dynamics that are at play.
And I think he's thrown that totally overboard, and we'll
see if he's doing it.

Speaker 2 (41:55):
He could mean that if you were president and they try
to prosecute Trump, maybe before the election even happens, that
you would look at that. I think you said on
our show before you'd look at pardoning all the January sixth.

Speaker 3 (42:04):
Well, my view, I mean with respect to like, you know,
do we really think it's good for the country to
have an almost eighty year old former president in prison?

Speaker 4 (42:10):
Like?

Speaker 3 (42:10):
Is that is that going to be good for us
to come together. Yeah, you know, that's the thing. It's like,
you know, there is divisions in this society, but there
is some opportunity I think, to come together on some things.
But it's like when all this is going on, that
makes it very difficult. So you know, I look back
at like like Nixon pardoning for it. He took a
lot of heat for it, but I think it was
the right decision to just move.

Speaker 4 (42:31):
The country beyond that.

Speaker 3 (42:33):
And you know, they could have tried to got a
pound of flesh out of Nixon and it wasn't that
Nixon was.

Speaker 4 (42:37):
Above the law.

Speaker 3 (42:38):
It was just weighing, how does that, you know, provide
fissures to society, you know for this, But it's a
type of thing where in terms of ending weaponization, I think,
you know, wielding pardon power is definitely part of it.
Clearing out the bureaucracy, I think. I mean, I'm one
of the few I think candidates had said definitively, we'll
have a new FBI director on day one, one hundred percent.
We'll have an attorney general with a big, big strong

(43:00):
backbone who's.

Speaker 4 (43:01):
Going to fight all these people.

Speaker 3 (43:02):
We're going to probably parcel out parts of DOJ, so
you know, you can send one part of it to
maybe Tennessee or Arkansas or wherever. Because there's so much
power that's been conglomerated in d C. I think a
lot of the people probably wouldn't want to move to
some of these places. So maybe it's more representative of
America because we have in d C Department of Justice
consolidated power, no oversight, no accountability, and ninety nine percent

(43:25):
of them donate the donations.

Speaker 4 (43:27):
Are Democrats.

Speaker 3 (43:29):
Well, I mean, you know, so you may even be
trying to use your power, but some of these people
they just view like it's foreign of the way other
people think, and that's very, very dangerous.

Speaker 2 (43:40):
Ford pardon Nixon because he was a statesman. Does Biden
have any statesman like quality? No?

Speaker 3 (43:45):
No, No, he would not do it because his base
would beat him alive.

Speaker 1 (43:49):
But sometimes don't you have to do what's right.

Speaker 3 (43:52):
But I think what we've seen with Biden he will
not cross the base because he understands his hold on
power is pretty tenuous just given his ineptity, dude, given
his senility and all this stuff, and so he basically
is just going to deliver for the base, and he
would open himself up to potentially getting driven out of
office on twenty fifth Amendment or something.

Speaker 4 (44:12):
So there is no way he would do that.

Speaker 3 (44:14):
And and that's why, you know, the stakes of the
election for many respects, you know.

Speaker 4 (44:18):
Were high, but I think there's a high probability that
would be out of the cards for him.

Speaker 2 (44:22):
Do you think if Hunter Biden's dad wasn't president, he'd
be in jail?

Speaker 3 (44:25):
Yes? Well, let me say this, if he were a
Republican and he was not connected to DC, he would, yes, Yeah,
I think for sure. And you know that's the thing
he the lack of zealousness with all this information. You know,
it's one thing. It's like, you know, if if they
go after you and him the same yep, uh, then

(44:46):
what are you going to do?

Speaker 1 (44:47):
Right?

Speaker 4 (44:47):
But that's just not the way it is.

Speaker 3 (44:49):
I Mean, they get very very zealous when it comes
to people they don't like.

Speaker 1 (44:53):
You mentioned bud Light a minute ago.

Speaker 2 (44:55):
I know that Disney has been on the battleground with you,
and I got a quote. I don't know if officially,
I know that the campaign put out a video, but
Bob Iger told CNBC. The notion that Disney is in
any way, sexualizing kid children, quite frankly, is preposterous and inaccurate.
That's a quote from Bob Iger.

Speaker 3 (45:16):
Do you buy it well, I mean you saw they
opposed the bill in Florida to not have sexuality and
gender identity and grades K through three.

Speaker 4 (45:25):
And not only they oppose it.

Speaker 3 (45:27):
When we stared them down and I signed it, they said,
it's going to be our mission to see that it's
repealed in the legislature of the courts. So they're devoting
corporate resources. They felt so strongly about kindergarteners being told
that they may be born in the wrong body that
they dedicated corporate resources to it. And then when that happened,
those Zoom videos came out with those Disney executives saying

(45:47):
they have an agenda to inject the sexuality in the
youth programming. So that's just that is evidence that everyone's
been able to see and look. The reality with that
company is their own employees buying large sided with me.

Speaker 4 (46:01):
In Florida.

Speaker 3 (46:02):
Osceola County is where the majority of Disney employees live.
I did better than any Republican has done in a generation,
usually a blue county. I wanted by seven or eight percent.
I did better in Orange County than Republican's done in
a generation and all the surrounding.

Speaker 4 (46:17):
We did tremendous.

Speaker 3 (46:18):
Because you know, they are they are employees of Disney,
because they believed in the original mission. Most of them
believed in the original mission, and so it was not popular.
I remember when they were when they were protests in
US on this when the bill was coming up.

Speaker 4 (46:31):
There's a Disney is going to do a big protest.

Speaker 3 (46:32):
So like you know, the Burbank people were out protesting Orlando.
There were news crews with helicopters and there was like
one guy and he had a mask on and he
had like a sign that says like trans lives matter
or something like that, Like one guy, and that just
shows you. So they were way out of step with that,
and I think it's hurt their company in terms of

(46:53):
in terms of what's happened with their share price. The
people going to the parks their movies intentionally are trying
to pursue an agenda, a social agenda in very different ways.

Speaker 4 (47:03):
That's not where the market is.

Speaker 3 (47:05):
The market wants you to do traditional stuff, and particularly
for parents with children, I don't want to have to
like watch it to to you know, we have to
turn it off because they're trying to do a message.
Used to be you watch the cartoons, they're cartoons, and
that's kind of like a safe space for parents. Now
parents feel like even some of the trusted names of
the past you can't trust.

Speaker 2 (47:24):
And you grew up in Florida. I'm sure you went
to Disney World growing up. Sometimes.

Speaker 1 (47:28):
I know you got married. I think at Disney World
we got married.

Speaker 3 (47:31):
And the thing was was, you know, I was I
was still in the Navy, my way, and I was
in you know, northeast Florida, and I thought we would
end up doing Panavidra Beach because you know whatever. And
she came to my wife came one day, she's like,
what do you think about Disney? Like, what do you
mean when I think about Disney stick for the wedding.
I was like, do they do weddings like you could
do like Cinderell's catch. She's like, no, they have a

(47:52):
child and it actually is very nice. Her parents were
big Disney people, so they suggested it and that's what
they wanted to do, and so we did.

Speaker 1 (47:58):
We were getting married. You probably did not have a
lot of say in many of the da.

Speaker 4 (48:01):
What I told her is I was like, look, this
is your day.

Speaker 3 (48:04):
Like I am very low maintenance, but I am drawing
the line no Donald Duck at the wedding, like we
cannot have these characters. And it was a traditional If
you see our wedding pictures, it's it's a church. I
gets no different than anything like that. So it's you know,
we did that. And so this is two thousand and nine.
And then just thinking forward, like however many years later,
ten fifteen years later, we'd end up in this and this.

Speaker 2 (48:25):
Curve flo My point on it is there's this idea
that you have somehow picked the fight with Disney. No.

Speaker 1 (48:30):
And I want to just emphasize this for our audience.

Speaker 2 (48:33):
You opened and fought to get Disney World open, like
a year before Gavin Newsom was willing to open them.

Speaker 3 (48:40):
They made a fortune in Florida because of you. We
did because you fought for them to be able to
run that. In fact, I remember Disney they could have
even opened earlier. I was telling them to open. In fact,
I told them not to close. Because you know I
didn't close them. They called me and said, hey, we're
going to close a few days. I'm like, you know,
I was like, I'm not that may be rash. I
was like, you may want to think that stupid, that's
what they want to do. And they waited law they

(49:01):
were more cautious. Universal SeaWorld open like a month and
a half before Disney did. But they they opened, and
then you know, we had our first kind of summer
COVID wave, and I remember the CEO called me.

Speaker 4 (49:11):
He's like, he's like, you know, do you want us
to stop?

Speaker 3 (49:13):
I'm like no, I was like, we have to live
with this, Okay, we can't just run and hide. You
have people's jobs at stake, you know, families want to
come with their kids and all that. And so we
did it, and and they they did very very well.
And I remember like throughout all that time leading up
to the to the parents' rights and education debate, they
would always say.

Speaker 4 (49:32):
Like, man, we wish we had you in California.

Speaker 3 (49:34):
You know that, even like their burd Bank executives, because
it was like, we were so reasonable and we wanted
them to succeed because we knew jobs were at stake
and the economy and everything like that. And so yeah,
I mean I think that they they had high regard
for me. And here's the thing. We have the best
business climate in America. Our economy is ranked number one
by CNBC, which is not a fan of mine. But

(49:55):
they had they had to admit that. And so them
living under the same laws as you universal in SeaWorld
like good, like you know you you have a great
chance to do well. And and they're just not. They
don't want that. They want to have their own, their
own ability to govern themselves apart from society.

Speaker 2 (50:10):
Well, what I think is so interesting about it we
were talking about narratives earlier, is they threw the first
punch at you, of course, and now most in the
media are like, why is Ron DeSantis going after Disney? Well,
I mean, are you just supposed to take a punch.

Speaker 3 (50:21):
Well, not only that, but then this year, so we
we had the fight in twenty twenty two. We said
were you know, you're your self governing status and ending
you're gonna live treated You're gonna live under the same laws.
You don't get special laws, special tax breaks. And that
was just because the legislature, the support for that collapse.
It was outmoded, It was not justifiable. On the marriage

(50:42):
it was massive egregious corporate welfare. But Disney had been
so powerful that no one questioned it, So so we
did that. Then what happened was February of twenty twenty three,
as the state is taking control because you know, are
our board's gonna have to wind it down, the bonds
and all this stuff. Disney executed with itself these covenants
saying no one can do anything, and so that was

(51:03):
like a big middle finger to the Florida legislature. They're
the ones that did that. And so then we said, no,
we're gonna these are not valid. The board rejected it,
the legislature rejected it, and so they're saying we're going
after Disney, but they're the ones that tried to basically
veto a bill passed by the Florida legislature, and then
Disney sued us and all that stuff. All that being said,

(51:23):
you know, we won the battle on parents Bill of Rights.
Disney is not going to get their government back, their
own government back, and so we're gonna win on that
lawsuit and that'll probably be decided sometime this summer.

Speaker 2 (51:35):
Just a couple more for you here, we'll finish off.
I hope people have enjoyed this. This has been I
think I bet you've kind of enjoyed sometimes getting to
talk in a form we're not getting cut off. If
you've now fired significant number of staff members two months
into the campaign, Iowa's December January fifteenth, how would you
assess the status of your campaign?

Speaker 1 (51:57):
Do you expect to win Iowa on January three?

Speaker 3 (52:00):
I think Iowa's great, And I think what we realize
on this is, you know, we had a campaign for
a nationwide election, which which will happen eventually, but that's
not how the primaries are. So we're shifting resources to
the early states. We don't need to have you know,
we don't need to be too top heavy in Tallahassee,
So Iowa and Hampshire, South Carolina. You know we're going
to be spending the vast majority of our time in

(52:21):
those three states. I think everyone would acknowledge Iowa we
have the best ground game by far. Right now, we're
going to win in Iowa. I mean, like we've got
to earn it. I mean, you know, if I if
I thought I had it in the bag, then I wouldn't.
We have to earn it. But I think we've got
a great path there and then New Hampshire a little
bit different than Iowa, but I think the voters in
both of those states they want to kick the tires.

(52:41):
They want to see you, and there'll be people that
will say like, oh, you know, what do you think
of the governor? Well, you know, I like him, but
I've only met him one time, and so like, that's
what you have to do.

Speaker 4 (52:49):
So we're going to be on the ground.

Speaker 3 (52:50):
We're going to be on the ground two days in
Iowa this week and then four days in New Hampshire
through the weekend and into the early part of next week.
I think we're doing a town hall with newsmaxs. We're
doing a bunch of different but that's really is. It's
just it's a recognition that you want the resources applied
where the delegates are allocate. At the end of the day,
you're winning a majority of the delegates.

Speaker 4 (53:08):
That's the goal.

Speaker 3 (53:09):
It's not a nationwide vote, it's a state by state vote,
and you need to have an organization to reflect that.

Speaker 2 (53:15):
Number One question I get asked on our show Clay
and Buck walking around, people say I want Trump as president,
I want a Scantists to be as vice president.

Speaker 1 (53:25):
Your response when you hear that is.

Speaker 4 (53:26):
What would you take it? If a huffer to you?

Speaker 3 (53:31):
I like the jobs that I got, Ready, you go, yeah, No, Look,
I mean, at the end of the day, you know
I'm running run for president to beat Biden. You know
I'm reliable, I reflect the values of our voters, and
I will deliver on all this stuff. I've shown ability
to do that in Florida doing number two. I mean, it
just doesn't appeal to me, and I don't think I
would be good at it, and I think I'm probably

(53:52):
you know, more valuable doing other things. But you know,
some people run for president because they want a cabinet
position or VP all that, or TV contribut leadership.

Speaker 4 (54:00):
I'm not that.

Speaker 3 (54:01):
I don't want VEEP. I don't want cabinet. I don't
want to be on, you know, a contributor. I'm running
to win, and that's the only reason I'm running. And
so we'll we'll either do it or not.

Speaker 2 (54:10):
I remember I asked you, I mentioned RFK Junior earlier
in the fact that you might overlap if Trump picked R.
FK Junior as a potential vice presidential candidate. Crazy idea.
If you were president, would you cons if you were
the nominee, would you consider R.

Speaker 1 (54:25):
FK. Junior as a running mace.

Speaker 3 (54:27):
Here here's the issue, Like, I'm aligned with him on
fauciep and the corruption and the health bureaucracies one hundred percent.
And I think he's probably done so said some other
things that I agree with too.

Speaker 4 (54:37):
But the end of the.

Speaker 3 (54:38):
Day, you know, he's more liberal, very you know, very
liberal on some I mean he used to say, I
don't if he still believes this that you know, if
you deny climate change, you should go to jail, things
like that. So it's like conservative voters, you know, they
would want those positions flushed out. And my and you
know he opposed the affirmative action ruling to say, you know,
you can't racially discriminate on that, he would have wanted

(54:59):
that to remain. So I just think at the end
of the day, you know, you need somebody that's gonna
reflect the values of the broad coalition. Yes, the medical stuff,
I'm very good on that, So that does appeal to me,
But there's a whole host of other things that he'd
probably be out of step with and so on that regard.
It's like, okay, if you're president, you know, sick him
on the FDA if he'd be willing to serve or

(55:20):
sick him on CDC. But in terms of being veep,
if there's you know, seventy percent of the issues that
he may be averse to our base on, you know,
that just creates an issue.

Speaker 1 (55:29):
You're gonna stick with the Bucks now the Brady's.

Speaker 4 (55:30):
Going, I will, but my son is, uh, he's gonna
stay with the Jacks.

Speaker 3 (55:34):
He'sa Jags and you know, he also is interested in
going to a Dolphins game at some point. So I
think Dolphins gonna be pretty good too. So you're gonna
have You're gonna have two teams that I think there's
gonna be a lot of excitement about.

Speaker 4 (55:45):
And I'll just grin and beart.

Speaker 3 (55:46):
Look, I was a Bucks fin when they had the
orange uniforms, and so I don't know that.

Speaker 4 (55:49):
They're gonna do great next year, but we're good in
the day.

Speaker 3 (55:52):
But I don't think it's gonna be as bad as
you know, going to that old Sombrero and having those
you know, his orange uniforms and then just getting the
ass kicked by any team that rolled in there. And
that that's the eighties and early nineties until until Tony
Dungee came. It was basically really tough sled in you
know most years for the Bucks, and then Tony kind
of got him. And then Gruden came in and put

(56:13):
him over the top for the super Bowl, which was
that was an exciting thing. We never thought that would
happen in Tampa. I can tell you that one of the.

Speaker 2 (56:19):
Big last questions for you, I think, I said last question.
One of the challenges I think that you're probably finding
when you're going out and going around.

Speaker 1 (56:26):
Is people don't know you that well.

Speaker 2 (56:28):
Right, They're trying you mentioned people now New Hampshire actually
want to meet you more than one time, right to
decide what do you wish voters knew about you that they.

Speaker 3 (56:36):
Don't well one, I mean, just my background is you know,
I'm a blue collar kid. My parents were working class.
I worked minimum wage jobs to be able to get
get into school. Do all that put myself in a
position to succeed. I ended up did earned degrees from
Yell and Harvard Law School. But I made the decision
that in a post nine to eleven world, you gotta serve,
you gotta wear the uniform. So I volunteered, volunteered to

(56:59):
serve in Iraq alongside Seal Team one, and do all
these other things. And I think it's just when you're
running for president. I think people want to know. It's like, Okay, well,
why are you doing this? Is this about you or
is about us the people? And I think my track
record kind of where I came from, my belief in
the American dream, and my you know, uh desire to
restore it a service to the country. I think they

(57:20):
can look at it and say, you know what, this
guy's in it for the right reasons. He wants to
do something by running for president. He's not trying to
be somebody by running for president.

Speaker 2 (57:30):
It's Florida Governor Ronda Santis. And people want to want
to know more about your campaign. Where should they go?

Speaker 3 (57:35):
Just go to our website at Rondiysantis dot com Rondeysantis
dot com and you can also text freedom to five one.

Speaker 4 (57:43):
Two three four five.

Speaker 1 (57:43):
Appreciate the time, Thanks, thanks for coming to Nashville. YEP.