DeSantis Campaigns In Iowa Transcript

… I think, it’s really important, that merit’s conversation here, and that is all of our friends in the media who want to preordain who the nominee of the Republican Party’s going to be. Because they’re putting polls out there, are really reflecting public opinion per se, as much as trying to shape public opinion. I asked a group earlier today in Ames, and in the group, I said, “Raise your hand if you think polls are accurate and that you should depend upon them.” How about you guys? Yeah, I got the same response, right? I mean that’s the reality. Remember 2016, they all said, “Watch the polls.” That didn’t turn out so well, right? The polls weren’t accurate. It might be a sore subject. I know it’s a sore subject for the governor of Florida State, but I’m a University of Texas Law School alum, we were ranked 11 preseason. Now we’re in the semifinals, right? I mean, so if you went by the polls, we wouldn’t be there.

(00:54)
But the fact is you play the game for a reason, right? And you guys are the ones who get to decide this. That’s the important part. It’s not going to be the polls. You decide. We don’t anoint people in this country. We don’t coordinate the people. We choose our leaders in a Republican form of government. And this process, you guys are actually the bedrock, the foundation of this Republican form of government, because you are going to set the stage for America by sending Ron DeSantis out as the Republican nominee. And that’s what we’re here to do.

(01:28)
Now, I am proud to be a friend of Governor DeSantis. I’m proud to support Governor DeSantis, but I think it’s important to know why. When I was in Congress, I was Ted Cruz’s chief of staff and Governor DeSantis was a congressman. And before the Freedom Caucus existed, we were meeting in the basement of a place called Tortilla Coast where we were conspiring to figure out how we were going to take this country back. Before President Trump was running on draining the swamp, we were up there trying to work on figuring out how to take on the establishment in Washington and set the stage for a lot of what we’ve seen over the last 10 years, where we’re trying to transform. Some of the stuff you saw last year unfolding in the speaker’s fight on the floor of the House in trying to transform the House of Representatives to actually reflect you all.

(02:19)
That’s what’s been going on up there. And Governor DeSantis has been in the thick of that from the very beginning, as a member of Congress, standing against these [inaudible 00:02:26], voting against big spending bills, standing up for strong border security measures. Like for example, in 2018, it was Governor DeSantis and the Freedom Caucus who, with all due respect to the former president who I supported in 2020, he was standing up alongside with the Freedom Caucus to stop a bad deal that Paul Ryan was putting forward and that President Trump blessed. There was an amnesty first, not border security first bill. Those things matter over time.

(02:54)
I give the president, former president, a lot of credit where it’s due, but there are things that merit focus, right? Can we win next November? Will we have an enormous majority if he’s the nominee? I think if Governor DeSantis is the nominee, guess what? He can perform nationally like he did in Florida where he won by a million and a half votes. Would any of you have guessed that a Florida governor could have won by a million and a half votes if I’d asked you say four years ago? Yet he did.

(03:20)
Now keep this in mind. How many, are you aware that we have a little border problem going on in Texas? Well, I make light of it by saying a little border problem but it could not be more serious. However bad do you think the border is, it’s worse. Truly. 300,000 encounters in November. 300,000 encounters projected in December, and these are supposed to be the slow months. We’ve got border patrol agents that I talked to on the phone, they’re overwhelmed, they don’t know what to do. They literally, they’re just… we had 20-something thousand people in one facility in Eagle Pass. They’re just being overrun. Thousands more marching up. Selfies being taken, posted online, sent back home, and more are coming because we’re not enforcing the law and we haven’t changed the law.

(04:05)
There are consequences to the failure to actually, that have been happening over time. All of the leaders that have gone to Washington before, who have failed us, I should be blunt, failed us. That’s why we’re $34 trillion in debt. That’s why our borders are wide open. That’s why we’re dealing with the issues we’re dealing with. Inflation, higher price of goods, all the things that are hurting hardworking families.

(04:27)
So now go back to last September, talking about the border. What did Governor DeSantis do last September, do you remember? He sent a plane full of illegal aliens on a plane to Martha’s Vineyard. Fundamentally transformed the election. Republicans were spiraling and suddenly the American people said, “Wait, somebody with a backbone, somebody who will stand up and fight for us.” And guess what happened? We held on, we won the House.

(04:52)
But here’s the important part that you need to know. All of the people who are part of the establishment… with all due respect to a certain governor from South Carolina who tends to saddle up with the Chamber of Commerce and the Wall Street Journal crowd in New York, spent a whole bunch of money here running ads in Iowa against Governor DeSantis, who didn’t think it was a good idea to send that plane load to Martha’s Vineyard. Because they said, “Oh, that’ll turn off Hispanic voters.” What percentage of the Hispanic vote do you think Governor DeSantis got in Florida? 62%. You know why? Because all Americans, regardless of their skin color, want a country that is secure. They want a community that’s secure. They want a sovereign nation. They want the rule of law enforced. That’s why people come here. People come to the United States for the rule of law.

(05:36)
So let’s just get to the plain facts. I support Governor DeSantis because he’s a man who will do what he said he would do. How many of you know Jim Jordan? He campaigns on that and talks about it all the time. That’s what we tried to do in the Freedom Caucus. Governor DeSantis will do what he said he would do. Governor DeSantis delivers. He’s delivered for the people of Florida. He’s delivered strong opportunity, economy, growth, strong communities, stood by the police when all of the country was running away from the cops in 2020 and let our streets burn.

(06:06)
He has stood up against illegal immigration. He’s helped Texas. He sent the National Guard to Texas. He’s helped pass laws in Florida to make sure that we remove illegal aliens, that we check IDs. He stood up against Disney. He took on the woke establishment, he took on the higher education establishment and he won. And importantly, most importantly of all, the biggest distinction between him and President Trump, he stood up to Anthony Fauci and all the people that shut down the greatest economy in the history of the world and that has left us with $8 trillion in debt.

(06:40)
If there is one reason, and one reason alone, to support Governor DeSantis, it was because that man was standing on the wall defending us against that tyranny and against Anthony Fauci, something that former President Trump will never acknowledge that that was a mistake. He was standing up fighting for our freedom, giving us a glimmer of hope when we desperately needed it.

(06:59)
I’m so proud to support Governor DeSantis. As I said, my 14-year-old son and 12-year-old daughter, they’re on the campaign trail with me. 11 years ago I had Stage 3 Hodgkin’s lymphoma. My daughter was four months old, my son was less than two years old. And through my saint of a wife and MD Anderson, a lot of prayer, faith in the Lord, came out cancer free. But you know what? I got through that and I said, “I’m going to devote my life to trying to save this country for them, for my kids and my grandkids.” I don’t take this lightly, right? And I go out and I say, “I support Governor DeSantis.” And a whole bunch of the world, and MAGA world is saying, “Chip Roy needs to resign. He needs to be primaried.” You know what? I’m not going to bow down to the altar of people who say that I have to listen to people and kiss the ring. I’m going to stand up alongside a man that wore the uniform of this country, who stood up in the… That’s right.

(07:47)
A man who’s a proud husband, a proud father, a good man who served his country, wore the uniform and has proudly served as the governor of Florida and has been giving this country a beacon of hope. And that’s what he will do as President of the United States. And I’m very glad to be campaigning at the same time alongside my friend, the governor of Oklahoma. Governor Stitt is an extraordinary governor. What they’ve been able to do there, like Governor Reynolds here in Iowa, and like Governor DeSantis in Florida, to stand up and protect life, to pass strong pro-life legislation. But also a strong economy, cutting the debt, cutting deficits, passing strong DEI measures, or enforcing them through executive orders as the governor might tell you about that he’s done in Oklahoma. There is a reason that strong conservative governors, that are standing up against the tide of wokeism, are lining up alongside Governor DeSantis. So with that it is my honor to welcome the governor of Oklahoma.

Thank you. Thank you so much. Man, it’s so good to be in Iowa with you. I get to do so many cool things as governor. My wife and I, Sarah, we’ve been married for 25 years. We have six children and just won second term, just like Governor DeSantis, we came in at the same time.

(09:14)
But my son just joined the army and we’re so proud of him. My wife and I, we went to his swearing in ceremony. And when you swear into the army, you promise to obey the President of the United States to defend the constitution from all enemies foreign and domestic. And here’s my 18-year-old son, because he was also joining the Oklahoma National Guard, with his hand in the air. He promises to obey the commands of the governor of the state of Oklahoma. I had no idea it’s going to make me a better parent, but oh. So I’ve been wearing him out ever since, “Go polish my boots, soldier, and go wash my truck.” And he’s been rolling his eyes at his dad.

(09:56)
But man, why am I here? I came up because I believe in Ron DeSantis. I watched how he led through Covid. And you don’t know what a beat down that was for governors, for leaders all over the country, how much pressure was on us. I was one of the few governors in the country that refused to do a mask mandate statewide. Guess who the other governor was? Governor Ron DeSantis. He just thinks like we do. I mean, he never backs down. I’ve seen him lead and I know the congressman kind of went through some of the things that he did, but he believes in securing the borders. And that’s something that I want for my kids, for my grandkids. He’s going to do that day one in office and he’s going to secure our southern border. We need that done.

(10:46)
As far as we mentioned DEI, school choice, we just passed school choice in Oklahoma and I know Governor Reynolds did that here. And we’re all following the lead of Florida, Governor DeSantis doing that. Because here’s what I tell Oklahomans, “School choice should not be just for the rich, it should be for every single family.” And so now we have a refundable tax credit in Oklahoma where a parent can now send their kids to the school of their choice.

(11:12)
And that is so, so important for us as parents because if any of you were governor and you had to talk to the single moms, the single dads that would tell you, “Hey governor, I don’t know what I’m going to do if my son is getting into the wrong crowd or they have low ACT scores.” But now they have the opportunity to have more school options. I think that’s so important. Pushing back on some of the other woke agendas, something that DeSantis, we’ve been following his lead, and when he gets and becomes the President of the United States, he absolutely… well, first off, he can beat Joe Biden, and we need someone there that could be there for eight years.

(11:52)
As governor, you don’t know how important that is. Because if you get someone there that can only be there for four years, you’re like a lame duck in day one. It takes a while to get the momentum and get your team together and get those hires done. We have to get somebody to get there and be there for eight years.

(12:11)
So I’m up here from Oklahoma today. It’s such an honor to be in Iowa and hanging out with my friend Governor DeSantis, who I think is a generational leader and I think he’s somebody that we need as the next President of the United States. And so it’s my honor to introduce and bring up Governor Ron DeSantis, the next President of the United States.

Thank you. Hello. Great to be back in Dubuque. Thank you all. Thanks for coming. We appreciate it. Thanks governor for being here. Thanks Chip for being here. We are closing in on Christmas. I hope everyone’s got great plans and I want to wish you all a merry Christmas. We’re going to be able to get back to Florida with the kids, and I think I’ve done most of the shopping that I need. I got to check in with Santa on a few more things, but we managed to make it all work and we’re looking forward to being able to take some time together as a family. I hope you’re able to do that as well.

(13:14)
Look, we’re less than a month away from the Iowa Caucus. I know that the media thinks they should be able to tell you who wins, or the pundits, but actually you get to decide. You get to make a judgment about how to change this country for the better. And I’m confident that with me as your candidate, you’re going to get eight years of strong conservative leadership and we are going to reverse the decline of this country. We’re going to give this country a new birth of freedom.

(13:45)
And you know that I can do that because I’m the one that’s done it. I’m the only one running who’s delivered on a hundred percent of his promises. Everything I promised I would do as governor I have delivered on. I’m also the only one that’s running that has beaten the left on issue after issue. You look around in Washington, a lot of these Republicans get steamrolled. Many other states across the country, the left steamrolls. In Florida, we took them on and we won big victories. We beat the teacher’s unions on school choice and have universal school choice now. We beat Fauci on Covid and Florida’s doing as good as it ever has done because we were open and free. We beat George Soros on crime by removing two radical left prosecutors who are letting people get away with crimes. We beat the Democrats on election integrity. We have universal voter ID, a ban on ballot harvesting and a ban on Zuckerbucks. And as a result, Florida has the most secure elections in the country.

(14:50)
And we beat the Democrats by banning China from purchasing land in the state of Florida. No farmland, no land near military bases, none of that. We’re putting our people first, regardless of what Wall Street or other interests say about that. So we fought for people, we’ve won for people and we’ve led the state and we will lead this country.

(15:16)
And leadership is not about entertainment. It’s not about showmanship. It’s about setting forth a vision. It’s about being willing to navigate through all the distractions, all the people that are going to be against you, the bureaucrats, the media, the Democrats, all that. Keeping that compass set on true north and delivering big results for the American people.

(15:37)
I’m not running on my issues, I’m running on your issues. I’m not running about re-litigating the past. I’m running about, I’m running for this country’s future and you deserve a president that’s going to give a hundred percent of his attention to you, your family, and the future of this country. That’s what I’ll do and that’s how we win. If we’re focused in the election, laser-focused on holding Biden accountable, on showing that we have a positive vision going forward, we are going to win the election. The election becomes a referendum on what happened years ago and all these other things that the media loves to talk about. That is going to let the Democrats get away with it. That’s what they want. They want to be able to hide Biden in the basement or whoever they end up running. It may be somebody else that they had. I debated Gavin Newsom from California because I figured, heck, he may be the candidate. Who knows, right?

(16:28)
But that’s how you lose when they’re able to define it that way. So we got to be smart about all this stuff and we know what we got to do and we will do it. We’re going to restore the American dream in this country. People are going to be able to work hard and get ahead. You’re not going to be wrecked with the inflation and the interest rates. We’re going to open up all energy for production, to lower gas prices and energy prices so that we’re energy independent. We’ll never go hat in hand to Venezuela or Saudi Arabia begging for energy. We’re going to produce it here in the United States.

(17:07)
We’re going to take Bidenomics, the rules, the regulations, the executive orders, we’re going to take it out and we’re going to throw it in the trash can on day one. We’re going to make sure people can get ahead, small businesses. We want the economy to do well. We’re going to fight the big spenders in Congress. You are paying higher prices for everything because people in Congress, in both parties, borrowed, printed and spent trillions and trillions of dollars since March of 2020 with really no regard for any type of fiscal responsibility. And DC’s done very well under that, but you’re having to pay the bill in the form of high interest rates and high prices. We’re going to fight back against that.

(17:47)
In Florida, not only did we cut taxes, we ran budget surpluses and I paid down almost 25% of our state’s total outstanding debt just since I’ve been governor in 2019.

It can be done, but we need leadership. We also need reform in Washington. We need term limits for members of Congress, a balanced budget amendment for the Constitution and a line item veto for the president. I, as governor, I can veto individual court projects out of the budget and I vetoed more than any governor. In Washington, they can’t do that, but it’s like why should your money be sent to promote transgenderism in Bangladesh? It makes no sense. President’s able to take that out if you have the veto. So we’re going to work to get that. I think that’s something that’s really, really important.

(18:34)
We’re also going to make sure that our sovereignty is restored at our southern border. No more Mexican drug cartels running the border. No more invasion of millions and millions of illegal aliens. Yes, we’ll build the border wall, but we’re also going to send the military to the border to stop the invasion. And people that come illegally are going to be sent back to their home country. That’s what the law requires and that’s what we’re going to do. And we’re going to hold the Mexican drug cartels accountable for their conduct. We are not going to let them poison our people by the tens of thousands a year and get away with it anymore. We’re going to treat them as foreign terrorist organizations and we are going to authorize the use of military force to stop the drug cartels cold.

(19:25)
I’m the only veteran running for president, and I think it’s important that we revitalize our nation’s military. That means taking out the social agenda, the politics on day one. The military should be focusing on one thing, accomplishing the mission above all else, and people should be promoted in the military based on merit and based on achievement, and they shouldn’t be playing any of these political games. And so we’ll have a new day. Morale will increase, recruiting will increase, and we need to do that if we want to fortify our defenses to be able to deter and fend off the threat posed by China. I don’t want the 21st century to be a Chinese century. I want it to be an American century. We got to get strong and we got to make sure we’re doing what we’re doing to stop their ambitions.

(20:13)
I’m also going to make sure that schools in this country are educating kids, not indoctrinating kids. We’re going to protect the rights of parents.

(20:24)
We’re going to protect the rights of parents to direct the education and upbringing of their kids. We should not have things in schools. I’m a dad of a first-grader, kindergartner, pre-K three, and my wife and I believe kids should be able to go to school, watch cartoon, just be kids without having an agenda shoved down their throat. It’s wrong to teach a kindergartner that they can change their gender or to tell a third-grader that they were born in the wrong body.

(20:50)
In the state of Florida. We stood up for the kids and we ensured that’s not happening, including going toe to toe with our most powerful company. Disney. And a lot of people said, well, Disney’s opposed that no one can stand up to them. But I didn’t take an oath to support and defend a woke corporation based in Burbank, California. I took an oath to defend the people I represented. We stood for our kids. We stood for our parents. It was the right thing to do, and you can expect nothing less of me as President of the United States. We’ll put the kids first.

(21:23)
We’re also going to ensure that whether you live in a red state or a blue city, that criminals are held responsible for their crimes. We’re not going to let inmates run the asylum. We’re not going to just sit by and let these rogue prosecutors refuse to enforce the law in cities like Los Angeles and Philadelphia. Every American family should have the right to raise their kids in peace and security. And we need to restore the rule of law in this country from sea to shining sea. And we need to stand up and defend the men and women who serve and law enforcement. And I’ll be a president that will do that, and we’ll let people know that we appreciate their risking their lives to protect the public, and that serving in law enforcement’s a noble career endeavor.

(22:12)
And finally, we’re going to restore the Constitution as the centerpiece of our national civic life. That means a limited government that works alongside us, not an unlimited unaccountable fourth branch of government, a bureaucracy that imposes its will on us and is even weaponized against us. We’re going to end weaponization of agencies like the FBI, IRS, and Department of Justice. We are going to bring a reckoning for the agencies involved in the disastrous COVID-19 lockdown policies like CDC, FDA and NIH, so that it never happens. So this country, again, we’re going to make sure that this government has returned to its rightful owners, which is we the American people.

(22:54)
And there’s going to be a lot more that we do. But if we just do all those things, we’ll be able to say that we have restored America to what President Reagan called a shining city on a hill, that we will have turned her over stronger, freer, and more prosperous than what we inherited. And we have no choice. We’re in jeopardy of being the first generation of Americans to leave to our kids and grandkids in America less prosperous and less free than the one we inherited. And that would be breaking faith with every generation of Americans from the founding of our country to the present who always found a way to sacrifice so that future generations could have opportunities and live in freedom. And I’m motivated to run because I’m not just going to sit idly by and let that happen.

(23:42)
I see the problems in America. We all see the problems. We see the decline. There’s a lot of pessimism. But I think that the decline of this country is ultimately our choice. We have it within our capacity to choose a different path. We can choose to reverse this course. We can choose a new birth of freedom, and we can choose to usher in a revival of the American spirit. And that’s what I’m running to do and that’s what we should expect. Nothing less. And I look at my kids and my wife looks at our kids and we think we want to make sure that they have a good life here in America for the rest of their lives. But I’m also motivated by the debt of gratitude we owe to people that have sacrificed before us in previous generations.

(24:24)
I used to take a plane flight up to Washington DC and if you go into Reagan airport, one of the routes you can take takes you flush parallel to the National Mall. If you look out the left side of the plane, you see very up close views of the Lincoln Memorial, the Washington Monument, the reflecting pool, all the other monuments and even perched up on the hill, the beautiful US Capitol building. And you feel a sense of pride as an American because those symbolize the ideals and principles that have made America unique. But what I figured out after doing that trip a few times, the best monuments to our country’s values are not on the National Mall because if you looked out the right side of the plane, you looked over the Potomac River, you saw a series of small nondescript monuments orderly arranged over the rolling hills of a place called Arlington National Cemetery. And it occurred to me then, and I believe now you can have the best constitution in the world. You can have the best declaration of independence in the world.

(25:21)
These things do not run on autopilot. They require every generation of Americans to step up and defend freedom when it’s threatened and sometimes even put on a uniform, risk your life and give the last full measure of devotion for service to this country. Now, we’re not called upon to make sacrifices of that nature, but what we are called upon to do is to preserve what George Washington called the Sacred Fire of Liberty. This is a fire that burned at a cemetery in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania when a first Republican president pledged this nation to a new birth of freedom. It’s a fire that burned on the beaches of Normandy when a merry band of brothers stormed France defeated Nazi Germany and preserved liberty throughout the world. It’s a fire that burned at the foot of the Berlin Wall in 1987 when a resolute Republican president stood in front of that wall and said, “Mr. Gorbachev tear down this wall,” and eventually led to the collapse of the Soviet Union.

(26:19)
This is our responsibility to carry that torch and to preserve that sacred fire of liberty. It’s not a responsibility I shy away from. It’s a responsibility that I welcome. It’s a responsibility we should all welcome, but we have a chance to play a key role in the future of this nation. So I guarantee you, if you go support me on Caucus night, you will propel me to the nomination. We will get the job done in the election up and down the ballot. As a leader, I’ll always conduct myself in a way you can be proud of. And as your president, I can promise you this, I will not let you down. Thank you you all for coming. God bless. We’ll take some questions. We’re happy to take some questions. Yes, sir.

So several governors sent their military militia, National Guard at the border, didn’t seem to make a difference. Why was that?

So the question is is, so governors including me, have sent National Guard to help Texas at the border, yet you still have people pouring in. The reason why is because the federal government does not allow states to enforce immigration law. If states tried to do it, if national guards were deporting people, they would go to court and the courts would most likely rule for the federal government. When I’m president, it’s going to be the opposite. We’re going to empower states to enforce immigration law. If someone comes across the Texas border, Texas should be able to send them back. There shouldn’t be a two-year court process that happens. So we are going to deputize those states and local governments to be able to assist. It’s one thing to say the federal government has immigration policy and a state can’t frustrate the enforcement of the law. But what courts have done, totally wrongly, is say that if the federal government’s not enforcing the law, that somehow the state being faithful to the law, that that’s a violation. And that’s wrong. But that is what the courts have done.

(28:18)
So I think that’s the root of the problem. But there’s going to be a change in policy on January 20th, 2025. We’re obviously going to declare it to be a national emergency from the federal perspective and mobilize resources, but we are also going to have states there working with us to stop this invasion. And there’s been a lot of talk about this border by Republicans for many, many years, and yet it’s as bad as ever. I’ll be the President to finally bring this issue to a conclusion. We will have the border locked up and secured, and you will never have the drug cartels running wild in our country ever again.

I won’t take too much time, I just want to add one point to that. As a Texan whose district that I represent, the Southwest corner is about a hundred miles from the border, about a hundred miles from Eagle Pass. Where this crisis is reaching a fever pitch at the moment. And what the governor says is exactly right. All of the National Guard support that we’re getting, and we thank the governors who’ve done that, all the action we’ve taken to Texas, our own Texas Department of Public Safety, we’ve mobilized them all to the border. They’re not on our streets as much up in the state. They’re down at the border helping. We have spent 12 and a half billion dollars in Texas over the last two, three years to try to do what the federal government is not doing. How big is that as a part of the budget of Oklahoma?

Yeah, that’s the whole budget of Oklahoma.

And so we’ve spent that and we’ve gotten some help for our ranchers and we’ve done some good stuff and Governor Abbott should be applauded. But to answer your question, as long as we have a lawless president, and we have a lawless president and administration, that will not enforce the laws of the United States and they’ll just release people, then we have what we have. We have 300,000 encounters in November, 300,000 in December. Think about this, there have been over 2 million got aways. Okay? Those are the people we see on camera, but we don’t even get. 2 million under the Biden regime. We have had, I think, 3 million releases. We were releasing 5,000 a day before this crisis. That number is now higher. I want you to understand this. Today, there was a woman, I think from Columbia who came through El Paso who was released into the country under asylum or parole, a total abuse of the law.

(30:37)
You know what year she was given to return for her hearing on asylum? 2031. That’s a true story. That’s what’s happening at your border. They are abusing asylum and parole laws to release people to the United States. They’re taking selfies at the border, they’re sending it around the world, and more people are coming. That’s why you got to have executive leadership that will stop that under emergency executive powers, but also force Congress to do its job to pass laws to make sure that this can never happen again. Which with all due respect, we didn’t do in 2018 when the former president was in the White House and we had control of the House and the Senate. We cannot let those opportunities pass us ever again. Governor DeSantis will not let that happen.

…Election night. So elections don’t drag on for days and weeks… Results.

Oh yeah. So in Florida, we produce all the election results on the night of the election. We know how many ballots have been tasked. They’re counted and they report the results in a transparent fashion and people move on and accept the outcome. And I think when you have these other states that take days and even weeks to count the ballots, you just wonder, okay, well one candidate is winning the day after the election and then a week later the lead shifts. That doesn’t inspire confidence. People look at that and they say, what’s going on? So we’ve come a long way in Florida. I think we have a model of how this can work. Now, not every state has done that. And so, what I’m telling folks is I’m going to have the plan. We’re going to have a plan implemented in all these key states to navigate the different election laws.

(32:24)
I am not going to fight with one hand tied behind my back. If they’re ballot harvesting in Nevada, we’re going to do that. If they’re doing the Zucker bucks, we’re going to do that. I’m going to utilize every lever at our disposal to ensure that we’re maximizing the performance of myself and other Republican candidates. And I think that Republicans have complained about some of the election stuff, but basically the Democrats, they just go ahead and they just run with it. We can’t have two different approaches. We’ve got to utilize every lever we have to be able to maximize our vote. That’s what I’ve done in Florida, and that’s what I’ll do nationally.

The best way to do that though is to change the laws, do what we need to do, what the governor just said. But it is also to make sure we have a candidate who will win by so many votes that we’re not worried about counting 12 votes in Maricopa County or in Fulton County or Miami-Dade. We want to win nationally, like the governor, did by a million and a half votes in Florida. That’s how you can guarantee victory and a wave and a house in the Senate that will stand up for you.

Recently I heard that the Colorado Supreme Court has said that Trump cannot be on the ballot. Can you speak to that?

Yeah. So the question is, there was the Colorado Supreme Court, I guess issued a decision yesterday saying that Trump was ineligible to be on the Colorado ballot due to violating the 14th amendment, which was passed after the Civil War that said people that had been involved in rebellions or insurrections are not eligible to run for office unless, or hold office, unless two thirds of Congress grants them a waiver. The problem with it is that there’s never been any finding by any trial that he was guilty of that. So I think it’s going to get reversed by the US Supreme Court, and I think that that’s true. But I think that also just the larger issue is the left is, just they are not going to quit. Right? So this is just the appetizer of what’s going to happen in 2024 if Trump is the candidate.

(34:29)
You look at all this stuff at the law fair and all the stuff that’s been done. It’s not fair. Is it politically motivated? Yes. Are these agencies out of control? Alvin Bragg, and yes. But here’s the deal. The Democrats have a plan here. This is what they want. They want him to be the candidate, and then they’re going to run this playbook all through 2024 and the whole election’s going to end up being a referendum on this trial or conviction or whatever happens between now and then and that gives the Democrats their best chance to be able to get away with it.

(35:01)
So I think we have the best chance when the election is about not the candidate, but about you, about the failures of Biden, about how we take this country in a better direction. So just the Democrats have a plan here. They’ve been executing it, and they’re going to continue to do it all through 2024. And my fear is is that it’s likely to be effective for a variety of reasons. So we have, a chance guy like me, I can fix all of this as president. I can deal with all this stuff. I think in a way that’ll be really, really good. But we got to win and we got to be able to get in there.

(35:43)
Yes.

I have a question for major universities… how long professors [inaudible 00:35:57]-

The question is about-

[inaudible 00:36:01].

Question’s about ideological indoctrination in universities. Well, one, I’m the only guy running that’s ever done anything about this. Trump was president four years. He never did anything about this, even though he had a lot of levers at his disposal with the accreditation and things that the federal government gets its approval for. In Florida, we now have all tenured professors must undergo review every five years and can be let go for poor performance. And basically, we want universities to be focused on the search for truth. We want it to be focused on preparing students to be citizens of a republic. We do not want universities to be about ideological indoctrination. And so if they’re acting that way, then we move on. And the media, because our universities have processed some of these professors out, and they’ll say, “Oh, there’s professors leaving. It’s a brain drain.” I just think to myself, if Marxist professors are leaving Florida, that is good for Florida. That is not bad for Florida.

(37:05)
But one of the things that we did, I know Iowa’s done, I know Kevin just did in Oklahoma, is in our universities, we eliminated this DEI. This is kind of like the left’s new hobbyhorse. It’s their way to impose ideology. They say it’s diversity, equity, and inclusion, but in reality, it’s discrimination, exclusion, and indoctrination. And that doesn’t have a place in our public institution. So we said no in Florida, but it’s in corporate America, it’s in the federal government, and it’s obviously in a lot of the private universities. So that’s a good thing to be able to do. Well, one thing we can do federally is the accreditation regime. We can overhaul that. Part of the reason these universities are doing what they’re doing is because the accrediting bodies tell them they have to do this. Who are these accrediting bodies? Nobody knows where they came from. They’re just kind of there. The federal government’s approve them to be accreditors and they’ll typically have an ideological bend.

(38:03)
So we’re going to have different accreditors and it’s going to really shape, I think, how these universities go. But you look at the sickness in Harvard and some of these places with what’s happened since the Israel, the attack on Israel, it’s really, really disturbing to see. And I don’t want your tax dollars going to institutions that are promoting anti-Americanism and teaching people to not like this country. So we’ve got a lot to do in terms of overhauling that, but if we don’t get that right, it’s going to continue to cause problems in this country.

This means our for leaders [inaudible 00:38:40].

Oh, I know.

Governor Sid, you have a DEI success.

Yeah, I’ll touch on that. But also, whether it’s border, whether it’s election integrity, whether it’s getting DEI out of our classrooms, higher education, you got to have somebody that can get the job done and you’ve got to have a leader that’s not afraid to push back. And I’m telling you, I’ve seen a lot of leaders. That’s what we’re seeing in Governor DeSantis. I’ve watched how he did it with all the pressure. There’s always reasons not to do something, but it takes a real leader to move it forward. And that’s why I’m just so excited for a DeSantis presidency, because he will get the job done. He doesn’t back down.

(39:18)
Who takes on Disney, right? The biggest, most powerful corporation in your state. Okay. Only real leaders and guys that aren’t afraid. We all know what to do. Okay. We can sit down at your kitchen tables and we know the solutions here. It’s not to release someone, sneak in across the border and give them a piece of paper that says, come back in 2031. Is that what you said, Congressman?

Yeah.

We know what to do. Can we get somebody in the White House that will actually do it? And that is why we have to get DeSantis across the finish line, because he’ll get it done.

Governor, I’m a retired Navy Chief, I have a question for you. China and Russia are the biggest security threats for our country. What’s on your mind, sir, day one in the Oval Office?

So the question’s on national security. Our top threat in terms of foreign threats is China and the Chinese Communist Party. They have, and a lot of this is because of US policy, they’ve grown wealthier over the last 20, 30 years. They’ve built up their military, they have ambitions. Certainly Xi Jinping has ambitions for the Indo-Pacific, not just with Taiwan, but beyond Taiwan. And if they’re able to surpass us economically and militarily, they will use that power to shape the world and their authoritarian image. And that will impact this country in a really, really profound way. And I think Iran and Russia and some of these others, I think they’re derivative of China because China’s really the benefactor. If you don’t get China right, the rest probably aren’t going to matter. If you get China right, everything else becomes manageable.

(41:03)
China, you need hard power in the Indo-Pacific. As a Navy guy, we need more naval power there to be able to deny their ambitions, not just vis-a-vis Taiwan, but getting out of the first island chain. Economically, we cannot be dependent on them for things that are really integral to our way of life, whether it’s pharmaceuticals, whether it’s things for military, weaponry, whether it’s things that we would need in an emergency. Like during Covid, we had all the medical supplies over there. And that’s just going to require smart decision making to be able to bring that stuff back to the United States. And then we got to combat their influence here at home. I banned China from buying land in our state. I kicked out the Confucius Institutes from our universities where they’re spewing propaganda. We need to be doing that all across this country.

(41:52)
They should not be controlling our farmland. They should not be perched with land near a military base or other critical infrastructure. So understanding the role that they’ve played here domestically and fighting back on that, I think is really, really important. But it is going to require a change in outlook from where Biden is and really for past presidents, to recognize that, that part of the world with China is our foremost concern. Because we’ve got to get that one right and I will get that job done.

(42:25)
Yes?

Governor, as president, what will you do to help women in unintended pregnancies and their unborn children to have a choice for life?

Well, great question. You need to be pro-life after birth, and sometimes conservatives don’t talk about that. We’ve done a lot in Florida to do things, and we have responsibility to work with local and states to promote that and to support the kids. And there’s a lot of things that we’ve done in Florida. One thing I’ve done, especially as inflation kicked up, we made all baby items tax-free in the state of Florida. Food, baby food, formula, cribs, diapers, strollers, you name it, tax-free. And if you think about all the stuff that you have to buy, it adds up. So we’ve saved a lot of folks a lot of money. We also, with having Universal school choice, I think provides low-income families and particularly single mothers with an ability to be able to get a really good education for their kids. And I think that that’s something that’s really, really important.

(43:30)
And then my wife pioneered a program called Hope Florida where, and it’s not limited to mothers with children who are low income, but that’s the primary, I think, beneficiary. Someone goes in to get support from the government. Instead of just handing a check and they kind of come back, they’re able to plug in their needs to what’s called a care portal, which has churches linked into it, charities, businesses, volunteers, you name it. So say, well, there’s a mother that has two six-month-old twins and she just got evicted from her apartment. She needs help. Before the government can even think about what they’re going to do. A lot of times you’ll have a church come help do it. And when those people in the community get involved, they usually never go back for government assistance again. They’re on a pathway to self-sufficiency. So understanding the limits of what government can do, and understanding government facilitating these connections to people that want to be helpful, oftentimes is more successful than having people continue to rely on the government.

(44:36)
Yeah?

First off, you’re doing a great job in Florida, so thank you so much. And you as well in Oklahoma. Both your states have legalized medical marijuana, and Iowa to some extent is also a legalized medical marijuana. In Florida, it’s a really restrictive program where only several companies own the entire rights. One of those companies, Acreage Holdings, which is backed by John Boehner and Will Weld, sold that company for $60 million to a Canadian company. What will you do to prioritize the rights of citizens and their access to medicine as opposed to foreign entities?

Well, so Florida, actually, so this was done by constitutional amendment in 2016, I think, or 2014 or ’16, I think ’16. And it set out the number of licenses. And so there’s just been an increase in licenses. So I think that that’s going to actually change as more people are coming into the market. And look, how much of that is medicinal, versus how much of it is that’s the pretext for it? I don’t know, but it is in our constitution and so that’s what’s being done. But I think as a general matter, which is programs, you want there to be open field and competition that’s going to make it better for consumers, that’ll make it better for taxpayers. Yes?

Middle East is of utmost concern at the moment, what can be done there and what would you do?

So the question’s on the Middle East. Well, why are we in this situation? There’s a lot of reasons, but one of the main reasons is because Biden went soft on the Iranians. You do not give them sanctions relief. You do not let them get oil revenue. You’ve got to clamp down on that so that they’re hemorrhaging money. Because when they get money into the regime, they put it into Hamas and Hezbollah and other places around the Middle East to be able to promote terrorism. So we will have a much different posture towards the Iranians, particularly with respect to imposing really strong financial restrictions on their ability to get money going into their coffers to sell oil and whatnot. I actually, in Florida, after the attacks, we did a special session of our legislature and we passed an expanded package of state-based Iran sanctions.

(47:06)
So we’re just one state of 50. But if we were our own country, I think we’d be the 13th biggest economy in the world. So it isn’t for nothing that we did that. And our philosophy on it is even some of these private companies, ultimately the regime has the ability to get its mitts into that money. And we just don’t want see money ending up in the hands of the Molas, because we know it’s going to end up being plowed of the terrorism. So that’s one thing. Second, on the Hamas, Israel, we need to support Israel’s right to defend itself. They cannot live with a terrorist group right across the border that wants to have a second Holocaust. It just doesn’t work. I think down in Florida, if we were getting rockets fired from The Bahamas to Fort Lauderdale, we would level, we would never ever accept that. It would be flatten the people. Wherever that was coming from would just be flattened. We would never expect our people to live under a hail of rockets. And yet that’s what Israel has been expected to live with for years and years and years, culminating of course in a brutal terrorist attack on October 7th. And so I think that we’ve got to just support them for them to be able to get the job done. But if Israel is strong, the Iranians are weak, this whole Hamas thing is going to have to pass. But there was teed up a possibility of having a peace deal between Israel and Saudi Arabia. And if that were to happen, that would be very positive for that region. Because the whole Arab-Israeli conflict would effectively be over outside the general vicinity of Israel.

(48:44)
I know there’s issues with Palestinian Arabs, but to have UAE, Bahrain, Egypt, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia, they’re all under recognizing Israel and under peace agreements, that’s a big deal. Now people, they actually can fly over Saudi airspace now. They used to not be able to do that. So there’ve been a lot of things that have been done to develop a relationship. But I think this whole Hamas thing has made it tough for them to do any type of deal right now, but maybe in the future. This should have been done a long time ago, but I do think it will get done eventually.

Add one point to that, which is specifically to Iran. Just put an exclamation point on that. You heard a lot about the $6 billion that was sitting over there at Qatar, and we should absolutely freeze that and get it back for us and for Israel. But importantly, they don’t talk about the media and talk about the 30 or 40 billion that is flowing into Iran, because of the waivers that this administration is put forward on the restrictions we previously had in place on Iran being able to sell oil to China, drones to Russia. And that’s what they’re doing, they’re profiting the 30 to $40 billion, then they’re sending that money to Hezbollah, to Hamas, directly to challenge Israel, directly in opposition to our national security interest.

(50:02)
That’s a major issue in this administration, but it’s not just there. I want to give a lot of credit. Obviously the Trump administration did great things with the Abraham Accords, standing alongside Israel, moving the embassy. But the ambassador to the UN, Governor Haley, what was going on there with respect to United Nations funding. We’ve been giving $12.5 billion to the United Nations, while they’re sending money through UNRA, to the Palestinians in Hamas, that they’re now using to go after Israel. You got to stop this stuff. You got to have leadership in place and a president that will tell everybody working for the president, “This is how this is going to be and we’re going to stop it. We’re going to stop funding our enemies. We’re going to stop giving money to the people who are actually trying to harm us.” And Governor DeSantis will do that. And I know you also have strong feelings about reasserting the Navy down right now in the shipping channels.

Oh, yeah. No, for sure. What’s going on with the Houthis and stuff, we’ve got to make sure the sea lanes are open. But I will defund the United Nations. Your tax dollars should not go there. It’s such a farx of an organization. It’s antisemitic and all this, and we’ve just got to stop. We’ve got to stop doing it. We’ve got to be smart.

(51:07)
Yes?

You thought about trying to recover any of that military equipment left in Afghanistan?

Question’s about the military equipment left in Afghanistan. Obviously, that was humiliating for our country. Billions of dollars worth of equipment. I don’t know what the prospects would be, quite frankly, to get that back. I’d have to get a briefing on it, but I clearly would not have left all that there in the first place. I think that was a huge, huge blunder, a huge mistake. And that will end up being used against the United States. No question, that will happen.

(51:40)
Yes?

If you are president, are you to press charges against Biden and make sure he pays for what he’s done.

So the question is on holding Biden accountable for what he’s done. Of course we will. One of the other candidates said that he wanted to pardon Biden. I’m like, for why would you do that? Give me a break. And so yeah, we’re going to have a single standard of justice in this country. People are not going to be able to evade accountability just because they happen to be part of the DC ruling class.

(52:15)
Yeah?

Will you continue to support Ukraine?

What’s that?

Will you continue to support Ukraine?

So here’s what we need to do with the European situation. These European countries must do their fair share, and they are not doing that. Poland is, Finland is, these Western European countries are nowhere to be found. And they’ve sent over, what, $120 billion of U.S tax dollars about? And there’s tens of billions that have gone to fund pensions for Ukrainian bureaucrats, and salaries for Ukrainian government workers, and subsidizing small businesses and agriculture over there. And I’m just thinking to myself, what is that? How is that America’s job to be doing basically social welfare in a foreign country? So that is not an appropriate use of your tax dollars.

(53:15)
I supported President Trump when he provided defensive weapons, but to do this additional money that’s going to all these other things when we have our own border that’s wide open here in the South, I just look at that and I’m like, you’ve got to be kidding me. Why aren’t we defending our own country? And I know they’re working on, and maybe Chip wants to talk about in the Congress, where there’s a lot of Republicans that are saying, “We’re not going to just sit here and send money all over God’s creation, while our own security and our own border is being ignored.”

The governor’s exactly right. We’re in the thick of those conversations, debates right now. In fact, two phone

Phone calls I’ve received while I’ve been sitting here have been from some colleagues on this very point, this question, which is whether or not we should give even a single dollar additionally to Ukraine at all on the merits without a clearer mission, without understanding whether this White House intends to go retake Crimea, Donbas and go east or whether there’s a different mission. We don’t have clarity on that, by the way, but that’s on the merits itself. But then more important than that is our position is under no circumstances should the word Ukraine even be mentioned on the house floor until the southern border of the United States is secure and we restore sovereignty and that safety and health and well-being to the United States period. That’s our position right now and I intend to fight for that in Washington.

With all these illegals coming across, they obviously need food, water, shelter, healthcare, cell phones. Why are we providing that? We know we are.

No, so the giving illegal aliens benefits, of course, you shouldn’t do that. That entices people to come illegally. But that’s why when people come illegally, they have to be sent back. If you don’t do that, then you are going to stress communities, emergency rooms, schools, criminal system, all this stuff, and you just get overwhelmed. You see now, New York City, they’re not happy. They were a sanctuary city, right? Now, they’re really upset that they have people coming illegally. Martha’s Vineyard, we sent 50 and they were supposed to be a sanctuary jurisdiction and they freaked out. They said “There’s no way we can handle this.”

(55:38)
I’m concerned about the drugs, I’m concerned about terrorism, I’m concerned about criminal aliens, I’m concerned about sex trafficking, all that stuff. But put all of that aside, just the sheer number, communities just can’t handle this. I hear stories all the time, and I know Chip in Texas, you go into a hospital and it’s just overflowing with foreigners who had just come across illegally. Yeah, we cannot do that. We’ve got to put the American people first and to just have massive numbers of people coming in like this, it just doesn’t work and we’re not going to stand for that when I’m president.

Relatedly, I go back to the point about funding, and having the fights over funding. Why are we funding the very entities that are undermining our well-being, our security and our sovereignty, including the NGOs, through the United Nations, through direct payments that are operating all of these entities that are encouraging people to come across the border, literally handing out road maps, how to get here, all the way, starting all the way back in the Northern Triangle up through Mexico, how to deal with it, who to talk to, find border patrol, how to stay asylum. When you go down to the Rio Grande, this was three years ago when I went down to the river, there were signs put out by our own department of Homeland Security that said, “Asilo,” asylum in Spanish, arrow, “Go this way.” When you’re basically putting out the welcome mat and saying, “Just walk on across the Rio Grande, here’s your sign, claim asylum, go this way,” I’m not making that up, I have pictures on my phone. That’s what your government is doing. We have to end that. This man, Governor DeSantis will end that.

Let’s go back to the polls for a minute. You picked up two key endorsements in Iowa, Bob Vander Plaats and Governor Reynolds. In the polls, you didn’t seem to get much in the box. Any of the bits endorsed by Senator of New Hampshire is significant. To me, that seems like the pollsters are aligning against him. How do you match?

Well, first of all, who cares about polls, right? You guys vote for a good-

(57:51)
What’s that?

People are influenced by him.

Well, I don’t know how many Republicans are influenced by him anymore because we’ve been through this so many times.

(57:59)
My own re- election, I had polls coming out saying I was losing a month before I had polls saying I was going to win by three or four, I won by 20, okay? You remember twenty-Twenty-two supposed to be a red wave, didn’t happen. But all the polls said that there was going to be. I think that a lot of this stuff, especially in Iowa, we get commit to caucus. Hopefully, some of you will sign and commit to caucus for us after this event. Hopefully some of you already have. We’ve got a massive numbers of people. 30 days out, I think we had more than anyone’s ever had at that point in a caucus. In fact, we probably had more people committed that actually show up in some of these… That doesn’t make sense.

(58:41)
I wouldn’t worry about that. I can’t control it. All I can tell you is polls are used less to reflect public opinion than to try to shape narratives and shape public opinion. That’s just the reality of the situation. You guys can shatter that by just showing up and bringing friends and family to caucus for me on January 15, that will trump everything else that’s out there. You’re going to be able to be able to totally step on any narrative the media is trying to do. That’s the thing, just as a Republican caucus goer, do you want the media to play this type of a role in choosing who the nominee should be? Or do you want to choose the person that the media doesn’t want to be the nominee?

(59:27)
Because I can tell you, they don’t want me to be the nominee because they know that I’ll win and get all this done. They don’t want to see that happen. They want Trump to be the nominee because they figure all the stuff in ’24 weigh him down and they think that gives Democrats their best chance to be able to win. I think it’s pretty apparent what they’re trying to do. The question is, is that something that you’re going to influence you in a way? I don’t think that it should, except maybe influence the other way to say, “Yeah, you know what, if they’re going after Governor DeSantis, he must be the guy that is going to be the one to turn this country around.” We will do that. I think that, and also just say with Iowa caucuses, we’ve been through this how many times where someone will be at 5% and then a month later they win the caucus mean that happens. That happens all the time, Democrat and Republican side, you’ve seen massive…

(01:00:23)
I think it’s because it’s hard to poll, but put aside an agenda, hard to poll. But then I think Iowans, they make a final decision closer to the caucus. If someone’s telling you “Who you leaning towards?” Okay, they put you in that column. In reality, if you haven’t made the final decision, you very well could come out differently. I think we’re, we continue to do support. Since Kim and Bob endorsed us, we have seen an increase in people committing to caucus. We’ve got over a thousand precinct captains throughout. We’ve organized every place here. We are doing it the way you’re supposed to do it. I think traditionally that’s how candidates have done well here. I think the candidates that rely on media pushing them and just show up and for a little bit in that they typically don’t do as well.

(01:01:09)
This is, I think, in Iowa, the Iowa electorate, you have people that are going to vote in this are conservatives, right? Trump, is he running as a conservative at this point? No, Haley, no one would even try to say she’s a conservative. We know she’s not. In terms of that, that lane is for me because produced results, you know what I’ve done, you know what I’ll do as president, and I think that’s right in line with the values of the people who are going to decide this Iowa caucus.

Last question ladies, gentlemen, we have time for one more question.

Do you think there’s a threat of Trump running third party if-

No, I don’t. No, I don’t. Yeah. Logistically, if nothing else, no, there’s not. We’ll be fine there. But I do think that the issue is you’re going to have to unify to win an election, you unify the Republicans, you try to peel off some Democrats, and then you try to win independents. If you do that, you will win the election. When I ran in Florida, we won 97% of re-registered Republicans, which is a record. We won independents by 18%. We even shaved off some Democrats. That’s the formula for success. I do think that there’s a danger with Trump as the candidate that he loses a sliver of Republicans.

(01:02:39)
He needs to get 90%. I think if he ends up with 80% independents, he’s always struggled with, and we know the Democrats are going to come out with reckless abandon against him. That’s not a formula for succeeding. Whereas I think I’d be in a better position to bring everybody together because ultimately the people that are going to caucus for Trump or vote from the primary, the policies that they want are policies I’ve already delivered on. You don’t have to worry about that. We’ve been there, done it. Okay, I’ll do one more. Yes. Yeah, go ahead.

Going back to the border [inaudible 01:03:46].

Yeah, go ahead.

I’m going to start so he can close out, and this is something I’ve been working on hard and I’m going to say something I said before about the defunding part. We just have to be very clear about what we’re doing with the federal dollars that are flowing directly and through the United Nations and other programs to these NGOs and how they’re able to use that to carry out what you just described. I think everybody here, the question is about NGOs and the illegal immigration in airports to Dallas and other places that you’ve seen it preface the bigger Catholic. It’s not a Catholic Charities issue, they are evangelical charities doing it. There’s a lot.

(01:04:19)
That’s something that’s a major problem in South Texas. It is huge. It is basically an operation that’s all set up. If you don’t know that, people come across the border, border patrol meets them, they process them in a processing facility, they take them, they deliver them to a place, put them on buses that the NGOs are basically organized and then shipping them into the country through the NGOs. That’s basically a system. It’s a systematic release into the United States. That’s what’s occurring.

(01:04:44)
You have to enforce the law. You have to stop funding the NGOs. Let me make one other point about the issue involved from a faith perspective, I think it matters to us as we’re faithful people here. It is crushing to me as a Christian that we have stash houses in Texas with little girls that are being sold into the sex trafficking trade as we speak. This administration and these policies are allowing that to occur. It is incumbent upon leaders like Governor DeSantis and us to stand up and stop that because it is about us. It is about our country. It’s about being overwhelmed. It’s about sovereignty, it’s about security, it’s about terrorists, but it’s also about those human beings being exploited by cartels. We’re allowing that to happen because of the crass political desires of the other party. It is a false theme of compassion that they’re doing it in. Governor DeSantis will stop that. We’re going to stand alongside of them to stop that, and that’s what we need to do.

Yeah, I convene partially because of that issue with the non-profits. I convene a statewide grand jury, which in Florida can investigate about all these border issues, including the role that they play. Yes, they are orchestrating people to come into this country. I can’t imagine how that would be legal under federal law, but they’re doing it and they make a boatload of money from payments from the federal government. That jury has done reports and everything and they’ve highlighted a bunch of stuff that I think is really significant. But yes, that’s got to stop federally, a hundred percent. Before we go, I just want to thank both of these guys and Republicans, I think one of the problems with our party is there’s been a lot of talk and a lot of under-delivery across the country, certainly in Washington, certainly there’s some very red states in this country that have not done a sliver of what Florida has done or Iowa or some of these other states.

(01:06:40)
With Kevin in Oklahoma, Oklahoma is one of the reddest states in the country, but before he became governor, they weren’t necessarily producing conservative policy. Now, he’s done pretty much across the board really big things for the people of Oklahoma. He talked about school choice, he’s talked about some of the DEI, a bunch of stuff that they’ve done and they’re gaining population. People moved from California there. This is an example of a Republican getting in and doing what the people expect and they want to see done instead of always just disappointing. He deserves a lot of credit for what he’s done. Then Chip, we have a lot of problems in D.C. A lot of these politicians let us down. There’s a lot of frustration and understandably so. Republicans got the house. It doesn’t seem like anything has changed. Even when we had the Senate, back in the day, it wasn’t exactly lighting the world on fire.

(01:07:35)
But we do have people that are fighting for you every day, and Chip is one of them. He is in the trenches on all these issues. He’s doing exactly what Americans want to see, whether it’s border, whether it’s dealing with the corrupt bureaucracy, you name it. He deserves a lot of credit for fighting the good fight. We just need to give him some more reinforcements after the 2024 election. That’s really important to me. In Florida, when I came in, we had a Republican legislature, but relatively narrow Senate majority. Our re-election, we swept in super majorities, two-thirds in both houses that we were able to secure.

(01:08:12)
It’s important to me in leading the ticket, I want everyone on the ticket to do well. It’s not just about me, it’s a team sport. We’re going to do that. We’re going to give these guys some more numbers to work with. We’re going to take the Senate back, and we’re going to have an opportunity to really get a lot of things done for the American people so you can make it happen with your support. God bless you. Merry Christmas. Thank you.