From the Kitchen Table: The Duffys - Q & A With The Duffys: The Best Piece Of Advice Sean Ever Received

Episode Date: June 24, 2023

Sean and Rachel reveal the best advice each of them has ever received, answer questions on how they have managed to raise nine children and give advice to others looking to improve their parenting style.   Later, they get political, answering who they think the strongest candidates are for the 2024 Presidential Election, what they think of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. challenging President Biden on the Democratic side, and how they see Republicans taking back the White House. Follow Sean and Rachel on Twitter: @SeanDuffyWI & @RCamposDuffy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Yeah, we got a lot of really great questions in today and so let's just get right to it. So this person wants to know, what's the best advice you've ever received, Sean? I would say, I don't know who gave it to me, but it's twofold. Work hard and don't be afraid to fail. That's good advice. And listen, I've had a lot of failure in my life and it's kind of embarrassing. You've never lost a campaign, Sean. Well, I tied a campaign. My first campaign I ran for city council in Hayward, Wisconsin. We tied 48 votes to 48 votes and we had to flip a coin. They flipped a coin. I thought that was the craziest thing I'd ever heard when that happened. But that's in the statute in Wisconsin. And you did lose. And I lost the coin toss. And so I never lost when that's true. But

listen, when I started trying cases, I was horrible. I got to be really good at it, but at the start, I was really bad. Yeah. I kept on going. I always thought that was surprising that you said they actually don't teach you in law school how to do a trial. That's right. I think that's the weirdest thing that I ever heard of. I usually start off really slow at what I do, and I get pretty good at it, but I would

not say I'm a quick study. It takes me time. But then once you get there- I get the good. You get there good at it, but I'm not, I would not say I'm a quick study. It takes me time. But then once you get there. I get there. I get the good. You get there good. How about you? So two, two pieces of advice.

The first one actually impacted who I married. Oh. So the first piece of advice came from my mom. And she told me that whoever you marry, make sure they're very good looking because it'll make it easier to forgive them, which is actually really great advice. And I've actually given that advice to other people. Interesting. When you're very attracted to somebody and you really love them, both things, you love them and you're attracted to them. You know, marriage involves a lot of forgiveness. I mean, every day we do things that annoy our spouses

or our spouses do things that annoy us. You never do anything that annoys me. You're perfect. And so, yeah, I think one of my better traits is I don't hold a grudge. I'm a little more of a grudge holder than you are. Yeah, that's an Irish thing. We've talked about that.

He gets annoyed when I say it's an Irish thing, but it is an Irish thing. We work on it. Sometimes Rachel doesn't live in reality either. She'll say, I'm crabby, but she isn't. I'm like, but I'll point out an example of her being crabby. And she's like, no, I'm not. I'm like, how do we?

Okay, this is about my advice. We need a judge. We need an arbiter. So it's easier to forgive you, Sean, because I think you're very cute. Thank you. You think of me when I was 27 doing Lumberjack sports. I appreciate that.

I still see you that way. Thank you. Okay. So the second piece of advice was somebody, and this one, I don't know who told me this either. And I wish I knew because it's the best advice for having a family. And they said, because, you know, it's hard when you have kids, right? Especially when they're little, they need a lot of attention, a lot of diaper changing and time.

And sometimes that can be overwhelming, especially if you have, you know, a lot of kids under the age of say six. And that has happened to us. But somebody told me, don't think about like the amount of kids you want right now at this moment, because if you do, it'll be overwhelming and you'll say, I don't want any more. Think about how many kids you want around your Thanksgiving table 20 years from now. And that is really good advice. And they're fun when they're little, but they get a lot more fun when they're older, don't they? I don't know. Four is my favorite age, so that's hard for me to answer that one. But I will say, and I've-

They have their own viewpoints. Every stage is interesting, how they develop, how they grow, the kind of conversations they have. And you're right. You can do things with a 21-year-old that you obviously can't do with little kids. And we have that whole gamut, right? Our kids are ages 23 down to three. So that's a big span.

But I think it's good advice. And I brought this up before on the podcast. When I talk to people who deal with a lot of people at the end of life, their biggest regret is not having had more kids. So again, when you're feeling overwhelmed, you think you might want to have another baby, you're wondering if you should keep going, think about how many you want around the Thanksgiving

table instead of thinking about how chaotic life is at this moment with the number of kids you have right now. I don't know if this was advice or this is ideas that you acquire later in life, but you always say, find someone that's as much like you as possible, that you share the most viewpoints with. for a partner, whether it's your faith, whether it's athletics, pastimes,

politics, all those things will make life a lot easier because you share a lot of interests and can do a lot of things together. And I think that was, that's very insightful. And I think really good advice. Yeah. And we give that advice all the time.

People ask us, should people with, um, you know, should Democrats and Republicans get married? We say no, no, that you should have the most painful. Yeah. The most interesting. I saw a poll today that says that young men are becoming more like they're comparing young men and their young men and women, their political views between now and say like the 1990s and the 1980s.

And so what they're saying, interestingly, is that young men are becoming more conservative. Young women are becoming even more liberal than the boys are becoming conservative. And that, you know, this this value set is separating and that that has implications for marriage. And I went, you bet it does. You bet it does. You bet it doesn't have to go to the extreme like if you're you have to agree on everything like if you don't want to watch the housewives i mean that i mean you can still date that person right because i don't like the housewives you do no but politics is values politics is values and and so you know there's housewives or not well yeah i hate those wives

rachel loves the housewives i love watching. It's just mindless and fun. Here's another interesting question. From your perspective, what is the biggest parenting mistake you see people making? You go first. It's really easy for me. I think overscheduling and overscheduling and not having time for dinner time, um, and family time as a result. So I see, um, so many really great, well-intentioned parents who want their kids to be in everything and, and want to expose them to everything. And in the end, I mean, listen,

there's a very small percentage of kids who will take that skill set in basketball and soccer and tennis, in lacrosse, in dance, and will end up being a superstar. And listen, just because you're not a superstar doesn't mean you shouldn't be. As a kid, you shouldn't participate in these sports. There's a lot to be gained from being in sports and team programs. But many people have overscheduled their kids and overscheduled it to the point where they don't actually get together and sit down and have dinner. And we know the benefits of having dinner are, I mean, the stat, the data on it is so clear

families who have dinner together, um, on a regular basis, you know, at least, you know, one do multiple times a week, their kids are less likely to get into trouble, have higher grades, less likely to have premarital sex, less likely to do drugs. And what it means is that you're connecting with your kids. And that's what's preventing all these other bad things from happening. Yeah. Another take on that is this is all adult structured, adult structured play in sports. And there was something about, you know, when we were growing up, at least when I was growing up and I know in generations before, it was like, what are

we doing today? The kids in the neighborhood got together and they made games and sports and they built forts. They created their own play. And one, the organization for kids to do that is really beneficial, but also the creativity that comes from entertaining yourself all summer long with the kids in the neighborhood. It's, I think, really good for little kids. And our kids are getting that. We have neighbors that live across the street, all the same ages as our kids. And they get together and do the, like they started, they decided they wanted to, they go bike riding a lot. And they noticed there's a lot of other families with pets around. And so they said, you know what,

we should do a dog walking business. And they made a flyer and they went biking around and putting flyers. And I guess they landed a job yesterday, which was kind of interesting. But also they found materials in the back of our property. Well, it turns out it was in somebody else's property and they created a fort and there's a little bit of, oh yeah, there's a little bit of drama around it. So they built a fort. On someone else's property? Yeah. They thought it was theirs. And then the, these people must've taken down this fort because it was like, it was like excess materials, building materials that were left somewhere on the property. And so they took down the fort and then squatters.

Yeah, exactly. Our kids were squatting. And then they, they, they, they wrote a note, which we did not give to the neighbors, but it's like all misspelled and funny.

And basically saying we made this for, Oh my God, I could actually pull up the letter. It's so funny. I know I meant to tell you last night, but you got on another call with one of our other kids and then it got late and I never got to tell you. But as you're pulling it up, just one other piece of advice, I think that people get wrong with kids is you got to give them chores. They have to do things in your house. And even if you don't need them to do chores in the house, they have to learn how to do chores.

They have to participate in keeping their rooms clean. We have ours now learning to do laundry over the summer. And again, that's a big thing for us because there's a lot of laundry. But they all help load up dishwashers, unload dishwashers, wipe down tables, sweep floors, clean up the living room. Straighten up the shoes. There's a lot of shoes in this house. Straighten up the shoes because Valentina likes to grab shoes and wear all different sizes and then throw them around. So I mean, it's a constant pickup and they have to participate in helping that. And I think that makes them, and they don't love it always or ever, but it's good for them.

Yeah. Well, it makes them, it will, they will be better spouses, better roommates in college. If they learn how to be neat and know how to be tidy and know how to take care of themselves and their laundry and, and know that keeping a space clean and tidy is just part of being in a home. Again, data backs that up. They said there's tons of data on this. Kids with chores are less whiny. That alone should make you want to give your kids chores. That's surprising because I was still whining when we give them chores. Let me show you the note that we did not let them give to the neighbors. It said, you broke down our fort. We spent like two hours on that. We're all sad. We love that fort. We, this is the best part. We looked on a satellite picture.

So they must have gone to Google Maps. We looked on a satellite picture and it showed that it was the Duffy property. Even if it was your property, we're just kids. And you could have told us and not knocked it down. And then they signed it from the Duffys and the Tuppers. Kids. So listen, they're making adventures. maybe not making friends in the neighborhood. Yes.

Make enemies. That's actually – But they're running around. They're having fun and making their own fun and not always directed stuff. I mean sometimes you want them to learn a sport. That's great. But let them have enough free time to make their own games and have their own fun. Okay.

Okay. Here's another question. This one's a little spicier. Ooh. How do you keep the spark alive in your marriage? That's a great one. What do you say? Well, I would say, Sean, for you, Sean's very affectionate, which is something I really

love about him. He's very affectionate. And Sean has been really love about him. He's very affectionate. And Sean has been and we've talked about this before on the podcast is really great about making sure that you and I have multiple at least one or two times throughout the year when we take trips together away from the kids to remind ourselves that we are a unit and the most important unit in this family. And well, I think what we do. Because if we fall apart, the whole thing falls apart. And I think, again, when you have a, and we all, every family has their own craziness about their family and finding time to be together and be alone with not people, you know, yelling or crying or, and it's whether like we, I got home a little bit later last night and your mom

made soup and I sat down at the table and you came and joined me and we sit and have 15 minutes to talk as there's some chaos, maybe not far away from us, but you and I are able to kind of block that out and engage. We don't do this enough. We talked about this, the Bonginos do date night every week. Paula and Dan, Bongino, yeah. Yep. I would love if we could do that. We maybe get out once a month together, maybe a little more than that. And I think those things are important. But I would say the most important thing is that we try to spend time together. However we carve it out, however crazy our day is, we actually talk a lot on the phone. So when you're done with the weekend show, probably 15 to 20 minutes when you're done, you give me a call and we'll oftentimes chat your

whole way home on the car ride or vice versa for me. So even when we're separated, we always stay in touch. That even happened when I was in Congress. I'd be walking to the house floor and I might only have seven minutes on a walk and I'd call you and tell you what I'm doing and what's going on and you'd tell me what's going on in the house. And I think sharing our lives together, and I would say there's probably not any part of our lives that are separated. No, but I think that is... And Sean, well, that does keep the spark, but I think that that is, and Sean, Sean, well, that does keep the spark alive because I think, you know, sometimes you hear about Hollywood couples that seem really hot and heavy.

And then all of a sudden they break up. And I've always had a theory about this and we've talked about this and it was relevant to us, not because we're Hollywood stars, but because for 10 years of our lives, we had a schedule where we were apart from each other. And the reason why I believe you see a lot of Hollywood stars that are, you know, they're the hottest, you know,

all over each other couple. And then, and then all of a sudden you find out they're, they're, they're done is that they're on movie sets. And so they go and they shoot for periods of time, oftentimes away from their spouse. And I think that that separation can be very dangerous. I don't think there's a problem with being codependent on your husband or your wife. I think that, you know, for me, something doesn't happen unless I tell Sean that something just happened. You know, it's meaningful. And Sean, to his credit, in so many ways, has been really the glue. I think I do probably more in terms of keeping our family together. And I think, Sean, you do more to keep us together.

And so for Sean, he could have easily said, I'm busy. He's overly scheduled. The congressional schedule is one of the most untalked about things. It's just so crazy. They require two full time schedulers to schedule one congressman. That's how that's how crazy their calendar is. And Sean, during those 10 years that he was in Congress, was just amazing at staying in touch with me.

I mean, he he would come out of a meeting with Donald Trump and the first person he called was me to, you know, tell me what happened or as he said, on his way to, to, I would be in the, I would be actually in study next to the city next to president Trump. And I would be texting you. Yeah. I mean, we're best friends and you do a great job. Like when we wake up in the morning, we try to sit down and have a cup of coffee together. Yep. If we can, we do. And so I'm going to say, as we say, how do we keep the spark alive? That doesn't seem like a very sparkly answer that we gave. No. It's not very hot and heavy, is it? No, but I got to tell you what, it's worked for us. I love you. We're closer. We share our lives

together. And I think that's really what keeps Sparks alive is when it's not one moment. It's a continual life engagement together. And we do have those times, as we said, whether we're going out to eat or we get a little vacation where we get to go away together. Or we're going to go to the cabin. We get to spend some time alone there, too. We'll go on the boat by ourselves. Yeah, so if we're at the cabin, which we're gonna go to um in in a little bit we're heading up to wisconsin in about a week i'm not counting he's not counting at all

we go up and we spend the whole day um with our kids you know taking them water skiing taking them to eat taking to get ice cream you know hanging out doing everything but at the end of the day we always um we always just go we push out yeah we leave them at the the end of the day, we always just go. We push out. Yeah. We leave them at the cabin. They'll go, please, can we go? Nope. We got like 15, 20, half hour alone on the boat in the middle of the lake by ourselves. Oftentimes just laying in the sun. Sometimes we fall asleep. That's my favorite way to fall asleep is on the boat in the sun with some music playing next to Sean. And that's important. I want to add one other thing and, and, and families need to do this and it's great for the family, but it's actually really special for the couple as well. And that is every now and then, especially on a rainy day, when you don't know what you want to do,

pull up the old pictures and videos of the family. And the reason I say that that keeps the spark alive is it's important to look back at what you've built. And when I look back at every, when I get a chance to not always be thinking about the next task I have to do, the next chore I have to do, and I can go back and think about all the things that we've been through, the good, the bad, the ugly, it makes me feel more bonded to you. It makes me feel more connected to you because we've built a life together. And that's a really important thing. And by the way, kids flipping love it. Love it. Because we've been married a long time. I've used Legacy Box. You hear those

advertisements all the time where you can send in your own- We're not getting money for Legacy Box right here, by the way. No, this is not an advertisement, but I use Legacy Box. Maybe we should get money from Legacy Box for this. I've got all these old tapes and I can't play them because I don't have a player anymore. So I've sent them in and they'll send them back digitized. And I did one round of tapes 18 months ago and the kids love to go through and look at all. I would narrate our tapes. And I think that's important through the course of your life.

Yeah. Sean's really good about that. It's October 26, 19, whatever. And it's 19, you know, 98 and blah,

blah, blah. But you forget what's going on. I'm not, we are talking about what's what, like what's coming up in our lives. What did, what just happened?

And then sometimes you'll go, Barack Obama was just elected a week ago and I'm not feeling very good about that, but here we are at blah, blah, blah. And I always thought it was so cheesy. But then when we go back and listen to have that kind of context of what was happening at the time, like in the country and then in our family, it's like suddenly you're right back in that moment in a way that you couldn't be from just looking at a picture or just looking at a video and going, now what was happening there? I'm a huge drawer, but I do it. And they're way better to watch later on. And we now, with screen marine on your phone, you can pop them up on the screen and watch videos and pictures.

And it's great as your family grows and time passes to be able to look back on those memories. We'll have more of this conversation after this. Shop Cyber Monday deals now on Amazon with up to 35% off home goods to deck their halls, toys to stuff their stocking, and electronics like noise-canceling headphones to silent their night. Shop Amazon Cyber Monday deals now.

Okay, one more sort of personal question before we move on to some that are less personal, more about like what's going on in the world. What's the hardest part about having nine kids? I think time. And I saw this myself being the 10th of 11 kids. I see that if you have your family of two children or three children, there's a lot of you to go around to the one, two, or three kids that you have. When you have nine kids, there's only so much time and there's not enough time to give so much to every single one. And I think that was

hard for me in the family of 11. I think it's hard for us in a family of nine. And so I think that's a drawback. That's a hardship. Now there's a lot of great things that come with having so many kids, but there's only so much of you. And there's a lot of demands on that little bit. And you got to actually got to think about this one actually hasn't had so much recently, and maybe we've got to be conscious of engaging with that one a little bit more. Who needs more time? I remember when I first met you, when we got married, we didn't have nine kids. We didn't have any, we didn't have any kids. And I remember you telling me that when you were growing up, if you wanted to tell your

mom something, you had to say it fast. Cause there was just, she was so busy. She had 11 kids, a lot of demands on her time. And I remember thinking, whoa, that's like, that seems really tough. And now I'm that person, right? Like I can tell, like, there's like, I have like four people coming at me at once. I'm like, okay, what do you need? What do you need? What do you need? And that is, I was just gonna say, time is- You're talking, stop. I can't listen right now. I'm doing this. And then you come back and go, what did you have to say? What did you say? And then, yeah. So time is the issue and not just time, but figuring out, you can't just divide your time equally between every kid. You get 10%, you get 10%. You have to

be in tune to go, who needs me at this moment? Can I tell you one of the problems that I had? So I'd have to speak really quickly. To your mom? Yes. Or to anybody, because there's so many conversations going on. Speak quickly. To your mom? Yes, or to anybody because there's so many conversations going on. Speak quickly. And oftentimes, I didn't feel like I got full attention. It's interesting, even I'm 51 years old, when someone actually pays attention and I'm speaking, it actually makes me a little bit nervous. I'm like, whoa, someone's listening to me? It goes back to being six years old in a house of 11. In a house of 11. But okay. So let's do the flip side. What is the, and by the way, carving out time with one kid to go like, oh, you know what? I'm going to the store. I'm going to take this

kid and I might stop and get ice cream or I might get them a little treat. So they remember that little time together, you know, a little bit better. I do remember I was only four kids and I remember a few times that and very few times that I went by myself with my mom to do something. And it was so special. And she would take me to go get banana splits. If I was really helpful at the house, she would, she would go, Oh, Rachel's going to come with me to the store. And she'd take me to the store to get her grocery shopping, but then we'd stop and she'd buy me my favorite, which was a banana split. And I always remember that. So yeah, I mean, just finding, finding that time.

And it's not easy when you have this much time and it's a constant reminder. And I'm sure I haven't done as good of a job as I wish I had done. But every now and then I remember. But I think the plus side, the upside of having nine kids is I love whether it's our seven-year-old or our 23-year-old or anyone in between, the things they do and the stories they come back and tell if we're not there for it. And then the interplay of the experiences that they have and the people that they know in the stories, like within the same age range, I love to sit and hear them tell stories about what's going on. It's really enjoyable. I love hearing the stories that happen when we leave the house. And then they're like, and then she locked us in the closet and we couldn't get out. And we did, she did this and she was so mean. And like, they're like, that's her older

sister, like, you know, babysitting them, but they, they have the greatest part about having a lot of kids is that they have each other and they have separate relationships with each other as a whole, as siblings. And so they can kind of sometimes start to talk about us and gang up on us, which is, they can be kind of funny. But also they, they pair up in different ways with each other at different times and at different times. And they, they have their own little world, times and at different times and they they have their own little world which i think is fascinating and it for me as a parent it gives me a lot of solace i've i read an article once about a woman whose parents died when she was in college and she was an only child and that's a lot um that's a lot to to not be able to share with someone, right?

And so as a parent, I think a lot about what will it be like for my kids when I'm gone? Or if I leave this world unexpectedly, right? An accident could happen. And it's very reassuring for me to know that they have each other. And that's something that I think is really beautiful. other. And that's something that I think is really beautiful. Okay. So let's get into a little bit of politics because we had a few political questions for you. One is, which GOP candidate do you think has the best chance of winning? So obviously, Donald Trump would take the kick. And so let's maybe set that aside for a moment.

It's interesting. Again, I'm really impressed with that. That's not such a given, Sean. So I've I had famously you go back and watch the video. I had Karl Rove on and I interviewed him when I was hosting for Jesse Waters. And Karl Rove said, well, you can't just think about the primary, Rachel. You have to think about the general. And I and if you look at the polling, Donald Trump is not the one who can win in a general. He can't bring over these suburban moms. He can't bring over independents who are very repelled by his style and all of his scandals around him, so-called scandals around him. So what would you say to somebody like Karl Rove, who says, yeah, maybe you like him in the primary, but he can't win the general? So if this is against Joe Biden, we look at the news that's come out about the corruption when Joe Biden was vice president

with he and Hunter. The new text messages that the House just uncovered with the IRS whistleblowers and talking about the pressure that Hunter Biden wasblowers. I mean, talking about, you know, the pressure that Hunter Biden was putting on. I think they were in, I don't know if they're Ukrainian or Russian. No, this was a Chinese. Chinese, that's right. It was a Chinese CCP member, a member of the Communist Party who had a business, which, as you know, all this stuff is all tied to the Communist Party. And they must not have paid per the agreement with the bidens and hunter was sending um a message in essence saying i'm here with my father and we have a long memory with a long memory and we will not forget this if you don't pay us to regret it that kind of corruption yeah um that we sell your country out for your

family's profit and the state of the economy, this really weird push on green energy, which has, I think, caused a lot of inflation, the massive spending, the crazy border, the basic state of the American economy and mindset, I think, has dropped dramatically. And so you're running against that. And so I do think people go, yes, I might not like everything about Donald Trump. I don't like the fights, I might not like everything about Donald Trump. I don't like the fights. I don't like that. I don't, you know, I don't like all the prosecutions. I don't like, you know, even at the slot, people still think Russia and Russia collusion was real, but they compare what Donald Trump did for the country and for them. And they compare it then

to Joe Biden. And I do think in that comparison, people are like, you know what? I'm picking them the lesser of two evils. And Donald Trump is way less evil than Joe Biden. And I'm going to pull the lever for Trump. So you're saying independence, if it's between Donald Trump and Joe Biden, you believe that the independents who will swing this election will go for Donald Trump? Yeah, for Donald Trump. Yeah, for Donald Trump. That's right. Okay.

So do you agree with that? Yes, I do. But I have a different rationale than you. You have a very logical, let's look at the condition of the country, what state we're in, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I look at how hard the Democrats are fighting to get him in jail for life. And how that tells me they are afraid of him. And if they're afraid of him, it's because they're afraid he could win. And so that's been indicative to me of his strength.

I mean, if you think, Sean, about everything that has been thrown at Donald Trump from, as you mentioned, the Russia collusion. I mean, basically, we saw a potential coup, you know, right after he was first elected. We saw impeachment one, which we now know was about Ukraine and corruption. And we now know it was true. So he was impeached over something that was true. Impeachment two, we see, you know, he's now they're trying to put him in jail for moving boxes. Every, you know, woman who's ever met him him who's come out of the woodwork now trying to sue him and say sexual harassment. You see everything that's being thrown at him and the and the media and big tech and the suppression of, you know, he was taken off of Twitter for so long. think of everything that's been thrown at Donald Trump and he's still standing and he's still winning by a long shot against, by the way, a very successful Florida governor. He's still winning by

a long shot. No wonder they're afraid of him. And that tells me that he is the strongest candidate. So I think a lot of people would say, if not Donald Trump, then Ron DeSantis. And I, as a governor, I couldn't, I mean, I think Ron DeSantis has been brilliant. I think he's been an amazing governor in Florida. And every governor will make mistakes. And he did too on COVID. And he corrected those mistakes. I love the way he corrected that. And I think the way he's fought back against Disney trying to sexualize our kids in schools.

Disney wasn't. Ron DeSantis and Republicans said no to that. Very impressive. And he's taken woke out of education at a pace that is truly impressive in Florida. Truly. But what I saw in Congress with Ron DeSantis, meaning the personality of Ron DeSantis, wasn't great, wasn't wonderful, wasn't likable. I guess what you're saying is he didn't have a lot of friends in Congress. He didn't have a personality to make friends with people. And you're in the business, politics is the business of not just ideas, but friendship. You got to be a likable person.

Relationship building with the voters. What you're seeing, the more that Ron DeSantis goes out there and campaigns, the more people are seeing that he's not really that likable and he's dropping in the polls. And I don't think that gets better for him. I think it continues to get worse for him. And so the question is, well, who else will rise? I think Tim Scott, I served with Tim in the house, we came in together in 2010. He's actually still low in the polls. He's at like, what, 2%? He's up to 4%. But there's more people considering Tim Scott. So he has a shot.

He has a possibility. I don't see that as a possibility at all. I like Tim, by the way. I think he's a great guy. If not Donald Trump, who? Well, I think the next one in line is Ron DeSantis, but I don't see anyone else. I really believe our strongest shot, because here's the thing, the left is placed so dirty, and they have so many levers of power in culture, in academia, in big tech, in corporate America. And now our deep state and our military have been captured

by this, you know, by the left, by these progressives. And they are mean as heck. And so we're just playing a different game than we were playing, you know, when we were putting people like, you know, McCain and Romney up, you know, the world has changed since then. And it's not that Republicans have changed so much, although they haven't become more populist, thank you, and more nationalistic in terms, you know, thanks to Donald Trump. But I think the left has become very emboldened and they play dirty. And so what you have to have if you're a conservative is somebody who can take it, somebody who knows what that's like, which brings me to the next question, because this is a very interesting one. Your scenario was now Trump versus Joe Biden.

Let's talk about RFK Jr. How does Trump before we talk about him? Because I want to talk about him a little bit because I find him fascinating. And I have a lot of good things to say about him. And I also have some really challenging things about him that I don't like. That said, just to the initial question, how does Donald Trump do up against RFK Jr.? I think Trump still wins. But it's closer? So I don't know. I don't know yet. I mean, there's a lot of very liberal, diehard Democrats that won't go for RFK. They're going to stick in the Biden camp. So I don't know that he can get over the threshold of the machine that's propping up Joe Biden. I'm not sure that he can do that, but he's going to give it a good run. But if it is Donald Trump versus RFK, which I don't think is going to happen for one reason alone, the FBI, the DOJ, the CIA, the deep state will not allow that to happen because both of them are committed to grabbing them by their roots and ripping them out of power and remaking a more accountable intelligence system, justice system, bureau to investigate things in the homeland, meaning the

FBI, even the IRS, as we see with the Hunter Biden scandal, is deeply political. We saw this with Lois Lerner. When she was the head of the IRS, she was not approving anything that had constitution or patriot or Tea Party in it for tax exempt status. The IRS is very political, which is why the Democrats wanted to give it $80 billion because it's a win. And armed agents. They wanted to arm the IRS. Yeah. So those organizations who are unaccountable will work their butts off to make sure that it's not a race between those two because no matter who wins, they're going to lose. that it's not a race between those two, because no matter who wins, they're going to lose.

That is such a great point. I mean, I've always wanted to see the JFK files opened up. Yes. There are so many things that, I mean, probably with Donald Trump, that was a little bit of a disappointment, not a little bit, a big disappointment. I wish he had declassified what happened with JFK. I think transparency is what we need right now. And so, so let me tell you about what I think about JFK Jr. Because a lot of people, I'm very, I speak very favorably about him because when it comes to big food and big pharma, I think that RFK Jr. is right over the target. I think he's very courageous. He has experience just like Trump. This is why I think he's more formidable than you think, Sean. He has experienced the

weight of having the entire establishment against him and he's still standing. So I think he is stronger than we think. He's wicked smart. He is an incredible lawyer. And he's very, very smart, has won many of his cases because of that. And so I'm fascinated by him. I love the idea of both of them, which I think are big disruptors, will, as you say, root out the deep state. I love it all. Here's my problem with RFK Jr. One, he's not pro-life. And I have an even deeper problem with him because he's Catholic. Just like I've been pretty tough on Joe Biden as a, you know, claiming to be Catholic.

Although there's nothing about the Biden family that, you know, speaks to that. Did you hear about this new sex club that Hunter Biden was part of? $75,000 a year. To be part of some weird eyes, eyes wide shut. Like they look like they're Satanists. And by the way, he's so bad. He got kicked out of the sex club because he was the gropious of all the people in the sex club that they actually kicked him out of this $75,000 a year. But the problem is that the founder of the club got kicked out too,

because he told Biden was in it. And the first rule of sex club is don't talk about sex club. Don't talk about sex club. I mean, and then you hear, I mean, you see the pictures, you see everything is so disgusting. And then Joe Biden comes on TV with the straight faces. I'm so proud of my son. I'm so proud of my son. But anyway, I... He goes to a state dinner. The same day that all this stuff comes out. It's Hunter Biden's there with Joe Biden and the Indian Prime Minister Modi, as well as from the DOJ. Merrick Garland is there as well.

They're all there together. Yeah. At this point, they're just mocking us. They're giving you the middle finger. They don't give a crap. They know, as Joe Biden says, no one Fs with the Bidens. Remember when he said that? No one Fs with the Bidens. Remember when he said that? No one Fs with the Bidens. Data space F with America.

Yeah, exactly. We'll have more of this conversation after this. So money is a thing, but it's not everything. I think you really look at the importance of what are you doing with your time? The conversations that we've had with our financial advisor is very much about building what that framework looks like that helps support those important things. The places where you're investing your time and your resources, your family clearly, and those closest to you. Edward Jones, we do money differently. Visit edwardjones.ca slash different. Let's go back to RFK Jr. So I'm disappointed that he's not pro-life as a Catholic, but also because as we, you and I are both very aware, we have a child with special needs with Down syndrome and

80 to 90% of all diagnoses in America that, you know, people get prenatal testing and they find out that they're going to have a child with Downs, 80 to 90% of those prenatal diagnoses end in abortion. And so that's troubling because, you know, you have someone like JFK and their family who has had, they've had people with downs in their family and they have, you know, they started the special Olympics. They know that it's not just how a society treats the most vulnerable that tells you what kind of society that is, what kind of culture that is, but also that people with special needs make the lives of all of us. They touch our lives in a way that it's just inexplicable.

All you can say is they're meant to be here. And now millions of them are, and it's like a genocide, truly. So I would be curious to see how he responds to that, because in so many ways, he's so compassionate about people who have been vaccine injured, about people who have suffered for all kinds of different reasons. And yet I'm not seeing that kind of compassion for those who are unborn and a willingness to bring them into the human family. compassion for those who are unborn and a willingness to bring them into the human family. Well, so I think if I was a Democrat, I'd look at RFK and go, listen, he's a traditional American Democrat, right? He's not the Joe Biden. A pre-Obama kind. Yes. A Bill Clinton-esque. Listen, there's a lot of stuff we disagree with him on, but there's a

lot of stuff. He went to the border and was like, this is a humanitarian crisis. This is an insanity. But he did a total 180 on that. So he will be the first to tell you that he was very critical of Donald Trump's wall. He said it was inhumane and he was mostly opposed to it, Sean, for environmental reasons. And then he went down to the border. And saw the environmental impact, massive flows of people, millions of people walking across rivers into the country has had on the environment, but also he sees the humanitarian side. So he's an honest, at least in that regard, to go, I'm going to change my opinion once I see it firsthand. Could it be strategic though, Sean? Because even Democrat polling shows they're unhappy that the Biden administration's policies are not

popular even with Democrats. So could he just be doing this to be on the other, to, I think the things he's talking about, he believes in the things he's saying. Yeah. And again, he, he believed in, um, in the, the, the vaccine fight that he spent in, right. So there's no, there's nothing to be gained from that fight. Nothing to be gained. Um, there's a small segment of the American population who have cheered him on. And in the end, he turned out to be right, at least in regard to COVID. So, no, I think for his view of the world, he's a truth teller. I also, I mean, you could sell me on we should care about the environment.

If there's pollutants in rivers and there's dirty air and like, listen, we want clean water and clean air. I can buy into that. But it's the flip side of that when you get to global warming, where you get into this, all these radical policies that are going to change the way we live, drive us back into the stone age that I disagree with. And I'm not sure where he's at. It seems like he's more an environmentalist as opposed to a climate change radical. And I don't know that for certain. I'd love to ask him where he stands on the child labor in Africa mining cobalt for all the EV batteries. And by the way, the environmental degradation.

But nothing compares to seeing a seven-year-old in a coal mine getting lung diseases from this and carrying things on their back. Nothing compares to that. So can I just bring up, as a side note, Modi, the prime minister of India, did a speech to the joint session of Congress, which is a very honorable invitation, the most honorable invitation that the Congress can give someone is to speak to a joint session. And the squad, including AOC, said, we're going to boycott Modi's speech because in India, they oppress minorities that are Muslim and we're really concerned about their human rights. I'm like, I'm okay. Let's talk about that. But they have no problem with China putting Uyghurs who are Muslim in concentration camps. They have no problem with a lack of human rights with the communists in China. They applaud them. They applaud the Cuban regime. They applaud the Venezuelan regime. They have nothing but nice words to say, but oh dear, they're so outraged in India.

And the real problem is if there's a stronger, because India has been playing kind of China and the US, they're kind of playing both sides. And we need their China. I mean, sorry, India is a massive ally for America. We can't lose them to China. And I think they would love to have that relationship fractured. so India does go to China and America is that much weaker. So you have India, China and Russia all in one block, as well as most of South America. It's untenable for America. And again, if you want, you're trying to destroy the country. That's exactly what you want, which is why they chose not to go to the joint session. And you compare that to how Donald Trump was treated when he went to India. They rolled out the red carpet. I mean, the people came out in throngs, loved on Donald Trump.

So you bring up an interesting point back to RFK Jr. is RFK Jr. has had really positive things to say about Hugo Chavez in the past. If you remember, the left, there was a time when Bernie Sanders, probably around the same time, probably that RFK Jr. was making his positive comments about Hugo Chavez. Bernie Sanders would say, you know, that you were more likely to find the American dream in Venezuela than in the United States. There was a time when Michael Moore and Danny Glover and Sean Penn and everybody was, you know, supporting Hugo Chavez. And then later on.

Right. Why am I losing his name? The one that's in right now. Maduro. Maduro. Sorry. Thank you, Nicolas Maduro. And so all of them have supported this regime when the you know what hit the fan.

And, you know, people started eating their pets because they're so poor in Venezuela, middle class people selling their bodies, women going over to the Colombian side to sell their bodies just to get groceries. Right. This has happened. There are many, you know, journalist reports on this. Then Bernie Sanders quietly took that off of his Web site. He actually didn't just say it. He had it on his Web site. The American dream more likely to be found there. This is around the time that everyone was praising this sort of socialist revolution that had occurred in the socialist movement in Venezuela. And then of course it ended as socialism always ends in the rich getting rich and the rest living in poverty and chaos and disparity and also the oppression, which brings me to another point, Sean, because I, as you know, I spent many times, many years speaking on socialism and talking about Venezuela and what was what happened in Cuba and then what happened in Venezuela. you talk about this is why you should not be, you know, lured by this idea of socialism that AOC is talking about. You know, it never ends well. And I talked about how they would imprison their

opponents. And could you believe that? Like I had explained, like, you know, there's no opposition party because if you actually become a real threat to the regime, they'll find some trumped up charge and throw you in jail or disappear you. Hmm. Interesting times we're living in, Sean. Yeah. Who would have thought? Who would have thought that?

And honestly, I have to tell you, when I said those things to those students, I said it in a way that I never thought it would happen here. I mean, I said it as a warning, but I never thought I'd live to see that. And here we are, Donald Trump facing, you know, two life sentences in jail. They want him behind bars during this election,

which brings me to my last question to you, Sean, do you think that the charges against Donald Trump will end, will end with him in jail? Will it happen while he is running? And how will that change the election? So I look at the Department of Justice, Merrick Garland, this guy is the most radical political hack. And I don't have a whole bunch of wonderful things to say about Mitch McConnell, but we owe

a great debt to Mitch McConnell because he kept Merrick Garland off the Supreme Court. Just think of this radical crazy was on the Supreme Court. He will be gone, hopefully, in a little over a year from the Department of Justice because Joe Biden is going to lose. But this guy is crazy and he's a political hack. And you've seen that with the way he's treated Donald Trump, the way he's treated Hunter Biden and Joe Biden. So I believe they are going to actually, if they can, push a trial, try to get a conviction and absolutely put Donald Trump in jail. That is the mission. They will not be shamed. They will not be tamed. That's what they want. And they want sentences

that will put him in jail for the rest of his life. And the left will applaud them and they'll see nothing wrong with it. That's what they want. And so Donald Trump is going to, one, have to delay the trial to the point where it's in the middle of the campaign and maybe then have the argument to wait till after the election. Or this is a trial that's going to happen in Florida, in Miami. So you're at least going to have a shot at winning on these charges, where you have no shot in New York City. You don't have any shot in Washington, DC, because they're 90% Democrat voters. You're going to get Democrat voters who hate Donald Trump just for being Donald Trump. And I don't think they're going to look at charges based on the facts.

I think you get a jury pool that will base the decision on the facts in Florida. So he has a shot at winning. But if he doesn't, they're going to put him in jail. What happens, Sean, to the country if you have Donald Trump in jail, or at least in the depths of a very serious trial, and now Hunter Biden's off, but not just that Hunter Biden's been let off, but that now we're seeing the text messages are coming out. The proof that this all is happening, the number of accounts, the number of countries, the granddaughters getting millions of dollars, all of the things that are coming out. And there's going to be more. I mean, I have to give I have to give Comer representative Comer a lot of credit. Stuff is coming out. And the more that comes out and the more people see this injustice, this double standard, and they see Joe Biden and Hunter going free, by the way,

can I mention this? They literally told the FBI agents when they they've stalled them. They didn't want any of these things, these investigations to move forward while Joe Biden was running for president. Nothing was allowed to move forward. But even then, they told the FBI agents, you're not allowed to pursue a line of questioning about the big guy. You can't ask the witnesses in this investigation anything about the big guy. So they were interfering to make sure that nothing ever came close to Joe Biden. So people are not stupid. They see this. I mean, I'm afraid we're going to get a revolution. By the way, they slow walked the investigation. So the statute of limitations ran on the charges that would go back to Burisma.

And think about this, Joe, Hunter Biden made what, $8.3 million. And it was when you throw Joe's money in, there was that 17 point some million dollars for the two of them. And Hunter Biden on that $8.3 million paid $200,000 in taxes, in back taxes. Usually, just by the way, if you don't pay your taxes to the IRS, the fines and penalties and interest that you pay

on that money is massive. So not only should he have been paying half of the money, $4 million, the fines and the interest on top of that over the course of, what, six years would have been almost $8, $10 million itself. And he paid $200,000 in fines. So that aside, that was not your question. No, but I didn't even know that. To answer your question of what will happen, nothing. The right is going to whimper. They'll be divided. They'll be split. And the reason I say that is you can throw people in prison for January 6th who, some didn't go, they went on the Capitol grounds, didn't go in the Capitol.

Even those who went into the Capitol, they didn't break a window. They didn't break a door. They didn't go into any non-public place in the Capitol. And they're finding themselves in jail for lengths of time. These people- 12 years, some of them. And some have committed suicide. They've been placed in solitary confinement. There's not massive outrage for political prisoners. Again, you might go, there's a group of people who you could argue about, do they deserve to be in solitary confinement? Do they deserve to be in prison? Okay, maybe, but there's a whole other group that has been persecuted who just participated in a rally and then might've been on the Capitol grounds. Nothing. Donald Trump's prosecution,

indictment for the very same crime that Hunter, that Joe Biden had and Mike Pence had, crimes that Hillary Clinton committed or- You mean the moving of these boxes or keeping classified documents? No, having classified documents, unsecure classified documents.

And Donald Trump at least says, I could declassify these and I did. Nothing, the right's not outraged. There's not marches in the street. There's not every single leader in Congress and every presidential candidate coming out unified, standing in outrage against it. I don't know. Why not the members of Congress? I think there's a level, I mean, I think there's a level of weakness within the Republican Party. Do they secretly not want him to win? No, that's not true. Here's the difference. Democrats are willing to vote for big things and lose their jobs. I mean, a lot of Democrats voted

for Obamacare, right? They knew they were going to lose their seats if they voted for Obamacare. But they got Obamacare. And they voted, they got Obamacare, and they lost their seats and Republicans took over, and they were not able to unwind Obamacare. They'll vote for the Green New Deal. They'll vote for Inflation Reduction Act. They'll vote for an infrastructure bill. All of this is packaged for the Green New Deal, and many of them will lose their seats. But it's really hard to unwind these things that they did in the two years they were able to sit in very powerful seats in Congress. So they're true believers. Republicans won't cast those votes to change the course of the country. They want to preserve their

seat. They want to come back. They're not as mission-driven as Democrats. And again, you see, at Fox, we'll talk about these issues. But again, if this happened to a Democrat, there would be riots in the streets, protests in the streets. Every day there would be rallies outside of the Capitol and outside of the Department of Justice and outside the FBI. It would be mayhem if you tried to do it to a Democrat. But the Republicans sit back. So so if Donald Trump is convicted and Donald Trump goes to jail, there won't be but a cry. So that's interesting that you said. So could it be that they have like professionally organized through NGOs, through, you know, community organizations, which are so good at doing, they can mobilize troops, pay them to go, to go protest. Why is it that, that Republicans

don't, don't do that? Or maybe they sent them a lesson. Hey, like January 6th, we'll throw you in jail. Maybe they're busy living their lives as their country slips away from them. I mean, again, I would tell you that before COVID, you can't force people to take a drug that they don't want or make them lose their job or make them wear masks. Or I mean, the kind of sheep that we saw during COVID for the American people that we thought we weren't sheep, but we were exposed as sheep during COVID. You and I weren't sheep. We weren't sheep, but a lot of Americans. But listen, if I went to Walmart, I'd put a mask on. Yeah, you'd put the mask on because you don't want someone to yell at you. That's right. That's true. Would you ever do that again, Sean? I would hope not. I would hope not. But I mean, you got to be like, I'm going to just walk in the fire and be a light, have courage to speak the truth and not wear my mask. But I mean, you got to be like, I'm going to just walk in the fire and be a light, have courage

to speak the truth and not wear my mask. But it's hard. It's not easy. And sometimes I would, but oftentimes I put my mask on. And so I look at all these things that are happening, and there's a lack of outcry from leaders. Vivek Ramaswamy was the only one that went to Miami, only candidate that went to Miami when Donald Trump was indicted. Every single Republican candidate should have been there. Every House member, every senator should have been there in outrage that the political opponent of Donald Trump is trying to throw him in jail for the rest of his life. This is third world. And they did nothing about it. They said really nothing about it.

They let it happen. And so, again, you can hate Donald Trump and you can go after Donald Trump. You can hate January 6ers, you can hate the January 6ers. You can hate non-vaxxers and you can go after non-vaxxers. They just keep expanding this group of people that they can go after and no one says anything. Yeah. Even to the point of parents going to school board meetings who are now able to domestic. That's why I'm I'm really concerned in the less and less there's a heartening of the conservative right in America to start pushing back and demand equal treatment under the law and fairness. You can you can and you will lose elections and that's okay. But you can't be cheated in elections. You can't have an unaccountable bureaucratic mass of FBI, DOJ, CIA, IRS working against a political party and think you can win and think that that's fair. You got to stop it. And by the way, that's why I don't hear anybody talking about what we're going to do with the deep state. I mentioned this on our last podcast. If you can't articulate what you're going to do to the deep state. I mentioned this on our last podcast. If you can't

articulate what you're going to do to root this cancer out of the American government, you might win four years, but you're not changing anything. Bill Clinton and Barack Obama were smart. They packed the FBI, the DOJ, the CIA, and the IRS with radical liberals. And George Bush didn't do that. And Donald Trump didn't do that. And so now you have this political blob that's powerful. And as you see, it's unaccountable even to the Congress that's now working a political angle on behalf of Democrats. Now, listen, Republicans are stupid. You can't let that happen. You can't let that stand. And so when do they ever stand up and go, this is the plan to cut out the cancer? The deep state.

Donald Trump doesn't talk about it. I mean, the only one is a little bit Vivek Ramaswamy, but Ron DeSantis isn't talking about it. And maybe they think that's bad politics. But again, I don't think they think it's bad politics. I mean, they're not thinking about it. Let me just say this. The tools that the deep state has are tools that with surveillance and so forth are tools that we've never seen before. So you talk about the deep state and you add just the technological capabilities they have to surveil you, to find stuff against you. Now with AI, God knows what can happen.

This is really serious stuff. But I was just going to say that maybe they're afraid of saying what they're going to do. You remember JFK, the president, John F. Kennedy, and also Bobby said what they were going to do. And both of them ended up dead, which is something that JFK Jr. has been talking about. RFK Jr. has been talking about this. And he says that he takes precautions. I heard him in an interview say, I take precautions physically for my life. I take precautions because I know that I am talking about uprooting

this blob that you call it, this deep state. And this is a serious thing that he thinks it cost his uncle and his father's life. If Republicans didn't get it under George Bush and they didn't get it under Donald Trump, why do I think they miraculously get it now? If they're not talking about it, they're not thinking about it. They're not. I'm glad that you're giving them this advice. I hope somebody who's running or was associated with those campaigns is listening. I think you're absolutely 100% right. The number one issue in this election is the deep state uprooting, the deep state uprooting their control over our elections,

over our information, their connection, the fact that they're teaming up with big tech to suppress information. I've had small moments of time, not a lot, small moments with different candidates to briefly speak with them. And every time I have a chance to speak

to anyone who's running for president, I bring this issue up every single time. And sometimes I don't get great responses, but I'm going to keep bringing it up because you do not have a democracy. You do not have freedom when you have a government tax-funded enterprise with incredible power working against one party and in favor of another party. Can't have it. So that's a really long answer to your question, Rachel. I'm glad I asked that question. I think you're right. Thanks for joining us on Questions and Answers on Friday with Sean and Rachel. It's been a lot of fun.

It's been all over the map. Really all over the map. These conversations often do go all over the map. Well, it's like the conversations we have around our own kitchen table. They go all over. They start one place and they end up in something somewhere completely different. So thank you for joining us. We appreciate it. If you like our podcast,

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