FULL SEND PODCAST - Byron Donalds | Ep. 155

Episode Date: April 24, 2025

Presented by Happy Dad Hard Seltzer. Find Happy Dad near you http://happydad.com/find (21+ only). Video is available on http://youtube.com/fullsendpodcast/videos. Follow Nelk Boys on Instagram http://instagram.com/nelkboys. Part of the Shots Podcast Network (shots.com). You can listen to the audio version of this podcast on Spotify, Apple Podcasts & anywhere you listen to podcasts. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

All right, guys, we got a great episode today with the future governor of Florida, Byron Donald's. Before we get into it, if you guys have not tried out the prize picks app, you've got to download it and try it right now. NHL playoffs is on. I'm firing on every single leaf game. I think NHL playoff hockey is the best sport to watch, hands down. NBA playoffs is on as well. Baseball's back.

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tail us download the prize picks app give it a try use code nilk take advantage of that code that's for you boys let's get into the pod a very sweet episode today i'm really excited about this one, Byron Donald's, the man, future governor of Florida. Yeah. We actually met at the UFC fights two weekends ago. Yeah, it was two weeks ago. Two weekends ago. Are you a UFC fan or was that your first time at a fight? No, second time at a fight. I'm a fan of sports. So anytime you get me in a room where there's competition, I love it. The crazy part is that I'm starting to learn UFC just because it's just cool to watch. Yeah. But I'm a pro wrestling fan. I'm a basketball Junkies. I love pro in college basketball. I love football, obviously. Playoff baseball, there's

nothing like it. Playoff hockey is actually really cool. Playoff hockey is legit, even though I never played hockey, but playoff hockey is legit. But yeah, I'm a pro wrestling junkie. I love the stuff too. And so, you know, starting to get into UFC. What was the other card you went to? Do you remember? I was the Tampa fight. The one they did in Tampa. Colby Covington? Yeah, Kobe fought that night. Yeah, yeah. Are you tight with Dana at all, or what's your guys' relationship like? So, actually, I just, I got a chance to meet Dana really through the campaign, you know, with President Trump. First time I really got a chance to, like, meet me and talk to Dana. I think it was, actually, I think it was election night.

Oh, wow. And so, like, I had met Dana, like, done the handshake because, you know, sometimes you're in rooms and you shake somebody's hand. And so it's election night. I'm at Mar-a-Lago, and I'm standing next to the president, Elon comes in, and Dana's there. So I was talking to Dana a little bit. And then the president comes in and he goes, you know, all right, let's go to the buffet. He's like, well, come on. And so the president's like a key guy, Walt Nata, Walt's a good friend, good dude.

He's just like, looks at me, just go with them. All right. So it's me, Dana, POTUS, and I think Elon was behind us. And Potus is walking us around the buffet and like showing the good stuff. And the staff is like, do you want this? You want that? and so he's he's like this is great stuff that stuff's good and he looks at dana he looks at me and dana and i like uh yeah okay i guess and so you know we just have fun talking about it it was it was a

cool time now i watched a lot of your stuff leading up to the election a lot of the interviews it became a fan of you one of my favorite moments though recently in the last few months is when you just fucking tore apart all those sanctuary city mayors that was that was crazy what was that like and what is the solution to those sanctuary cities Well, the real solution is you can't allow them. It's one of those things that if you let people take an inch, they take a mile. And so the truth is, how you deal with that is, if you're going to be a sanctuary city, you shouldn't get federal money because you're in violation of federal law. And people may not like that stance, but that's just the way it is. How are you going to take my money, then completely go in complete opposition to my rules? That doesn't make any sense. So that's what I think the real solution is. You want to be a sanctuary city, fine, and don't rely on federal money, because sanctuary status is against. federal law. Is that something President Trump just implemented? It's something that Congress, Congress, to make it stick, Congress has to do it. And so typically in the Senate, you're not going to get enough Democrat senators who are going to agree with that because they have sanctuary

cities in their state and they don't want to cut them off from federal money. But I think when you talk about it in those terms, then people are like, yeah, that makes sense. Why are you getting taxpayer money when it's clear not every citizen agrees with sanctuary cities? I think most citizens don't agree with it, especially the people who have to live under these sanctuary cities and see what happened, like in New York, Chicago, et cetera. So that's the number one way you deal with it. The other way you really deal with it is politics. I think if you have people who are saying sanctuary status is a good thing, and then they start losing elections, well, and that just proves where people are. That's really the ultimate way you fix it. What happened in that hearing all was

actually kind of funny. That shit was crazy, bro. But I'm going to get his backstores to take this out. So typically in oversight hearings, I'll come in and kind of listen to the dialogue, listen to the Edmund Flow, and then decide on the fly in real time. I'll make a decision what kind of questions do I want to ask. So I'm sitting there and I'm starting to sketch some stuff out. And I got a text message from my political team and some stuff was happening on the political side. And it's the interpersonal stuff that happens in politics. You know, when you're when you're dealing, it's like Republicans against Republicans, that kind of stuff. So my political team sent me a text message, and I was reading the messages, and it was pissing me off. So I was kind of in a foul mood. And then it just so happened, those mayors were in front of me. So, like, I was in a foul mood, and those mayors, basically, they took the heat. Yeah. And I just started ripping them.

Because the thing about it is, if you start asking them, well, what are you, how much money are you spending? You were like a tiger in the grass, and they were just like a hopeless antelope. That's what it felt like watching that. Like the Boston mayor? Yeah. It was just not even fair, right? Well, that's her fault. I know.

You should have came with an answer. And if you come with an answer and you're professional about it, I don't have any problems with it. I'll disagree with you. Right. But when you come in, you try to do a bunch of BS and you try to posture like you're the only person that's good. When everybody else can see that you're ridiculous and you're a joke and you don't have enough courage to tell the people of Boston how much money you spent on illegal immigration, then I'm done with you. I got no patience with that. To me, it's just common sense, too, like the sanctuary city thing, the same as men playing in,

women's sports. Like, it's just dead common sense. Why do you think they have that stance? Are they doing that to please voters? Do they actually believe in sanctuary cities? What do you think? Or is it corruption? I think part of it is try to please their base. I mean, I think people got to understand the Democrat Party for about 30 years now has been on the side of illegal immigration or just, or rampant open immigration. They don't want rules. They don't want borders. They just want people to come into the country. I think for some, they think it's a good thing to let people come into the United States and be able to build their lives up. I think for other Democrats, their view is, you know, I think their view is that they want just open immigration because they have

interest groups in their party at the base of their party that, you know, do voter outreach, voter registration, get voters to the polls. And that's how they build their power base politically. And so I think what's really happened to the Democrats is that the open immigration slash illegal immigration wing of their party just became so dominant in terms of activism messaging that the Democrats just went down that line and didn't know where to stop. And I think that's really what happened to them. I think you had probably core Democrats, old school Democrats who were like, you know, I believe in open borders, but this thing's a little crazy. But they couldn't really say anything to like the political leadership in the Democrat Party or even radical Democrats who do believe 100% that we should not have borders, that we should just let everybody into the country. But you just simply can't do that. It doesn't work. Where do you think the Democrat Party goes from here? Where are they going to be at in four years? Because I feel like they're going to have to abandon some of the super woke ideology, right? Do they think they shift a little back more to the center? Or what do you think? I really don't know. I think they're searching right now.

Yeah. Like I just did a town hall. Seeing what sticks. Yeah, I did a town hall last night. And man, I got to tell you, it was crazy. But it was fun. So what was up with that? There was a lot of, like, people were booing and, like, talking back? Well, I think you have a lot of Democrats who are like your base activist Democrats in every part of the country. They're upset that they lost last election. They're upset that Republicans control all three branches of government. And I think that their response is yelling and booing, cursing. You know, you saw the people who were like trying to throw Molotov cocktails at Teslas. And the one guy, I think it was down here in Miami who like, you know, he's shit in his hand and smeared it on the side of a cyber truck and stuff like that. And you see this stuff. And I think that's because people are lashing out because they don't like the political results that they see.

I think for the Democrat Party overall, they're going to have to decide which party they're going to be. and I don't think they know yet. I think it's really all over the place. I think you have some Democrats who are trying to find a way to moderate and say, all right, men and women sports, that's crazy. We shouldn't be about that.

Standing with Hamas or trying to have this moral equivalency with Israel and Hamas, we've got to get away from that and be more pro-Israel. And then you have, and then obviously illegal immigration, like, all right, look,

maybe we do have to secure the border and not allow for sanctuary, status and things of that nature and then you get other democrats these are ones who are louder they're more radical who are saying no we need to double down and triple down um yes you know they want to allow for men and women sports they want to allow for transgenderism who's still pushing that out of like the big democrats oh man aOC and bernie that's what they're doing right now like bernie still saying men and women sports and aOC as i heard aOC's still doing it they're still they're upset about this stuff in their view you got to give that one up at least let's i did another

thing, I was in Orlando, this lady was like, you know, upset. I go, what's your, I go, what's the problem? Like, talk to me. I want to know. She was at one of those protests. And she goes, I want you to leave our kids alone. They know who they are. And I'm like, yeah, that's crazy. I'm not doing that. Let kids go through puberty. Let them grow up. As an adult, if you decide you want to do stuff to, you know, to your body, like, I don't agree with you, but you're an adult. Do it you want. At that point, that's your business. But we should be protecting kids. And you have a lot of Democrats, radical Democrats, who still don't agree with that. So I think they're going to continue to take, you know, that 10% of the issue in terms of what people believe in the country, 10 to 15%.

And if they want to die on that hill, I don't know how the Democrat Party comes out of that. I agree. What was the biggest messaging that people were pissed off about at your speech the other night? Oh, man. What made them, like, freak out? Doge. Doge? Yeah.

Why are people so upset it with Doge? I don't know. It makes perfect sense to me. If you're going to try to quantify it, I think what they're really upset about is they feel like how can, the richest man in the world have the ability to go through the federal agencies. But if you're going to have anybody go through and bring efficiencies to the federal government, shouldn't it be people who've done this in the real world come into the government sphere and try to make it more efficient? Like, that just makes sense. And I think in their minds,

they're fine with it as long as a Democrat does it. I mean, let's be honest, last night I was telling them that they were upset that Elon had access to the Social security database. And then when I told them that during Joe Biden's administration, he allowed 53 students to have access, the same access to the same database, they booed. They were like, no, don't talk about Joe Biden. At least Elon's doing it to try to find ways fraud and abuse and try to find ways to make the system more efficient. Joe Biden let 53 students have the same access. And, you know, I don't know what they were doing in there. But at the same time, you can't be upset when it's Elon and not be upset when is college students. But there is no limiting principle. There's no consistent

argument that they're making. I think it's just more lashing out because Trump is president and Elon is running Doge. And I think they're more upset about the fact that terrible government spending programs are being called out as opposed to working, you know, with the other side of the aisle, with Republicans and saying, you know what? Donald Trump won. He has a mandate. These crazy things should not be funded in government. Let's get that out. And then let's focus on the things that are going to remain in government spending and move forward. What do you make of like all Trump's tariffs and the stuff he's doing right now? I think what the president is doing is resetting global trade. And the way I always look at it is, you know, 60 years ago, the American economy was by far

the biggest in the world. We're still the biggest economy today. But the difference is we're not just mammoth compared to the other ones, the other world economies have caught up. They have. I bring the analogy of the dream team. Like in 92, when Michael and Larry and Magic were taken on, and Charles Barkley and Patrick Ewan and those guys, when they were taking on these other countries, man, everybody knew they were going to win the gold. It was not close, and we knew it wasn't close. So Angola could hack and foul and do all the stuff. And it really didn't matter because they were going to win by 50. In today's version of the United States basketball team, our guys got to show up to training camp, they got to work hard, they got to do that stuff. The game's got to be called evenly. And we got to work. And yeah, we still win gold, but it's not the same like it was. So in trade, we can't have other countries take advantage of America in trade where they get to tariff us and we just sit here and act like everything's okay. The other piece is trade enforcement, which most people don't really focus on. We are terrible. the United States at enforcing our own trade deals.

So that's like you cut a deal for Happy Dad, right? And let's say your distributor said, all right, we're going to distribute, you know, a thousand cases of Happy Dad here. And then when you go in and look, you realize that your distributor you got a deal with only distributed 800 cases, not the thousand that's in your deal. So there's just no oversight.

And you're just like, oh, yeah, okay, well, no big deal. You know, they're still doing 800 cases. That's good. That's how the United States deals with enforcement and trade. It's stupid. And so what Donald Trump is doing is saying, look, we're going to reset the balance in trade. This is my opinion of what the president's doing. We're going to reset the balancing global trade.

We'll have agreements with nations who want to enter into fair and equitable agreements. And in that environment, you can have free trade. We can't have a current situation continue much more where China, who is the worst offenders, steal IP, violate trade deals, tariff our product coming from America and say, oh, no, everything is okay while you have manufacturing going overseas, while Americans aren't part of the wealth creation process of building and creating things that people buy, whether it's here in America or around the globe. What was it like getting that Trump endorsement? Crazy.

I'll tell you the story. You wouldn't know what happened? Yeah. So I'm in an event in Naples. I live in Naples. A beautiful place. I'm in an event with one of my colleagues from Kentucky. And my phone is just ringing.

And, you know, I got the smart watch. So my thing is just buzzing, buzzing, buzzing. And I'm ignoring it because I'm in this meeting with a bunch of donors for my calling from Congress. And so finally, I'm like, man, what is going on? Like, my wife called me. And I could see it on the face of my watch. And I'm like, ignoring it because I'm in this meeting. And I'm like, all right, I'll call her back.

She calls me again. And I'm like, dang, what's going on? So I was like, I'll get to one a second. Let this end. And I'm going to call it a second. And I get out of the road. Well, then my phone rings. And my phone's always on silent, except for two people.

My comms director, Daniel, in case I'm supposed to be like an immediate hit or something and I'm running late and he'll call me. And I'll be like, oh, shoot, Daniel's calling me. I'm missing something or President Trump. So my phone is ringing. I'm thinking, dang, Daniel's calling me now. Like, what's happening? And I look at the face of my watch and it says, uh, 40, it says I could see 47. That's what you got to save us?

For him, in my phone, he was 45. And when he won, it became 45, 47. So, you know, if anybody saw all about the Benjamin's with Mike Epps and Ice Cube, and he was singing the jingle on the lotto, you know, 45, 47, so that's why I've ever saved that. And so I see 47 on my watch. And I'm like, oh, shoot. So I look at my phone and I show it to my colleague. And I go, yo, look, he goes, you better answer that.

So it was the president. So I called, picked up, went into the corner of the room. And the whole, everybody that was there is like, he's on the phone with the president. Everybody shuts up while I'm taking the call. President goes, Byron, I did something big. I did big stuff. You're going to love it. You're going to like what I did.

And I'm like, yes, sir. He told me what happened. You know, he told me about, you know, endorsing you to be governor. You're going to do great. You know, you're a real winner. I put out a great message. You know, he's like, you worked hard for me and I'm there for you. And I just told him I appreciated him.

not going to let them down. And so I'll hang up the phone. And everybody in the room is like, what the president want? And I go, the president just endorsing me to be governor of Florida. The whole room goes berserk. I mean, these are donors. It's like a fundraiser. These are donors. And they're screaming and yelling and they're all excited. So that's kind of, that's how I found out. I found out in the fundraiser. That's done. So it was cool. Who do you think will be the other opponent? Will it be Casey DeSantis? Man, I don't know. We'll see. You know, I think, look, she's got decisions to make, the governor's got decisions to make. I don't really know what they're going to do. As far as I'm concerned, I'm focused on me. You know, President Trump supports me. Rick Scott, our senator now, former governor, he supports me. Most of the congressional delegation supports me. We're picking up support all through the state. We're doing a great job raising money. And I'm not just sitting back saying, oh, well, President Trump endorses me. So I'm a chill at the beach. Naples or just hang out in D.C. and do my job as a member of Congress, we're going everywhere.

I was just at a community lunch before I came here. I was at community lunch in Miami over in Pinecrest doing that. Like, I'm going to be everywhere in our state. I was in Jacksonville last week. I think I'm in Tampa later this week. I mean, I'm going all over the place because I think you really got to go earn the supportive people. And so whoever decides to run, they're going to have to pick up the pace because when I campaigned, there's no stone left unturned. How do you think DeSantis has done over his term? Well, he's done a great job.

He really has. The governor of DeSantis has done a great job. There's no doubt about that. I think for the next governor of Florida, it's about building upon the work he's done, the way he built upon the work that Rick Scott did when Rick Scott was governor. And so when you compare us to other states,

we're the best state in the country. Everybody knows it. People keep coming here. They want to be a part of the fabric of Florida. So now it's keeping the stuff that Ronda Santos has done. And then getting into the new fixes on insurance, transportation, my personal goal for Florida is to make it the financial capital of the world. We have every ability to do that. How do you do that? I think it's attracting more private equity, more private debt, corporate headquarters to Florida. What I want to see in central

in central Florida around Cape Canaveral is for Florida to really build an aerospace and tech hub that rivals Silicon Valley. Digital assets, crypto, Bitcoin, all that stuff, is really found a home in Miami-Dade. And so in D.C., we're actually about to do market structure. We're doing stablecoin legislation, and we're going to do market structure legislation this Congress. And so that's going to build the regulatory framework for more capital to be invested in the United States around crypto and digital assets and Bitcoin and all that stuff. And that's, I want that to be here in Miami, in South Florida. And so the vision is if you attract high finance, continue to attract it from Chicago and New York, because their governments are

terrible. Yeah. Terrible governments. People don't want to be there anymore. You start recruiting a lot of, you know, the tech guys out of Palo Alto, having them come to Florida, you really set the stage for Florida to become the financial capital of the world where it's not, where you're rivaling London, you're rivaling Dubai, you're rivaling Singapore. That's, I think that's the vision. Yeah, we moved here about a year and a half ago from California. Yeah. We were there for about six years. And yeah, it's just like Florida's just unreal in every way. I mean, the taxes and then just Miami's just such a great city. Yeah, we got to fix the traffic, though.

We got some, you know, we got to work through it. Yeah, trying to get up to Fort Lauderdale or like to go see, go see a game up there or something. It's, it's a bit fucked. How do you fix that, though? I think part of it is you have to deal with the, I'm going to get a little technical for a moment. It's not just about 95. It's about how you get on and off 95. It's all of the interchanges in the local roads and the state roads and the interstate.

I know right now we have a tri-rail and bright line that run up and down the coast but also runs on those lines is commercial freight so people will see it that'll be the super long CSX trail cars

that take forever because when the arms drop it just takes forever to get there so I think one of the way what you do there is you try to move those lines through the center of the state so you alleviate traffic here

that alleviates congestion from people having to stop to wait for the train to pass, and so then traffic moves more smoothly. It's finishing a bunch of the road construction in Miami Day. It's just like in Orlando, just like in Tampa or in Jacksonville. I think what we want to do, I think the governor's starting some of it now, is expand the bonding capacity for the Florida Department of Transportation to move projects in a 10-year window up to get them completed faster. And then working with local governments, counties, cities, metropolitan planning organizations, we call them MPOs in the state, working with them to figure out the little

projects that really can go a long way. And in the last piece, and I think the engineering has come a long way. I'm hearing rumblings that people are starting to think about, is it possible to really do tunnels in Florida? And, you know, you have to look at the engineering on that. I don't want to get too ahead of myself. But I think on that one, does the engineering make sense? the costs savings make sense and if you can do that you you can actually alleviate a lot of traffic even make the place more desirable really really quick guys you guys have been asking for this for a while we just restock full send dot com with a bunch of new full send golf stuff it's been out of stock for a long long time you guys have been blowing us up we need new golf shit we need new golf shit here's one

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you register as a Democrat, that's what I did. And in 2008, you know, when the financial collapse was happening, I was doing research for my company. And I realized, through my research and really starting to understand politics, that I was actually very conservative. I didn't vote for Barack Obama in 2008. I didn't agree with him. Even though I was a Democrat, I voted for John McCain.

I didn't agree with Barack Obama when it came to economic policy and health care. I disagreed. And I was proven right. History has proven that I'm right. And would you say that publicly at the time or no? Where was it? I said it to my mom. Right.

That was a, that was an interesting conversation. She was not happy, man. My mom was like, what are you doing? Yeah. And I think, and I understand why. I think from my mom, and really for the country, I think it was a, it was a signal and a culmination that America, in spite of our past, has come to a point where a black man can be president of the United States.

But the other part of what my mother always instilled in me, now. ever left. And my mother always taught me, don't follow the crowd. Don't follow the crowd. Don't just do what people say you should do because everybody's doing it. You got to think for yourself. And so when I looked at the policies that then Senator Obama was campaigning on, I didn't agree. So how can you vote for somebody if you don't agree with what they're saying? And that was really the first step towards me, I mean, changing parties. And as I continued to become, you know, more conservative, being involved in a Tea Party movement, movement back in 2009, 2010, you know, I woke up one day, I was just like, you're a conservative.

You're a part of the local Tea Party movement, but you're still a registered Democrat. Why are you still a registered Democrat? Just go change your registration. So I did. That was 20. What was it like in like 2010 compared to now being like an African American conservative? Do you notice any difference in support? Like back then, I'm sure it must have been a lot more crazy as it is now.

Well, you were definitely stepping out there. There's no doubt about that. I mean, but that time, though, I wasn't, like, even thinking about running for office. That was, like, the furthest thing from my mind. Right. So it was just more of a personal decision. And it was also something like, you know, with my family, with my mom and stuff, for them to know that I'd change parties and become a Republican. They pretty much knew that from, like, my Facebook posts.

Because if you go back to my old Facebook, which I'm quite sure everybody is people who, you know, do that kind of stuff, they go back and research everything you've ever posted and everything. you've ever said. They've gone back and looked through my Facebook and all that stuff from back in the day. And I would have these debates about public policy with people. Then I found that to be a, it was kind of a waste of time, so I stopped doing it. But I did that stuff. So even though you were black and a conservative in the time when Obama was president, man, it was lonely. And so you had to have the courage of your convictions if you were going to step out and demonstrate that you were a Tea Party conservative in the era of Obama. So, you know, a lot of times now when I go in the town halls and, you know, I'm taking on all

commerce, the reason why I'm comfortable and doesn't really bother me is because I had to express, I was expressing myself politically back when it wasn't like a cool thing to be a black Republican or to be a black conservative. And there was no, there was no Twitter sphere or influencers or there was a, none of that. So you're just out there having debates with people you went to college with, went to high school with, and you're having to defend your position. And you're probably losing friends in the process. Definitely. But you have to be willing to stand on your own two feet and be the man that God's called you to be. Do you believe that America still has like a problem with racism,

like systemic racism? No. I think that the country did. I mean, that's obvious. We definitely did, but I don't think so anymore. I think the country now where we are, We are as close to a meritocracy, I think, as we've ever been in America. And I think you're starting to see that in all frames of life. You're seeing it in business. You're seeing it in politics. You're seeing it, obviously, in sports and entertainment. But really, in entertainment, with what you guys are doing.

I think podcasting, influencing, if that's not a meritocracy, I don't know what is. Like, I was in Vegas for WrestleMania, and I was there for 9-1. It was crazy. I had to watch night two on the plane, but I was watching night one. I was there at Allegiant. And so, you know, you have, do you guys talk about other podcasters here?

Yeah, yeah. I mean, I don't know. I don't know all the rules. I'm trying to be respectful. So, you know, Logan Paul is on there. Logan Paul is wrestling. He just broke into wrestling. But even in the wrestling business,

which I think they would probably say at the time was you had to like come up at the bottom and pay your dues and it's hard to break into. I think they've come to the point where now it's like, look, if you can wrestle and if you can entertain, come on in. And I think podcasting, the evolution of podcasting from, you know, from Bill Simmons, when Bill Simmons kind of opened up the genre, that's demonstrated the meritocracy in our country where if people want to follow you, if you have thoughts that are original, if you're entertaining,

whatever, people can find a conduit to come to you. And I think we're seeing that through America, and I think it only gets better from here. I saw DeSantis say that you weren't, what did you say, you weren't part of any of the victories of like the conservative movement. What was your like reaction to that? My reaction honestly was is that, you know, he's still mad at me that I endorsed Donald Trump. And so that's his way of, you know, kind of lashing out, trying to lash out at me. You know, I think the truth is the last four years when the governor was doing his job as a governor, I was doing my job in Congress. And my job in Congress was standing up to Joe Biden and Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer.

And my job also in Congress was doing everything I could to help elect Donald Trump. So, you know, the governor's entitled to his position and his opinion, but, you know, I don't really think it's factual. I think that's more political. I think if you also look at when I was in the state house back the four years before I got to Congress, there was a lot of legislation I passed that became law in Florida that the governor has now used to continue his battles against DEI and woke in our in our institutions. I passed the first bill of its kind in Florida that allowed for parents and community members to be able to look at instructional materials in schools. So before you could fight woke in education, you had to actually know what was in the books. Stop. Do you know how fast you were going?

I'm going to have to write you a ticket to my new movie, The Naked Gun. Liam Nieson. Buy your tickets now. I get a free Tilly Dog. Chilly Dog, not included. The Naked Gun. Tickets on sale now. I passed that bill. Rick Scott was governor. He signed it into law. So I don't think it's

accurate to say that somebody's not a part of all the fights and all the successes. I just think that's more personal, but, you know, it is what it is. That's politics. He's going to have to back the wife, obviously. I mean, look, you know, it's your wife, you know, it's what it is. But, you know, well, first, we'll see what they do. Let's establish that. But secondly, after that, Now it's about qualifications, you know, and I think that if you examine anybody that looks at my voting record or what I've done in my time in the legislature or my time in Congress, there is nobody that has a record as conservative as mine. Those are the facts. And so I think, you know, you take my record on what I've done and then you propel that into being able to run the state of Florida. So Florida is going to continue to be a state based upon conservative principles, constitutional principles. And then we're going to be looking to the future about diversifying our economy, dealing with roads, fixing insurance, fixing the Everglades once and for all, finishing that work. And I commend Governor DeSantis for being committed to Everglades restoration. My job is the next governor is to take the ball, take the baton, and finish it and be done once and for all.

and then continue to monitor our environment, helps make sure that it's clean and vibrant for everybody that wants to come to Florida. And so, you know, that's my view. I would joke with some of my Democrat colleagues when I was in the legislature because when they would have disagreements, we would call it Dem on Dem Crime.

And what you find in politics a lot is some of the most intense fighting is intra-party fighting when you have Democrats fighting Democrats or Republicans fighting Republicans. that's some of the most intense battles. But eventually it ends. And I think the best thing going forward is that we remember that once you go through that posture of having disagreements or primaries or fighting out who's going to, you know, be the nominee, we got to be focused on conservative principles, focused on making sure that Republicans win, and then doing the job of executing on the things that we campaign on.

Why is that more intense, the inter-party, like, disputes? Because, you know, it's kind of like How old are you remember Mad Max on the dome? Mad Max Beyond the Don't? You know, oh man, see, I just dated myself. Yeah, this is Mel, this is young Mel Gibson. Okay.

Tina Turner. Okay. Anyway, for everybody out there, go watch Mad Max. The old Mad Max. It's not the new one. Not the new Gloriosa ones. Not Gloria. Furiosa.

Oh, that was a good one now. Okay. But go back and watch the old Mad Max. It's interesting. And politics, at the end of the day, is competition. And some of the most. competitive people on the planet are politicians. Just as competitive as athletes. I bet. And so you want to win. And in politics, which is different from sports,

there are rules in sports that everybody can see and you kind of have to follow the rules. In politics, there are no rules. There's no referee. You just, you get at it. And it can be really intense. And there's the stuff people see on TV. There's the stuff that people see on social media and it is the stuff that people never see that's behind the scenes and the stuff that's behind the scenes can actually that's the stuff that's the stuff that's most vicious because that's when people will stab you in the back who you think are your friends and they're not that's when you realize that there aren't really a lot of the old saying in politics is that if you want a friend bring a dog because they ain't really no friends a lot of frenemies like we're friendly but we

could potentially be enemies and then if you find yourself in a heads-up contest then you're just enemies at that point, and you just get after it. I said the other day to co-people, politics has not left the Roman Coliseum. You know, we have cars and boats and people can get on PJs and helicopters and all that kind of stuff. You got Elon and Bezos shooting rockets all over the place, but at the end of the day, politics at its core has not left the Roman Coliseum. And at the end of the day, you got to win the crowd. And that's still the case today

Was there a time when you like first realized that Like is there a story Probably a lot of stories you can't tell But was there was there a time when you realized Like holy shit That person just snaked me Like said something to your face I'll tell this one

I'll tell this one Because everyone wonders yeah What is politics actually like So when I first ran for Congress This was back in 2012 And I ran because people in a Tea Party movement Asked me I'll never forget it

I was at a restaurant called Verginas in Naples, Florida, and I was a volunteer on Herman Kane's presidential campaign, and Herman Kane had just dropped out. God rest of Herman Kane's soul. The head of the local Herman Kane campaign came up to me. She was, she's like five foot two. And she walks up to me and she points her finger at me and she goes, you need to run for Congress. And I go, I don't know what the hell you're talking about. Like, I'm just a regular guy. I don't even know how you do that. She's like, you need to. You need to. You to run. You'll be great. People like you. You know issues. I'm like, I'm just a regular guy. And she was like, we're all help you. First rule in politics. Everybody who says they're going to help you. That don't always help you. But that's just, that's not, that's not the big stuff. There was a guy I used to do a radio show. I did a show with him off and on. I would come in and do a hit or two and leave. And I heard through the grapevine that he was telling people that I would have to be crazy if I thought that a black guy could win Collier County, which is Naples, where I live. And I heard it.

It came back to me. People say a lot thinking it doesn't come back to me. It comes back to me. I just file it and keep moving, right? So he's like, man, he'd have to be crazy if he thinks a black man will win Collier County. So I just put that in his motivation. And I said, oh, yeah, okay. Well, watch this.

We ended up winning Collier County in that election, won it by five points. But I lost Lee County, which is a longer county. the larger county, so I didn't win the congressional seat. During that process, we would have debates. And when I really learned that politics is really about the arena, at its core, it's still about the arena, it's still about the Coliseum, was when you get into these debates or these conversations or these arguments, and you're having to compare yourself against the people next to you, and I would go into these debates and nobody would know who I was. And then we would leave the debates and everybody's like, man, who the hell is this guy? Like, that's the guy I like.

And I think the other people I was running against after a while, they started having these conversations behind the scenes and they would say, you know what? We got to stop debating. And I was starting to hear about it. And I'm like, well, how come that person pulled out? How come this person pulled out? And what got back to me after was you kept winning debates. And so the best way to stop your momentum is to not debate you. That's just a snippet of what happens behind the scenes. Nobody knows that out front. People would just be like, oh, that person dropped out, blah, blah, blah, no, no. Typically what happens is when people start begging off, that's because they know they can't stand toe to toe. So now they have to go find

another way to win. And so you'll get like the anonymous emails, anonymous text messages. People want to bring up your pass and talk about all this other stuff. I mean, look, I got a pass. I don't care. I talk about my pass openly because I'm not perfect. Made a lot of mistakes. But that's the stuff that happens behind the scenes. And you quickly realize it's not about your ability to be successful and to help people and to be good at the job and to help the state or help the country or in my in my vantage point have conservatism be like the standard bearer for how governments operate it's about you want to be on top and so you will cut another man's legs out so you're the tallest person in the room that's what happens behind the scenes

in politics and i think that's why people get disgusted with it and really don't want to be a part bit. But, you know, Plato famously said those that are ignorant of their politics are going to be ruled by their inferiors. And so I think it's important for people to be engaged in politics or you'll be ruled by your inferiors. What do you think about the left right now, what they're trying to do with all the illegals that Trump's trying to send out? And they're kind of like trying to put a stop to it and stuff, right? What was the whole situation with the immigrant that was like wrongfully sent out? And what's your opinion on that? man. They're pissed about the fact that we're undoing everything that Joe Biden did. You got

understand the Democrats were all for open borders and letting tens of million people into the country. They were all for it. They weren't complaining about when cities were overwhelmed with illegal immigration. The only time they complained is when Governor DeSantis rightly, by the way, put a bunch of illegals on a plane and sent them to Martha's Vineyard. And when he did that, then they got pissed. Because they're like, how dare you send these illegals to our private enclave where we get to, you know, drink champagne and wear, you know, linen shorts and laugh at the plebs in the rest of the country. They were only get pissed when Greg Abbott, the governor of Texas, was sending a busloads

to New York City and to Chicago. Then they got pissed because they had to be confronted with their own policy. They want open borders. They don't want to deport people. So with this Kilmar guy, Kilmar Garcia, when you have a dummy like Chris Van Holland, fly down to El Salvador to go sit there and have lunch with the dude. I mean, that proves he cares more about illegal immigrants than he does the American people. Why him? Is he like a U.S. citizen or something? No, he's not. He's an illegal alien. He's been in the country illegal for a long time.

He has an illegal. He had a legal deportation order against him. But what happened was, I think it was the ACLU or one of these outside groups sued on the flights to go to El Salvador. And they sued saying that those illegal aliens didn't have their due process in the country. But the president used the, I think it's the Aliens Act of 1798 that he used and said, look, Trenda Aragua is a national security threat, and I'm moving them out of the country. The president has the power to do that. Judge Bolsberg disagreed. The plane was already in the air.

The judge is saying, turn the player around. And the president's like, you're a judge. You don't run foreign policy. Plains in the air and it's going. right you have democrats who will say no bring those illegal gang members back to the united states that's crazy but that's their position because they truly believe in illegal immigration they don't want the rules they want the doors to be open why like are they just trying to stop president trump from having success so like the democrat party like levels up or like why are they

do they actually believe that they're doing a good thing they i think one there's some of them that actually believe they're doing a good thing two you have those who believe that they have to stop Donald Trump at all costs. So if he says the light is green, the light is red. If he says the sky is blue, the sky is black. Which that at least makes sense to me their motive. But if they're just, you know, you could see why they're doing that. But if they actually believe it, it's fucking crazy.

There's a third piece. And I think one of the things for people who really want to like kind of learn some of the details on this stuff, there's a great video series by Milton Friedman called Free to Choose. It's on YouTube. People can go and watch it. He wrote a book called Free to Choose. Milton Friedman won the Nobel Prize for economics. He's a libertarian, Austrian Economic School. He would have like a public access show called Free to Choose, and you would have conservative, libertarian and liberal scholars debate public policy. This is like in the 70s. It's really good stuff for people who want to just kind of learn it without modern politics messing it up. There was a lady on there called a Francis Fox Piven. She was a longtime liberal. professor. And one of her theories, along with a guy named Cloward, I think is his name,

was about if you want to fundamentally change American government, you must first overwhelm the systems. There are Democrats who believe in this, where they say it is better to overwhelm the systems, so then you'd have to recreate the federal government's operations in the image that they want. I think that's crazy and haphazard, but you do have Democrats who believe that. And so I think it's a combination of the three. You got people who are just thinking if you're in a third world, it's a tough life and come to America, it's better. And they might think that out of the goodness of their heart, but it's not orderly. I remember I was in a high school. I was talking about illegal immigration. And I asked this high school, these high school

students, I said, whose mom could cook? And it's one girl threw her hand up. And I look, I was like, to your mom could cook? She goes, yeah. I go, can she cook good? Yes, great. Can I come for dinner. She goes, of course. I go, can I come back the second night if it's good? She's like, of course, yeah, our home's always open. I said, if it's good the second night, can I sleep on the couch? She goes, well, wait a minute, hold up. And I go, wait, why hold up? Like, don't stop. Why hold up? And she goes, because this is our house, you just can't come and stay. And I said, stop right there. I said, if those are the rules for your house, how come they can't be the rules for a nation? And at the end of the day, when it comes to illegal immigration, that's the, that's the principle we have to

follow. It's okay to have people come over to your house. But we all know the rules. You don't get to stay. Especially if you start breaking stuff. I got to show you this prank, this prank. On our other channel, we do a lot of like pranks. We did a bunch leading up to the election. I got to show you this. That's exactly what you're talking about. So you would do anything for like all the illegals and stuff. Guys, this is great. I think we found a new home for you guys. So we made her sign a petition first saying, do you support illegal immigration? And this is in Beverly Hills. they are not what do you mean you just said you wanted to support everyone though okay I don't know no they're not violent they're good oh no hop it like just like you guys

did before that's good that's good wait well we have your signature you guys got to drive back down south back to home depot oh my hey that's good though people love that that's good though but it's true because I mean people have these ideas the way I like to think about it is a lot of people think about policy they think about policy but they don't think through policy. And if you think about policy, you say, oh, yeah, we want people to get a better life. America is bountiful. But when you think through policy, how are they getting here? Are they being abused? Where are they going to sleep? How are they going to eat? How do they assimilate into American culture? Do you even allow them to assimilate into American culture?

That's thinking through the policy issue. And I think you have a lot of Democrats who think about illegal immigration or think about open borders or however they want to phrase it. They think about sanctuary cities. They think it sounds good. But they don't think through the actual steps of what it does to their cities or in that video to that lady's house. Because she's quick to sign a petition as long as you ain't sleeping on her catch. Yeah. When it doesn't affect them, they don't care. That's exactly right. What was your favorite interaction with President Trump that you can speak on? Oh, man. I'm trying to make sure I get one that I can actually share. Yeah, I'm sure there's a time that you can't talk about.

There's something I'm not going to share, but I'll share this one. So when we were leaving, it was during the campaign, we were leaving, I think it was North Carolina. We were flying to Wisconsin. And this was right after Joe Biden went on that webcam calling people garbage, calling Trump supporters garbage. And we're on the plane, and the staff goes, hey, sir, we got a garbage truck that's going to be out on the tarmac when we land. And I go, well, is the president going to drive it? And the guys go, well, yeah, he wants to drive it. I'm like, of course, because that's the right thing.

You should want to drive it. And I guess Secret Service wasn't for that, so that didn't happen. So we all do playing like we do when we're with them. We do playing first, and he's, like, is doing his thing that he comes out. But he doesn't come out like he normally does where he has his MAGA hat and he has his jacket and, you know, everything is steamed out and looking good. the tie is crisp, he comes out in the sanitation jacket. And in real time, this is the funniest thing.

I was like, man, this man has like the greatest comedic timing in politics. Like, there's nothing even like this. He comes out in a sanitation vest, and we're just, like, we're laughing because this is so good, and it's just going to get the Dems, and this thing is going to go viral in the heartbeat, and it did. And he comes down the steps, and he's talking to the press. He's in the sanitation jacket and the vest. And then the truck is pulled up?

And I'm like, is he going to get in the truck? Because I didn't know what he was going to do. And I'm like, is he going to get in the truck? And the first step of the truck was probably, you know, like 18 inches off the ground, something like that. It was a pretty high step. And so I'm talking to a guy sitting next to me and I go, hey, can he get in the, you know, I know, I know Trump is the man, but can he take that step? Yeah. It's a high step.

Yeah. And they're like. Oh, well, shit, he better. And everybody's like, I'm looking at it like, you got this, sir. Like, you got it. But he made it. He pulled up and did the whole thing. That thing was just funny.

So we get to the arena and we're in the back and we're talking to Brett Fav and Brett's wife and Brett's grandson. And he's still in the vest. So I'm going to the stage to do my thing. And I just tell the team, I'm like, he's got to give that speech in the vest. Like, do not take the vest off. You got to do the speech in the vest. everything. And to his credit, he was just like, all right, I'm going to own it. And he just goes

out there and does it. And it's stuff like that when you're on the road with him that I think people started to see more. You started to see Donald Trump, not just the caricature or the imagery of Donald J. Trump. People started to see Donald Trump for who he is. And I think the funny thing is like he's sarcastic as hell, funny, wants everybody to kind of enjoy themselves and have a good time that's really who he is at his core but then also you know if you mess with him he's going drop an anvil on you he's not going to hesitate yeah that was a funny moment the mcdonald's one was big too i wasn't at the macdonald's one which is why i can't recall that one yeah what do you think there was a turning point in the campaign because i feel like he just outworked kamala

i mean he was doing like he did every podcast possible every big podcast and then in addition he'd do like two speaking events a day he's doing like three four things a day yeah he out worked Did you think there was, like, a point in the campaign where it was like, this is over? In my mind, the campaign was really over when Biden debated in Atlanta. I was there that night. And that was, wow. But when Kamala got announced, when she first got announced, and after that first debate, a lot of people said Kamala won. No, but, I mean, when she came in, she was riding this, this, this, this, uh, fanfare of she's coming in to save the Democrat Party.

I think I said once that the way they treated Kamala Harris was as if she was a Hollywood starlet for a movie promotion. And every scene in the trailer on YouTube or on TV looks great and she looks great. And oh, my gosh, the script looks amazing and look at the action. And she took the red carpet and everybody wants to take a picture of her and everything is exciting. And then you go watch the movie and the movie sucks. that was the Kamala Harris campaign. And so I think with President Trump, when she

first came in, we saw the rise in the polls, but what we all realized pretty quickly that it wasn't, there was no substance there. It was just a rise in the polls because there was something different to look at, and she was not Joe Biden. But the problem for her is she's Kamala Harris,

and she had nothing to say. And the little that she said was terrible. And so I think the decision the campaign made was just to be everywhere and constantly work was the right decision, because at the end of the day, it looked like, you know, they were lazy. I think they were more entitled and lazy. And I think the truth is they couldn't really put her out there. We've been sitting here in what, 35, 40 minutes? I don't know. Yeah. Kamala Harris couldn't sit here with you for 35, 40 minutes. No. She could not do this. And it was evident

that she couldn't. And so, like, I think it's in America today, especially when President Trump and J.D. started doing podcasts and going out there and sharing ideas and just having real conversation, it demonstrated that, oh, man, these are just, these are two real people that just want to do the right thing by the country. J.D.'s a beast, too. And then you can't find her. Like, she's nowhere to be seen, or she goes on a view. And then she says, like, the kill shot to me was, they were like, what would you do different? And she goes, nothing that comes to mind. Well, at that point is like, girl, you did. Like, you're dead. This is over. And I think the American people saw that. But you

had to go through that phase. At his core, they just outworked her. yeah and she was lazy and entitled and they outworked her and that was it who do you think becomes the next nominee for the republican party i know trump's says he wants to do a third term is there any validity of that or not i don't know man like that will be all i think this people no seriously people will lose it if you try to do that on a serious note i think that um towards the end of the campaign in 24 i think you can kind of feel the nostalgia because really think about it this was um ben shapiro's said like this was like season 10 of trump is kind of how you phrase it and like um i think he i think everybody could feel the

nostalgia like this was the last ride you know what i mean like this was this is this is the outro in terms of campaigns and i think that i think that's i think that's where it's going to end up who comes next jady jd so many people right but what i will say is jadie's the leader in the clubhouse I guess I would say we're kind of in the first round right now at the Masters. He's got, he's got the lead. And J.D., he's a beast. He's very, he's good for them at the media. Very, very smart.

I love watching him go against the media. Oh, yeah. No, J.D. is good. Yeah. Really good. Incredibly smart. You know, he's been through it in life. I think that's what makes him a part very relatable.

Because Jadie's life is not some silver-spooned kid who was positioned to become. the next wave of political leadership. A lot of guys, I think, in the inner city, like I'm from the inner city, I think a lot of guys in the inner city, some of them, if they take a chance to look at JD, what they realize is JD, although he grew up, you know, as a hillbilly, JD didn't really grow up much different than a lot of us. Drugs in your community, drugs in your house. JD's family life was much tougher than my family life. Like, I didn't grow up with my dad, but my mom.

You know, she was just a grinder, hard work, or held me accountable. J.D., had to grow up with a situation with his mom. That would have been devastating or destroying to just about anybody. He was able to persevere and overcome that and still love his family and so try to do good things. I mean, that's a success story, man. And I think that's why, you know, it's going to be tough. It's going to be tough for anybody that wants to take him on. Do you ever see yourself running for president one day?

Man, after you finish your job as governor? Honestly, I can't see that far. Right now, I'm focused on doing this. And to be honest with you, when I first ran and got elected, this was 2016, so I was about eight. I was probably 37. And at the time, I looked at it like, man, okay, I'll probably be doing this for maybe eight years, ten years tops, and then that's it. And then when I got to Congress, I told my district, you'll get a max 10 years out of me. So five terms.

You'll get 10 years max out of me, and then I'm leaving. And now you're running for governor. We're successful. I win. I get sworn in in two years as a state's next governor. I'll be 48. And by the time you leave, I'd be 56. Man, I might just want to just go back to normal life and just enjoy life.

I don't think you can plan politics. Just like, I don't really think you can plan life. I think you do the best thing you can't you do. You work hard day and day out. You stay ready so you don't have to get ready. And then if the door, if God opens those doors and you have the ability to walk through it, then you make that decision to walk through. Seriously. That is a serious, non-political, non-bS answer.

I have no idea. Nobody knows. Well, yeah, we don't want to take too much your time. I know you guys got a role, but you got our full support. I think we've got to get you back on closer to the election. We'll catch up. Man, of course. 2026, November?

My question is, happy dad, is this good? I'm not a hard seltzer dude So I don't even know if this is good I mean I think it's the best hard seltzer For sure Are you really drink at all or no I'm a tequila guy Yeah yeah I mean

Little shot at tequila chase it with a happy dad Can't go wrong Now you cause a problem Well we'll send Yeah Not before a speech Not before a speech No we appreciate you

Thank you so much Thank you Thank you You know,