PBD Podcast - Governor Ron DeSantis | PBD Podcast | Ep. 321

Episode Date: October 30, 2023

Ron DeSantis is an American politician serving since 2019 as the 46th Governor of Florida. A member of the Republican Party, he represented Florida's 6th congressional district in the U.S. House of Representatives from 2013 to 2018. DeSantis is a candidate in the 2024 United States presidential election. Connect With Experts On Minnect: https://bit.ly/3tV3v2B Visit Bet-David Consulting to level up your business: https://bit.ly/3QfeZ8t Subscribe to our channel: http://bit.ly/2aPEwD4 Subscribe to:  @VALUETAINMENT  Want to get clear on your next 5 business moves? https://valuetainment.com/academy/ Join the channel to get exclusive access to perks: https://bit.ly/3Q9rSQL Download the podcasts on all your favorite platforms https://bit.ly/3sFAW4N Text: PODCAST to 310.340.1132 to get the latest updates in real-time! Patrick Bet-David is the founder and CEO of Valuetainment Media. He is the author of the #1 Wall Street Journal Bestseller Your Next Five Moves (Simon & Schuster) and a father of 2 boys and 2 girls. He currently resides in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/pbdpodcast/support

I Did you ever think you would make it? I feel I'm so close I could take sweetie the story. I know this life meant for me Yeah, why would you bet on Goliath when we got bet David? Value came and giving values, contagious, this world I want yourpreneurs, we can't no value that hate And I'd be running home, you look what I've become. I'm the owner.

Okay, so podcast episode number three, 21, many of you have been waiting for this. This is a special one. I was with the governor yesterday. He came and spent a few minutes with the family, the kids. My son was like, I met the governor. It was great. We were at the Miami Dolphins game.

They even won. But I know I hear this is your first live podcast for an hour that you're going to. So it's an honor to have you here. We're truly honored by this. And appreciate your setting up shop in Florida and doing all you're doing down here. Yes, I told you earlier, we're gonna make four lot of the Hollywood

of the Burbank of East Coast, but it's gonna take us a minute. Anyways, let's get right into it. We got only one hour together. So first things first, for me, when I watch you very closely, I told you this yesterday and I'm gonna say it on camera as well. So it's very aligned with exactly the message I give to my son. When Dylan came and he shook hands with you, I said, Dylan, do you know who this man is? I said, this man is the governor. He's the reason why we moved to the great state of Florida. So you're the reason why we came

in. When we were in Texas, we had our insurance company. We build it. We moved it from LA to Addison, Texas. We had it there. We grew it to 45,000, 50,000 agents, we sold it a year and a half ago. Two and a half years ago, I said, babe, we gotta move to a state, we're looking at everywhere here, we're looking at Greenwich, we're looking at New York, we're looking at Newport Beach, we're looking at Stain and Dallas, we're looking at Nashville, we're looking at Tampa, and then finally, we made a decision to come out here

for a couple different reasons. So, you know, I think sometimes, when if we go back three years ago, you got a lot of hate. People were criticized and you left and right. And I want to first start off by listing all your victories, what you've done. I think the world needs to know this. And I think this needs to be on a greatest hits constantly over and over again for people to know what you did.

And how hard it was for you to do what you did. So one, I'm a guy that lived in California. I saw what Disney land against Disney world, whenever I was like, well, let's see what's gonna happen. Just the best case study of California against Florida. And then one day, Bob Iger comes and says, I'm out. October of 2020, he left a new sum camp. And the next day they announced

they're letting go of 28,000 employees, but you kept it open. So Disney world excels, the small businesses around are doing good, but California is getting destroyed. Okay. Everybody would say, you shut down, you shut down Florida, you shut down Florida. April 1st, you announced the 2020, it was like three or four weeks, we were here and then free, it was a decision that a lot of people made.

Right, and during that month, we had people flocking to Florida even then. We were one of them. We had golf courses going, we had recreation protected churches to Florida even then. We were one of them. We had golf courses going. We had recreation protected churches, all those things. So we basically did a loose of the federal guidelines, but I was being criticized from the other side saying that this was, that I wasn't doing enough on that regard. And then obviously we reversed course very quickly and then led the country. But totally.

And by the way, to some of the Republicans that criticized you to say he shut it down, that was in a shutdown, that was a test to see how things were reacting, to see what it was gonna be like, and then you went back to business as usual based on what you saw. UFC 261, first full capacity event that took place, April 24, 2021 in Jacksonville.

Then you have LeBron, I don't know if he's ever seen. Well, but the, and that we actually did the first live sporting event. COVID came, everyone freaked out, all the sports leagues shut down. Dana White was trying to find a deserted island. So I called him, I said, Dana, just do it in Florida. And he's like, all right, he's like, where can I do it?

I was like, wherever you want. And he wanted to make sure that the local mayor would also be supportive. Cause he's like, I know, look, I'll overrule him. He's like, no, I was like, wherever you want. And he wanted to make sure that the local mayor would also be supportive, because he's like, I know, I'll look all over the room. He's like, now I wanna make sure everyone wants us there. So the Jacksonville mayor was a Republican, wanted him to do so. I think it was the first week of May 2020

when people, Governor California is saying, don't even leave your house, we did a UFC. Now we didn't have the stadium filled, but to do that was important because people were acting like we couldn't live life. Yes, we desperately mean it. And so you had that. And so because we stood up for that,

Dana's like, I'm always gonna come back to Jacksonville. So he's come back to Jacksonville every year now. And by the way, not only that, the UFC that they did in Miami was a record breaking out to get even bigger than New York. Dana said in an interview, the post-fight, you know, he said, this was, felt like what LA was 10 years ago, even more than that. LeBron James won a championship because of you, these guys were the BLM guys, but they ran the playoffs here, which was full of controversy and contradictions. The NBA bubble, that's right. But I can go on and on and on and talk about how parents feel comfortable here, you know, what you've done with limiting the gender,

affirming care, the e-verify, veto and wasteful spending. I know the insurance crisis I made a video about it today, how they're trying to kind of give you a hard time because you stand up to BlackRock and ESG. And then CBDC, which was one of the biggest ones that you guys rarely talk about. I'd love for you to talk more about that crypto communities, not become crypto-capable

in the world as Miami. It's here. It's what you guys have done. And then I talked about that before. But I want to get into an issue right now that we're dealing with. I lived in Iran 10 years, okay. And whatever we turn on right now,

we're seeing Israel, Palestine. A couple months ago was Ukraine, Russia, and now it's Israel, Palestine. Everyone's talking about it. It's an issue that's very disturbing. When we saw the video of people coming down and then what they did at that rave, the party, and then you're seeing the videos, the kit nap,

and all that stuff taking place. And then the numbers came out today, 8,500 on the Palestinian side, on what Israel has done. You got 1,500 on the Israeli side. It's a very complicated situation here because on one end, you're seeing how many billionaires are pulling money out of giving money to Harvard. I mean, that's where you went to Yale.

That's also where you went into. And Penn and all these different universities, what do you guys think? How come you're not supporting this? You're supporting Palestine. You're quite about it. And then on one end, I'm sitting there asking a question saying, how didn't Netanyahu not know?

If you got the best secret intelligence in the world, Masad, how did you not know this was going to take place? And the other question becomes How Egypt? Why are you not taking? You know refugees to come to your country. What do you know about your neighbor that the rest of us don't know? These are two questions that we can both entertain, but this is the question I had for you. I feel the Democrats have owned a black vote for decades That they feel like no matter what they do, they are always gonna get the black vote.

That's kinda how they treat them. So a lot of blacks are not happy about it, but guess what? Every year, 84% to 88% vote Democrat. I get a feeling that Netanyahu, or Israel, this is a question a lot of people are thinking about, including myself, sees the Americans as the same way.

America's got our back, we can do whatever we want to do, and they're going to always have our back. Matter of fact, even in a private conversation that he was having in 2001, I want to play this clip, he's having a conversation with a couple people. This is not reported on by WAPO in 2010. I'll ju-0, I want to say in 2001 and all over the place, if you don't mind paying attention to this video and then I'll ask the question. Here's Netanyahu privately having a conversation in 01.

Go ahead, Robin played. ‫הוא כבר יוצאו כאן, ‫הוא תקפה על בפקר, ‫הוא אומר, תודה רצתית. ‫הוא היה איתה לתחת שרום נתמיד. ‫הוא לא פוח אתם, ‫כי מה אני אראו לנות ויש שרדה, ‫הוא היה אף חוק ותקפה שרדה. ‫-הוא פשוט הם לא פחותם. ‫הוא לא פחותם. ‫-הוא לא פחותם. ‫הוא היה עזר עדה, ‫אבל אף על אז השואה, ‫הוא העולם יבין מה אתם, ‫הוא עוד עוד עוד. ‫-הוא לא פחותם. ‫הוא לא פחות את עוד העולם יבין. ‫-הוא לא פחות את העולם יבין.

‫הוא חדע יום יבין, ‫הוא היה איתה, ‫הוא יודע מה זה עוד הלכתים. ‫-האזרים עוד הלכתים. ‫האזרים עוד מלאגים. ‫-האזרים עוד הלכתים. ‫האזרים עוד הלכתים. ‫-האזרים עוד הלכתים. ‫האזרים עוד הלכתים. ‫-האזרים עוד הלכתים. ‫האזרים עוד הלכתים. ‫-האזרים עוד הלכתים. ‫האזרים עוד הלכתים. ‫-האזרים עוד הלכתים. ‫האזרים עוד הלכתים. ‫-האזרים עוד הלכתים. ‫האזרים עוד הלכתים. ‫-האזרים עוד הלכתים. ‫האזרים עוד הלכתים. ‫-האזרים עוד הלכתים. ‫האזרים עוד הלכתים. ‫-האזרים עוד הלכתים.

‫האזרים עוד הלכתים. ‫האזרים עוד הלכתים. ‫האזרים עוד הלכתים. ‫האזרים עוד הלכתים. ‫האזרים עוד הלכתים. ‫-האז kind of get what we want out of them. So this is my concern. I'm America first. I live here, my kids live here, my kids are in Florida because I feel the safest here. I don't mind my allies having good relationships with me. I'm okay with my allies.

I have a problem with my allies using me as a card to abuse that get out of jail card. And then eventually, this thing can turn around and lead into World War III because World War I, 90 million people died, 260 million people died. If the third one happens at that trajectory, it's 200 million people.

Do you think Netanyahu is kind of using a get out of jail card to do what he wants to do and what he's been wanting to do with Palace then all these years? Now look, I don't think, I mean, I think you pointed out how does, they have the best security in the world and yet this is a massive attack on their civilian population. So my sense is in Israel is that the public is very disenchanted with the government. I think they view it as having been a big problem that this happened.

And so I think they're now in a situation where they have to say, okay, you know, you have this group on the Gaza Strip, which by the way, is not occupied territory. Israel pulled out in 2006. They elected Hamas, and I think that's been a big mistake because most of the capital goes into the terrorist infrastructure. But I think they're in a situation where you can't live with that type of a threat right on your border. And so they have to deal with it. I don't think it's a question of America get out of jail free.

I think, honestly, they're gonna do what they're gonna do. We've been a strong ally of theirs and vice versa over the years, but we've deployed troops all over the world. We've never deployed troops there. They've always fought with their own army. So I think the, I don't think it's a question of manipulating America. I think you have the American people

by and large have affinity for Israel. Part largely, I think, more from in our Christian community than anything, just based on the history of the Judeo-Christian tradition and how it's informed this country. So I think it is unique in terms of the affinity that our country has for Israel because of the biblical history and people's adherence to the Judeo-Christian

tradition. Yeah, earlier today he said, you know, this whole thing about ceasefire, I don't know if you saw that or not, where he's like, look, we're not going to cease fire. The America ceasefire would Pearl Harbor, the America ceasefire would 9-11, the America ceasefire, we're not going to either ride, which by the way the way I understand his position my concern isn't his position my concern is this going so extreme where it backfires you're seeing what happened at airports yesterday in russia I'm sure you saw that clip it's all over the place what do we do to prevent this from coming back in our soil I'm a product of Iran I lived in Iran ten years and I remember when Jimmy Carter

is like well you know human rights you know, human rights, you know, the Shahs got a get rid of these 3000 political prisoners he did. And then Al-Qaeda and Osama bin Laden, all this thing came out of a 10, 20, 30 years later. We got a 9, 11 here. So are you worried the position he's taking could have some residual effects that come to America? I don't think it's because of that.

I am worried about terrorism in America, largely because of what our own government is done to let people in illegally From all around the world. You've had people almost 8 million have come in. We know people have come in from China, Russia, Middle East, all these places 140 people on the terror watch list that our own government acknowledges. I mean, so you figured there's a lot more than that And if you look at 9-11, oh, part of the reason that happened was the failure of the immigration system too. I mean, those people did not, they weren't here on valid visas or they had their visas expired, the hijackers.

So my fear is just you have so many people that have flooded in some of them are part of the drug cartel. Some of them just want to work. Some of them are criminal aliens and then some of them I think would be potential terrorists. And I think there's going to be a terrorist attack in this country that we're going to be able

to trace back to the border. And so I look at it and say, okay, you got to protect your own people first and foremost. Territorial integrity of your country must be enforced. You can't just let the inmates run the asylum. And I think what we're seeing in some of these places in Europe, in some of these areas, is they had immigration policies

that were bringing people in that didn't want to assimilate. You know, my view is, it's like, you have nobody has a right to come to America, of course, illegally, but even legally, it's a privilege to be able to do that. The things, the two things it has to be is you gotta believe in this country's ideals

and you gotta want to assimilate. I don't think it's helpful to bring in massive numbers of people that are going to try to bring foreign cultures in, and that's, I think, what's happened, there's no go zones in France and in Britain in some of these places, that's not a recipe for success. So I think Europe's going to have a very difficult time with these tensions bubbling up.

I think we have the ability to still be smart about what we're doing here in the United States and avoid some of what they walked themselves into. I just hope and pray that this thing doesn't get ugly. I know you got three kids, I got four. We, you know, when you think from your kids perspective, it's a little bit concerning when you're seeing this is not common down.

It's getting worse and it's like at a bar, I was like, what'd you say? What would you say? And everybody's like, dude, you see what he said? And it's just getting more and more and more heated. And we got to kind of figure out it would bring it down. So Republican Party,

let's transition to the next topic. There's a bit of a civil war going on at Republican Party. There's three, I think, factions right now in the Republican Party. One is the anti-establishment faction. Okay, you can put the math gates of the world and some of those guys in there in the Maga crowd and Trump and those guys in there.

You can put the establishment crowd in there. Some of the guys that are the establishment guys that do well, some would call you anti-establishment at times, some would call you establishment. You're like a hybrid. And in the third could be the Liz Cheney, the Lincoln Project, which the old Lincoln Project, which they had

some momentum they don't have the legs they do today but there's a little bit of the right-o community. For yourself when you see this, speak of the house McCarthy, Mike Johnson, stuff that we've not seen before right, you see this division taking place. Do you see yourself as a unifier or do you see yourself as a revolutionary? Well I think in some ways, we're both. I mean, we would come to Washington and up in the order of way that they've done business.

And I don't think we've had a president do that since Ronald Reagan when he came in in 1980. I think that we need somebody that can come in across the board on all these issues, the bureaucracy, the border, the economy, and do that's implement these changes and do it for an eight-year period. I think that that's very important. But I also am somebody who, in my re-election as Florida governor, I got 97% of registered

Republicans. That was a record. I mean, normally, if you get 90%, that's considered very, very good. We've got 97% of that. You destroyed it. It wasn't even close. Well, but the thing is, is we were able to bring people together because we had a strong vision and we were delivering results for people.

So I think what they're missing in Washington is so much of what the party is doing is theater. You have guys out there that are putting on a show. And that's on all sides. I mean, ultimately, these Lincoln project people, it's all about clicks for them and money and all that stuff. And that, and it's like, okay, that ultimately is not what you're judged on in terms of being a leader. You're judged on, are you actually producing results?

Are you moving the electorate in a way that is gonna be better? In Florida, we produced results, but we also moved the electorate. We took an electorate that was down the middle, 50, 50, and we turned it into a 60, 40 victory. Now we're considered a strong red state. That was not the case. In fact, you go back before I got elected governor,

people were saying this was gonna go blue. That's what people thought. They thought, in fact, during COVID, you heard a lot of that because they're like, oh my gosh, Governor DeSantis has schools open. He's got all this stuff open. He's so unpopular, all this stuff. He's not gonna be able to win reelection.

They people were saying that and they were acting like this was an opportunity for Democrats. Turned out, I was the opposite. So I think what you need to kind of, you need to unify the Republicans and you need to win enough independence. If you can't do that, you're just not gonna win.

And I'm the only one that really has a track record of doing that in Florida. We want independent voters by 18 percentage points. I mean, that's really what you need. But we didn't do it by contorting ourselves or trying to put our finger on the win. We did what we believed. We told people the truth.

We delivered results. And we were able to track people. They're people out there. They don't need to agree with you on everything. But if they see that you're telling them the truth, if they know you'll fight more when the chips are down, they will support you. So we've got to do more of that, I think, as the Republicans. But look, I was conservative against the Republican establishment before Donald Trump ever ran, and I'm the same. A lot of those people in know, they don't want me to be to be to be the candidate

They opposed me everything we did in Florida. They've opposed they opposed us having the state open They opposed us having schools open. They opposed us fighting the the Vax mandates and stopping those They opposed us beating Disney in the parents rights fight. They've opposed us on getting critical race theory out of our schools They have posed us on banning sanctuary sees. They oppose me when we sent illegal aliens to Martha's Vineyard. So that cabal of Republicans is basically a surrender caucus. They don't actually ever win victories. They're totally fine being the junior partners to the Democrats in the entrenched DC ruling class. That is totally unacceptable. And I've fought those guys the whole time. I'm really the only guy that has just beat the left

on issue after issue. I mean, we beat him across the board. We've thoroughly pushed them out of taking over institutions. I mean, for example, higher education. I now have tenured professors in Florida every five years. They have to go undergo review. They can be let go. I put seven conservatives on the trustee board at New College.

They fired the president. They got rid of DEI and now they have a classical liberal arts college like Hillsdale College and they're bringing in new professors. They're cycling out some of the old professors. The media will say, oh, there's a brain drain leaving new college and this stuff. And I'm thinking to myself, wait a minute. If a professor of intersectional Marxism is leaving Florida, that is not a negative Florida. That's a good thing. What we've done in K-12 schools to protect parents' rights. And I think if you look at the larger reason why the country's in

decline, part of, I think a big part of it is the left. Anytime there's any vacuum, they just, they get in. So they're in education, bureaucracy, now corporate America with things like ESG and the whole DI agenda. So they corrupt these institutions and then that ends up being weaponized against regular Americans. And so in Florida, we beat them on the institutional level

and no other Republican can say that they've done that, because I understand that you can win a superficial policy fight. And you need to win those in the legislature, what not. But if the left controls every institution in our society, then ultimately, it's a losing proposition. So Florida, I think the reason

we're the free state of Florida, yes, no income tax, yes, COVID freedom, all that important, but we have beat the left on the institutional level. Listen, one of the things that was most impressive with you is your dog fight, you fought. It wasn't like you backed on it. You're not afraid, you got brass,

you're willing to get up there and throw with anybody, and that's actually very attractive because we need that in America today, especially as a parent, people that want to create jobs, I want low regulation, you want that. But I want to go back to the question about unifying and the revolutionary. So, are you, is the goal more for the party to win, policies to win, or for your personal ambitions

of you being a president? Which one's more important? The results, 100%. I'm a vessel for those results. You're judged by the results you do. It's not about holding the position're judged by the results you do. It's not about holding the position. It's about what you do to make the country better

and to make the people freer. Fair enough. I want to play this clip for you. Then I got a question for you. This is a campaign video that most people haven't seen. This is from five years ago. Not this one. Go to the other one, the U-2 one right there.

I want to play this clip, and I got a question for you at the end. Go for it. Who I know is my clip, and I got a question for you at the end. Go for it. Who I know is my husband, Ron DeSantis, is endorsed by President Trump. But he's also an amazing dad. Ron loves playing with the kids. Bill the wall.

He reads stories. Then Mr. Trump said, you're fired. I love that part. He's teaching Madison to talk. Make America great again. People say Ron's all Trump, but he is so much more. Big league, so good. I just thought you should know.

Ron DeSantis for governor. So what happened? What happened between the two of you guys? Well, not that, first of all, that, you know, just understand, like, that's obviously a tongue and cheek. We were having fun. Of course, it's actually funny video. But here's the thing about it.

When you're doing these campaigns, you want to get as much free media as possible. So I knew that that would cause the corporate media to light their hair on fire. And they did. And so they just kept playing it for me. So we didn't even have to really pay for the ad and everything. And we're just doing out. And so part of it is that that gets out. What do the average voters see?

They say, hey, this is a guy with this beautiful wife, young kids, everything like that. And that kind of helped us there. But, I did more for him in his 2020 re-election than any other elected official. I raised him more money than any elected official. I got people in Florida to support him that were not happy with him because he didn't fire Fauci.

He didn't do anything to stop the BLM riots in the summer of 2020, which we didn't tolerate in Florida, but you had cities burning down all across this country. And there was nothing done. So there was a lot of people that I got on his team and I worked really hard and we really delivered the victory because they in October of 2020, I mean, his campaign was putting out stuff, oh, if he loses Florida, it's all because of the governor. Okay, well, you know, I brought in more Republicans here. So I was happy to do that, but the reality is, is, okay,

what about going forward? What's the vehicle to make the country great again? And we need somebody who's going to be able to galvanize support and then attract the needed personnel to be able to deal with the administrative state and then you need to actually be able to deliver results. I mean, one of the things on there that it's talking about is the wall. Bill the wall have Mexico pay for it. What he now says on the campaign trail, I mean, honestly, honks me off because he says

that if you believed what he said then that you're somehow a loser, that's what he said the other day. And then before he says, all these people saying that I'm gonna that I'm gonna have Mexico pay There's no legal mechanism in Mexico Then you look at what he said in 2016 he was saying who's gonna have Mexico pay? But here's the thing about execution There actually is a way to have Mexico pay the way you have Mexico pay is you Impose fees on remittances that people send back to Mexico who work here Central America and anywhere in the world.

You'd raise billions of dollars and you would actually be able to construct the wall. So, and, you know, look, I'll tell you, I was disappointed, you know, as he's leaving office, did he use that time to fire Fauci or to do any of that? No, he actually gave Fauci an award, a presidential commendation on January 19, 2021. And that was personal for me because Fauci, everything we did in Florida, Fauci attacked us on. Andres, can we lower governors' audio down like a notch? It's just all of a sudden spike.

Please continue. Go for it. So Fauci, he would do interviews with local TV affiliates in Florida bashing, so they're reckless. It shouldn't do that. He attacked us for, because I forced the schools to be open. I mean, I didn't really have the normal authority. I was using emergency powers and leveraging those with the funding to be able to do it.

And that saved the bacon for a lot of kids And it was like it was obvious after a few months that this Fauci was totally off his rocker But he was doing real damage because anytime he'd go to the podium his pronouncements were treated like you know Like the Pope speaking ex-Cathardra to Catholics. And it was, it was very... A black swan though, was a very tough season where, you know, even Obama by none of these guys had prepared for a pandemic. The only one that knew a pandemic was coming was a guy in Bill Gates. Everybody else has let him know. Well, yeah, but here's the thing.

You don't know, that's true. And I think there was a lot of uncertainty in March of 2020. The question is, what about November of 2020? December, January of 2020? What should you have done? What should you have done? He should have fired Fauci. He should have held these people accountable for being wrong, for lying to the public on all these different issues. The corrupt medical swamp in DC was a total disaster. I'll tell you what they also shouldn't have done. January of 2021, last few weeks in office, they're sending me missives from the White House Task Force saying,

impose a mask mandate, close restaurants. Dude, I'm just thinking of myself, and the media here would use it as fodder. They would say, DeSantis is not following the Trump White House Task Force. And I wasn't. That's a true, but the media used that as a wedge. So I think that the whole Fauci, and here's the, I think the issue for the election going forward, is I'm the only one running that is talking about bringing accountability for what happened to this country during COVID.

It's one thing to make a judgment call that's wrong, but it's another thing to ignore evidence. It's another thing to lie when you tell people like CDC did, that if you take an MNRA shot, you will not get COVID, and you still stand by that when it's obvious that people are getting it.

When you're having the FDA approve an MNRA shot for six month old babies, where there's no evidence that that's benefiting them, this is a swamp, this needs to be cleared out. I will do that. Here's a concern, I think, with a Trump nomination, is RFK Jr. running as an independent, he would be the vessel for, there's a lot of anti-Falci anti-lockdown voters

who are upset about it. Sure. RFK would be the vessel in that scenario, whereas me as the candidate, I'm the vessel for that. Everyone knows I'm gonna do a, I'm gonna hold people accountable. In fact, I'm gonna vessel for that. Everyone knows I'm gonna do a, I'm gonna hold people accountable. In fact, I'm gonna be in New Hampshire this week with Florida Surgeon General Joseph Latapoe,

Dr. Latapoe. He's been, he's one of the few, and he's really the only person in a position of power that's actually, and he got criticized a lot as well. Well, that's what I told him. I hired him. I said, listen, what you're doing,

you're gonna be the only one in position of power to actually take these, because that was one of the things early on with me when I was making these decisions. It wasn't just that it was unpopular. I could not get a doctor to stand with me and say I was right. And a lot of them would say it privately,

but they were scared to say. All their interviews would get taken down on YouTube. All the doctors. So, but Joe, I think is an example of what you need to be able to deal with this medical. So, okay, so let's go, okay, fair enough, because even Republicans will say, why is the president keep bragging about the fact

that the warp speed, the vaccine saved the 100 million people's lives? I don't even want it to, like, that's totally false. That's totally false. But the point when he's saying that, right? But let's set that part aside. When I show the clip of that video,

and the left sits there and says, look at these guys, they can't even figure out who they want to be the speaker of the house. They can't even figure out how to do this. Look at this, McCarthy, and look at this, and Mike Johnson, they're gonna kick them out as well. And if they, okay, it shows a not a unified party, but I wanna go back with Trump.

Would you have won your first one, when he won by 34,000, which I read your book, the day your book came out, I read, I'm probably by 34,000, which I read your book, the moment he came, did you book him out? I read, I'm probably one the first people that I read your book. Would you have won governorship first time if he doesn't endorse you and put those tweets about you? Would you have won by 34,000? Well, here's what I mean, the test of that is I won by 34,000 with his endorsement.

Four years later, he attacked me three days before the election, and I won by 1.5 million votes. So he was at a rally in Pennsylvania, he started launching a tax against me. So not only did he not support me in my reelection, but the first hostile. Would you have won the first time? Look, he, yes, I would have. You think you would have won the first time? Because here's the thing.

If you look at the voters who oppose me the first time versus the voters who then supported me the next time, the number one reason they flipped from against to four in four years was Trump. Trump was a factor in 2018. It didn't matter what I did, they were going to vote against me. That was the reason. They viewed me as that. And so, and it was a blue wave across the country. I mean, remember Republicans got wiped out across the country. I mean, we got wiped out in the house. We lost a bunch

of Governor. There was no right wave. It was what you're talking about. There was a blue wave. It was a blue wave. It was a snapback against against Trump. And that's natural for for a first year in the midterm. But here's the thing. You get in the office and the question is, is, you know, what do you do with it? And I've done more with it than anybody who's been in a similar situation. The policy success we've had, the leadership in crisis, and then moving the political pendulum in a direction that we've done is just, you cannot argue how those results. I don't know if I disagree with that. The only thing I think about is a guy

helped you. There's a difference between being a mayor. Like I'm sure when you see a mayor like you're mayor, right? There's a difference between being a mayor or Congress or Senate or governor or governor of Florida, California, New York, Texas. These are big states. You're running a country. You're not running a state.

If you look at the day, 13th largest economy in the world, we're in. That's right. But the point is that part, what do you say to the audience when they look at you so yeah. So, but the point is, that part, what do you say to the audience when they look at you and ask, okay, it's governor? I love your policies. I'm very happy, I love, you know, for you to be a president,

I think you have a lot of great qualities of being a pro, your family guy, your diss, your that. But what do you say to the faction that says, you know, but the guy gave you an opportunity to be a governor, how about show loyalty to that guy? What do you say to those people? How's it showing loyalty when he attacks me three days before my reelection?

I had never done anything to him. Even all the Fauci stuff. I know I wouldn't have been that private. That three days before, how much prior to that, did you and him communicate? Were you guys regular to communicating? We're not really. Well, I don't really remember,

but I mean, at that point, that was kind of a line in the sand like, okay, all right, that's's what you, I mean, like, and I have no problem, like politics is what it is, but like we were trying to engineer a red wave around this country. And to not saddle up and be a team player in that situation to do it, that was wrong. Honestly, I mean, we set a record here for what we did. So it either didn't affect or was even helpful in hindsight, but that's just the reality. So you can go and do that to other candidates

and somehow that's not supposed to change anything. The reality is he did that because he cared more about himself than he did about the greater good. The greater good was clearly I win re-election in Florida. We win super majorities and we continue to implement the agenda. That's the greater good from clearly, I win reelection in Florida, we win super majorities and we continue to implement the agenda. That's the greater good from a conservative perspective. There is no reason you should have been out there taking pot shots at me or anybody in

Florida. And of course, he's trash Florida repeatedly over the last year. He gets on social media. He said Cuomo did better in New York than me. And that was not said. And that was, but that was my kind of, but I wasn't a candidate when than me. I've heard all of that. And that was not said. It doesn't make any sense. But I wasn't a candidate when he was doing that.

He was doing that on his own, because he was obsessed. I told him he did it. Well, so it's all about him. So let me, he says, Newsom did better. He said, Cuomo did better. Now, his whole family moved to Florida under my governorship, but put that aside. He has used very left-wing media sources to say,

crazy things about Florida. So that's what he's done. So what is that? He's not held accountable for anything? I mean, there's a strain of people that he can go out and say whatever he wants and somehow that's fine. And then you say anything, then all of a sudden, no, that's not the way it works. You put your big boy pants on, you're held accountable for your conduct.

He chose to make those statements and that's fine, but those are false statements. If you believe that you would have won 34,000 without those three tweets, or without him endorsing you and him bringing you up and he's like, look at him, he's feeling your shoulders. I remember that scene where it's like, look at this guy, he's like a strong guy. If you believe you would have won without him, fair. But to the voter that thinks that gave you the tipping point to win, different stories, they're like, listen, you got to give this guy a little bit. He's the reason why you wonder for some of this government. Okay, but here's the thing.

Okay, so therefore, then what if you believe that? Therefore, if I don't think he would, he's able to win the 2024 election, I'm supposed to not do what I think. You should run. No, you should run. If I don't think he can drain the swamp, if I don't think he's going to be able to position to do it, the country is more important. Endorsements here and there.

Did you have a conversation before you ran? Did you have a conversation with him saying, hey, President, I'm thinking about running. Did you have any conversation with him? I have not talked to him since he started attacking me. No, no, but pre, like, let's just say you're having a thought, okay? So for example, I'm like, okay, I'm thinking

about start-of-my-one business. Before I start-of-my-one insurance company, and I made a run to start-of-my-one insurance company, I start my own insurance company, and I made a run to start my own insurance company, I just got married. I had a meeting with the people I respect, not as a guy, so I'm about, I wasn't thinking about, no, because the reason why I had a lot of people,

really from the end of the 2020 election, I've had people intertelling me, you should run or not. But my view was, look, I got more to do here. I had re-election. And then even after the re-election, that was kind of the thing where all these other candidates did poorly. I showed the Republicans the way to win nationally

and people said if we can do that, we're going to do very well in 24. However, even with that, I had my head down, I got all the stuff I promised in the campaign, I got done all of that in the legislative session, We were knocking out all kinds of issues that conservatives have been dreaming about for years. So we got that done. So that's just how I think. That was my frame of mind. You know, I said if there's a,

things happen for reason and it'll happen or they're not. But I wasn't two years ago saying I'm gonna do because I had so much in front of me on my plate. I had to show political success because it's one thing to take these positions. It's one thing to take leadership stands, and you don't do it for politics, and I'm sure it was stupid politically

in the short term for me to do some of the stuff I've done. But you do need validation at some point to show that this is a sustainable model, Florida's model, and we showed that, and we were able to do it. You 100%. So, you know, back then then there was always a talk, should he run, should he not run? It's like no listen, once the next time you're gonna have

a chance for it to have this great of a resume during the most unpredictable season we've had in the last 40 years, 50 years and you proved yourself on your rent, you should have ran, that's not what I'm saying. My only thing is, was there that conversation to say, you were before me, you helped me with my first governorship, can I have a conversation?

This is what I'm thinking, I'd like us to be unified when we go out to the public, that is the only conversation I'm having you helped me with my first governorship. Can I have a conversation? This is what I'm thinking. I'd like us to be unified when we go out to the public. That is the only conversation I'm having. Let me go to the next conversation. Next topic here. Okay. So when I think about presidents, I think about two different types of presidents.

I think about a president, that's an alpha. And then I think about presidents that are flag carriers. Let me explain it both. Alpha to me is Lincoln was an Alpha. Ulysses S. Grant is a flat carrier. It became a two-term after him. Reagan Alpha, senior flat carrier. Kennedy Alpha, if you go to, we got a list of them.

We can go to Ike Alpha, Nixon, flat carrier. Great president. You take Watergate out. Nixon was one of the better presidents we analyzed 50 years. You go to Obama Alpha, flag carrier, great president. You take water, Gator, Nixon was one of the better presidents we had in the last 50 years. You go to Obama, Alpha, Clinton, Alpha, Bush, flag carrier to his father, Trump Alpha. Do you view yourself as an Alpha candidate or a flag carrier candidate?

No, you're a leader, of course. I mean, you look at what we've done in Florida, we blazed the trail. I wasn't carrying anyone's flag. I was the one leading. I was calling the shots. I was getting out. You think there's anything wrong with carrying a flag? What's out. You think there's anything wrong with carrying a flag?

What's that? You think there's anything wrong with carrying a flag. Someone's got to carry your flag and be your VP. There's nothing wrong with it. But the question is, you know, if you look at Reagan, he set kind of the standard. So 41 was operating in his shadow to carry on the legacy. But Reagan represented the break

from the failure of the Carter to the present. Just like I represented kind of Florida going, we're going against the establishment, we're going against the COVID insanity, we're going against the gender insanity, that we're planning a flag, or not, no, we're taking a stand, and then we're going to push forward. And so that's what we've done, and I think that's what we need in Washington. That everything's going in the wrong direction. So you need an abrupt shift, where this bureaucracy is reconstitutionalized, where you're able to open up all the energy production,

reverse biodynamics, have good people that will work for you, because you can make the best decisions in the world. You've gotta have people that are gonna implement that policy in a very hostile bureaucracy. And if you don't have that, then you're going to end up getting kneecapped. But that's going to represent a significant break from how this country has been governed

for the last two or three decades, but we need it because I think the direction that we're going is not sustainable. And this country will fail unless we get an American revival. Let someone use some against you, the debate. I understand a year ago for you guys to debate, that made sense.

I understand even seven months ago to choose to debate with them now, is a little weird to me because you're in the playoffs. He's not, he didn't make the playoffs. He's not even in the playoffs, right? The only thing I get when I see some like this is where you two may a year ago have thought neither Trump nor Biden's going to be there at the end.

It's going to be the two of you. America wants a younger face. America wants a younger president. That's who we want as a candidate. So let's go ahead and do that. There is no winning for you debating Newsom. There is. There is.

Well, yeah, yes. I love to know why. I love to know why. Because this whole business is, you got to get attention, you got to get on voters' minds. And for most of the past six months, it's been mostly focusing on everything that's happening legally with the former president.

That has drowned out a lot of stuff. This is going to be something that's going to cut through. It's going to get a lot of attention. It's a good debate for the country. So that's one reason, because I want a forum to be able to articulate my message. It is not, though, a debate about California versus Florida, because that debate is over.

People have voted with their feet. They've left California on record numbers. They've moved to Florida on record numbers. What it is a debate on is about the future of the country. So California represents the petri dish of American leftism. They're five years ahead of whatever Biden's people are cooking up in DC. So, if you want to know what America would look like, 2024 Biden, or maybe a new summer of Harris, just look to California.

California is a recipe to accelerate the decline of this country. Florida is a model to reverse the decline of the country and engineer revival of the American spirit and a new birth of freedom. And finally, the reason to debate, he might be the candidate. I mean, I think that the Republican voters, we need a candidate that's going to be able to take on all commerce. I mean, we look at Biden, we say, yeah, he's over the hill, he's weak, and I think that's true, but they may go with, with Newsom, they may go with Harris, they may go with somebody else. That could happen and we just have to be prepared for that.

But it isn't because I think that necessarily he's gonna be the candidate. I think it's an important debate. I think it's an important opportunity for me to be able to express my record and my views in a way that's gonna be largely unfiltered because I think we're gonna have in 90 minutes to two hours that we're going to do.

And I'll bet you that may get more viewers than the last Fox debate did that we did at the Reagan Library. I think this may get more viewers than the last debate with Fox. I mean, I hate to say that. I was there myself and people were walking out of that debate. It wasn't the craziest debate to be at. Okay, you talk about attention. Are you the type of person like I have people

around me that love to say, hey fat, you got something to teen your teeth. These are the knowing people in your life, right? Hey Pat, pull your zipper up. You know, hey Pat, do this. Hey, pull one of your socks is lower than the other one. I'm sure your marketing team points out how they're trying to troll you in the marketplace. Okay, I'm sure they're doing that. Can you bring this one clip? I know you were on what he called it on, what was it? Bill Maher and Bill Maher talked about the boots. I've seen you walk with these boots, go and play this clip, this on TikTok when viral.

It doesn't have a million views, it doesn't have 10 million views, this thing's got 1.2 million likes. And some people are wondering, I don't even know, I've been seeing that. What they've not shown this to you. Okay. What they're trying showing this to you. Okay. What they're trying to say with this is

that in your boots, you have heels. No, no, no, no. Those are just standard off the rack, Lucas, the, how tall are you? How tall are you, Governor? 511. 511.

Okay. Why don't you wear tennis shoes and dress shoes? I do wear tennis shoes when I work out. Yeah, I'm sent. Okay. I got a gift for you. I do wear tennis shoes when I work out. Yeah, I'm a cent. Yeah, okay. I got a gift for you. I'd love for you to wear. Okay, I shop at Fergommel.

Okay. I don't accept gifts, I can't accept it. I totally get it. I'm sorry. I'm gonna put it here and Fergommel can get a nice sponsorship in there. Okay. If you wear it, you'll fear it.

I know it as a- No, but here's the thing. I mean, I think with just how politics works is, can get a nice sponsorship. And if you were, do you fear it? I know. But here's the thing. I mean, I think with just how politics works is, you know, Yogi Berra, when he was in the Yankees, they said, you know, Yogi, he doesn't look like a Yankee, you know, he doesn't do this. And Yogi's basically like, okay, you know, if you say a muggly, that's fine, but, you know, you don't hit a baseball with your face.

And so what we're doing is, you know, really, I think doing the issues, the leadership, people that are poking at you for different things. That's fine, but ultimately, that is not, I think it's a sign of strength. I think if people had, if they could say, he was a horrible governor, he was this, he was that, then they would definitely do it.

But they don't do that because I don't think that they have much there. We've been an exemplary leader. We've gotten things done. We would be somebody that would be obviously a really strong candidate. That's part of the reason the media attacks me and everything like that. So I would say this to you, I think if your marketing team talks to you regularly, they either share with you, but you got such a busy schedule.

I'm running night companies. I have to tell you what's going on. People tell me, did you see this? I'm like, I can't see everything. So I'm sure you're not seeing everything. But I'm a big fan of yours, okay? I'm not a fan of your marketing team. I'm just not.

And I can say that comfortably. You can say I have one of the best marketing teams. No problem. Because I think your book was a miss. I think there's a lot of opportunities I'd spent out there that was a miss. I was on a flight one time with Bill O'Reilly. Why was it a miss?

I think your book could have done very well. And I think... Number one book in the country for two weeks. Yes, not a long time, though. You're a guy that should be the leading candidate for president. You would have best governor during COVID. Hands down. Nobody did it better than you.

No one. You had a fight. You stood up to these bullies to all these a-holes that were trying to manipulate the voters like me, and we were walking around as if we're weird, and you stood up for those people. And I loved it, I respected it. I went around defending you constantly, and I'm sitting there saying,

why are we not telling this story? Why are we not going after selling millions of copies of this book on what you did during COVID? So that to me was a missed opportunity. By the way, your marketing team can hate me. I've taken, I've talked to most, even my opinion of that. With the book, I didn't really have a marketing team. I mean, you know, you're doing it and people sell it or they don't sell it. I go on media and what? You didn't go around talking to a lot of people about your book that that was a great book.

We tried. I mean, yeah, but you know, don't forget, I was also in the midst of the legislative session. I had a lot of my plate and we were doing a lot of stuff. I get that. I just think that was a missed opportunity. By the way, if you haven't read the book, I highly recommend you go order the book. There's the book. But, Rob, put the link below to the book.

It ended up becoming a New York Times bestseller, but it wasn't really talked about enough. I highly recommend everybody to read this book. Okay. Couple of other questions should here before we wrap up with the last 16 minutes. By the way, the whole purpose of me showing you this is you ever seen the movie Eight Mile? You ever seen Eminem's Eight Mile?

You ever seen the last part of Eight Mile when he's the, when he's a, you know, going, Eminem's going, Eminem was just at the fight with Ingano and Fury and it was a great fight. I actually didn't think Inganou was gonna do that good. He was on the podcast couple months. I'm like, they just got crushed it. So impressive.

But the way the movie ends, Eminem is on the stage. And this other guy who's punking him, who sets stuff about his girl, who sets stuff about trailer, who sets this, all this stuff he made fun of, he's taller than him, he's got all this stuff that's going on. And he just got up and he says, look man, he's got all this stuff that's going on. He just got up and he says, look, man, here's what you're gonna say about me.

You're gonna say this about me, you're gonna say that about me, you're gonna say this about me, you're gonna say that about me. Even with that, this is who I am. If you like it great, if you don't, that's not my problem, that's your problem. I feel like, you know, when I look at you, you remember the commercial in the 90s, you know, Gatorade commercial, sometimes Adrien,

that he is me like Mike, I want to be in Bum with that whole commercial. Right, okay. I kind of commercial. Yeah, so we all want it to be like Mike, except it's tough to do when you're from Iran and you're vertical, leap is 15 inches. I was not like Mike, I was barely like Mohammed. I couldn't jump if I tried.

Jumping wasn't my thing, I was just a fast guy. So for me, when I watch branding wise, I couldn't jump if I tried. Jumping wasn't my thing. I was just a fast guy. So for me, when I watch branding wise, I'll say, who does your marketing team try to, you know, position you ask? Is it, hey, let's look at the case study of John F. Kennedy and Jackie Kennedy, because Casey, obviously Casey, first of all,

when we came back there to the mansion, holy moly, she's a rock star. I mean, you know this, I don't need to tell you the mansion, holy moly, she's a rock star. I mean, I mean, you know this, I don't need to tell you, this she's your wife, but she's a rock star, the way she spoke, the way she won us over it, the way she would just, you know, very gentle, kind, loved her husband, protective, prime, prime for first lady. She's got all of that, right?

And then it's like, well, you know, is that the case? And do we position John, you know, the governor as John F. Kennedy? You're not a playboy. You're not a guy that has that resume. That's not your good guy. When I look at you, you come across as a great father, your great husband, that's your brand, right?

So when you look at yourself and you're being aspirational, do you see yourself and say, you know, if I see myself as anybody, I see myself as this president. I see myself as that president. And if yes, who would that be? Well, I don't think that you, I don't think you point to just one because I think that there's their unique moments in time and different people have different things. I mean, I think if you look a number of presidents, I mean, most recently, of course, Ronald Reagan, I think the aspirational about what it means to be an American, he was able to articulate that way in something that was very,

very powerful. I think if you look at some of our founders, including Washington and some of the others, they really had the character, the idea of country above self. Washington could have been the king. He could have, when we won the revolution, he could have installed himself as a monarch. And he chose not to because he surrendered his sword. and then he went back to live on his farm in Virginia

and eventually got called back to be the first president, but when he surrendered his sword, George the third said, I heard that in England he said, well, if he did that, he's the greatest man in the world. So just that sense of service above self. I think if you look at my background, you know, I'd degrees from Harvard or Yale, I volunteered to serve in the military. I served in Iraq and doing things that I didn't have to do. I made a lot less money, but I believe in this country. And I believe where in the uniform is honorable. So that ethic combined with kind of how Reagan really was aspirational about because people were saying the same things about American the 70s that we were bad. We couldn't do it. We were in decline. And Reagan said no. And he got us on a great run for a while and I think

we've stubbed our toe the last couple decades as a country but we had 20 plus years of being a really strong country thanks to his leadership. Yeah he was a he was a different animal the way he did things personality was. You ever seen Nixon's movie with Anthony Hopkins? No. You've never seen it. No. Highly recommend you watch it. The three and a half years by Anthony Hopkins won the best. It's a 1995 movie and Kissinger's in there. If I was ever running, I would love to have that movie to watch that movie. Of course, I'm sure you've read plenty of the books that but

that movie's got so many different things to say. That guy reminds me of this guy from this season. And I just watch it a few weeks called Highly Recommend Watching This Movie, Nixon From 95. It's by Oliver Stone. I must watch, it'll reveal a lot about a lot of different people. Next topic here is Roe v Wade, okay? So Supreme Court, three, Trump flips, right? For you in Florida, this goes from being a purple state.

It's about to be a blue state. You come in, you flip, you pick up two or I don't know how many you picked up, I think you picked up one or two, right? I'm going to talk about it. Republican, where it went from being a purple state to a red state, which you were kind of talking about earlier, right? Well, yeah, well, that just because of the movement of the electorate and statewide races, now in 22, we knetted an extra four members of Congress that were Republican to send to Washington. Right.

So, in regards to Roly Wade, you're watching this, Red Wave doesn't come 2022, okay. It's going to come, they're going to crush it, it's going to be a McCarthy, he's not going to need gates, he's not going to need mag, he's not going to need any of that stuff. And then numbers come out from pure research, 61% of Americans abortion, all this stuff. And I think in April of the year ago or two years ago, was 15 weeks and you come out April of this year, I wanna say it's six weeks, what was your reasoning for wanting to go further

right than Trump on that policy? What had nothing to do with Donald Trump? I mean, it was a question of when is when when you're going to protect life? And in the six weeks is to make to mark when there's a detectable heartbeat for the unborn child. So separate heartbeat, separate DNA, you know, that's a life that deserves to be protected. And so the legislature was able to enact protections. Now they did have exceptions for all the things that people have asked for and that the Democrats have attacked on, but at the end of the day, it's a strong protections for life and it's something that I've always

believed in. You know, you can sit there and talk about the midterms. They ran $30 million in ads against me on this issue. They ran against the Iowa governor, Georgia governor, Ohio governor. We all won overwhelmingly in that Texas governor won overwhelmingly. So I don't think that was the reason necessarily that we didn't do as well. It may have been part of it in some of those races,

but I think there were other factors, and I think Florida clearly showed that you could get the job done even in the face of those attacks. Yeah, I wonder because it is a, it look, if you're either pro-life or you approach a choice, right, I'm a Christian. So, you know, where I stand, you know, when itice, right? I'm a Christian, so you know where I stand.

You know, when it comes onto our family, if I had, I'd have 20 kids. And my wife would be pranking it every year for the next 20 years, but I'm not the one having the kids. I just wonder strategically, like when you're making moves like that, there's certain timing to make and moves like that. Does that help?

Does that hurt? Or that's the right thing to do. That's what we choose to do. You do what's right, and you let the chips fall, where they make. Yeah, I mean, that's great. And I'm curious to know what that's going to happen with you. Do you mind if I ask you a little bit about people getting to know you a little bit?

Sure. Meaning, so are you, were you a, when you work out, what kind of music you listen to? Like who is, who is governor, Ronda Santos working out to? Are you a Taylor Swift biggie? No, no, no. Are you like creeds? What are you listen to? Mostly classic rock, and then sometimes I'll listen to

different country riffs and country tracks, so usually one of those two. Favorite decade for music? Probably the 80s. Yeah, me too, favorite 80s song. Oh my gosh, I mean, there's too many to list. It's funny, I was at an event the other day, and as someone's like, hey, since you're Gen X,

what's Gen X phone number, you know, eight, five, seven, seven, five, three, oh, not. So I was able to do that. And he's like, I know, you're, I knew you dropped from the 80s as a result of that. So yeah, there's a lot of good stuff back then. You know, you know, you're not a four week support, by the way. You're a Virgo Amalibra. I was born four weeks after you. Favorite documentary of all time. Okay, let's do it.

Is it wedding crashers, hangover, step brothers, or forgetting Sarah Marshall? What's your favorite? I mean, of those, I probably say wedding crashers. Wedding crashers? Yeah. How many times have you watched wedding crash? You know, I'm probably once or twice, but I mean, it was good back in the day. That's got to be 20 years old. Oh my gosh. Vince Vaughn. Yeah. One of a kind. You know, Vince Vaughn was that, so when I was a U.S. congressman, I had Daytona Speedway, so I would do the Daytona 500 every year. So Vince Vaughn was one of the celebrity guests one year, and they put everyone who was a Marshall in a pace car. So it was me and my wife and one. Vince Vaughn

was in another. I think they had a couple of musicians, and I kind of forget who they were there, they're notable. And so we're all going around. You do the first two laps to start the race. For whatever reason, our car zoomed ahead of the other pace cars. So we're going around the track once, around the track twice. Then you pull in, you go into the infield,

and you pull into this parking lot, and there's like a fence. And there's all these fans there that are waiting for the celebrities to come. So they all have their phones out. My wife and I get out, they see our faces and immediately all their phones go right back into their pocket, because no one knew who the heck we were.

Then Vince came and everyone's going crazy doing all this other stuff. So that was kind of the one time, you know, I was ever with him. But you know, he's, I think politically is not a lefty like a lot of the Hollywood people. No, he's not. He's like, one night, I'm, uh, this is 20 years ago. I used to play at Hollywood Park, because you know, I would play, what do you call it, poker.

And one night I go there, my friend Fernando who ended up being one of my groomsman, he's my mequador. We go there and they say, there's a main table. Look who's playing there. Who John Favaro and Vince Vaughan and this other guy from Christmas story, whoever, what I don't know what the guy's name was. I went and played with these guys. By the way, Vince looked like he had just waken up. He got out of bed.

And he was doing that movie with Jennifer Anderson at the time. I don't know what the movie was called. We played poker till five o'clock. He's exactly the way he's won the funniest guys out there. Sports team. Who's your favorite sports team? Uh, box, Tampa Bay Box. Tampa Bay Box.

That's right. I grew up in the Tampa Bay area when they had the Orm's Creamsicle uniforms. Tampa Bay Box. I was there when the old, the old sombrero and, uh, how bad those teams were and, uh, want to, want to title 20 years ago and then with Tom Brady a few years ago. So, yeah, favorite movie of all time? Probably Rocky. Which one?

Rocky one. First one. I think so. Underdog? Yeah. You relate to that a little bit. Is that a little bit of your personality? I think so.

I mean, look, I think if you look at where I am now in life, where I started, nope, very few people, they would have taken the under on any of the stuff i've done uh... up to this point but i do think that hard work and just you know tension and and and get the most out of your god given ability i still think in america that matters may not matters much as it should and we need to make it matter more again but i do think that that's what makes this country great why do you enjoy politics oh man why do you enjoy this game This is a weird game to like.

People sometimes ask me like, why did you first run for office? And I usually like, why did you run for Congress? And I'm like, momentary laps in judgment. There's a lot of negative about it. I mean, look, I think in this business, you're able to do things to really have an impact on people's lives. I mean, I will still to this day have people come up to me who I do not know.

Give me a hug, start crying, and saying, you saved my business, or you saved my job, or you saved my kids' education. We brought people back from Israel. My wife and I were waiting at the tarmac, 271 people, 91 children on that flight, you know, giving us big hugs. Thank you so much, all this stuff. So the day-to-day stuff, the nonsense you deal with, ultimately it doesn't matter.

And what matters is, you know, what do you do into to help people and make life better? We've been able to probably have more of an impact on a greater number of people as governor, than any governor's been able to in a long time, and that's making the most of it. Governor DeSantis, how do you sell America? If you were to sell America to me,

like when I was at the first debate and the second debate, and I keep listening to so many about policies, policies, policies, policies, everybody's policies, policies, okay. There's a percentage of America probably relates to the policies, right? But if one asked you, sell me and sell the American people

why you think America's the greatest country in the world. What would you say? Well, at our best, our country is one where it doesn't matter where you start. It doesn't matter your family lineage that if you work hard, get the most of your God given ability. If you believe in what this country's principles are, that you can do well.

And that has not been true in other countries throughout human history. Wherever you're born, that pretty much limited or not, you're your lot in life. If you had privileged birth, you had higher aspirations. If you did, and you had lower here, you have an open field and a fair chance for your industry and enterprise to ultimately flourish. We're losing that. That's one of the reasons why I'm wondering for president. But at our best, that's what we are. I love it. Rob, can we put the link to the governor's website

for anybody who can donate and to his campaign to do so? I've done that. My wife's done that. Our family's done that. And we've supported multiple people in this run. I think it's a very important run that we're having. You're a very formidable opponent that's going on here. The climate is strange.

I would have loved to have seen you and Trump run in a different way where it was more unified, but every game changes, seasons change. We have them there. Talk about that, I mean, that's how it is. So by the way, if you call for a meeting, would you go visit with them? If he called you and say,

hey, let's you and I have a meeting and figure out where to unify the Republican Party. Would you go to Marlago? I mean, I take a phone call. I don't think I'd make a pilgrimage down there. But the reality is, is that that's obviously not the course he's choosing. And the question is, is what's the best foot forward

for the country? It's ultimately not about him. It's ultimately not about me. It's about how do you get this country moving again? Who's the best vehicle for the Republican Party to put up to win and to deliver on all this stuff? And I'm running because I think I am. I think I'm the only guy running who can win the primary,

the general, and actually deliver all these things over an eight year period to where the country in January of 2033 after serving two terms, passed the baton off, hopefully to worthy successor, I'll be able to tell the country we restored of 2033 after serving two terms, passed the baton off, hopefully to worthy successor. I'll be able to tell the country we restored the American dream. We got the we secured the border. We we strengthen our military, fended off the threat from China, education, not indoctrination, parents rights, no crime in the criminals aren't ruling the streets and the cities anymore, reigning the deep state and the bureaucracy, all those

things we've got to get them done. And I will do that. I love it. Once again, respect you for coming out. You said you were going to come out. You did. I appreciate you so much. It means a lot to us.

Thank you for your time. Thank you. Again, appreciate you for coming out. Appreciate you. Thank you. Thank you everybody. Yeah. Yn yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw'n yw you