BUCK: You’re gonna be spending time in the state of Florida in the months ahead, I’m gonna be spending some time in the state of Florida in the months ahead, and here is Governor Ron DeSantis, just letting everybody know… This is… Here you go. It’s all you need. It’s about ten seconds or so of the sanity that we could all use right now.

DESANTIS: In Florida, we’ve never arguably done better in hospitality than we’ve been doing lately because people know they come to Florida to vacation, they’re gonna be able to be treated with respect and free people. They’re not gonna have to show medical papers to get a beer. They’re not gonna have to do that to go get lunch.

BUCK: “…not gonna have to do show medical papers to get a beer.” Sign me up. In fact, I’m already signed up. I’m going to the Atlantic coast of Florida down to the Miami area. We’re going down to the Gulf Coast of Florida. What’s up?

CLAY: We’re gonna be in Fort Myers.

BUCK: Fort Myers.

CLAY: Go down to a bunch of our affiliates. I’ve already done shows from Miami, you’re gonna be doing shows from Miami, and I think it’s important what Ron DeSantis there just said. It hasn’t gotten as much attention as it deserves. Florida has 100% recovered their tourism numbers from 2019. Now in 2021, they have the lowest rate of covid — at least yesterday when I was looking — in the entire country.

And there was a great article — we were talking about this off air, Buck — in Politico where all of the Democrats in Florida… Remember now there are more registered Republicans than Democrats in Florida for the first time ever. They are panicked over what they see as a potential ass kicking coming for them statewide in 2022.

BUCK: And this is also why you see that Florida has been so important as an experiment, if you will, in democracy and representative government in this era of covid authoritarianism, because it has allowed for there to be, in essence, a control group. More so than really any other state. There have been some states. Tennessee is obviously a lot better than New York.

Texas was better than New York, although Texas was a little… You know, Abbott was a little shaky there on the covid stuff for a while. He’s gotten a bit better. They got better this year for sure just being reasonable, right? Not being completely insane like they are here in New York City, but also in state like Florida, even if you were to say…

This comes up with our friend Karol Markowicz who will be with us next week. She wrote an article in the New York Post. Sohrab Ahmari, another New York Post guy, wrote an article in American Greatness about it. He’s the editorial director for the New York Post. They’re leaving. They’re done. They’re leaving New York for, I believe, Florida.

I know Karol is. I don’t know where Sohrab is going. And people say, “Oh, why are you doing that?” And it’s not just about one leader, although Ron DeSantis has made a huge impact in Florida it’s also about the people there people in Florida have been conditioned and you’re roughly a 50-50 state maybe 52-48, Republican Democrat. But people are more used to being normal and so they act more normally!

The problem we’re coming — and that stays no matter what, right? There is a long tail to that phenomenon. The problem you come across in places like New York and California is that everyone’s anxiety and obedience has been tuned up and tightened so much, that they don’t even know how to be normal anymore. There are a lot of people…

Clay, I walk into this studio every day here and there are people outside — and I don’t mean one or two. It’s about 30-40% of people you come across are alone, outside, with masks on. And not masks to keep their face warm, okay? I’m talking about medical cloth mask thing which just makes you uncomfortable and annoyed all day. I don’t even know if they’ll stop if Fauci tells them to stop.

That’s how crazy it is, and that’s why we talk about like how Florida has hospitality is doing well. If you’ve been living in a place like New York or California for New York or California audience… Texas people have had it pretty good. They’ve been pretty good. Florida people obviously had it great. New York and California, you go to Florida and it feels different everywhere. Even more than just the policies, people feel like they are calm and normal, by and large. Huge difference.

CLAY: It’s an oasis of freedom, as Ron DeSantis has labeled it — and really it’s all over the red states.