CLAY: We were talking earlier about the choices that are made in terms of which stories receive prominent placement in media outlets and which do not. And oftentimes the people who are attacked — this is not going to surprise any of you — are not actually guilty of doing anything very substantial. They are just doing things that upset people in positions of power. And I would say, number one, certainly on the attack list is still Donald Trump. And really that’s the underlying story of January 6th is a desperate attempt to tie Trump into the midterm elections, even though he’s not going to be on the ballot. This is going to be 18 months later, all of the discussion surrounding Trump.

Number two, I would say on the Republican hit list now, is Ron DeSantis, Florida governor, because he’s made so many rational and correct decisions relating to covid that it has upset the powers that be at the Washington Post, the New York Times, and certainly CNN — CNN and MSNBC. One of his employees is a woman named Christina Pushaw, and she’s very active on social media defending the policies of Ron DeSantis. The Washington Post did a hit piece on her, and I thought, Buck, DeSantis continues to prove that he is as good or better than anyone else in Republican politics right now, and having a punch thrown at him and deciding to come back and knock out the person who threw that punch.

He ain’t just standing there and taking the punches. Listen to this.

@GovRonDeSantis defends his press secretary after attempted @wapo smear piece drops #flpol pic.twitter.com/zHhdzbM9xE

— Javier Manjarres (@JavManjarres) June 8, 2022

BUCK: This is such an important lesson, such an important showing here, I think, from Governor DeSantis. And I will say that this to me does feel like a continuation of the Trump ethos here — and I mean that in the best possible way — which is that Trump comes in and instead of just… You know, I’m not because I remember when I was in the CIA during the Bush years, I remember that the Republican response to criticism was always, “Well, that’s not really fair,” or, “You know, we disagree,” or like, “Maybe we can go down a middle path,” and Trump comes in.

He’s like, “You swing at me, I’m going to swing at you. In fact, I’m going to swing at you harder. I’m not going to sit here and take these now.” We mean that rhetorically, of course. “But I’m not going to sit here and take these attacks and just allow you to continue to push this propaganda,” and so that’s why when they attacked the DeSantis’s press secretary, who I both know, she’s very effective, very smart, very dedicated.

It’s not enough in the current environment we’re in, where you have all these different Democrat aligned media outlets that will collude. You know, The Washington Post writes it, but then CNN will talk about it and the New York Times will report on it, etc. It’s not enough to just say, “Well, we don’t agree with that assessment or we’re not taking any personnel action.” It’s, “How dare you? This person’s doing a great job for me. You’re lying about her. You’re slandering.” Go on offense with the truth.

This needs to be reflexive for every conservative officeholder, every leader in the country. You stand behind your people — because the left, they’ll stand behind people who are scummy. It doesn’t matter. They’ll stand up. I mean, look at Hunter Biden, right? I mean, they’ll back up people that don’t deserve back up. If we won’t back up our people who deserve it, why should anybody fight for us?

Journalism 2022: @Fla_Pol can defame me by calling me a Russian agent who works with Putin, then delete their defamatory tweet with zero explanation or apology after being called out on it. Ethics? What’s that?

— Christina Pushaw 🐊 🇺🇸 (@ChristinaPushaw) June 9, 2022

CLAY: It’s also important that you recognize how stories like this get written. This is opposition research that somebody in left wing politics had and directly handled to adult handed to the Washington Post so they would put it into print so then they can react to it. In other words, there is a complicity and a collusion afoot here. When this story emerges suddenly at the Washington Post — and if you doubt that, go look at even the background of the Susman trial, where you saw that the attempt was, “Hey, we’ve got an allegation.

“We’re going to leak it to the FBI, and then we’re going to leak the fact that we met with the FBI to the media so they can write about the fact that we met with the FBI — and then when they write about it, we’re going to share that article and talk about how the media is proving that this all ended up happening.” In other words, it’s a dirty, incestuous circle that the Democrats have perfected that allows them to attack people that are having success attacking their policies.

BUCK: It’s just a big self-licking ice cream cone, you know? There you go.

CLAY: There you go. That’s why Joe Biden is so fond of it.

BUCK: And it’s just good to see that DeSantis, I think increasingly with these ways of handling the media attacks, he shows other Republican governors, members, members of Congress, senators, you name it, that, “This is the way,” to borrow from that show that I no longer watch because they got rid of Gina Carano.