BUCK: Let’s just take a moment here for Ron DeSantis, ’cause I’m down in Florida, Miami. And, Clay, this reminded me — this one instance of Ron DeSantis reminded me — of a friend of mine who I actually grew up with and who was a… He was a Marine officer and deployed in some of the roughest time in Iraq, in Anbar Province, and I know some of our audience probably spent time… If you’re in Anbar circa 2005-2006, clearing out of Fallujah, clearing out of Ramadi, those operations, that was some of the toughest fighting.

CLAY: Did they have crying rooms, by the way, Buck?

BUCK: Definitely not any of that going on. And he told me that when there was early on… In the deployment, he said one thing that he saw with his guys that fast — ’cause they would get ambushed. I mean, they would set up — the insurgents would set up — they’d start firing at them. Sometimes an IED, complex attack. They would say that one of the transitions as they got salty, as they became guys who had really seen some pretty substantial combat…

Which in the beginning when they would get ambushed, the initial feeling was on defense, and then they would… They’d be on defense; they’d return fire. He said though, as they moved along in their tour — and he went on to do multiple deployments. As they went on their tour, it immediately turned into they went on offense. They found that they would maneuver, go around. It wasn’t, “We’re returning fire and getting away from the insurgents,” so much as it was, “Oh, now we’re coming for the insurgents.

“You open up on us; we’re not on defense for this ambush. We’re on offense.” In a media sense — and this is why I was thinking about this — Ron DeSantis, I think, accomplishes this often. We’ve seen it, right? We’ve talked about when they went after hum for the Publix grocery store fake scandal. “Oh, you have a donor,” and he said, “No. Excuse me.” He just went on offense right away.

They brought up with Ron DeSantis, there were 10 Nazi idiots over an overpass somewhere and of course what do the Democrat journos do, every Republican politician has to be asked about 10 morons that have nothing to do with any Republican. Here is how Ron DeSantis, though, when he’s ambushed by the journos goes from defense to offense. Play it.

DESANTIS: These Democrats who are trying to use this as some type of political issue to try to smear me as if I had something to do with it? We’re not playing their game. You know, some jackasses, you know, doing this on the street? First of all, state law enforcement is gonna hold them accountable because they were doing stuff on the overpass, so they’re absolutely gonna do that and they should do that.

But I’m not gonna have people try to smear me that belong to a political party that has elevated anti-Semites to the halls of Congress like Ilhan Omar, that have played footsie with the BDS movement, that even have people in their party that have cavorted with Farrakhan. No. We’re gonna take our record in Florida and what we’ve done and sign the strongest anti-Semitism bill in the country.

BUCK: Defense to offense, Clay. That’s how it’s gotta be done. I feel like every… This is like a clinic for every Republican politician in the country.

CLAY: Also, we have to stop the stupidity of asking people to denounce things that you clearly are against.

BUCK: They’re not gonna stop.

CLAY: I understand. But that, to me, is the attack point. How many times did Trump get asked to condemn white supremacy? And he did it, like, a billion times.

BUCK: David Duke! I hadn’t heard David Duke’s name in years. Nobody cares who this guy is. This guy’s a loser. That’s what Trump said, too.

CLAY: I know, and so I think that’s the point on the turning the question into an opportunity to pivot and attack, which is what I think skilled politicians do. But it’s so patently absurd. Every time somebody does something that is heinous, that is outside the bounds of acceptable behavior, you shouldn’t be required to condemn awfulness. Every time there is a murder in my hometown or your hometown, Buck?

If we were mayors, it shouldn’t be presumed that we’re gonna have to say, “And, by the way, we’re against murder. I wish that guy hadn’t killed those people.” No. It’s self-evident. The general population of America abhors racist Nazis, right? Like, if you’re a racist Nazi supporter, I would say, listen to something else. There’s probably people (chuckling) who are racist Nazi supporters that can talk to you.

We’re not them, and neither are the 99.9% of people in America, right? So this idea that we allow these people to hijack so much of our national discourse is frustrating to me because they’re getting exactly what they want, which is an opportunity to spread their message in some way based on the media doing it for them. And this ties in to me to a certain extent, Buck, with the way I respond to school shootings. They’re awful.

But the way we immediately make whoever the school shooter is famous by using their name, the New York Times has an entire profile piece on them, when the number one thing that drives most school shooters is a desire for notoriety. So I try to focus on the people who tackle the school shooter, on the person who is a hero in the face of that violent and predatory behavior. I just feel like the media gets so much wrong here, and this is an example of allowing a bunch of knuckleheads to dictate. I think DeSantis did a good job responding to it. But the idea that you should even have to respond to that if you’re a governor or president to me is crazy.

BUCK: They are going to, as you know. I mean, going into the midterms theories going to be this, “When did you stop beating your wife?” questions from Democrats. There’s a hundred percent chance that that’s gonna happen frequently. It’s gonna happen to every important Republican in the country and one guy, “What do you think of the insurrection? What do you think of vaccine mandate?” or rather, “Are you anti-vaxxer? Do you believe in climate change?”

Right? They love these binaries. Just asking the question is meant as an attack for one thing. They’re gonna push that a lot. But I think what DeSantis does so well and why — one of the reasons why the media hates him so much, obviously he’s effective and people are flocking to Florida as a result of it. And another thing is that he does something that — I’m gonna say this — I think he and a lot of the audience knows this intuitively and are probably shaking their heads up and down in advance of me saying it. This is something that Trump brought to the table, folks.

CLAY: Yep.

BUCK: This is what Trump did that was almost revolutionary for a lot of Republicans out there, a lot of people that have been on the right and conservative for their whole lives. All of a sudden you had a guy… You know, the Bush response to getting ambushed by the press was generally, you know, “I don’t think that’s fair. That’s not really accurate.” Trump’s response was, “You’re a joke. Why are you even pushing that question on me? What do you think this is? Why are you fake news?” Right?

He went defense to offense right away every time, and I just think that needs to be — as we’re getting into this memory election, that just needs to be — the standard that do not allow them, the other side, to construct the the boundaries of the conversation. Do not allow the left to do the whole, “Oh, well, you know, you’re — you’re — you’re a Trump supporter; therefore, you must be an insurrectionist.” You can’t let that stuff lie out there because we’re fighting over difference between a sane and insane government right now is what, 2% of the electorate, 1% of the electorate? (chuckling) That’s really what it comes down to.

CLAY: There’s no doubt. And it’s why 2022 is and needs to an absolute shellacking, an absolute destruction, and I think we’re headed that way.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

CLAY: USA Today and Suffolk — we were just talking about Ron DeSantis in the state of Florida, had a great event recently down in Fort Myers, huge number of you who listen on a daily basis in the great state of Florida. We appreciate you. Joe Biden’s overall approval rating in the state of Florida right now, Buck, 39%. His approval rating on covid, 45%. His approval rating on the economy overall, 36%. And then the USA Today, I thought, did an interesting analysis of the overall approval ratings of top politicians in the state. Ron DeSantis has a plus 10 — 52 to 42.

It’s important to remember he only won by, like, 30,000 votes in the state of Florida. So a plus 10 there. Marco Rubio, who is up for reelection, has a plus five rating. Donald Trump has a minus six approval rating. Ron DeSantis, 10 points higher approval rating in the state of Florida. Joe Biden, minus 11 approval rating. Remember, Florida used to be — I don’t think it is any longer — a toss-up state. Kamala Harris, 34% approval rating, and Hillary Clinton, 34% approval rating.

Now, that is interesting. Right now, DeSantis is up big in his potential reelection race. Rubio is up big in his Senate race. But what I thought jumped out to me the most here was if Ron DeSantis was running against Joe Biden in Florida in 2024, he would win by eight points — eight points — 52 to 44. In a state like Florida, that is crazy. And then if Hillary Clinton were running against Joe Biden in a primary, Hillary Clinton in 2024 would beat Joe Biden straight up. Is it possible that Hillary could come off the bench, Buck, and actually take on Biden even if he’s running for reelection?

BUCK: I don’t think the party apparatus would allow that. And if you remember, the whole super-delegate fiasco where Bernie had all the momentum against Hillary in 2016. I was at CNN as a conservative on air. They always put “conservative commentator.” Everyone else just got to be a “commentator,” by the way, but I was a “conservative commentator.” And the superdelegates as well as the CNN infrastructure, of course, were all-in for Hillary.

So there is an establishment of the Democrat Party and the DNC that I think would probably not go along with that, Clay. But at your question, though, if they decided that that was the only way there could be victory? Well, then that’s a whole other ballgame. Right now… But, I mean, would you ever do that? The power of incumbency as you and I both know and everyone listening to this knows is really, really extreme. It’s very hard to beat an incumbent president. I know we just went through this, but it was a once-in-a-century pandemic, and they did all kinds of shady things to get there.