Is He Running? Governor DeSantis Talks to Clay and Buck

CLAY: Tuesday edition: Clay Travis, Buck Sexton Show. We are joined now by Florida Governor Ron DeSantis. He has a brand-new book that is out right now that I know many of you will be checking out, and as we bring in the governor, what did you find the writing of a book like compared to the other aspects of being a governor and a leader? What was the book-writing process like for you?

GOV. DESANTIS: Well, it gave me the chance to kind of reflect on what Florida has done over the last four years and what it’s meant really for the country, because we’ve had so many people that have come to Florida to visit, to escape some of the bad policies in other parts of the country, and even to uproot their families and make Florida their home. And I think it’s a great story because we see the federal government floundering, we see some of these big blue states floundering, and yet Florida is an example that, you know, you can succeed. Yeah, you got to stand in there. You got to fight against a lot of entrenched interests. But you can beat the left-wing elites and you can deliver real results for the people that you represent — and not only that, but they will respond in record fashion by giving you a big victory. Because I got elected with 32,000 votes in 2018; come November of 2022, after four years of successes, we won by 1.5 million votes.

BUCK: Hey, Governor, it’s Buck. You know, I know the book is The Courage to Be Free: Florida’s Blueprint for America’s Revival. We want to ask you about that blueprint here, of course, but first, you mentioned there about how people will respond to good policies. Can you just update…? As the governor you certainly know the latest. Update, everybody, on what has happened in Florida by the numbers, people moving there, the crime rate, the economy. You know, you’re talking about the success story. Tell everybody what that has meant.

GOV. DESANTIS: Sure. So, our crime rate’s at a 50-year low. We’re the nation’s fastest growing state. We’ve led the nation in net in-migration every year that I’ve been governor. We’re number one in economic freedom and education freedom. We have one of the lowest per capita state tax burdens in America, one of the lowest per capita state debt burdens in America, and we have the largest budget surplus in the history of the state of Florida. When I was elected four years ago, there were close to 300,000 more registered Democrats in the state of Florida than Republicans.

And we’ve never had more registered Republicans than Democrats in Florida history. Today, we’ve got 420,000 more registered Republicans than Democrats, and so I think it shows that the success has driven good political results. I think we’ve had people move who’ve been drawn to the Florida model, and I think that they were more likely to agree with me. But I do think we’ve got a lot of people in Florida who may have voted the other way in the past who we’ve been able to convert over to our side because they’ve seen that we’ve been right on these issues.

CLAY: We’re talking to Florida Governor Ron DeSantis. Specifically speaking to that, you started coming on with me on my sports radio show to argue that kids needed to be in school, that Florida was going to open up — and not only were you going to open up, kids are going to be able to play high school football in 2020. There’s a lot of people out there listening to us right now whose kids didn’t get to go to school in person. They had to wear masks — something that you fought against — they weren’t able to play sports.

They lost a huge part of their educational opportunity because they had failed leadership. A state like California is a good example of that. What do we need to see? I’m sure you saw the Department of Energy now says, Oh, this leaked from — covid did — a Wuhan lab. Everything that people like you and me and Buck have been arguing for years is basically being proven true. What should happen? What should a reckoning look like given the state of Florida, your leadership, you got everything right and yet it seems like most Democrats still don’t want to acknowledge all that they got wrong?

GOV. DESANTIS: Yeah, I mean, I think, you know, when you and I would talk about the sports, we were like some of the only people in the country saying these kids need to be playing sports.

CLAY: Yep.

GOV. DESANTIS: I mean, I was roundly criticized and attacked because we said we had UFC — the first live sporting event after covid was Florida in May of 2020 in Jacksonville — and we got killed and we got killed by the press for doing that. And then we had the golf and we had the youth sports all summer and everything. And you, look, if the parent didn’t want their kid playing because of covid, I don’t think that’s the right decision. But fine. We weren’t forcing anyone to play. But we had to allow that. And I’ll tell you, you remember when the Big Ten and the Pac-12 cancelled season in the summer of 2020.

The SEC was moving in that direction, and I was working behind the scenes and I said, “The University of Florida is not going to be party to canceling the college football season,” and so we got Florida right and we made sure the ACC schools were in line, and they wanted to be Florida State in Miami, and so when the SEC and the ACC said, “No, no, no, we’re playing,” and then they start doing it. That put huge pressure on the Big Ten to reverse. And they had to, and it was really embarrassing what ended up happening with them. Same thing with our high school season.

They were very close — because ours is run by a private association. It’s not run by the Department of Education. It’s a private association that was very close to canceling fall sports, so we had to spend a lot of capital to make sure that that we saved the season. And we did. And now people look back and it’s like, “Oh, of course that was the right thing to do,” but at the time, we were in the very, very small minority. Every single expert criticized us when we had our high school athletic association determine — they have a medical committee — every single doctor was saying that this was going to be damaging for kids, to have them play sports and to allow them to play sports. And they were all wrong. So, I think when you’re talking about what needs to be done, I mean, the high levels of the bureaucracy just need to be flushed out.

I mean, these are failed agencies when you talk about things like the CDC and the FDA, and also some of the people in these medical societies that really pursued politics and ideology rather than following the data — and, look, I don’t know if it’s just some people will never admit that they were wrong because they think that that’s bad for them. But like for you to say certain things in March of 2020 when we didn’t have all the data in, you know, you can kind of understand and give someone a mulligan, but once the data is in and you continue to keep your head in the sand and advocate for destructive policies, you should not be in a position of leadership ever again.

BUCK: Speaking to Florida Governor Ron DeSantis. His book is out today, The Courage to Be Free: Florida’s Blueprint for America’s Revival. Governor, take us through the blueprint, because obviously you’re the governor of Florida and you’ve had tremendous success there and you’ve had so many people that have moved, and I think voting with their feet is the single most clear and most important way that they can show how they feel about your governance and what’s going on in the state of Florida. How does this translate, though, to other states? How is this a blueprint for other places across the country to have the same kind of economic boom, but just also increases in freedom and prosperity and a sense of forward momentum?

GOV. DESANTIS: Well, I think there’s three things. One is, you know, you got to be grounded in the right principles. And I think everything we’ve done in Florida grows out of the basic foundations that have made America what it is today that the founding fathers talked about that are reflected in our Constitution. And that in of itself is much different than what you would see in a state like California, where they go a much different way. Second, you have to recognize if you want a free state — right now, in this day and age — it’s not just protecting people from government overreach. Of course, you have to do that. But we have a lot of power exercised by non-governmental agencies, organizations, corporate America, Big Tech.

You also have wokeness in the federal bureaucracy and in universities, and so people… I think part of freedom is being free from having the left impose its agenda on you. But that means you’ve got to fight across all those different terrains, and we’ve done that here in Florida. And then finally, when you’re doing that — I mean, we call it The Courage to Be Free because leadership has a cost. And particularly if you’re standing for the things that Florida has stood, just know: The left not just going to lie down and let you do it. They’re going to fight because you’re fighting on their turf. You show a different example for the rest of the country. The unfavorable comparisons between these blue states and Florida, you know, that calls into question their whole worldview! So, they’re going to attack you, they’re going to smear you, they’re going to distort. They’re going to do whatever they can, and you got to be willing to take that fire, stand strong, and fight back.

CLAY: I loved it. I was down in Florida for July 4th and Gavin Newsom is running ads on Fox News as I’m sitting on my couch down there in my Florida place — which, thankfully, I’m happy to have you as a governor down there — and he’s lost 800,000 population in California in terms of net migrations out. You have gained 700,000, which… I’m sorry. He’s lost 700,000. You guys have gained 800,000, which is pretty crazy. And I believe the report is — we wrote about this at Outkick — Gavin Newsom’s own in-laws relocated from California to Florida and donated to you. Now, that is amazing. But as Buck has said, isn’t voting with your feet between California and Florida a perfect approximation? I would say you guys, as current governors, handled covid about as different as two governors could. And overwhelmingly, Americans have voted with their own residency in your favor. Isn’t that, like, signed, sealed and delivered in the argument?

GOV. DESANTIS: Yeah, especially when you consider… I mean, think about it. We had a lot of people flee from New York, right? But we’ve always had people move from New York. You know, you live a life in New York. You retire. You go to Boca. Doesn’t mean you hate New York necessarily. Now, recently, there’s been a lot of people that have been dissatisfied, granted. But to go from California and to go 3,000 miles across the continent to come to Florida, you know, that is a huge, huge thing. And I grew up in Florida and I never saw a California license plate in my life growing up, and then until I became governor, you started to see them. And I tell you, a lot of Florida voters freaked out because they were thinking these are a lot of liberal California voters.

CLAY: (laughing)

GOV. DESANTIS: But it turns out these are people that were disaffected by what was going on out there and they would pick up and move. That is a very powerful statement to move your family across the continent. And, as you guys know, I mean, like, if you’re in if you move from New York, you can hop on a plane from Palm Beach back up to JFK. It’s a 2-1/2 hour flight to see your family, whatever. But it’s a big deal going across the country. And the fact that people were willing to do that and oh, by the way, we’re proud of being the Sunshine State. California’s got pretty doggone good weather, too. So, it isn’t like they’re leaving the cold of Minnesota to move to Naples. They’re leaving a state that was the ideal for the American dream for most of our lifetimes and even probably before that —

BUCK: Yup.

GOV. DESANTIS: — and now is a state that’s hemorrhaging people at record numbers, and while Florida is enjoying its biggest ever budget surplus, California is facing close to a $30 billion budget deficit.

BUCK: Governor DeSantis is with us now. The Courage to be Free is the book. You know, you have the blueprint, Governor. What states are already starting to implement what you would say is the pathway to your prosperity and freedom and the American revival? I mean, where else are you seeing governors doing things that you say, “That makes sense to me; that’s the right move”?

GOV. DESANTIS: Well, I think if you look people focused on our red wave in Florida, and it was it was legitimate, but there was a red wave in Iowa under Governor Kim Reynolds. And if you look at what Kim’s done on education, fighting back against covid authoritarianism, what she’s done to keep Iowa safe with law and order, she’s done a lot of the stuff, you know, that we’ve done in the state of Florida. And what I tell her is when the people from the Midwest come down mostly to southwest Florida, you run into them, you know, the people from Illinois are really bitter about what’s going on in Illinois.

The people in Michigan were very bitter, particularly during covid. People from Iowa, you know, they’re happy to be in Florida, but they like Iowa. They like it and they’re just they’re just much more happy with what’s going on back home. I think that’s a testament to her. I think you look at other states that have gained population like Georgia, you know, Governor Kemp opened up Georgia. He was being attacked by Fauci and even people at the White House and was willing to stand his ground on that and I thought that that was a huge, huge thing.

And I thought that that benefited Georgia tremendously. Clay, you know Tennessee is booming. I mean, you know, you have people — when I was in Nashville during covid, the energy felt similar to what you see in Florida, where all these people are coming. I don’t know how they’re voting. Hopefully, they’re voting the right way. But clearly, you know, it’s drawing a lot of people who are looking for greener pastures. So, I think there’s a lot of success stories. And I think that it’s great to have a healthy competition with all these different states. And really, it’s just been a competition to see, you know, who’s going to receive more people from the failed woke states.

CLAY: You’re right about Tennessee. Last question for you — it’s a number-one question everybody in our audience has — are you going to run for president in 2024 and what is the time frame to make that decision?

GOV. DESANTIS: Well, as I told people, I have a legislative session coming up, we have supermajorities now, and I’m going to be able to deliver a huge agenda for Florida. And so that’s going to be my focus. I am talking about the book, partially because I’m proud of what we’ve done in Florida. So I’ve got the next probably three months where I’m going to be focusing on that, and then we’ll get on the other side of that and who knows? Maybe I’ll come on your show if I have if I have an announcement to make.

BUCK: I think that would be an excellent idea, Governor, just throwing that out there.

CLAY: Yeah, and we would certainly welcome that opportunity and we appreciate the time. Good luck. Hey, I hope the New York Times will allow you to open number one overall. You know, they have that rigged bestseller list that they don’t typically allow a lot of conservatives. So good luck on the rankings.

GOV. DESANTIS: Yeah, you know, but I think I win either way because if they blackball me and I clearly have sold the most, that will get a lot of positive feedback on that, too.

BUCK: Well, this audience is going to mobilize. The Courage to Be Free: Florida’s Blueprint for America’s Revival. Get a copy. Governor Ron DeSantis. Thank you so much, sir.

GOV. DESANTIS: Take care, guys. Bye, bye.