00:04:51.380Is it possible that Democrats are getting so cocky as they look at the 2026 midterm that they are starting to nominate actual far left wing nominees that may not play as well in their state?
00:05:08.520And I'll give you another example. They are, I think, in Michigan, going to nominate this guy, Al-Sayed, who is crazy, crazy left winger out of out of Michigan.
00:05:22.040He's going to win, I think, a competitive Democrat primary. Now, that's just two states. But Michigan is an open Senate seat. Republicans are defending in Maine.
00:05:31.700if republicans win either of those seats there is no mathematical equation that leads to
00:05:37.380any kind of challenge to republican control in the senate and you and i have talked about this
00:05:42.780a great deal but it is important to keep in mind we have a lot of older members of the supreme court
00:05:49.280we've talked about alito we've talked about thomas john roberts is no spring chicken now
00:05:54.300you never know when a opening is potentially going to occur if democrats take back control
00:06:01.760of the senate there will be no supreme court opportunity to fill any vacancy for two years
00:06:07.300so understand that the 2028 presidential election would then be about who is going to be able uh to
00:06:15.880win that race to be able to pick a next supreme court justice just fyi this was like a clay nato
00:16:45.780And in this podcast, we interview Canada's most inspiring women, entrepreneurs, artists, athletes, politicians, and newsmakers, all at different stages of their journey.
00:16:55.560So if you're looking to connect, then we hope you'll join us.
00:16:58.800Listen to the Honest Talk podcast on iHeartRadio or wherever you listen to your podcasts.
00:17:04.200Second hour of Clay and Buck kicks off right now.
00:17:09.120We'll get back into some of the redistricting conversation and talk to the governor of Florida, Ron DeSantis, who I'm just going to tell you is a Florida resident.
00:17:19.740I'm going to have to say when he comes on.
00:17:20.960I always feel grateful to what a fantastic job he has done.
00:25:37.320I understand that Syrians, I think, may be classified as white for purposes of the State Department or for under under certain government, you know, certain government programs.0.76
00:25:48.060But again, I think race is I think, you know, you'd have to pull the public to know what they think the race of a Syrian is.
00:27:18.900I would say that even under this court's rationality jurisprudence, if you look at cases like Moreno, it is not necessary for us to get strict scrutiny to win here because irrespective of how you put this aside, because this is about the race thing. Clay, I've been to Greece. I mean, I've been to Athens. I've been to Madrid. If you walked around and you told your I mean, I know there are also black people in these countries, of course.
00:27:42.040But what you think of as your average Greek or your average Madrieno guy lives in Madrid,0.99
00:27:48.380and you're like, you're not white, they would laugh in your face.0.84
00:27:51.340They'd be like, what are you talking about?0.80
00:27:54.020I mean, that line of questioning is so, so, I think, indicative of the racial spoils system
00:28:02.500that Democrats have created and just kind of hoisting them on their proverbial petard
00:31:54.060we talked about this a lot during that that persecution the absurdity of it but there's
00:31:59.900somebody who's trying to do something about it as well saritha commenter ready is running for
00:32:06.420new york attorney general she is the republican nominee for that post and she joins us now saritha
00:32:13.620thank you for making the time for us thank you so much it's great to be here what has other than
00:32:20.640openly saying i want to get elected so i can go after donald trump and then bringing a farcical
00:32:28.060civil case against donald trump pretending that mar-a-lago was worth 18 million dollars which
00:32:32.780anybody who spent three minutes in palm beach knows is preposterous all this stuff what has
00:32:38.500she done in addition to that or other than that which we know has been a disaster the attorney
00:32:44.140general of new york so far has been up to what well what has she done she's failed to keep new
00:32:50.940yorkers safe i mean you see the headlines i'm sure just like i do i experience them living in new york
00:32:56.880city there's random violence there's increased homelessness on the streets there's people feel
00:33:03.280ripped off every day because we don't know where our taxpayer money is going we don't know why we
00:33:08.040pay for things where other when other people seem to not to pay at all uh and it's there's a sense
00:33:14.360of lawlessness in new york and it's exactly for the reasons that you pointed out because our current
00:33:19.980attorney general letitia james sent all of the resources of that office to pursue partisan0.99
00:33:26.700vendettas instead of doing what a state attorney general should do keep its the citizens safe and
00:33:33.920that's exactly why new york is in the shape that it's in right now i want to get to the ag situation
00:33:41.160i'm also a little bit of a legal nerd so thank you for throwing your your name in the uh in the
00:33:47.540race here and being willing to deal with the slings and arrows but i wanted to ask you i
00:33:52.420believe you were on the dc circuit and clerked for brett kavanaugh uh at least that's what uh
00:33:58.780the resume i read said what was judge kavanaugh like and what was that experience like for you
00:34:05.580well judge kavanaugh now justice kavanaugh was uh just is a phenomenal judge is the hardest
00:34:13.640working person uh that i know a very decent man someone i consider a mentor and a friend
00:34:19.260and someone who really is a big supporter of all of his clerks and especially his female clerks
00:34:25.880I often tell people the first opinion that I helped Justice Kavanaugh with was an opinion that we went through more than 100 drafts because he cares so much about getting the law right, making sure that the law also impacts people in the right way.
00:34:45.920You know, he's not someone who's stuck in the ivory tower.
00:34:49.040He really thinks about how does the law interact with people's everyday lives and is the decision that he's coming to consistent with the law itself, respectful of the separation of powers, consistent with the text of the law.
00:35:02.400And does it make sense in how it fits in with people's everyday lives?
00:35:07.280So what are you going to do differently if you become the attorney general of the state of New York?
00:35:13.100Because a lot of people think of, you mentioned living in New York City, which I did for almost 40 years or so.
00:35:21.620People say, well, that's an NYPD thing, and that's a local thing.
00:35:24.280How does the Attorney General for New York play into making not just people in New York City, but people safe across the state more broadly?
00:35:35.820Yeah, I mean, listen, the Attorney General can prosecute crime.1.00
00:35:39.120You wouldn't know it because she doesn't really use those powers.
00:35:41.920But there's a number of areas where the attorney general can prosecute crime on her own or with the signature of the governor or any state agency head.
00:35:50.440And the issue right now in New York is that we don't have strong prosecutors and we don't have strong prosecution policies and laws.
00:35:58.340We had this sea change in 2019 and 2020 where this anti-law enforcement wave came into the state.
00:36:06.180And so even though for many years we did prosecute crime well, we did keep the numbers low.
00:36:11.920We now have a phenomenon in New York where every day you hear about someone getting hurt and the person that's hurting them is a repeat offender, already known to law enforcement, already arrested.
00:36:23.700But because of our broken system, that person is back out on the street.
00:36:28.280And to be fair, it's not the police's fault.
00:36:30.820We have the best police force in the world.
00:36:36.680They need prosecutors to back them up and to follow through on the cases and actually make sure real consequences are imposed on the people that they catch.
00:36:45.860And that is where we're lacking in New York.
00:36:48.480So I'm going to use the Office of the Attorney General to make sure we actually prosecute crime.
00:36:53.920You know, we have a DA in Manhattan who issued a memo on day one saying, I'm not going to prosecute these 15 offenses or I'm going to treat them with leniency.
00:47:30.180I mean, it was kind of ridiculous.0.68
00:47:31.100And I called this special session many months ago. I announced last year we were going to do it because I saw what the Supreme Court was going to do. And I predicted, I said, districts like that will not be allowed. And so we're going to address it. We don't want to run an election with an unconstitutional district. And oh, the carping, oh, what's he think he's doing all this stuff.
00:47:49.820And literally, the day these guys were dealing with this in the legislature, the Calais decision dropped and vindicated our plan in terms of how we're going to do it.
00:48:01.080And so the map that we have now is constitutionally sound.
00:48:35.580But I did want to ask you, you've had so much influx into this state,
00:48:40.660and I think this is going to apply, this applies also to places like Texas, Tennessee,
00:48:44.160other well-run red states that are seeing people that have had enough from the democrat states
00:48:50.700mostly new york and california but other places too how is the influx doing people say here
00:48:56.060oh the housing prices are high and i say to them yeah because people want to live here they say oh
00:49:00.760well the insurance rates are out of control and i say okay well that's something we got to handle
00:49:04.580what are the ways that you're handling the influx right it's it's a good thing to be popular florida
00:49:10.040is very popular right now but that does come with some challenges well one uh i'm not a governor
00:49:15.960that's begging people to move to the state i've never had people are doing it because it's a free
00:49:20.300country and they're trying to go to greener pastures to the political fallout of this a lot
00:49:25.640of our folks were very worried early in my tenure when florida was a 50 50 state you start seeing
00:49:31.860california license plates showing up in florida it's like well do we want to import berkeley here
00:49:37.140and turn the state blue? Obviously not. But here's what's happened with that. If you take all 49
00:49:42.840other states and look individually at who's moved to Florida since I've been governor,
00:49:47.780there have been more Republicans than Democrats for all 49 states individually. Vermont,
00:49:53.980California, you name it. And so it really has been people that are coming largely, I think,
00:49:59.880because they want to do it. Now, look, on the housing, housing has gone up everywhere since
00:50:04.040COVID. I think on the high end in Florida, it's gone up astronomical because people are paying
00:50:08.940huge amounts of money to be able to live here. Government should not be trying to impact that
00:50:16.020market. I think when we do that, it doesn't work. I think they're doing a housing bill in the U.S.
00:50:20.720Senate now, which I think was Elizabeth Warren, will be a disaster. So these things ebb and flow
00:50:25.020on the insurance. We just announced citizens, our chair of last resort, is actually reducing
00:50:31.540premiums by up to 15 percent in southern florida which we have never seen that happen and we've had
00:50:37.720about 15 new companies come in since we did our insurance reforms about a year and a half ago and
00:50:43.800you're seeing stability and even reductions there it's also spilled over into auto insurance we've
00:50:49.180had the biggest reductions in auto insurance rates over the last year in the history of the state and
00:50:53.900it's not going down in very many states given the environment that we're in but at the end of the
00:50:59.280day, there's positives when people come, but there's also challenges. And I know a lot of my
00:51:04.420folks that I've known a long time, you know, they kind of take pride that people want to be in
00:51:08.540Florida, but they're also like, you know, can we have a little bit of a break from some of the
00:51:12.780stuff? I just did a groundbreaking in Ormond Beach up by Daytona. We, what we saw when we saw the,
00:51:20.160we plowed billions of dollars into accelerating road projects. So I have projects that weren't
00:51:25.500even slated to start until next decade are now being done you know five ten fifteen years ahead
00:51:31.560of schedule and we have big surplus big rainy day fund so we have the capacity to do it and to try
00:51:37.600to get ahead of it to try to help with people's quality of life i gotta ask you also governor
00:51:42.300about the uh property tax situation here there's all as you know a lot of coverage of this i know
00:51:49.580you've talked about it before i think we even spoke to you about it maybe six months ago can
00:51:53.200Can you give us an update on where this stands for – because I also think this could be a model for other states as well.
00:51:59.940And the more success Florida has being a low-tax and well-run state, the more of a model it is for other places where people want to be sane and see growth and see things working the way that they should.
00:52:12.380Where are things right now on the homesteaded properties as it pertains to property tax?
00:52:20.100So the soonest it can be done is the November general election when Florida voters have to vote to make this change in our Constitution by 60 percent.
00:52:29.200And so we've said that all along. We're working with folks in the legislature about getting language approved that will go on.
00:52:37.520I'm not prepared to do it yet because I don't think it's opportune to do it yet, but we will do it.
00:52:41.980And so it will be done before the summer's out in time to be on the ballot.
00:52:46.840And the ultimate goal, of course, is your homesteaded property would be exempt from property tax.
00:52:52.840How can you do that? You're not going to have police. You're not going to have any of this.
00:52:56.040Well, listen to this. 2019, when I became governor, all this revenue is local.
00:53:00.920None of this goes to the state on property tax in Florida.
00:53:03.180But local governments in 2019 brought in $32 billion in property tax revenue.
00:53:09.020Today, that's $60 billion going to local governments.
00:53:14.220Now, did we not have police or any of this in 2019 when it was $32 billion?
00:53:23.180Heck, throw in a few percent a year just for the heck of it.
00:53:26.100You still would not be at $60 billion.
00:53:28.320And so what they're doing is, because Florida's property values have gone up, because people are buying homes at higher tax bases, they're raising the valuations, and they're getting a windfall.
00:53:39.880I would rather the windfall go to you as the homeowner.
00:53:43.500I would rather you be able to actually own your own home, and so I think the – so it's going to get done, and even the people that, like, privately don't want to do anything on this, they know they have to do it.
00:53:56.920Otherwise, they're not going to be able to do well in the election, so it'll get done.
00:54:00.140But I think a couple of the issues that we've got to make sure we get right, you know, one is do you – how quickly can you get to full exemption?
00:54:11.340And then if people just decide to up and move here after it passes, should they then have to pay property tax for a time before they can qualify?
00:54:19.560I mean, if you've been here 20 years, you've paid, someone comes in right after the vote and does it.
00:54:24.620So we don't want to create bad incentives for that.
00:54:26.780And then I've already said we will provide out of our surplus some financial support for the locals to get through this transition period.
00:54:36.320But the homestead revenue is about 30 percent of property tax revenue statewide.
00:54:42.220So they'd still be able to tax the Airbnbs if some rich guy from Columbia buys a mansion in Coconut Grove.
00:54:50.160You still tax it, the Canadians, the commercial properties, all that stuff.
00:54:55.100And what will happen is that that revenue is going to continue to grow like it's grown anyways.
00:54:59.440So you're basically limiting local government's ability to expand, which I think that's something that we should want to do, even apart from the tax, just as people that believe in limited government.
00:55:10.080I think it's going to be very popular, but I think the entrenched interests are going to hate it, and I think they're going to do everything they can do to fight it.
00:56:18.680They're growing government, and they're using that money as a windfall.
00:56:22.680you've been one of the best most successful governors anytime anywhere um gavin newsom's
00:56:29.740been one of the worst anytime anywhere uh i know i believe the father-in-law moved uh of gavin
00:56:37.220newsom moved to florida if i'm not mistaken does a part of you want to really get to run
00:56:42.140in some way against gavin newsom we know you smoked him in that debate on sean hannity's show
00:56:47.900but it feels like to me you guys both represent very well the Republican versus the Democrat
00:56:55.140perspective he's wrong on everything I think you're pretty much right on everything would
00:57:00.060you like to run against him would you like for the nation to have an opportunity to hear both
00:57:03.980those arguments so it's funny about his father-in-law because I didn't know his father-in-law
00:57:09.900until this is a few years ago I'm doing a dinner down in southwest Florida you know people are
00:57:15.800going around the table and there's probably like 25 people oh you know i'm so and so thanks governor
00:57:20.700for this and i knew some of the people i didn't know all of them well gets around the table
00:57:24.440and this nice gentleman says you know governor i just want to let you know we moved from california
00:57:28.600my wife and i uh we were we love florida what you're doing we couldn't take it in california
00:57:33.860anymore and we're so glad to be here best decision right which was nice to hear but i mean honestly
00:57:38.260i've heard that before and then he paused and then he looked up and he said oh and by the way
00:57:43.320I'm Gavin Newsom's father-in-law. And the whole place just erupted. Everyone just starts laughing.
00:57:49.120And it's like, yeah, I mean, I'm at a fundraising dinner for my reelection and I've got the governor of California's father-in-law, you know, donating money and being happy to be there.
00:57:58.960So, look, I think that the issue between Florida and California is emblematic of a debate.
00:58:05.400We're probably going to have to have in a little bit more sharp way as we go forward because the left, they view California as the ideal.
00:58:16.940They don't think California screwed up.
00:58:19.540They aim to be able to get to California, so they want to turn Virginia into California.
00:58:25.920They want to turn Michigan into California.
00:58:29.860So California is really five or ten years ahead of where the National Democratic Party is.
00:58:35.400And I think Florida represents, you know, there were so many years where we had people, conservative voters are like, you know, don't squish out.
00:58:45.720Don't we're sick of the establishment. Be strong. Do all this.
00:58:48.800And there was a book. The establishment say you can't do that because if you do that, we can't win and the voters don't like it.
00:58:55.000Well, I came in and basically in a very close election and I said, you know what, I'm bold.
00:58:59.900I'm going to do it. Bold colors, not pale pastels. We're going to lead on all these issues.
00:59:04.080And obviously, COVID and some of these things gave us an opportunity to lead.
00:59:07.940But what we've proved is the thesis that conservatives have had, that when you are bold in a conservative direction, you will not only produce good policy results, and we've produced the best, but you will have big political results.
00:59:39.400I mean, we are not a monolithic state.
00:59:41.380You go to the panhandle, it's similar to Alabama and Louisiana, Mississippi.
00:59:46.860You go to Miami, it's more similar to Latin America.
00:59:50.100You go to Palm Beach, Fort Lauderdale, it's like New York South.
00:59:53.080You go to Southwest Florida, it's the Midwest transported down there.
00:59:56.520You go to Central Florida, it's a mix of everything.
00:59:58.480And so we were able to do that with really diverse demographics and do it in a way that I think was more significant than anyone thought possible.
01:00:08.140Last question for you. I saw you at the White House. You're working on NIL, which is fundamentally broken in college sports.
01:00:15.760But also there's been reports that you might be involved in the Trump administration, given that you are term limited out.
01:00:21.900You've been governor for eight years. What do you think the future holds in college sports and also for you?
01:00:28.480Well, one, anytime I mention in reports, just understand that's gossip. I've never been approached to do anything and I've never asked to do anything because I've got a lot on my plate. So I would just tell you, take that with a grain of salt. On the college sports, I'm actually very optimistic. You go back six months ago, we had no momentum to do anything. There was no leadership. And I talked with President Trump about this at the end of last year. And he's like, I want to tackle it. He's like, will you help get some guys together?
01:00:55.460So I brought Nick Saban, Urban Meyer, Condi Rice, a bunch of these people. Randy Levine from the Yankees has brought a bunch of great people together. We did that big event at the White House, which really focused people's attention on it.
01:01:09.260And I will tell you this. I don't want to get ahead of where Congress is going, but I will tell you for the first time, we actually have momentum in the U.S. Senate. These senators are working on all the key issues. And you guys know the issues. You probably need an antitrust exemption to make sure all this can stick and not have endless lawsuits.
01:01:28.580You've got to have an eligibility framework.
01:01:31.300People shouldn't be playing until they're 27.
01:01:34.160You need to have transfer portal limitations, and you need to have NIL.
01:01:40.720If someone wants to endorse you or something, fine, but not have these university collectives where it's like, oh, coach, I just threw for 300 yards.