We’re seeing a revolt against ol’ shiny boots DeSantis. What Republicans see happening is almost a DeSantis dynasty where he’s trying to pass it to his wife Casey. He wants her to run for governor and then control the state for another eight years. And these Republicans are just looking for any excuse now to push back to defy him.
Transcript:
*This transcript was generated by a third-party transcription software company, so please excuse any typos.
Caleb Cunningham: So this is a story that I think is long overdue. We’re seeing a revolt against ol’ shiny boots DeSantis. We’ve got the picture, I think queued up here. I think he works as hard as those boots have and the Republicans are finally turning on him.
Farron Cousins: It really is quite a remarkable thing because DeSantis, for many years now, I guess the first five and a half years really had a stranglehold on these Republicans and it’s because he had the backing of Trump who kind of bailed him out of his primary troubles when he first ran in 2018. Got him elected. He was the Trump guy. Trump loves him, he loves Trump, but then, uh-oh, you’re running against him and that’s when you really started to see the attitude shift of the Republicans that control Tallahassee and the state of Florida. And now they’ve just had enough, because what they see happening is almost a DeSantis dynasty where he’s trying to, because he’s term limited, pass it to his wife Casey. He wants her to run for governor and then control the state for another eight years. And these Republicans are just looking for any excuse now to push back to defy him and just show that, look, you kind of do ask us to do some crazy things sometimes, and we’re just not gonna do it.
But we’ve got a weird fight right now that I actually, unfortunately kind of take DeSantis’ side a little bit because it’s about Everglades restoration. He wants hundreds of millions of dollars for Everglades restoration, which is a great idea. The Everglades actually serve as a massive filtration point in Florida that is vital to the entire ecosystem and to human survival. So he says, we want, I think $700 million, maybe a little more than that and the Republicans say, no, you’re ridiculous. We’re going to give you $300 million. And so it’s a weird fight. It’s a weird thing to fight about. It’s one of many. I hate to say it again, but I do take DeSantis’ side on this, this is something that needs to happen with this particular issue.
Caleb Cunningham: So, there’s a couple things. This is the same governor though, that wanted to turn a state park into a golf course not too long ago. I don’t want our viewers to forget that and then he fired the guy for telling on him. And he has the charisma of a kidney stone. And he has gone around a little tour of the state lately attacking local Republicans who don’t agree with him. So again, the kidney stone is mad, it’s inflamed, and it’s going around attacking people. And so, what is the Churchill quote, a broke clock is right twice a day?
Farron Cousins: Right.
Caleb Cunningham: And so, I do think that this is a good issue, and I think this is an issue that people care about is Everglades restoration. But at the same time, you’ve cut all the arts and science funding across the country. You tried to turn a state park into a golf course with some shady dealing. Your wife has taken this $10 million under suspicious circumstances. You’re not cooperating with the investigation. So I think the Republicans are right to maybe we should stop getting in bed with this guy.
Farron Cousins: Yeah. And what’s great too is I read a story this week, it was hilarious. Donald Trump right now has the opportunity to do the funniest thing in the world to DeSantis and just end the DeSantis family career for good. He could get the US attorney for this area to basically take this case because the Republicans in Tallahassee have concluded their investigation into the $10 million that was supposed to go back to the state from the Medicaid overcharges, went to Casey DeSantis’ charity, and then the charity sent to DeSantis’ super pac. It’s very obvious what happened here. So in fact, our local representative, Alex Andrade, who’s a Republican that I’ve disagreed with on everything, he led the charge on that. So I give full credit to him on that. But now the question is what do you do? Because you’re not going to have DeSantis’ people actually investigate this. They’re not going to do it. So if Trump still holds that grudge against, Desanctimonious as he calls him, man, you could really do something hilarious here and take this guy down and the corruption because it wasn’t just DeSantis and his wife. There’s three or four other major officials in our government right now that were involved in it.
Caleb Cunningham: Well, the Attorney General of Florida is involved in some way, is my understanding. Ironically, Pam Bondi, former Attorney General of the state of Florida, so this is one of her successors. I think there was a gap between her and this guy. But he’s involved with this. The DeSantis’ fingerprints are all over this and this is not an insignificant amount of money right. On the eve of her wanting to run, and I can’t help but think about he pretended to not run for president for the longest time. Every time somebody, I’m not running for president, I’m not running, until he was running for president and he did that little world tour where everybody laughed at him. They laughed at him in Israel. They laughed at him in Japan. They laughed at him in England, and then he came home to Florida. So, keep my eye on this space. I think this is interesting. I’m glad to see, again, Congress shouldn’t agree with the President on everything.
Farron Cousins: Right, absolutely.
Caleb Cunningham: Just like Congress shouldn’t agree with the governor, that’s the checks and balances we have and that’s healthy discourse. I think when the founding fathers made this, it’s not supposed to be fast. We don’t want a lot of laws coming out. Nobody wants a lot of laws coming out fast because that’s more regulation we have to live under. But here we have this rank corruption and these little grudges.
Farron Cousins: And the grudges are what’s going to end up doing DeSantis in and I’m here for it all day. I love it. I want to see it happen. I will help any of the Republicans that are trying to go after him. Let me know what you need. I’ll do it, because this story is just beginning and it’s going to get so much worse for DeSantis.
Caleb Cunningham: Well, and I can guarantee Disney hasn’t forgotten either and the House of Mouse is one of the largest media corporations on Earth. And for whatever reason, he picked that fight, he did not win. He had a Pyrrhic victory at best, the people in that area are paying more taxes because of the fight that he picked. So he’s made a lot of enemies. His term’s up. I don’t see much of a future for the DeSantis family in politics.
Farron Cousins: Let’s hope.
