Katie Miller Podcast - Trump's FL Gov Pick Byron Donalds GOES OFF ON HATERS | KMP Ep.35
Aired: 2026-04-14
Duration: 58:43


=== Ruthlessly Efficient Government (04:52) ===

[00:00:00]  When you guys sit quietly at night, you're like, man, when I'm governor, this.
[00:00:04]  And it's not the big flashy headline, but it's the one that makes you feel good.
[00:00:07]  Efficient government.
[00:00:09]  Government is so antiquated, so broken, so isolated, so siloed.
[00:00:13]  So the thing that gets me happy that you can't really talk about on the trail is ruthlessly efficient government.
[00:00:21]  Stop wasting people's time.
[00:00:23]  But the only thing I would add to that, and by the way, you're a great mom.
[00:00:26]  Like Erica really is a great mom.
[00:00:27]  And, you know, to know my wife, and I'm gonna speak for her.
[00:00:31]  She's an overachiever.
[00:00:32]  That's who she is at her core.
[00:00:34]  It's interesting that the word came out.
[00:00:36]  I think for young men, and this is really important, I think for young men, it's critical to find that woman to build a life with.
[00:00:43]  Parents need to know you know best for your kids.
[00:00:46]  Even if you're not trained, that's your God given gift.
[00:00:49]  That your gut feelings about your kids are almost always correct, and you need to go with those.
[00:00:53]  And then you need to exert that power and influence over how they're educated, where they're educated, whether they're medicated, whether they're vaccinated, all of these things that we as parents, when we first started, we were told.
[00:01:05]  you need to listen to the experts on this listen to the pediatrician listen to the teachers Hi, everyone, and welcome to this week's episode of the Katie Miller Podcast.
[00:01:22]  We're excited to be in Washington, D.C. today with Erica and Byron Donalds.
[00:01:26]  Thanks for coming.
[00:01:26]  How are you doing?
[00:01:27]  Thank you.
[00:01:28]  So what's your daily life like on Capitol Hill?
[00:01:30]  Did your family move up here with you?
[00:01:32]  How often do you go back and forth?
[00:01:34]  What's life like versus when they're here versus when they're not?
[00:01:37]  Oh, I commute.
[00:01:38]  I go back and forth.
[00:01:39]  When I won the Republican primary back in Southwest Florida, I remember it was Labor Day weekend.
[00:01:45]  We were on a boat in the back bay of Marco Island.
[00:01:49]  Everybody's like, are you moving the family to DC?
[00:01:51]  Are you moving them to DC?
[00:01:52]  You know, what are we going to do?
[00:01:54]  And we're on this boat and I'm listening to all the questions and I'm looking around and I go, I live in Southwest Florida.
[00:01:59]  Why would I move to Washington?
[00:02:01]  That place sucks.
[00:02:03]  I'll go up there and work, but, you know, I'll commute back and forth.
[00:02:06]  And then when I got up here, it was COVID.
[00:02:09]  And so you did not want to be here.
[00:02:11]  And so I think, you know, all things being equal, it really did work out for the family and for our children because they were able to have like kind of a stable existence.
[00:02:20]  in school, back home, and then I was the one that did the back and forth.
[00:02:25]  And now that our oldest son's graduated college, our middle son is now in college, our youngest son is in the eighth grade, I think looking back, it was the right decision to have that stability of them back home in Southwest Florida.
[00:02:39]  Here, up in the morning, in the office, meeting, meeting, meetings, like 15, 30 minutes, your staff comes in, you have to run, do a TV hit, you're on the floor, you're in committee.
[00:02:51]  A lot of it has been talking to members.
[00:02:52]  So you're in these hour-long, two-hour-long meetings going over policy decisions with other members.
[00:03:01]  I was afforded an opportunity as a really a relatively new member of Congress to be in the elected leadership committee room with then Speaker McCarthy and then at the beginning of Speaker Johnson's time with the other elected leaders of the House and be in there representing House Freedom Caucus about what were going to be the decisions from leadership, about what packages we were going to put together, how are we going to deal with the Biden administration on border security and all these other things, debt ceiling.
[00:03:28]  spending.
[00:03:29]  So it was personally, it was actually a very riveting time professionally, but I think the balance was me just going back and forth.
[00:03:40]  The second it was fly out to the airport, fly home, or you're doing random events in Florida or somewhere else.
[00:03:46]  The biggest sacrifice, the thing that I think as a dad really hurt me the most, missing games.
[00:03:54]  That one was tough.
[00:03:56]  Do you find that more members who have younger children move them up here versus members with older children?
[00:04:02]  Yeah, I think if the children are really, really young, I think members are trying to move them.
[00:04:07]  Washington's very different now.
[00:04:08]  I think before, members moved their families no matter what.
[00:04:12]  And I think now what's happened, the dynamics have really shifted.
[00:04:15]  A lot of families have opted to stay home.
[00:04:17]  The members of Congress, I know Congress has this connotation of being really old, but that's really the United States Senate.
[00:04:22]  In the House, it's actually quite young.
[00:04:24]  You have a lot of members with young kids.
[00:04:26]  Kat Kamik just had her baby girl.
[00:04:28]  Anna Polina Luna had her baby boy about a year ago or so, a little bit more than a year ago.
[00:04:33]  So we have young members who are having children right now.
[00:04:37]  And I think a lot of them are opting, if their kids are really, really young, to bring them with them.
[00:04:42]  But if their kids are, you know, late elementary, middle school, high school, it's actually a lot easier, I think, on the entire family dynamic for the member to commute back and forth.

=== Politics Gets Personal Fast (15:23) ===

[00:04:53]  What's been your most humbling moment since entering politics?
[00:05:01]  When Governor DeSantis was elected back in 2018, we had a conversation and he asked if I'd be interested in becoming state party chairman of Florida.
[00:05:11]  And I said, okay.
[00:05:13]  I said, I think that's something I could definitely do to help the party and help him to be successful.
[00:05:18]  And I had to run in my local county to become the chairman of the local executive committee in order to be eligible to be voted on to become party chair for the state of Florida.
[00:05:30]  I lost the election.
[00:05:32]  And the crazy part was like, you know, internal elections are tough, man.
[00:05:38]  And so, you know, we went through the process, made all the calls.
[00:05:41]  There were some people who said they were voting for me that did not vote for me.
[00:05:44]  And that's a whole other story for another day.
[00:05:47]  But it didn't work out.
[00:05:48]  But it didn't work out.
[00:05:49]  So that was humbling.
[00:05:50]  And I think it's important to understand that even if you're elected to office, there's no straight line success in politics or frankly in anything.
[00:05:59]  You're going to have those humbling moments.
[00:06:01]  And I think those humbling moments they really do keep you grounded.
[00:06:03]  Do you find it embarrassing when it happens on such a large stage?
[00:06:07]  I find that, you know, when I feel like other people have watched my failures, it takes a lot more grit to be able to be like, I'm not paying attention, I'm not looking, versus when like I fall down the stairs and no one sees, like I can keep moving.
[00:06:21]  It might hurt, I might have a bruise, but no one noticed.
[00:06:24]  At this point, it's par for the course.
[00:06:27]  You know, people always ask me, like, do you have thick skin?
[00:06:29]  And I said, no, I don't.
[00:06:31]  And they go, what?
[00:06:32]  I go, I have Kevlar skin.
[00:06:33]  Like, it's at this point.
[00:06:35]  It is what it is.
[00:06:36]  You know that doing this, you're going to have haters.
[00:06:40]  You're going to have naysayers.
[00:06:43]  We were joking because we were watching this Cat Williams clip on YouTube.
[00:06:46]  And Cat was basically like, if you have 14 haters, get two more.
[00:06:50]  You need more.
[00:06:51]  Because if you're doing anything worthwhile in life, there's going to be opposition.
[00:06:56]  When you're over the target.
[00:06:57]  You're going to have haters.
[00:06:58]  So I don't mind it.
[00:06:59]  Do you mind it ever?
[00:07:00]  No.
[00:07:01]  Do you don't get more upset than he does?
[00:07:02]  No.
[00:07:03]  I get more upset at his haters than I do my haters.
[00:07:07]  Because I'm collecting, right?
[00:07:09]  And I have the right kind of haters the teachers' unions, illegal women voters, people who are against school choice and parental empowerment, and people who don't want my husband to succeed.
[00:07:19]  Those are like my categories of haters.
[00:07:20]  Do you ever give him advice when you're like, you're doing it wrong and here's what you're doing wrong?
[00:07:24]  And I got the answer.
[00:07:25]  Oh, that never happened.
[00:07:26]  That never happened.
[00:07:28]  He's doing everything correctly.
[00:07:31]  And if there is anything that needs to be changed, it's always his idea of what needs to change.
[00:07:38]  Exactly.
[00:07:38]  What's the last piece of great advice she's given you that you came up with yourself naturally?
[00:07:42]  No, I'm not even going to try to be sarcastic.
[00:07:45]  I think the one thing that, and this is from Erica, and at first I was kind of like, what are you talking about?
[00:07:53]  But it really does matter, and I use it a lot now with a lot of different people.
[00:07:58]  You have to be intentional.
[00:08:01]  You really do have to be intentional about the aspect of everything that you do.
[00:08:06]  And I think sometimes you kind of get caught in just the process of doing the things that you normally do.
[00:08:11]  And sometimes you can, it's not that you lose focus of the overall goal, but you're just in the process.
[00:08:18]  And I think especially with every day, especially at this level, you really want to be mindful of every day and be intentional with how you focus in on every day.
[00:08:26]  And that's from her.
[00:08:29]  Who's your best friend in Congress?
[00:08:31]  Oh man, I'm gonna get some people in trouble.
[00:08:36]  Beth Van Dyne.
[00:08:38]  That's tough.
[00:08:39]  Beth and I are very close.
[00:08:40]  Kat Kamek and I are very close.
[00:08:42]  Rich McCormick and I are very close.
[00:08:45]  You know, it's just there are some very good people here.
[00:08:48]  Who's your best friend on the left?
[00:08:50]  Oh, it's still my friend Bobby DeBose, who is no longer elected.
[00:08:55]  Bobby and I were served together in the Florida legislature.
[00:08:59]  He was a Democrat.
[00:09:00]  He actually became Democrat leader, obviously.
[00:09:04]  not just a Republican, one of the most conservative Republicans in the country.
[00:09:08]  But Bobby and I, our relationship is not politics.
[00:09:12]  Even though we've argued on the floor against one another and gone through all that, it's just a genuine friendship.
[00:09:19]  You know, I root for him and for his family.
[00:09:20]  He roots for me and my family.
[00:09:22]  Who do you like the least?
[00:09:24]  That's a long list.
[00:09:27]  Gotta name names.
[00:09:30]  I think I'm gonna go, and I don't know him.
[00:09:33]  Okay, fair.
[00:09:35]  I don't know him, we've never talked, but I'm gonna go with Bernie Sanders because I think his ideas are so antithetical to what's made America great.
[00:09:49]  I think it's just really damaging to the future of the country.
[00:09:52]  I really do.
[00:09:52]  I don't know the man personally, say I don't like him personally, but I think his ideas and what he represents, I do not like.
[00:09:58]  Who don't we like personally?
[00:10:00]  Personally?
[00:10:01]  Yeah.
[00:10:01]  There's got to be someone who's treated their staff poorly that you've seen or someone that gives you the ick.
[00:10:07]  For me, if I don't like you, like I'm generally nice to everybody.
[00:10:14]  That means you've messed with my money or you've messed with my family.
[00:10:17]  And so when you get on that list, you don't even have a name anymore.
[00:10:22]  It's hard to get on that list.
[00:10:24]  Who's on the list?
[00:10:26]  In all seriousness, for me, this is business.
[00:10:31]  I get it.
[00:10:31]  And politics can get personal.
[00:10:33]  But this is business.
[00:10:34]  It's never personal for me.
[00:10:36]  You could oppose me.
[00:10:37]  You could talk about me on TV.
[00:10:38]  You could talk about me on social media.
[00:10:40]  I don't really care.
[00:10:41]  Because at the end of the day, you're trying to gain an advantage over me.
[00:10:45]  But you go after her.
[00:10:47]  You go after my kids.
[00:10:48]  You go after my money.
[00:10:50]  Oh, it's personal.
[00:10:51]  I don't like you.
[00:10:52]  In politics, it's sharp elbows.
[00:10:55]  Everybody's competing, right?
[00:10:58]  In any campaign I've ever run, I've never tried to negatively attack or drag down somebody else.
[00:11:05]  I focus on what I'm doing.
[00:11:07]  I've been personally attacked.
[00:11:08]  I don't care.
[00:11:09]  That's the way it is.
[00:11:09]  That's what you sign up for.
[00:11:11]  And so to me, when you're making all the sacrifices, it's not just being a member of Congress or running for governor.
[00:11:17]  You have people who are running for state rep, state senate, city council, school board.
[00:11:21]  They're all making sacrifices from their family, from their businesses to try to do something to add back to their community.
[00:11:28]  So when you have people who decide it's now a personal vendetta to try to rip them down, that's why you have good people who don't want to be in politics because they don't want to deal with the BS.
[00:11:38]  Where do you draw the line, though, between people who are personally attacking you and those who create the personal attacks that increase your threat profile that make it more unsafe for your wife or for your children or for yourself to be able to go live a normal life?
[00:11:53]  I think if you're talking about a disagreement on policy, that's more than fine.
[00:11:58]  If we're going to debate or disagree on policy and you want to call me out on a policy position I have, that's what you sign up for.
[00:12:06]  When you decide that you want to make the attacks personal, or you want to start throwing out really inflaming language about how somebody's dangerous or somebody will unwind what we believe in or stuff like that, that's when I believe you cross that line.
[00:12:25]  Do you think your colleagues in the House do that now regularly, not only against yourself, but of some of your friends?
[00:12:32]  Yeah, I do.
[00:12:34]  And that's what's really hurtful.
[00:12:35]  Like, you know, Steve Scalise, our leader, The reason he was shot almost lost his life because the gunman said he heard Bernie Sanders' language about how Republicans were going to take away health care from Americans.
[00:12:49]  And this deranged gunman felt he had to do something.
[00:12:52]  So he picked up a rifle and went to Republican baseball practice and shot it up.
[00:12:56]  Steve Scalise almost died.
[00:12:58]  And I don't want to speak for Steve, but he didn't want to be shot.
[00:13:02]  And anything that we're doing on Capitol Hill isn't to take health care from the American people.
[00:13:07]  It's actually trying to provide better health care because the current system is not good at all and the costs are out of control.
[00:13:13]  But when that stuff happens, when you feel you have to make your attack so personal, that's because you don't have a point.
[00:13:19]  And now you're just trying to be the tallest person in the room by cutting everybody else down.
[00:13:24]  Do you think Congress should do more to ensure that only Americans vote in American elections?
[00:13:30]  100%.
[00:13:32]  10,000%.
[00:13:32]  And I don't know what the heck's going on in the United States Senate.
[00:13:35]  But, you know, Senate Republicans, they got to wake up.
[00:13:38]  This is not 1978.
[00:13:39]  It's not 1990.
[00:13:41]  The Democrats are true radicals.
[00:13:44]  Like, they are radicals.
[00:13:45]  So we got to step up and do what's necessary.
[00:13:48]  Democrats started by saying voter ID was racist.
[00:13:51]  Now they're saying voter ID is sexist because they've lost the racist argument.
[00:13:55]  Do you believe that?
[00:13:58]  Showing an ID to vote inhibits somebody from exercising their right to vote?
[00:14:05]  No, not at all.
[00:14:06]  You've got to show it to get on a plane.
[00:14:08]  You've got to show it to get beer, buy alcohol, buy a house, sign a lease.
[00:14:15]  You have to do it to do all those things.
[00:14:17]  I don't listen to the Democrat arguments anymore because they're stupid and they assume that the American people are dumb and ignorant and can't fend for themselves.
[00:14:27]  And I think that's what's really disheartening about their party right now.
[00:14:30]  So walk me through briefly your start in politics and how you ended up in Washington, D.C.
[00:14:37]  Well, it was actually a joint start.
[00:14:40]  This goes back to 2009.
[00:14:42]  The Tea Party rallies are starting up.
[00:14:45]  I was in finance.
[00:14:46]  Erica was in accounting.
[00:14:48]  We both opposed bank bailouts, and you start to see these rallies pop up.
[00:14:52]  And, you know, I decided to go to one, unbeknownst to me.
[00:14:55]  She decided to go, too.
[00:14:57]  And so we both took time away from work and went independently of each other to these rallies.
[00:15:02]  And from there, you just met people who were concerned about the Constitution debt, didn't want bank bailouts, et cetera. we just really became a part of the local Tea Party movement.
[00:15:14]  My first speech ever in politics was in October 2010 at the Naples Tea Party.
[00:15:19]  I became a member of the Naples Tea Party board and this world of politics just took off.
[00:15:26]  Naples, Florida has its own identity where the supermarkets are just Trump-loving fanatics.
[00:15:33]  Yeah, one.
[00:15:35]  Like I went there recently and they have so much Trump merch where you're like, man, I feel absolutely welcome here.
[00:15:40]  Was Naples always like that?
[00:15:43]  Naples has always been conservative.
[00:15:44]  It is a very conservative place.
[00:15:46]  You have people who have retired there from all over the country.
[00:15:50]  Obviously, they've done very well.
[00:15:51]  But at its core, they love America.
[00:15:54]  They believe in our Constitution.
[00:15:56]  They want conservative governance.
[00:15:58]  And they want conservative representation.
[00:16:00]  And so in this journey of politics from Tea Party activists to being elected to the state legislature in 2016, Erica is actually the first elected official in the House, elected to our local school board in 2014, and then running for Congress in 2020.
[00:16:16]  It's always been about following the Constitution and making sure that Western civilization and those principles that made America the greatest country in the world continue to be followed.
[00:16:25]  And that's how we've been able to build a lot of popular support in Southwest Florida.
[00:16:29]  Did you get the bug to run from Erica?
[00:16:32]  Definitely not.
[00:16:34]  He actually ran first, but I won first.
[00:16:38]  That's brutal.
[00:16:39]  That's brutal.
[00:16:40]  I gotta give it up.
[00:16:41]  She's the first elected official in the House.
[00:16:43]  That's what it is.
[00:16:44]  After that speech, which that Tea Party speech is online, you can see Byron Donald standing on the back of a.
[00:16:49]  Small pickup truck with a sign in front of him, and I'm holding the camera with a baby on my hip and two other kids running around.
[00:16:58]  And that was the beginning of our journey because after people heard him speak, they wanted him to come speak at their Republican club.
[00:17:06]  So then I would go with him.
[00:17:07]  That was our first time ever going to any Republican event ever the Women's Republican Club, the first time you gave like a public speech after that.
[00:17:14]  Republican clubs are hardcore.
[00:17:16]  Definitely.
[00:17:17]  Even now, when I walk in, I'm like, you guys are more hardcore than I am.
[00:17:19]  We didn't even know there was a Republican apparatus at the time.
[00:17:23]  That's how.
[00:17:24]  A political we were up until the Tea Party movement.
[00:17:27]  So we discovered Republican Executive Committee and we joined, we started going to these Republican organized events.
[00:17:33]  But, and he was speaking at every club in the area and then it continued to expand.
[00:17:38]  So he ran for Congress in 2012.
[00:17:40]  What's the weirdest thing you've come across?
[00:17:42]  Like, not knowing anything about Republican politics, what's the weirdest like function you found?
[00:17:46]  Is it like packed derm lunches?
[00:17:49]  Is it like there's so many weird things when you like run for office that like members of Congress go to or that you go to when you're running that someone would be like, huh.
[00:17:56]  I wouldn't say weird.
[00:17:57]  I wouldn't say weird.
[00:17:58]  I would say the most intense is your local Republican executive committee.
[00:18:03]  Because the Republican executive committee, you have people who've decided to take their personal time to become precinct captains.
[00:18:10]  And they're very passionate about politics, very passionate, in-depth.
[00:18:15]  They're consuming information.
[00:18:16]  They're studying everything.
[00:18:18]  Everybody kind of has their personal key issue that's their issue.
[00:18:24]  But it's very intense.
[00:18:25]  If you're in those rooms, you better know what you're talking about.
[00:18:29]  because they do not pull punches, they do not hold back.
[00:18:33]  When you ran for school board, was this at the time when everyone started getting more involved in their local school board about when schools started becoming this woke DEI-centered education and moving away from English, math, science?
[00:18:48]  It was before that, actually.
[00:18:49]  It was 2014 when I ran, and it was right after Byron and I helped to start a Hillsdale College classical charter school in our community just as parent volunteers.
[00:18:58]  So we were a group of parents, and we didn't like what our kids were learning in school more about the rigor, not necessarily wokeism, at least not at the time, or that we knew.
[00:19:09]  But the classical model really spoke to us.
[00:19:11]  So we opened a school, the first Hillsdale school in Florida, and we found out that there were hundreds of parents like us that were dissatisfied with the current school system.
[00:19:20]  So I was like, I'll run for school board and we'll fix the whole system instead of just trying to build lots of charter schools to meet the demand that we saw with parents.
[00:19:29]  And I got a bit of a rude awakening when I ran and won on the school board.
[00:19:33]  Hold on, hold on.
[00:19:35]  We're going to explain it in more detail.
[00:19:38]  So I ran for Congress in 2012, did not win, and it was actually a blessing that I did not win that race.
[00:19:43]  Very happy that that occurred.
[00:19:46]  Our congressional district came open in a special election in early 2014, and so a lot of the people in the local Tea Party movement. came to me and they said, Byron, it's your time.
[00:19:58]  Let's do it.
[00:19:59]  Let's run.
[00:20:00]  And I said to myself, I don't know.
[00:20:02]  And I remember we were talking about it one night.
[00:20:04]  I came from a meeting and she asked me what I thought.
[00:20:07]  And I said, I want to sleep on it.
[00:20:09]  Woke up the next morning and I said to Erica, it's not the right time.
[00:20:14]  I shouldn't run for Congress at this time.

=== Leveraging Dual Personalities (16:12) ===

[00:20:16]  And she goes, okay, good, because I want to run for the school board.
[00:20:20]  I wasn't going to run if he was going to run.
[00:20:23]  So I let him decide for that.
[00:20:25]  That's what happened, yeah.
[00:20:27]  How have you dealt with some of the pushback in starting schools and working in this charter program where so many parents are now so involved in their kids' education?
[00:20:36]  I think from when you started to the ramp to now, is you see report after report of thousands of kids being pulled out of public schools, thousands of kids not returning, whether that be New York City, Chicago, I've seen numbers, Colorado.
[00:20:48]  And then people then are obviously going to push back on anything that they can, including starting charter schools.
[00:20:54]  Yeah, I'm thrilled.
[00:20:55]  I'm like, welcome to the party.
[00:20:57]  You know, I've been working in school choice policy for almost 15 years now and helping parents to find the right fit for their kids.
[00:21:05]  And I love that it's now become a mainstream policy issue.
[00:21:09]  It used to be difficult to get anyone to even talk about it.
[00:21:12]  And now, you know, I'm able to go on national television and talk about it very frequently.
[00:21:17]  And that was not the case before.
[00:21:19]  So parents finding out that they actually do have options, whether that's charter schools or education savings accounts or whatnot, we have 17 states, we have the federal program now.
[00:21:28]  So, it's actually become an industry and a real pursuit of fully parent directed funding on education and a free market in education.
[00:21:38]  And that's what I've worked for the last 15 years to do.
[00:21:40]  So, I'm really excited about where we are right now.
[00:21:43]  Just to clarify for the audience, how many kids do you all have and how old are they?
[00:21:47]  So, we have three boys.
[00:21:49]  They're 22, 18, and 14.
[00:21:52]  And so, for other mothers who are starting off on their school journey today, what would you want them to know that you've learned along the way, parenting now children that are? entering their college years.
[00:22:04]  Oh, just love them and hold them accountable.
[00:22:08]  That's really all you could do.
[00:22:09]  You love them.
[00:22:10]  There have to be boundaries.
[00:22:11]  There have to be rules.
[00:22:13]  And really demanding excellence out of their education.
[00:22:16]  And I think that really, that begins to put them on a trajectory to being successful.
[00:22:20]  What do you think parents misunderstand about their own power in their kids' education?
[00:22:24]  I think that's the biggest thing.
[00:22:25]  When we got married, I mean, we were married very young, had kids very young, obviously.
[00:22:30]  How old?
[00:22:30]  And we met when we were 19 and 21 in college.
[00:22:34]  Oh, wow.
[00:22:35]  And we graduated college, got married, and had a baby within 18 months of each other.
[00:22:42]  So we were young.
[00:22:43]  But we thought we knew everything and we were ready to go.
[00:22:47]  So I also tell people it's better to be blissful and just do it.
[00:22:53]  And we loved it.
[00:22:54]  We had a wonderful time as young parents.
[00:22:57]  But we thought, being in finance, we just need to buy a house in a neighborhood where the schools have A grades.
[00:23:06]  And we've done our job.
[00:23:07]  And we found out pretty quickly that that was not enough because one of our sons did great in that school, and the second one, who is my school choice story, it was a miserable experience.
[00:23:17]  I had to pull him out in first grade.
[00:23:19]  I found a classical private school, and it changed his life completely.
[00:23:22]  And all he needed was something different.
[00:23:25]  They told us that he needed to go on medication, and I refused.
[00:23:30]  And I think about all the other parents who would listen to the experts and go against their gut feeling as parents because they're a teacher or they're a A counselor and they're supposed to know better, but parents need to know you know best for your kids, even if you're not trained.
[00:23:46]  That's your God given gift that your gut feelings about your kids are almost always correct, and you need to go with those.
[00:23:53]  And then you need to exert that power and influence over how they're educated, where they're educated, whether they're medicated, whether they're vaccinated all of these things that we, as parents, when we first started, we were told you need to listen to the experts on this, listen to the pediatrician, listen to the teachers.
[00:24:09]  And that's just not true.
[00:24:10]  Parents need to exert their own authority and follow their gut.
[00:24:14]  Do you think schools are too quick to recommend to medicate children who just need a different type of learning?
[00:24:21]  Oh, absolutely.
[00:24:22]  And I think, look, if you look at it from the side of a school administrator or a guidance counselor, there are, depending on the size of the school, 300 kids, 500 kids, 700 kids.
[00:24:34]  They're trying to find a way to get through the school year while providing the best education possible.
[00:24:40]  And I think sometimes the default response is, well, this small cohort of kids are a problem.
[00:24:45]  They're not sitting still.
[00:24:47]  What do we need to do?
[00:24:48]  Well, what about testing them for ADD or ADHD or providing medication or whatever the case might be?
[00:24:54]  As opposed to having a child-focused approach, which is very difficult for the public school system to do, where you have a child-centered approach, where you're prioritizing the needs of that child.
[00:25:06]  And that's why Erica, myself, we've just been such strong advocates for parental empowerment, for universal school choice, because parents obviously, it's their child, they're fully invested in that child, regardless of what happens with the teachers, and the teachers change every year, or regardless of what school you happen to go to, because the principals will change.
[00:25:26]  The parents are there every step of the way.
[00:25:28]  That's really the core of our belief that you have to put parents at the head of the table and then everything else will fall into place for that child.
[00:25:36]  Given that you both had kids so young and the fertility rate in our country is declining dramatically across not only the United States but the world and you see the average age of first-time mothers, especially the United States, increasing upwards.
[00:25:50]  I think D.C. is at 31 is the average age of a first-time mother.
[00:25:55]  I think it's the oldest in the country is right here in Washington, D.C. Wow.
[00:26:00]  What would your recommendation be to people, and especially to women, who say, I'm going to wait until later in my career versus you all who had it at the beginning of your careers, and you're still able to be wildly successful running for governor of the state of Florida, elected to the school board, starting your own charter schools, and it hasn't hindered your careers at all?
[00:26:21]  I think it would have, you could argue, shaped your careers.
[00:26:24]  Definitely.
[00:26:25]  I mean, I'm not a woman.
[00:26:26]  You got to answer that question.
[00:26:27]  Well, I have been speaking at turning point conferences, on college campuses, to young women's groups.
[00:26:34]  And I always encourage them, find your person, get married young, start having babies.
[00:26:39]  And you can do both.
[00:26:41]  And yeah, it takes work, as I know you understand, to balance it and figure out where that balance is.
[00:26:47]  But when you put family first, God first, and what he's called you to do, then your family, you fit your career around that.
[00:26:56]  And it will work.
[00:26:58]  You can make it work.
[00:27:01]  Definitely the most rewarding thing you'll ever do is be a mom.
[00:27:05]  I often say, you know, I am so glad that I had kids young.
[00:27:09]  I wish I would have prioritized my family more early on.
[00:27:13]  I think I still could have been just as successful in my career.
[00:27:16]  I think sometimes, you know, because of other things, like we push ourselves so hard when we want to overachieve.
[00:27:23]  But definitely it's worthwhile to have children young.
[00:27:27]  We have so many friends that are having babies right now.
[00:27:30]  It's so funny.
[00:27:31]  And we're way on the other side of that.
[00:27:33]  And I just think, oh my gosh, I would be so.
[00:27:35]  tired.
[00:27:36]  Yes.
[00:27:37]  But the only thing I would add to that, and by the way, you're a great mom.
[00:27:41]  Like Erica really is a great mom.
[00:27:42]  And, you know, to know my wife, and I'm going to speak for her, she's an overachiever.
[00:27:48]  That's who she is at her core.
[00:27:49]  It's interesting that the word came out.
[00:27:51]  So for her, it's always been, how do I maximize in everything that I'm doing?
[00:27:57]  And, you know, I'm typically the more reserved of the two.
[00:28:01]  And so I think our marriage, our partnership, and our relationship has been around actually leveraging both. of our personalities to do what's in the best interest of our family and our kids, but also our careers and the decisions we've made professionally.
[00:28:18]  I think for young men, and this is really important, I think for young men, it's critical to find that woman to build a life with.
[00:28:27]  And now being 47 years old, it's not something I really thought about at the time when we got married, but now looking back, in retrospect, you really understand that having that partner, that wife, who You're going through the ups and downs.
[00:28:44]  You go through the successes and the failures.
[00:28:46]  You go through the joys and the struggles.
[00:28:48]  But what it really breeds is a continuity that actually gives you more ability and more focus to pursue your career goals or to really shoot for the future because you have a stable foundation at home.
[00:29:00]  And raising kids, yeah, especially when they're young, they are like the central focal point of everything that you do.
[00:29:07]  And, you know, being in elected politics like the last decade, has that put, you know, strains on your kids and on your family?
[00:29:15]  Yeah, it has.
[00:29:16]  But I would argue, even in spite of those internal strains and sacrifices that do occur, it was far better to have kids early.
[00:29:26]  Now, I think as a younger father, I'm now thinking about not just what I'm passing on to my kids in terms of values and advice, but also how do I set up wealth that moves on to them for themselves and their kids.
[00:29:42]  And I think we're both having those conversations now.
[00:29:45]  Like, what are we doing now for the perpetuation of our children?
[00:29:49]  And there's a big talk, obviously everybody wants to talk affordability, but I think part of the affordability question is about generational wealth.
[00:29:54]  I had a buddy of mine in my office earlier today, and I said to him, I was like, how are you going to build generational wealth if you're not building generations?
[00:30:04]  And that starts with having children, allowing your value system, which frankly is a bedrock of American values and Western civilization, but perpetuating that into the future with your children, with your lineage, and then you and your wife figuring out, okay, now how do we pass on our successes? to the next generation so you can build that into a much more powerful family structure, not just temporally for you, but for your children and their children.
[00:30:31]  It reminds me today I saw a Financial Times story that talks about how college educated women are waiting until their husbands are ready to have children because they don't know what kind of father they're going to be instead of just jumping in and saying, let's have kids and let's figure it out and build together.
[00:30:48]  And I find that to be, to me, rather upsetting.
[00:30:52]  It's like you're educated, you can find some type of money to be able to afford these children if you put half the amount that you do into your career into your family.
[00:31:02]  Because oftentimes you end up with this perfect glide path of a career, the perfect college, the perfect first job, the perfect next job, and then you look around one day and biology has left you behind.
[00:31:13]  Yeah.
[00:31:13]  And we were so broke when we had our first son.
[00:31:17]  And so I tell people too, you're never going to be ready.
[00:31:21]  There's never a right time to have kids.
[00:31:24]  I mean, of course, yes, you want to be employed, you want to be at least stable, but.
[00:31:28]  I just don't know a lot of people who have that attitude where, oh, I'm going to wait until this happens to have kids.
[00:31:34]  There's always something to say, well, now that this has happened, let's wait for something else.
[00:31:39]  And so, yeah, I agree.
[00:31:41]  I think building a life together, building a family together from the time you're young is so valuable.
[00:31:45]  And I'm so thankful that that's the experience that we've had.
[00:31:48]  You're currently the front runner in the race for Florida's governor.
[00:31:52]  I would say that there's, I'm sure you've said it multiple times publicly, what you would do if you were first elected.
[00:31:57]  What are the minor points that Gets you the most excited beyond affordability, beyond school choice, beyond, you know, the headline grabbing ones that when you guys sit quietly at night, you're like, man, when I'm governor, this.
[00:32:12]  And it's not the big flashy headline, but the one that makes you feel good.
[00:32:16]  Efficient government.
[00:32:18]  Government is so antiquated, so broken, so isolated, so siloed.
[00:32:23]  Even when you put out a funding bill for food stamps or housing or you're trying to talk about energy or building roads, government is so inefficient with people's times that everybody gets frustrated.
[00:32:39]  Go talk to a contractor about how long it takes them to get the permits to build a house, which, by the way, increases the cost of building a house.
[00:32:46]  Talk to an energy company who's trying to find ways to provide cheaper energy, but they can't because they've got to comply with the regulatory framework.
[00:32:53]  Go talk with any community service hospital or any hospital trying to get an answer from HHS or from any state department of health.
[00:33:01]  It is just a bureaucratic wasteland.
[00:33:03]  And so the thing that gets me happy that you can't really talk about on the trail is ruthlessly efficient government.
[00:33:12]  Stop wasting people's time.
[00:33:15]  That's the biggest pet peeve of my wife.
[00:33:17]  Don't waste her time.
[00:33:19]  And it's kind of a pet peeve of mine, but I'm getting older, so now time is more you know, I don't have as much of it as I used to have.
[00:33:25]  So it's becoming a pet peeve of mine.
[00:33:28]  I think government has a responsibility to be just as efficient as private business.
[00:33:34]  We have that responsibility and the technology has caught up with us so much that we can do that if we have the will to get it done.
[00:33:41]  Can't talk about it publicly.
[00:33:43]  It's not going on Fox News.
[00:33:44]  No.
[00:33:44]  But that's the stuff that excites me.
[00:33:46]  What's the most surprising question you've gotten from someone who's attended a rally or been with you in a campaign event that you're like, huh, that's off the wall or I've never heard that question before?
[00:33:56]  The biggest thing is, I didn't know you were so tall.
[00:34:00]  That's the biggest one I get.
[00:34:01]  They're like, I had no idea you were this tall.
[00:34:04]  They only see me.
[00:34:05]  Because they see me from this up.
[00:34:09]  Florida's cool, man.
[00:34:11]  Florida's actually in a really good shape.
[00:34:13]  The biggest thing people really ask is, are we going to keep it going?
[00:34:17]  Are we going to keep it going?
[00:34:18]  Obviously, people want to talk AI and property taxes in Florida and stuff like that.
[00:34:24]  But by and large, can you keep it going?
[00:34:27]  Can we make it cheaper to live in our state?
[00:34:30]  So, on an AI question, I would ask this to both of you in different ways.
[00:34:34]  How do you see AI reshaping the future of education, and do you see a place for it in education?
[00:34:39]  And then, secondly, talk about this ruthless efficiency as it relates to government and the importance AI is going to play into the future.
[00:34:47]  How do you adopt that?
[00:34:49]  Into a government like setting while still maintaining privacy, standards, integrity?
[00:34:56]  I think people don't know about me.
[00:34:58]  In my finance career, where I spent almost 20 years, I was also over IT, as most CFOs are back then.
[00:35:05]  So I was very into technology upgrades and I managed a lot of software conversions and things like that.
[00:35:11]  So I pay a lot of attention to the latest technology, and AI has me very excited.
[00:35:16]  From an efficiency standpoint, as a business owner, as an entrepreneur, But for education, I see tremendous potential, mostly for parental empowerment and helping teachers.
[00:35:28]  As someone who runs schools, we've always wanted teachers to have a teaching assistant in every classroom.
[00:35:33]  This gives them 12 teaching assistants or more and is really going to help the teachers focus on the things that only they can do inspiring passion in children and teaching from an expertise that only they have and can convey.
[00:35:48]  But all of the other things that they have to do are going to be helped tremendously by AI.
[00:35:53]  And then as a parent, It will help me to gather information for my children, understand how they're really performing.
[00:36:01]  We have this terrible grade inflation epidemic.
[00:36:04]  And with artificial intelligence, I can overlay that on whatever I'm getting from teachers or from schools and normalize it to know actually how my student is actually performing on more of an even scale.
[00:36:17]  So, not only that, when it comes to students identifying gaps, identifying issues in a way that teachers just can't with as many students as they have to oversee, I see tremendous use cases in AI.

=== AI Helps Parents Gather Info (05:15) ===

[00:36:29]  When you combine that with education freedom, I think homeschooling is going to be much easier, parental power is going to be much easier.
[00:36:35]  Do you think students will be less smart because they're going to use AI instead of their brains to get work done?
[00:36:40]  I think that is a risk.
[00:36:43]  But if we get ahead of that and don't treat AI like a Google search and say, you know, you can't use it, if we put it into practice in ways that are really intentional with education, that we can use it to actually expand their creativity and expand their thinking.
[00:37:00]  and not allow it to replace, but we have to take control of it early on and not be afraid of it and its capabilities.
[00:37:08]  Look, I think when it comes to government, yeah, there's a ton of things you could do.
[00:37:13]  Let's start.
[00:37:13]  I brought up housing, so let's bring it up.
[00:37:16]  The time it takes to permit a home.
[00:37:18]  We already know what the regulations are.
[00:37:20]  We already know what the codes are in every county of the state.
[00:37:23]  We already know what the state regulations are.
[00:37:26]  So you should be able to truncate the timeline going from application to approval in like a fraction of the time that it typically takes now to get those approvals.
[00:37:36]  I would argue, and this is for the people in Florida and frankly in the country, but specific to Florida.
[00:37:43]  who are concerned about overdevelopment or urban sprawl.
[00:37:48]  What Florida has largely mastered is suburban sprawl because we've been so inefficient with the time it takes to approve projects.
[00:37:56]  They get spaced out further and further, but we haven't addressed the road systems, so people are now bogged down into tighter road systems as development gets pushed out.
[00:38:05]  So I think actually having quicker responses and more efficient time in that, not only does it drive down the cost of building the home, but it also helps local government and state government plan.
[00:38:14]  For what the future construction and management and growth of an area looks like.
[00:38:19]  Growth is coming to Florida.
[00:38:22]  Let's rip the band aid off.
[00:38:24]  People are choosing Florida and they're going to continue to choose Florida.
[00:38:28]  Governor DeSantis has done a great job as governor.
[00:38:30]  Of the recent California departures, which one are you most excited to have in Florida?
[00:38:35]  The new New York departures because they're fleeing crazy, which means they're like, I can't do this.
[00:38:41]  And the next place I'm going to, I'm going to make sure it doesn't get that way.
[00:38:44]  But I'm talking about those billionaire tax departures.
[00:38:46]  We already got them.
[00:38:48]  I heard Zuckerberg just bought a place.
[00:38:50]  Peter Thiel's already bought a place.
[00:38:52]  I don't have the luxury of picking and choosing, but I think in the migration that Florida is going to see, it's going to expand our footprint when it comes to tech.
[00:39:01]  That and Kennedy Space Center is going to do that.
[00:39:03]  And it's going to continue to expand our footprint when it comes to finance and high finance.
[00:39:07]  And I think that's important because if you're going to talk about the leadership when it comes to funding corporate America and small businesses and the technological innovations for corporate America and small businesses, I would rather that be In a political and cultural ecosystem like Florida, as opposed to California and New York.
[00:39:28]  I want Florida to actually set the guardrails for that.
[00:39:31]  Let our philosophical views and public policy views drive that mission, as opposed to California and New York.
[00:39:38]  Which AI do you use?
[00:39:40]  I don't really.
[00:39:40]  I mess with them and play with them and ask like random stuff, but nothing too crazy.
[00:39:44]  But I use Grok mostly.
[00:39:46]  I started playing with Gemini, but I don't really get into it that much.
[00:39:49]  I have different tabs open for each one because I use them for different purposes.
[00:39:54]  So I use Claude for business mostly.
[00:39:56]  I use chat for media speeches and things like that.
[00:40:00]  And I use Grok for things that, you know, just what I think as a secondary probably for most things.
[00:40:07]  But I use it all the time, all day, every day.
[00:40:11]  But I think going back to what you were saying though about.
[00:40:14]  The efficiencies in local government, I think people underestimate the talent gap that AI fills in all of these local governments that don't have that high quality talent of civil engineering.
[00:40:27]  That plugging in AI with the people that they have will actually enhance their ability to plan better, to process more efficiently, and to be more successful as local communities.
[00:40:38]  And I think they're feeling like this is going to take away power when it's actually going to empower them even more because they will have access to.
[00:40:45]  High quality, quote, talent within the technology.
[00:40:48]  So I'm really excited about the next phase of Florida, the billionaires like Steve Ross and Ken Griffin who are investing in Florida education, who are attracting more entrepreneurs there, Silicon Beach, if you will.
[00:41:01]  I think it's very exciting and not like anything anywhere has ever seen in our country.
[00:41:07]  So, I mean, one last thing, and I know you want to move on.
[00:41:11]  I think it's important about your last question because when people think I got AI, they're thinking Grok, Claude.
[00:41:18]  Gemini or whatever, right?
[00:41:21]  I think for when it comes to businesses, when it comes to internal governmental operations, healthcare operations, et cetera, that's not Grok and Gemini.
[00:41:32]  Those are like specific modules who have like a specific universe of information.
[00:41:37]  Well, it could be Grok or Gemini, but it's pulled out and that LLM only operates within a closed loop system.

=== Real vs Fake Evacuations (03:08) ===

[00:41:44]  So whatever information you're putting in, that data and that privacy is protected for just that system.
[00:41:49]  So it protects your HIPAA.
[00:41:51]  It protects your classified information if you're going to put that in.
[00:41:53]  Right.
[00:41:53]  It isn't, to your point, an open system where it's being fed into the grok that then you and I use every day or Claude that's used.
[00:42:01]  It's its own server, its own sequestered system for that specific use where it's not training the rest of the system.
[00:42:07]  Just on the rest of the system.
[00:42:08]  Just on the rest of the system.
[00:42:09]  I think it's important for, as we step into that future when it comes to government operations, I think it's important for voters and citizens to understand that.
[00:42:18]  We're going to move into my favorite section of this episode.
[00:42:21]  Sure.
[00:42:22]  Floor demand headlines.
[00:42:23]  Real or fake?
[00:42:25]  Uh-oh.
[00:42:26]  You're going to tell me if the headline is real or fake.
[00:42:29]  All right, good.
[00:42:29]  Florida man attacks shoppers with metal shelf inside Miami Dade Publix.
[00:42:36]  Nah, that's fake.
[00:42:37]  I see it's real.
[00:42:38]  It's fake.
[00:42:40]  Could have happened.
[00:42:41]  Someone was eating someone's face in Miami.
[00:42:43]  A shelf attack is not that far off.
[00:42:46]  Florida man saves neighbor from jaws of 11-foot alligator by hitting it with his car.
[00:42:51]  Oh, I can see that happening.
[00:42:52]  That's real.
[00:42:53]  I'll say fake.
[00:42:54]  It's real.
[00:42:56]  Two and no.
[00:42:56]  Nobody's counts.
[00:42:57]  No.
[00:42:58]  Florida man arrested for making bomb threats against himself.
[00:43:02]  Yes, that's real.
[00:43:03]  Yeah, that's real.
[00:43:03]  It's real.
[00:43:05]  Florida man had hours long junk food fest inside closed Walgreens.
[00:43:10]  I'm going to say real.
[00:43:12]  No, I'm a secret.
[00:43:13]  They caught you, Byron.
[00:43:15]  Wow.
[00:43:17]  Wow.
[00:43:21]  Who needs political opponents?
[00:43:22]  I got this one right here.
[00:43:24]  Who needs them?
[00:43:25]  It's real.
[00:43:26]  It is?
[00:43:27]  Yeah.
[00:43:27]  Oh, my gosh.
[00:43:30]  Florida man arrested after allegedly using drone to drop water balloons on neighbors.
[00:43:36]  That's real.
[00:43:37]  Not as fake.
[00:43:38]  It's fake.
[00:43:39]  Dang.
[00:43:40]  Sorry.
[00:43:40]  I believe in my Florida men.
[00:43:43]  I don't know what you believe in right now.
[00:43:45]  Florida man wearing lace lingerie accused of hiding gun under prosthetic breasts.
[00:43:50]  Unfortunately, that's real.
[00:43:52]  I'll say fake.
[00:43:53]  That's real.
[00:43:53]  Oh my gosh.
[00:43:56]  If this was the NBA Finals, we already won.
[00:43:58]  Wow.
[00:43:59]  There we go.
[00:44:00]  Florida man refuses to evacuate ahead of storm, says he, quote, already paid rent for the month.
[00:44:07]  I would say it's real just because we've seen so many people that won't evacuate for crazy reasons.
[00:44:12]  That's real.
[00:44:12]  That's crazy reasons.
[00:44:14]  That one's fake.
[00:44:14]  Oh.
[00:44:15]  There could be a number of reasons, unfortunately, people refuse to evacuate.
[00:44:19]  Man, I've seen people after storms, they hunger down through the whole thing.
[00:44:23]  And some really terrible stories.
[00:44:25]  So this is the appropriate time to ask Erica, what's an issue that you disagree with Byron on?
[00:44:30]  Oh.
[00:44:33]  Oh.
[00:44:33]  You already thought I was in some convenience store for an hour.
[00:44:36]  You might as well go ahead.
[00:44:37]  You might as well go.
[00:44:38]  What's an issue that we disagree on?
[00:44:43]  It's hard.
[00:44:44]  We agree on a lot.
[00:44:47]  The reason why she asked you is because typically women agree, women remember these things.

=== Planned Vacations vs Spontaneity (02:20) ===

[00:44:53]  If I think back of what a core disagreement was in our 25 year relationship, it was the public school, like trying to put our kids in public school as like that was a core value for Byron early on.
[00:45:09]  Obviously, he's since evolved from that.
[00:45:14]  Especially when our second son was having trouble in public school and I wanted to put him in private school, Byron really wanted them to go to public school and felt like that would give them better, well rounded experience and that private school was going to be too sheltered.
[00:45:27]  And I think even our oldest, when he went to private school for high school, I had to fight pretty hard for that.
[00:45:34]  So I'll give you my list of things I disagree with Steven on just to help you out first.
[00:45:37]  Okay, great.
[00:45:38]  He insists that my children always wear socks with their shoes.
[00:45:41]  Even if the shoes are already on and they're ready to get in the car, go out the door, he makes them come back inside and put socks on.
[00:45:46]  Smart man.
[00:45:47]  So, okay, I'll give you something then that I have evolved on, and that is planned vacations.
[00:45:55]  So early on, when we would go on vacation, I had literally every minute planned.
[00:46:03]  What time we were waking up, when we were going where, all the activities we were doing, maximizing every day of the vacation, which turned out not to be much of a vacation to him.
[00:46:14]  And definitely, so you can imagine our Disney where I would like buy the book.
[00:46:19]  The planner meets the non planner and then they get married.
[00:46:21]  It's just, that's us.
[00:46:22]  Yeah.
[00:46:22]  For sure.
[00:46:23]  That was it.
[00:46:24]  So, yes, we now take vacations that are not planned at all.
[00:46:28]  And everyone enjoys them, including me.
[00:46:30]  Question Which ones are better?
[00:46:33]  They're both good in their own ways.
[00:46:36]  Our Disney trips were very special.
[00:46:39]  So, the non plans are better.
[00:46:41]  Do you believe everyone fights at Disney?
[00:46:43]  Yes.
[00:46:45]  It is abnormal to not fight at Disney, correct?
[00:46:47]  Yes.
[00:46:47]  But it is the most magical place on earth.
[00:46:50]  Yeah, but you want to hop on the ride.
[00:46:52]  the child is crying because it's now 1230 and you've had them at the park since eight and you're like no you need to experience it's a small world and the child is not gonna remember that Oh, yeah.
[00:47:05]  Oh, yeah.
[00:47:08]  Oh, yeah.
[00:47:10]  That's never happened between us.
[00:47:12]  It's never happened.

=== Disney Fights and Dad Jokes (03:03) ===

[00:47:14]  What's your best dad joke?
[00:47:16]  Oh, do you have dad jokes?
[00:47:17]  I don't really do dad jokes.
[00:47:19]  I should ask my son.
[00:47:20]  I don't really do them.
[00:47:23]  Phone a friend.
[00:47:24]  No.
[00:47:26]  Yeah, come on.
[00:47:27]  What's your best dad joke?
[00:47:28]  Oh, dear.
[00:47:31]  Oh, alright.
[00:47:31]  Take your hoodie off, man.
[00:47:33]  You're so good.
[00:47:35]  Come back.
[00:47:36]  He's coming in for the dad joke.
[00:47:37]  Oh, God.
[00:47:38]  I don't even know.
[00:47:39]  I have one.
[00:47:39]  Does he have dad joke?
[00:47:40]  I don't do dad joke.
[00:47:42]  This is our 14 year old son, Mason.
[00:47:45]  Hi, Mason.
[00:47:46]  Thanks for joining us.
[00:47:47]  What's your dad's best dad joke?
[00:47:52]  Does dad have dad jokes?
[00:47:54]  I don't know.
[00:47:54]  But I have one.
[00:47:55]  I have a good one.
[00:47:55]  Okay, let's go.
[00:47:56]  Oh, no.
[00:47:57]  Go ahead.
[00:47:59]  How do trees access the internet?
[00:48:02]  I don't know.
[00:48:02]  They log on.
[00:48:06]  All right, you're done.
[00:48:07]  Your segment's up.
[00:48:09]  Your segment on the pod is done.
[00:48:12]  There you go.
[00:48:14]  The dad of the family.
[00:48:14]  He's the youngest.
[00:48:16]  I only do dad jokes.
[00:48:18]  How do you guys unwind after a chaotic week?
[00:48:21]  You want to tell her me?
[00:48:22]  You go.
[00:48:23]  We both, it's the same answer.
[00:48:24]  It is the same answer.
[00:48:25]  So, you know, our recent house that we bought a couple years ago sits on a couple of acres.
[00:48:32]  There's a fire pit that was already built in the back.
[00:48:34]  And when I saw it, I go, oh, that's great.
[00:48:38]  And we've since moved it to a better place on the property.
[00:48:41]  But how we unwind?
[00:48:43]  Just make a fire, sit in the backyard.
[00:48:46]  Even in the Florida heat?
[00:48:48]  Well, you know, in the wintertime in Florida, it is nice enough.
[00:48:51]  In the Florida heat, no, we don't go out there.
[00:48:53]  We typically will sit on our back porch, which is on the second floor and it's elevated.
[00:48:57]  And so you kind of just sit out there at night, just talk.
[00:49:01]  You know, I'll probably just have a drink and a cigar and just relax.
[00:49:04]  And we'll just, we just end up just talking about the day.
[00:49:07]  It is serene.
[00:49:08]  It's so wonderful.
[00:49:09]  It is wonderful.
[00:49:11]  That's really nice.
[00:49:12]  You find the time to do that.
[00:49:14]  Oh, if he's home or coming home, and it's like he'll be home about that time, it's always, Did you build a fire?
[00:49:22]  Are you building a fire?
[00:49:23]  Like, I'm already on it.
[00:49:25]  We already know if there's a window, the fire's getting built, or we'll be on the back porch if it's a little hot outside.
[00:49:32]  But it is nice to just unplug, get away, and feel like you have privacy.
[00:49:40]  You just can be together.
[00:49:43]  You send people to voicemail?
[00:49:45]  Oh, yeah, you get ignored at that point.
[00:49:48]  Unless it's like super urgent.
[00:49:50]  Like, if the president called, then yeah, got to pick that one up.
[00:49:53]  It's understandable.
[00:49:54]  It's understandable.
[00:49:54]  I think you have answered his call at the fire pit before.
[00:49:57]  I have.
[00:49:59]  We play this game now every episode.
[00:50:01]  Would you rather?
[00:50:02]  You both answer.
[00:50:03]  So it's not like a phone a friend.
[00:50:05]  Would you rather have control over the thermostat or the remote?
[00:50:09]  Remote.
[00:50:10]  The thermostat.
[00:50:11]  And you found each other.
[00:50:12]  Would you rather campaign on a boat in hurricane season or on foot in the swamps of the Everglades?

=== Unplugging for Privacy Time (03:22) ===

[00:50:17]  Oof.
[00:50:18]  Boat and hurricane season.
[00:50:19]  Yeah.
[00:50:20]  We are very familiar with the Everglades.
[00:50:24]  Did you catch any iguanas that fell out of the sky?
[00:50:27]  Nah.
[00:50:28]  We don't have a lot of iguanas in Southwest Florida.
[00:50:31]  It's more on the other coast.
[00:50:32]  Would you rather have your pastor roast you in a sermon or your kids roast you on TikTok?
[00:50:37]  Pastor in a sermon.
[00:50:38]  I'm going to say the same.
[00:50:40]  But what if that goes viral on TikTok?
[00:50:44]  It's done with love.
[00:50:45]  It's done with the love of Jesus.
[00:50:46]  Our pastors, yes.
[00:50:47]  I think our pastors roast would be relatively kind versus our kids, maybe.
[00:50:53]  Would you rather deliver the awkward State of the Union response from a tiny house with no teleprompter or sit for an hour-long segment on The View?
[00:51:01]  I know your answer.
[00:51:02]  Hour-long segment on The View.
[00:51:04]  That is the worst speech ever to give.
[00:51:06]  Right.
[00:51:07]  I will never give that speech.
[00:51:09]  I would go on The View, too.
[00:51:11]  We actually enjoy debating with the other side.
[00:51:14]  I don't ever miss an opportunity, nor do you.
[00:51:16]  Oh, no.
[00:51:16]  Whoopi and I would have a good time.
[00:51:18]  It would be fun.
[00:51:19]  By the way, The View, let me on.
[00:51:22]  Shameless plug.
[00:51:23]  Would you rather get caught passing gas on a hot mic?
[00:51:26]  Or accidentally have a phallic verbal slip on live TV.
[00:51:29]  Example, like Schumer saying Trump incited an erection.
[00:51:33]  Oh, definitely the fart and the hot mic.
[00:51:36]  You can get away with that one.
[00:51:37]  No, I'm going to go with the latter.
[00:51:40]  No, thank you.
[00:51:42]  What's a conspiracy theory that you believe in?
[00:51:46]  Well, it's too late because it's already been revealed.
[00:51:48]  But I always, even when we were going through it early during Trump won, I always believed that Russia collusion was a huge conspiracy.
[00:51:55]  It just, it never made any sense that the guy who was in our televisions for 35 years, who everybody loved, including hip hop artists and Democrats, et cetera, was all of a sudden a Russian plant.
[00:52:10]  Never made any sense to me.
[00:52:11]  Do you believe someone should be charged in the Epstein investigation?
[00:52:14]  Yeah, I do.
[00:52:16]  What's the conspiracy theory that you believe in?
[00:52:18]  I don't think it's a conspiracy theory, although others do, that the 2020 election was stolen.
[00:52:23]  Absolutely believe that.
[00:52:24]  What's the first app you open in the morning?
[00:52:27]  X. X. I'll give it to Elon.
[00:52:30]  Shout out to Elon.
[00:52:31]  It's X. Do you read the comments on social media?
[00:52:35]  Sometimes.
[00:52:37]  But you know, but me, I like knowing what my adversaries say.
[00:52:42]  I also watch MSNBC.
[00:52:44]  MSDNC?
[00:52:45]  Whatever it is.
[00:52:46]  Yeah.
[00:52:46]  MSNBC.
[00:52:47]  Whatever they call it now.
[00:52:48]  I don't know.
[00:52:49]  I read them just so I can mute and block people, which I take great pride in, which downvotes them in the algorithm.
[00:52:54]  Yeah, I know.
[00:52:56]  What songs are on your Spotify playlist right now?
[00:53:01]  I love Jelly Roll and Elevation Worship and old school hip hop and RB.
[00:53:09]  Yeah, I have everything in there from Drake to Biggie, old school Tupac, Chris Stapleton, Jelly, Nicky.
[00:53:23]  I have a wide range.
[00:53:25]  We both like a lot of different music.
[00:53:28]  If someone made a TV show about life in Congress, which actor would play you?
[00:53:33]  Oh, what's the British dude?
[00:53:35]  Idris Alba.
[00:53:36]  Yeah.

=== Dream Dinner with Kobe (04:08) ===

[00:53:40]  What keeps you up at night?
[00:53:42]  Our kids.
[00:53:43]  Just making sure they're set.
[00:53:45]  They're at an age now where we don't get to see them every day and you have a lot less influence over the things that happen in their lives.
[00:53:53]  So if there's anything that keeps me up at night, it's just making sure that my kids are safe, successful, happy, and that there's not anything that I could do to help them that I don't know about.
[00:54:05]  I actually agree.
[00:54:08]  I think about the boys all the time.
[00:54:10]  You know, political life brings its own pressure to your kids.
[00:54:14]  And so I just, you know, always think about them.
[00:54:16]  We pray about them, you know, talking about being intentional, a lot more intentional about just, you know, calling them, texting them, checking on them, you know, little things that kind of help me through the day.
[00:54:27]  If I think it's relevant to them, passing that on to them.
[00:54:30]  The last question we ask everyone on the pod If you could host a dinner party with three people, dead or alive, who's that coming to the table and what are you eating?
[00:54:39]  You can each answer or you can do a joint answer.
[00:54:42]  Go ahead, you go first.
[00:54:43]  I gotta think about number two and number three.
[00:54:44]  I already got number one.
[00:54:45]  Oh, okay.
[00:54:49]  So, my growing up years were very tumultuous, but my parents got divorced when I was at a young age.
[00:54:55]  I spent a lot of time with my grandparents, and there's not much I wouldn't give to have one last dinner with my grandma and granddaddy Blanton.
[00:55:06]  So, they're both obviously deceased.
[00:55:09]  And we would be eating.
[00:55:10]  Pollo a la plancha from La Teresita in Tampa, which was like our favorite meal when I was with them.
[00:55:17]  And I suppose I get another person, I'll invite my mom because she misses them a lot too.
[00:55:21]  So that would be my dream dinner.
[00:55:25]  Does Byron get invited?
[00:55:26]  Oh, yeah.
[00:55:27]  I guess you can get it.
[00:55:29]  Who do you think is dropping off the pollo a la plancha?
[00:55:33]  My grandparents, when they met Byron, thankfully they were alive to meet him.
[00:55:37]  And our first son said, This is the man that we prayed for.
[00:55:40]  They were very devout.
[00:55:41]  They're the reason why I have a Christian foundation.
[00:55:44]  And They really liked Byron and said they had been praying for my spouse my whole life, and Byron was the one they prayed for.
[00:55:52]  So that was very special.
[00:55:55]  You want something better than that?
[00:55:56]  No.
[00:55:59]  No.
[00:56:02]  Kobe Bryant.
[00:56:03]  Okay.
[00:56:05]  Elton John.
[00:56:09]  It's actually interesting because it's tomorrow, Frederick Douglass.
[00:56:13]  And what are you eating?
[00:56:15]  Oh, well, we're having a bone-in filet.
[00:56:18]  Bone-in filet, great bottle of wine, vegetables for Kobe.
[00:56:25]  Really just wanted to pick their brain about the process and the journey in their lives.
[00:56:31]  Are we remiss before we end without asking two follow-up questions?
[00:56:35]  What's the best thing she cooks?
[00:56:37]  Oh, man, she makes this like, well, there's two now.
[00:56:41]  The kids love her angel chicken pasta, which she does in a crock pot, and the kids, everybody wants it.
[00:56:48]  And then the other one she made when we were in college, and it was like this rice and chicken, yellow rice and chicken casserole that she would make.
[00:56:55]  And anytime she would make it, all my friends would come over to her apartment, and we would all basically devour the whole thing, and she would have no leftovers, but she would cook it anyway because she was sweet on me.
[00:57:05]  So she would make it even though my friends ate it.
[00:57:08]  And given that you have a major election coming up, I'd be remiss if I did not ask, what are you most looking forward to in the year ahead?
[00:57:15]  We enjoy doing projects together.
[00:57:18]  We've never worked together in a business environment, but we served together as youth leaders in our church for 15 years.
[00:57:27]  We did politics together when it was just a hobby and we were in the Tea Party or we were in the REC.
[00:57:33]  And so this campaign, we're obviously working together on, and it's a family affair.
[00:57:40]  So I just look forward to this project, if you will, of a campaign that we're doing together.
[00:57:46]  It's fun to work together.

=== Family Affair in Politics (00:54) ===

[00:57:48]  pursue something that we're really passionate about.
[00:57:53]  I agree with all that.
[00:57:54]  For me, it's just a journey.
[00:57:58]  The day in, day out of it, I really am enjoying it.
[00:58:02]  I started journaling, which I've never done before in my life, and I started journaling and really just keeping track of everything.
[00:58:10]  It's going to be a fun book at some point.
[00:58:14]  Or a fun subpoena.
[00:58:16]  Whichever way you want to go.
[00:58:17]  But, you know, I feel just a journey.
[00:58:20]  The day in, day out, week in, week out.
[00:58:25]  It's exciting.
[00:58:26]  You know, you only live once.
[00:58:28]  That's true.
[00:58:30]  Thank you so much for watching this episode of the Katie Miller podcast with Byron and Erica Donalds.
[00:58:34]  We're so excited for them to join us this week.
[00:58:36]  We'll see you next week at 6 p.m. Eastern on Tuesdays.
[00:58:40]  Don't forget to like, follow, subscribe, and share.
[00:58:42]  See you then.