March 24, 2023 - Rubin Report - Dave Rubin
34:49
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| Speaker | Time | Text |
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| Something that we did in 2017, I think, that was also instrumental is we did collective bargaining reform in 2017. | ||
| And really, the only thing that our unions, the teacher unions, could bargain for Was wages and it was capped at either 3% or cost of living rates, whichever was lower. | ||
| And if they could bring additional things to the table, but both parties had to agree on that. | ||
| The other thing that we did as part of the collective bargaining reform was paycheck protection. | ||
| No longer can they deduct from their salaries. | ||
| They have to actually write them a check or they have to make the decision. | ||
| Uh, to to support the unions, and then they have to recertify every time there's a new contract. | ||
| So, you know, we like to say that we took on, you know, the largest monopoly in the state | ||
| with the teachers union, but it was the second one that we took on | ||
| because in 2017, it started with collective bargaining reform. | ||
|
unidentified
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♪♪ I'm Dave Rubin, and joining me today | |
| is the 43rd governor of the great state of Iowa, Kim Reynolds. | ||
| Governor Reynolds, welcome to the Rubin Report. | ||
| Hi, thanks for the opportunity. | ||
| I appreciate it very much. | ||
| It's great to be with you. | ||
| It's good to be with you. | ||
| I'm glad you're here. | ||
| I've seen you a couple times here in the free state of Florida over the last couple months. | ||
| You've done some blueprint, some Florida freedom blueprint events with Governor DeSantis, but we haven't really got to chat too much. | ||
| So I thought we'd do a little kind of get to know you and then we'll get into the nitty gritty of policy. | ||
| How does that sound? | ||
| That sounds great. | ||
| That sounds great. | ||
| So for the people that don't know you at all, what should they know about Kim Reynolds? | ||
| Where's Kim Reynolds from? | ||
| What's going on here? | ||
| Well, okay. | ||
| Well, I'm a small-town, rural Iowa girl, and we like to talk about that a lot because, you know, Iowa's an agricultural state. | ||
| I like to say we're actually one big, small community. | ||
| It's a population of about 3.2 million. | ||
| We have 99 counties. | ||
| My dad went straight into John Deere and farmed out of high school. | ||
| My mom stayed at home. | ||
| But let me tell you, she ran the house and threatened us with everything if we didn't do what she told us to do because dad was coming home at 5 to set us straight. | ||
| But because I grew up in a small town, small school, I participated in everything and little did I know how well that was going to prepare me to do what I'm doing today. | ||
| So I was involved in every sport, every activity, anything that I could do. | ||
| But again, I think that helped prepare me for a career moving forward. | ||
| What possessed a small-town Iowa girl to go into politics? | ||
| Well, my husband challenged me. | ||
| I've been in the private sector. | ||
| I started working. | ||
| We moved from Mount Pleasant to Osceola. | ||
| I started working in the county treasurer's office. | ||
| And I was like, oh my goodness, they don't know about customer service. | ||
| All of the processes were so antiquated. | ||
| And I shared that with my husband over and over and over for the next four years. | ||
| Lo and behold, the county treasurer decided not to run again for re-election, which never happens. | ||
| And Kevin, basically my husband, said to me, well Kim, listen, you either run for that job and you implement all those wonderful ideas you've been sharing with me for the last four years, or I really don't want to hear another thing about it. | ||
| And I just didn't know anybody that had ran for office. | ||
| I never really thought about it before, but I did. | ||
| I talked about what I was going to do. | ||
| I loved I loved it. | ||
| The first thing I did was tore down the wall between the two offices. | ||
| I'm all about breaking down barriers and working together and serving the people that were elected to serve. | ||
| And so it started by breaking down the wall. | ||
| Well, that's kind of been a theme of mine throughout my career. | ||
| But I worked there for 19 years, loved what I did. | ||
| I think it's always important to bring new leadership in. | ||
| And so I stepped out of a lot of the national things that I was on and they approached me to Run for the Senate in 2008, not a good year for Republicans. | ||
| And I thought, no, I like what I'm doing. | ||
| And I thought, you know what? | ||
| I can take, you know, what I've done in a county. | ||
| It was a large, largest geographical rule, a Senate district. | ||
| It was actually seven counties. | ||
| It was about two hours from one end to the other. | ||
| And I hit the road and I started talking to people in the district, talking about what I thought I could do for them, how I could be a voice for them. | ||
| Lo and behold, I was one of the 18 in the Senate. | ||
| We were in the minority that got elected. | ||
| And so I've served in the local government. | ||
| I've served in the state legislature. | ||
| I've served in the minority. | ||
| I know what that's like, and what you have to do to try to just have your voice be heard and to represent the people that you serve in the minority. | ||
| And then Governor Branstad asked me to run as Lieutenant Governor, and here I am. | ||
| He got appointed to... I'm trying to condense it. | ||
| It's hard to do that. | ||
|
unidentified
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Yeah, yeah. | |
| No, this is good. | ||
| This is good. | ||
| I feel like we're on a game show. | ||
| The vast Kim Reynolds story. | ||
| He got appointed by President Trump to serve as the ambassador to China. | ||
| And so I had the opportunity to step into that role and I fulfilled the last year, but I immediately had to run for the 2018 election cycle, which again, was not a great year for Republicans. | ||
| We lost seats in Congress and I was running against a self-financer. | ||
| I am a very hard worker. | ||
| And again, I raised the money that I needed to raise. | ||
| RGA actually helped me get across the finish line. | ||
| But I told Iowans what I was going to do. | ||
| And when I got elected by two percentage points, I went to work. | ||
| I'm a little bit of a change agent, not just for the sake of change, but for a purpose. | ||
| And I'm really proud of what we've been able to do in four years. | ||
| And I think that was one of the reasons that, you know, this election cycle, it wasn't just two points, it was 20. | ||
| So evidently, I think Iowans appreciate the direction that we're taking the state. | ||
| It's been fun. | ||
| It's been really fun to work on big, bold ideas and, you know, work with the legislature, get it done. | ||
| And to go back to Iowans and said, here's what I said I would do. | ||
| And here's what I did. | ||
| And we're just getting started. | ||
| So, you know, we're not done yet. | ||
| So were you, were you exactly at 20 points? | ||
| Do you know if you were Governor DeSantis was like 20.1 or 20.2? | ||
| I would assume there's some sort of bet involved there. | ||
| I know because we're constantly looking at what each other's doing in each of our states. | ||
| And we aligned fairly well on different policies that we put in place with the way we handled COVID. | ||
| So he probably beat me by just a little bit. | ||
| I didn't get one of my statewide candidates. | ||
| We flipped two 40-year incumbents. | ||
| Two 40-year incumbents. | ||
| There were only three statewide races that flipped. | ||
| Governor Lombardo was one, and then we had two in Iowa, our attorney general. | ||
| And our state treasurer for the first time since the late seventies. | ||
| I have a Republican attorney general. | ||
| It makes it a lot easier when you have a egregious, overreaching administration and you're trying to protect state's rights to have an attorney general that's willing to back you in that process. | ||
| So let's talk about some of the things that you've done because you know people usually focus on well now Florida and and say Texas as like the freedom states but you guys are really leading probably more than anyone else when it comes to education. | ||
| Can you talk about what's going on there with school choice and why you decided to even get in that fight? | ||
| It's not the most fun fight to be in when you're fighting teachers unions and everything else. | ||
| Well, I feel I'm so passionate about it. | ||
| I've been working on it for two years and we've made progress over actually the last four. | ||
| We expanded charter school. | ||
| We expanded open enrollment. | ||
| I had school choice language for the last two years. | ||
| I got it through the Senate. | ||
| Only to have it be stopped in the House. | ||
| And I made the decision this last election cycle, I was either going to be an enabler, or I was going to get involved in some of these primaries. | ||
| The chair of the Education Committee in the House blocked it for two years in a row, and I'd had it. | ||
| Because parents were telling me as I traveled across the state, they overwhelmingly supported parents having the choice of where to send their child. | ||
| And it shouldn't just be for those that have the financial means to do it, that every parent should have that choice. | ||
| And so I got involved in nine primaries. | ||
| We were successful in eight of the nine. | ||
| And the ninth one, I'm proud to say, supported school choice. | ||
| He was a yes vote. | ||
| We met right after the election, and I talked to him about why it was important. | ||
| And he just really hadn't weighed in and didn't want to take a stand on it. | ||
| But because of those changes within the first two weeks, and actually it's the best bill of the last two years, We were able to, in two weeks, pass a universal school choice. | ||
| I get there in three years, boldest in the country. | ||
| And at the same time, we also put into account, I think, providing some flexibility, long overdue flexibility for our public schools. | ||
| It's critical that we have a strong public school system. | ||
| This is not a zero-sum game. | ||
| It will elevate all of education. | ||
| I firmly believe that. | ||
| But we were able to get that across the finish line. | ||
| And so, and we've led a, I think, a school choice revolution across the country. | ||
| Sarah Sanders, bless her heart. | ||
| It's our exact language that she passed. | ||
| Utah is in, you know, Ron is going to get it done. | ||
| He's going to Universal. | ||
| Greg Abbott is talking about it. | ||
| Governor Stitt is working on it. | ||
| So it is, it's incredible to actually just see this happening and building. | ||
| Across the state. | ||
| I'll share one other thing. | ||
| I'm talking fast. | ||
| I apologize about that. | ||
| But something that we did in 2017, I think, that was also instrumental is we did collected bargaining reform in 2017. | ||
| And really, the only thing that our unions, the teacher unions, could bargain for Was wages and it was capped at either 3% or cost of living rates, whichever was lower. | ||
| And if they could bring additional things to the table, but both parties had to agree on that. | ||
| The other thing that we did as part of the collective bargaining reform was paycheck protection. | ||
| No longer can they deduct from their salaries. | ||
| They have to actually write them a check or they have to make the decision. | ||
| Uh, to to support the unions, and then they have to recertify every time there's a new contract. | ||
| So, you know, we like to say that we took on the largest monopoly in the state with the teachers union, but it was the 2nd, 1 that we took on because in 2017, it started with collective bargaining reform. | ||
| Just to give the devil his due, what's the intellectual argument against school choice at this point? | ||
| I mean, we see it now happening. | ||
| You just mentioned some of the states that it's happening or it's about to happen in, and I sense that virtually all the red states are going to go that way. | ||
| But beyond just sort of like the simple argument of the teachers' unions just want to keep their power, is there an intellectual argument for it at this point, do you think? | ||
| No. | ||
| But what was the hardest struggle for me? | ||
| And I think you're hearing this consistently, Dave, honestly, in a lot of the states. | ||
| It's your rural school districts. | ||
| You know, a lot of times they don't have the opportunities of a choice, or they feel that if it comes in, it's going to destroy them. | ||
| And I said, that's absolutely not the case. | ||
| So there's the hysteria that the media creates and the teachers unions. | ||
| I mean, Randy Weingarten came after me, and in that press release that she sent to Fox News, which I don't know why she decided that to be the outlet, but she did, she didn't mention children once. | ||
| Not once. | ||
| But when I sat down with rural superintendents, I said, look, I'm not here to change your mind. | ||
| I know I'm not, but I can guarantee you this is not a zero-sum game. | ||
| It will elevate all of education. | ||
| Tell me, what are we doing as a state that's prohibiting you from being innovative and creative and feeling like you can compete? | ||
| And every one of them pointed to Chapter 12, and what that is is just the shalls of all they need to do. | ||
| And you know, as government, we add, add, add, add, add, and we never take anything back. | ||
| And so it's like, we're so restricted, we can't do anything. | ||
| So I changed most of the shows to a May. | ||
| We looked for redundancies. | ||
| We really alleviated a lot of things that they thought was a problem. | ||
| And then they said we can't be competitive when it comes to teacher salaries. | ||
| And so what we did is we allowed some flexibility and some unspent programs so that they can take that money, increase teacher salaries, bring on additional teachers, and be more competitive. | ||
| And I've promised them we'll go back and continue to look at some of those Regulations, the regulatory environment that they're operating in and see if we can continue to drive. | ||
| Innovation, give them some flexibility, much like the charter schools that are under the public school system. | ||
| But I think like everything else, they, you know, the hysteria, when we cut taxes, we were going to destroy government. | ||
| We were going to destroy education. | ||
| You know, the world was going to cease to exist. | ||
| That the way I handled COVID, when I got the kids back in the classroom, we were going to destroy, you know, kill the kids, kill the teachers. | ||
| So, you know, we've proven over and over and over that the hysteria, the hysteria is not true. | ||
| And so once again, we're gonna prove the media wrong, and we're gonna show that our kids are actually gonna be the ones that reap the benefit of really making sure they're in the right environment to be everything that they can be. | ||
| How much coordination are you doing with some of the other governors that you mentioned there, Kevin Stitt, and obviously Governor DeSantis, and maybe Abbott, some of the other guys that are doing the similar things, because it does seem to me that most, let's say conservative-leaning people are kinda like, The federal government, it's just broken beyond imagination. | ||
| Let's focus on the states. | ||
| That's what federalism is all about. | ||
| But do you guys really coordinate this stuff and say, hey, I'll try it here first. | ||
| Let's see what happens in Iowa on school choice. | ||
| And then that gives, you know, Sarah a little bit of room to do it in Arkansas, etc. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| Well, here's the great thing for the constituents that we serve. | ||
| We are very competitive as governors. | ||
| And like the fact I had the sixth highest income tax rate in the country, I've brought it down to the fourth lowest when it finally goes into effect. | ||
| But listen, I can't stop because 15 other governors this year have tax cuts. | ||
| In their policy. | ||
| So I can tell you what Ron talked about in his condition of the state. | ||
| I can tell you what Sarah's tax pan looks like in Arkansas. | ||
| I can tell you what Doug Ducey did with occupational licensing reform in Arizona. | ||
| So there's no reason to just to recreate the wheel. | ||
| But what I can see is what other governors are doing. | ||
| And then, you know, and hopefully we're leading and we're providing some of those examples as well. | ||
| I think we have with with education. | ||
| But we take that and then we adapt it to what works in our state. | ||
| Like, I don't think, you know, Kevin's not able, I don't think, this year to get to Universal, but he's making the steps that we made in years prior to this. | ||
| So, you know, he won't be done. | ||
| I can tell you what his goal is. | ||
| I've talked to him. | ||
| As we get together in RGA and have the opportunity just to have conversations and talk about what we're doing, that's where we get a lot of the ideas and a lot of the consistency. | ||
| Sarah took our same school, our ESA program, and hers is almost, I think, exactly the same. | ||
| But then she brought in a lot of stuff. | ||
| I mean, she hadn't done CRT, parental rights, some of the other areas that we've already passed or that we've passed this session to. | ||
| She put it in one big bill. | ||
| But it drives all of us to look at what we're doing and how we can be better and more competitive as a state, because we all want to retain the people we have. | ||
| Workforce is an issue. | ||
| So, you know, whoever's winning that argument and bringing people to our states, it helps our economy grow. | ||
| It helps our businesses get the workforce that they need. | ||
| And ultimately, it helps our schools be more successful as well in our community. | ||
| So it's a win-win to have all of us kind of looking at how we drive that narrative. | ||
| What else should people know about Iowa? | ||
| Because I feel like Iowa kind of falls under the radar. | ||
| And then, you know, there was always the straw poll. | ||
| The straw poll doesn't exist anymore, which I think is still shocking to a lot of people. | ||
| I know, it's so fun. | ||
| What happened? | ||
| Why did it end? | ||
| It was too much? | ||
| What was going on? | ||
| I just think everything, you have a couple of crazy things that don't work as well. | ||
| And then we always are, you know, people are always looking for some way to do things just a little bit differently. | ||
| I'm so grateful that we were able to hold on, at least for the Republicans. | ||
| The First in the Nation caucus is so short-sighted by the Democrats to let that go, to protect a really weak president where I think it's like only 37% of the Democratic Party think that he should run. | ||
| for re-election. | ||
| That drops to 23 according to the AP poll, I think for those under 45, even thinks that he should run for re-election. | ||
| And they always, they turn their back on rural America and they wonder why they can't do well in the heartland of America, but yet they can't take the time to come to the state and actually talk to engaged Iowans who are knowledgeable on the issues. | ||
| They do this very well. | ||
| They ask the important questions. | ||
| It really gives the candidates an opportunity to test their message. | ||
| And, you know, that's valuable to see what it's like to interact with Iowans, to get the response from people that are paying attention. | ||
| How do you balance that as governor of the first state that, you know, everyone's going to? | ||
| I had Nikki Haley on last week. | ||
| She obviously was just in Iowa. | ||
| Obviously, Governor DeSantis was there. | ||
| Was Trump there as well in the last couple of weeks? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah. | |
| Yeah, Trump was there as well. | ||
| I think Ron came on Friday. | ||
| Oh, of course he was, yeah. | ||
| Right, so how do you balance that? | ||
| Because obviously there's all these strange alliances kind of forming, and I'm sure there's some stuff under the hood and all that, and it's your state. | ||
| Well, I've made it very clear and I've told every one of them, you know, as the governor, I want everybody, because it is the First Nation Caucus, so I want everybody to feel welcome. | ||
| So I have said to every one of them, I will be happy to be with you in the state of Iowa. | ||
| I can help you let you know when we have events that I think it would be beneficial for you to be here. | ||
| I'd love to do the state fair. | ||
| Oh, by the way, we'd love to have you come to the state fair. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| You don't want to miss it. | ||
| It's awesome. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| So we'd be happy to do that. | ||
| But it just, it doesn't serve the process well if you've got the governor leaning in on one of the races. | ||
| And, and so, and I, and they just, I encourage them to come back often and they get it. | ||
| It's been a longstanding tradition with, with governors and a lot of elected officials. | ||
| You have some that'll weigh in, but, but for the most part, honestly, the governor has stayed out because I just, as my role, it's to welcome them. | ||
| And make sure they feel like they have a fair playing field, but to be helpful in any way that I can. | ||
| And it's, you know, it's such an opportunity to get to really know the candidates. | ||
| A lot of times the ones that aren't successful in getting the nomination often are brought into the cabinet. | ||
| And to be able to have those personal relationships with the individuals that are running, it's helpful for my state as well. | ||
| Let's talk about COVID a little bit, because you mentioned it briefly a few minutes ago. | ||
| You guys basically were in that front end of staying open and not locking everybody down and all of that stuff. | ||
| I mean, was that purely just gut instinct by you? | ||
| Were you just not going to listen to all of the bureaucratic nonsense? | ||
| Where did that come from? | ||
| So I early on was able to contract with Test Iowa and I was able to provide a lot of the infrastructure that I needed and a pretty robust data collection system to provide data in our state. | ||
| And fundamentally from the beginning, I mean, we closed down for a little bit in the beginning, you know, the 15 days and we'll be through this. | ||
| I mean, everybody pretty much when we didn't really understand what was going on, what it meant, how it was being spread. | ||
| Uh, but as we were able to start collecting and data and one of the things that from the very beginning, you know, I produce our farmers and producers produce 10% of the nation's food supply. | ||
| I had to figure out a way to keep those processing plants up and going and the food supply chain moving. | ||
| And so we needed to be able to do the testing. | ||
| We need to be able to make sure those employees knew that they were working in a safe environment. | ||
| So we keep things going. | ||
| And then so as we collected data, but fundamentally, you know, I just put my trust in Iowans. | ||
| I did a daily press conference. | ||
| I was honest about the data. | ||
| I told them what was going on. | ||
| We talked about what you needed to do to help, you know, protect against it. | ||
| But I put my trust in Iowans to do the right thing, and they did. | ||
| And early on, it was obvious that locking down wasn't the right decision. | ||
| It was early on. | ||
| It was obvious. | ||
| I talked to parents. | ||
| I talked to kids. | ||
| I talked to You know, we did Zoom calls that I needed to get the kids back in the classroom. | ||
| I got sued from some of our largest schools. | ||
| And to see the statistics from the schools that sued me, the kids that dropped out and were lost through all of that. | ||
| And so we were in one of the best fiscal shapes heading into COVID. | ||
| We were one of the number one states coming out of COVID. | ||
| And our economy is in a really good place because we kept our state for the most part open and moving. | ||
| And we did it in a responsible manner. | ||
| Ron and I were the first two states to actually say by law that the parents have the choice to go 100% online or 100% in the classroom. | ||
| But that parent was going to make that choice on where they wanted their child to receive their education. | ||
| And it's reflected in the NAEP scores that came out. | ||
| We, you know, we didn't drop. | ||
| We actually rose. | ||
| We still have work to do. | ||
| So, you know, there's learning loss. | ||
| I'm not saying that, but our kids are in a better place because we had them in school and we kept them safe. | ||
| What kind of influx did you guys get of new residents after doing some of these things? | ||
| Right, because there has been a freaking mass migration across the United States. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I know. | |
| As you know, I'm one of them. | ||
| You're one of them. | ||
| From Cali to Florida. | ||
| I know. | ||
| So we're trying to find a better way to track that, and our numbers don't even come close to what Ron is seeing. | ||
| You know, but we're probably around 10,000 migration in, but let me put that into context. | ||
| Missouri is like, excuse me, Illinois has lost over 250,000 migration out. | ||
| Minnesota is looking about 17,000 out. | ||
| So the fact that we're positive and growing, And to your point, I mean, I feel like I gotta get up. | ||
| And so anytime I can get to Florida or I can get anywhere or I can bring candidates in where they're talking about Iowa and what we have going on here, we just have an extremely low cost of living, a low cost of doing business, our home ownership. | ||
| For young people, we lead the country because it's relatively inexpensive. | ||
| They can start building that asset and equity in a home. | ||
| You know, our communities are safe. | ||
| We back the blue. | ||
| I did that in 2021. | ||
| We have an extensive bill that really supports our law enforcement. | ||
| And we are getting recognized. | ||
| Cato just recognized Iowa as the most fiscally responsible state in the country this year. | ||
| And get this, I don't have an ocean or I don't have sunny weather. | ||
| I got winters, but we are among the top 10 best days to live, work and raise a family. | ||
| Iowa made the top 10 list. | ||
| So I always say, you know, you know, we, we, we think this little, little state in the heartland of America, people forget about it, but people are starting to recognize what we have to offer here in our state. | ||
| And it's been fun. | ||
| I think to drive that. | ||
| We're not taxing our pension retirement anymore. | ||
| We started that this year. | ||
| I talked about reducing the tax. | ||
| We're going to 3.9%. | ||
| Flat and fair, and my goal is to get to zero. | ||
| But I told Ron and Doug and Greg, I said, you know, okay, they can, Iowans can go down there for two damn months in the winter when we have cold temperatures here, but by God, they're going to continue to be Iowa residents if it kills me, because they're such a valuable asset. | ||
| You know, we want them to stay in Iowa. | ||
| So that was a really big deal for me to be able to get that passed and through the legislature. | ||
| I want to jump back to something you said before. | ||
| So 10% of the food supply coming from Iowa, you have to deal with all the COVID nonsense. | ||
| And now I sense there's like a general feeling that all of our supply chain things are kind of breaking down. | ||
| What kind of issues do you have, you know, even post-COVID, making sure that the farmers are going to be able to farm and the federal government's not going to take land and just all the crazy things that seem to be happening? | ||
| Well, we're watching it all the time. | ||
| You know, you have a lot of talk about Chinese coming in and purchasing farmland. | ||
| Well, we have been, we've had a ban in place. | ||
| I mean, we recognize our role in feeding and fueling not only the nation, but the world. | ||
| And we've had a ban in place to prevent them from buying farmland, agricultural land in the state of Iowa since 1979. | ||
| I think it's one of five states that really has some great Model language that other states are taking a look at. | ||
| I think there's a total of 15 now that have that in place. | ||
| So, you know, we've got to make sure that they're not continuing to gobble up American farmland. | ||
| In 2013, we saw them come in and purchase Smithfield Foods, which controls a lot of the U.S. | ||
| pork supply and revenue. | ||
| Um, so we need to just be conscientious of that. | ||
| You know, we have the supply and a surplus. | ||
| So we're fine. | ||
| But then you take into account that and that the investors in all of this are controlled by the CCP. | ||
| So it's state owned. | ||
| You know, this is driven by the Communist Party. | ||
| But you've got the war in Ukraine that's missing with the grain. | ||
| Global trade with grain, you've got inflation, natural disasters and so and supply chain issues. | ||
| You know, you've got an increased cost of input cost and how that's driving the cost of food. | ||
| So we need to pay more attention to food security and what it means in this country and we just can't be naive about China's Intentions and what they're doing, especially when they're buying land next to military installations. | ||
| We've seen many attempts to do that or to stand up a windmill in Texas that allows them to get into the into their grid. | ||
| So you know, we just need to pay more attention. | ||
| Congressman Feenstra actually has dropped a bill. | ||
| It's called the Farm Act. | ||
| You know, they all have the acronyms, but to just bring more transparency to the purchases to make sure that the United the Secretary of Ag. | ||
| is on that commission and that they're reviewing who's purchasing and what. | ||
| It's an antiquated system and it doesn't, you know, it just, it does not timely and it's very complexed with the corporation and the way that they can structure some of those purchases. | ||
| So we need to take a look at that and we need to get serious about it and put a stop to it. | ||
| You know, this farmland belongs to American farmers and we can't, you know, take that for granted. | ||
| We need to be serious about this. | ||
| How worried are you that you guys can do everything right, you know, in some of these red states or, you know, within reason, most of the things right. | ||
| And that just because of the fiscal stuff that the government's doing and printing money endlessly and inflation going up and everything else, that it still is going to harm your citizens, even if you're doing right by them. | ||
| Well, that's why I think 2024 is critical. | ||
| I mean, right now our fiscal health is strong. | ||
| We have significant surpluses. | ||
| We're continuing to see Our economy grow. | ||
| I think last year's about 11% growth. | ||
| So we'll continue to see that. | ||
| But you know, we're watching. | ||
| And it's a concern. | ||
| I mean, it's a constant fight against what's happening out of Washington, D.C. | ||
| I mean, the chaos, just the uncertainty, the overreach is ridiculous. | ||
| And, you know, we're a resilient country. | ||
| We're resilient people. | ||
| But to see what's happening at the southern border, to see, you know, he continues to pay people to not work. | ||
| I mean, that is an issue. | ||
| They're talking about raising taxes. | ||
| They need to quit spending money. | ||
| They need to unleash American energy. | ||
| I mean, it's just, it's just everything is a battle. | ||
| And, you know, I don't, we can survive two more years, but by God, we better get the right person leading this country in 2024 or we're in trouble. | ||
| And just the weakness on the world stage. | ||
| I mean, you know, China's paying attention. | ||
| And they're watching, and every day, you know, we see, you know, him fumble so many things, whether it's the Afghan, Afghanistan withdrawal, or the southern border, or look what happened to Hong Kong, and then you've got, you know, his statements on Taiwan, and not, not once, but twice, but three times, and then his staff walks that back. | ||
| The response to the spy balloon was just embarrassing. | ||
| I mean, every, every, I've got the list. | ||
| We're hunting, we hunt. | ||
| I've got the list. | ||
| I've got the full list right here. | ||
| Unbelievable. | ||
| And then we got China brokering a deal with Iran and Saudi Arabia. | ||
| It's just like, and I like, they're watching as he stumbles up the stairs | ||
| as he really, you know, confusion at the podium. | ||
| I just, I mean, I take a breath every time he goes to a podium because I just like, they are watching and they are patient and they are planning and they are strategic. | ||
| And so, you know, they're in it for the long game. | ||
| So we need to, you know, where they seem to really thrive is if we're talking about, you know, Woke ideology or indoctrination and then they're all over it, you know, so they have the capacity to react It's just in a weird place, you know, I mean, it's unbelievable Every day what you see happening, so we're gonna continue to cut taxes so they can help our people address The increased cost and inflation and do everything that we can but it doesn't boy Wouldn't it be nice to have a partner instead of somebody that you're working against every single day. | ||
| I You know, it's funny. | ||
| I was about to say to you that I think we set a modern record because we went 27 minutes in an interview without saying the word woke, but you beat me to it because my next question, I got two more for you. | ||
| But you've also led on women's sports and making sure that biological girls will compete against biological girls. | ||
| Something everyone knew was the right thing, say, six years ago. | ||
| But did you even want to get in this fight? | ||
| And are you getting any pushback? | ||
| Or at this point, you feel like you've secured this now? | ||
| No, we've secured it. | ||
| And, you know, I mean, it's just common sense. | ||
| But here's the deal. | ||
| There is absolutely no common sense coming out of this administration whatsoever. | ||
| The fact that I have to put in the bill. | ||
| That parents are the primary responsible person for their kids is just ridiculous. | ||
| We're putting that in legislation, that they are the ones that are in charge of their children. | ||
| But, you know, I have three daughters. | ||
| I played every sport. | ||
| I started with that. | ||
| We get in with this. | ||
| So, you know, it's a fairness issue. | ||
| Come on. | ||
| I mean, female athletes just They deserve a fair competition. | ||
| And there's a physical advantage, and everybody knows that. | ||
| But I had a great, we had a young woman, her name was Ashley Erzen, and she was phenomenal. | ||
| She ran the 800 meter dash in high school, set the record, set the record nationally, was such a tremendous advocate for this. | ||
| But the same day that she broke the record, set the record for the 800 meter dash, that same meet, the boys were running also, there were 85 boys That beat her record at that same meet. | ||
| It's just, I've got a granddaughter who runs track and the boys and girls run at the same time. | ||
| All you gotta do is look at the scoreboard. | ||
| And so, you know, the good thing is I'm telling you, uh, with all of the stuff that's happening, the Iowa poll has been pulling what we've been doing as a legislature and what I've been driving as some of my initiatives. | ||
| And I'm sure they're just crying every single day that they have to release one of these. | ||
| I'm going to have Colin send you some of them. | ||
| But 60% of parents don't think that gender identity and sexual orientation should be taught to kindergarten through sixth graders. | ||
|
unidentified
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60%! | |
| And that's in Iowa. | ||
| And it's just on every single of the issues that we've really talked about and ran on. | ||
| Uh, Iowans support it and they're supporting it by pretty significant margin. | ||
| And you think that, you know, I thought that's what you hear when you travel, but then to have it confirmed and, you know, the Iowa poll is supposed to, you know, they're pretty, pretty good, pretty spot on, uh, whether it was cutting taxes or supporting parents or, uh, taking pop and candy out of snap. | ||
| I mean, it's, they, they have really, uh, lined up and really validated. | ||
| The things that we're working on that they supported and it's just nice. | ||
| I don't, you know, got to be careful of the polls. | ||
| I mean, I guess, you know, I love it because it supported what we're doing, but you know, a poll is a poll and I don't govern by that. | ||
| I mean, or I wouldn't have gotten involved in a primary, but I could hear it. | ||
| I'm all over this state, but it did validate what I'm hearing from Iowans and it was just kind of nice to see that and to read that. | ||
| All right, I got one more for you. | ||
| I sense you probably know where I'm going already, but I've seen you at a couple of these blueprint events with a bunch of other governors and senators. | ||
| You know, there really does feel like there's this massive political realignment happening where there's going to be a real brawl in the Republican nomination process. | ||
| I don't know that anyone's been floating your name for anything, but it seems like you'd be a good piece of the puzzle on that side of things. | ||
| Like, do you have any national aspirations to that level? | ||
| Are you just focused on Iowa? | ||
| Or is this just the easiest question to give me a politician's answer? | ||
| Probably, you won't be surprised. | ||
| I really am just focused on Iowa. | ||
| And you know, just everything that I've done, I've just really focused on what I was doing. | ||
| And just try to do the best and to really leave it better than I found it. | ||
| And I've done that just through whether it's a private sector job or whatever level of government that I've been involved in. | ||
| And so like I'm coming back next year and I'm cutting taxes. | ||
| We left it alone this year because we're watching the economy. | ||
| I just Passed a government realignment bill where I go from 37 executive branch agencies down to 16. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Wow. | |
| It is incredible. | ||
| It will be transformational. | ||
| I want to be a leader, so I wanted to get my house in order before I went into local government and told them we can't keep doing things like we are. | ||
| We can't continue to cut taxes and operate in the manner that we are. | ||
| They have to be more efficient and more effective. | ||
| And so, and it was an enormous bill. | ||
| I got it through both chambers. | ||
| I got it through just this week. | ||
| And so it's coming to my desk and it'd be about $214 million savings over like three to four years. | ||
| And that's probably conservative. | ||
| So I'm gonna keep doing what I'm doing and we'll see what happens. | ||
| I really made that one too easy. | ||
| All right, when's the Iowa State Fair? | ||
| How about we end with that? | ||
| When's the Iowa State Fair so that I can put it in the calendar? | ||
| It's August, is it set? | ||
| August 7th, I think is when it is. | ||
| It's a whole 10 days. | ||
| August 7th, all right. | ||
| We're going to see what we can do. | ||
| We're going to send you an official invitation because we want to host kind of what Ron did down with the blueprint. | ||
| We want to bring some of the media in and just really have some fun. | ||
| And there'll be a lot of candidates through, so I can guarantee it will be worth your time. | ||
| The food is incredible. | ||
| So diet before you get here, just a word of advice. | ||
| I've seen the pictures of the corndogs. | ||
| I will not eat for a week beforehand. | ||
| And I'll bring the whole Florida crew. | ||
| Awesome. | ||
| I'm good with that. | ||
| Governor, I appreciate your time and I'll see you in August. | ||
| Thank you. | ||
| Sounds great. | ||
| Bye-bye. | ||
| If you're looking for more honest and thoughtful conversations about politics instead of mindless drivel, check out our politics playlist. | ||
| And if you want to watch full interviews on a variety of topics, watch our full episode playlist, all right over here. |
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