April 10, 2023 - Rubin Report - Dave Rubin
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| Mainly just that we educate them. | ||
| It's like, hey, you're moving here for a reason. | ||
| If you're leaving a state for economic reasons or political reasons, don't vote the way you did there. | ||
| Come to Florida and understand that policies matter. | ||
| The positions matter. | ||
| The reasons why we do things. | ||
| I served six years in the legislature before this role. | ||
| I mean, the policy really does matter. | ||
| And so all those things, the reasons you're moving here, there's reasons behind why we're the success that we are. | ||
| I'm Dave Rubin, and joining me today is the Secretary of State of the Free State of Florida. | ||
| Did you know I like Florida? | ||
| Cory Bird, welcome to The Rubin Report. | ||
| Oh, it's great to be with you, Dave. | ||
| Thanks for having me. | ||
| Secretary, I'm glad to have you. | ||
| You know, I suppose this show has become kind of a beacon on the internet of the freedom that we're exporting from Florida. | ||
| So I thought we could just dive into kind of all the things that we're doing right here in Florida. | ||
| Will that be okay with you? | ||
| That'd be perfect. | ||
| I'd love to talk about all the things that we're doing in the free state of Florida. | ||
| Great. | ||
| So look, everybody knows, obviously, Governor DeSantis and the blueprint. | ||
| We talk about it a lot here, that he's trying to kind of export to some of the other states. | ||
| They understand what the chief executive, as the governor, does. | ||
| But what actually, let's do a little 101, what actually does the Secretary of State do? | ||
| Sure, so I have an appointed position, which is a little different. | ||
| Most secretaries of state are elected. | ||
| Florida had an elected secretary until 2002. | ||
| Catherine Harris of Bush v. Gore fame was our last elected. | ||
| Since then, it's been an appointed position. | ||
| So, I'm the state's chief elections officer, the state's chief protocol officer, so I interact with foreign governments, state's chief arts and cultural officer, historical officer. | ||
| We have the division of library resources in the Department of State. | ||
| And the Division of Corporation, so Sunbiz. | ||
| You want to start a business in Florida, you come through me. | ||
| So I wear many hats. | ||
| So let's talk about the election stuff first, because when I voted just a couple months back, obviously in the midterms and the gubernatorial election here, having it been my first election in Florida, I can't tell you how thrilled I was to show my ID, to sign something, to walk over With a volunteer who clearly showed me where I was going, a piece of paper, dropping it in a box. | ||
| It felt legit and real. | ||
| And that was in complete stark contrast to what was going on when I was voting for several years in Los Angeles, California. | ||
| What have you guys done to tighten up the election situation here? | ||
| And is it basically airtight at this point? | ||
| Sure, I appreciate the opportunity. | ||
| So I'll give you a little bit of history. | ||
| So I actually started as a young attorney poll watcher in 1998. | ||
| I was in Palm Beach County for Bush v. Gore in 2000 and did some legal work behind the scenes. | ||
| I spent 12 hours that day watching people vote and listening to people openly joke about, I voted New York, I voted New Jersey, ha ha ha, I'm voting again here. | ||
| So we've come a long way. | ||
| We were Florida, duh, and everybody thought we were terrible at voting. | ||
| There's really only two counties to where we are today, which is the gold standard. | ||
| And that's because the Legislature, the last two legislative sessions and under Governor DeSantis's leadership, has continuously worked to improve our elections process to the point where, as you just described, it looks easy, but it's because we are doing this 24-7, 365. | ||
| We're always working on our elections. | ||
| When you're talking to counterparts in other states that it's not going as well, I'm not talking about crazy California, but even a more moderate state, someone that either is a Secretary of State there or is involved in the election process, are they jealous? | ||
| Are they asking you for tips? | ||
| I mean, it seems like we have a presidential election coming, and I think we're going to see all of the craziness or questions that we had last time. | ||
| It doesn't seem like most of the states have done anything. | ||
| Right, and you mentioned the Governor's Blueprint, and we are constantly talking to other states, and I was thrilled. | ||
| Last week, I had a representative from Wisconsin come down on his own dime to meet with us and says, I want to take back to Wisconsin what you are doing here. | ||
| You know, teach us, show us what you're doing. | ||
| So, I'm always preaching the gospel about what we're doing and why it works, and there's no reason why other states can't adopt the Florida model. | ||
| Yeah, so speaking of the Florida model, I mean, we could just go through some of the greatest hits here, but I'm curious, as you've seen this mass influx of people, last I checked it was about 1,200 people a day, I think almost a million people in three years. | ||
| I've asked the governor this, but what challenges does that present for the state? | ||
| Mainly just that we educate them. | ||
| It's like, hey, you're moving here for a reason. | ||
| If you're leaving a state for economic reasons or political reasons, don't vote the way you did there. | ||
| Come to Florida and understand that policies matter. | ||
| The positions matter. | ||
| The reasons why we do things. | ||
| I served six years in the legislature before this role. | ||
| I mean, the policy really does matter. | ||
| And so all those things, the reasons you're moving here, there's reasons behind why we're the success that we are. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| Are you guys shocked at how well it seems to be working at the moment? | ||
| I mean, obviously there's a super majority in the House and the governor's feeling good after the landslide, but just that it really is happening here. | ||
| I mean, building is happening fast. | ||
| We're fixing roads. | ||
| You know, the aftermath of Hurricane Ian, which watching the rebuild has just been unbelievable. | ||
| It is. | ||
| It's exciting. | ||
| I'm a native Floridian, fifth generation, so it's, in my mind, a historic time to be living in Florida. | ||
| And when I talk to foreign governments, I mean, if we were our own country, we'd be the 16th largest economy in the world. | ||
| And foreign governments are excited to come to Florida, you know, with Miami being the gateway to Latin America. | ||
| There's just so many reasons why there's energy in Florida, you know, from the governor on down. | ||
| Great weather, great natural resources, lots of fun things to do, diverse culture, and it is an exciting time. | ||
| So when you see the governor getting into it with Disney and, you know, the nonsensical, quote-unquote, don't say gay, HB 1557, how does that affect what you're doing as Secretary of State? | ||
| Does it affect what you're doing at all? | ||
| It really doesn't affect me much. | ||
| I mean, I went from a policy-making role to a policy-implementing role. | ||
| Just yesterday, we rolled out another elections bill, which had its first hearing in the Florida Senate. | ||
| So I am engaged on elections law still. | ||
| But as far as what the legislature's doing, what the governor's doing, it really doesn't impact us all that much. | ||
| But certainly supportive and voted for those measures when I was in the House. | ||
| Is anything not working here? | ||
| When I had Governor DeSantis on last time, just a couple weeks ago, I said, look, I gotta ask you one tough one. | ||
| And the one tough one seems to be, you know, something related to house prices, just because of the influx of people. | ||
| But as you're looking at it from another office altogether, what are you seeing are the struggles, are the issues, the stuff that you guys wanna fix still? | ||
| Sure, so I think that it's a good problem to have, that we have so many new people moving to Florida. | ||
| But I think that balance between growth and preserving our natural resources and making sure that we are mindful of all the reasons that we want to live here, from our beaches, to our lakes and rivers, to water quality, and that's been something that the Governor has championed. | ||
| And I think that's probably our biggest challenge, but I don't think it's a binary choice where you can either have You know, growth and terrible environment or a pristine environment and five people live here. | ||
| And so I think that is our challenge moving forward as a state. | ||
| But we have the right people working on those issues and we'll make it work. | ||
| I mentioned Hurricane Ian earlier. | ||
| As you may or may not know, my folks part-time are down in Sanibel Island, and their place is still in recovery at the moment. | ||
| What's the job of the Secretary of State when a natural disaster like this hits, and how much coordination do you do or try to do with the federal government? | ||
| It sounds like they were kind of good at the beginning, maybe cut and ran a little bit early, but I don't want to put words in your mouth. | ||
| That hit right during the election cycle. | ||
| And so I immediately flew down, or we went down there, surveyed the damage, met with the supervisors of elections. | ||
| I mean, some of them, they had their own homes damaged, their staff damaged, polling places destroyed. | ||
| And we wanted to make sure that we could pull off an election. | ||
| So I came back, reported to the governor what our findings are. | ||
| He stepped in, issued an executive order, we pulled off the election, and the turnout in those counties was on par with everywhere else in the state. | ||
| So it was so encouraging when I went down there. | ||
| And people, even though their homes had been devastated, they wanted to vote, and they did, and we're very proud of that. | ||
| So we know how to step up during a natural disaster and still preserve the Republic. | ||
| You know, one thing that happened, or I guess didn't happen during Hurricane Ian or the aftermath, was that there was no looting. | ||
| You know, there was such an opportunity for looting and crime and all kinds of bad stuff, and there was none of it here. | ||
| And that really does speak to the culture of people here in Florida. | ||
| Well, it is. | ||
| I mean, we're a law and order state. | ||
| The law means something. | ||
| And this goes back to the election code. | ||
| And for so long, for whatever reason, people think, ah, it's elections. | ||
| Law doesn't really matter. | ||
| It's not enforced. | ||
| It's a wink and a nod. | ||
| It's okay if you vote twice. | ||
| Nobody's going to catch you. | ||
| Governor said, no, we're creating an office of election crimes and security. | ||
| We're going to enforce our election code. | ||
| And I think not only does that deter the bad actors, but it gives confidence to the law-abiding citizen that their vote's going to count. | ||
| So whether it's election law, whether it's enforcing our criminal laws, there is a clear message in Florida that our laws mean something. | ||
| They're going to be enforced. | ||
| And don't break them or there are going to be consequences. | ||
| Staying on the election thing for just a second. | ||
| I know we jumped off there, but just jumping back on that a second. | ||
| So in states that are Democrat-run that clearly don't want some of these policies put in place, what would you say to just the Republican citizen who is there related to what they can do? | ||
| I know we talked about what maybe another Secretary of State that's a friendly can do. | ||
| Right. | ||
| Well, the governor has said in states, you have to use the laws that are in your state and fight fire with fire. | ||
| So we're against ballot harvesting. | ||
| We've made that illegal in Florida. | ||
| But if ballot harvesting is illegal in your state, then you have to use the law where you are. | ||
| Because unless you get into the positions of power, whether it's governor or Supreme Court or legislature, you're not going to be able to effectuate the change. | ||
| I would encourage those individuals. | ||
| Get involved. | ||
| Stay involved. | ||
| We look at what happened in Virginia. | ||
| Virginia's a blue state. | ||
| They elect Glenn Youngkin because I know many of the people who got engaged and were at the polling places. | ||
| And it's long. | ||
| It's boring work. | ||
| I've done it. | ||
| But it is critical, critical to winning. | ||
| And that's what I would tell them to do. | ||
| Yeah, are you seeing more and more parents get involved in education down here? | ||
| I mean, it seems like that really was the instigator. | ||
| I think I saw you speak at one of the Blueprint events a couple months ago. | ||
| I know I did. | ||
| And, you know, that was about parents just getting on school boards, and the governor was going around the room, and he seemed to know every county, what was happening in every single election, who was getting on, who the superintendents were, etc. | ||
| It's been great and it's empowering parents. | ||
| The governor appointed my wife to the State Board of Education and she is the voice of the parents. | ||
| I mean, we're parents. | ||
| We have a young family. | ||
| And it gives people encouragement that they have a voice, that they're being listened to from the governor on down to the local school boards. | ||
| That being a citizen, and I always preach this, being a citizen requires active engagement. | ||
| It's not an activity where you sit back and wait for things to happen. | ||
| You've got to get your hands dirty and get involved, and you have that opportunity in Florida. | ||
| Are you guys ever worried that the more we do it right here in Florida, the more that that focus turns to us and that that could be a problem? | ||
| That the federal government basically, which is seemingly screwing up so many things, that at some point it's like they keep looking to Florida going, man, they're doing basically the opposite of everything we do. | ||
| It's working. | ||
| We are still in the United States and that that's an issue there. | ||
| Right, well, we're gonna have three statewide elections in 2024. | ||
| My mind is already there. | ||
| I'm already working on that. | ||
| I know we are going to get a lot of attention in Florida for a whole host of reasons. | ||
| But I always go back to, it's the genius of the founders that they gave us a federal system, meaning federalism, where the states can be 50 laboratories of experiment. | ||
| We're showing what's right about America. | ||
| You know, I'll battle, compare us to California and New York and Illinois any day of the week. | ||
| And I think it gives people in those states hope that we're not lost. | ||
| We can do this if the right people and the right policies are put in place. | ||
| Are you ever worried that we could tip too far red? | ||
| Is there such a thing as too far red? | ||
| I mean, we're accomplishing an awful lot, but you know, that there would somehow be no balance. | ||
| I'm actually just throwing it out there. | ||
| I probably don't think so myself. | ||
| I think a lot about that, but I think that at some point we're going to have to, you know, let blue States be blue States and red States be red States. | ||
| And we're going to have to be okay with that. | ||
| And, you know, the Supreme court said that in Dobbs, I mean, listen, abortion is not a state, a federal issue. | ||
| It's a state issue. | ||
| But that means states are going to do things differently. | ||
| And then people are going to vote with their feet. | ||
| You said 1,200 a day are moving to Florida. | ||
| And I tell people, it's like they're voting with their feet. | ||
| They're moving here. | ||
| And that is an expression of their opinion. | ||
| We're gaining people. | ||
| The blue states are losing people. | ||
| So I think that's an encouraging sign that we still... And that keeps... That's a pressure valve. | ||
| It keeps things from getting too far into crazy land. | ||
| So I think when people think of Florida, they think, okay, we're leading, you know, obviously we led on fighting COVID lockdowns and mandates and that sort of insanity. | ||
| I think they see we're leading on education, which now seems to be exported to Iowa and Arkansas and some of these other states. | ||
| What else do you think we're leading on at the moment when the governor talks about that blueprint? | ||
| Oh yeah, just on economic policies. | ||
| I mean, you know, New business startups, I mean, we can hardly keep up with all of the new business startups in Florida. | ||
| We're leading, I mean, the governor just signed a constitutional carry, so we became the 26th state to do that, and my background is as a Second Amendment and firearms law attorney, that's what I did. | ||
| So, you know, on so many issues of freedom, so whether it's elections, whether it's business startups, education, we really are, we're leading on just about everything. | ||
| Yeah, it's interesting too because, you know, I'm down here in Miami where obviously it's growing so fast and we're kind of running out of room here. | ||
| But, you know, when I've flown up to Tallahassee a couple of times, you realize there's actually plenty of room to still build in Florida. | ||
| I mean, we've got a lot of land that I think can be, you know, bring in some new people and start building some new communities. | ||
| We do. | ||
| So when I was in the legislature, I represented. | ||
| I'm from the Jacksonville area in Nassau County, the furthest northeast part of the state. | ||
| And there's lots of land, and it's growing, and that brings challenges. | ||
| Some of the people that have been there a while, you know, they don't always like all the new growth, but there is plenty of land, plenty of room to grow. | ||
| And we just have to do a smart, you know, smart growth is a good thing. | ||
| Actually, I grew up in Miami, so I've seen the changes there from the 70s and 80s to today, and it's a wonderful place. | ||
| You are kind of constricted between the coast and the Everglades, but there's plenty of places in Florida we have room to grow. | ||
| You know, the governor has been obviously talking a lot about ESG and figuring out a way that we can have some of the state's money less invested with these companies that are focused on diversity, equity, inclusion. | ||
| Does that involve any of your day-to-day operations? | ||
| It really doesn't. | ||
| We're ministerial when it comes to starting new businesses. | ||
| I mean, if they file the right paperwork, they do that. | ||
| So the CFO's office, Jimmy Petronas, the ESG stuff mainly comes more through the chief financial officer. | ||
| But certainly, whether it's the legislature having the power of the purse, whether it's the universities and saying, no, listen, we're spending taxpayer dollars. | ||
| We call the shots. | ||
| You don't make the policies. | ||
| Or whether it's ESG and corporations, we do have the power of the purse and we're exercising it. | ||
| So one of the things we talk about on the show a lot is that there seems to be this kind of divergence amongst Republicans right now, like either we will just be small government Republicans and never use the levers of government to do anything, or, as I think we're doing it more so in Florida, we'd prefer not to use the government all the time, but we're gonna figure out the moments to do so. | ||
| Do you guys talk about that? | ||
| Like, when we can just kind of let things be versus those moments that we actually do have to fight back? | ||
| I would say, you know, going after Disney might be one of those moments. | ||
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Sure. | |
| No, I mean, I would always talk about the why. | ||
| Why are we doing certain things? | ||
| We don't legislate in a vacuum. | ||
| It all starts from the foundation of the Constitution and all of our powers and authority of the government and the laws flow from that. | ||
| So if we are operating within those constitutional bounds, then the government has the authority. | ||
| I mean, the founders talked about ordered liberty. | ||
| Well, order requires some form of agreed-upon standards that the community, a state, is going to live under. | ||
| And so I don't think it's the small government necessarily hard libertarian view that the government can never be involved in anything. | ||
| You're just ceding the power to your opponents. | ||
| Are you shocked when you see some of the mainstream media reaction to what's going on in Florida? | ||
| I mean, I basically, I'm covering it every day, the things they say about the governor and about Florida and what's going on here. | ||
| You know, that we're this racist, homophobic, backward state. | ||
| And it's like, everyone that's in this room with me right now, these are all Cali transplants. | ||
| Every, you know, I spend so much time every day saying hi to people at stores who are just moving here. | ||
| Everybody's happy and free and smiley. | ||
| I go to New York, everybody looks miserable. | ||
| I was in DC last week. | ||
| I mean, everybody's just, I just had it, and here it's just smiles and sunshine. | ||
| It is. | ||
| It's different, and it is amazing when I read what's in the mainstream media. | ||
| When I read about things, the words they put in my mouth, things that I've never said, they don't listen. | ||
| We put out press releases all the time about people registering to vote. | ||
| Get engaged, make sure all of your information is up to date, and all I do is get called a voter suppressionist, and all we're trying to do is prevent certain types of people from voting. | ||
| So it's a little frustrating, but it's the environment we live in, and I just always point back to, if we're putting points on the board for the people, they will be our best messengers. | ||
| And like you said, people are happy, they're smiling, the state is growing, and the proof is in the pudding. | ||
| You mentioned the concealed carry, so that just went into effect, I think, was that yesterday, literally? | ||
| So it was passed, the governor signed it into law on Monday, I believe it goes into effect July 1st. | ||
| July 1st, okay. | ||
| So, I mean, in essence, this is just permitless carry, so is that really what the fight was about, whether there should be permits or not, as opposed to the concealed carry in and of itself? | ||
| Correct. | ||
| So since the mid-80s, the law in Florida was that you had to have a permit, a license from the state, in order to carry a concealed firearm outside of the home. | ||
| And the decision was made, and I agree with it 100%, you shouldn't need a permission slip from the government to exercise a constitutional right. | ||
| And I would always tell my colleagues, the bad guys don't follow the law anyway. | ||
| Criminals, by definition, don't follow the law. | ||
| So all we were doing was burdening law-abiding citizens, and now we've given them that opportunity. | ||
| to defend themselves when they're outside the home without permission slip from the government. | ||
| Speaking of defending themselves, obviously having in the last two weeks this shooting in Tennessee and there have been over the course of years a few shootings, obviously the Orlando Pulse Nightclub one and the Parkland outside of Orlando shooting at the school there. | ||
| What are we doing in terms of that? | ||
| What can the state do? | ||
| Is that up to the cities? | ||
| Who decides what's happening in terms of security of schools? | ||
| Sure. | ||
| So, in Florida, we have a very robust preemption law. | ||
| So, all firearms regulations are at the state level. | ||
| There's none at the local level. | ||
| So, after the Parkland shooting, the state stepped up and appropriated millions of dollars for school security and put in robust enhancements, which that's happening at the state level. | ||
| They're very aggressive to ensure That our schools are secure. | ||
| I have an eight-year-old daughter. | ||
| I mean, I think about this every single day. | ||
| But when you live in a constitutional republic, you have to balance constitutional rights with liberty and freedom and safety and security. | ||
| Listen, you put everybody in prison, we can have the safest country in the world. | ||
| But that's not the road we're going down. | ||
| And every one of these is tragic. | ||
| But what I look at is, it's not the guns. | ||
| The guns have been prevalent in America. | ||
| You used to be able to order guns through the Sears catalog. | ||
| You can't do that anymore. | ||
| So there's something fundamentally wrong with our culture, and that's what we need to be focusing on, and fixing, and mental health, and we're doing all of those things in Florida. | ||
| Yeah, are we doing anything on the mental health side? | ||
| You know, I'm always kind of like, when I go back to Cali, you know, you go to Los Angeles, every other billboard is for California mental health, this or that. | ||
| And it always seems sort of, I mean, it seems darkly humorous to me, like as if the state of California is gonna be able to help anyone's mental health. | ||
| But what do you think the role of the state is for that? | ||
| Right, I mean, we should have resources available for people. | ||
| We shouldn't stigmatize it. | ||
| We should make people say, if you are having an issue, They should seek help, and we should help where we need to. | ||
| I mean, if people need financial resources, the state should step up. | ||
| But I think it goes back to the way we raise our children. | ||
| My parents taught me at an early age, life isn't fair, deal with it early. | ||
| We're so protecting our children that we're insulating them from any type of Misfortune when they're children, so they haven't learned the coping skills. | ||
| And so when you become an adult and life gets really hard and you've never been told no in your life or had to deal with any adversity, I can understand why people break. | ||
| But I don't know that government can fix parenting other than emphasizing and fostering a state and an environment that we emphasize the role of parenting and families and their nurturing role in preparing young people to become citizens. | ||
| Is there anything else we should cover here? | ||
| You know, I keep saying the main thing that I think Florida is exporting right now is competency. | ||
| It feels like we have the right people in charge who are balancing that blend of when you use the government, when you don't, how you actually spend properly, where you want to apply the law, etc. | ||
| That's just kind of working. | ||
| So did I miss anything here? | ||
| No, and I'm glad you raised the point of competency because I think what I see in DC, and there's a lot of people who get into politics, it's just celebrity by another means. | ||
| And they think it's about tweeting and getting on TV, but actually the day-to-day, the mundane job of actually governing and making sure that our elections are working, that you can go file a corporation. | ||
| That takes work. | ||
| It takes competency. | ||
| I have an amazing staff of people who come to work every single day. | ||
| Some of those nameless, faceless bureaucrats that we talk about, but they do a wonderful job. | ||
| And that's what I would emphasize. | ||
| And to your point that that competency matters. | ||
| I think the governor's talked about that, that he puts people in place that he can trust to go run an agency. | ||
| And make sure that we're delivering for the people of Florida every single day. | ||
| And if we're not doing that, he's gonna take us out. | ||
| He's gonna remove us and put somebody in who can. | ||
| And I think that's a testament to his leadership. | ||
| Secretary, probably not the most difficult interview you ever did, but I'm just happy to amplify all the goodness out of Florida because it literally changed my life. | ||
| So, appreciate your time. | ||
| Like I said, I'm a huge fan and it's been an honor to be with you. | ||
| Thank you, Dave. | ||
| 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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