Bryan Griffin frames the Newsom-DeSantis debate as a choice between California's "collapsed cities" and Florida's "Free State," arguing Trump failed to deliver on 2016 border wall promises, necessitating DeSantis's leadership. Citing 30,000 committed caucus-goers and endorsements from Kim Reynolds, Griffin asserts voters prefer substance over media narratives, noting hundreds of thousands moved from California to Florida. He dismisses concerns about Florida's future under a potential presidency, emphasizing the state's 500,000-strong Republican coalition ensures lasting change while urging Trump to debate, contrasting DeSantis's mission with deceptive leadership in both parties. [Automatically generated summary]
We all wanted Trump to succeed in 2016 when he was promising things like building the wall.
He didn't do it.
And people take great issue with this on the campaign trail.
He didn't do the things he said he was going to do.
He didn't take the government and reduce its footprint and get the bureaucracy under control and just be the great disruptor that he said he was going to be.
In fact, a lot of stuff was status quo under Donald Trump.
Not just Florida and California, Dave, because that debate is over.
Everybody has already voted with their feet.
People left California in the hundreds of thousands, by the way, I think that includes you, and came to Florida.
This is about the future of our country.
What kind of country do we want to live in?
Do we want to live in the California Gavin Newsom model of collapsed cities, of prosecutors unwilling to go after crime, unsafe streets, of high costs, of homelessness, of perpetual problems that never seem to get solved?
Or do we want to live under the Free State of Florida model that was built thanks to Governor Ron DeSantis Where he safeguarded liberties, we've got prosperity in Florida, people have jobs, and COVID was treated in a way that respected people's lives and liberties.
So, what is the model we want for the future of our country?
All right, so that was my softball, and now I gotta give you the tough one, which is that it seems to me that the one thing that the DeSantis campaign has been unable to do is capture the zeitgeist.
Nobody thinks he's a bad dude.
Nobody thinks the policies are bad.
Nobody thinks there's any flubs or any failures or anything like that.
But there seems to be something else that it hasn't been able to catch with.
I think that might change with this Newsom debate.
But do you think that that's a fair criticism, and is there anything that can be done, if you do think it's a fair criticism, is there anything that can be done, say, in the next month and a half before we hit Iowa?
Do you think that some of that Zeitgeist thing, whether you agree with the premise or not, is partly because he's so competent and because he's good and because there aren't flubs so the media doesn't know what to do with it?
What is it that you're hearing from the people in Iowa?
Because for months, even before the governor had announced, when I was traveling, I had a lot of people, because everyone knew how much I loved Florida and what was going on here, a lot of people saying, I appreciate Trump, I'm ready for DeSantis.
You guys have been tweeting out a lot of videos lately of just random or decent citizens of Iowa kind of saying the same thing.
It's not that they hate Trump, it's just that they're seeing something else different.
We all wanted Trump to succeed in 2016 when he was promising things like building the wall.
He didn't do it.
And people take great issue with this on the campaign trail.
He didn't do the things he said he was going to do.
He didn't take the government and reduce its footprint and get the bureaucracy under control and just be the great disruptor that he said he was going to be.
In fact, a lot of stuff was status quo under Donald Trump.
So we need someone who's going to come in and actually do these things.
Ron DeSantis, everything he promised he was going to do in Florida, he did.
He over-delivered.
If Trump had built that wall, Dave, we wouldn't be able to have the situation that we have today.
You know, even if Joe Biden continued his policies that he's got now of an open border and not, you know, willfully not wanting to tackle this issue, a wall would be there nonetheless.
And as many people would not be able to come into this country.
So if Trump had delivered, we'd be in a different position.
We're not there.
Ron DeSantis will deliver where Trump failed to do so.
All right, so now let me ask you one of the tough ones, which is the same question that I asked the governor last time I had him on, which is, what do you do about the ride or die Trump folks?
The people that, it's not that they don't care about the things that you just laid out, but they're just going, I'm Trump all the way.
Is there any way to kind of shave off some of those people to the movement that you guys are trying to build?
Of course, we're speaking with people directly on the ground, which makes a difference.
And Dave, we've had plenty of people in Iowa and other early states that said, I came to your event and I was going to vote for Trump, but now I'm going to vote for you because Governor DeSantis lays out those specifics.
And this message does resonate with people.
Again, we supported what Donald Trump wanted to do in 2016.
He just didn't deliver.
He got distracted with things.
He put bad people around him.
We've got a lot of chaos right now.
But Ron DeSantis is the antidote to that chaos.
And as you make that case to people on the ground and in person, you turn things around and that's what we're doing.
Yeah, and you know, now I can give you one of the easy ones.
I mean, you know I'm seeing that myself, and that's what I'm hearing from a lot of people and everything else.
One of the bizarre ones to me is that Kim Reynolds, who's an incredibly popular governor in Iowa, she endorsed DeSantis, and it basically wasn't covered by the mainstream media.
You would think that if Kim Reynolds, who's popular, endorses a guy supposedly 50 points down, she might be committing political suicide.
Look, I think that Kim Reynolds, you know, as she said she did, looked at all of the candidates and made a determination that Ron DeSantis, one, had the best vision for the future of this country, and two, had the best chance of winning the general election and the primary.
And all of that goes into an endorsement.
And Dave, she's not the only endorsement that we have there.
Like I said, we've got Bob Vander Plaats, and we've got Steve Dase, and we've got 41 state legislatures, all of whom believe that Ron DeSantis is the best choice in this race.
And that means something.
I think that means something to Iowans, certainly means something to us.
So, yeah, look, media narrators are going to be what they are, and I think everybody has different, you know, dogs in this race.
But at the end of the day, the people who come out to our events, okay, the voter, right, they care about the things that are affecting them.
Not the media narratives, but the things that they see and they feel in their lives every day.
Yeah, you know, it's funny, having lived in Florida, it'll be two years and about two weeks from now, all the quote-unquote problems that we have in Florida are the functions of success.
I mean, we have some traffic in South Florida, because there's a lot of people moving here.
Our house price is kind of high, a lot of people moving here, but we're building fast, both at homes and infrastructure, which I've discussed with the governor before.
Do you think that the whole country Wants as much freedom as Florida is trying to export?
Do you think it's possible that places like Cali and New York, that they are so far gone that they wouldn't even know it if it smacked them in the face?
What would you like to see happen at the next debate?
You know, obviously there's a sort of, let's say, orange elephant not in the room, and that creates this odd atmosphere there, because they should all kind of be going after him if he's supposedly number one.
Nobody really goes after the governor, I think, for some of the reasons you said, and then there's some, like, little mini-bickering between them, but it doesn't seem to move the dial much.
Is there something you'd like to see when we get to this fourth and final debate?
Well, look, we're going to participate in the debates.
I think they're important.
We'd love for Trump to show up and debate, right?
Because I think he owes it to the American people.
This nomination is not something that is handed to people or that anybody is entitled to.
You know, may the best candidate win.
We'll do the debates.
We'll have those conversations.
I hope we have a robust conversation that's issue-focused.
But then we want to get back on the ground and continue the hard work of campaigning.
Of reaching people one-on-one, of listening to their concerns, and of demonstrating the policies and the ideas that Ron DeSantis has to address those concerns.
It's the same you get in front of the cameras, right?
And a lot of politicians and a lot of leaders are not like that.
But he is the real deal.
He's very genuine.
And I'm just honored to be working for him because I have been able to see him in those moments when the cameras aren't on.
And he, you know, he acts justly and says what he means and speaks with truth.
And I think that's important.
We've lost that in American leadership, certainly in the Democratic Party.
We've got too many people in the Republican Party that are deceptive, I think, with the American people.
We've got Congress with all of their own agendas.
We've got people that are bogged down with all types of, you know, personal problems in their lives that keep them distracted from being able to deliver for the American people.
Ron DeSantis doesn't have those issues.
He is going to be able to put wins on the board because that is what he is going to be mission-focused on from day one, and he will score win after win.
And not just that, Dave.
He doesn't just, you know, do the things he says he's going to do.
He takes ground from the left.
He's been reclaiming our institutions here in Florida in a way that we direly, desperately need in America.
Let me ask you one other thing, Brian, because one thing that I hear from OG Floridians to the new Floridians is, oh man, I love DeSantis, but if we, if he becomes the nominee and he becomes the president, then what happens to the free state of Florida?
And I think that is a very legitimate concern.
Or another version of it is, you know, that the federal government is so screwed up That maybe even he, the best guy that we have, can't fix it.
So why bother sending him out there?
Let's just keep fortifying Florida.
What would you say to the people who are here in Florida right now and want to make sure, no matter what, that Florida continues all that goodness that brought people like me here?
We can do big things and accomplish what we need to accomplish.
Nothing is too far gone in this country to be able to fix it.
We just have to put our best foot forward.
We need the best candidate as our nominee to face the Democrats, whoever they put up in 2024, to win and then to fight for us on issue after issue until we win on issue after issue.
To reclaim our institutions from the left and to get this country back on track.
with a nod to common sense and the concerns of the American people.
That's why we need to nominate Ron DeSantis.
Florida, you know, Ron DeSantis has been able to not just deliver policy wins through executive leadership, but through the legislature also.
So Florida is set up for generations to benefit from the policies that Ron DeSantis, the legislative accomplishments that Ron DeSantis was able to accomplish while he's been governor.
Also, he put together a very big coalition, in fact a historic coalition, to win in Florida in the last election.
We've now got more than 500,000 Republicans, more of those than Democrats.
So that's going to last, you know, for a long time in this state.
He's been able to bring lasting, effective change to Florida.
The only Democrat I've met in my entire time in Miami is my dentist, and I think he's on the fence right now.
I've been working on him, although it's a little tough when he's got all that stuff in your mouth and you're trying to explain what freedom's all about.