Speaker 1: Congressman Mike Waaltz of the Great State of Florida. Pleasure,
Speaker 1: thank you for coming over. Appreciate it. So here's a
Speaker 1: bit the non trivial trivial trivia for you. The congressman took.
Speaker 2: The seat of Ron Desantus. Yeah, how about that twenty eighteen.
Speaker 1: Florida is thriving by every measure right now.
Speaker 2: Well, you know, I think one of the things that
Speaker 2: came out of COVID obviously supply change matter, national health
Speaker 2: policy kind of matters, but also I think federalism matters.
Speaker 2: And Washington's so broken in so many ways. People ask
Speaker 2: me all the time, what are you getting done up
Speaker 2: in the House Representatives, And I tell them as little
Speaker 2: as possible, trying to keep DC out of your life,
Speaker 2: but that in terms of conservative governance and education and
Speaker 2: you being able to keep more of your of your
Speaker 2: own money, in terms of housing policy, environmental policy.
Speaker 3: I mean, we could walk down the list it's going
Speaker 3: to be done at.
Speaker 2: The state level, these kind of new innovators and what
Speaker 2: we talk about as conservatives and how we should govern.
Speaker 3: It's happening in Florida.
Speaker 2: I mean, just case in point, we have half the
Speaker 2: state budget of new York despite now having a larger
Speaker 2: population and then losing their tax base.
Speaker 3: Well, we're getting it done. We're a California show.
Speaker 4: So any contrast in comparison you want to do to
Speaker 4: Sacramento and what we're doing.
Speaker 3: I just listen to you talking to me.
Speaker 4: This sounds so weird as a guy who drives to
Speaker 4: work in Sacramento all the time, past the tent after
Speaker 4: tent of homeless people and you can't afford to live there,
Speaker 4: and blah blah blah blah blah and enormous budget deficits.
Speaker 4: The mainstream media will now talk about Florida's fiscal house
Speaker 4: as compared to say in Illinois or a California conservative
Speaker 4: economic discipline or fiscal discipline.
Speaker 1: Is it still possible it's being done though, it's absolutely.
Speaker 3: We're debt free state.
Speaker 2: We're giving out bonuses to all of our teachers and
Speaker 2: first responders. Were actually for cops that move in, they
Speaker 2: get an additional hiring bonus. But this is not being
Speaker 2: done on the backs of taxpayers. It's being done a
Speaker 2: with a growth agenda. But can I just say one
Speaker 2: other thing about the state budgets? And this is a
Speaker 2: wonky point, but an important one because I asked myself,
Speaker 2: how are these states getting away with it?
Speaker 3: I mean, they're upside down forever and ever and ever.
Speaker 2: And what I realized when I just saw Pelosi, Schumer,
Speaker 2: and Biden having the three levers of power is they
Speaker 2: basically bail all of those states out with federal dollars.
Speaker 2: They did it with the COVID package, they did it
Speaker 2: with IRA, and they reset the balance sheet for those states.
Speaker 2: They just moved the dead on the federal So even
Speaker 2: though people move think they're escaping by moving to Florida,
Speaker 2: at the end of the day, we're all going to
Speaker 2: have to pay.
Speaker 3: They're just paying through federal.
Speaker 4: So there's a resident of your state who had a
Speaker 4: bandage on his ear, who came into the arena last night,
Speaker 4: And were you there for that?
Speaker 3: I was that we were watching it on TV. That
Speaker 3: must have been quite the moment. Oh my god, I
Speaker 3: mean I saw.
Speaker 2: I can't tell you how many people I saw, literally
Speaker 2: with tears streaming down their face. It's seeing him. I
Speaker 2: do have one point. I wish he'd left the bandage off.
Speaker 2: I'm a Green Beret. I've been shot at all over
Speaker 2: the world.
Speaker 3: Let people see the wound.
Speaker 2: Let him see the raw meat and what and how
Speaker 2: close that man was to losing his life. That was
Speaker 2: a kill shot. I could tell you one hundred and
Speaker 2: fifty yards. I mean a private and basic training has
Speaker 2: to make a three hundred yard shot without a scope
Speaker 2: in order to get out of basic training.
Speaker 3: If he had to turn his head, he was dead.
Speaker 1: So political rhetoric has always been if you're a student
Speaker 1: of history, heated, we're not going to leave that behind.
Speaker 1: Certainly there are limits that should not be crossed. Calling
Speaker 1: somebody Hitler is wildly out of bounds. Yeah, what's the
Speaker 1: Republican message going forward to the electorate?
Speaker 3: Is it going to be positive? Is going to be well,
Speaker 3: that's what's so incredible.
Speaker 2: I mean, you know, we just have an assassination tipped
Speaker 2: on this man, despite I think as a least partial
Speaker 2: cause of the demonization of him. And what has been
Speaker 2: the response. A message of love from the first lady
Speaker 2: from Milania, a message of unity from the man who
Speaker 2: almost died. And you couldn't have I mean, look at
Speaker 2: the lineup last night. You had a union leader, you
Speaker 2: had an African American celebrity, you had a priest holding
Speaker 2: up across and you had a Hindu seek chanting a
Speaker 2: Hindu prayer. I mean the left had to have been
Speaker 2: losing their mind. MSNBC had been having a meltdown because
Speaker 2: it doesn't fit into any of their boxes. It's a
Speaker 2: big tent party talking about individual responsibility, equal opportunity. The
Speaker 2: rising tide lifts all boats. Let's grow this country. Last
Speaker 2: night was make it wealthy again today, make it safe again, tomorrow,
Speaker 2: make it strong again.
Speaker 4: So, speaking of responsibility, how do we not have the
Speaker 4: answer yet of where the failure happened on security?
Speaker 3: I'm glad you asked.
Speaker 2: The next morning, I had talked to a number of
Speaker 2: agents directly involved.
Speaker 3: This was Sunday morning.
Speaker 2: They are frustrated, they're pissed, they're embarrassed, but mainly they're
Speaker 2: upset because they have been repeatedly asking for more resources
Speaker 2: for Trump's d detail and been denied by Secret Service
Speaker 2: headquarters and denied by my orcis. My Orcus was just
Speaker 2: read my tweet on air on CNN and denied it,
Speaker 2: called it irresponsible.
Speaker 3: Wow.
Speaker 2: Basically he's calling the agents.
Speaker 4: Well and me Ercus yesterday said I have one hundred
Speaker 4: faith in.
Speaker 3: The person investigation. What the hell are you talking about?
Speaker 2: There's zero accountability in this administration. Look, tomorrow, I'm going
Speaker 2: to be talking a lot about Afghanistan and that disgraceful debacle.
Speaker 2: You're going to be hearing from gold Star families. There
Speaker 2: is zero account how the President had his secretary of
Speaker 2: Defense disappear for a week and not tell anybody, and
Speaker 2: there was zero accountability.
Speaker 3: So I don't expect anywhere.
Speaker 4: I'm sure the president knows what's going on.
Speaker 2: I'm confident the president doesn't know what's going on, But
Speaker 2: his secretary of Defense was a four star general, and
Speaker 2: every private in the military knows. You got to tell
Speaker 2: your supervisor if you're out for a week, us the
Speaker 2: commander in chief.
Speaker 1: Sorry, we asked the same question to Jim Jordan. We're
Speaker 1: going to ask again on behalf of the American people.
Speaker 1: How hard is it to get accountability in Washington.
Speaker 3: Look, I share the frustration.
Speaker 2: At the end of the day, Constitutionally, we have the
Speaker 2: power of the purse and we need to more aggressively
Speaker 2: use it.
Speaker 3: Defund We defunded the UN.
Speaker 2: We defund but then we got to deal with the Senate.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and we've just got to win in November.
Speaker 2: But I don't expect to buy it at the end
Speaker 2: of the day, it's Biden's call to fire his own people.
Speaker 1: Just I know enough about the military, coming from a
Speaker 1: military family, especially at your upper levels. It's all about accountability.
Speaker 1: There's no ask covering, there's no excuses. All there is
Speaker 1: his accountability.
Speaker 2: It's about this, It's about leading by example. And what
Speaker 2: I asked Secretary Austin after he disappeared for a week,
Speaker 2: how can you impose any discipline on the force that
Speaker 2: you lead? How can you court martial anyone if you
Speaker 2: don't hold yourself to the same standard.
Speaker 3: Of course he had no answer.
Speaker 1: Mike Walls of Florida, great to talk to you, Thanks
Speaker 1: so much for spending Happy to you guys.
Speaker 3: Have a great convention. Happy too. It's going to be
Speaker 3: all right.
Speaker 4: Thank you. Ye