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