and it was the highest percentage of the vote a republican governor candidate has ever received in florida history. we were able to win independent voters by 18 percentage point margin. we won over 60% of hispanic voters in florida, and we even had big urban areas like miami-dade county with 2. 8 million people. hillary clinton had won that by 30 points in 2016. we were able to not only win it, we won it by double digits. we won up and down the state of florida, urban, suburban and rural, and brought a real tsunami just like they did in iowa where we were bringing in supermajorities of our legislature. and now for the paris time since the civil war -- first time since the civil war era, there is not one single, solitary democrat many statewide office in the sunshine state. that's what you call winning. [applause]

so the lesson is, is that people respond to leadership. people were were moving to florida because we were going a different way during covid just as your governor did, standing up for kids, being in school, protecting people's freedoms and jobs. but you know what? we had a lot of folks in places like miami who had been democrats and had voted for democrats, and they voted not only for me, but now they're registering as republicans. so don't buy this idea that we can't expand our base of support. of course you can do that. yo you can't win big with just republicans, and we proved that. but here's the thing, we didn't do it by rim thing our sails, we didn't contort ourselves to be anything that we're not. we led boldly. we led conservatively, and we delivered results, and people responded. so that is a lesson from iowa with what governor reynolds has done and florida with what we've been able another. and at the end of the day, governing is not about

entertaining. governing is not about building a brand or talking on social media and virtue signaling. it's ultimately about winning and and about producing results. and that's what you've done many iowa, and that's what we've done in florida. [applause] and i must -- and we do have a healthy competition, so i'm going to lay out some stuff florida has done. i know kim can probably respond in kind, so we're proud of be the fastest growing state in the united states. we're number one in net in-migration in the united states, number one for new business formations, number one for education freedom -- although iowa's very close on that and may pass. u.s. news and is world report actually just ranked us number one overall for education, and we are number one for parental involvement in education. and we're very proud of that. but none of that would have been possible had we not stood up when it counted. when the world lost its mind

during covid, when common sense suddenly became an uncommon virtue, florida stood the tall as a refuge of sanity, as a citadel of free come not only for our people -- freedom not only for our people, people throughout the united states, we even had people from around the world. we refused to let our state descend into some type of future chan dystopia where people's rights were curtailed. no, in florida we chose freedom the over faucism, and we were better off as a result of doing that. [applause] and i think it's important because your governor did it right, other republican governors did it right. don't let them rewrite history a 5:00 the last three years. faucism was wrong. it was destructive to this country, and we can never let anything like that happen ever again in these united states.

[applause] so just very briefly, iowa just had a great legislative session, so did with we. so here's some of the highlights that we did, because i think it's great to win big victories. kim won a land are slide, we won a landslide. you can pat yourselves on the back and say, oh, aren't we so big, or you can say winning a big victory, that's just an invitation to the dance. you have an opportunity to make something of that, and so let's move the ball forward. here's what we've done the last six months in florida: we have prohibited the c or cp from purchasing land in florida, farmland, any land near critical infrastructure, off the table in florida. we enacted universal school choice with education savings accounts similar to what hay did in iowa. we -- they did in iowa. we kneecapped esg in florida, environment social governance. we provided $2.7 billion in tax relief for florida families.

we enacted the heartbeat with protection act to promote life. we enacted constitutional carry to protect people's second amendment rights. we had record support for conservation efforts in florida, places like the florida everglades and our beaches and our precious habitats. we enacted the death penalty for pedophiles in the state of florida. ms. [applause] we've signed legislation blocking the implementation of a central bank digital currency in our state. we passed and signed landmark tort reform. we we went after pharmacy benefit manager middlemen which are causing your prescription drug prices to be higher. that ended in florida. we've increased pay for police officers and firefighters. we have stiff penalties for anybody dealing fentanyl to our children. they should be recent thed like the murderers that they are, and that's going to happen in

florida. we edged disney's self--- ended disney's self-governing status many florida. a company doesn't get their own government, not on our watch. [applause] we passed what even "the new york times" admitted was the strongest measures to combat illegal immigration anywhere in the country. we did a record increase for teachers' salaries, but we also paired that with paycheck protectioning so there's no automatic deduction for school unions to the take money out of hair paycheck. they can write -- their paycheck. they can write a check, but they get their take-home pay. [applause] and on monday or tuesday, one of the days next week, i'm going to be signing a bill to make florida, i think, the first state in the country to eliminate all these so-called dei programs from our state university system. those are not good programs, they divide us and it's wrong. [applause] the we're also signing legislation to nix the pronoun

olympics in schools. we're not doing the pronoun stuff. your teacher can't make you lives pronouns -- [applause] we're just not doing it. and then finally, we enacted protections codifying what we did during covid, but expanding protections for medical freedom. you should not ever be in a situation where they are mandating masks, jabs, any of that. so in florida we are a freedom zone permanently, and i think that that's very, very important. so it's been or very productive, and we're happy about those achievements. we're also very excited about achievements in iowa. but, you know, we've got a lot of work to do ahead of us as a country. i think we need to restore sanity in this country. if you look at what's going on many washington, d.c -- prison -- [applause] if you look at what's going on in washington, d.c., if we were sitting here 10 years ago and

someone told you we would be over $31 trillion in debt, you would not have believed that that was the case, and yet the democrats keep enspending and borrowing like drunken sailors. if you compare how florida's managed or iowa's managed to states governed by leftist politicians, it's like night and day. they disrespect their taxpayers, they drive off businesses. many of those statements don't9 -- states don't even have as many jobs as they did prior to covid. our state, you know, we have no income tax in florida. you should try it sometime. i know the governor's working to get there, i know. [applause] works pretty good. but we have no income tax, and yet we have millions of more people than new york state, and yet new york's budget is twice the size of our budget many florida. many florida. what are they doing with the money? they're not producing better services, they're not producing better roads or infrastructure, and they're not producing a better education system. of course people are moving from new york to florida.

so being able to govern conservatively many terms of fiscal is absolutely essential to get country back on track. we would not have the inflationary spiral we've seen had they not spent and borrowed so much money over the last few years. so we're doing it right in are -- right in florida, kim is doing it right and your legislature here. it's the sane way to govern on economic matters. same applies to education. you know, parents have the role to direct the upbringing and education of hair kids. -- their kids. schools are important, school systems are important, but hay do not supersede the rights and responsibilities of parents. in florida we believe in parents' bill of rights. iowa believes in that. [applause] and that means the schools need to be focused on the things that are really important. they should be working on math and science and reading. we should not have pornographic materials in the school library.

we've empowered parents to be able to get that out. you know, some of media says that that's equivalent to, quote, banning books, which which it's not. you can buy with it as an adult. i actually did an event in florida where we talked about -- we call it the book ban hoax, because it is a hoax. i've had parents, everyone at the press conference, before we started the press conference, i did a video that just showed the images of the text of what the parents had objected to. the local news stations cut their feed of my press conference because they said it was too graphic. well, if it's too graphic for the 6:00 news, how is it okay for a 10-year-old school child? [applause] we're pursuing a sane approach to education that has eliminated concepts like critical race theory from our k-12 school system. we are not teaching kids to hate

our country or to to hate each other with your tax dollars. no, we're going to teach kids what it means to be an american. we're going to teach them about the constitution of this country. we're going to teach them about why people have been willing to fight and die for this country. and part of that means telling truth about other types of systems, so florida's the first state in the country we set aside one day every year to teach our school children about the evils of communist regimes throughout history. we're telling the truth about marxism and leninism in florida, and our students are better off as a result of that. we're also making sure our higher education system is more to principle and more to a traditional understanding of education. the purposes of universities are not to impose leftist ideology on the students, it's not to foment political or social activism, it's about the pursuit of truth. it's about academic integrity. it's about giving students the foundation so they can think for themselves and be citizens of

our republic. and so to that end, we've done things like in florida all tenured professors must now undergo review every five years and can be let go for poor performance. we are also eliminating this idea of dei, they say it's diversity, equity and inclusion but in practice it is trying to impose an ideological agenda on the student body through the the administrative apparatus of the university. i think dei actually as it's practiced is discrimination, exclusion and indoctrination, and that has no places in our public institutions. [applause] another sane policy would be to recognize that our economy and our national security are tied to being energy independent. we've got to reject what the biden administration's trying to

do by kneecapping domestic energy productions and trying to force use of types of energy that's going to require china and things from china coming in. so energy independence is common sense, and we need to get back to that, and i think we can very, very quickly. we also need to restore a sense of normalcy in this country. you know, there used to be if someone committed a crime, they were held accountable, and they paid the price. that's what we do in florida. that's what you do in iowa. our crime rate in florida is at a 50-year low, and yet you look around the country in some of these left-wing cities, they have been hollowed out by pro-criminal policies that have let the inmates run the asylum. you do not defund police, you support the police who keep us safe. you do not allow people to riot and loot. [applause] you hold them accountable. don't let the cities burn down. you don't enact policies like eliminating cash bail where you

put these people back out on the street like a carousel. you do not support policies that release dangerous criminals early from prison. you need to hold them accountable. and when you have prosecutors that are getting elected in cities like chicago, san francisco, los angeles, usually the big financial support from people like george soros, they get elected pledging they are not going own force laws they don't like. they are going to take law-abiding citizens and make them the enemy, and they're going to side with the criminal element. well, guess what happens? the whole society starts to fray, crime starts to go up. and i can tell you this, not the prosecutor's job to pick and choose which laws they want to enforce. you don't like some law, resign your office, run for the legislature and try to change the law, but you are not a law unto yourself. and when we had someone in the state of florida in tampa say he was only going to enforce laws he agreed with and that he was not going to the enforce laws

our legislature had enacted, i removed him from his position. he is gone, and that's the type of accountability we need. [applause] but we need to restore the idea that criminals are responsible for their conduct. it's not society's fault, it's not anybody else's fault. you do the crime, you do the time. that's what we do in florida, and that's why our crime rate's lore. we also need to restore a sense of normalcy about we are a nation that has borders. our sovereignty as a people matters. don't tell me foreigners can just decide to come across the border when they want to the. we decide who comes into in this country as americans. we have every right to have that border secured and not have this disaster unfolding. i can tell you this, someone's, like, well, what would you do? i'd shut down the border immediately. why are we letting this happen to our country? [applause] it's hurting people. the drugs are pouring into the

country. keep -- americans are dying for what's going on at that border. criminal aliens are getting into this country. even people on the terrorist watch list are getting into this country. [applause] no, you deserve to have a secure border, you deserve to have the rule of law. someone comes across the border, stop 'em and send 'em back on the other side of the border. don't give them a piece of paper and say you come back for a court date in four years. what kind of a deterrence is that? and i'll tell you this, these mexican drug cartels are killing a lot of americans. they need to be treated like the hostile force that they are. we need to be holding the cartels accountable, and we need to be holding the mexican government accountable because they are allowing a lot of this to happen. i can tell you in florida we've leaned in on this issue. when i became governor, we banned sanctuary cities. we actually have people say you're not a border state.

i'm a maritime border state. they run boats from haiti and some other places with illegal ail -- aliens trying to come to florida. coast guard's responsible, they actually do a good job, they just don't have enough people. so we have put forces in place, state people, to help the coast guard, and we've been interdicting a lot of vessels. since august we've repatriated over 12,000 illegal aliens back to haiti, back to some of these countries. and guess what happens? [applause] guess what happens? when they see that they will be stopped, turned back and repatriated, they stop coming. we don't have as many boats coming as we did before we started these operations. and what bugs me about it is you see the carnage that happens at these border towns, with the drugs in communities. don't let anyone tell grow if your not concern not a border town isn't affecting you. i've met mothers who have lost children because of the fentanyl

overdose, and we add had a secure border, that wouldn't happen. and yet the media doesn't really care about it, the left, a lot of them welcome this, this is their vision. they only seem to care when florida brought 50 illegal aliens to lovely martha's vineyard. their little enclave. [applause] then they got really upset about that. now, i do think that as big as the border is you've got great border patrol, even if you've got good policy, you can't do it with personnel alone. you do need a wall constructed along the southern border, and i support doing that. i've always supported doing that. [applause] and what i've told the biden administration is we had hurricane ian came through southwest florida. some of you i ran into, some of you have places in southwest florida, so you know. and there was a monster the storm. it actually ripped out a bridge going from the main to pine island, and it severed the causeway going to sanibel island

in three different locations. and these were not state bridges, it was the technically not our responsibility. but the locals are being told it's going to be the six months before we restore connectivity to you. so they came to me as their governor, we can't wait six months. i agree. i got my guys together and said, listen, no bureaucracy, no red tape and no excuses, i want these bridges back up and running as soon as possible. so we accepted the job. pine island bridge didn't take six months, we restored it in three days, and sanibel causeway was back two weeks later after that, almost five and a half months ahead of schedule. and i raise that just because i am willing to send my florida folks who built those bridges, i'll send them to the southern border. we'll get cracking on this wall, joe. just let us know. put us in, we'll get it done. [applause] we also need to restore integrity to some of our major institutions in our country.

and i'm a navy veteran. you know, i volunteered. i didn't get, you know, my school paid for or anything, it's just something i felt i wanted to do. i volunteered to serve in iraq, and i got to the meet a lot of people along the way. and even many in some of the worst days in iraq, you still had people that wanted to sign up and come knowing they would get sent to iraq because it meant a lot to them to wear the uniform of our country, and they wanted to serve. well, now you have very difficult time recruiting people who want to serve. why? because the military's lost its way on some of this stuff. they are politicizing what being in the military is. they are embracing concepts like dei. they are embracing things like gender ideology. i mean, when you see videos of folks recruiting for the military services using things like drag queens, you know, that is just fundamentally wrong. so i think we need to get the

military focused on what it's supposed to be. i don't want to run into any more veterans saying, you know, governor, i don't think that i would want my son or daughter to join the military anymore. how sad is that in this used to be such a proud tradition for so many american families. and i can tell you i was always proud of wearing that uniform. i could have made a boatload of money. i had a lot of great academic pedigree. i had worked hard to achieve that. i chose to do that. but i tell you, the satisfaction of knowing you're wearing the cloth of your country was better than anything money could buy. we need to get back to the that in the united states. [applause] we also need to restore integrity to the operations of our businesses, particularly large corporations. finish they have indulged in this idea that being woke is somehow their responsibility. they have indulged in concepts like esg, environment social

governance. make no mistake though, what they are trying to do, they are trying to change policy in this country, they are trying to change our society without ever having to stand for an election. the policies that they're proposing through these things could not win at the ballot box in iowa, they could not win at the ballot box in florida. they're trying to do an end run around our constitutional system and impose a leftist agenda through corporate power. i think that we need to just say very clearly no social or economic transformation without representation. we're not letting you go around our constitutional system to impose this on our country. [applause] and how much better will our economy do if they focus on the basics and actually serving customers and serving shareholders instead of going on some ideological joyride? i'm telling you, they will do better. we also need to restore integrity to our constitutional

system. we have a bureaucracy in this country that is out of control. we are supposed to be a country that has a constitution with three branches of government, legislative, executive and judicial. now we have four brawn. s -- branches of government. you have the legislature, the congress, you have whoever gets elected president, you have the court and then you have this fourth branch of government, this administrative state, that does what it wants without congress having enacted anything. they will do far-reaching rules trying to impose that on the american people that violates your freedom, that harm your livelihood. but these are bureaucrats that will never stand for election and be held accountable by the american public. need to reconstitutionallize this government. these agencies should not be able to issue these rules by fiat. they should not be able to target disfavored industries, and they should not be able to go after your freedom. this bureaucracy is ooh too big, it is too intrusive and too

unaccountable. it's about time we did something about that because we've complained about it for a long time. [applause] i also think we need to restore truth as the foundation to our society and to our republic. and as a leader, you know, i'm not out for adulation or fanfare. i'm simply looking to pursue the truth. i think truth is the foundation for a strong family life, strong communities and a successful country. truth is incuring -- enduring. they can cover it up, hide it, but eventually the lies and desecret fade away -- deceit fade away. this ad vent9 of woke ideology really represents a challenge to this. i think it's a war on truth s and because it's a war on truth, we must wage a war on woke. it is wrong for a teacher to

instruct a student that they were born in the wrong body or that their gender is a choice. we should not have transgender ideology in our schools, and in florida we have eliminated it. it's not there, and if that means we had to stand up to a company like disney, here i stand. i'm not backing down from that. i'm standing for the parents and the students of the state of florida, and we are doing what is right. it is -- [applause] it is wrong for a swimmer to compete for three years on the men's team and then switch to the women's team and then win the women's national championship? i'm sorry, that is a fraud that they are trying to perpetuate on us, and we should not accept that that is truth because it is not. it is also wrong, and i know governor reynolds has done

something about this, it is wrong for physicians to perform sex change operations on minors. this is a barbaric practice, and in florida we we put a stop to it and physicians that try to do it not only will be held accountable in terms of statute, her going to lose their medical -- they are going to the lose their medical license in our state, and that's appropriate. [applause] but i think our country is floundering in part because so many of our institutions have become unmoored from the truth. they've been lost in a sea of relativism. and this is important because we're really at a crossroads as a country. as bad as things are going right now, if things do not go well for us republicans in 2024, it's going to get a whole lot worse. the left in this country is really playing for keeps. they are more aggressive and more strident than at anytime in e my lifetime. i got into politics running for congress in 2012 because i was

motivated to oppose the policies of barack obama. i had even written at the time a book, which about a dozen people read -- [laughter] that outlined my concerns and why i didn't think his agenda was consistent with the aspirations of our founding fathers. and i believed it then and i believe it now. but i also look back on that and see some of those battles as somewhat quaint. because i think the threats to freedom are much more profound today, i think they're much more pervasive. if the democrats are able to -- in '24, if they keep the white house, gain in the senate and take back the house, they will try to pack the supreme court. they will try to eliminate the electoral college. they will try to make washington, d.c. a state, and they will eliminate voter id in every jurisdiction in this country and make ballot harvesting mandatory. now, that is not an agenda that appeals to us as republicans. but i think objectively if you went the typicalling apolitical

american family, how many of them are sitting over the dinner table saying, oh, man, i just wish we could force ballot harvesting in every part of the country? no, that's not what american families care about. that's an agenda of a left-wing movement in this country that wants to make the conservative half of the country second class citizens. they want to be able to call the shots, and they don't want us to have a voice in this government. and that will have profound implications for us, for our kids and our grandkids. but i think the hope is both florida and iowa show strong leadership and a bold agenda can defeat the left in this country. but there's no institute for victory. -- substitute for victory. we must reject the culture of losing that has infected our party in recent years. the time for excuses is over. we've got to demonstrate the courage to lead and the strength to win. if we do that, if we make 2024 the election a referendum on joe biden and his failures and if we

provide a positive alternative for the future of this country, republicans will win across the board. if we do not do that, if we get distracted, if we focus the election on the past or on other side issues, then i think the democrats are going to beat us again. and i think it'll be very difficult to recover from that defeat. and here's the thing, i used to think our country was locked and loaded, nothing can go wrong in terms of a free society. but freedom is fragile. and if you've live through the last four or five years, you know that. there were statements in this country that forcibly shuttered churches while allowing licker stores and strip clubbing -- liquor stores and strip clubs to operate. but, you know, our founding fathers understood the fragility of freedom very well. when they met in philadelphia to craft the constitution, today came armed with having studied the history of every republic in

the history of man kind because they wanted to get lessons from what happened in those republics. and and really when they looked at all of them, there was really only one thing that they all had in common, and it was this: every single one of them had failed. and so they believed and understood that it fell to the united states of america to determine could people really govern themselves? could you have a society based on the idea of rights endowed from the creator, not provided by the government? could you have a society based on the rule of law, not on the basis of individual men? or was society ever destined to be under various forms of despotism. and they fully expected this american experiment would ultimately answer that question for the rest of mankind. and when benjamin franklin left that convention, he was asked, dr. franklin, what have you given us a republic or a monarchy? he said a republic, ma'am, if you can keep it. the survival of our american

experiment requires a revival of the american spirit and of hearn principles. florida and iowa prove it can be done. our states offer a ray of hope that better days may lie ahead. and i'm proud of our achievements in florida, and i look forward to the battles ahead. but it is the not going to be easy. the left is not going to just give this to us. it is going to the require hard work, and it is going to require a lot of sacrifice. and sometimes when you're in this position, and kim knows it, you take a lot of shots, you that take a lot of incoming -- i don't think any governor's taken more incoming than me, but here i stand and i'm fine. i think about that, people say, don't you get tired of this, people always shooting at you, people lying, all this stuff. and i say, you know, there's a lot of people that have given up a lot more than what i'm call upon to do as governor. and i used to think about this when i would fly into washington d.c. if you've ever done it, there's sometimes when you go into

reagan airport that you can fly flush parallel to the national mall. and if you look out the left side of the plane, you see beautiful panoramic views of the lincoln memorial, the reflecting pool, the washington monument, all the way up to the hill and the capitol building. you to think to yourself, man, this shows kind of the ideas and principles that make us unique as a people. the tourists loved it. they would always look out the left side. but what i realized was, you know, the best monuments to freedom in this country were not actually out the left side of the plane because if you looked out the right side of the plane, you would look over the potomac river are, you saw small, nondescript monuments arranged neatly over rolling hills in a place called arlington national cemetery. and it occurred to me that -- [applause] it occurred to me that you can have the best declaration of independence in the world, you could have the best constitution

in the world, but if you don't have people that are willing throughout our history to stand up, put on that uniform, risk their lives and in many instances give that last full measure of devotion, then it isn't going to amount to very much. and so we are not called upon to make sacrifices of that magnitude, but we're also called upon to do battle in the political arena. so what i say to you as republicans, put on the full around or more of god. take your stand. stand firm for truth. we must fight the good fight, we must finish the race, and we must keep the faith. i can tell you this, i am proud of what we've done in florida. i'm thankful for what governor reynolds and the team have done in iowa, but i've only begun to fight. thank you all. god bless you. it's so great to be in iowa. thank you so much. [applause] thank you. god bless you all. [applause] mike: that is florida governor ron desantis testing some

potential campaign themes there in sioux center, iowa. home of the first in the nation caucus on the republican side. you've got desantis there today, you've got former president trump in iowa. may 13th, 2023, jacqui, and away we go. joey: i heard some shots at trump to start and finish his remarks, and that really strikes me especially with trump in that state today, you know? a couple of lines there. governing is not about virtue signaling or building a brand, it's about winning. the time for excuses is over, we need to reject losing. if we make 2024 the a referendum on biden, then republicans will win, but if we get distracted and look at the past, democrats will beat us again. that's what desantis the said, a pretty clear nod to what we heard from the former president in that town hall the other night. mike: and we will a hear from the former president in des moines later today, so here we go. >> there is such a lot to talk

about. we want to bring in our political panel. with us is kathy smedley, former rnc press secretary and vice president of coin, and jonathan cost, former senator manchin's communications director and capital council lla partner. thank you both for -- llc. partner. thank you for being with us, we were all watching that together, and there's so much to go over. kathy, i want to start with you. desantis was looking a bit like a paper tiger, you know, slipping in the polls before he ever even announced and watching thing the former president, trump's, lead in the polls grow. do you think that he undid that at all today? >> well, it certainly sounded like a table-setting speech. and as we were talking, i was saying, hey, this is the first time i've actually seen him start to finish in a speech. we we get snippets of him or live event, and i think most americans are probably having that same reaction. as they get to know him more or get to see more of him, i think it's only inevitable. and, of course, if he gets in

the race, he's not even in the race, you'll start to see that gap close. people know how they feel about former president trump. i think they're still making up their minds if about governor desantis or anyone else in the race. mike: john, i'm curious what your thoughts are of seeing him on the stump. as a not-declared candidate can. his confidence, his presence there speaking to iowa voters. >> look, that was a great red meat speech to the iowa voters. i think once he gets in the race and is an official candidate, things change. the scrutiny gets hotter. you have to take more questions. he's going to have take questions from reporters on the ground there, and we'll see how he does there. unfortunately for a lot of candidates, your best day is the day you announce, and every other day gets worse. and we have to see, can he survive that, can he handle that kind of pressure not just coming from president trump which the second he gets in, i'm sure the president is going to be firing at him. but he's also going to be taking shots from the other people in the race, and he's going to have

the tough questions from reporters. we'll see if he's up for it, but that's what the primaries are for. >> one thing, he hit all of sort of issues that republicans are targeting in this election. he talked about crime, china, immigration, inflation. issues in education and in schools. the one thing that stood out to me is he said you can't win with just republicans. and i wonder, you know, when you have a big issue in 2024 the being abortion and the white house already signaling that they're trying to make this election about democracy being on the ballot and your rights being on the ballot, how can desantis win over any independents or any democrats with a 6-week ban that a lot of people view as very, very conservative? >> well, i think to your question, desantis has to have a very clear answer on that. what happened in the florida legislature, not that he was working in the role of the legislature, and what that means

should he make it to the white house. the issues that he covered, education, crime, what's happening on our border, those very much appeal to independents or they appeal across the spectrum to americans. that's where you paint the parallel of what we've had many our country before joe bide season and what we have with joe biden. what he has been able to do as a leader in florida or what donald trump can make the same argument, what he did as president versus the reality of what's happening in the white house right now. and since we're sitting next to each other, i think ron desantis has taken a lot of tough questions, arguably, he's been pressed more than the president of the united states. i ache your point about trump going after him, which he's already putting ads up, so clearly he's concerned about ron desans disgettinging -- ron desantis in the race. mike: how would you go after him as a democrat? >> i think you go after him as an extremist. the abortion ban isn't appeal dog a broad swath of the

electorate. i do think he's focused on real social issues that i think he has made a bigger deal than they actually are. he spends a lot of time talking about woke. sometimes in a speech he says it eight or nine times. right, a noun, verb and adjective for him. i don't think that actually resonates. i thoi parents want to be more involved in school, but they don't want the governor deciding what their kids are going to do. they want to have a conversation with the teachers, and i think those things are going to a make him an extremist, and that's how i would go after him. >> one follow-up to that point though. you know, when you have ron desantis saying things like we need a sane way to govern, we need to restore scenes of normalcy in this country, will democrats be able to land their message that the republican party is all about extremism? when you've got him calling for normalcy? >> i think the difference is what his view of normalcy is. joe biden got elected in large

part because he was returning to normalcy. he was returning to normalcy. he was returning to somewhat of a boring government where we just actually get things done, we don't tweet, we don't scream. so it's going to be really hard for ron desantis to say i like everything donald trump did, but i'm going to be really normal, boring donald trump, and you'll like that because that'll be my return to normalcy. i think he's going to wind up -- if he tries that, he's going to wind up losing a lot of the trump voters if he's even able to beat him in the primary which i don't think he's going to be able to do. that's a lot of ground to make up. mike: first things first, he has to win republican primary voters. not surprising to hear red meat at early stage in battleground iowa. >> certainly, you've got to secure your basics right? or else you have no chance of going forward. i think he spoke to the broad spectrum of republican primary voters. there's a lot of people who are tired or sat at home. obviously, we saw last november we didn't have that huge red knew samny that -- tsunami ma

peopled that predicted. there's a lot of reasons for that. let's get back to the what makes us conservatives and what makes us republicans. and by the way, what's happening on the left is the actual extreme in our country right now. so no matter how many times biden might say the extreme maga republicans, people are feeling that maybe they might have voted for biden because they thought he'd be calm and he'd just sit this his basement and not touch anything, but it turns out the country has somehow in just a couple of short years felt like it's been turned on its head, and everybody's doing worse. and that's the argument that you can make broadly to republican voters or and then in the general election. it works in both places. >> so i want to bring up the most recent polling on the president because this, these numbers out from the abc/washington post poll were really pretty devastating for him. he's sitting at 36% which is, i believe, a record low. he can't win an election with 36% approval if ratings. and then another striking number

to me was on the mental sharpness issue. 6 # president of voters believe the president does not have the mental sharpness that he needs to serve effectively as president. only 32 believing. now -- 32%. thousand, you don't have to be an ageist to rightfully ask the question is the president, who would be 86 when he leaves office, up for this task. and what kind of a role should democrats be having the vice president play in all of this campaigning. jonathan, do you think that you're going to see the strategy shift away from marketing biden toward marketing the vice president to voters? >> no. i think you're going to have both of them out there as a team. i think the vice president didn't get a lot of credit for what happened in the first two years. and if you want to look at is joe bind up to the task, look at all he was able to accomplish in the first two years. even if you don't like what he

did, and i'm sure there are a bunch of republicans who don't agree with the policies, he got so much done that it's hard to say he's not up to the job. i mean, his arm might be sore from signing all of these bills. like, he literally just accomplished more than any president in my lifetime in his first two years. so i think what the campaign will be focused on, and i hope it is, is just going out there and doing somewhat of a scoreboard campaign. he should, him and the vice president and the entire cabinet and all the surrogates should be at every ground breaking, ribbon cutting, shovel in the ground that has happened because of the ira, the infrastructure bill, all of the other bills, the chips bill. these are things that he's going to be able to run on, and i think the vice president will take a stronger role because she was part of that. >> but if i -- unfortunately, we're out of time. we have so much ground to cover, and we didn't even get to everything. >> i filibustered, i'm sorry. >> we hope to have you both back again soon and appreciate your time.

mike: we will go live to the border where thousands of migrants have been crossing in after the lifting of title 42. that's next.t in ♪ those who tried me felt more energy in just two weeks. uh... here i'll take that. ensure max protein with 30 grams of protein, 1 gram of sugar and nutrients for immune health. ♪ introducing astepro allergy. now available without a prescription. astepro is the first and only 24-hour steroid-free spray. while flonase takes hours, astepro starts working in 30 minutes. so you can [ spray, spray ] astepro and go.

- representative! - sorry, i didn't get that. - oh buddy! you need a hug. you also need consumer cellular. get the exact same coverage as the nation's leading carriers and 100% us based customer support. starting at $20. consumer cellular. scout is protected by simparica trio, and he's in it to win it. simparica trio is the first and only chew with triple protection. oh, fleas and ticks ♪ intestinal worms... wow heartworm disease, no problem with simarica trio. this drug class has been associated with neurologic adverse reactions including seizures.

use with caution in dogs with a history of these disorders. for winning protection. go with simparica trio. ♪ jacqui: now to the border. thousands of migrants crossing the border this week as title 42 the ended. bill melugin's in brownsville, texas, tracking movement on the ground for us. what are you seeing, bill? >> reporter: well, this week saw the highest number of illegal crossings in recorded history. more than 83,000. a lot of them happening right here in brownsville until it was plugged up by the state of texas. take a look at drone video our team shot. this was the first time we had ever seen this. in the middle of massive illegal crossings, we started noticing people getting into the water, going over and crossing illegally into texas, and they were stopped by the state of texas who deployed large amounts

of razor wire and had troopers deployed on the other side of the river. they flat out rejected people from being able to enter the state of texas. and for more on this, i want to go ahead and bring in texas dps spokesperson lieutenant chris old oliveras, thank you so much for course your time. there was a different posture. i've been covering the border for two years. i've seen the troopers and the razor wire, but this was the first time i've seen soldiers and troopers physically blocking and repelling people and not letting them this. what changed this week? >> of course, we wanted to prevent what we saw in del rio back in 2021 with the haitians. we didn't want to see a surge of thousands coming across the border. we expected that with the lifting of title 42, pretty much everyone knew we were going to see a mad surge. the idea was governor abbott took a proact active approach and deployed additional resources, national guard, state troopers to place razor wire in brownsville. and the idea was to block

illegal crossings between the points of entry and redistrict or do divert those -- redirect them. this all goes back to, you know, two years, why we're doing this, why we're still here right now, because the administration fails to secure the border so we have to step in. that's what we did. national guard and texas dps stopped potential thousands of crossings. >> reporter: so it was a new decision this week. instead of just letting them to come in, the border patrol, you guys decided, no more, you're being blocked. that was new. >> exactly. we took a more aggressive response as far as trying to block some of these crossings, and we prevented thousands. and, again, quite frankly, i think the federal government should actually take a page out of governor abbott's border security playbook and actually use that because we saw how effective it was. barriers, walls, manpower will act as a deterrence, and that's what we saw. >> reporter: what does that say to you, the fact that you guys are at the river, the only

resistance is from the state of texas, barbed wire, troopers, soldiers in riot gear, nothing from the federal government said, you know, do not come in. when they cross, border patrol gives them paperwork, they process them, it's only the state of texas kind of acting by itself trying to stop people, what do you think that says about the federal government? >> they're not doing their job. border patrol agents want to be on the front lines, they want to stop what what iowa's taking place, but unfortunately, they're stuck processing. we want to showcase the great work they're doing, but again, we're going to continue stepping in to prevent any illegal crossing, also focus on the criminal activity as well. this is the responsibility of the federal government, but we feel right now we have a moral obligation to protect our great state and the country. >> reporter: do you have any concerns the federal government's going to step in and sue you guys? >> that's not going to stop us. we're going to continue moving forward. governor abbott has made a very clear message that we are going to do as much as we can, use every tool and authority within our power to stop what's

happening along the border. >> reporter: final question here, before the national guard showed up and you guys did this big operation, it was a free-for-all. i mean, we were showing drone images day after day of hundreds upon hundreds of people crossing with zero resistance whatsoever. you guys show up and within a matter of days, it gets plugged, and it's drying up. we haven't seen any major illegal crossings here; you know, for a couple of days now. your final thoughts on maybe taking that approach bigger elsewhere across the state. >> well, of course, that's the foundation we can use to move forward in other areas, prevent other potential mass crossings that we can see. it was very effective, you saw that. early on, yes, we had many people crossing, but we were able to plug those gaps with the manpower we have. and i think moving forward, that's what we're going to do. >> reporter: lieutenant chris oliveras, thank you so much for your time. back to you. jacqui: all right, bill melugin, thanks. mike: hunter biden could soon learn his fate as federal

prosecutors near the end of their investigation into the president's son as house republicans release some of the finds into their own probe into with hunter biden's business dealings. joining me now live in studio is tim bellevit dis, a former federal prosecutor and sec trial attorney. thanks for coming n. obviously, time is precious, let's get to it. what is your take on the state of the criminal probe at this point? >> no charges have been filed, of course, but it's believed that they're going to happen soon. the government seems to be focusing on tax charges, potential tax charges and specifically some failure to file charges which would be misdemeanor as well as a tax evasion charge, that's a felony. separate from that the government's also considering a false statements charge that relates to an atf form that he filled out back in 2018 where he answered a question about whether or not he was a drug user or addict. and the allegation would be if

that charge is brought that he answered that question falsely. mike: divorce attorneys handling hunter's divorce from his ex-wife kathleen came forward with an e-mail that made reference to to a million dollar romania deal. foreign money, how significant is that? >> it's very significant. i will say this, for many years the hunter biden investigation has focused on whether he was involved in money laundering possibly or foreign agent registration violations. pertaining to his work abroad. that investigation seems to be their -- narrowed down the to the tax charges and the false sometimeses charge but, look, that's always hanging out over there, it's always looming over all of this. mike: from the fox poll, when it comes to his foreign business dealings, did hunter biden do something illegal, 44%. 35%, something unethical. 14%, nothing seriously wrong. how do you assess it based on what you've seen? >> hard to say. what you do know is often times

where there is smoke, there's fire. this investigation's been proceeding for a long time. the tax chargeses are difficult. tax charges require a very high state of mindful it's not as simple as, for example, charging someone who's walked into a bank with a gun and told the teller to give all the money over. you have to prove that there was income, that there were overstated deductions, for example, and that they weren't reported. so it takes time. mike: we're aware of the whistleblower that came forward from the irs who said there may have been politics involved and special treatment. how significant is that? >> it's, again, very significant. but i will say this, prosecutors and agents often have different focuses. agents are there to try to get the case over the finish line. prosecutors are there to make sure there is a viable case that can withstand a vigorous defense. to me, all of the requirements that the justice department has, in other words for actually bringing the case, is this a case of politicization? are they -- is the i are rs or fbi slow-rolling the investigation for political reasons, or are these agents who

just feel like it's not going as quickly as it should be. we don't know much about the allegations, they're not public. there could be something there. mike: thank you so much for your i'm and analysis today. >> thank you so much. jacqui: all right. that is all for us from d.c. and these jam-packed past two hours. "fox news live" continues with bryan llenas and arthel neville coming up next. mike: i'm mike emanuel, i'll be back tomorrow at 1:00 eastern for" "fox news live," happy mother 's day weekend to all the moms out there. have a great day. ♪ ♪ (vo) if you've had thyroid eye disease for years and you can't get any shut eye because you can't shut your eyes, it's not too late for another treatment option.

to learn more visit treatted.com. that's treatt-e-d.com. the subway series is taking your favorites to the next level. hold on, chuck! you can't beat the italian bmt. uh you can with double cheese and mvp vinaigrette. double cheese?!? yes and yes! man, you crazy. try the refreshed favorites at subway today.

oh

arthel: a marine veteran now charge the top holdup of a homeless man on a new york city subway. but his lawyer's essay should be celebrated for taking action. daniel penny was charged with second degree manslaughter yesterday. he is free after posting $100,000 bail. hello everyone fox's life i am arthur novel. bryan: in bryan llenas emperor eric shawn. the manslaughter charge is