CLAY: Let me play you this cut for everybody out there. You know people are getting nervous about Ron DeSantis because he’s coming under siege. I believe it was Tuesday’s edition of the New York Times had a front-page article about DeSantis and Trump, tensions between them. They are trying to ramp up attacks on Ron DeSantis because they are aware — the mainstream corporate media is — that he is likely to win comfortably the governorship of Florida in 2022.

You still need to show up and vote, but he is trending very well there, as many of the decisions that he has made with covid are being reinforced on a daily basis based on actual data. Go figure. Listen to this as we discuss the fact that Ron DeSantis may actually be more dangerous than Donald Trump. Play it.

FORMER REP. DAVID JOLLY (R-FL): Ron DeSantis is far more dangerous than Donald Trump because he’s more savvy, he’s more coy, and he doesn’t have the pitfalls that Donald Trump does. Ron DeSantis will announce he’s running for president on this notion of a free state of Florida. Florida’s not free if your kids can’t be exposed to the full curriculum that would make them smarter and better educated students.

Florida’s not free if you can’t get a test or treatment for covid. Florida’s not free if you don’t have access to the ballot box. Florida is not free! It’s a narrative that Ron DeSantis is very successfully selling, which is what makes him dangerous, because in Ron DeSantis’ narrative of freedom, he’s actually really kneecapping democracy right now from (sic) people of Florida, and he will successfully do it on the national stabling should he get to the White House.

BUCK: Isn’t it amazing to see how they invert what words mean and they invert reality? Ron DeSantis is giving people individual choice and greater freedom and allowing people to make more of their own decisions, and Democrats believe that that is actual tyranny. They actually invert the basic meaning of what freedom is. Right now, there’s actually an editorial up at the Washington Post, I just saw it, that Ron DeSantis is creating “a paradise of authoritarianism” in Florida.

So let’s just be open and very clear about this. Biden mandating that everyone has to get a shot that does not actually stop the spread of covid-19 in any meaningful way all across the country — multiple shots over and over again, perhaps endlessly, for everyone — through OSHA (which, of course, the Supreme Court has stayed this), but that is not authoritarian. Ron DeSantis will go to people live their lives and not have to go through these state mandates, that is the, quote, “paradise of authoritarianism” that is being set up

This is straight out of Orwell. This is “war equals peace, you know, freedom equals slavery,” weakness equals strength. They just change the plain meaning and understanding that we have of words. But what else are they gonna say, “We’re a bunch of nucleotide totalitarian psychopaths who worship Anthony Fauci”? That’s what they should say but they won’t say.

CLAY: And also, Buck, these attacks just make DeSantis stronger. That’s the big takeaway to me, because I really do believe that if you’re taking shrapnel, it probably means you’re over the target. They’re so incredibly nervous — and I do think there’s some truth to the argument that DeSantis is Donald Trump but without the bull-in-a-china-shop qualities.

Now, a lot of people love the bull-in-a-china-shop qualities, ’cause I’ve always said — and I think you’ve agreed, Buck — Trump gets to the right results. Sometimes he breaks a lot of stuff to get there, and that is what oftentimes leads to him being attacked as vociferously as he is. Go back and look at what people say about Trump. They very rarely are coming after his conclusions. They’re coming after the process by which he gets to the conclusion.

And there is a fear out there that Ron DeSantis is going to get to many of the same conclusions as Trump, but he’s going to do it without the bull-in-a-china-shop noise and that, as a result, he’s going to be much more effective and much more difficult to attack. Now, I’m not sure that’s true. I’m sure there are any number of things that they will try and destroy Ron DeSantis with if he steps onto the national political stage and ultimately ends up running for president.

Remember, I’m not sure, Buck, you can point to someone who is less offensive than Mitt Romney, and they turned him into one of the worst humans who’s ever existed. Mitt Romney, whatever you want to say about him, might be the most blandly inoffensive politician in America. He raised five kids, married to the same woman his whole life, may not have ever even uttered a curse word in his life; and they destroyed him on the national stage. They’ll do it to anybody.

BUCK: They turned Mitt… Mitt Romney is Ned Flanders with a bigger bank account, and they turned him into Genghis Khan.

CLAY: (laughing) Yeah! Yes!

BUCK: I mean, it was crazy. Talking about Mitt Romney giving people cancer, bullying people in high school, shaving their heads and keeping the dog on the roof of the car while he’s got the binders full of women, they’ll say this about anybody. They are ruthless, they are commies, this is what they do. But just on the notion of “worse than Trump…”

‘Cause get ready for this, everybody. You’re gonna see so much of this about DeSantis and about anybody who is making a run on the Republican side going forward. What’s more likely: that we just so suddenly found the next person in GOP who’s even more terrifying than Trump — who they said was the most terrifying person to ever be in GOP politics — or that the libs are a bunch of dishonest psychos who need to just honestly take a Prozac and calm down a little bit? I think we all know the answer here.