CLAY: We were just talking about #DeathSantis trending on Twitter and the degree to which Ron DeSantis has become one of the major targets, I would say, of the media-(sort of)-industrial complex, and one reason is because I think there’s a lot of fear over the state of Florida and how well DeSantis did using actual science (as opposed to the science of the Fauci stooges) to run his state, maintain the economy, allow for normalcy of life to exist.
And, by the way, there’s lots of states… I know you were in New York, Buck. I would have lost my mind living in New York City during all this. I’m fortunate. I live in Nashville. I’m born and raised here in this city where we’re doing the show. The state of Tennessee, in general, was wide open.
Texas, Florida, Georgia. There’s a lot of states out there that managed to stay open, the red states, but there’s a fear because thanks to federalism we can look at the data and the data is telling us a pretty clear story. What New York and California did shutting down all the businesses, shutting basically the states down — kids still not in school — it didn’t makes any sense.
BUCK: It’s worth looking at the 12-month mark now. If you were to just reverse, in June of 2020, the great heroes of the pandemic —
CLAY: Oh, so well said.
BUCK: The great heroes of the pandemic were Andrew Cuomo, the governor of New York, who has had whole bunch of problems including the pushing of covid-positive seniors into nursing homes — then covering it up, and then covering it up some more — as well as a whole slew of inappropriate comments to female subordinates. He kept his job, though, which is fascinating.
CLAY: Oh, of course.
BUCK: But not surprising.
CLAY: Yes.
BUCK: Then you had also Gavin Newsom out in California who’s got this recall effort against him. And what everyone has seen since then is, the heroes from the beginning based on media narrative when it comes to covid and lockdowns have now turned into (if you look at the data) the villains of the lockdowns, and Governor Ron DeSantis…
We owe him so much, Clay, and you were an early believer in asking questions — even before we were doing this show together, asking questions — about lockdowns and whether they really had the science on their side. DeSantis is responsible for holding the line against the Fauciite madness in a way that affected the whole country.
CLAY: God, if you want to know the importance of a governor election, imagine if Andrew Gillum had won. DeSantis only won the state of Florida by 30,000 votes. You think about Stacey Abrams lost by 50,000 in Georgia. Brian Kemp kept Georgia open. Thirty-thousand votes DeSantis won over Andrew Gillum in Florida.
Without that, even with our great federalism laboratories in all 50 states, we wouldn’t have the data in Florida ’cause Florida would have done, I think, what California did and what New York did, Buck. So DeSantis is riding high now that we’ve seen this data, and there is a straw poll that was out there. I’m reading from this.
The Western Conservative Summit had a nonpartisan approval voting poll result, and these were the five candidates that they found to be… They had 30 candidates polled, Democrats and Republicans. The five that were the most popular were Ron DeSantis, Donald Trump, Ted Cruz, Mike Pompeo, and Tim Scott, in that order.
Now, Twitter only allows us to put up four of these nominees, ’cause you can only vote on four different options in a Twitter poll. You can go vote in this right now if you would like to @ClayTravis. What I wrote was — and we retweeted it. I’d encourage you to go follow us as well @ClayAndBuck.
If you want to drive left-wing idiots crazy, you can help make #ClayAndBuck trend, which I think there’s probably a good chance this audience can get that trending if you just use the hashtag, #ClayAndBuck, talk about whatever we’re discussing on this show. Most recent polls, four options: Ron DeSantis, Donald Trump, Ted Cruz, Mike Pompeo. Have you looked at the results yet, Buck?
CLAY: All right.
BUCK: But I have a feeling.
CLAY: All right, so, I want to ask you what you think the numbers are. There are now over 25 thousand of you out there who have voted in our poll. Those were the four options based on that straw poll that was done. These were the four highest ratings: Ron DeSantis, Donald Trump, Ted Cruz, Mike Pompeo.
I asked the question of the audience out there, “Who would be your top pick of those four if you had to pick a nominee for 2024 right now?” That’s the poll question, and over 25,000 people have voted in the first hour — first 45 minutes, actually. What do you think the results are showing?
BUCK: Yes, that already shows.
CLAY: That’s what we’re basing this on.
BUCK: Right.
CLAY: So we took… We’re not saying these are the top four in our opinion. This is coming straight out of the straw poll, the top four in the straw poll.
BUCK: And I believe that straw poll also showed the numbers. The way they set it up is, “Would you be willing to support the following,” right?
CLAY: Yes.
BUCK: So it’s a little bit different methodology. I’m not a numbers guy, but I just want to be clear for everybody.
CLAY: The four most popular on the list, because some people are gonna be like, “Oh, you’re inflating the results! Like, why…?”
BUCK: Yeah.
CLAY: No, no, no. We’re taking the four most popular and just putting them in a poll to see who — in our audience right now of 25,000 of you have voted — would you support?
BUCK: Right. I think that the number one on this — and I have not looked. Clay can attest ’cause we’re sitting right next to each other.
CLAY: Yes.
BUCK: I have not seen it. Ron DeSantis is winning, but just by a little over Donald Trump. That’s the smart man’s bet based on the data I’ve seen so far. Where are we?
CLAY: Over 25,000 votes. Ron DeSantis: 72% of the vote.
BUCK: Wow.
And we have now had over 25,000 of you vote in the first 45 minutes, pretty representative sample, 25,000. Maybe over 100,000 will end up voting,. I want as many people to vote as possible. Although you don’t have to show any… There’s no voting controversy here that we’re aware of. That’s a pretty big number. Does that surprise you?
BUCK: That is surprising. I thought it would… Look, DeSantis, obviously, has the political wind at his back right now on the right, and we see this. And this is why I think it’s important to even cover some of these stories like the #DeathSantis trending on Twitter.
CLAY: Yes.
BUCK: Because the same mania… Everyone needs to remember, they tried… (chuckles) I feel like I bring up the name “Mitt Romney” on this show and I can already hear the boos.
CLAY: (laughs)
BUCK: But they turned Mitt Romney into a high school bully who abused his dog and gave people cancer!
CLAY: Had binders of women.
BUCK: Binders of women —
CLAY: Yeah.
BUCK: — in the 2012 election. If they can do that tow Mitt Romney, who’s about as dangerous and on the edge as Ned Flanders from the Simpsons —
CLAY: Very good analogy.
BUCK: — they can do that to absolutely anybody. So get ready for that whole… I don’t know how many Lord of the Rings fans there are, but the Eye of Sauron is gonna start moving from Trump to DeSantis.
CLAY: Yes. Yes. It already has.
BUCK: Yes.
CLAY: And the 60 Minutes story to me was a perfect representation of that. For those of you who missed it because it was totally false, the idea was that DeSantis had sold to Publix — because of a $100,000 donation — some sort of untoward relationship as it pertained to vaccine distribution, which was 100% wrong and dishonest. They took out-of-context quotes from him. It was just a fundamentally flawed story, but to me what it represented was, “Oh. This is a sign that the shift from trying to destroy Trump has now shifted over to Ron DeSantis.”
CLAY: It’ll probably be arrayed a little bit against us a little bit before long!
BUCK: (laughing) The Eye of Sauron will find its way to the Clay and Buck Show if it has not already. But that same approach from the media, you can already see it at this early stage with the attacks on Ron DeSantis and just also in general, ’cause DeSantis is at the forefront of the questioning of Fauciism and standing athwart the lunacy of, like, mask mania.
And because of that, there’s gonna be a Soviet-style rewriting of history that occurs between now and the midterms about who did what during the pandemic, who the real heroes of the pandemic were when it comes to politicians. I know we could say first responders and people that are…
Of course, that’s true of doctors and nurses but if you’re looking at who made the right decisions, there’s going to be… There’s so much political importance behind this that you’re going to be — and it’s one of the reasons why I think the show is so important, Clay, if I may say so.
CLAY: Yeah.
BUCK: People are going to be lied to by those who benefit from the lie, and even when they’re caught in the media — DeSantis is gonna be one of the primary targets, but there will be others — it doesn’t matter. Because their purpose is activism. The purpose is not reportage.
CLAY: Yeah, and I think what scares people about DeSantis right now (and obviously he’s still gotta win reelection in 2022 in Florida in order to be a viable big time candidate in 2024) is he’s got the combativeness of Trump with the logical background of a Harvard Law grad.
BUCK: And governance skills. I mean, really look what he’s done in Florida.
CLAY: He’s done a phenomenal job. He’s done a phenomenal job in one of our nation’s most difficult states to run.
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