CLAY: Today is primary day in Florida, New York, and I believe Oklahoma. Florida is the one that is going to receive the most attention because we will find out finally who is going to be challenging Ron DeSantis for the governor of Florida. And it appears that Charlie Crist is going to be the nominee. He’s running against Nikki Fried. Nikki Fried, agriculture commissioner statewide, has not been able to catch much fire in this Florida Democrat primary. And so it appears Charlie Crist is gonna be the nominee. He was the governor before.

And there’s the joke that they like to tell in Florida. A Democrat, a Republican, and an independent walks into the bar, and someone says, hey, how are you doing, Charlie? Because Charlie Crist has been in his political career a Democrat, a Republican, and an independent. He now is running as a Democrat, likely to get squashed by Ron DeSantis. And I wanted to point out that DeSantis has been one of the best defenders of Donald Trump since the Mar-a-Lago raid. Now, there have been a lot of, sort of, I would say a little bit of frostiness in the relationship between DeSantis and Trump with many people expecting that DeSantis was going to run for president against Trump.

Now, we don’t know whether DeSantis is going to run or not. But I did want to point out that DeSantis has been — look. I think DeSantis is one of the smartest politicians out there. You don’t go to Harvard Law School and graduate and be a knucklehead; let’s be honest. But DeSantis said what I told you in the start of this first hour definitely true. Federal agencies have been weaponized against people the government doesn’t like. Listen to Ron DeSantis here. We’ll play that in a sec for you. To set it up. It’s cut 3.

CLAY: Look. I love Ron DeSantis and what he has done as governor of Florida. I also love what Donald Trump did in his first term as president. The idea both these guys going head-to-head for the presidential nomination I think could end up happening as it pertains to 2024. Again, Florida primary day I expect that Charlie Crist will be the nominee and that DeSantis will beat Charlie Crist by around seven or eight points, which is an absolute landslide in Florida. And DeSantis has been such a success in Florida that I believe he will have solidly made Florida a red state maybe for a generation to come because so many people moved to Florida over covid. There are far more Republicans in the state of Florida now.

This state, which was the flash point 2000, 2004 — you guys all remember it — in presidential politics the state that would decide the election. Then it was Ohio. Both of those states have moved solidly into the red camp. And I think DeSantis is going to stamp his victory in a big way.

Here’s my thesis on what should happen. We got a lot of Trump people out there listening. We’re gonna talk with Jared Kushner here at the bottom of the hour. And I’ll lay this out for him too. Jared Kushner living down in Florida now, a lot of the Trump family obviously has relocated to Florida. Everyone wants — I think a lot of you out there, I should say — would love the idea of a Donald Trump on president and Ron DeSantis vice president ticket. I think it is indisputably the strongest possible ticket that the Republican Party could put forward in 2024. That’s presuming Trump is running, right? Because otherwise I think DeSantis as a president with a vice presidential choice of his own could make a lot of sense.

The challenge here — and I give credit to a caller — only a couple things callers have said in my radio career. Every now and then it happens where you register such a good point. I’d say the greatest call I ever had — it’s a good tip for you guys. I used to local sports talk radio back in Nashville. Old, old Southern caller called in ’cause I was talking about how I had really bad allergies, and he said, forget all the Zyrtecs, forget all the Claritin, all the different prescription allergy medicine and everything else. Even forget going out and getting all those shots.

Said here’s what you do, “Sonny boy”, I think he said Sonny boy, which is a common phrase for old Southern men. My grandfather used to love that phrase. He said, “just go get local honey in your town, in your region and take a full tablespoon of it every morning, and it will handle your allergies to a large extent”. I’ve been doing that now for about 15 years, and it has virtually cured all of my allergies. I mean, it is — it is remarkable how well that works.

Now, I’m not a scientist, unlike Dr. Fauci. But I would say that his argument, which is again, old school wisdom, is that it’s the pollen, right, the local pollen that the bees are all grabbing from your area is going to help your immune system to be more experienced with it if you’re taking that tablespoon of — has to be local honey — tablespoon of local honey every day. Go down to your farmers market, whatever. It’s remarkable how well it worked for me. Way better than any of the over-the-counter medications. And where I live, Nashville, we have awful allergies. Nashville’s kind of down in a little bit of a bowl, and so everything just kind of settles on it. Anyway, best advice.

We had another caller early in Clay and Buck. I hadn’t really spent much time thinking about it. He called in and said, because of both men being from the same state, they can’t theoretically be on the same presidential ticket. That’s correct. You don’t hear it discussed very much. But since DeSantis is presumably going to be governor and since Trump has relocated and made his primary residence Mar-a-Lago, one of the two of those men would have to have a different base, a different state of primary residency in order for them to share a presidential ticket.

I haven’t heard anybody talk about this publicly. I haven’t seen it written anywhere. I’m a little bit concerned that where Trump would make his base, they may try to, if he moved outside of Florida now to run in 2024, that we would end up with a huge legal case. ‘Cause you can see if he went to another blue state, if he went back to New York to live in Trump Tower or if he went to Bedminster out in New Jersey, you could see how some prosecutor could try to make their bones by saying, you’re not a real resident of this state. How many days have you actually spent here?

So, I’m a little bit curious about this and a little bit concerned about it. But what I would love to see is these two guys come together, sit in a room together — ’cause again, I think DeSantis has been one of the best defenders of Trump out there as it pertains to the Mar-a-Lago raid. And I think it makes it less likely that Trump is going to have a lot of competition ’cause I think it’s coalesced a lot of the support for Trump. Many of you out there listening to me right now may have been ambivalent on the idea of Trump ’24, and as soon as the FBI agents laid siege to Mar-a-Lago and stormed the home there, a lot of you said, no, I’m a hundred percent in the Trump camp. In other words, the political ramifications of this have been far more beneficial to Donald Trump than they have been to Joe Biden and to the Democrat Party in general.

And so, I’d like for these guys to sit down face-to-face, solve their issue, and then I’d like for them — here’s what I would love. When Trump announces, which I hope will be soon after the midterms, I would love for Trump to go ahead and announce DeSantis as his vice-presidential running mate and let them hit ground running in January-February of 2023 because I think DeSantis can make the case for Trump better than Trump can even make the case for Trump.

And then the one thing I will say that I’m nervous about with Trump is just that he’s got four years. Can’t run again. I want that VP to be a bridge where we all know that potentially we’ve got a 12-year ticket, right? So, if Trump is running in ’24 and he’s saying, “DeSantis is my guy, and he’s gonna take you for the next eight years,” that 12-year ticket that I’m voting for in in 2024, that is a really good sales pitch.

And I think DeSantis — Trump has got a bull in a china shop quality to him. You guys know what I’m talking about. Every now and then he’s knocking things over that don’t need to get knocked over. DeSantis is a targeted assassin, right? He’s got the ability to find the weakness like a great lawyer would, distill an argument down, and make it in a really succinct manner. And I think the duo of these two could be incredibly popular.

But Trump needs to find a new residence. And he needs to find a new residence if this idea of mine is going to take root, where he doesn’t have to worry about some blue state loon trying to argue, oh, these guys can’t be a ticket ’cause Trump’s not technically a resident of New Jersey or New York or whatever. So, he needs to — Trump’s got plenty of money — find a place that could be his residency in 2023, make sure that you spend six months and a day there, that you qualify there in ’23 so that you’re set for ’24. This needs to be well planned out. I think it could make a ton of sense. I think it would be the single most ideal ticket for Republicans as we roll ahead into 2024. It’s not a four-year ticket. It’s a potential 12-year ride towards American excellence.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

CLAY: Laying out my theory there of the best possible ticket and a ticket that could make the case all through 2023 and all into 2024, because Trump is going to announce at a traditionally early date, right? We know January, February, Trump’s gonna run, unless something health-wise happens to him and certainly hope that that’s not the case.

But I would be stunned based on Buck and mine’s relationship — we’ve had Trump on the show a lot. We’re gonna have Jared Kushner on the show in about four minutes. I’ll ask him. But I would be stunned if Trump is not going to run. So, he’s gonna run. He’s gonna announce early in 2023. And you’re gonna be making the case against Biden for basically, then, a year and a half. And I will see whether Biden actually announces and whether Biden’s able to run. But Trump is gonna be in the race, I believe, before Biden is.

And to me, instead of having this prolonged process of who is the VP going to be, how much stronger would it be — DeSantis gonna win by seven or eight points, I think, in Florida — how much stronger would it be if Trump went head and announced with DeSantis at the beginning of 2023? And then you had DeSantis making the case for Trump as what I believe would be the best possible advocate and not just for Trump, but for himself and for that duo over the next 12 years.

To me, that is — right now a lot of you sitting around right now, other than some of you in Florida who I know are like, well, I don’t want Ron DeSantis to leave. We need him as governor. I understand. But it’s like having a really great college athlete who’s ready for the pros. You need your guy; the nation needs DeSantis. I understand. I have property in Florida. I love it down there. But the nation needs DeSantis’ leadership.

So, you gotta let him leave the college ranks and go into the pros. And if Trump could announce with DeSantis by his side — I’m gonna keep beating this drum ’cause I want it to happen — then you would have an incredible duo that is set to dominate not just in 2024, but DeSantis would easily take the reins in ’28 and I think again in ’32 and help to restore some normalcy in this country. So, I’m gonna make that argument. I might even bring it up with Jared Kushner and see what he thinks. He’s a Florida resident. We’ll see what his take on my idea there is.