Lt. Governor Jeanette Nuñez on Florida's Incredible Success
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Welcome to Breaking Battlegrounds. I'm your host, Chuck Warren. Sam Stone is not in the studio today, but we are honored to have with us Florida's first Hispanic governor, the 20th lieutenant governor, and this is Lieutenant Governor Jeanette Nunez. Welcome to the show. Thank you for having me. So what made you decide, being a

a successful person and a wonderful family to get into this crazy business of politics

I asked myself that question from time to time. I bet. What I'll tell you is I spent eight years in the Florida House. I had worked in state government in various capacities. I actually began my career right out of college working as a legislative aide, so I got to learn the legislative process from the inside, the good, the bad, and of course the ugly, and

I went to work for a hospital system, was their VP of government affairs. And then I decided, as you said, to get into the crazy business of politics. There was an open seat. It was just one of those things. It was kind of a moment that I decided, you know, if...

if all of these folks that have run before me and have something to offer, that they could do it, I certainly felt like I had a lot of experience, a lot of insights, and a lot of passion to serve my community. And I think that's really what sets apart public servants. And I think you absolutely have to have passion for what you do. It is, I know no one will shed any tears for me, but it is a thankless job on occasion. You get a lot of criticism, especially on Twitter.

But nonetheless, if you do what you what you love and I know it's a cliche to say you'll never work a day in your life. But but I really do feel that I've been blessed to serve in this capacity as lieutenant governor in the free state of Florida. And I thoroughly enjoy what what I get to do each and every day. And I look forward to the next four years.

Well, you were spot on when you say it's a thankless job. And fortunately, you're probably wise enough to realize that Twitter is not real world. It's 2% or 3% of the population who wake up every morning grumpy.

Let me ask you this question. So your father recently passed away and he was a Cuban exile from the 1959 revolution. What did he teach you and your siblings about what America meant to him, what freedom means, and how has that inspired you in your public service and what you teach your children?

Yeah, absolutely. What I would tell you is that my father came to this country in 1961. He came first. My mother followed him a few months later, and they were always so grateful to this country. And so my sisters and I, we were always taught to love this country, to appreciate this country. We were able to live out the American dream. My parents

owned their own home. They worked up until the time, basically until the time my dad passed away. He worked until the ripe age of 84. My mom, who's 86 now, she continues to work part-time. But they always instilled in my sisters and me a love of this country, patriotism. Because, you know what, what I think ties us together as Americans is more than just

You know, the fact that you're blessed to be born here, no matter if you're a first generation American like I am or seventh generation. I think the one thing that really unites us and binds us is a tremendous appreciation and gratitude for the United States of America. What what I have been able to accomplish on the shoulders of my parents, I would not have been able to do had they stayed in Cuba.

what we've seen in so many stories across the globe, socialism, communism, Marxism. The problem with all of that, the problem with Marxism is Marxism. It just doesn't work. And I think that it gets romanticized. And unfortunately, we thought we had reared its ugly head in the 80s under Ronald Reagan and the

Berlin Wall came tumbling down. But yet you see it again. You see it being fomented throughout college campuses. And it's important for people like me that have a personal story from the perspective of my parents and what they saw and what they endured and so many others.

share that with our own children because our children are entitled they don't understand how fragile freedom is and how quickly you can lose it so that's sort of my mantra I always tell

tell my children this. Sometimes they roll their eyes and they tell me I sound like a broken record. But I think it's important and it needs to bear repeating because the story of so many people that have come to this country that, like I said, have been able to live out the American dream, it's not possible elsewhere. It just isn't. Why don't people recognize, especially this younger generation, those between 18 and 30, just, you know, they don't seem to understand the

the beauty of this country. And when you say that, it doesn't mean we're perfect. You know, the whole declaration is to form a more perfect union. So, you know, we are on an upward trajectory, I feel. But what do you think needs to happen? What can government officials like you do, can do to help people understand the beauty and the greatness of our country?

You're right. And perfect is sometimes the enemy of good, right? And our children have lived their lives in relative peace and prosperity. I call them the instant gratification generation. They get food delivered at their fingertips. They get information in real time. They can watch their TV shows on demand. And so they've never had to struggle and they've never had to...

You know, to work at something in a way that you have to put forth your effort, your all. And I think that what has happened is that since we have lived in relative peace and prosperity, we have neglected what it truly means to sacrifice, to work hard, that work ethic that

My parents' generation had, you know, the greatest generation. We talk about them. But what elected officials like me and Governor DeSantis are doing, and I think that we've done it rather successfully, is make sure that we align education with those stories, which is why we focus on increasing civics.

You cannot be a good citizen if you don't understand and you don't study our foundational documents and our founding fathers. You need to understand what the difference is, why we are a republic. You need to understand the difference between direct democracy and a republic. You cannot participate fully in a democracy like ours here in the United States, in a republic like

that we are if you don't understand history. And so we have focused on ensuring that our students will learn civics, that we will make sure that they understand. We passed this year legislation that is the Victims of Communism Bill. So every year in November, we will spend time in our schools teaching our children how over 100 million people throughout history have been victims of communism, have

lost their lives under the cruelest regimes that have ever existed. And so, you know, we don't glorify it here. We don't romanticize it. We speak truth. And I think that oftentimes elected officials are scared to upset or

offend someone, but that's just not the case here in Florida. We speak the truth. We call a spade a spade, and we certainly aren't going to let our schools indoctrinate our children into thinking that communism is something that we should aspire to. So I think that those are some of the real practical things that we've been doing here in Florida.

And again, we have a very unique perspective, given the fact that so many Floridians that call Florida home, that have been living here some for a short period of time, but others for decades, they know what the horrors of socialism and communism are. They understand it all too well. Some of them have been political prisoners. Some of them have lost their families. All of them lost their homes.

at the expense of government charging in and taking and confiscating what they had worked so hard to acquire. So I think it really is important to focus on freedom. That's why here in the state of Florida, we were really the first state to push back on the federal government overreach in so many areas, specifically during COVID, but beyond that. And so we're going to make sure our kids understand and they learn. And I think that that's something that

that all elected officials should want their children in their states to do. Absolutely. Especially when you have 38% of Americans have a favorable opinion in socialism.

It's what you're doing is needed. What what do you think the press has absolutely exaggerated? Some of what are some policies Governor DeSantis and you have promoted and got passed that you think the press is completely just not been truthful about?

Well, I don't know that we have enough time in this segment or the next to go over. Well, pick your top two. Pick your top two. Pick your top two. Well, you know, I think, you know, and I don't want to harp on COVID because we're trying to move past, right? We're trying to move forward and focus on the things that we're trying to do for folks.

for Florida, but what I'll say is they were just part and parcel for the DNC. They were part and parcel for Dr. Fauci. The governor had done a great job of managing COVID, and every single time they had an opportunity to paint a very drastic, dreary, bleak picture for Florida, they would do so, even though the data showed differently. One of the things that we kept saying is that

from the perspective of our economic recovery, we are doing far better than other states. And so they would always try to paint this picture that, you know, the deaths are spiraling or that the governor is hiding deaths or that he's undercounting. And so every time we had a good story to tell and there was, as we all know now, COVID would ebb and flow, every time the numbers would peak, it was all our fault. Every time they would dip, we had nothing to do with it.

Then, you know, specifically on the monoclonals, you know, the governor was the first one to push monoclonal antibodies. And so the federal government, of course, with their friends in the media, they spun up a bunch of malarkey. And then they basically came back and they confiscated the supply of monoclonal because we were doing it so effectively. You know, and then they just, the worst example, and I left the best for last,

is the media's frenzy over the parental rights and education bill. They quickly, along with their friends in the radical left, touted it as the don't say gay bill, to which we replied that,

It is nowhere in the bill. If you want to read the bill, go right ahead. It's just a couple of pages. I'm sure you could read it in short order. And most logical people that don't have a blatant agenda agreed that the bill was common sense legislation. It basically keeps our youngest children from kindergarten to third grade from being exposed to very negative,

sensitive topics, transgender, gender identity, sexual orientation in the youngest grades. And so I don't understand why the media refuses to just report. They editorialize everything. They spin up their narrative. They create this firestorm of just very radical leftist ideas that the average person is not in alignment with. That's why the media's trust in the media is at an all time low. That's why people continue to flock to

to the Republican Party because they're seeing that we're the party of common sense. We're the party of making sure that we're protecting children, protecting parents. Ultimately, we're the party, and I like to say this often, of faith, family, and freedom.

- That's a good line. We're gonna go take a quick break here. We're with Lieutenant Governor Nunez. She's the 20th Lieutenant Governor of Florida. You can find her on Instagram @LTGOVNunez, N-U-N-E-Z, or Twitter, same handle. We'll be right back with Judente Nunez, Lieutenant Governor from Florida.

Welcome back to breaking battlegrounds. I am your host Chuck Warren. Today we are honored with us to have Florida's 20th Lieutenant Governor Lieutenant Governor Nunez, who serves with the governor Ron DeSantis.

Lieutenant Governor, something amazing has happened. You know, four years ago, six years ago, the hand-wringing was Hispanics were going Democrat. There would be this permanent majority forever. Democrats were so excited that they could go and have this super majority and push through all these progressive movements.

frankly, anti-freedom type of legislation. And boy, that has switched, hasn't it? We are seeing Hispanics register as Republicans. We're seeing them vote Republican. And what was once a humongous gap between their votes for Democrats and Republicans is really almost even now. What do you attribute that to?

Well, I think when we see that trend, not only here in Florida, but nationwide, you have to ask yourself a couple of questions. Number one, why have the Democrats lost such ground with Hispanics? And it's because they really and truly don't value them as an electorate. They pay lip service, but they do nothing to advance policies.

that will benefit Hispanics and, quite frankly, all Americans. But here in Florida, what we've focused on, and we left off the last segment with talking about faith, family, and freedom, and I really think those are three key highlights of the Hispanic population, the voters, and what they care about. So, of course, they care about faith, they care about religious freedom, then politics,

Family is number one. And what do we do to promote family in the state of Florida? Well, we make sure that parents are in charge of their children's education. We make sure that we have transparency in curriculum. We make sure that they can choose where they would like to send their child. So in particular for Hispanics,

They really enjoy school choice. They flock to school choice, everything from homeschooling to charter schools, vouchers. And that's something that Hispanics and also African-American families are really in favor of. And you saw that in Virginia and the governor's and lieutenant governor's race there as well. Choice was a big issue.

And parental rights was a big issue. And then, of course, freedom. You know, many, as I mentioned before, many Hispanics come from countries in which they lost their freedom, whether it's Venezuela or Cuba or Nicaragua. And now, sadly, Colombia may be going in that direction. What you see are Hispanics that come to this country. They want to work hard. They want to raise their families. They don't want government in their lives. And so they they value the facts.

that we are the party of freedom. During COVID, again, what we did is we made sure that we allowed people to make decisions that worked for them, for their families, for their businesses. And so we were not about to design a program in which we determined which business was essential and which one was not, which one could stay open and which one had to stay closed. The governor and I very quickly said, all businesses are essential, especially if you work at that business and you rely on that

salary, that income to feed your family. And if you're a business owner, you have invested sweat equity, you've invested perhaps all your money, your retirement, your future. And so we were very, very focused on making sure businesses could stay open, could thrive, could feed their families, could pay their employees. So again, Hispanics tend to open small businesses here in Florida in particular, you see quite a bit, South Florida and the I-4 corridor in Tampa and Orlando. And

And you also see folks caring about freedom in general. And so when you see what's happening in the federal government with these onerous draconian policies, overreach, mandates, people losing their jobs because they just chose not to get a vaccine. I mean, that's just.

Insane. And that is, again, reminiscent of many of the countries that they hailed from. So those things, I think, are very important. And then secondly, you know, in terms of the numbers that we're seeing, you know, I think you could probably look at what happened in in that special election in Texas with the election of Congresswoman Myra Flores. I mean, she was very, very clear.

Her policies, her platform is in line with so many Hispanic supporters. They were told they thought they were sold a bill of goods. They thought that, you know, the Democrats are the party that cared about you and that was going to help you make sure that you could prosper. And they realized very quickly that it had been just complete and utter lies. And so they are flocking.

to the Republican Party. They understand that we want to make sure that we continue to be a country, and in this case here in Florida, a state of law and order. They were not pleased with that whole defund the police movement, the very radical, you know, the BLM, all those things that have Marxist roots.

I think Hispanics very quickly surmised that that just is not in line with them, which is why you see a lot of backpedaling of late of these states that are run by Democrats. Well, polling polling has helped them sort of reverse course to a degree. What would surprise people about Governor DeSantis? I mean, the national media focuses on him a lot. You know him.

What would surprise people? What do you wish the voters of Florida would know about Governor DeSantis?

Well, I think most voters understand that Governor DeSantis is a man of tremendous principle, conviction and of courage. And I think when when voters start to look at what we've accomplished and when they look at the entirety of his agenda, you know, the media, again, likes to spin up and talk about all the negative things and they like to talk about the controversial things. But they hardly ever give any evidence.

any recognition to the work he's done on the environment, the work he's done on education, on making sure our infrastructure in the state of Florida is top notch. But in addition, I think, you know, he's a young dad. He has three young kids and it's a hard job to run the third largest state in the country and dedicate the time to your young children and your wives. And obviously we saw when the first lady was diagnosed with breast cancer, I mean, he really

took on a tremendous responsibility helping her with her treatment, you know, helping manage the kids. You know, mine are a little older and I remember the days when they were young and it's never easy, especially when you have the burden of being governor on top of that. But he's a great dad. He's a great man. And again, I think courage and conviction is something that he is definitely known for and that will absolutely be his legacy.

Well, you mentioned something too in that talking about Governor DeSantis. Your administration has really done some great things in the environment, which does not get any real coverage. Can you explain about some of the things that you have done for the environment, for the Everglades and

and things of that nature within a minute or so here? - Yeah, I'll do my best. He muscled his way with the legislature and got over $3 billion, that's billion with a B, to invest in our Everglades. We understand the dire nature of where the Everglades are at. Water quality, obviously something with red tide, blue-green algae.

those things he hired a chief science officer a chief resiliency officer he made sure that his budget had a significant amount of resources for our spring allowing local governments for grant opportunities to provide coastal resiliency making sure that seawalls are being built and he's never going to stand for delays you know the c44 reservoir all those things you know the

The treatment for water quality, invasive python, we're trying to get rid of those here. They create a huge problem for our food chain and further threaten endangered species. So all of that in a nutshell. I know it was quick. I wish I could go into it a little bit more, but he's done quite a lot in the industry.

And they hardly ever talk about that. He has been, when all is said and done, I think the most environmentally conscious governor in really in quite some time. Absolutely. I mean, all you have to do is really just pay attention to what he's done. And it's not just because it's a press off. I think you both care tremendously about it because you love your state.

So, Lieutenant Governor Nunes, thank you so much for joining us today. It's been a pleasure. Folks, she is the 20th Lieutenant Governor of Florida. She's the first Hispanic Lieutenant Governor, and you can find her on Instagram and Twitter. Lieutenant Governor Nunes, thank you so much for joining us, and we'll hope you join us again soon before the election. Thank you. Look forward to it. Have a great day and weekend. This is Breaking Battlegrounds. We'll be right back, folks.

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Welcome back to Breaking Battlegrounds. I'm your host, Chuck Warren. Today, we are honored to have back with us David Drucker, Senior Political Correspondent for the Washington Examiner. David, thank you for joining us. Yeah, great to be here. Thank you. So, as every, you know, sometimes you bring great writers like you on and you're trying to think maybe we can have a real deep conversation about something and then all of a sudden, you know, you're like,

Trump world hits us. What are we to take from the FBI raid this week? What's going on today that's due at 3 p.m.? What do we know? What do you wish we knew? What do you think happens? Well, I think it's really hard to game these things out. And what I've been saying all week is

is that in order to make a smart political assessment or something that is at least an informed political assessment, we need to learn a lot more about what happened and why it happened. Now, the Attorney General of the United States issued a statement confirming that he signed off on the search warrant. We have some idea of the documents that were at least –

If they weren't seized, that's what they were looking for. But we really don't have a full accounting for why this happened and why it happened now. And I think until we learn more, it's hard to...

project out long term and understand what this is going to mean. I mean, you know, in the short term, I think we've seen both sides sort of huddle in their corners and point fingers and feel like they're there in the right. You know, if you're a Trump critic, you think this was deserved. If you're a Republican and especially a Trump supporter, you think it was not.

But it's hard to know what this really means this soon. I'm supposed to be able to say this is exactly what it means, but this is just too dynamic of a situation for me to do that until we learn more. Exactly. So let's talk about Donald Trump for a moment. He has really been responsible for many of the Republican Senate nominees.

If the Republicans do not take a majority, these midterm elections in the Senate, will he be seen as culpable for that? Well, I think depending on who wins and who he could be and would be culpable.

But I don't know that Republican voters would hold him responsible. There's a lot of good that he's done for the Republican Party, and there's some bad. But I've noticed that when he does bad, let's say, for the party, usually Republican voters don't hold it against him. But again, let's see what happens, number one. And look, if Republicans don't win a Senate majority –

Is it because the Trump-endorsed candidates lost, or is it because other candidates lost, or is it because all of them lost? I don't think Republicans are going to be in a situation like that, although the majority is going to be a tough battle. But I mean, I don't think they're going to be in that position where everybody loses. So they'll win some, but if they lose some, then let's see who it is, and then that would give us a better idea of

Whether Trump is responsible. I think what might be interesting is I think I wonder if if Republican officials going forward might be more aggressive in pushing back on his candidate picks, at least if they're able to.

Sometimes, particularly in these House races, and I know we were just discussing the Senate battleground, but particularly in these House races, Trump can give an endorsement and there's nothing anybody can really do about it. Whereas in the Senate, it is, and in these governor's races, it's...

to expand out. It really is a little bit more of a fight between what Trump wants sometimes and what the rest of the party wants. What is a Senate race you think everybody should be watching, one that you'll be paying particular attention to come November?

Well, I'm paying really close attention, let's say to three right now. I'm paying close attention to Georgia, Arizona, and Pennsylvania. I think because you have three races with Trump-picked candidates in three major battlegrounds. Whenever there's a midterm election with the out party having the wind at its back,

It's the swing states that usually swing their way. So let's see if that happens in this case. The Republicans theoretically may have some good candidates in these races, but they still have a lot to prove. The Democrats are on their heels. However, they've got some good candidates in at least a couple of those races. Mark Kelly and

And Raphael Warnock, Arizona and Georgia respectively are very good incumbents, and it sort of remains to be seen what we see out of John Fetterman in Pennsylvania because he's still off the trail for the most part recovering from a stroke. Exactly. We're with David Drecker. He is a senior political correspondent for Washington Examiner. You should –

make time and read what he writes weekly. You can also find him on Twitter on David M. Drucker, D-R-U-C-K-E-R. Or you can also follow him on LinkedIn, which is the Growing Up social media site. This is Chuck Warren, Breaking Battlegrounds. We'll be right back. Welcome back to Breaking Battlegrounds. I'm your host, Chuck Warren. Sam Stone is out of the studio today. On the line with us is David Drucker. He is the senior political correspondent for the Washington Examiner. Take the time and read his columns weekly. They're wonderful. They're insightful.

David, you had a you had a column released last night. Ted Cruz appeals to grassroots conservatives and GOP insiders as he readies for 2024. Tell us more about the article. And if Donald Trump does not run again for president, do you see Ted Cruz definitely doing that? Or do you think he's more inclined to run for reelection in the Senate?

No, without Trump running for president, Ted Cruz will run for president for sure. But I thought what was interesting, what I discovered in talking to the Cruz team,

is that Cruz has decided he'll be on the ballot in 2024 one way or the other. And I, you know, I had wondered if there was a chance he might call it quits after two terms in the Senate. I've, I've, I've never been sure whether or not I see him as a Senate lifer speak. Um, I know that he covets another presidential bid. He wants to be president. He enjoyed running last time, except for losing. And he's been preparing to run again. Um,

So I think the news here is that he's running for something. It's either U.S. Senate for a third term or it's a second presidential bid. He's going to take a look at what Trump decides to do and then make his decision. It's not like I wouldn't rule him out as a candidate for president if Trump is in the picture. But I think it makes it less likely. And without Trump, I think you can you know, I think he's a shoo-in to mount a campaign.

How do you think he gets, let's say Trump runs again and he does not run for president, that he seeks reelection. How do you think he gets around the fact that he's been pushing for two term limits in the U.S. Senate? And he's been talking about it. I think he has legislation for it. How does he get around that?

Same way they all get around it, that they're not going to unilaterally disarm themselves and there's so much work to be done. And while they believe that term limits would benefit the country, being that there are no term limits, they're not going to remove themselves from the playing field and continue to push for the things that they think are important. They all do that. Ron Johnson, I think, had talked a long time about only running for...

two terms, but he ended up deciding to run for a third term. This happens all the time. So you've been interviewing candidates running for Congress, for Senate. Who has been one you've been particularly impressed with? Someone for us to keep our eye on. Well, good question.

And, you know, you think I'd have a ready answer for that. Well, no, I mean, it's a hard question, but you interview a lot of people and I'm sure sometimes you'd go and you say, you know, that woman, that man just has the it factor. Is there somebody like that, that you've seen that you say, like, I could see this being a player long-term? Um, I don't, you know, I like your question. Yeah.

I'm not trying to get out of it. But usually I tend to get this from Senate candidates, and I don't know yet if I'm seeing it. I'll give you two that jump out at me, but I don't know if they can win. Joe O'Day in Colorado, he's a Republican Senate nominee, and Tiffany Smiley in Washington State, Republican Senate nominee.

Both very strong candidates. They know what they know. They know what they don't know. They have a message. They understand that they're running in blue states and they're handling themselves accordingly. And I've been impressed with the operations they put together and also with how they carry themselves as first-time candidates.

I don't know that they can win. And, you know, that's something that we're going to have to see over time. Tiffany Smiley is somebody I hear a lot about just all over, that she just is a wonderful candidate.

Well, she's very impressive, and I've heard her speak at three or four different events as it happens. And I've heard her story. She tells the same story every time, which she should. That's the point, because every audience is new. Not every audience is a reporter like me. It's a great story, and she focuses on her strength as a potential leader. She's critical of her opponent, but she keeps it...

on policy disagreements and doesn't level personal attacks. And she's just got a crew about her. Joe O'Day is very similar. He has a charisma about him, focuses a lot on policy, understands he's running in Colorado, so he doesn't make too big

Think of the deal, the fact that he's a Republican, but everybody knows that he is. And I think there's a lot to learn from how these candidates carry themselves, where, you know, you look at it in some of these swing states.

And I think some Republicans and Democrats, for that matter, it just so happens Republicans are on offense this cycle, but we could have had a discussion in 2018 from the other direction, seem to be more focused on maximizing their base. And that is useful in a primary. I think it's really helpful once you move into a general election posture to start to spread out and focus on independents.

and swing voters. So, you know, I think we'll learn a lot over the next few months. It'll be interesting to see if there are some rising stars among Republicans in the House, because they should win, you know, at least a dozen or two dozen or maybe more House seats. And we'll see if any of these new House Republicans are future leaders.

Can Republicans claim a red wave if they take the House but they don't pick up more than 20 seats? Really good question. Look at me. Look at me just dumping you today. Well, you know, all of this is subjective. I think if Republicans win control of the House and Senate, they can claim a red wave. But, you know, I mean, I take my kids to the beach every summer. Not all waves are equal in size.

If they win, you know, 18, if they win 15, 18 House seats, well, you put it together with the 15 House seats they won last cycle, and, you know, you're looking at a two-cycle, 30-seat pickup. And if at the same time they win control of the Senate,

You know, it may not have been a 2010 style wave or a 2014 style Senate wave, but it was still a wave of some impact. Now, I think the bigger, the better question is, if Republicans don't deliver on the massive expectations that have been set, will there be pushback?

in terms of their leadership? Will people ask questions about what House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy did, what NRCC Chairman Tom Emmer did, and what NRSC Chairman Rick Scott did, what Mitch McConnell did, the Senate Republican leader? So I think that's a better question, because when the expectations are set in one place and you under-deliver,

then there are always recriminations. And, of course, getting back to Donald Trump, he'll be the first one to say that nobody listened to me and we would have won a million seats if everybody would have done what I said. These people are incompetent. And it doesn't even matter if half the people that didn't win were endorsed by him or more than half. He'll just lay it on everybody else. And that, of course, adds fuel to the fire with the grassroots who will believe that, once again, our party leaders let us down.

Correct. We're with David Drucker, senior correspondent for the Washington Examiner. Let's talk about this Inflation Reduction Act that just passed. First of all, I sort of laugh that

the national media, especially out of New York and Washington, are really trying to push that Biden has momentum when the reality is you have a majority in both chambers, buddy. You should be able to get your stuff done. I think it's a pretty funny thing to act like he has this great leadership doing this when he has the majorities. But I ask you this question. So we have an income tax code that has 8 million words, and we have now added 87,000 new hires for the IRS.

Is this an issue do you believe that Republicans can run on in crucial swing districts and states and get some hay out of it, make some hay out of it? Possibly. Possibly. I think Republicans are still better off focused on the inflation – focused on skyrocketing inflation.

A recession that we are in officially and a majority of voters believe that we're in and kitchen table issues like that, things related to the supply chain, all the things that concern voters day to day.

So it's possible that in some races it could be very useful to go after Democrats for approving a massive hiring spree at the IRS. I don't know any American that loves the IRS, right? No. We pay our taxes.

But we kind of resent it. It's the American way. We get taxation with representation, but we get taxation apart. But I still think on balance, if I'm a Republican, I'm running to fix inflation. I'm running to lower rising crime rates, make people safer. I'm running to fix problems with the supply chain. I'm running to try and return us to a state of economic growth and hiring.

Those are better messages. Republicans like that message. Independents and swing voters particularly like that message. And look, Democrats won't like Republicans, but even that's what Democrats want to hear. It's just a better, more efficient, productive political message, notwithstanding that in some races you might be able to make some hay out of it.

You're absolutely right. And my hope is Republicans like Tiffany Smiley can just stay consistent on a message. I think sometimes because they are politicians, they like to, you know, jig and zag and do those type of things. But people need to hear the same message. So, for example, we had a poll commission last week and more than six, six out of 10 Arizonan voters, for example, have monthly spending increases because of inflation of $200. That's real money.

And if you're somebody who's making 30, 40, 50, 60, 70 grand a year, that is a lot of money. And I feel like, you know, Republicans have to go and just hammer on this and say, look at your checkbook, look at your bank account. Is it, you know, has it gone higher? I mean, do you have more money? And I think they're just not pushing that hard enough. I think they're just sort of counting on it and they get distracted by other things. Are you seeing that?

I haven't seen that except this week. This week, obviously, a lot of Republicans, either because they felt this way or felt that their voters wanted to hear this from them, were focused a lot on the FBI executing a search warrant in Mar-a-Lago and whether or not the Justice Department was

unfairly targeting Trump. And I understand why they had to react to that in the issue statements. But, you know, the best thing they can do with the week coming to an end as we begin to learn more and more in the coming weeks is say when they have to, yep, I'm aware of that, I'm concerned, I'm looking at it, whatever. And just,

and just keep hammering inflation. I think they've done a pretty good job so far, just in terms of the consistency effort, which you mentioned, I think, correctly is important. I think they've been pretty consistent, and I think they've done a decent job in keeping themselves focused on that. But there are a lot of shinier objects that are going to be presented to them, and they're going to have to continue to do that. Let's see if they do.

Well, David, with our final two minutes, tell me this. What is a governor's race or two that you're really watching? I'm watching Pennsylvania and Arizona. I'm watching Georgia, but Brian Kemp is going to win. But I'm watching it because I'm curious how close it might be. I'm curious how many Kemp Warnock voters there might be.

Warnock, obviously the Democratic incumbent and the Republican governor running for re-election in Georgia. And so those are the ones that I'm probably focused on the most. Obviously in Pennsylvania, the

the prime pick up opportunity for Republicans and, um, in the governor's race. And with Doug Mastriano, uh, I don't know any Republican in Pennsylvania worth his salt that thinks Mastriano could win. Uh, whereas I know lots of Republicans who believe Carrie Lake is going to win. There's similar candidates, but not, not quite the same, but similar, uh,

But there's a lot of Republican confidence in Terry Lake. I don't see any Republican confidence in Matt Shriano. And then finally, I'd say the Michigan governor's race, because if Gretchen Whitmer wins re-election, she's an automatic 2024 contender.

Given Michigan is a key battleground in the Midwest, and she would be a female governor with some stature who just won a second term amid headwinds for the Democratic Party.

All right. David, we appreciate you, folks. You can get David Drucker at the Washington Examiner. You can also find him on LinkedIn and, of course, on Twitter under David M. Drucker, D-R-U-C-K-E-R. David, thank you for joining in Breaking Battlegrounds. We hope to have you on before November again. Thanks, my friend. Sounds great. Folks, have a great weekend. Thanks a lot.

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