Live from Music Row, Wednesday morning on The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy – broadcast on Nashville’s Talk Radio 98.3 and 1510 WLAC weekdays from 5:00 a.m. to 8:00 a.m. – host Leahy welcomed top gov tracker for One America News, Neil W. McCabe to the newsmaker line to comment on the recent speech made by Governor Ron DeSantis at the Reagan Library and what it means for his presidential candidacy.
Leahy: On the newspaper line right now top gov tracker, our very good friend, Neil W. McCabe. Neil, welcome to The Tennessee Star Report.
McCabe: Very good to be with you guys. Good morning.
Leahy: I understand you may have been traveling a little bit with top gov Ron DeSantis. Is it true that he went out to the Reagan Center and gave a speech?
McCabe: Yes, he did. He made a boss performance at the Reagan Library. And it’s not so much what he said, he basically said he’s had this sort of ongoing, how radio DJs would have this for the morning DJ and the afternoon DJ would have this feud.
That’s what he has going on with Governor Newsom of California. (Leahy laughs) So he put some logs on the fire there. What was really important was that he got the prompter guardian of the Reagan legacy, in which the Reagan people control the Reagan Foundation and then the archives run the library itself.
Just the fact that he got invited to the Reagan Library puts a presidential stamp on him, certainly with the Air Force One that’s right there in the museum of the Reagan Library. It was very much a presidential appearance forum.
Leahy: So the Reagan library is in Simi Valley, California. It’s in Southern California. Were you there in person or did you cover this on video?
McCabe: I covered it remotely. I put in a request to fly out there, but I think where our One American News mothership that is in San Diego, I think their attitude was pretty much, we’ll send somebody up from San Diego. We might send somebody local rather than drop a few grand on your little John.
Leahy: (Chuckles) Does DeSantis have an Air Force Florida One? Does he just fly commercial?
McCabe: The governor does have a jet. He’s used it to go outside the state like when he went to visit the border and things. And of course, he jets all over the state of Florida. And to be fair, it’s a big state, right? It’s not like Delaware. It’s a big state.
Leahy: Or you can walk around Delaware.
McCabe: Exactly. Yes, you can walk, you can drive through. It just costs you $25 a toll. I think that DeSantis probably maybe got a ride with a donor. Who knows.
Leahy: So his book is out. He hasn’t announced yet. I don’t think he can announce until I think there’s a little bit of legislation that has to be passed.
McCabe: There’s a law.
Leahy: Tell us about that.
McCabe: He has to resign if he runs for president.
Carmichael: And they’re changing that law. Yes.?
McCabe: They’re gonna try to and he won’t comment. Whatever they want to do, they want to do. Obviously, he wants that law to change pretty quickly. What’s absolutely delicious is that the Republican leaders of the legislature put incredible pressure on lawmakers not to file a pro-life bill this session, which opened yesterday and goes on for the next two months.
Any bill to be considered had to be filed before the session began. It begins with the governor’s state of the state address. And so minutes before the governor gave his address, which of course is the deadline, two guys filed a six-week ban on abortion or a heartbeat bill and no one saw it coming.
And it was completely stealthy. Now the governor is on record at a press conference saying that he would sign a six-week heartbeat bill. And I’m proud to say that I’m the knucklehead who asked the governor that question. And that’s the tape that’s running all over the place when people say, hey, it’s gonna pass.
And so the question now is, does the governor push for this thing or not? If the six-week bill doesn’t pass, the governor has a difficult time explaining how it doesn’t pass. If he said he’d sign it, if he said he’s a pro-life governor, everything else he wants he gets.
Because the whole reason why we want DeSantis and not someone else is that DeSantis wins and because DeSantis gets things done. And so if he couldn’t get this done, I think it’s a chink in the ammo.
Carmichael: What’s the current law on abortion in Florida?
McCabe: It’s 15 weeks now. And that’s pretty much the limit. That’s the big-time Republican donors will go to 15 weeks.
Leahy: We look at this and he is doing his book tour with The Courage to Be Free: Florida’s Blueprint for America’s Revival. We expect probably he’ll announce in June.
Carmichael: Neil, I’m assuming that they did drop a bill that allows DeSantis to be governor and run at the same time?
McCabe: Correct.
Carmichael: So that bill has been dropped.
McCabe: Correct.
Leahy: All the talk is, Trump-DeSantis, Trump coming up with nicknames for Meatball Ron or Ron Des Sanctimonious. Apparently, he’s got a focus group deciding what nickname he should use. There are some policy differences to think about. President Trump has made it clear that the Ukraine war is a debacle with $100 billion going there.
The Secretary of Treasury going to Ukraine, the attorney general going to Ukraine and the president going to Ukraine. None of ’em going to the East Palestine environmental debacle in Ohio. I do think though that President Trump is very clear that he wants the war in Ukraine ended. He said give me 24 hours; I’ll end it.
Is there a policy difference on Ukraine between DeSantis who actually served in the military as a JAG, but still he served in the military and Trump when it comes to Ukraine?
McCabe: Yes, he served as a JAG, and he was in Iraq during the surge. And Iraq, whether you were a lawyer or a clerk or kicking down doors, Iraq, especially during that time, was a very easy place to get killed if you weren’t paying attention.
Leahy: And by the way, let us say Sergeant Neil W. McCabe received a bronze star for his service to the United States of America in the Army in Iraq. I just wanted to point that out, Sergeant McCabe.
McCabe: I was there two years later, and even then, it was a very easy place to get killed if you weren’t paying attention. And frankly when people jack things up, and people don’t have their equipment straight, sometimes in the back of my head, I’m thinking are you trying to get me killed? Which is a reaction normal civilians don’t have.
Listen to today’s show highlights, including this interview:
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Tune in weekdays from 5:00 – 8:00 a.m. to The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy on Talk Radio 98.3 FM WLAC 1510. Listen online at iHeart Radio.
Photo “Ron DeSantis” by Ron DeSantis.
