Interview: President Trump, The Economy, The OBBB & Florida Policy w/Rep. Byron Donalds

President Trump, The Economy, The OBBB & Florida Policy w/Rep. Byron Donalds

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
The Brian Mudshow podcast is driven by Brayman Motor Cars.
My family is a Brayman Motor Cars family. Your family
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the story, there's only one side to the facts. Welcome
to the Brian Mud Show and thank you for listening.

Speaker 2 (00:22):
Happy Friday, welcome back to the show. Joining us, we
have congressmen and good editorial candidate Byron Donalds, who was
having a good time with Fox and Friends in our
area yesterday at Podstroke.

Speaker 3 (00:35):
Good morning, Congressman, Hey, good morning Brian.

Speaker 4 (00:37):
How you doing.

Speaker 2 (00:38):
Yeah, doing really well. And so we got a lot
of things going on, and obviously you as congressman, and
also with your good editorial campaign as well, and I
was just kind of taking a look at a lot
of what changed over the month of May.

Speaker 3 (00:51):
For example, you.

Speaker 2 (00:52):
Go back a month ago, you had media scaring people
over tariffs. The stock market had been down. You take
a look at where we stand today. Back market has recovered,
it's higher on the year. We have inflation that is
actually lower most recently, the lowest it's been since Trump
was a month out of office the last time around.
When you take a look at income growth net of inflation.

(01:13):
It's the best it's been since twenty nineteen. And a
lot of Trump's plan is coming together. Tell us a
little bit about you know, your your view of things
and also your role and Congress as we take a
look towards the big beautiful bill.

Speaker 4 (01:28):
Well, look, it's been about one hundred and twenty five
days now, and what has been proven is you needed
a new president to fix this country. Donald Trump is
delivering on everything he campaigned on, everything that I knew
he was going to do, He's getting that done. The
border is secure, the world is actually becoming more safer
than it was under Joe Biden. You're right, inflation is down.

(01:51):
GDP growth is actually slightly up. Federal spending is down,
something that you know, we've been wanting to see for
a very long time. And even if you've go to trade,
the President understands that, yeah, you can play the same
old DC games, but the American people are who continue
to fall behind. And what he's looking at is making
sure that our economy is prepared for the future growth

(02:13):
of America, not just the quarterly eph reports by Wall Street.
And so yes, there are a lot of seniors who
who have accounts, they rely on them. I was a
financial advisor before I got to Congress. I know exactly
how this works. But what the President has been doing
is making sure that America is prepared for the long
haul for the future. And that's something that every American

(02:34):
can get behind. And even if you look at the markets,
they have rebounded because the markets understand that what Donald
Trump was doing is laying the proper foundation. We didn't
even get to energy. We didn't even get to the
fact that the President's going to continue to build the wall,
Deportations are starting up. These are all the things the
American people have wanted for a very long time. We
saw our country falling apart under Joe Biden or should

(02:55):
I say the Auto Pen, and now we have a
real leader in the White House and business is getting done.

Speaker 2 (03:00):
Yeah, that might be one of the best questions is
who was the auto pen. I'm I'm like fifty to
fifty between Susan Rice and maybe Jill some days.

Speaker 3 (03:08):
But nevertheless, now.

Speaker 2 (03:10):
You bring up such a good point about people paying
attention to we know, like on the direction of the
country question, it's really hard to get a lot of
Americans thinking that we're moving in the right direction.

Speaker 3 (03:20):
You have to go back. I was taking a look
at this yesterday.

Speaker 2 (03:22):
I have to go back sixteen years to find the
last time as many Americans in an average in the
real clear politics polling average thought that the country is
heading in the right direction. And Trump's performance in particular
continues to be better than he even was during his
first term in office. So even just on some of
the opinion pulling, people definitely are paying attention, and we

(03:45):
continue to see that reflected in voter registrations as well,
like for example, the record Republican gains we continue to
see in our state.

Speaker 4 (03:53):
Absolutely, and listen, I will tell you this is President
Trump has been the leader on all of this. You
have to give full credits to Governor to say this
in our state for his leadership in our state as well,
and really just where Republicans have been going Florida. You
mentioned what our gains here with voter registration. That's because
Florida has been committed to conservative leadership for decades now.

(04:15):
That's where our state has been going. We've been the trendsetter.
And so you know what's happened obviously under the governorship
of Rondos Santis under the presidentship of the president leaders
president's leadership of Donald Trump is the fact that Florida
has really stepped all the way into the same type
of America First principles based upon conservative uh of values

(04:37):
and really low regulations, leaving people alone, letting people innovate,
holding criminals accountable, having some basic sense of decency and respect,
and how law is not just interpreted but also enforced.
Those are really the foundational pieces for what's made Florida
the envy of the other forty Nited states. And if
the if the federal government continues to try to go

(05:00):
down the trajectory of Donald Trump in the America First movement,
we can have that across the entire country as well.

Speaker 3 (05:07):
And I do have some four specific questions for you.

Speaker 2 (05:10):
I want to want to ask you a little bit
about the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. We're speaking with
congressmen and combitatorial candidate Byron Donald's. Obviously, there's a lot
of compromise that went into what passed the House. I'm
sure that nobody got exactly what they wanted to out
of this. The Senate looking at making its own changes.
What would you like to see a different in this bill.

(05:31):
What would you like to see the Senate potentially do
before they send it back to you.

Speaker 4 (05:35):
Well, I mean, look, the bill does so many great things. Obviously,
we're not going to have a massive tax increase, which
is what the country does not need. Small business owners
don't need that. We're going to build border wall, We're
going to make sure Tom Holman has the necessary beds
and resources with deportations, so many of the things. But
if you're going to talk about what I think was
left off the table, I think there was some real
reforms we could have done and medicaid to say, you know,

(05:58):
tens of billions and hundreds of billions of dollars a year.
And I think that that's the one place where we
had some of our colleagues on the Hill who just
you know, weren't comfortable getting into that space. And and
I think that there's some reforms we can do in
the in these in these welfare programs, these in these
these entitlement programs that will preserve those programs for current

(06:19):
beneficiaries today but actually set them up for fiscal success
in the future. Some of that stuff is slated around
cutting spending. I think the other thing is the IRA
I advocated for full repeal. A lot of my colleagues
had advocated for full repeal of it. We had a
held full of colleagues in the House who did not
want to go for full repeal. And that was a
that was a real sticking point I got to I

(06:41):
got to give real credit to my colleagues and the
Freedom Caucus. They pushed very, very hard to make sure
that we at least sunset a lot of the IRA
Green New Deal techs scam things earlier and was in
the original bill, So that actually got better. But you're right,
nobody got everything that they wanted, but it was a
great first step. I will say this second time we
have to do this again, I will tell you that

(07:03):
what needs to happen is much more focused on mandatory spending,
cuts and reforms. The country is not going to be
able to survive if we continue to have a high
velocity of borrowings.

Speaker 3 (07:14):
That's right.

Speaker 2 (07:14):
And to your point, you know about Medicaid work requirements,
and also you know the programs really being safety nests
rather than you know, the these programs that people just
live on in perpetuity. When you got a third of
the country that is profiting off of the federal tax
system the way it currently since the numbers are just
never going to work, and so yeah, there there is
a need for that greater fiscal restraint and I'm glad

(07:36):
that you see that and are intending to work on it.

Speaker 3 (07:39):
So we take a look towards our state.

Speaker 2 (07:41):
Obviously, it's an interesting dynamic to say the least, with
the new leadership in the state legislature. Obviously Governor dcientis
through you know, the prior years of his administration largely
had the cooperation of the Florida Legislature. Things have been
a lot different, in particular with how Speaker Daniel Perez.
Here we are, you know, in entering June and there

(08:05):
is no budget in place, the one thing that Florida
Legislature is.

Speaker 3 (08:07):
Tasked with doing.

Speaker 2 (08:09):
What is your read on the situation to stand off
between the legislature and you know, specifically the House in
really Perez and and Dee Santas and what is it
that you think should be happening here?

Speaker 4 (08:21):
Well, I mean, look, I know both men and I
think that for I'm not going to comment on their
internal situation that they have going on. I think the
path forward is they just need to get in a
room and figure this out pretty quickly. And that's my
hope at the end of the day. Like I've been
involved state politics obviously now in Washington, you have a
lot of these fights. They happen more often than people
realize within a party. This one just is spilled out

(08:44):
into the public view. But at the end of the day,
they just need to get in a room, sit down,
talk this stuff through, figure out how they're going to
finance the state. I will tell you this, it would
be highly irresponsible if we had if we had a
shutdown in Florida. That makes no sense. But at the
it's really about you know, Governor, the Senate President, Perez
just get in the room hatching out some of the

(09:05):
major pieces of the budget. They can get that done
probably in a day or two, and then we'd be
rocking and rolling.

Speaker 2 (09:11):
There are more differences than just one particular issue, but
it seems that the biggest in particular. And look, it's
a good floord to problem to have. I suppose the
best way to go about cutting taxes and so you
have the governor and the Senate President that I believe
that reducing property taxes and then also moving forward with
a study of whether we should eliminate potentially property taxes,

(09:33):
put a constitutional amendment on next year's bout whether that
should happen. You have that idea from the Senate President
and from the governor. Then you have in the House
the idea that we should be cutting sales tax rates.
Where do you come down on this issue? What would
you prefer to see happen?

Speaker 4 (09:52):
The first thing is, I think you really have to
study how property tax changes are going to be done.
There are a lot of unintended consequences that people, frank
frankly aren't paying attention to on this. If you to
be blunt, if you eliminate property taxes in our state,
you probably have to double the sales tax at twelve percent.
And so I'm just going on raw numbers right now.

(10:12):
A lot of Studi's got to go into this. I
think the sales tax proposal out of the House is
something I don't support. I think the sales tax needs
to be left alone as is. I do agree with
Governor DeSantis that you know, we have so many tourists
coming to our state, why would we get them a
tax break? I don't agree with that. I think that
if you're going to do anything concrete on property taxes,
you focus on home set of property in Florida. So

(10:34):
Floridians who live here made a home here, they can
get some relief. But the biggest thing overall is local governments.
People need to understand that the millage rate they're paying
on their property taxes is because you have local governments
who have not rolled back their millage rates. They've allowed
they've basically taken advantage of the increased property values in
our state, which is a great thing, but they've increted

(10:56):
the tax holes have increased. These local governments are just
taking the money and spending it on all the projects
they need to do and also some new projects that
they want to do. And so I think local governments,
local school districts, they need to start rolling back these
milite rates so that Floridians aren't being priced out. That's
the stuff that's really happening here. If it means we
have to go to the ballot and bring in like

(11:18):
a higher home set exemption for Floridians, let's study that.
Let's look at that. Let's do that to getting rid
of property taxes across the board for all property in Florida.
I will tell you the sales tax will probably have
to double. There'll probably be a lot of other fees
that will go up in every county in our state.
So if we go, if we do that, we need
to make sure that Floridians know all of the consequences

(11:40):
in all of the different ways that fees or other
taxes will go up in our state as a result.

Speaker 2 (11:46):
Now, your analysis the thing is on point two. My
analysis on it. I think spending levels were kept the same,
it would be twelve point eight that we need on
the sales tax to compensate on average. Your point about
local governments just spending every dollar that they can get
their hands on is extremely well taken.

Speaker 3 (12:03):
I think that has been the issue in many companies.

Speaker 4 (12:07):
Ran I don't want to cut you off on this point.
The other piece to understand is local governments and state government.
They just got a boatload of money in COVID. Every
state was getting this money, so the militar rates were
going up. They were getting a ton of COVID money.
That COVID money is now done, that's over. They're not
getting that anymore. So these these county governments, the city governments,
and yes, the state government. Everybody's got to tighten their belts. Again,

(12:29):
that's just where we're going in our state. We got
to tighten our belt. We got to find the plate,
find that the areas where we can make the necessary cuts.
And I think that they're going to do that in
this budget, and we got to do that continuing in
the state going forward.

Speaker 2 (12:41):
But Congressman, of course, you know, the President's endorsement worth
its weight in gold. I mean maybe almost literally. How
do you feel about the campaign at this point? What's
your outlook?

Speaker 4 (12:52):
I feel great about the campaign. Obviously, having President Trump's
endorsement to be the next governor means so much, and
so we were really honored to have his supports. The
President knows my work ethic, he knows my career. When
I was in finance before I got into politics, we
were just talking about taxing issues. Obviously, insurance in our state,
we have to get work through that. Transportation issues in

(13:14):
our state, we got to work through that. So my
career was not just politics. I spent seventeen years in
the financial industry before I got into politics. President Trump
knows that he has a way of making good picks.
Brian I'm just telling you, he makes great picks, and
so I'm honored to have his support, and the campaign's
going great. You know, we're doing the stuff that campaigns
have to do, raising money, but we're also out in

(13:36):
the community in Florida just about every other day. If
I'm not in Washington, I'm somewhere in Florida. And so
I know tonight I'm gonna be and I'm gonna be
in Lakeland tonight, I'm in Seminole County. Tomorrow night, I'm
in Bay County the following night. And so Bay County
is up in the Panhandle for those who don't know
all the counties in Florida. And so I'm just gonna

(13:57):
be everywhere in the state, earning the votes of floras.
Honored to have President Trump's endorsement, I want the endorsement
of every Florida. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (14:04):
Who won that popstroke competition?

Speaker 4 (14:06):
By the way, Oh me, I'm better than Deucy. You know,
he had a lot of practice strokes when the cameras
weren't rolling, I was watching them. Listen. It was fun.
The pop stroke is fun. I took my kids once.
There's a pop stroke facility in Fort Myers Florida. I
live in Naples, and so I took my kids once
and so I'm out there and it's early, and mind you,

(14:28):
I had just got off a red eye flight. I
had just flown in of the Bitcoin conference within a
Las Vegas. I was there, and I flew in uh
to do the Fox and Friends. Hit a pop stroke
and you know, I'm tired, and I'm looking at this
putt and I'm like, man, we're live. I better think
this butt. You know, no excuses, nobody cares. But we
sunk the putt.

Speaker 3 (14:47):
It was fun, it was a great time, good stuff.

Speaker 2 (14:50):
And yeah, you're a lot of my family over in
the Naples area. And I've always been jealous of their
congressman because I'm stuck with Lois Frankel. Well, Byron, appreciate
the time you will, all right, take it easy.

Speaker 4 (15:01):
Thank you,