This show proudly sponsored by Real American Freestyle Wrestling. But I want to go right to the newsmaker line because we have a very special guest right now, and that is South Carolina's Attorney General Alan Wilson, who was running for governor in the Palmetto State, and he just got a little bit of company. Mr. Attorney General, thank you for joining us. Hey, Griff.
It's great to be with you. Congratulations on filling in for Brian. You're doing a great job.
Well, thank you, Mr. Attorney General. Who knows if I break it, they'll just kick me to the curb. But fortunately, knock on wood. I haven't broken it yet.
And, you know, what an honor to be here. But I get to talk to people like you.
Now, let's jump in because you got company. You were, and correct me if I'm wrong, but you were leading the gubernatorial race down in South Carolina with a handful of other people running, prominent Republican politicians. But then, of course, Congresswoman Nancy Mace jumped into that race. And when she announced, she did an interview on Fox, and man, was she going quickly, hard and fast after you. Let me play just a little bit of some of what she had to say.
Let's get with cut two here, Nancy Mace on the story with Martha. You accused him of not taking action after you said that you alerted the investigators to a claim that you had been physically abused. His office said that there was never any request for assistance from his office. Can you clarify what happened there, Congresswoman Mace? Oh, that's absolutely a false statement from the Attorney General.
I actually received my victims' rights advocate 11 months later. through his office.
So one of the reasons that I'm running for Governor Martha is that I want everybody across South Carolina to know that I am fighting for them. I have been through the system and if I'm treated this way as a member of Congress, imagine how the average South Carolinian, the average American is treated in our justice system. But, mister Turngent, I want to give you a chance to to sound off and react to that as well and have your voice heard. Oh, thank you, Griffin. I appreciate that.
I remember when the Congresswoman went to the floor of Congress, I believe it was back in February, and basically berated me on the floor of Congress, saying I was not investigating a case. in which a number of women that she found to have been abused by her former fiancé uh were was not being reported or we weren't investigating. The reality is, my office never received the case. We're not an investigative agency. We're the state's chief prosecution agency.
I've spoken to Ms. Mace the month earlier in January and she never mentioned it to me. I've seen her half a dozen times the previous year. She never mentioned anything to me. What she just said in that clip is a categorical lie because our office doesn't investigate.
That case is being investigated by the State Law Enforcement Division. They have not given a report to me. In fact, that case would not even be prosecuted by my office.
So these are things I found it interesting that for 11 months, she never Called me to ask or inquire about her case. If she had called me, I would have told her I didn't know what she was talking about, and I would have directed her to the state law enforcement division. This is a case of someone seeing poll numbers that they don't like, and they're attacking the person who's an impediment to their political ambition. And she has really obviously made a splash jumping in and also lobbying a number of other accusations against you that are as general as just calling it weak leadership. Your response.
Well, I mean, she's accused me of all kinds of things. I mean, she's accused me of putting not putting people away in prison for but a single day. The reality is, is that my office has quadrupled the size of the Internet Crimes Against Children task force. We have expanded the human trafficking task force. We are supporting local law enforcement, moving backlogs.
And she is just throwing every single piece of mud she can in our general direction. But the truth of the matter is, Um I guess she's nervous about the polls. She sees me as an impediment to her political ambition, and she's going to do everything she can to lie about our record. But the reality is, prosecutors don't give sentences. And when she says that we give weak sentences, she doesn't understand that judges give weak sentences.
Coincidentally, the one judge she did vote for in the legislature was so bad at giving weak sentences that he was not re-elected.
So she has some mud on her suit as well.
Well, so since you bring that up, because I want to get, Mr. Attorney General, to really your vision for South Carolina. But very quickly, since you brought up this leniency whole case, let's get it all out there.
So Nancy Mace did also mention that in her interview with Martha. Here, cut three is what she had to say about that. You have the right to know how many convictions there are in this state. You have the right to know what the sentencing is. And need I remind you about convicted pedophile Donald Gresh.
Who was found with 1,900 images of toddlers as young as three? Being raped by animals. He was facing sixty years. And your Attorney General Alan Wilson. Negotiated Donald Brash's Sentence Satan.
in fifteen minutes. And you know how many days he served in jail? He served one Stay in jail. I apologize, that's from her announcement. But either way, that's what she said, Mr.
Attorney General. I want to get your reaction.
Well she's Either ignorant as to how the criminal justice system works or she understands how it works and she's purposefully lying to people. Again, my office working with local law enforcement around the state of South Carolina, we have 125 agencies working with our prosecutors. Um they caught this guy about eight, seven, eight years ago. We charged him with possession of child porn. We indicted him, and then after several years of waiting, we got him in front of a court.
The judge gave him credit for one day that he served in jail, which the judge was required to do by law. The judge sentenced him to seven years, suspended that sentence. The five years of probation and put him on the sex offender registry. We recommended active time to the judge. But when she says that Alan Wilson, that's me, gave someone one day in jail, I can't give people a sentence.
That is done by the court. And we, my staff, the men and women in my office out there spending time in court trying to put these horrible human beings away. Are asking for active sentences. If the judges don't give active sentences, that's not on the prosecutor. We did our job.
We worked with the men and women in law enforcement, we caught these folks. We charged them, indicted them, prosecuted them, hauled them in the court, and whatever sentences they were given belongs to the court. But when you say that I gave someone a sentence for one day, that is a categorical lie. From the Fox News Podcasts Network.com or wherever you listen to your favorite podcast. Hey, I'm Trey Gaddy, host of the Trey Gaddy Podcast.
I hope you will join me every Tuesday and Thursday as we navigate life together and hopefully find ourselves a little bit better on the other side. Listen and follow now at Fox NewsPodcast.com. Are you concerned, Attorney General Wilson, about the fact that the elbows have gotten sharp, the mudslinging has really come out of the gate? Is that bad for South Carolina politics? Because by all accounts, the next governor will be a Republican, and because it's a very red state and a very conservative state, are you concerned that this kind of mudslinging this early on is bad for the state?
Griff, I believe most people in South Carolina see the candidates that act like that for who they are, that they're provocateurs, they're just trying to get clicks, they're more interested in being reality T V stars than being public servants. I think I give the people of South Carolina far more credit. And, Griff, in my nearly 30 years of military service, I've served a combat tour in Iraq. I've led soldiers in combat. I've actually put my life on the line, made life and death decisions.
When I think about running a political campaign and people saying mean things about me, it pales in comparison to what I've experienced and what I have seen by soldiers serving our country overseas.
So no, it doesn't concern me in the sense that, yes, Politics is a contact sport. People are going to say mean and hateful things. They're going to lie about you because they don't have a lot to run on themselves. But that's par for the course. We're going to talk about what we're going to do for South Carolina.
We're going to give people something to look for, not something to be against. And I'm incredibly proud. That's why the polls are right now, the polls have me leading in a five-way race. And that's probably one of the reasons the individual whose clips you keep playing keeps attacking me. And I guess as long as I'm out front, she's going to keep attacking me.
So I guess I'm relevant. She spends a lot more time thinking about me than I do thinking about her, I'll tell you that. Let's talk about what Alan Wilson wants to do for South Carolina. What's the agenda? What are your issues?
And where do you see things going?
Well, Griff, first off, South Carolina sits nestled in the middle of the Southeast region of the United States. It's a region that's the fastest growing region in the country. People are moving there because of its climate and its economic potential. But when you look around the southeast, you look at states like Texas, Tennessee, Florida, who've all gone to zero income tax, and then you look at other five Eastern states like Mississippi, going as high up north as Indiana, West Virginia, Kentucky and as far west as Oklahoma have all passed laws to go to zero percent income tax. Georgia and North Carolina have cut their taxes as are Louisiana and Arkansas.
South Carolina needs to compete And we're going to the first thing I'm going to do as the governor of South Carolina is lead the effort to cut our income tax to zero. We're going to doge, to borrow that term from President Trump, we're going to doge Our state government. We're going to do everything we can to support the President and his agenda for not just for America, but for South Carolina and removing illegal aliens who are here committing crimes. We're going to put South Carolina first. And we're going to make it from good to great.
And these are things I'm really excited to do when I become governor. And you know, I've heard and read a little bit about the the race down there, and it seems that infrastructure and energy independence also may be on on the menu. No, absolutely. Energy and infrastructure are absolutely top of the list. And again, we have we're hemorrhaging a lot of money in a lot of our state agencies, and we're going to deter that fraud, waste and abuse and redirect that money to where it should go to education and to building our infrastructure and our energy grid.
And we're going to be rolling out plans in the coming weeks for that. And Griff, I just want to go back to one other thing. Public safety. Is a core function of government, no matter what state you're in. And in South Carolina, Public's keeping people safe has been a priority for me since the day I took office fourteen years ago.
I want to say that since I've announced six weeks ago, half of the sheriffs in the state have come out for me. twenty three sheriffs out of forty six have endorsed my candidacy for governor, including every single sheriff in Nancy Mesa's congressional district, has endorsed me. That's five sheriffs who've endorsed me. And so when it comes to keeping people safe, The citizens of the first congressional district as well as all of South Carolina know which candidate for governor they can trust to keep them safe because their law enforcement leadership trusts me as well.
Well, and it's amazing, Mr. Attorney General, that you still have so many Democrats. And I know Congresswoman Nancy Maces is a Republican, but so many Democrats in other places are continuing to double down on the anti-ICE rhetoric and in supporting sanctuary jurisdictions where they protect illegal criminal aliens committing just heinous crimes from murder to child rape and you name it. And so do you see then you feel like even though in a conservative state like South Carolina, there still needs to be a real focus on law enforcement and in supporting law enforcement? Absolutely.
And listen, the vast majority of our law enforcement leaders in South Carolina are pro-law enforcement. They're going to be supporting our immigration efforts here in South Carolina. When Joe Biden left office, we had three sheriffs' departments that were members of the 287G program. That's a program that allows local law enforcement to support federal law enforcement ICE agents in performing limited immigration law enforcement functions. And we've gone from three law enforcement agencies to, I believe, roughly 30 law enforcement agencies in South Carolina who have signed up.
And that was a program that I promoted back in January after the president took office. And I traveled the state and I met with law enforcement leaders and I asked them to sign up for this program. And they were just waiting for a president who would enforce the law to be in office. And now they're lining up in droves to sign up to support ICE functions here in South Carolina.
So we're getting it done. We've got a long way to go, but we've come a long way since January 20th.
Well, we certainly look forward to finding the campaign and seeing where it goes. And hopefully the mudslinging can calm down a little bit and hear from all the candidates. But hearing from you today, South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson, thank you for taking time. Good luck on the campaign. Thanks, Chris.
This is Jason Chaffetz from the Jason in the House podcast. Join me every Monday to dive deeper into the latest political headlines and chat with remarkable guests. Listen and follow now at FoxnewsPodcast.com or wherever you download podcasts.
