King Kong, Godzilla, & Marijuana!

That's nobleuschool.com. And now, here's your host, Steve Noble. Hey, everybody. Welcome back. Welcome back. Welcome back. Welcome to the show, Mr. Michael Seifert, who is the CEO and founder of Public Square. Michael, great to have you on, man. How are you? I'm fantastic, Steve.

Thanks for inviting me. Little did you know that you were coming in right on the heels of all this Target conversation, so the timing couldn't be any better. And so, we're excited for folks to find out more about Public Square like I did recently. And so, how did this all get started? Kind of give us the elevator, then real quick, what is Public Square? Then let's talk about the genesis of this thing.

Yeah. So, Public Square is the nation's largest directory, a marketplace of businesses and consumers that are aligned in their love for country, the Constitution, and the values that have made this nation so strong. So, if you are tired of supporting companies that seemingly stand against everything that your family values as a traditionally-minded family in the United States today, this is a marketplace where you can shop with the blessed assurance that you're not funding your opposition.

Proverbs 3, 9, honor God with your wealth. It's very hard to do that if we're spending money at companies that use our wealth and turn it around to fund abortion, transgenderism, mutilation of children, progressive social causes. So, we wanted to create a network of companies of all different industries that would affirm a value statement so that these consumers could know that there's trust implemented in every transaction. Today, we launched nationwide just about 10 months ago, and today we're over 50,000 vendors on the platform. We have millions of consumer business interactions that take place every week on the platform, and it has truly become America's marketplace.

The parallel economy is alive and well at PublicSQ.com. It's free for a business and a consumer to join, and we're changing the country with the power of commerce. In terms of the beginning of this, I have to say this is the first show I've ever been on, and I do a lot of these shows. It's the first show I've ever been on where the host was familiar with the Celebrate Chick-fil-A day on the left for a boycott and took part in that.

I tell that story so often because, funny enough, that was the first moment I was ever inspired to start Public Square. I was driving in St. Louis, Missouri, and it was a Tuesday morning, I believe. It was about 11 a.m. I'm on the phone with a buddy visiting some friends in St. Louis, and I look to the side of the road, and I see a two-hour line up the door of the Chick-fil-A. I was so intrigued, so I literally pull over.

I tell him, I've got to call you back. I hang up, and I Google what's happening at Chick-fil-A today. It turns out it was National Protest Chick-fil-A Day, but the two-hour line, these were not protesters. These were consumers. There were only five protesters out front with these rinky-dinky signs, and the two-hour line, these people had lawn chairs and umbrellas, and they were waiting in line for a chicken sandwich. I remember thinking in that moment, there's something so much deeper happening right now.

This is not just about a chicken sandwich. This is a group of people that feel like finally a company was willing to take a stand for them and their values. They don't feel alone.

They don't feel ostracized by woke capital right now. Instead, they're seeing a business say, we celebrate your values, we honor your values, and you're welcome here. I remember thinking so distinctly, whoever can one day figure out a way to mobilize that group of consumers to support businesses like Chick-fil-A with any sort of regular cadence is going to win and win so big. It will have not only a very liberating impact on the marketplace, it'll have a lucrative one, too. We're going to ship the dollars to the right businesses.

That was years ago. Funny enough, a few years later, COVID happens, 2021 takes place, January of 21, tired of feeling like we don't have a solution. My wife and I had this idea. What if we actually put together a marketplace that allowed for moments like that all the time? What if we actually could ask the businesses like Chick-fil-A to give discounts to the consumers for going there through the app so that there's a neat buyer's club that's created?

Wow, we could really change the way the economy works. That was just over two years ago that that initial idea came, but the big inspiration was that day at Chick-fil-A. Literally, there's tens of millions of consumers out there. I was mentioning to you before you started the show, a buddy of mine was working on the concept of the faith-driven consumer.

There's literally tens of millions of them that spend billions and billions of dollars every year, and their faith, their beliefs, their values do impact where they spend money. It's one thing to say, I'm not going over there, but we need to, especially as I talk as a Christian, I used to talk on the air years ago, Michael, and say, you know what? Christians, we should be a lot more like the mafia, not the murder and mayhem part, but the part where we really take care of our own, and Public Square is going to help us do that.

PublicSQ.com. We're going to be right back with Michael Seyfert, the CEO of Public Square, to learn how it works, how you can get involved. We'll be right back. This is Steve Noble on The Steve Noble Show. Okay, we've been talking the last couple days.

Welcome back. It's Steve Noble on The Steve Noble Show, talking the last couple days, not exclusively, but significantly about what's been going on at Target. They had their little emergency meeting, and then they started moving their displays.

They didn't take their displays down for Pride Month coming up in June. They just moved them to less noticeable areas, but the one that I went to three targets yesterday, and then I put those pictures up on Facebook this morning, and a lot of people have been responding and interacting and making that decision. Some people, I haven't shopped at Target in years, blah, blah, blah. But then, if you don't shop at Target, then the question is, where do you shop? Instead of just doing a boycott, can you do a buycott?

Can you then go, because I know you want to. If I'm going to take my dollars, I used to talk about this when I first got onto Christian Radio. I'm like, listen, I'm going to try to find Christian businesses to do business with. Just because they throw a fish on their business card doesn't necessarily mean they're running a good business, but at least I'm going to try to start there.

I want to keep as much money inside the family as I can to support one another. The scriptures are full of one another. But can you actually find places that share your values? If you listen to Glenn Beck and some of these programs, you've probably heard about Patriot. Well, that's a cell phone company. Glenn Beck even has his own real estate thing, Real Estate Agents I Trust, and they have to share Glenn Beck's value.

So if you like Glenn Beck, odds are you'll probably like the real estate agents he associates with. So now we've got Public Square. PublicSQ.com is the website. PublicSQ.com.

And you can also get the app. 53,000 businesses nationwide have been a part of that. They say, yes, we share your values. This is the place that you can go and be a customer of a company or a small store, a service, whatever it may be.

That they share your values and support them. Fine, walk away from Target, but who are you going to give your money to so you can actually give it to these businesses? You can find them through PublicSQ.com is the website, or just go get the app. At the App Store, Public Square, 53,001, because I added Noble You this morning. We're talking to Michael Seifert, the CEO of Public Square. Michael, again, thanks for taking the time to be with us today.

Thanks for having me on. All right, so walk us through. We've got to get the app, or you can go to the website, but most of us like the app. So you identify these businesses. I'm sure that as Public Square has grown, they start to self-identify. They want to be on the platform because they know those shoppers, the people that are using Public Square. We share those values.

Listen, I know that people that are all thrilled about Target taking their place in the Pride Month festivities are probably not going to take my classes. Drenched in a biblical worldview, conservative, theologically and politically, but we want people to find other businesses and services. So how do we use this?

How do we take advantage of Public Square so that we can spend our money appropriately? Happy to share. So you head to PublicSQ.com.

That's the best place to get started, PublicSQ.com. And then from there, you can either utilize the platform from the desktop, or you can actually download the app on the App Store or Google Play. Whether you're iOS or Android, we've got you covered. And immediately you'll notice that it's a quick signup process. Whether you're consumer or business, we'll never ask you for money.

It's completely free. And once you're dropped into the experience, you'll immediately notice that we have thousands of different businesses from all different categories. In fact, right now, if you head to PublicSQ.com, you'll see there is a buy-ditch campaign we're doing for Target. So we're encouraging consumers to ditch Target and buy from all of these different brands that cover all of the essentials that you would normally get at Target. So we just released the shopping guide. So whether you're looking for toilet paper or household cleaning products or mascara, makeup, books, garbage bags, board shorts, swimsuits, snacks, grocers, jeans. I mean, we have all of these different opportunities covered from businesses that do not hate you. They love your values, they respect your values, and they're happy to serve you.

So whether you're a consumer looking to sign up or you're a business looking to sign up, it's totally free. You mentioned how do businesses find us. You know, in the early days, we would have a big network of almost 400 ambassadors that would go around the country and bring these people in. We still have that great network of ambassadors. But what's very cool today is that there's very little invitation needed anymore.

Thankfully, the word is spreading in such a manner that just since yesterday morning, we've had 1,000-plus new vendors as businesses sign up to use the platform because they're seeing that this group of consumers that are looking to unsubscribe from these corrupt, perverted systems are looking to find a new group of businesses to support for all of life's daily needs. Right. So literally when you jump in there, you can essentially put in – it's essentially based on your geography. It's based on where you live. And then you can find the businesses and the services around you that share your values. Is it that simple?

It is. We have both local and online. So there's a featured page that showcases kind of some of the most featured content as of late. High-quality businesses, many of whom will actually give you discounts to shop there, which is pretty cool, so you can receive incentive for spending money in alignment with your values. And then you have an opportunity to see what's near you. You also have an opportunity to see the overall online marketplace where you can sort by category.

You can filter through subcategories so you can find exactly what you're looking for. And I'll tell you too, Steve, what's cool is that while today we're a directory, we showcase to you a bunch of different businesses and services and products. In the near future, meaning this year, by the time we leave 2023, we will actually have a fully robust e-commerce marketplace. We're actually able to shop completely with one shopping cart from this experience. You never even have to leave to go to these different websites.

You actually just get to conduct all of your transactions, get your shipping dialed, everything right there from within the app so we can have truly a full Amazon competitor in this parallel economy. That's what I was about to say. Let me show you this. Let me see if this is going to zoom in. I'm putting it on the camera. I'm trying to get it to zoom in. Because what I just did, it's so bright. Sorry, I don't know that it's going to do it.

I'll see if it does it. That's your fault, Josh. All right, so what I did is I took a screenshot because while you were talking, Michael, and I can multitask so don't take it personally. I pulled up, based on my current location, all the different public square, public SQ businesses and services here, and it looks like a 14-year-old kid with a bad case of acne. I mean, they're literally all over the triangle area here in Raleigh and a bunch of them up right near where I live. And then you can literally just start clicking on them and finding out who these different businesses are.

You can search by business. What are some stories that have come to you over the last year or so, Michael, that just kind of really charge you up and keep you going? Well, the stories definitely do charge us up and keep us going.

It is the reason we do what we do. And in fact, I will never forget the first true business testimony we heard. It was a salon owner. She reached out and she said, hey, this was two weeks after we launched in San Diego, California, in a regional launch 18 months ago. She said, already in the two weeks since you launched, I've received more business than I normally would in three months just from public square.

I've got a wait list now. And to hear that already was an immediate gratification. And I remember even telling our team, if that's all this was ever for, this wonderful lady that loves freedom, loves this country and loves her God can feel like we were able to help her because that's the type of business that needs to thrive.

All of this was worth it. So since then, the stories have just been pouring in. We hear testimonies every day of business owners that reach out and say that this is now the most successful advertising channel for them. They're able to move some of their dollars away from Facebook and Google and able to prioritize more exposure on public square. We hear from people that get hired and say they finally feel like they're an employer that honors their values because they found it a public square. In fact, I was at a restaurant just a few weeks ago and the hostess, I walk in and she said, hey, are you are you with public square?

And I was like, yeah, actually I am. And she said, I found my job here at this restaurant square. And, you know, we have also an opportunity to really hear consumers say that they felt stuck. They feel like there's no opportunity to move their dollars until they found this. And so, you know, it's the stories that keep us going. The testimonies are the sweetest part of all of this. We are seeing the right businesses prosper. And that's exactly what I believe will ultimately bring this country back on the right path. Which is the power of the buycot so you can go and shop with people that share your values, which is what we all want. Changes the buying experience, changes the whole thing.

PublicSQ.com. Michael, thanks for being with us. We'll be right back. I don't know if you remember the comedy movie from the 1970s, Airplane. Remember that? And up in the cockpit, the goofy pilot is like, hey, do you like movies about gladiators, Billy? Remember that?

Do you like movies about gladiators? Well, we're going to have probably a good, could be a 12 month gladiator movie, which starts tonight at 6 p.m. Eastern time with Ron DeSantis on Twitter with Elon Musk. Elon has made it perfectly clear.

This is not an endorsement. He just recently, Elon said that he wanted to be able to vote for somebody that he considered to be normal, that shared most of his values and was a normal person. I think that was his shot at the rambunctious Donald Trump. And so tonight it's going to start officially 6 p.m. on Twitter. And so that's going to be fascinating.

I'll be tuning into that myself to see. It's just a conversation. So this is, I've never seen anybody launch their presidential campaign before this way. But Ron DeSantis literally is going to have to pull a rabbit out of a hat. And I know that Trump's up by 20, 30 points, but that's before Ron DeSantis gets going. And we're a year out from the end of this thing. I mean, the Republican National Convention will be June of next year, next summer. So there's a whole lot that's going to go on between now and then.

So this was an interesting article that I think does a good job of kind of previewing what this gladiator event's going to look like. All out assault. Things are about to bust wide open between Trump and DeSantis. The Trump campaign plans to unleash an all out assault, quotes, following Florida Governor Ron DeSantis' Wednesday announcement, while Team DeSantis plans to go all 10 rounds, associates close to both of the GOP contenders told The Daily Caller. On the same day that Trump associates told The Daily Caller that they intended to rip DeSantis' head off, sounds like the Trump campaign, an associate friendly with DeSantis' campaign said he planned to do the rope-a-dope, a boxing term in which you allow your opponent to throw so many punches he tires himself out. Things will certainly bust open in many ways following DeSantis' official entry into the GOP primary. Trump will go on a full scale attack and DeSantis, for his part, would be able to raise money and make statements more openly. DeSantis is likely to continue holding back and taking his shots more carefully, though, associates say. Trump is a slugger.

This is a quote. He likes to throw haymakers. DeSantis is more strategic.

He's more of a boxer. He's more of a 15 round guy, Bill Mitchell, an independent talk show host, friendly with the DeSantis campaign, told The Caller, which, by the way, on the DeSantis note, I've got a friend that is kind of heading up his efforts in South Carolina. So that's going to be my way to get to Governor DeSantis.

So I'll work on getting him on here as soon as I can. While Donald Trump used a shotgun, Ron DeSantis uses a scalpel, Republican strategist John Thomas agreed. Thomas also noted that it would be a mistake for DeSantis to continue to be quiet once he announces, predicting he will rebut the broadside attacks coming from the former president. The attacks that DeSantis does unleash will likely be focused on Trump's approach to COVID-19 vaccines, and Dr. Anthony Fauci, said Chris Nelson, a reporter who's vocal about DeSantis online and friendly with his campaign. Meanwhile, Trump will not hold back in attacking the Florida governor, no kidding. On all fronts, those close to his campaign told The Caller, quote, Team DeSantis better be prepared for an all-out assault on their candidate.

They have no idea what's about to happen to them, a source close to the Trump campaign said. While DeSantis has been hesitant to directly criticize Trump, Trump has attacked DeSantis with nicknames like Santamonia, that's right, policy criticism and assaults on his character. The line of attacks from Trump's team will continue, but will ratchet up to 11, quote, unquote, and will lean into his, quote, unquote, awkward character, a GOP consultant close to the Trump campaign told The Caller.

As if Trump isn't awkward himself. In 2016, Trump was vicious. This is a quote from somebody inside the campaign.

It was a whack-a-mole. Every time a candidate started rising, Trump just turned a pair of machine guns on them and just started ripping their heads off. I suspect that's what you're going to see here with DeSantis. Trump's whole thing, his whole M.O., is if you hit him on something, he's just going to take out the bazooka and hit you 10 times harder. Let's just be honest, Trump doesn't give blankety blank.

He has no lines whatsoever. And that's true, isn't it? There are no lines in the sand for Donald Trump. Which, for a lot of hardcore Trump people, they like that about him. As a friend of mine said six years ago, we tried nice, nice didn't work. Then you get Trump, right, whose double-barrel approach, there are no lines in the sand.

He doesn't play by the conventional political rules. And so I know a lot. I've never liked that. I've never been comfortable with that. But I know some people that are, and I understand where that comes from out of their frustration and disgust over what's happening with the culture and the country. And when you're that down, you want somebody to hit back. That's just part of our nature. I would not say that's what I'm called to as a Christian. Vengeance is not ours.

That's the Lord's. But I understand where that comes from. But, and I've been talking about this for a while, Trump fatigue is real and that will only grow. So while Trump can easily, I think, win the primary because he's still got millions of tens of millions of MAGA hat folks out there, hardcore supporters. It's not a done deal in the general election. It just isn't. I know some recent polls showed him up by six and seven, but we're a year out.

So you can take those and throw them on the fire because that's about as much value as they have. The caller granted anonymity to sources familiar with Trump's thinking to allow them to speak openly on a sensitive matter. The fight between two contenders has already broken out publicly with their super PACs. Make America Great Again, Inc., a super PAC affiliated with Trump, has increased how much it spends on DeSantis ads in recent weeks to over two million. DeSantis spokesperson Brian Griffin hit back on the attacks Monday arguing that Trump's super PAC record spending shows that DeSantis is the greatest threat. Right?

Exactly. Quote, we're going to continue exposing how Ron DeSantis is unelectable, Alex Pfeiffer, spokesman for the MAGA, Inc., told the caller, Daily Caller. Pfeiffer previously worked for the Daily Caller as a White House correspondent. A super PAC affiliated with DeSantis dealt some blows to the former president in a statement to the caller saying Trump just talks a big game.

The DeSantis campaign itself did not respond to an inquiry. So this is going to be interesting. Nobody can play Trump's game. DeSantis can't go blow for blow like so many Republicans did in the 2015-2016 primary.

Right? A couple of them stepped up to the plate at a debate and tried to go head to head with Trump. But those are, like Ted Cruz tried it, Marco Rubio tried it, Jeb Bush didn't really try anything.

But you're just, most people at some point are going to be like, okay, I can't go blow for blow. I'm not going to go where he's going. And DeSantis, I think, is going to position himself as very much kind of the same basic policies in many ways. Strong leadership. DeSantis now has a strong track record of not just talking a big game, but delivering. And he's going to be the calm, cool, collected, and quite a bit younger version. Trump can only get four years. DeSantis could get eight. Trump's in his late 70s. DeSantis is in his 40s.

Look that up right quick, Josh. How old is Ron DeSantis? But Trump's like 30 years older. So there is also a desire that we need to start moving to some younger leadership.

What's that? 44? 30 years younger than Trump. 32 years.

Pretty amazing. So this is going to be fascinating. If you've listened to the show for any period of time, you know that I would prefer DeSantis. But this is what the primary is all about.

Some people on Facebook yesterday, when I posted a little teaser ad that DeSantis' wife put up on Twitter, and somebody just said a one-word response, idiot, meaning DeSantis is an idiot. Just wait. Abide your time. Come back later. No, his time is now.

That philosophy has never worked. Wait another four years. Wait another six years, and then it'll be your time. No, DeSantis' stock went way up last year, and he has to strike while he can. So this is going to be fascinating. I say let it happen. This is the whole point of the primary. This is the whole reason we have primaries, so that you and I, as opposed to political power brokers, can make the choice.

Get them in the ring, get them in the Coliseum, and set them loose. And we'll see. Again, Trump has all the advantages here.

He's up by 20, 30 points. But DeSantis hasn't started to play, and DeSantis is a disciplined guy, and it's going to be interesting to watch and to see the contrast. But it's going to take some time. So we'll cover it blow by blow as much as we can. I'll be paying attention to it every day, as I always do.

And I'll bring that back, and we'll have that conversation. I'm not going to talk about it every day, because we've got 15 rounds of a title bout here to go between now and next June, when the Republican National Convention is. And this might be over by February.

Who knows? We'll see. But I say, let them do it. Trump needs to be challenged. He needs to be taken to task, especially over COVID, and Operation Warp Speed, and him not even seeming to want to control Fauci and Burks.

That whole thing. He blew that whole last year. That's all on him. And I want him held accountable for that. And DeSantis is probably the one to do it. That's healthy.

That's good. If you want to run and hide, if you're just mad at DeSantis, what are you afraid of? What are you afraid of? These two big boys.

Get them in the ring, and let's see what happens when they come back. Daniel Horowitz, a great article. DeSantis has instilled fear in leftist culture warriors by enforcement, not just talk. I love the opening line.

The rule of law in this country is dead. We'll be right back. Welcome back at Steve Noble, The Steve Noble Show.

We'll continue talking about the gladiators. I will not be here tomorrow, but heading over to Winston-Salem to the North Carolina Home Educators Annual Convention. I get to speak twice there. I'm speaking tomorrow at 5 p.m. about ethics, the need for ethics and ethics training for our teenagers. And then on Saturday, I think at 11 a.m., the name of my talk then is Civic Stupidity, Engaging the Ignorance of a Nation, which is around the classes that I teach with Noble U. But I'll be there tomorrow, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday.

I have a booth there, so if you're a homeschooler here in North Carolina or from a nearby state and you're heading to Winston-Salem, stop by, say hello. But tomorrow's show, Theology Thursday, is a two-parter. We recorded the first part today.

A very challenging topic for a lot of us is God's will in decision-making. Do I lay out a fleece? Do I look for an open door or a closed door?

Do I look for the signs? I have a piece about that, Steve. I'm going to do this, and I'm going to do that now. Did you pray about it? Yeah, I've got a piece about it.

There's all kinds of problems, theologically, when it comes to that. And so we pre-recorded today part one with Dr. Stuart Scott, who's excellent. So that's tomorrow, and then we'll be live back in the studio, God willing, next Thursday to do part two to that.

Like, how should you make decisions as a Christian? So that's coming tomorrow, and then my buddy Matthew Winslow, who serves faithfully in the North Carolina legislature, will be here guest hosting on Friday. He'll be in the studio on Friday, and then God willing, he'll be back, not on Monday, because it's Memorial Day, but on Tuesday. Okay? So we'll be back at it.

I love this. Daniel Horowitz is a great writer, great thinker. The rule of law in this country is dead. And this is about DeSantis and what's going on in Florida.

But there's a lot of lessons to be learned here for all of us, okay? The rule of law in this country is dead. We're governed by the most forceful men, not the most forceful pieces of legislation. This is why the most consequential limitations on our lives are unelected edicts, while some of the most foundational laws in the books are ignored. Democrats are the only ones in this country who exercise political will to enforce edicts not rooted in law, while Republicans won't harness the courage to enforce laws that are duly passed.

That, in a nutshell, explains why red states aren't nearly as red as blue states are blue. It also explains why Florida, for the first time in modern history, is bucking that trend. Last week, several organizations sponsoring grooming rallies of half-naked men twerking their bodies around the streets throughout the month of June abruptly canceled their parade of Gomorrah. Every year, the month of June gets more disgusting with these parades of promiscuity and gender-bending, and it seemed like there was no floor to the degree of decadence our kids would be exposed to as they enjoy the beginning of the summer. But that came to an end in Florida with the passage of HB 1438 and, importantly, the expectation of its enforcement.

Okay, I want to go back here to one thing. Kids would be exposed to, okay? Just remember, there's a whole lot of parents in this country, sad to say, that actually choose to take their kids to the drag queen story hour. A reprobate mind is in operation even as a parent and will use their own child to virtue signal, to show you, ostensibly, I guess, their own child how open-minded and kind and loving they are. We're a big tent here at the whatever house, which is the exact opposite of a biblical worldview. A biblical worldview dares to impose right and wrong, truth, moral truth. And while you shouldn't turn that into a hammer and bludgeon people with it, it is the reality. We live in God's universe, it's God's rules, okay?

So just remember that. The new legislation allows the state to, listen to this, find, suspend, or revoke the license of any public lodging establishment or public food service establishment if the establishment admits a child to an adult live performance. Interestingly enough, it did not ban these events wholesale, just the exposure of children to adult performances. But given that grooming is the main point of these groups' insidious agenda, they felt it was not worth the effort.

No grooming, no parading. Much like everything Governor DeSantis has passed in Florida, there's nothing novel about this legislation. Indeed, most of the bills he's signed have companions in a few other states, while no other state has passed quite so many of these bills. However, what is different about Florida is the expectation that DeSantis will actually enforce the law and then not just signing it to get conservatives off his back, as other Republican governors do. There's a broad expectation that DeSantis will stick the landing and actually follow through with enforcing these laws.

The Tampa Pride on the River event boasts attendance levels of 15,000 every year. Its organizers openly brag about, quote, famous RuPaul drag queens that come in for the event. Yet the day after the bill was signed into law, they abruptly canceled the event. They know what everyone else knows. That for once, we have a governor who is willing to follow the laws passed by the legislature rather than the broader popular sentiment in the media.

A forceful person. That was Horowitz's point at the beginning of this article. Several other events have been canceled, such as those in St.

Cloud, Port St. Lucie, and Lake County, despite months of planning. The Rainbow Jihadists decry a culture of fear in how the performers don't feel safe. When was the last time you've ever seen a Rainbow Jihad fearful of anything? This is what we've been lacking in the Republican Party for years.

We need law changes, but many existing laws are not enforced. Let me hit the pause button here for a second. Donald Trump is not a culture warrior. Donald Trump is going to back away from the life issue.

Listen to what I say. He's going to back away from it because he knows what the polls tell him. The vast majority of Americans want to keep abortion legal. The vast majority.

And many of them are good with restrictions, but nothing in the first trimester. Nothing. That's why a heartbeat bill is, for most Republicans, it's the third rail. They won't touch it. But Ron DeSantis signed a heartbeat bill in Florida, which could cost him the nomination. But that's somebody that's willing to stand on principle.

Okay? Mark my words, Donald Trump will back away from the life issue. Say, hey, I got you Roe vs. Wade overturned, now it's up to the states, and hey, you do what you want. He's not going to take a solid stand on it.

You wait, you'll see. This is what we've been lacking in the Republican Party for years. We need law changes, but many existing laws are not enforced. Nor is this more evident than with immigration.

We tell people they can't come here illegally, but then offer them jobs and benefits out in the open. On this front, Florida is not the first state to pass E-Verify, but all the others that have a requirement clearly don't enforce it on the agricultural sector. In Florida, there is now a wide expectation that it will actually be enforced.

The same dynamic played out with COVID. Although the blue localities in Florida did try to fight for masking of children, DeSantis followed through and threatened to punish those schools. They are now either deterred up front or DeSantis' gumption to follow through against their defiance wins the day, as we're seeing with Disney. One of the most remarkable examples of sticking the landing was when Florida became the first and still the only state to recommend against jabbing children with the COVID shot.

Publix, which is the largest corporation based in the state, decided to side with Florida over the CDC and announced last year the stores would not be administering child vaccines. We simply don't see this level of follow-through, deterrent, and cultural transformation in the business world reflected by red state governments anywhere else. Walmart rules Arkansas, Sanford Health controls the politics of the Dakotas, and the plethora of corporations in Texas' big cities prevent Texas from enacting E-Verify even during the worst invasion of the state's history. There's a strong lesson to be harnessed here.

This is Daniel Horowitz writing. There's a strong lesson to be harnessed here. We all complain that Republicans don't do enough to protect our values, security, and economy from the truculent, woke culture warriors. The reality is that if we are ever going to make red states red again, it will require leaders willing to make sacrifices and risk temporarily losing business opportunities to change the culture. That's called political will, friends. Most governors don't think it's worth it, but what Florida has demonstrated is that, much like barking Chihuahuas, woke corporatists won't even put up that much of a fight if they know the political leaders mean business. Their support is a mile wide but only an inch deep, and one governor decided to poke it and see what would happen.

Now it's quite obvious that regardless of what happens with the presidential election, we should have 20 to 25 states that are like Florida. In fact, if we had multiple governors doing the same thing as DeSantis, we could make the policies even more conservative than Florida because they will have power of deterrent against woke corporatist policies in larger numbers. But that requires elected governors with conviction, intellect, courage to follow through, and the acumen to appoint department heads willing to vigilantly enforce the policies. A perfect example is DeSantis' head health guy in Florida. He's been pushing back against Fauci et al., the CDC, World Health Organization, the whole time by, you know, dealing with facts, hashtag science.

Personnel is policy. In so many states, governors will claim to ban critical race theory, grooming an anti-American curriculum in public schools, but there's no follow through because there are appointees at the Departments of Education who are either feckless or downright supportive of these policies. In Florida, however, they have actually either rejected or forced modifications into most of the textbooks. The College Board was forced to change its African American Studies curriculum because administrators knew DeSantis wouldn't back down on his concerns and it wasn't just grandstanding for an audience. Likewise, the bill banning the teaching of sexuality to school children wasn't just a talking point.

Teachers are being investigated by the Florida Department of Education for violations. There is immediate follow through and enforcement. As Republicans consider their vote for president, rhetoric versus results make a dichotomy that must be factored into that decision. But whoever you choose for president, we should all be asking, following the experience in Florida, why have we not raised the bar in every other red state? Why is every other red state governor groveling for woke businesses rather than standing firm and making them change their behavior to comport with our values? Great article, Daniel Horowitz. DeSantis has instilled fear in leftist culture warriors by enforcement, not just talk.

So, back to my point. We'll see. I've been saying I want the King Kong versus Godzilla fight.

I've wanted it for a couple of years now. And starting tonight at 6 p.m., we're going to get it. Let the best man win. If you're a huge Trump fan, I would encourage you to pray for both of them. If you're a DeSantis fan, pray for both of them. Pray for all of those in authority over us. If you're going to call yourself a Christian, it would probably be a good idea to obey that.

Don't you think? All right, I won't be here tomorrow, but a great Theology Thursday talking about God's will and decision-making. My buddy Matthew Winslow, who serves the North Carolina legislature, is going to be in here on Friday. Off on Monday, because it's Memorial Day, I'll be back on Tuesday, God willing. This is Steve Noble on The Steve Noble Show. God willing, I'll talk to you again real soon. And like my dad always used to say, ever forward.