And winning record nine and eight, for the first time ever that all the
teams in a Division one had a winning record with the Bengals and only went
not in the playoffs. If somebody had said two or three months ago that
the Bengals three teams we are going to get to the playoffs out of the
Northern Division of the AFC, and the Bengals will not be one of them,
nobody would have believed it. But it happened. Pitchers and Catchers report
in about four or five weeks. But until then, Governor Mike DeWine the
House Bill sixty eight, he vetoed it a few days back. I spoke
to some of the leadership of the House earlier this morning and I was told
they're going to try to override it on Wednesday. And Governor Mike DeWine,
welcome to the Bill Cunningham Show of this glorious Monday afternoon in the tri State.
And we heard your explanation and your reasons for issuing the veto, and
it appears, according to some that it's going to be overridden. Would you
view that if the Republicans you're guys and your women, and the House and
Senate override your veto When you have the Lieutenant Governor against you on this,
the Attorney General is against you, the auditor is against you, the Treasurer
is against you, the Secretary of State is against you. The House and
the Senate Republicans are against you. You stand alone, like a tenfold beacon
in the night, and you see something that all these other Republicans don't see.
What do you see that all those other Republicans don't see? Well,
first of all, Billy, let's let's talk about what this is not about.
What any kind of disagreement is not about. I issue in order on
Friday, no surgery for minors. I think that's where the House and sent
are. That's certainly where I am. And you know that's not been an
issue the I think it's not been an issue. Uh, you know,
I'm not you know, in favor of having men who transitioned to a woman
play sports and that you know, so we're not there's no dispute about that.
But you but you vetoed that, you vetoed that part of that bill
correct. Well, bill, what they did is they took two bills and
they put them together. And so look here, here's what the dispute comes
down to, you know, our our party stands for UH prontal rights.
We stand for families. We believe that UH families should make decisions and not
government whenever, whenever possible. And so what I did bill really during during
the Christmas holidays, and and you know, this bill came to me,
I had ten days to sign it or not sign it. Uh. You
know, I spent a lot of time uh talking to medical experts, but
more importantly, I talk to families. You know. I talked to moms
and dads, uh, you know, just just people like you who you
know, have been faced with this UH situation in their family. And I
came down to the conclusion that we're better off letting parents make this decision.
And and and so you know, as I, as I said at the
time when I vetoed it, if I were to sign this bill, we
would be saying that the that the state of Ohio, the government knows better
than parents, the people who have raised this child, the people who love
this child the most, the people who've agonized with this child as the child
has gone through some some difficult times. UH government knows better. And it
seems to me that's not a Republican position. That's not a conservative position.
Uh. And but more important than that, it's just not the right it's
not the right position. I mean, I had Bill, I've had people
who I've had, you know, sit down with me. I had a
couple, uh, came over to our house over the Christmas break, invited
them over just to kind of hear their story, and you know, they
looked me in the eye and they basically said, and I had other couples
do the same thing. My child would not be alive today but for the
fact that they were able to get care at the Cincinnati Children's Hospital. They
were able to get care at Columbus Children's Hospital and work with professionals and made,
you know, a decision. The most important thing in all this,
it's it's clear to me, is mental health care. And you know,
two thirds, two thirds of families who get this mental health care and the
child gets the mental health care do not go forward with with with anything in
regard to transgender They kind of figure out that it's something else and they get
the mental health care that they need. So it's a relatively small number of
people. But for those people who get down to it, after months and
months of going through this, and they've got the advice of doctors. But
more importantly, they know in their heart, you know, what they think
is right. They make that decision. Why should the government be telling them,
no, we know more than you do about your your child. Governor,
Since ask me a question, I'll give you an answer, which is
government tells parents all kinds of things that they can't do with their children.
In fact, masking, there were many parents that didn't want their kids masked
up. A government said, parents don't know best. Maybe there's parents that
want to give their kid sixteen year old marijuana. Well, government knows best.
You can't do that. Maybe some parents don't want to put their kid
in a child safety seat, Well government knows best. Parents, you can't
raise your kid that way. Well let me let me tell you. Let
me tell you the difference. Let me tell you the difference. I don't
know any I can't think of any cage where we have a situation where the
doctor that is working with the child, or the hospital that is working with
the doctor and the child, the child and the parents all want to do
one thing, and the government comes in and tells the doctors no know tells
the child know and tells the parents know. All the examples you've given are
good examples. Bill. Yes, we do make decisions when we say parents
can't do things, and you know that obviously are in the and not in
the interests of the child. But this is an eric where there is a
disagreement, and you've got good people on both sides of the of this issue,
and you know the people who are going to vote to override if they
do that, I'm voted for this bill. They're good people. They you
know, they think they're doing what's best for the for the child. But
it just seems to me that I can't as governor, and I couldn't go
ahead and say, look, government knows best. When we line up and
you've got the doctor saying one thing, that parents saying the same thing,
the child's saying the other thing, and now this time the government comes in
and says, oh, no, you're all wrong, you're all wrong,
and we're right. Government's right, even though the people who are voting on
don't know the child. Uh So, look, but good people on both
sides, I get it. Reasonable people can disagree about this. I did
what I did because I thought it was right. We have a system of
government where the legislature can override my veto. It's in the Constitution, and
I'm sure that there are you know, people who will cast their votes this
week or later on, will do what they think is right. Are you
politic and are you making calls to legislators, either directly or indirectly, encouraging
them not to override your veto. The only thing I've done bill, I
talked to some legislators. I wanted to make sure everybody understood what we did
on Friday, and what we did on Friday is really, in some sense,
do some things to protect people that wasn't even in the bill. And
the part that was in the bill that is consistent is no surgery that was
in the bill. I issued an executive board of My order went into effect
right away. Any legislation takes takes a while before it goes into effect,
as you know. So now today i'm the state a while because in my
order there's no surgeries can be allowed on a minor second, we issued in
order. Everybody who's looked at this says, well, we don't have enough
data. We issued an order that said from our health department, if you're
a doctor, if you're a hospital, you're going to have to start reporting
this stuff. You know, we report abortions, we report flu report you
know this and that, and there's no reason we can't report that. No
one's names reported, you know, none of this, but the data is.
So we did that and I wanted to make sure people understood that.
And the third thing we did is issued in order. And this has to
do with adults. The bill only has to do children. This has to
do with adults. That struck me as I look more and more at this
and listen, listen that the most important thing, whether it's an adult that's
going through this or a child, is you've got to have the mental health
care up on front, and it's got to be first, and it's gonna
be lengthy, it's got to be comprehensive and before anybody even thinks about making
any other kind of decision. What we have now with with adults before we
issued our order is there's no there's no real requirement of psychiatric care. Uh.
And so what we didn't want is these pop up clinics who want to
make money, starting in different places around Ohio and just you know, writing
writing prescriptions. That is not good and it's not the best certainly not the
best practice. And again I don't know anybody that really disagrees with without either,
but it's not not into the law. So in answer to your question,
my conversations with legislators, if I've had any, I have had it
with some. Uh has simply been here's what we did on Friday, Here's
why we did it. We think this, we think this works. And
Governor, assuming the legislature overrides your veto, which is according to one of
the leaders there, that they're confident they're going to do it, would you
view that this is a rejection of one of the major policies of Mike DeWine.
You don't veto too many bills and you stand alone. Is this a
rejection of Mike DeWine's policy? If if the veto is overridden, No,
I stand. Look, I stand with families, and that's why the veto.
But one of the things that I think sometimes is missed. And I
know the uh, God love them, the news media, you know,
life's controversy, because that's that's interesting, right. The area is if you
look at the areas that are the central to what Mike de Wine is doing,
what our team is doing, what I think the state needs to do.
There's big, like three or four big areas. In each one of
these areas, the legislature has stood with us. UH. Economic development is
number one. UH Number number two is education, a particularly emphasis on what
we now call the science of reading. We're rolling that out in every school
in the state of Ohio. Legislature backed me one hundred hundred percent sent on
that. Mental health, making sure that we build a mental health system in
the state that we've never had before. The legislature has given us strengthly an
unprecedent amount of money, and we've rolled this out with a lot of help
going into the local communities. We're out there yet, but the legislature has
backed us on that as well. And getting back to the other I started
with, which which is the whole area of economic development. You know,
one of the things we asked the legislature to do is we know that there
are sites in Ohio, and sites not not just in you know the three
c's, but in other parts of Ohio, sort of the other Ohio that
sometimes gets ignored. We know there are good job sites there, and we
ask for specifically for money to be able to help these communities develop these sites
so that when a company comes in and says, hey, Governor, we
need a site and it needs to be this big da da da da da
da, and we can say, yep, we've got a site and it's
ready for you. And so all those things, Bill, those are the
core of what we do every single day. This is a bill that came
along that has got a lot of publicity. I understand it. I studied
it hard, made I made a decision. It affects a relatively small number
of people in the state. Again, I think I'm with the parents,
and I think I'm with parents making this decision. I think it's the conservative
point of view. I think it's the high way to do it. Obviously,
we have people on the other side who disagree they override me, and
if they do, they do. That's part of our system. You know,
your decision here is awfully unpopular, especially among conservatives. And when your
own lieutenant governor says I disagree with the governor and he wants to be your
replacement, has that created a rift between you and your lieutenant governor. No,
Look, Bill, if you find too, if you can find two
people to agree about, absolutely everything. Uh, you know something's wrong.
And he and I agree on ninety nine percent of what we do. Uh.
This is a uh something that is impactful very much for the people who
who it impacts, which is why I've drawn the line and said, you
know, not with not with my my my signature will will just become law.
Uh. But again on the on the things that affect most people,
education, job training, our career tech centers, making sure that they get
the resources they need to continue to expand scholarships for our kids going to college,
economic development, all of these things. Lutaig Bever and I are in
agreement, and Frank of the Legislature and I are an agreement. Let me
go over two or three quick matters. Uh. Marijuana status. I had
Birdie Whisper in my ear. That pay Course stadium yesterday had a marijuana smoking
section much like cigarette smoking section. You can legally smoke marijuana, you just
can't buy it. You can grow it in your home right now, but
that takes three to four months to actually do it. Things are completely confusing.
I'm going to have on Rob Sanders later on about the difficulties in Kenton
County, which is not your concern. I imagine about Ohio's marijuana laws.
As we sait here this Monday afternoon, can you give me an update on
marijuana status in the state of Ohias. Yes, the legislature's coming back and
you know, houses coming back this week to vote on this override. You
know, I like for them to stick around and work on this marijuana situation.
Look, Bill, I was not in favor of legal marijuana to stay.
I mean, it's a stupid idea, but it passed, and so
I, you know, respect the will of people. Fifty seven percent of
people voted in favor of this, but I don't think the people who vote
in favor of it voted want of a situation that we have now, which
is what the law mandates. Unless we change it. We need to.
We frankly need to change it. We have a situation today where you can
use marijuana in the state of Ohio, you can grow marijuana, but you
can't buy it legally in the state of the model, nor can you buy
the seeds to grow. This makes no sense. And what's happening is you're
starting to see a black market appear in Ohio where people think they can buy
it legally, but there's no place they can legally sell it, and we
have no quality control. We have a black market developing. You go in,
somebody goes and buys marijuana in this black market. They have no idea
if it's got pesticides in it, they have no idea what the THHC level
is, They have no idea if it has some other drug in there.
And it's just a not a good situation. So the legislature can change that.
We need help on and doing that. And the Senate did pass a
bill. I'd like for the House to pass a bill. It may not
be the same as the Senate. That's fine, we can do all those
things worked out. But what we'd like to be able to do is sell
marijuana through the stores now that are selling it for the medical marijuana and again
eliminate this this black market, and at least people would know that what they're
buying is in fact they you know, not adulterated in some way. The
other thing I'm asking the legislation to do. We got a real problem.
You can go out today in Ohio and buy buy a hemp product. Many
gas stations have it, and the real problem is that kids can buy it
and it's a loophole in the federal law, it's a loophole in the state
law, and it's hallucinogenic, and it's just, you know, I can't
close this loophole without the legislature taking action. And I just you know,
I know Senator Huffman, Steve Huffman is working on a He and I talked
a few days ago. He tells me he's working on a separate bill.
So I'd like it done either by a separate bill or if they want to
do it and throw it into the marijuana fix, then they can do that.
I don't really care. I just need to get it on my desk
so I can sign it. We can start enforcing law that says you cannot
sell this to a twelve year old. That's just absurd situation that we have
today. But I have to have help from the legislature on this. Lastly,
we have about minute remaining New York, California, parts of Illinois now
have mask mandates. Do you see Governor Mike DeWine having any more mask mandates
with COVID the flu a viral infection. Are mask mandates coming to Ohio?
No, absolutely not. I don't see that at all. Look, Bill
what again, this is all voluntary, but if you look at the data
of people that are we're still losing people from COVID. We lose people from
the flu. I mean, so we just encourage field get your flu shot,
uh and and get get the most updated COVID shot and if you want
to reduce the chances of you dying or having long COVID. And I think
people are really cheerful of long COVID. They don't die, but they end
up of this thing that ends. You know, the data is abundantly clear
that getting that you know, new shot of COVID that you can get many
many places in Ohio. There's no there's no backup on it. You can
get that is really the best advice. And that's what people, you know,
I would suggest they do based on the best medical science. But we're
not going to compel anybody to do it. And we're not going to compel
anybody we're mask either. All right, Governor Mike Dwine, thank you.
You're a tenfold beacon in the night. You stand alone against the Republican Party,
and each side has good intentions, and each side look the same problem
and come out with different solutions. Mike Dwaine. We got our Governor,
Mike DeWine, thank you for coming on the Bill Cunningham Show as my first
Happy New Year. Yes, we got the year started off. Yeah,
turn off of the thank you, thank you. Spring training is coming.
It's coming a month. It's here, it's here. Governor Mike Dwine,
thank you very much. Thank you. Let's continue with more your reaction five
one, three, seven, four, nine, seven thousand. The Governor
stands alone against the Republican Party on news radio seven hundred W LW currents issued
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