Speaker 1: Billy Cunningham, the Great America.
Speaker 2: Welcome with Florio's Thursday halfe me in the drive thing,
Speaker 2: whether it bit hippie reads, pitchers and pastures reported on Monday,
Speaker 2: which is the beginning more or less of spring Hope,
Speaker 2: Springs Eternal, And having watched the Philadelphia Eagles beat up
Speaker 2: so easily.
Speaker 3: On the Kansas City Chiefs, that may be quite happy.
Speaker 3: I'm thinking the Bengals might have a long way to go,
Speaker 3: but we'll see what happens. The Reds are much more
Speaker 3: present concern because on paper they look really good. But
Speaker 3: until then, Governor Mike DeWine, welcome again to the Bill
Speaker 3: Cunningham Show and Governor many issues, so little time. And
Speaker 3: you had told me about a month month and a
Speaker 3: half ago, against everyone else at Odott that the four
Speaker 3: to seventy one Big Mac Bridge would open by the
Speaker 3: middle of February. People laughed and snickered at you. They said,
Speaker 3: there's no way that's going to happen, and lo and
Speaker 3: beholding open Monday night, which makes my producer Tony Bender
Speaker 3: so happy.
Speaker 1: What did you know at that point that most of
Speaker 1: us did not know?
Speaker 4: Well, I just was telling O, we got to get this.
Speaker 4: This is this is very people. I'm hearing from a
Speaker 4: lot of people. This is a real pain for them.
Speaker 4: And so yes, we put a real push. I kept
Speaker 4: I kept on them, I kept on the on Pam Borton,
Speaker 4: who's the head of ODA now, And I said, Pam,
Speaker 4: you have to make things happen, and and you know
Speaker 4: we got it open.
Speaker 5: So thank god.
Speaker 3: Well it's a it's a lifesaver. I know you're in
Speaker 3: Green County. I know you're in Columbus. I know you
Speaker 3: have great roots in Cincinnati. But that bridge, dammit has
Speaker 3: caused billions of dollars worth of havoc and pain for
Speaker 3: so many. It destroyed businesses, destroyed lives. There's two uh criminals,
Speaker 3: career criminals been indicted for it. We don't have the
Speaker 3: full story yet, but that's that's a great positive. Secondly,
Speaker 3: you announced a few days ago that lieutenant governor will
Speaker 3: be Jim Tressel, and I knew he had a great
Speaker 3: history at Ohio State, won the state title, I'm the
Speaker 3: national title, and then you Youngstown State. He did a
Speaker 3: bunch of stuff with Youngstown on state as the president.
Speaker 3: Why did you pick Jim Tressel, who's never been in
Speaker 3: politics over all the politicians that wanted that gig.
Speaker 5: Well, I think I surprised you, Bill didn't I surprised.
Speaker 3: Yes, yes, I didn't see that in coming.
Speaker 5: Nobody else did either.
Speaker 4: So you know, nine days before the announcement, I called
Speaker 4: up Jim Trestle and I said, I want to come
Speaker 4: see you and friend.
Speaker 5: I went up there.
Speaker 4: He lives up near Medina and went into what he
Speaker 4: called He showed us his uh buck eye man cave
Speaker 4: and this is the ultimate buck eye man cave with
Speaker 4: with rings and footballs and everything. Anyway, so we had
Speaker 4: that conversation, but then we got down to business and
Speaker 4: I asked him if he would serve as.
Speaker 5: My lieutenant governor. And what I told.
Speaker 4: Him was, look, I'm healthy, but you know, one never knows,
Speaker 4: and I need somebody who I have great confid it's
Speaker 4: in their judgment, great confidence in their leadership ability that
Speaker 4: if for some reason I could not serve during the
Speaker 4: next two years sometime and that person became governor, I
Speaker 4: want someone who I could really make sure that they
Speaker 4: were really a leader, and someone who really cared about education,
Speaker 4: cared about kids.
Speaker 5: And I said that's number one.
Speaker 4: Number two, I said, you know you can really help
Speaker 4: me over the next two years. And Bill, I've known
Speaker 4: Tressel for a long time, but I really got to
Speaker 4: know him after he became president at Youngstown State University.
Speaker 5: And I know Cincinnati is a long long way from.
Speaker 4: Youngstown, but he has done a did a phenomenal job
Speaker 4: for nine years as the president. He pulled the business
Speaker 4: community together. You know, a university can be a great
Speaker 4: engine of economic development, and he worked to make that
Speaker 4: happen in Youngstown. He's someone who is I think, very practical.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 5: I asked him a few months ago.
Speaker 4: I said, you know, Jim, we've got a lot of
Speaker 4: universities in Ohio or public, fourteen of them, but we've
Speaker 4: got you know, fifty or sixty private, and with the
Speaker 4: demographics of fewer kids, you know, these schools are some
Speaker 4: of them having a difficult time. I said, what would
Speaker 4: you recommend? And he says, look, he says, you have
Speaker 4: to cut you know, Okay, he says you have to
Speaker 4: you have to pare down the cost. And he says
Speaker 4: you can't have classes where there's a one professor teaching
Speaker 4: five kids. He says, just it simply will not will
Speaker 4: not work, and that just that's kind of gives you
Speaker 4: an idea what kind of guy he is. But anyway
Speaker 4: back to the story, you know, we talked to him
Speaker 4: and he said, well, I might be interested in that,
Speaker 4: and you know, so then we could be carried on
Speaker 4: a conversation by phone for the you know, the next
Speaker 4: few days. And then he said, look, he says, I'm
Speaker 4: I got talked to Ellen, I got talked to my
Speaker 4: wife and uh and she basically told him. Uh, according
Speaker 4: to Jim, she said, you know, I think God has
Speaker 4: something in mind for you. You need to you need to listen,
Speaker 4: and you need to do this. So uh so I'm
Speaker 4: just delighted, delighted to have him.
Speaker 5: Uh.
Speaker 4: He's going to really work a lot on workforce development,
Speaker 4: is going to work on education, uh, economic development. Uh.
Speaker 4: Those are all intertwined because we're creating more jobs every
Speaker 4: day in Ohio than we have.
Speaker 5: People fill them.
Speaker 4: So we got to make sure that everybody who uh
Speaker 4: you know, is growing up, when they graduate high school,
Speaker 4: they get they're on some pathway. Uh, and we help
Speaker 4: them get the tools that they need to be able to.
Speaker 5: You know, live live their version of the American dream.
Speaker 4: And that's what she's But he's he's all he's a
Speaker 4: passionate guy about young people. He's just a natural leader,
Speaker 4: and he leads young people, and that's what he really
Speaker 4: has cared about his whole life.
Speaker 3: Does he see this as a stepping stone, because, as
Speaker 3: you know, in addition to being the governor, you're the
Speaker 3: head of the Republican Party and you got veak Ramaswami
Speaker 3: out there has announced, there's others going to announce for
Speaker 3: your position. They want to be the governor. Is Trustle
Speaker 3: going to be a candidate for governor in twenty twenty six?
Speaker 4: Well, Bill, he and I never I got the question
Speaker 4: a similar question the other day, and he and I
Speaker 4: never have talked about that. I mean, are what I
Speaker 4: said to him is, you know, can you sign up
Speaker 4: for basically a two years uh and and you know,
Speaker 4: do this and help us for for the next two years.
Speaker 4: We never talked in any way, shape or form about
Speaker 4: running running running for office, So that's not not certainly
Speaker 4: not come up.
Speaker 1: Is he going to do it?
Speaker 5: Fran France?
Speaker 1: Is he going to do it?
Speaker 5: Fran calculate? Fran calculated the day.
Speaker 4: The days that it came up to almost exactly one
Speaker 4: hundred weeks. So I said, will you sign up for
Speaker 4: one hundred weeks, and he said, yes, I will.
Speaker 3: So you don't see him getting an exploratory committee together soon, because,
Speaker 3: as you may know, the primary is a little over
Speaker 3: a year away, and if he's going to run for
Speaker 3: your gig, he's going to have to start raising money immediately.
Speaker 3: But veg Ramaswami's a rich guy. Other people want the
Speaker 3: job also, And I guess we're going to know in
Speaker 3: the next six months if he establishes an exploratory committee
Speaker 3: and starts raising money. Would Governor Mike DeWine be surprised?
Speaker 5: Well, I wouldn't.
Speaker 4: I wouldn't look forward to that. I mean, I think
Speaker 4: his focus is really the present. His focus is not
Speaker 4: about running. You know, things could change in the world.
Speaker 4: I understand that, But I'm just telling you from my
Speaker 4: conversation with him, we've never had a discussion about, you know,
Speaker 4: him him running for office.
Speaker 5: That's not what he's signed up for, all right.
Speaker 3: Two or three other issues. One is the chip plant Intel.
Speaker 3: There's reporting that Intel's having some difficulties. If I would
Speaker 3: go to the site of the Intel plant that you
Speaker 3: and Ustad like Governor put together a couple three years ago,
Speaker 3: are you still confident the chip plant, the intel plant,
Speaker 3: that big development in and around Columbus is gonna happen.
Speaker 5: Yes or no, Yes, absolutely, Bill, think about this.
Speaker 4: Uh. And I may be off a couple of billion dollars,
Speaker 4: but I think they've already put into the ground literally
Speaker 4: in building and building this material and construction costs of
Speaker 4: about seven or eight billion dollars already in the ground.
Speaker 4: And every day they're putting more, more and more money in.
Speaker 4: They're doing more work. So there will be a chip
Speaker 4: factory there. What we don't know is how fast.
Speaker 5: Uh it will build out.
Speaker 4: I mean, you know, they they committed to do two fabs,
Speaker 4: as they say, uh, but they also told us that
Speaker 4: you know, there could be four times that much go
Speaker 4: in if if business is good. We don't know, you know,
Speaker 4: how that business is going to work out. I don't
Speaker 4: think anybody knows. But they're going to be making They're
Speaker 4: going to be making chips work there, and it is
Speaker 4: a great, great, great thing.
Speaker 3: Now, another issue percolating is marijuana, and Ohio wins passed.
Speaker 1: The marijuana law. They made it a.
Speaker 3: Statute instead of a constitutional amendment. Those on the marijuana
Speaker 3: side that are actually operating or unhappy with these moves
Speaker 3: by the legislature to fifty percent increase and taxes to
Speaker 3: the government, taking away local government money, which many consider critical.
Speaker 3: There's a sense that possibly the leaders of the House
Speaker 3: in the Senate actually want to kill the marijuana situation
Speaker 3: by sending more money to the dark market. As you
Speaker 3: may know, in the first year, three hundred million dollars
Speaker 3: of legal sales took place to which took three hundred
Speaker 3: million dollars out of the dark market, out of the
Speaker 3: pockets of drug dealers. And now I think there are
Speaker 3: some that are going to seemingly what they're going to
Speaker 3: do is make it more expensive in order to buy
Speaker 3: legal marijuana. Is the there Where does the governor stand
Speaker 3: on a fifty percent increase on money's going in state
Speaker 3: and taking it away from local governments and making it
Speaker 3: more expensive, which will drive more people to the dark market.
Speaker 3: Where does Governor Mike Dwein stand on that?
Speaker 5: Well, that's the kind of leading question. Bill.
Speaker 4: Let me let me phrase it a little differently. When
Speaker 4: the when this thing was written, keep in mind, it
Speaker 4: was written by the UH people who wanted to make
Speaker 4: money from marijuana, and they have every right to do
Speaker 4: this and the people ended up voting for you know what.
Speaker 5: People want to vote it for it.
Speaker 4: You know, I doubt if very few of them thought
Speaker 4: about where the money from that is going to go to.
Speaker 4: They basically were voting on, hey, should we have marijuana
Speaker 4: or not have marijuana?
Speaker 5: And I lost that.
Speaker 4: I think it was I think it was a mistake,
Speaker 4: but that's that's what the voter said. So we're gonna
Speaker 4: We're going to obviously live live with that. But there's
Speaker 4: some goofy stuff in the way it was written. For example, Uh,
Speaker 4: you know you talk about money going to local government.
Speaker 4: It's almost like this crazy lottery. Uh.
Speaker 5: You know, if if you were a township.
Speaker 4: Or the village, uh, and you had you had a
Speaker 4: facility there, Yeah, you got some money, but your your
Speaker 4: neighbor over here another township that might need money, they
Speaker 4: get nothing from that.
Speaker 5: So you had winners, you had losers. Uh.
Speaker 4: And So what we've done is try to identify some
Speaker 4: needs in the state of Ohio, things that we do
Speaker 4: not have money for, can't find any money for, uh,
Speaker 4: and utilize the money for that. Jails, for example, we
Speaker 4: have problem with jails. We've got some of the people
Speaker 4: in your rural counties that listen to you every single day.
Speaker 5: Uh, they're faced with spending a.
Speaker 4: Lot of money to build a new jail or to
Speaker 4: revitalize the jail. We want to help them in doing that,
Speaker 4: and there's a lot of other things that we would
Speaker 4: use this money for. So I think there's clearly room
Speaker 4: if you look at what other states have done, clearer
Speaker 4: room to raise the tax on that. We don't want
Speaker 4: a situation where, you know, we drive people out of
Speaker 4: the market. But also we need to be able to
Speaker 4: take that money and frankly do some things that are
Speaker 4: very very positive in in in the state of Ohio.
Speaker 3: Well, the other issue is the Uh, those on the
Speaker 3: marijuana side feel as if I'm speaking for them, not myself,
Speaker 3: for you, but they think think they're being sandbagged by
Speaker 3: uh rural edgrarian politicians in Columbus that I don't like marijuana.
Speaker 3: I think most politicians in Columbus don't like marijuana and
Speaker 3: they want to regulate it out of existence. And so
Speaker 3: they're saying, Okay, we're going to take the abortion route.
Speaker 3: What we're going to do is put in a constitutional
Speaker 3: amendment and get that passed and get the lawmakers out
Speaker 3: of it.
Speaker 1: Are you concerned about that issue.
Speaker 4: No, I'm not concerned about that. Look, no one is
Speaker 4: saying that we're not going to sell marijuana. Look, we
Speaker 4: live in a country where the voters have of the
Speaker 4: say they voted and they want legal sales of marijuana.
Speaker 4: I mean, I think it was a mistake. I think
Speaker 4: it was a mistake because you know, uh, if you
Speaker 4: look at young people, you know, the evidence is abundantly
Speaker 4: clear that the frequent use of marijuana among kids whose
Speaker 4: brain is still developing can end up with a significant
Speaker 4: loss in IQ. I mean, that's a that's a real,
Speaker 4: real problem. But that's what the that's what the voters
Speaker 4: voted for.
Speaker 5: And so we're not going to uh roll back and
Speaker 5: say we're going to go to prohibition. The voters are voted.
Speaker 4: For it, and they're going to be able to buy
Speaker 4: it in the state of Ohio. No one is saying
Speaker 4: that that that we should go against the will of
Speaker 4: the voters in regard to that. I just think that
Speaker 4: how the money gets spent and where that money really
Speaker 4: goes to. No one, no one who voted, very few
Speaker 4: people who voted voted because they want that money, uh,
Speaker 4: you know, to go to some of the different causes
Speaker 4: that were contained in in that bill. I think we
Speaker 4: have an obligation uh to respect the voters, uh provide
Speaker 4: the marijuana uh in a in a legal and safe fashion,
Speaker 4: or safe as you can make it. But we also
Speaker 4: have an obligation to spend that money in a respectful way,
Speaker 4: in an intelligent way.
Speaker 3: In that regard, there's a lot of fake marijuana being
Speaker 3: a lot of fake marijuana being sold like inconvenience stores
Speaker 3: that is not not selling as marijuana, and there's kids
Speaker 3: buying that product. Couldn't that issue be dealt with off
Speaker 3: to the side without having a complete overhaul?
Speaker 5: Sure?
Speaker 4: Sure, and uh you know, but we've asked the legislature
Speaker 4: to do it. I've asked them, and there's no way
Speaker 4: that I can stop that. Uh. And it is, as
Speaker 4: you indicated, a real problem. Kids are buying this junk
Speaker 4: uh and we have no way to stop uh these
Speaker 4: people from selling it to them. But you know, the
Speaker 4: leaders in the legislature have assured me that, uh, you know,
Speaker 4: within the next several months they're going to pass legislation
Speaker 4: to stop that. So I certainly hope that they do,
Speaker 4: and I will I will quickly sign it, all.
Speaker 3: Right, in your last two years, have about a minute
Speaker 3: or two remaining, Governor Mike DeWine, what do you want
Speaker 3: to accomplish the next year or two You've not yet done.
Speaker 4: Bill, We're going to stay really focused on the basics,
Speaker 4: investing in people. What he has used to say, you
Speaker 4: win with people's.
Speaker 5: That's really the key.
Speaker 4: We want every kid who graduates from high school to
Speaker 4: be on some pathway. We want kids to stay in Ohio.
Speaker 4: You know, we want everybody to live up to their
Speaker 4: God given potential. To do that, we need to remove
Speaker 4: barriers that stop them. One of the big barriers today's
Speaker 4: the mental mental health problems. We're trying to build out
Speaker 4: a system that no matter where you live in the
Speaker 4: state of Ohio, you will have access to good mental
Speaker 4: health health care.
Speaker 5: We're focused on what we call the.
Speaker 4: Science of reading and education phonics, sounding words out. We
Speaker 4: got away from that for about twenty or twenty five years.
Speaker 4: We've paid a heavy, heavy, heavy price. So you know,
Speaker 4: we're focused on kids, focused on reading, focused on giving
Speaker 4: people the tools that they need to be successful.
Speaker 1: Well, last I know, townshow.
Speaker 3: I got a text here from a township trustee not
Speaker 3: happy about taking money away from townships. I have a
Speaker 3: text here from a legal marijuana business saying they're outraged
Speaker 3: to what's happening. And I would think that Matt Huffman,
Speaker 3: who's the Speaker of the House, is going to have
Speaker 3: to have these hearings to indicate how much you can
Speaker 3: raise without driving people into the dark market. A three
Speaker 3: hundred million dollars out of the pockets of drug dealers
Speaker 3: is a great thing and really destroyed the marijuana business.
Speaker 3: When someone can go to Michigan, for example, and pay
Speaker 3: a lot less money makes no sense, and I hope
Speaker 3: Matt Huffman takes that into account once again. Governor Mike Dewaine,
Speaker 3: you shocked the world by appointing Jim Tressell as the
Speaker 3: lieutenant governor, and we'll see what happens down the road.
Speaker 3: Are you endorsing anyone for your seat or are you
Speaker 3: going to endorse for ak Ramaswami for example.
Speaker 4: I think it's much too early to getting in the
Speaker 4: endorsement business. I mean, what what my job is, I
Speaker 4: think is to really kind of tell the people to
Speaker 4: state where we are in these different issues and outline
Speaker 4: at least what I think is important. And I think educating,
Speaker 4: educating people given the tools they need to be successful.
Speaker 4: That's that's what we need to continue to do.
Speaker 3: All right, Mike DeWine, Thank you very much, Governor, State
Speaker 3: of Ohio. Get my best a friend as as Valentine's
Speaker 3: Day approaches, and know you're going to give her a
Speaker 3: box of candy and some flowers. You two have been
Speaker 3: through a lot in your life. Incredible journey and last
Speaker 3: we had thirty seconds. When your term is up? Are
Speaker 3: you done? D u n and done? Are you going
Speaker 3: to back to Cedarville? You're going to be a Miami
Speaker 3: University trustee? Are you done? Are you done with politics?
Speaker 1: Next year?
Speaker 4: Why I'm running again, Bill, But I'm going to stay
Speaker 4: pack even things and you know the same things I
Speaker 4: care about today, which is you know about kids and
Speaker 4: kids who are you know, have difficulties, challenges and you know.
Speaker 4: But I'm not sure exactly, but I got two more
Speaker 4: years and my focus right now is on those, on
Speaker 4: those two years and the one hundred weeks that we've
Speaker 4: got left.
Speaker 3: All right, Governor Mike Dwine, You're a great American. Thank
Speaker 3: you for coming on the Bill Cunningham Show. Thank you, Mike,
Speaker 3: Thank you, Governor.
Speaker 5: Thank you appreciate it.
Speaker 1: Thank you, Let's continue with more news.
Speaker 3: Is next at Show Them the Reds on news radio
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