Senator Tuberville joins JT to discuss his race for Alabama Governor

Senator Tommy Tuberville joins us now. Coach, welcome in. Thanks for being here. Good morning, Jake. Well, I got to tell you, you're a busy guy right now. I do want to get your thoughts on what's happening with the AI and the subcommittee you chaired and talking about AI in our schools and also NIL, of course. But right out of the gate, I got to ask you, you were cleared on this residency thing. And now we got two more voters that are asking a judge to declares, you know, once again, ineligible and asking Wes Allen, our secretary of state to keep your name off the ballot. I thought we addressed this and this was cleared and it was like, okay, enough's enough already. Tommy Tuberville. as a resident in the state of Alabama, he can run for governor. So what's going on with this? Well, obviously, you can't read. You know, when I decided to run about it a little over a year ago, JT, we got all the information, you know, tax returns. you know, homesteading and all those things put together. Because I want to make sure we did it the right way because we knew the people, the Democrats, as President Trump calls, would challenge us. And sure enough, they did. Obviously, they can't read. But it's the only thing they have, and we're going to win. We're going to win big. And at the end of the day, you know, they don't have any policies to run on. They don't have any solutions for the state of Alabama. like we've been working on it for a year or a plan once we come in January next year what we're going to do and how we're going to do it they don't have anything so so all they're trying to do is block everything they possibly can because they know i'm an american first uh Alabama first um person that's going to try to do everything we can to make Alabama and the United States better. And I'm a Donald Trump guy. They can't stand it. They absolutely can't stand it. You know, President Trump's done outstanding things, but they won't take this country over and make a socialist, even in the state of Alabama, and we're not going to do it. Have you heard from Wes Allen's office on this at all? Have they reached out? Do you have your team talked to them about this yet, or is it still just early on? Yeah, it's just too early. You know, we heard yesterday that our opponent on Democratic side was challenging through courts. And that'll, you know, we won't do it the right way. I mean, we're not hiding anything. Just, you know, if they'd save themselves some money if they'd just look at all the, all the proof that we have. And it's just unfortunate. But again, this is going to happen, not just me, but a lot of people. It started with President Trump. They went after everything that he did, tried to put him in jail. They're not trying to put me in jail, but they're trying to confuse everybody. Well, does he live in Alabama? First of all, live in D.C., that's where I am right now, the last six years. And, of course, I live in Auburn, but at the end of the day, it's just nonsense. But, hey, they want to play a game, let them play the game. We'll get ready to take over in January and make our state better. Continuing our conversation with Senator Tommy Tuberville.

All right, you had a big subcommittee of chairing about AI and our schools, and I agree with the AI certainly needs a good look at. Even Elon Musk warned all of us, you better keep an eye on it's going to get ahead of you and you're going to lose control of it. And now when it comes into our schools, what's your take on AI? First of all, in general, and then let's talk specifically about what this subcommittee is all about with the kids. Go ahead. Yeah, first of all, we've been putting a plan together for our kids and our state. We had a very good subcommittee meeting this week. I chaired that, and we brought three experts in, and it was really good. We've got to get ahead of it, J.T. It's not coming. It's already here. As Elon Musk says, it's going to take over. And our kids at a young level, even at first, second, third grade, need to start understanding what AI is. And all the way up to the 12th grade, they need to get more. brought up to speed on AI because it's going to change. But they've got to know the basics of it. And then, of course, if you're not going to use it in your career, you're going to be way behind. And we want to be out on front, our state. Nobody else is doing what we're getting ready to do in AI in our schools across the state, our junior colleges and workforce development and our four-year universities. So we're going to be ahead of the curve. We're working with AI. We're working with people that work with Elon Musk. We're going to do things that's going to be. the future for the country, but we don't want to sit around and just wait to see what happens. It is here, and it's going to take over. We need to understand it. Yeah, when you had this meeting yesterday, you included somebody here from Birmingham to be a part of this discussion. And when you look at AI as a whole, there's a lot of good things in applications that can be used with AI. But the bad stuff seems overwhelming now. So when you got together, you know, what was the discussion like with the expert here from Birmingham? Yeah, he's a good guy. He's going to help us with what we're going to do in our school systems. He's able to teach teachers. He's able to close the one that have to do it. You have to have teachers that understand it. So he has a system in which we can train our teachers. He's already started to some degree, but we're going to really pick up on it, put it in every school. And the big thing is, first of all, you've got to teach kids' ethics of how to use it. You can use it and just sit back and let AI take over not really understand what's really going on in the world. They need to be able to write their own themes. They need to be able to think themselves. But you can take the material that's used in AI and make yourself even better. So they've got to learn how to use it as well as know what it is. And that's what this young man does. And again, we're going to have to start with a lot of the teachers across the state. And it's not going to take that long. And the teachers will come along as well as the students in this next few years of generation. But we've got to do it. If we don't do it, we're going to be way behind. Well, that was my next question. I mean, the kids are one thing. You know, kids always seem to be further advanced on technology than us adults. So will this also mean some training for the administrative staff and the teachers where the rubber hits the road, not just the kids?

Oh, yeah. Well, go back to the Internet 25 years ago. A lot of us couldn't turn it on a computer because we didn't grow up with it. Our kids are so much farther ahead from grade school on up now because of the technology that they've grown up with. And so it'll be a lot easier. A lot of the teachers are younger, but we've got to do it. We have no choice. Because as I said earlier, you know, we can block it. That's all we're not going to use that. We have manufacturing. places in Alabama as we speak, they're almost all AI. And they're great jobs. And these kids are going to need to learn how to work with that AI. And so very good jobs. They work faster. We make better products. And it gives us the opportunity to pay kids more because, you know, they're better jobs. And it's not that hard. It's not that hard to do this through AI. Well, it's a jargonaut and a fast-moving train, and you better embrace it as opposed to pushing back on it because it ain't going away. So I'm glad to hear the initiative to get ahead of the game is happening here in our state. All right, let's talk about NIL real quick. It is a nightmare. I think the toothpaste has left the tube as far as free market capitalism. If kids wanted to be in a deal with Nike for a million. and, you know, so be it, says the legislator, and it's moved forward. But now it's turned into clearly ruining college football. My suggestion on the NIL is if the university presidents would all agree and sign off on a deal, an NCAA stamp, you know, letter of approval that a kid cannot make any more than $100,000 less than the starting salary for rookie players in the NFL. So let's say the league's starting salary is $650 grand, then that kid cannot make and play in a... college football program making any more than 550 grand. Your thoughts on bringing the money down and putting a cap on this so these kids can't just start accepting million dollars and making more than the league players. Now we're seeing guys come out of the league because they got in more eligibility. They want to come back to college and make more money than the league offers. It's going to kill the NFL. Yeah, it's a good thought. Problem is that you'd be in a court system as fast as you can shake your finger or sign ink on that JT. They're not going to allow you to get involved in the money because they're allowing, you know, name, image and likeness. So what do we have to do? What do we have to do is go to the blocking and tacking the basics. of NIL. And it's not this Ted Cruz bill. And, you know, they worked hard, but they don't know enough about it. It's 111-page bill that just absolutely puts the federal government in charge of college sports. And we can't do anything right up here. It puts bureaucrats in charge of committees that make decisions. Two things you have to do. You've got to start here. And if you don't start with eligibility, my bill says five years for five, no exceptions. And then the other one is one free transfer. Then if you want transfer again, you got to set out a year like you used to. The problem with Ted Cruz's bill is, oh, yeah, they put five for five and they put one-time transfer. But they give a committee to make waivers. Well, they're going to give more waivers than you can ever imagine. Every kid's going to try to put a waiver in. My grandmother was sick that year. I should get this year back. You can't do that. You have to have set in stone eligibility and transfer.

Everything else take care of itself. When you say five for five, what do you mean by that? No red shirt. One year clock starts. When you start to school and you play that first year, you got you got five years to play. After that, you're done. You don't get a waiver or anything. Five years is fine. You can get a degree. We need to get away from this. athletic deal and put academics back in it. And so you've got to get a degree. You've got to have so many hours towards your degree. We've gotten so far into the weeds here on money that the kids aren't going to school. They're not getting degrees. It is a disaster. And I'd love to save it. But, you know, unless we addressed the first two things, it's got to be eligibility. And I've told the president this many times. And he actually, executive order my bill, five for five, and you get one free transfer. Hey, the rest of the time, suck it up and go on with it. And if you don't have all these transfers, you don't have all these kids going every year to different schools, not getting degrees, and having new rosters every year. Yeah. That's the only way you can fix it. You can't do it with all this other nonsense that they got a 20-person committee of congressmen and congresswomen making decisions. I mean, it's an absolute disaster. I don't, you know, it's a 111-page bill that. that maybe two pages of it might be worth something, and the rest of it's terrible. But they're going to pass it. They're trying to pass it, and I might be the only one vote against it up here because nobody reads the bills. They don't really understand it. I did a speech the other day on the floor and told them this is what they're doing, and this is my bill. If you do this over here, it's not going to work. It's going to set us back years. We're going to lose college sports as we know it. You got NCAA came out yesterday and agreed with the Ted Cruz bill. Why did they do it? Because the NCAA does not want to make decisions. They want to just keep their money and their big jobs. and go along with it, do their job and make decisions. Yeah, they were asleep at the wheel at the beginning of this. That's how it got out of control. The legislator got hold of and said, well, it's capitalism. Yeah, go for it. And now we've got a hot mess. I still think we're light years away from figuring this thing out, and it's going to get worse before it gets any better. We don't have long, JT. Don't have long. I appreciate you. It's going to go under if we don't watch it. Thank you. Appreciate you, buddy. We'll do it again soon. Thank you so much.