Garrett Mason

So I texted Garrett Mason last night yesterday, seeing if he had the opportunity to maybe pop in and say hello because we have not talked in a while. And wouldn't you know what? He said yes. So Garrett Mason with me now. Candidate for governor on the Republican side for 2026. Sir, how are things this morning? They're going really well. I have to tell you, I was talking to Danny before we got on, and you guys do a 2000 song every single time on Fridays, and I can't believe that's an oldie. It's 26 years old, my friend. I was in college when that song came out. I remember it like it was yesterday. Well, I'll share this little antidote with you. I got the chance to go see the Savannah Bananas at Fenway Park last summer, and their surprise guest was the All-American Rejects. as their throwback request. And it was totally awesome. Throwback. I love it. All right. Well, Garrett, you're obviously continuing to run for governor, and we have now, I think, gotten into the season where people are paying attention a bit, right? We've had some debates. We've had lots of ads appearing on TV and radio and whatnot. People are starting to kind of check out your websites, encounter you guys at events, et cetera. Give me a quick status update right now before I get into some issues and talk to you about what's going on in Maine right now. How is the campaign going from your perspective? What are you hearing from people on the ground? Yeah, I think, I mean, on our end, the campaign is going fantastic. I mean, we haven't had a day off in about two and a half weeks. We've been all over the place. But, you know, what I'm hearing from people is they're kind of recovering from the shock of the end of session spending blitz that happened in Augusta. I think people are completely taken aback that Democrats spent almost a half a billion dollars just on a whim. And they're starting to see increased taxes. They're starting to really feel the effect of what's happened over the past eight years. And it's almost like some sort of emotional hangover that they didn't really think it could get that bad, but it has. So that's what I'm hearing out there. And I think people are fired up and ready to change direction. Yeah, I think stunned is the word I would use from a lot of people here. But, you know, not surprised. That's the thing is we've seen for eight years this kind of behavior. And I would say that this session was maybe a special upping of the ante. That's for sure. Oh, for sure. But honestly, we've been seeing this kind of behavior for quite some time because honestly, the governor and her party has been running forward. with only their votes and with only a progressive vision of what Maine should look like since the very beginning. So this isn't exactly something that should shock anybody. We should have kind of expected it. It's just stunning to see the hypocrisy, the going back on campaign promises, all the things that you sort of watched happen in real time. It was, you know, maybe that's the thing that blew my mind a bit.

Well, and that's the thing, too. I mean, you know, Governor Mills made a promise to not raise the income tax. She made that promise in both of her elections. And, you know, on the way out the door, she signs a quote-unquote millionaires tax. I don't think people understand what that means for some people. You know, saying the word millionaire is you're supposed to engage in some sort of class warfare against people who make money. But just a quick story, you and I both know former Senator Brian Langley. He owned a great restaurant called the Union River Lobster Pot up in Ellsworth. And I was at an event with him the night before last. And he told me the story about he had finally sold. his restaurant. He put it up for sale, sold his restaurant this year. The same week that he sold his restaurant, and he became a millionaire for the day, worked 30 years all summer long, boiling lobsters, one of the greatest restaurants in the Bar Harbor area, sold it for his retirement, and Janet Mills and the Democrats slapped him upside the head. If he would have sold it on December 31st, he wouldn't have had to pay that millionaire's tax on his retirement. But because he sold it this year, he's going to pay that millionaire tax one time. and never pay it again. I mean, that's a tax on people's retirement. I mean, most of main people are small business owners. And so what you're telling people is you can't sell your business or we're going to tax you on your retirement. That's what the millionaire's tax is. People who have wealth that they're making a million dollars every single year, they can just move. They can just move and walk out of the state. But what you're really doing is taxing people as they get ready for retirement. And that is just ridiculous. And it's a broken campaign promise by Janet Mills and Maine Democrats. And it's not only a broken campaign promise, but it's like the third time she's broken that specific one. I mean, it goes all the way back to, you know, the implementation of the paid family leave stuff. And then you had, of course, the last budget that happened before this last supplemental one. where she supported something in the neighborhood of like 13 new taxes or increased taxes after saying she wouldn't do that kind of thing. So again, my question, Garrett, is to what degree is everyone paying attention to this? And do you think they will be punished for these decisions? Because one thing I've been waiting for for quite some time is for the voters out there to say, okay, well. We were told things that just didn't happen. We relied to. And the results from all this have been rather terrible. So it's time to do something else. It's clearly what you're banking on. Do you think it's going to work?

You know, I think that's up to the messenger, right? I think it depends on how you get that message out there. And I think for most people, they're just working their everyday lives, man. You know, they're just trying to get through day to day. And for people like us who are involved in politics all the time and understand what's going on, we're so much closer to it. We have to make sure that people understand that that pain that they're feeling is coming from the direct impact. of eight years of full-blown Democrat control. They have gotten everything that they want, every single thing for the past eight years. And why are your grocery bills higher? It's because Democrats decided instead of growing food in a field, they were going to put up expensive solar panels. You know, why is your energy bills higher? Well, for the same reason. Why is your housing costs higher? It's because all of these policies that the Democrats have done, they've had... full control for eight years. There's no one to blame but them for what has happened here. And we have to carry that message as Republicans to voters and offer them a clear alternative. And I'll tell you this, Matt, and I think you know this given your history. Every time someone articulates clear, conservative values, principles, and policies, they win every time. And that's what I'm trying to do out on the trail. And it's, I feel like it's resonating out there. People are really starting to understand the pain that Democrats have brought on their budgets and just their everyday life. Garrett Mason joining us. He is a candidate for governor of Maine on the Republican side in 2026, one of now seven that is remaining and talking to us a little bit about his campaign and what's going on in the state of Maine right now. You mentioned the stuff in the legislature. One thing that I had to laugh at a little bit but also cry at the same time was this little coffee maker band thing. There's a group that's running commercials on our radio station about this. And I have gotten more text messages, more emails from listeners saying, wait a minute, what? What are you talking about? Tell me more about this. I didn't know anything about this. So one of the more effective ads I've ever heard, by the way. You know, but anything else. But it sort of highlights, I think, everything you're talking about here, which is this never-ending barrage of decisions that they have made that have these gross and ridiculous consequences that they either don't know about or don't care about, making your life quite a bit harder and sillier and more expensive in the process. Yeah, so the coffee maker ban. Yeah, we've been working on this bill for a while. This goes back all the way to the PFAS and products bill, which nobody's saying that you should have more microplastics in your life. Like that's not the case at all. But what Maine decided to do was Maine decided to define PFAS differently than every other state, including Gavin Newsom, by the way. Gavin Newsom thought the law that Maine signed was too extreme and vetoed it. And so did Kathy Hochul in New York. The bill that we have in Maine bans practically everything. In fact, Democrats had to go back and make sure that you could have things like pacemakers and heart medication because they had screwed the law up so horribly. But, you know, there are many of us in the legislature and working in industry who are telling people, you're going to ban some very simple everyday items that, you know, you can get everywhere else in the United States, no matter how liberal the state is.

And one of those things was coffee makers. And in fact, there was a bill in the legislature last year to warn legislators that you guys are going to ban coffee makers, blenders, air fryers, all of these things. And they completely ignored it and killed the bill. They had another opportunity in rulemaking. They rejected that compromise as well. So, you know, I had a call with the Department of Environmental Protection, and they were very clear. that if you have PFAS anywhere in a coffee maker, any piece of plastic at all, it had to go. And the bottom line is... There isn't a coffee maker out there that doesn't have some sort of PFAS component. People are like, oh, what about French presses? You got plastic in the handle and in the top. So right now, the department is engaged in telling manufacturers that they can't sell their products in Maine. And so unless you want to do pourover every morning and a ceramic pourover, you're not going to be able to, you're not going to be able to buy a coffee maker in the state of Maine. So I'm thinking about opening up a bootleg. running operation into New Hampshire to get some bootleg coffee makers. So I'm sure we'll throw up a website soon. Yeah, well, I've got a curing sitting right here in this studio. So if anybody wants one, it's now going to be at a premium. So we're going to have that. price jacked up quite a bit here to try to sell it. Garrett Mason, as we come to our time concluding, I want to ask you just about the race you're actually in right now, which is, of course, the Republican primary. You know, we're talking about Mills. We're talking about all these ridiculous ideas that have been permeating the state lately. But you're, you know, competing with six other individuals now to try to be the nominee. And you already kind of touched on, I think, one aspect that you think makes you different, which is communicating and trying to make the case, right? As you look at the other candidates and you look at your What is the pitch? What is the reason for Garrett Mason instead of the others? Why should people choose you? Yeah, you know, I think it's pretty simple. I'd vote for most of the other men in this race. No problem. I think they're, you know, it's not necessarily the ideas. It's the implementation. You know, I'm the only one in the race that's ever one elected office on a state, on a, on a regional or statewide level. I'm the only one that's ever actually created and helped craft. a state budget. We don't have time for anybody to learn on the job. And if you choose me as the Republican candidate and as eventually governor, you're not going to have to worry about that. I know where the bodies are buried. I know how to get the job done. I've been there, done that, bought the t-shirt. And that's the difference is experience matters in this election. We don't have time for on-the-job training, and we've got to be ready to go far before day one, and I'm the only candidate that can offer that. I know one of the things you had said at the debate that we hosted in Bangor was that, you know, the budget alone, right, is such a bit. It is basically the thing that makes everything happen in state government. So you obviously have to get that right, and you have to fix the things that are wrong about it. And Janet Mills is going to hand you one.

So you're going to have to have the ability to not only understand what you're being handed and why it's so bad, but also act to change it and make it a much better thing immediately, very quickly. And that's something that you highlight a lot. Yep. You know, the budget starts being crafted in August, and that's just a function of time. That's not because Democrats want to, you know, pass one over on us. It's because that's just how long it takes to craft a budget. And, you know, if I'm the nominee, you know, starting in August, we're going to be dual tracking a campaign and writing a budget to be prepared the second we get in there to submit that to the legislature. If you have a candidate who doesn't understand that and they walk into... you know, the day after election and say, let's get cracking on a budget. You're already too late. You're not going to be able to do those income tax cuts. You're not going to be able to do those spending cuts. You're not going to be able to make the policy changes you want. And I already know how to do that. I don't need to rely on staff or a consultant to tell me how to do it. And that's the difference. And it's no policy issue with many of these guys. It's just you've got to be ready to go far before day one. And that's what I offer. And Garrett Mason has been with us here talking about the campaign forward. Appreciate it. Thanks for the late pinch hit and appreciate you joining us as always, Garrett. We'll talk again very soon. Thanks, Matt. Have you going.