Full NBC Ron DeSantis Interview Transcript

All right, governor, look at the start of this year. You were a rising star in the GOP. You were neck and neck with Donald Trump. Widely considered. The obvious and potentially the only viable primary challenger to the former president. Then you jumped in the race and the story changed. Trump has gained ground, you’ve lost ground. Donors are starting to look elsewhere. Challengers for the Trump alternative mantle are feeling emboldened. What happened?

Well, that’s a narrative. I don’t think that’s an accurate narrative. I mean, at the end of the day, we are here on the ground building the type of organization that you need in Iowa, we’re doing the same thing in New Hampshire, and we are getting people every single day to sign up. Look, at the end of the day in these early states, they want to see you. They know that I’m governor of Florida. They know we’ve done good things. People have positive view, republican voters have positive views, but they want to know why you to be the next President of the United States. And so as we deliver that message, we get a good response. This stuff is something you got to work at. Some of these polls, I’ve never put stock in them. And at that time I was saying that that stuff was a lot of mirage, basically, who was in the news at the time. Now we’re getting down to nitty-gritty and we’re going to be here and we are going to outwork everybody.

It’s narrative, but narrative sometimes either reflects or sometimes even becomes reality, right? I mean, look, you’ve got even a Fox News commentator recently saying “You’re going to fade out and wither and die on the vine.” Your biggest donor is now saying that he may hold his cash back unless you attract to new major donors and adopt a more moderate approach. A new Iowa poll does suggest that you are gaining some ground. The margins here are narrower than they are nationally, but still overall Trump’s lead has only grown since you began campaigning in earnest. Is it possible that you’re potentially just out of step with what GOP voters are looking for right now?

So if I had a nickel for every naysayer I’ve had in my life, I’d be a very, very wealthy man. I mean, even as governor, people didn’t give me a chance to get elected governor in the first place. Then when COVID and we took a stand against the orthodoxy and kept the state free, I was pilloried, people said that my career was over. First of all, that’s not how I think, I think about leadership. Even my reelection, I had people a few months before the election saying, oh, his campaign is sputtering, he doesn’t know, they don’t know what they’re doing. And we won the biggest Republican landslide in the history of the state of Florida for government race-

So you’re comfortable with your back against the wall?

I would much rather be underestimated. When they underestimate you, that’s when we’re able to strike. And I think that it’s been something that when people see that you’re willing to show up and work, that is not something that every candidate is willing to do, and we are doing it. We’re going to earn the nomination and we’re going to get the job done.

You are doing it. And I’ve been to a lot of your campaign events, I have seen a bit of a shift as there’s been a lot of talk about the reboot that your campaign is doing and the shift that your advisors say you’re making from campaigning as an incumbent governor to an insurgent candidate. Campaigning for president is very different than campaigning for governor in Florida. And I am wondering, as you guys are a few weeks into this reset now, what have you learned about what maybe hadn’t been working with voters before?

Well, look, I think that there are a lot of similarities. I mean, the good thing about the state of Florida is it’s a microcosm of the United States. You want to see the Midwest. I tell people in Iowa, I’m like, normally when I want to hang out with Midwesterners, I just go to Fort Myers in January because half the Midwest is there. Same thing, you go to Miami-Dade, that’s like Latin America. You go to Palm Beach, Broward, it’s like the northeast. Northern Florida is like the traditional south. So that has really helped us to be able to appeal. And what’s happened is when I can get the most rural part of Iowa, someone will have a Florida connection, they will come up to me and some will thank me for doing things in Florida that they’ve heard about. So I think in that sense, it’s actually been good preparation.

(04:06)
Now, the difference is yes, they know we’ve done a good job. I do think it’s important to fill in our bio. I think it’s important to fill in the fact that I’m a young father with young kids and my wife and I take that very seriously, and I think it’s important to fill in my record of actually producing results. But what you have to do is tie that into the vision. And what we’re now articulating, I think very strongly is, the country’s in decline, decline’s a choice. We can make a different choice in the next 18 months. I’m running for president to reverse the decline and to get us back on track. People, Republican voters get that, and they want to see change to get us on a fundamentally different path.

To the point about the engagement with voters, I mean, I have seen a difference at the outset of your campaign, it was a lot of big stages, some distance between you and the voters. Now you’re in the pizza ranches, you’re in these diners and you’re really having some intimate conversations. And I am curious, I mean, there are learning curves on campaigns for anybody, what are you learning as you’re talking to these voters about what you might want to change or what you might want to focus on more? Or what hits people?

Well, I think the thing that you notice, and this is no disrespect to you and your industry, but what the media’s focused on is just different than what you see on the ground. Some of the stuff about the process and the poles, I’ve never had anybody ask me about any of that stuff, they’re focused on issues that matter to them. A lot of concern about the southern border, even in a place like New Hampshire, New England, you think that that’s so far from the southern border, yet they have high overdose rates from fentanyl. It’s getting in their communities, it’s hurting their communities here in Iowa. They care about that. They care about education. People care about the economy. So really it’s just the more you’re down on the ground answering questions, it refocuses you on all the stuff day-to-day in the news cycle. And I get people need to do that, I understand, but ultimately that’s background noise. What matters is the future of the country and being on the ground with voters remind you of where that focus should be.

Have you been refocused after some of the conversations that you’ve had? Do you think you’ve honed your message based on what you’ve heard from voters or have you [inaudible 00:06:21]?

I think when you do this business, you get up in front of folks and there are things that really sing and you see the response. There’s other things that you may get a polite response for, but it may not be as much, and so it’s all about weaving that in. And I think what we’ve been able to do effectively, particularly on these recent travels, is talk about who I am as a veteran, as a blue collar kid that had to work hard to get through school, as a dad, a six, five and three year old, a husband to a great wife, what we’ve done in Florida, but how that projects to the country’s future. And I think Republican voters are sick of people that overpromise and under deliver, that’s the norm in politics. And what I can show a record of doing is every commitment I made, we honored and then we over delivered on our promises.

Do you think you might be wasting time trying to win over those hardcore Trump voters?

I’m trying to win over every voter. I think that’s a misconception. I mean, at the end of the day, like Popeye said, I am what I am. I was a bold governor. As Reagan said, we governed in bold colors, not pale pastels. And I think part of the reason that I did so well in the election was because people knew where I stood and they knew I was a strong leader. So I think sometimes people overanalyze what you’re doing. I want every Republican voter out there. When I won reelection as Florida governor, I got 97% of the Republican vote, that’s a record. And in Florida, yes, we have a lot of conservative Republicans. We have some that are more traditional, some that are more liberal. I want to get all of those voters because you need a cross section of voters to be able to do well, we showed that in Florida, and we’re going to show that here.

(08:02)
And here’s the thing I think that people appreciate, regardless of your view on each of these issues, and even within our party, we’ve got diversity of views. All these voters will acknowledge, I’m a guy that gets things done, I’m a strong leader and I will be able to deliver results, and that’s very important for them.

And look, there are some strategists to your credit who say the polling and the widening gap between you and the former president has less to do with anything you are or are not doing, it has more to do with these indictments that do tend to boost the momentum, boost the fundraising, just give the president more support. In fact, one of your supporters, Congressman Massie, recently joked, he said, “We got to find some judge in Florida that’ll indict DeSantis quick to close this indictment gap. It’s a truism that anytime someone is being persecuted, the camp rallies to their defense.” Look, it’s a joke, but the point is a legitimate point there. I mean, each time he’s been indicted, most of his primary opponents, yourself included, have rallied to his defense as well. You’ve made your position clear that you believe the justice system is two tiered, that it’s weaponized. But when Trump is spending his arraignment day attacking you, I mean, why not fight back and point out the downsides of being a president who is under three, maybe four indictments?

Well, two coupled things. One, it’s not really about Donald Trump because I think that if the justice system is not fair, if it is weaponized, and I talk more about Mark Houck, who was a pro-life activist, had a SWAT team go to his house. I talk about the parents that were identified going to school board meetings in Virginia, talk about the fact that the FBI had a memo identifying traditional Roman Catholics as potential terrorists.

But you know it ends up being about Trump.

But that is ultimately why it’s more important than just one former elected official. Second thing is,

This is, at the end of the day, I’ve been very clear about how we win the election. If the election is a referendum on Joe Biden’s policies and the failures that we’ve seen, and we are presenting a positive vision for the future, we will win the presidency and we will have a chance to turn the country around. If, on the other hand, the election is not about January 20th, 2025, but January 6th, 2021 or what document was left by the toilet at Mar-a-Lago, if it’s a referendum on that, we are going to lose. And that’s just the reality.

But with Trump in the race, do you know, with Trump in the race, that is largely what it’s going to be about. And right now you’re not fighting against Joe Biden, you’re fighting against Trump.

That’s not a pathway for success for the Republican party. I think a lot of our voters understand that. Look, one of the reasons I ran for president was because I think I’m the only candidate who can win the primary win, the general, and then actually get all this stuff done. The reality is you don’t want distractions. I mean, this is hard enough the issues facing the country, you’ve got to be focused. You’ve got to be disciplined. You got to go in there knowing you want to talk about slaying the administrative state. They are not going to give up power willingly. You got to be somebody that knows how to operate. You can’t be suffering under distractions. You can’t have all this other drama that’s doing. So I have made that point, and I think more and more Republican voters agree, yes, we think he’s been treated poorly and unfairly, but that doesn’t mean then that he’s the guy you want to nominate against Joe Biden.

So you recently said the election is what it is. You said all those theories that were put out did not prove to be true. So can we just put this to bed so you don’t have to be asked about this a million more times? Yes or no? Did Donald Trump lose the 2020 election?

Whoever puts their hand on the Bible on January 20th every four years is the winner. And I don’t think the election, and I’ve pointed out in that same quote, and I’ve said this from the very beginning when they changed the rules for Covid, I think that was wrong. I think some of those changes were unconstitutional. When they do mass mail ballots, I think that’s wrong. I think ballot harvesting is wrong. I think the Zuckerbucks were wrong. I think the fact that the FBI was working with Facebook and these other tech companies to censor the Hunter Biden story was wrong. And so I don’t think it was the perfect election. I remember after a lot of the media was saying, this is the most secure election in history. How could it be the most secure with those millions of mail ballots going out? On the same time, at the time after the election, they were talking about Maduro stealing votes on the voting machines or whatever. And none of those theories proved to be true.

(12:39)
But here’s the issue that I think is important for Republican voters to think about. Why did we have all those mail votes because of Trump turned the government over to Fauci, they embraced lockdowns, they did the CARES Act, which funded mail-in ballots across the country. Donald Trump signed that bill that funded the mail ballots that all the Republicans have been so concerned about. And also with the censorship of the Hunter Biden, that was Donald Trump’s FBI that was working with that. He didn’t have control over his own government. So me as the nominee, we will not let them run circles around us. If there is ballot, in Florida, we ban ballot harvesting, right? I think that’s what you should do. If there is ballot harvesting that’s allowed in like Nevada, we are going to do it too. We’re not going to fight with one hand tied behind our backs. And so I think all of those issues were very problematic, but at the end of the day, Donald Trump helped facilitate that whole set of circumstances.

Okay. But respectfully, you did not clearly answer that question. And if you can’t give a yes or no on whether or not Trump lost, then how can-

Well, of course, of course he lost.

Trump lost the 2020 election.

Of course. Joe Biden’s the president. But the issue is, I think what people in the media and elsewhere, they want to act like somehow this was just like the perfect election. And when you have mass ballot harvesting, Zuckerberg put hundreds of millions of dollars into nonprofits to send money to election offices and basically weaponize the election offices. That is not the way you conduct elections. And so I don’t think it was a good run election, but I also think Republicans didn’t fight back. You’ve got to fight back when that is happening, and you shouldn’t have provided all the money to fund the mail-in ballots.

And the reason I press on that is because you make a lot of arguments about the culture of losing in the Republican party. And to be clear, you do believe that Donald Trump lost.

Here’s the thing. I mean, if you look at how independent voters broke, they broke for Biden against Donald Trump. I don’t think there’s any question. You look at the 2022 election, a lot of the candidates that he got behind independents, even though they disapproved of Biden, they still broke for the Democrats. And so I think with all those issues, with the mail ballots, Zuckerbucks, if Trump had just won independent voters, he would have won the electoral college. And I think in Florida what we showed is we won independent voters by 18 percentage points. You cannot win a national election just with Republicans. You got to have appeal beyond that. And if we do that, we’ll be able to win.

And to your point, I do talk to a lot of voters who are frustrated with these indictments because they do distract from the issues. And in Iowa and so many other places, GOP primary voters care a lot about immigration and other issues. So I do want to talk to you about some of the policy plans that you’ve rolled out. You’re one of the few candidates that’s been very vocal and outspoken and have put out those platforms. So credit to you on that and we can talk about that. So when it comes to immigration, you went down to the border, you put out a plan to secure the border, where you outlined some pretty severe consequences for those who come into our country illegally. You’ve said that folks can use deadly force, that law enforcement can use deadly force saying if cartels are trying to run product into this country, they’re going to end up stone-cold dead. How far might you take that method for preventing illegal crossings in general under a DeSantis administration? Would anyone crossing the border illegally potentially face deadly force from law enforcement?

No. It’s similar to like if you’re in the military, you have rules of engagement. Anyone that’s hostile intent or a hostile act, which the cartels are, you would then engage with lethal force. I think these cartels are basically foreign terrorist organizations. They’re responsible for killing more Americans on an annual basis than any other group or country throughout the entire world. And yet, this is just happening and it’s happening in communities all across the United States. You can find these angel mothers who’ve lost children to fentanyl overdose in virtually any community in the United States.

(16:58)
And it really hit me when I was down in Arizona. Most of the border doesn’t have a wall, of course, but there was parts where there was a wall, and these guys are working on the wall. I’m like, what are you doing? They’re like, we’re repairing the hole. The cartels cut through the steel beams. So if you see that happening and they got the satchel of fentanyl strapped to their back, you use deadly force against them. You lay them out, you will see a change of behavior. You have to take the fight to the cartels. Otherwise, we’re going to continue to see Americans dying. Well,

And I’ve spent a lot of time in the border too, and I’m sure as you know, it’s not a monolith, right? In the Rio Grande Valley, you’ve got a lot of families with young children crossing, whereas you go somewhere like Arizona, Cochise County, you’ve got a lot of single men.

Right. But the cartels will use the children and they will use the families to help camouflage the illicit activities.

Right.

And the children are, I mean, so we actually are doing, we have a statewide grand jury in Florida that’s investigating all the illegal migration because we’ve had it come into Florida. They’ve actually found instances where a mother will basically rent out children to military age males. Because if you come in with a minor, it’s better for you to do that than if you come in as a, what kind of a policy is this that is incentivizing that type of behavior? So what we’re going to do, we’re going to stop it. We’re going to put remain in Mexico back in. We are not going to accept bogus asylum claims.

(18:22)
Right now, you come in, you do a bogus asylum claim, they give you a sheet of paper, come back in three years for a court date. How is that a disincentive to come illegally? And the thing is, yes, there’s massive drugs killing people, sex trafficking, human trafficking, horrible. You do have criminal aliens coming across. But put all of that aside, the sheer number of people, communities are overwhelmed. Even if it was legal immigration, you can’t have that many people pouring into communities. It puts stress on schools. It puts stress on healthcare, criminal justice, the whole nine yards. So we’ll stop it. We will actually build a border wall. I mean, I think that we have good experience of getting things done in Florida, so we will do that. But I think being willing to lean in against the cartels is going to be the critical element.

But to that point, I mean, you yourself were an advisor to Navy Seals. You know how hard it is sometimes when it comes to rules of engagement, how to tell good guys from bad guys, especially when folks are crossing the border under cover of night. How do you discern if it’s a child, a mother, or a cartel member?

Obviously if it’s a child. I mean, you’re not going to do that. But I mean, they have-

Yeah, but a pregnant mom in a baseball cap with a backpack versus-

They have indications. I mean, if you have people blow torching through a border wall, that is not going to be, that’s not-

But as you mentioned, the wall isn’t everywhere. How do you know you’re using deadly force against the right people.

It’s the same way you would do in any situation, same way a police officer would know. Same way somebody operating in Iraq would know. These people in Iraq at the time, they all looked the same. You didn’t know who had a bomb strap to them. So those guys have to make judgements. But the fact that we’re going to stop the

… phony asylum claims and stop the invasion. That’s going to be half of it, because here’s the thing. If people know that coming illegally is not going to be a benefit, they’re not going to make that whole trek knowing that they’re not going to be able to get entry. The reason why people keep coming is because they know the United States has a ridiculous policy. They’re literally on an app coming illegally and signing up with our own government to get a court date. They get released in the interior of the country, and then they come back what, two, three years later? How many of them are actually going to show up for those court dates?

(20:32)
So once you say, “That doesn’t work anymore,” you will see it decline. The cartels are going to still try to move product in, but that’ll make it easier for us to be able to focus on them rather than having hoards of people come.

Another issue that’s been talked about a lot on the campaign trail by both Democrats and Republicans, abortion. Now, when it comes to your position on abortion and where you stand on any sort of national ban, you’ve been asked about this a lot. And I’ve read through a lot of your answers, listened to your interviews, and I just want to clarify. In this post-Dobbs era, do you believe that abortion is an issue that should just be dealt with on a state by state basis?

So I’m pro-life. I have a record of promoting a culture of life in Florida, just like they’ve done in Iowa, just like they’ve done in South Carolina. Dobbs returned it to the political branches. I think the reality is that that basically means the states are going to have primary control over it. I do think the federal government would have an interest in, say, preventing post-birth abortions or things that are really horrific. But I don’t think that there’s enough consensus in the country to see a lot of mileage in Congress. So I think what I’ve said is if you want to protect life, it’s a bottom up movement. And so let’s work with states that have done it, work in your local communities. But you also have to understand what Iowa has done is not what New Hampshire is going to do, and what Wisconsin will do is not what Texas is going to do.

So would you veto any sort of federal bill that tries to put a nationwide ban in place?

So we will be a pro-life president, and we will support pro-life policies. I would not allow what a lot of the left wants to do, which is to override pro-life protections throughout the country all the way up really until the moment of birth in some instances, which I think is infanticide. It is not-

Well, actually, I got to push back on you on that, because that’s a misrepresentation of what’s happening. 1.3% of abortions happen at 21 weeks or higher. There’s no evidence-

No. Right.

… of Democrats pushing for abortions up until-

But their view is that all the way up until that, that there should not be any legal protections, even in the end. Now, you’re right that-

There is no indication of Democrats pushing for that.

Well, yes they are. They’ve done it in California. They’ve done it in other states. There have been some-

They have not instituted that policy.

Yeah, they have. Yeah, they have. They basically will say that if there’s some type of… They’ll use different ways to really have a wide exception for it.

It’s extremely rare, 1.3%. And in those circumstances, they’re typically extremely emotional decisions.

No. I don’t say that that’s the norm in terms of this, but I do think that the left in this country has moved on from a position that said, “You know what? We do want to discourage abortion. It’s not something that’s a good thing,” to now viewing it more as a positive good for society. And I think most Americans, regardless of how they feel on legal protections, I don’t think most Americans think it’s a positive good for society. It’s obviously a tragic circumstance.

The FDA just approved over-the-counter birth control. Do you support widespread access to contraception or do you think there should be some limits?

No, no, no, no. Contraception in Florida, our Department of Health, we provide about 100,000 people a year with access to contraception at no cost to them. And I think it should be available over the counter, and I think people should be able to have access to it.

In Florida, you signed a bill that criminalizes any person, “who performs or actively participates in the termination of a pregnancy after six weeks.” In terms of enforcement or limits on abortion, to what extent do you believe that women should be punished for violating an abortion ban?

Not at all. No. I don’t think this is an issue about the woman. I think a lot of these women are in very difficult circumstances. They don’t get any support from a lot of the fathers. And a lot of them, the number one reason why women choose to have an abortion is because they’re not getting support and they feel abandoned. Now, in Florida, we’ve provided support and we put our money where our mouth is. But at the end of the day, I would not support any penalties on a woman.

In the post Dobbs era, one of the concurring opinions from Justice Thomas is he brought up the idea of considering issues like same-sex marriage, potentially sending those back to the states. Would you want to see same-sex marriage sent back to the states in the same way as abortion?

Well, he was the only one that signed that opinion. And so I think that the other justices pointed out that when there’s a reliance interest, it’s less likely that they’re going to do that. So I don’t think that that’s in the cards. And in Florida, even though our state had a constitutional amendment when Obergefell came down, we basically honored that, and that’s what we’ll continue to do.

(25:14)
However, I don’t think that the federal government should ever be in a position or any level of government to force churches to adopt different definitions of marriage than what they have traditionally done, whether Christian or Jewish. And I think that that’s going to be a live issue going forward, because I think people are going to be more aggressive on it.

Florida’s new standards for teaching African American history cause a lot of controversy. You have made education a really big part of your platform, both as governor and as a presidential candidate. So let’s just talk about your take on these new standards. And the one sentence that’s received the most backlash, I’ll just read it to you, “Instruction includes how slaves developed skills, which in some instances could be applied for their personal benefit.” So let’s just be clear. Do you believe this is an important topic that should be taught in schools?

So that means they develop skills in spite of slavery, not because of slavery. It was them showing resourcefulness and then using those skills once slavery ended. And the people that put those standards together were scholars of African American history. These were not political standards. Florida eliminated critical race theory because it’s ideology and we want education, not indoctrination.

(26:25)
When we did that, a lot of people were saying, “Oh, you don’t want to teach about African American history.” The bill actually required more robust standards. So that’s how that working group came into being. So they had copious standards, just really thorough. And we’re one of only 14 or 15 states that even has African American history standards. That was written by primarily African-Americans themselves who were scholars. And they’ve been very clear. They are not saying that slavery was a positive good at all. And if you read the entire standards, it’s very clear that they’re showing that this was a grave injustice and it contradicted the founding principles of our country.

But to my question, you’ve been so involved in Florida education standards. Do you believe that this is important to teach?

No. Right. Well, we’ve been involved in education, not indoctrination. Those standards were not political at all. The legislature didn’t dictate any of that. Governor’s office didn’t dictate anything of that. These guys worked in a very professional manner. They produced those standards. There was public comment. This was all done in the public. They were being praised for what they did because of how thorough it was.

(27:33)
And then Kamala Harris decided to come down and demagogue it and basically lie about it. And these guys who wrote it, they’ve defended what they’ve done. And so as governor, I’m going to stand by them. I’m not going to let people lie about things that are going on in Florida that’s become a cottage industry. We have got to stop acting in bad faith in this country. There’s no way you can read that whole list of standards and come to any other conclusion that they are accurately depicting the injustice of slavery. But they’re also depicting the resourcefulness of people who overcame great obstacles, and not just with respect to slavery. During the American Revolution, they’re actually showing the Black founding fathers. A lot of people don’t talk about that. And so I think that those scholars that did that, many of whom were Black themselves, I think that they deserve to be defended on that.

But do you see how some folks might find that kind of language offensive? Tim Scott, who was a fellow Republican, said, “What slavery was about was separating families, about mutilating humans, even raping their wives. It was devastating. So I would hope that every person in our country and certainly running for president would appreciate that. People have bad days.” He added, “Sometimes, they regret what they say, and we should ask them to clarify their positions.”

Don’t take the side of Kamala Harris against the state of Florida. Don’t indulge those lies. Those are not true.

What is Kamala Harris lying about?

She’s saying that those standards that were developed by African American history scholars are somehow saying slavery was a good thing. That’s false. That is not what they said. That is not what those standards said. And incidentally, she endorsed an advanced placement African American history course that had the same exact provision in it just a few months ago. And somehow, that was an issue. There’s scholars-

It’s exactly-

Hold on. There’s scholars affiliated with the liberal 1619 project who have identified similar situations. And I think what the head of our working group, who was the former chairman of the US Civil Rights Commission, he’s pointed out people like Booker T. Washington and how they conceived of their life’s journey. So it is not in any way saying anything positive about the institution. The standards as a whole are clearly showing what it is.

(29:49)
And so we’ve got to get beyond demagoguing people. We’ve got to get beyond the lies on all this stuff. We are doing education. We’ve put people

… people in place to develop a very strong set of standards that most states are not teaching any of this stuff. We’ve made African-American history a priority and we’re going to continue to do that, but we are going to speak the truth and we’re going to fight back. I mean, it’s wrong. If this was a different state and the governor wasn’t running for president, no one would’ve said anything about that. They’re trying to whip it up just to be able to launch political attacks against me, but I take offense because these people worked really hard on it. They were not doing anything out of the ordinary.

Well, I think you’re right. If you weren’t running for office, this wouldn’t be in the spotlight. But you’ve also put education in the spotlight, rightfully so, because it’s an important issue. But to your point that there are similar standards in the AP African-American Studies course. I looked at both. I read your standards and I read those as well. The line that you’re talking about, it says in some areas there were distinct roles separating domestic and agricultural laborers, although enslaved persons could be… Or I’m sorry. In addition to agricultural work, enslaved people learned specialized skills, trades and worked as painters, carpenters, tailors, musicians, healers in north and the south. Once free, African-Americans used these skills to provide for themselves and others. I think the issue people take with is the word benefit and the overall framing of the Florida standards where looking at the AP course versus yours, the word enslaver appears dozens of times in the AP course. It doesn’t appear once in your standards. And the criticism that I’ve seen beyond just that one sentence is the general framing of a slightly more positive light.

No, that’s not true. I mean, there’s all the gory details are in all of those standards, and in fact, since I’ve been governor, we’ve added to what type of African-American issue’s been taught. For example, we have mandatory instruction on the election day riots, the Ocoee election day riots in 1920. When I became governor, one of my first acts of office was to pardon the Groveland Four. And the reason why we did that is because they got railroaded through an unjust legal system. And so we’ve recognized this throughout all of Florida history and American history, and there’s not been any ambiguity about it.

(32:22)
This is all just about trying to create a phony narrative, going after a political opponent and trying to create demagoguery and fake narratives. But we got to get beyond that and we got to focus on what’s best for students and what’s best for parents. We believe protecting parents’ rights, letting them direct the education, and we believe the education in the school should just simply be factual and it shouldn’t have a political agenda. At the end of the day, the reason why they’re coming after this is because we did take the critical race theory out. We’re not going to let people shoehorn history into a modern day political agenda.

Yeah. You’ve also talked about, and one of your bills includes making sure that folks aren’t made to feel uncomfortable or guilty when it comes to their race, when they’re taught these issues.

Well, that’s critical race there. I mean, you literally will have situations where if… These are like young kids, six-year-old kid, happens to be white, they’re an oppressor, six-year-old kid, happens to be African-American, that’s there somehow oppressed. That’s a horrible message to send to people.

Well, I think it’s older children, middle school, high school, 17 year olds.

To categorize people and to scapegoat them based on things that may have happened a hundred, 200 years ago is wrong. It is not going to help this country come together. What I think we have to do as a country is focus on the things that unite us and let’s de-emphasize some of the things that divide us. That is how I thought most people used to think was the aspiration. Now, things like critical race theory, what they’re doing is they are trying to emphasize the things that divide, even if superficial, and they’re de-emphasizing the things that unite us. We should be united, that the founding principles of this country are our guiding light.

(33:59)
The great things about American history are when people stood up and achieved recognition of that throughout history, whether it was after the Civil War and the 13th Amendment, whether it was the civil rights in the ’60s and a whole host of other things that have happened, but those ideals were what drove all those advancement. So let’s not say that somehow those are not great ideals. That is what we should be united behind and say, no matter where you come from, no matter what you look like, you should have an opportunity to succeed in America. But I don’t want to divvy up people in the classroom based on their skin color. That is a dead end for this country.

Let’s talk about-

Sorry to interrupt, but we have reached our hard eye.

I just want to ask about Gavin Newsom real quick, that debate-

All right. One more. Go ahead.

Yeah. You’ve said yes to debating Governor Gavin Newsom. You’re debating someone who isn’t even in the race. Some are saying this is more like an under guard debate for 2028. Why are you doing this?

No, no, no. Well, I think a couple of things. I mean, I think that the debate between Florida and California, I mean, that debate has already been had in the sense that people have left California, people have come to Florida. They voted with their feet over these since both of us have become governor, and I don’t think California ever lost population until he became governor. But looking forward for the country’s future, I think this is very much alive debate about do you want the California model or do you want the Florida model? Biden basically would like to Californicate the United States. Biden also may not be the nominee. You could have Kamala from California. You could have Newsom.

You think it could be Newsom?

He’s waiting in the wings. I think a lot of people are waiting in the wings. I don’t know what they’re going to do in that party.

Would you want it to be Newsom?

Bring on whoever they want to do. I mean, I think it would be a good debate. So Sean Hannity had asked him and then they came to me and I’m like, “Yeah, yeah, we’ll do it. I think it will be good for the country to have the differences of opinion.” Very different approach to crime, very different approach to illegal immigration, very different approach to taxes, government regulation, all these different things that I think would be a good benefit. So I said I’m game to do it. Hopefully they’ll be able to get it scheduled and we’ll make it happen.

All right. Well, we’ll get ready to watch. Thank you, governor. We really appreciate it.

Thank you, appreciate it. Of course.

Thank you so much.