The Lead with Jake Tapper: One-on-One Interview with Governor Ron DeSantis

Interview

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Sure.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

So, here's the problem. This country is going down the road of criminalizing political differences. And I think that's wrong.

Alvin Bragg stretched the statute in Manhattan to be able to try to target Donald Trump. Most people -- even people on the left acknowledge if that wasn't Trump, that case would not have likely been brought against a normal civilian.

And so, you have a situation where the Department of Justice, FBI, have been weaponized against people they don't like and the number one example of that happened to be against Donald Trump with the Russia collusion. That was not a legitimate investigation. That was being done to try to drive Trump out of office.

And so, what I've said as president, my job is to restore a single standard of justice to end weaponization of these agencies. We're going to have a new FBI director on day one. We're going to have big changes at the Department of Justice. Americans across the political spectrum need to have confidence that what is going on is based on the rule of law, not based on what political tribe you're in.

And the second thing I would say is this country needs to of a debate about the country's future. If I'm the nominee, we'll be able to focus on President Biden's failures, and I'll be able to articulate a positive vision for the future. I don't think it serves us good to have a presidential election focused on what happened four years ago in January.

And so, I want to focus on looking forward. I don't want to look back. I do not want to see him, I hope he doesn't get charged, I don't think it will be good for the country, but at the same time, I've got to focus on looking forward, and that's what we're going to do. [16:05:01]

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

What I'm saying is when you're going after somebody on the other side of the political spectrum, if you're stretching statues to try to criminalize maybe political disagreements, that is wrong.

Now, look, this is all speculation. But I think we've gone down the road in this country of trying to criminalize differences in politics rather than saying, okay, you don't like somebody, then defeat them in the election rather than trying to use the justice system.

So we don't know what's going to happen. But I could tell you, with the Bragg one, that was stretching criminal law. The evidence of criminality was very weak and even if that existed, other people would not have been charged under those circumstances. That's the problem.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

It's a military that has been ordered by civilian officials to pursue political ideology, to pursue social experimentation, to be yet another institution in American life that gets infected with the woke mind virus.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

This is changing the character of the military. It's changing the culture of our services and it's creating a situation in which great warriors have been driven away and recruiting is at an all-time low post-abolition of the draft in the Vietnam conflict.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Well, why do we have the worse recruiting that we've had since the Vietnam conflict? Why have great warriors been driven off such as with the COVID-19 shot mandates?

These are people that had been performing admirably. A lot of them had had COVID, they have natural immunity. They were told take the shot or leave.

So I think you've had a big problem with morale. You clearly have a problem with recruiting. And at this level, everybody has acknowledged these recruiting levels are at a crisis.

Why is that the case? I think it's because people see the military losing its way, not focusing on the mission and focusing on a lot of these other things which, man, we see that in other aspects of society as well.

People want to join the military because they think it's something different and I think some of the civilian leaders in the military are trying to have the military mimic corporate America academia. That's ultimately not going to work.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Well, but I think there's an issue about -- like not everybody knows what wokeness is. I mean, I've defined it but a lot of people would rail against wokeness can't even define it.

So I think it's a sense of, you know, this is not something that's holding true you to the core martial values that make the military unique.

And I can tell you, the veterans, you don't have to look for and wide, go to a VFW hall, go to American Legion, there's huge amount of concern about the direction that the military is going with all of this.

And here's thing, things like DEI and all that stuff, it hasn't worked in other aspects of society. It very well may be on the constitutional chopping block in light of the Supreme Court's decision on racial discrimination in higher education. And so, it's not a model that I think is going to be successful in the military.

And so, we're going to do what has been successful in the past and I think you're going to see better recruiting as a result.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Well, I mean, I think that we have seen standards watered down in different situations. I think that that's probably not accurate.

Obviously, they're going to say they're doing a good job. I mean, we get that. That's going to be their thing. But I don't think that that's in tune with reality.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

So, first, vital national interests to me means we would potentially send troops there and I don't think anybody wants to see troops in Ukraine and I would believe that in 2015 as well. It's more of a secondary or tertiary interest.

So my policy is going to be very simple. Our number one threat to our country is from China in terms of foreign threat. We also have a threat of being able to not secure our own border. Tens of thousands of people are dying every year because the cartels are running fentanyl.

And so, you've got to be strong at home if you want to be strong abroad. We are going to approach the world -- instead of Europe being the focus like it has been since World War II, and it was understandable why it would be after World War II, NATO, stopping the Soviets, I get it. But now, the Asia-Pacific really needs to be to our generation what Europe was to the post-World War II generation.

And so, what we're doing is how much hard power can we marshal as much as possible to deter China? I think we're in a situation now with how weak we've been that we are going towards maybe having a conflict with China. I think the way to deter that conflict with China is to be strong.

So I would have the Europeans do more in Europe. That's more in their backyard. That's more of an interest for them. You know, I would be willing to be helpful to try to bring it to a conclusion there, but I'm not going to diminish our stocks and not send to Taiwan.

I'm not going to make us less capable to respond to exigencies and you got to care at least as much about your own border as do you about foreign borders.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

So what I would say is, what -- the goal should be a sustainable and enduring peace in Europe but one that does not reward aggression. And there's going to be different levers that you're going to be able to pull.

We will pull some levers against Russia. We're going to be much more aggressive on energy and export because I think that's been Putin's lifeline. I want the Europeans dependent on the United States for that, not him.

We're also going to turn the screws on the Iranians. The Iranians have been one of Putin's biggest benefactors and they benefited from Biden's approach there.

So we'll use the leverage that we have, but the goal is going to be a sustainable peace that does not reward aggression.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Well, two things, so first, how does China view this. I mean, it's speculative.

I think what they would like to see in Russia is a multi-year stalemate and quagmire where the West is pouring hundred billion, another two hundred billion dollars of weapons, our stocks continue to decline. They don't really care about the Russians. Russia will be more dependent on China as a result of that. So I think that's what Xi would like to see ideally.

Now in terms of Taiwan, that is a significant interest of the United States. Taiwan is a strong ally. Taiwan is important for us economically and for a variety of other reasons. Also, a potential Chinese attack on Taiwan successfully would have big reverberations in the Asia-Pacific.

But our policy is going to be very simple. We're going to deter that from happening. China respects hard power. If you have hard power, if you have strong alliances with the Japanese and -- I visited there a few months ago.

The Koreans and the Japanese are getting along now. They never used to get along because they both see the threat posed by China. So we're going to work together. We're going to be much stronger. We're going to project power and we're going to deter that from happening.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

So, I said I'm a pro-life. I will be a pro-life president and we will support pro-life policies.

At the same time, I look at what is going on in the Congress and, you know, I don't see them, you know, making very much headway. I think the danger from Congress is if we lose the election, they're going to try to nationalize abortion up until the moment of birth.

And in some liberal states, you actually have post-birth abortions and I think that that's wrong.

Also with respect to the military thing that we talked about, we're going to reverse the abortion tourism policy in the Department of Defense. They're actually paying people to go and get abortions with American tax dollars as part of the military. They won't even pay you -- you lose a loved one, you don't get that type of time off to be able to go to do funerals.

And so, we're going to continue to stand for -- to stand for life and we're going to make sure that everybody knows that.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Well, I don't think it's true. I mean, the proof is in the pudding. I mean, I took a state that had been a one-point state and we won it by 20 percentage votes, 1.5 million votes.

Our bread and butter were people like suburban moms. We're leading a big movement for parents' rights, to have parents be involved in education, school choice, get the indoctrination out of schools.

Of course, there's bread and butter issues that matter, too. Inflation, and more economic opportunity. Florida's economy is ranked number one of all 50 states. We've worked hard to make that happen.

Crime -- you see crime in all these different communities that is now even going into suburbs and some areas. So I think there's a lot -- I don't think that's the reason.

I think the reason is, is I was being a lot of media attention at the time, coming off the victory. I had to do my job as governor with my legislative session and we had a great legislative session and we did a lot of great things, actual things that appeal to huge majorities of the population. So I think that analysis is wrong.

But I had to do that. And so, I was basically taking fire really nonstop since then because a lot of people view me as a threat. I think the left views me as a threat because they think I will beat Biden and actually deliver on all of this stuff, and then, of course, people that have their allegiances within -- allegiances on the Republican side, you know, have gone after me.

But the reality is, this is a state by state process. I'm not running a campaign to try to juice, you know, whatever we are in the national polls. I mean, I -- whatever we did in the CNN compared -- whatever, it's fine. I'm definitely doing better than everybody else.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

It's state by state.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

So we're focused on building an organization. You've got to get the people to come out in the middle of January in Iowa to caucus for you. That requires an organization. It requires to know where those votes are.

Now, that is not going to make the same type of splash as if you were trying to run ads nationally or do these other things. And so, we've been making, you know, really good progress. I think this weekend was really good in terms of the Family Leader and some of the other things we were doing in Iowa.

Of course, we're here in South Carolina. We're going to do a lot of in New Hampshire. But that's going to be our focus -- focusing on those early states, continuing to build our coalition and going forward.

And I would note, Jake, there is a narrative that they're almost trying a little too hard with this to try to say, because they've been saying that I've been doing poorly for my whole time as governor basically.

This is always the case during COVID. Oh, you know, he has state open. He's going to lose. And then he fought Disney, he's going to lose and then this.

So they always want to get there and it never quite works out. And, in fact, I actually remember you did -- you did the debate with us in '18.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

And before we did the debate on CNN, and you didn't have anything to do with this, CNN released a poll saying I was down by 14 or 15 points. Now, that was the narrative at the time. He's going down.

So, I think some of this is motivated reasoning, but I kind of get a kick out when they say he didn't fundraise well when I did more than Biden and Trump in the second quarter, and I'm just the governor.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Look, in the military, it's all about the mission first. So, there's a whole bunch of reasons why you focus on mission first. People's individuality, it does take -- you do have to check that at the door.

And that's not the only example. There's a whole host of other examples. So, I think the military culture is unique in terms of that.

Now, in terms of the larger issue, the question is, you know, what role does someone that's man have in women's activities, even if they conceive themselves to be a woman? I think it's wrong to have men in women's sports. And I understand some of those men conceive of themselves differently but it's not fair to the girls who are competing. It's not fair to the women athletes.

The swimmers who lost that national championship to the Penn swimmer, I mean, they've been training, too. So I don't think it's good for that and I think having things like locker rooms where they're having to share with somebody who's of the opposite sex, you know, I think is wrong.

So I would respect everybody but I wouldn't do is turn society upside down to be able to accommodate, which is a very, very small percentage of the population.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Well, here's the thing -- how are you going to equip your fighting force to win. Are you going to put those considerations in, are you going to create the most lethal force available?

I can tell you, China is not going to use those considerations. If they need to burn more coal to defend their country, they are going to burn more coal to defend their country.

So I just don't think it should be a factor in terms of how we project power in this country. Focus on how lethal we can be and focus on them getting the mission done. I don't want to force the Department of Defense to be using electric vehicles. I just don't think that that's something that makes any sense.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Yeah, we are. I think this is a great setup for me. I'm the only veteran running. I'll be the first president-elected since 1988 that served in a war. There's very few states in this country with a stronger active military duty presence and veteran presence than here.

We've also got great support in the Upcountry in South Carolina that we're building. And, of course, my wife went to college at Charleston. So, we know the Lowcountry well, and I think we're going to be able to build a lot of support here.

So, this is a great state for us, and the way the calendar is working out, we're going to have New Hampshire in late July or January and then here in late February. So we're going to be spending a lot of time. You're going to be spending a lot time in South Carolina.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

All right. Thanks. I appreciate you.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source