Second Republican Debate Transcript: Ron DeSantis

Interview

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We are not going to worry about what the left and the media say about us.

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The people in Washington are shutting down the American dream with their reckless behavior. They borrowed, they printed, they spent and now you're paying more for everything. They are the reason for that. They have shut down our national sovereignty by allowing our border to be wide open.

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Well, the crime in these cities is -- is one of the strongest signs of the decaying of America.

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And, yes, when I had two progressive prosecutors that weren't following the law in Florida, I removed them from their posts, and the people of Florida are safer as a result of it.

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… we need to choose law and order over rioting and disorder.

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That is why -- everything he said I agree with. That is why, as commander-in-chief, I'm going to use the U.S. military to go after the Mexican drug cartels.

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They are killing our people. And the stories that I've seen, in Florida, we had an infant, 18 months, parents rented an Airbnb. And apparently the people that had rented before were using drugs. The infant was crawling -- the toddler was crawling on the carpet and ingested fentanyl residue and died.

Are we just going to sit here and let this happen, this carnage happen in our country? I am not going to do that. So I guarantee you, on day one, this border is going to be a day one issue for me as president. We're going to declare it a national emergency. Yes, we'll build the wall. We'll do "remain in Mexico." But those Mexican drug cartels are going to be treated like the foreign terrorist organizations that they are.

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Well, I think this is a symptom of our overall economic decline. Everything has gotten more expensive. You see insurance rates going through the roof. People that are going to get groceries, I've spoken with a woman in Iowa. And she said, you know, for the first time in my life, I'm having to take things out of my grocery cart when I get to the checkout line --

And she said, you know, for the first time in my life, I'm having to take things out of my grocery cart when I get to the checkout line because the total goes up so quickly."

So, this is very real, and people are hurting out there. So, we've got to address the underlying problem, with Bidenomics, the overspending. Taking all Biden's rules and regulations, I'm going to throw them in the trash can, on day one, you're not going to have to worry about that.

We're going to open up all of our energy. We will be energy-dominant, in this country that will lower your gas prices.

And what we need to do with health care is recognize our health care is putting patients at the back of the bus. We have Big Pharma, Big Insurance, and Big Government. And we need to tackle that, and have more power, for the people, and the doctor-patient relationship.

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It's not. Our State's a dynamic state. We've got a lot of folks that come. Of course, we've had a population boom.

We also don't have a lot of welfare benefits, in Florida. We're basically say we want to -- this is a field of dreams, you can do well in the state. But we're not going to be like California, and have massive numbers of people, on government programs, without work requirements. We believe your work, and you got to do that. And so, that goes for all the welfare benefits.

And you know what that's done, Stuart? Our unemployment rate is the lowest, amongst any big state. We have the highest GDP growth events (ph), any big state. And even CNBC, no fan of mine, ranked Florida, the number one economy, in America.

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So first of all, that's a hoax that was perpetrated by Kamala Harris. We are not going to be doing that. Second of all, that was written by descendants of slaves. These are great black history scholars. So we need to stop playing these games.

Here's the deal. Our country's education system is in decline because it's focused on indoctrination, denying parent rights. Florida represents the revival of American education. We're ranked number one in the nation in education by US News and World Report.

My wife and I, we have a six, five and three-year-old, this is personal to us. We didn't just talk about universal school choice, we enacted universal school choice. We didn't just talk about Parents Bill of Rights, we enacted the Parents Bill of Rights. We eliminated critical race theory and we now have American civics and the Constitution in our schools in a really big way, just like President Reagan asked for in his farewell address back in 1989.

Florida is showing how it's done. We're standing with parents and our kids are benefiting.

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No. I think you look at how our societies developed, they have huge amount of power over our society. They've cracked down on free speech.

We're not saying you don't want them to do business, but you want with it to be a free market. And right now, they're monopolies.

But this issue of China, I think, is really going to be fundamental. We have subcontracted out so much of our national needs to the CCP. We rely on them for a whole host of issues.

We need to reshore, and we need to decouple all those important industries. We need to get that back in the United States.

They are our top geopolitical adversary by a country mile. Xi Jinping's got huge ambitions not only in the Asian-Pacific, but as you mentioned earlier, in our region. But ultimately, we've got to beat them on the economy.

And so, that's what we'll do as president of the United States.

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It is in our interest to the end this war, and that's what I will do as president. We are not going to have a blank check. We will not have U.S. troops. We are going to make the Europeans do what they need to do. But they've sent money to pay bureaucrats' pensions and salaries and funding small businesses halfway around the world. Meanwhile, our own country is being invaded.

We don't even have control of our own territory. We have got to defend the American people before we even worry about all these other things. And I watch these guys in Washington, D.C. and they don't care about the American people. They don't care about the fentanyl deaths. They don't care about the communities being overrun because of this border. They don't care about the Mexican drug cartels.

So as commander-in-chief, I will defend this country's sovereignty.

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Because the colleges are going to have to make a decision. Do we offer, do we expand the Gender Studies Department? No one in some of those graduates may not have great learning of these know. They're going to focus on the things that really matter. They're going to make different choices. They're going to try to graduate people in four years.

I also just want to come back on Dana asked last segment about 9/11. Because I was just at the 9/11 Memorial with the families. My wife, and everybody's very touching to be there. And it affected my life because I ended up joining the military as a result of that. I've been a blue-collar kid, minimum wage and done in Florida. I ended up getting through Yale and Harvard Law School and somehow came out more conservative than when I went in. And that is not easy to do, had a lot of opportunities to make money.

But I wanted to serve and I'll never forget coming back on the plane from Iraq, landing in Coronado, California, North Island, and feeling that breeze off the Pacific Ocean say, you know what, I am lucky to have been born and American. And I think being able to serve and I'll be the first president elected since 1988, was actually served overseas in a war. I think that's going to help me as Commander in Chief, to know how you see these issues and understand that there are real lives at stake for people that wear the uniform.

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I'm the only one up here who's gotten in the big fights and has delivered big victories for the people of Florida. And that's what it's all about.

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You can always talk, but when it gets hot in there, when they're shooting arrows at you, are you going to stand up for parents' rights, keep the state free? Are you going to be able to do all those things?

And in the state of Florida, because of our success, the Democratic Party lies in ruins. We have won the big fights. We have turned our state into a Republican state.

People respond to leadership. I've done it while others have talked about it.

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Same way we did in Florida. We won the greatest Republican victory in a governor's race. In the history of the state, over 1.5 million votes. We were winning places like Miami-Dade County, Palm Beach, that nobody thought was possible because we were leading with purpose and conviction.

I reject this idea that pro-lifers are to blame for midterm defeats. I think there's other reasons for that. The former president, you know, he is missing in action tonight. He's had a lot to say about that. He should be here explaining his comments to try to say that pro-life protections are somehow a terrible thing.

I want him to look into the eyes and tell people who have been fighting this fight for a long time I was at -- my wife and I earlier today were at the gravesite of President and Mrs. Reagan and I noticed that there was a quote where it says, every single person has purpose and worth. We're better off when everybody counts, and I think we should stand for what we believe in.

I think we should hold the Democrats accountable for their extremism, supporting abortion all the way up until the moment of birth. That is infanticide and that is wrong.

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So, polls don't elect presidents. Voters elect presidents.

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And we're going to take the case to the people, in these early states. We're going to do it in a state-by-state direction. And why? Because, as Reagan said, in his day, this is our time for choosing.

We are not getting a mulligan, on the 2024 election. Republicans have lost three straight elections, in a row. We were supposed to have a red wave, with inflation at 9 percent. It crashed and burned. Not in Florida, it didn't. We delivered it in Florida.

And so, we've got to choose, right. We've got to win. And we need somebody that's going to be able to serve two terms, so, in January of 2023 (ph), they'll be able to address the nation, saying --

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We turned the economy around, and we secured the border, and we fended off the threat, from communist China." As your president, I will get that job done.

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