A Second Look: Megyn's 2023 Sitdown with Gov. Ron DeSantis

Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show, live on Sirius XM Channel 111 every weekday at noon east. Hey everyone, I'm Megyn Kelly. Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show and today's Sunday, a second look bonus show. Governor Ron DeSantis of Florida is on the way out of that role and is suddenly inserting himself right into the political conversation this week. Does he have presidential aspirations for 2028? Duh. Obviously, it would not be the first time. And when he ran for president the last time, we at the MK Show went down to Tallahassee, Florida for the first ever in-person interview we've done in July of 2023 with him. That is, we're bringing it to you again now and you can take a look at the positions of Ron DeSantis. And, you know, consistent with the theme of this series, a second look. You can give one to him. Enjoy, and we'll see you Monday. Thank you for doing this, Governor. We appreciate it. Sure. So let's start with the news of the day. This week, we saw the plea agreement between Hunter Biden and the DOJ fall apart in court. The judge noted that the agreement, as written, could give him sweeping immunity for all sorts of charges, including his foreign business deals. This comes on the heels of two IRS whistleblowers coming forward to say that the DOJ, which has repeatedly intervened in their investigation and undermined it. What does all of this tell you about the state of our Department of Justice? Well, I'll tell you, just to give the judge credit, I mean, I thought the fix was in on this thing. I mean, I thought that this would end up going, sweetheart deal, and then they just kind of move on and say, oh, no, we did deal with Hunter. You know, we're not we're not targeting or we're not we don't have two separate standards. So she's really forced this issue. So I think that that's a good thing. But this Department of Justice, they have a lack of curiosity. Any time there is. Incriminating information about somebody that's connected to the D.C. ruling class, and we see that over and over again. And so in that sense, I think it's they're likely going to try to figure out a way to to not hold him fully accountable on this. And that's sad. But but I do not expect Merrick Garland to want to press hard against Hunter. I know you've got thoughts on the Department of Justice and how to get to the root of the problem there. This really concerns a lot of Republicans. I mean, how do you even begin? It's it's got to be so much more complicated than getting. Rid of the guy at the top. True. But you got to understand, OK, how did we get here? You know, we have a weaponized FBI and Justice Department. That obviously is not supposed to happen. But I think part of the reason it's happened is because for decades, presidents of both parties have bought into the canard that the DOJ and FBI are, quote, independent. Well, if you're independent, that means you're not accountable. So they would say, oh, the president can't get involved in those agencies. They're independent. They're separate. So they've been able to basically do what they've wanted to for many, many decades. And so our founding fathers would have said. If you have sources of power and power accumulates and there's not constitutional accountability, human nature being what it is, they will abuse the power. So like the founders would not have been surprised to see what ends up happening. So the first thing you got to do is president say you are not independent agencies. You answer to the elected president of the United States. If the FBI is investigating moms going to school board meetings, those FBI agents should be fired if they're colluding with big tech to censor speech. They're fired. If the Department of Justice won't go after BLM rioters, then you go then you hold them accountable. So you have to lean in and be part of that. That is totally appropriate. There's nothing wrong. The D.C. people will freak out about that because they want that to be their little playpen. They don't want a president to come in and hold them accountable. So just understanding how that works, I think, takes us a long way. You do need a new FBI director. You do need an attorney general has a backbone that knows if you're cleaning house, you're going to face blowback from the Washington. The Washington Post and CNN, they are not going to like you. So when you go in a position like that, if you want to be liked by official Washington, you're not going to be able to get the job done. So you so you just got to understand. I also think we need to break up parts of these agencies and parcel them out and other parts of the country. I mean, take the Civil Rights Division, put it in Oklahoma, take some of these others, put it in there. I think you would end up not having a situation where 99 percent of the people donate to Democrats. I think it would be much more representative. I think it would get out of just the toxic D.C. climate. But we need a major, major house cleaning. The only way you can do that is if you're disciplined, focus as president and you are setting the agenda for these agencies to follow. Now, speaking of government agencies, you told Clay Travis this week that you would consider making RFK Jr. the head of the CDC or the FBI. Well, I think I think that headline misquoted what I said. He asked me about RFK Jr. for VP because there's chatter on our on our side about doing that. And I said. No, because ultimately he's a liberal like we agree on Fauci. We agree on the medical swamp and how pharma has captive taken FDA captive. So we are going to clean house on that. I've said that from the beginning. I mean, we're going to drain the medical swamp in D.C. So it wouldn't be he would be the head of CDC. That would be a doctor or a Ph.D. But I'm going to have probably a task force to go in there, hold people accountable for covid, hold people accountable for what things are happening. So it would be more in that role that I'd want to get a bipartisan. Group of people together who understand the problem, understand the federal government's covid response was a disaster that hurt people, that hurt this country. We're still feeling the effects of it now with the kids who were locked out of school, the high prices. We would not have had the inflation that we had had they not done the Fauci lockdowns and the CARES Act and all this other stuff. So it was more in that context. So for the CDC and FDA, we will have doctor Ph.D. type. But they're going to be people like a J. Bhattacharya from Stanford who was right on covid, not going to be some of these people that are just part of this revolving door. OK, so not the head part of a bipartisan task force, possibly. Yeah, yeah. I think the word I use is like, you know, let's sick him on these agencies, you know, to hold them accountable. And that would be part of being kind of outside the agency and getting answers and bringing accountability to bear. We will absolutely do that. That needs to be done. I think I'm really the only candidate that's even talking about that on the Republican side. But I just. I just don't think we can just sweep under the rug what happened during covid. And so personal for me, because Florida, we fought back against that and we took the arrows for that, which is fine. But I think that if we don't hold them accountable, they are going to do it again. Yeah, they think that they did. They don't think they did anything wrong. And I don't think we can do that. So accountability means this will never happen again. Unfortunately, this week, Mitch McConnell suffered a medical incident in front of the microphones, made a lot of news. A partisan cooperation. And a string of. Let's go back. Go ahead, John. Now we've learned that he collapsed at least one other time in recent history. He's 81 years old. We've seen some problems with other politicians around that age, including our current president. What does this tell you, if anything, about the dangers or the risks? In electing people in their 80s to serve? Yeah, look, it used to not be that way. I mean, used to, you know, you kind of serve in your prime and then then pass the baton to the next generation. And I think this generation has not really been as willing to do that. Look, I think that we need one of the reasons I'm running compared to Biden. I mean, my gosh, we need energy in the executive. You know, we need some vigor, some vitality. And when I go in on day one, like we will spit nails starting January 20th, 2025. I mean, it'll be day after day after day. We're going to have all the executive orders written before we take office. All the legislation we want will be done. We'll have thousands of appointees to send to the Senate for confirmation. We're not going to miss a beat and we're going to take advantage of every opportunity. But you've got to be you've got to be vigorous. You've got to have energy to be able to do that. And so I think the American people, I do think they're ready to kind of say, OK, you know, let's try the next generation. You think about, you know, Joe Biden, you're basically half his age. I mean, he got elected as a senator. He probably was even born. I mean, think about how long, you know, he's been around and and clearly you just watch him. And it's not good for our country to have a president that's floundering around like that. It doesn't project strength to our adversaries. It doesn't inspire confidence in our allies. And I think Americans look and they want to see a president that they can have confidence in. And Biden is just not that with with how he's been behaving. Let's talk about 2024 right now, according to the RealClearPolitics app. The average of most polls, you're any place from 30 to 40 points behind Donald Trump. The other candidates catching up to you in Iowa and South Carolina, your campaign losing a lot of money, according to the reports. And you just fired one third of your staff. So what happened? Well, now, look, I think that it's not a national primary. You know, if you go into these early states, you know, we are doing very, very well in places like Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina. And that's really what it's all about. In terms of the campaign, you know, we raise more money than both. Joe Biden and Donald Trump spent more. I mean, you spent less than Trump. But still, as as as a leader, you know, I have a commander's intent focus on early states. It's not a national primary. If my organization was not following commander's intent, then I've got to make the change to make sure we're doing what we're doing. So we've done that. And, you know, you're going to see more and more in the early states because I think that that's ultimately what it is. I also understand we've tried to use this early period to to put the building blocks in place to be able. To turn out people on caucus night, to be able to turn out people for the New Hampshire primary right now over the summer voter. are not making decisions about who they're who they're going to support. Finally, I mean, this is kind of like name ID and all this other stuff who's in the news. So we're doing the things on the ground that I think you need to do to be able to win. I can tell you when we're on the ground in these places, you know, we've gotten an incredible response. We've had more legislators in Iowa, New Hampshire endorse us than any other candidate and probably all the other candidates combined, because I think they see that we would be able to be a strong candidate against Joe Biden. They want to see someone at the top of the ticket that's going to lift up the legislative candidates. And a lot of them have have viewed me as that guy. But what do you make? I mean, the campaign itself has said it needed a reset and that it's doing a reset right now. Are you saying that? But that's a that's a process part. That's not about message and that's not about getting out there with voters. You know, that's about how you're applying resources to the campaign headquarters versus the early states. So so that's been taken care of. But ultimately, that is not what's going to be determinative in the race. What's going to be determinative in the race is, you know, we need someone that can beat Joe Biden. We need somebody that's going to be a strong leader that has a record of success. We need someone that's actually going to get this stuff done. We talk about things like the border. We talk about things like the economy. We talk about things like dealing with, say, the medical bureaucracy. But we actually have to bring this to fruition. And what I bring is someone in Florida. Everything I said I would do, we delivered on. And in fact, most of the time, we're not going to do it. We're going to do it. We're over promise and under deliver. We made bold promises and we over delivered on our promises. And so that's the type of leader they'll get with me. What do you make of the polls that show, including Monmouth yesterday, showing that 69 percent of Republican voters think that Trump is the most electable candidate running right now in the GOP, that he's the most likely to beat Joe Biden? That was always one of your best arguments, that you were more electable than Trump. Well, I mean, I think if you look at these, look, I take the polls with a grain of salt. But if you look at polls for general elections, you're going to see that there's a lot of people that are in the key states like Georgia, Arizona. I beat Biden. Trump loses to Biden. I mean, that's been very consistent in those. And if you can't win Georgia, you can't win the presidential election. I'd also point out, you know, he ran in Florida in 2020, won by three. I won Florida by 20 in 2022. And so we were able to make inroads, winning 60 plus percent of Hispanic voters. We won a majority of female voters. We won independence by 18 percent. At the end of the day, you can't do this with just a few people. You can't do this with just a few Republicans. And we did very well with Republicans. I mean, I think we won 97 percent of Republicans. But you've got to be able to get independence. And I think we have an opportunity to do like we did in Florida, get some of these Democrats who realize their party has gone off the rocker on things like education and parents' rights and crime. And so we have a chance to do that. I just think there's too many voters out there. They just will never vote for Trump under any circumstance. On the subject of independence, a recent CNN poll showed that right-leaning independents favor Trump over you by 27 points. Independent primary voters surveyed by YouGov a month ago said they plan to vote for Trump over you by a 29-point margin. So what's the evidence that you have that independents favor you? I'm not known nationally as much as Trump is. I mean, so that's why you run a campaign. That's why you go out and do that. That's why we have things like debates. That's why you're in the early states, because you've got to introduce yourself to voters. You've got to let them know what your accomplishments are. And you've got to let them know what you plan to do for the country. And if that just happened the day you announced, then there'd be no need to have to run any of these campaigns. And so, you know, we're still six months away from Iowa, and we're going to put a lot of work in between now and then. So let's talk about that. You do have to let them know. You have to get out there. And you haven't been going out there that much. You've been going mostly to conservative safe spaces. But now you seem to be shifting a little bit more. I saw you on CNN recently. Now you're sitting with me. I'm a right-leaning independent. So is this a change? Is this a change in your media strategy? And are we going to be seeing more of you out there? Well, what I've typically done is, you know, I do media availabilities all the time. I've probably done more press conferences as governor than any governor in history. And all these people can come and ask me questions. And so we're going to continue to do that on the campaign trail. You know, we may sit down for some more interviews as we continue to go. I think it's good. I mean, I think people like to hear directly. But the idea that I was not engaging with hostile media, you know, that's just not been true. In fact, that's kind of how, I got known in Florida. As governor, you did. As governor, we were fighting the COVID wars and all that. Yes. But since you've actually declared, it seems like you've been in a conservative bunker. Well, we've done, you know, we have a traveling press. You know, we do the media availabilities. We're going to continue to do that and probably do more as time goes by. Don't you think that would help you? Don't you think having a viral moment with, you know, somebody in the far left who hates you is going to be helpful to you? It could. I mean, it definitely has helped me in the past. And I think a lot of times they are in their own cocoon. And so they're trying to propagate narratives. But these narratives are easy to deconstruct. And so if you just know your stuff, you know, you can handle that very easily. All right. Now, one of the criticisms I hear about you from people who watch and listen to my show is he's too establishment, right? You've heard Trump say globalists, the rhino, but he's too establishment. They think that you're too close to the Paul Ryan, Karl Rove wing of the party, and that if they elect you, you'll be too beholden to the big money donors inside the Republican Party. The numbers on that. For that is what? Well, I mean, this is what my listeners feel. But I'll give you one. Only 17% of your donations second quarter came from small dollar donors. 82% of Trump's did. So you can see why they're worried that you're going to be beholden to these GOP elites and not worried about the grassroots concerns. So first of all, I have not spoken to Paul Ryan since I've been governor. So that's many, many years. I've met Karl Rove once. That's all just totally fabricated out of whole cloth. I also have a record as governor of Florida. I beat Disney on the parents' rights. They're a pretty powerful financial institution in the state of Florida. We stood up to the global elites, not just national establishment, international establishment against the COVID lockdowns. We stood up, I mean, I've restored the Everglades in Florida. I had to stand up against the big sugar companies who had dominated Florida for a long time. We've stood up to big pharma, not just by trying to get cheaper prescription drugs. Actually, I have a grand jury impaneled to investigate misrepresentations that they made about the COVID-19 vaccine. So I've stood up to these people more than anybody else has done. How many establishment Republicans would have sent illegal aliens to Martha's Vineyard? They just wouldn't have done it. So I think a lot of that is fabricated. And look, I have the second best small dollar operation in Republican politics. I mean, Trump was president first. So I mean, of course he's going to have a better operation, but ours is growing and growing. And if you look at the new donors, these smaller ones, 30% of ours never donated to Republican politics before they came to me. So we're bringing more people in and we're going to continue to do well with that. The other question about Trump, and then I'll move on to some more substantive issues. He says this is a disloyal act. And I know you've spoken to that before, but he says specifically that you got elected governor because of him. You were dead in the race and that you, quote, came over and begged him for an endorsement with tears coming down from your eyes. And do you believe that? Is it true? Do you believe that? You tell me. I mean, come on. This was public. I think we were on Air Force One. I said, hey, I'm thinking about running. Will you support me? Will you tweet for me? And he's like, yeah, I'll tweet for you. And that was it. And that was all that. But here's the thing. Politicians have to earn support. Nobody's entitled to support. I'm loyal to my family. I'm loyal to our Constitution. I'm loyal to God. That is where my loyalty goes. I'll work with politicians to try to advance what I believe is in the best interests of Florida and the country. But at the end of the day, it's about who can get the job done. And that's how I view it. And it's interesting. He doesn't say that about his own vice president running against him. He doesn't say that about his ambassador to the UN running against him. He doesn't say that about other people he endorsed in the past who are now running against him. He only says it about me because I think he construes me as the only threat to his winning the nomination. What about to the people who say it's not your turn? It's still his turn. He got screwed out of his first term by Russiagate and the impeachment. He got an unfair shot at it second time around because of all the election shenanigans. And that he deserves to have this next go at it. We're a republic. We're not a monarchy. It's nobody's turn. You have every right to put yourself forward. I believe at this point in history, 2024 is make or break for this country. I'm not running to be president. I'm running to be president. I'm running to do something as president for the country. I think I'm the guy that can win the primary, win the general election, and then deliver on all of these things and do it for two terms, which I think is really important because if you look Trump's first term, he did a lot of good things. Biden reversed almost everything on day one. I think you do need two terms for this stuff to really, really stick. And so I think that I'm the only guy that fits that bill. So I have a responsibility to step up and offer myself for service. Let's talk about Florida for one minute. The Department of Education is in the news this week. They issued new guidelines when it comes to teaching things like slavery. They are teaching its innumerable horrors. That's clear. But they are also requiring teachers to instruct that, quote, slaves develop skills, which in some instances could be used for personal benefit. As you know, the vice president made an emergency trip down here to Florida to say you were whitewashing history, that these are lies. Even GOP presidential candidate Will Hurd, who is black, weighed in saying slavery was not a job program. What's your response to all this? Well, those standards were developed by African-American history scholars. many of them themselves were black. And the point about developing skills was those skills were developed in spite of slavery, not because of slavery. And that's what they're doing. And then they're saying they had skills postbellum, then they would use those skills as freedmen. And that's exactly what happened. And there's actually been other courses. So the AP African-American history. So we had a kerfuffle on that earlier this year because they there was a lot of the course was good. But then they had part of it that was like Marxist studies. And we said, no, you know, we don't want the indoctrination. So we got attacked because we stood up against that. You won that. We won it. But in that course, they had the same basic teaching point about the skills that were developed. And this is not something that was just made up out of whole cloth by our working working group. This is something that people have been talking about. And this was all done in public. It wasn't political. Like we didn't tell them what to do. We said, you know, we're not doing critical race. We're not doing a political agenda. Just do the facts. And they did a very thorough job. I mean, if you look at all the things they're talking about, nobody Kamala Harris coming down here and try to tell everybody that you're lying, that you've you've decided to lie to the American public about slavery. Well, the White House has been obsessed with us in Florida from the time they took office. Clearly, they view us as a threat. And so anything that they can do to try to ding us. But I think in this case, people looked at it and they could tell she was lying and she was demigod. I mean, this stuff was vetted. This was all public. People could do comments. Everyone was praising what a thorough job they did. Then all of a sudden they cherry pick something, take it out of context and then try to demagogue it. Because if you look at the entire standards, there is no way you can view those standards and not come to any other conclusion that they are very, very honest about the injustice of slavery. And that's time and time again. You see through that. So I think the thing that's instructive, though, is, OK, you have Harris doing this and Biden's White House. Corporate media, you know, if they're really truth tellers, if they're about holding the powerful accountable, they would have pushed back on this. They would have said, wait a minute, you know, that's not true. They would have had Dr. Allen on to shoot it down. And instead, they try to concoct the narrative even further and push it. So I think people like Harris do it because they know they can get away with it with a lot of our corporate press. We had Dr. Allen on and he said the teachers union was sitting there, lying there like snakes in the grass at these meetings, not saying anything, not objecting to any of this until after it became a controversy. All right, let's shift and talk about Disney. You mentioned them just a bit. You and my view are pretty quick to use the power of the state against certain corporations. So you don't like these woke corporations. Disney, after it attacked your Parental Rights and Education Act, Anheuser-Busch recently for hurting the pension investments, you said of Floridians with the whole Bud Light debacle. Much as the base is angry at these woke corporations, and I get it. I know you get it. Aren't you doing the very thing to these companies that conservatives are mad at left-wing leaders for doing, using government to punish citizens for political wrong-think? No, not at all. So take Anheuser-Busch. I mean, we're not punishing them. They departed from business practices by indulging in social activism. That has caused a huge problem for their company, and their stock price has gone down. Well, our pension fund in Florida holds Anheuser-Busch InBev stock. So it's actually hurt teachers. It's hurt cops. It hurts firefighters who depend on that pension fund. And so it's- Didn't you support the boycott against them? No, I did. But that's just as a personal thing. But I mean, we didn't have the state government necessarily putting power about it. But as an American, I said, I'm not doing Bud Light. But for this, we're defending the people that are beneficiaries of the pension. When you go, look, the wokeness. Yes, it's annoying. Yes, when they're trying to throw an agenda down your throat, you don't like it. But it does have an impact on the economy. It has an impact on people who hold stock. And that's not just rich people. That's those people. So with InBev, they departed from their fiduciary duty. And so we're investigating the state- How can you say they departed? I'm not in favor of the Bud Light thing at all. But how can you say they departed from their fiduciary duty? They sent a beer can to this very controversial person, which upset the consumers. And the consumers had their say. But how is that a departure from their- And how does the state get involved in that? How is that something that is helping their shareholders or helping their company's value? But how is that for you to weigh in on? Because I have people in Florida that were injured by the company's decline as a result of that. These are people that rely on the pension. Disney is a different issue than this. But we have to say companies should do their job. If they depart from that and they harm people, then you have an opportunity to potentially have recourse. Now, Disney was an issue where they came after the state of Florida when we were doing fortifying parental rights, saying at that time it was K through 3, no gender ideology or any of that in the schools. And to me, that was not a huge leap. I mean, that's common sense. Why would you want to tell a second grader that they may have been born in the wrong body? That is happening around this country. And we said in Florida, we're not. So they came in against us. And they're very powerful in Florida. They usually get whatever they want. So we stood up and we said, no, we're going to do what's best for students and parents. We're not going to kowtow to Disney. Then after I signed the bill, they put out a statement saying they were going to make it a mission to see that the bill was repealed or overturned in court. So they said they were taking their corporate resources to basically attack parents' rights in Florida and overturn a core state policy. So we had to then make a decision. And the legislature started saying, well, wait a minute. Disney is getting these benefits that they've had for a long time. Maybe we should reevaluate it. And then when you looked at what they got, unbelievable arrangement that they had that no other individual or no other company in the entire state enjoyed. So Florida, for many decades ago, was joined at the hip with this one company. They started going down the road of sexualizing children. We just could not be joined at the hip with a company that was doing that. That's antithetical to our values in Florida. So what they did was, you don't get to control your own government. You don't get to be exempt from laws and taxes. You're going to live under the same laws as everybody else. You're going to be treated like SeaWorld. You're going to be treated like Universal. So that's actually good policy. That's taking away corporate welfare and putting everybody on a level playing field. But we could not be, I mean, I couldn't look in the mirror as a parent of a six, five, and three-year-old knowing that this company was getting benefits from, and these are not benefits I gave them. This is many, many decades ago. That they were doing that, given the direction that they're going with kids. I draw the line at protecting kids. We are going to protect our kids, and we will take on big corporations to do So are you suggesting you would have done this irrespective of them criticizing and fighting your Parents and Education Act? I mean, that this had nothing to do with their stance on your law? Well, obviously, they're supporting sexualizing kids in Florida schools. I mean, they were putting their corporate weight behind ensuring that that could happen. So of course that was a factor. But another factor- They were punished by you, in part, by the state for their political viewpoint. It's not a punishment. So that was part of it. Then they had the Zoom videos that were put out where these Disney executives were acknowledging that they wanted to inject the sexualization into their programming. Yes, I understand. That's different, and that's less controversial. Well, but I mean, but that was part of the decision where the legislature, the support to maintain this arrangement just collapsed. And we were in a situation where he said, okay, this is a company that's pursuing- Okay, but how is it not viewpoint discrimination? We talked about 303 Creative, you and I, privately, about the U.S. Supreme Court case that just came down. They held in that case, they reminded us that citizens in this country are free to speak as they wish and not as the government demands. So why can't Disney oppose your law? They can. They can. And why can't they promote this agenda in their viewpoint without being punished by the state? They're not being punished. We're just simply removing special benefits that they have had that really weren't justifiable. They were worse off when it was done than they were before they spoke out. Well, no. I mean, it was, first of all, we didn't actually do anything to Disney. There was a government that had been in place that they had effectively corrupted, which was not the way it was supposed to be, by the way, if you look at how this started in 68. So we changed the governing structure, which really didn't even impact them directly. They're just indirectly, they don't like it because- They don't get to call the shots anymore. But they are not entitled to corporate welfare. You do not have a constitutional right to corporate welfare. I know that, but it's not about entitlement. It's not about entitlement. If I go to my boss and I say, you sexually harassed me, and then suddenly he reduces my salary from $200,000 to $100,000, that's retaliation. I am worse off. And it's not a defense to say, well, everybody else at the company was getting $100,000. You've reduced my certainty. You've punished me. No, but that's an employer-employee relationship. I think that that's much different. But this is the state taking away a benefit. But your position is basically that Florida should be forced to subsidize Disney regardless of how it's going to use those subsidies so that they can weaponize the subsidies they get from the state and turn it against state policy. Why would we want to subsidize that behavior? Why should Florida taxpayers have to underwrite that? But I don't want a President Gavin Newsom doing this to conservative companies or companies who have a more conservative viewpoint. Well, here's what I would say. I don't think there's any arrangement in America that mirrored the arrangement Disney had in Florida for many, many decades. I mean, I think I think it was a unique situation where we just could not justify how could you be exempt from laws that every other company in business has to follow an individual? How could you be exempt from taxes? How could you rack up municipal debt on your own when they didn't have it? So, you know, they had powers to build their own nuclear power plant. They had extraterritorial eminent domain. I get it. I get it. They had a lot of that. If you lived in a subdivision outside of Disney, they actually had the right to seize your property if they wanted to expand beyond the district. So this was something that was just totally, totally unjustifiable. But it lived on in Florida for many, many decades because they were just so powerful. But take apart all of the stuff with the sexualization of children, all that. Just on the merits, was this an arrangement that was justifiable? And the answer is no. But no one really questioned it. And the legislature, because they enjoyed a lot of political sway. Let's move on. What's your plan to protect women and girls from men who claim they are trans trying to get into our spaces and our sports? Well, in Florida, we've done all of that. So girls' sports, women's sports is protected. Men can't be injecting themselves into those competitions. It takes away opportunities for girls and for women athletes. And we did that years ago here as governor. We've also protected the locker room. We've also protected the rooms and the bathrooms so that men are not going into women's very sensitive places. And I think that that should be the rule, period. We will look within the constitutional authority of the federal government. We'll look to do the same for women's sports and those issues nationally. Title IX? Yeah, I think so. There was an ad recently released that was controversial online that portrayed you as a warrior against certain of these LGBTQ issues. And Trump is soft. The New York Times reports that you were actually behind that ad, your campaign. You definitely promoted it and defended it. Do you think that Trump is soft on this issue, the issue of trans rights versus women's rights? Well, I think that what was pointed out there was, you know, he had been a pioneer in injecting men into women's competitions because, you know, he was doing that with beauty pageants way, way back in the day, you know, 10 years ago or whatnot. And then he's also opposed things like protecting locker rooms and bathrooms when he was running. He said North Carolina shouldn't have done that when they did it. So that, I think, is not where our voters are on that. I think our voters, you know, believe that standing up for women and girls means protecting their right to compete with integrity and protecting things like bathrooms and locker rooms. And so, you know, he just had been very clear on that issue. And I don't think that's where our voters are. Do you think he may have changed? I mean, 15 versus now is a lifetime on the issue of the trans rights thing. You know, I don't know. I mean, I think that, you know, it wasn't just that, you know, he had kind of a flippant opinion on it. I mean, you know, he was really one of the leaders in making this a big issue culturally and nationally. Speaking of that campaign ad, one of the complaints I've heard about the DeSantis team is they're too online. There was the Twitter spaces launch. Yes, but it was it's more about the petty Twitter squabbles that we see some connected with your campaign having that will take up three days of the news cycle. That don't really amount to anything substantive. For the voters in Iowa and elsewhere. Is that a fair point? So we have people that are doing this rapid response. I'm not putting my time into it at all. I mean, you know, they're going and going back and forth. You know, there's kind of a battle that does online. I am not somebody who's who's following that very closely. It's just not my cup of tea. And so I'm following more about, you know, what's happening. No, I get it. But I mean, but but, you know, we have people shooting at us, too, online every single day. I mean, the fact that you asked about people like Paul Ryan, you know, that. That's all a manufactured online controversy instead of attacks that have no basis in reality. And so there is need to kind of push back on some of this stuff. So I wouldn't say it's too online. I think that there's a place for for that. But ultimately, you know, the people in Iowa and New Hampshire, you know, they're not following the latest Twitter war. They're following what's going on in their lives. And I'm very cognizant of that. You recently signed a six week abortion ban in Florida. That is popular with Republican voters. The majority support that. But you haven't yet said whether you would support doing that at the federal level. Will you say so now? So our bill in Florida protects unborn when there's a detectable heartbeat. You know, the heartbeat bill is something that is rooted in science and medicine. And this is the most significant pro-life protections that we've ever done in the state of Florida in the modern history. So I've been a pro-life governor. I'll be a pro-life president and I will come down on the side of life. We are running on doing things that I know I can accomplish. So we're going to end the abortion tourism that is in the military. It's an egregious waste of taxpayer dollars. No funding for abortion. We're going to ensure that the Supreme Court remains so that Dobbs is not overturned. And I'm going to be a leader with the bully pulpit, you know, to help local communities and states advance the cause of life. But I really believe right now in our society, it's really a bottom up movement. And that's where we've had most. Success, Iowa, South Carolina, Florida. And I think you're going to continue to see a lot of good battles there. So you're not in support of a federal law. I'll always I'll always side. I'll always come down on the side of life. And, you know, I'm proud to be pro-life and I'll be a pro-life president. But if you do that, I mean, if you sign a federal law, you know, making a six week standard, the law across the country. Aren't we just then going to get a Democrat administration with Democrat Congress that reverses or that codifies Roe and back and forth? Why isn't it just a state's rights issue? Well, clearly the states have. I mean, I think the states have the primary jurisdiction over it. I do think they do. But if there's a federal law, that's going to change. There is. I think there is a federal interest. But I think the reality is that, you know, the country's divided on it. You know, you're not going to see Wisconsin mimic what Texas has, which is an argument against a federal. You're not going to see Pennsylvania mimic what Georgia is. Well, but I mean, we're divided. I mean, who's is are these things like on the on the potential thing? I haven't seen Congress move that. I don't have much. I don't have much confidence that Congress is going to do anything meaningful in this regard. And so in a federalist system, you know, you have different opinions and that stuff gets filtered out. But clearly right now you are going to see different states go in different directions. And I understand that. That'll happen until and unless we have a federal law on it. On immigration, the southern border is a mess. It's a mess. In 2022, we had 2.4 million encounters with migrants trying to cross the border illegally under Trump. And in 2020, it was 2 million fewer. It was 450,000. So you've been somewhat critical of Trump on the border, saying he did not complete that wall he promised. But what specifically would you do differently than Biden and Trump to secure that border? Day one, we'll declare it a national emergency. I'll mobilize all resources, including the military, to go. We're going to stop the invasion. We're not going to entertain the bogus asylum claims. We are going to actually build the wall because I do think that's important. But we're going to have both Border Patrol and military. And we're going to have both Border Patrol and military authorized to use deadly force against the Mexican drug cartels who were infiltrating our country. I was actually down in Arizona. There actually was a piece of the wall there. And I go, and it's like big steel beams. And these guys are working on it. I'm like, what are you doing? They're like, well, the cartels cut through the wall. And then they bring in drugs. And basically, Biden just lets it happen. So for us, what I've said, if you're doing that, and you've got a backpack full of fentanyl on, and you're trying to scurry in, it's going to be the last thing you do. You do it. You are going to end up stone cold dead because I'm going to let our folks do their job. And if you just do that a few times, you are going to see a major, major change. Tens of thousands of people are dying in our country because of fentanyl overdose. You can't go to a community in this country without running into a mother who's lost a child. And we're just supposed to just shrug our shoulders and let that happen. So we're going to lean in against the cartels in ways that others can't. We're going to lean in against the cartels in ways that other presidents have not been able to do. That is going to make an impact. But we cannot allow this poison to just keep coming into our country and killing our young people. On the economy, it's the number one issue. Number one, still for American voters. Inflation still remains high. People are really suffering. You're not a rich man. You could be with your education and your background. But you've been a public servant. Milk right now, $4 a gallon. Organic milk, $9 a gallon. It's unbelievable. So what are you going to do about it? Well, first of all, what's the root of the high prices? The root is government. This is a government-induced inflation crisis. Starting in March of 2020 with the $2 trillion CARES Act, the Fed printing money. December 20, you had $2.2 trillion out the door for Biden when he came in. Biden did. American Rescue Plan, another $2 trillion. So when you borrow, print, and spend trillions and trillions of dollars like that, you are going to get inflation. You know, that's a Milton Friedman kind of, he said, 18 months after this happens, you're going to get it. So that's what we've had. And then you had the Federal Reserve. Not only did they print all this money, they said, oh, it's transitory. Don't worry about the inflation. It started going. So now they've been jacking up interest rates because they got behind the ball. So now the average person to buy a home that you can't afford a new home, if you make the median income compared to the median home price with the interest rates where they are, it doesn't matter. It does not work financially. It's harder to afford a car and, of course, daily expenses like groceries. So you have to rein in. the Congress's spending, which has caused this. You have to increase and expand our domestic energy production. Biden got rid of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, basically. That kind of kept things. It would have been worse had he not done that, put us in a vulnerable position with fuel. But if we open this up and realize we cannot do a Green New Deal, that is going to help impact inflation. We also need to grow more. So right now, we're settling into persistently high prices with a very sluggish economy. And our growth rate over the past decade has been anemic. So we've got to get growing again. And I think that means getting the bureaucracy and government off the backs of small businesses. Trump could be indicted again today over the January 6th behavior. How worried should he be? Well, here's what I would say about this Department of Justice. I'm pledged to end the weaponization of government. I think that they have weaponized these agencies in ways that really hurts the cause of freedom. And it's not just about one person. It's about do we have a rule of law or is it just about wielding power against people you don't like? And so everything that happens in this case and others, for me, is seen through that prism of a DOJ and FBI that have totally lost their way and have been weaponized against the public. I think in D.C. there's a big problem that we have in terms of being able to get fair trial. If you are part of the swamp, when Durham went after that guy, he got acquitted. He had him dead to rights, but he got acquitted in front of a D.C. jury. If you're not part of the swamp, man, they will nail you to the wall for jaywalking. One of the things I want to do and work with Congress is to give Americans the right to remove a case if they're charged in D.C. federally, remove it to their home judicial district. Because I think you'd get a fairer jury pool. I mean, that's a 95 percent very liberal jury. And in a politically charged case, I don't think it's going to be fair. And that's an imbalance that we have where the swamp protects its own, so people are effectively immune because they can get acquitted in front of that jury. But then if you're challenging the swamp, man, they will nail you to the wall. Given your views on the weaponization of government, would you commit to pardoning him on any federal charges against him? Well, what I've said is very simple. I'm going to do what's right for the country. I don't think it would be good for the country to have an almost 80-year-old former president go to prison. So that's a yes. It just doesn't seem like it would be a good thing. And I look at, like, you know, Ford, pardon Nixon, took some heat for it. But at the end of the day, it's like, do we want to move forward as a country, or do we want to be mired in these past controversies? And I think the public wants a fresh start. I think they want somebody that's going to focus on their issues. We've had a lot that's happened over the last five or six years. You know, I get that. But going forward, we've got all these issues that we've got to deal with. We've got to deal with. But I've also said this on ending weaponization. We will wield the pardon power if normal Americans have been targeted unfairly. And what I'm going to look to see, OK, was there a separate standard of justice applied? As soon as the election's over, we want people to apply who may have been treated dissimilarly. And then you can go and do that appropriately. And then the flip side of that is people that are connected to the swamp are going to be held accountable. They are not going to get a lower standard of justice. You said Trump should have done more. January 6th, like what? Well, look, I think it's I think it's been well documented kind of his conduct when when it first started, how he sat there, you know, could have obviously leaned in harder. I think, I mean, even his own kids were texting saying, you know, he needs to do more. He needs to do more. Is that criminal, though? I mean, that's the thing when you talk about a grand jury and a potential criminal indictment. I mean, you can you can identify flawed conduct. You can criticize his conduct. But you have to find a statute. That was violated. And I think one of the dangers of what Garland's doing in this is they may be taking statutes from like Reconstruction era that was about making sure that freed slaves had civil rights. And they may apply that trying to repurpose Trump on that. And that's the thing. When you have a situation where there's this political difference, nobody's above the law. I mean, you could be a Republican administration. Doesn't mean you can't prosecute a Democrat and vice versa. But the issue is if someone robs a bank, we know that's a crime. You rob the bank. If they prove it up, then then you're held accountable to take a statute like conspiracy against rights and try to shoehorn in his conduct on January six. That is what's going to cause people to say, well, wait a minute, you know, you're doing it. Yeah. Some of the observations of Ron DeSantis on the campaign trail have been, well, it doesn't seem like a natural retail politician, not glad handing with the crowds the way Bill Clinton did. That's actually not true. That's what they said before we started. They're like, oh, he doesn't do retail. I don't know where they got that from. I'm as governor. I was, I was the first governor to visit all 67 counties. Does this bother you? Well, because it's a narrative. It's just not true. I mean, I'm actually on the ground. People, all they had to do is watch what I've done as governor. Watch what we've done in these campaigns. But, and I think they say, well, Florida is a media state, all this other thing. Therefore you must not do that. We do do that. I mean, we go in all those, so we've come and go. And so we did the New Hampshire. A GOP dinner and this, the party chairman goes to the media. They're like, you guys were saying like he doesn't do retail, he doesn't do all this. And what we saw was the complete opposite, you know, he came in, did a great speech. He took pictures, shook hands with every single person, you know, that want to do it. He was there for an extra hour and all this stuff. So I think what the media does, you know, they can't criticize me, you know, in a Republican primary on my, on my record very effectively because we've done so much politically, we've been a huge success. So they know that. So they've got to try to figure out whatever. So they throw this out there thinking that I'll tell you what, it's helped me though, because I think what they do is they just lower the bar. So when you go there and do this, people are like, oh man, this is normal. He's a great guy. Oh, wow. You can put sentences together and shake hands. Exactly. This may sound like a weird question, but there's a reason I'm asking it. The woman who is playing the lead in your favorite movie company, Disney's remake of Snow White is on camera. Just got recirculated though. She said it in 2022 saying in this remake. We can expect this. Snow White will not be focused on true love, but instead is going to be all about leadership. You said you were bringing a modern edge to it on stage. What do you mean by that? I just mean that it's no longer 1937. We absolutely wrote a Snow White that is not going to be saved by the Prince. She's not going to be saved by the Prince and she's not going to be dreaming about true love. She's dreaming about becoming the leader she knows she can be. As somebody who is a sitting governor and seems to have found true love in your life, what do you say to that message? Yeah, I mean, well, I think it's partially Disney. They're departing from kind of what made them a great company with their messaging and they're trying to focus on more social messaging. And I don't think it's been effective for them. And clearly their stock prices had a lot of trouble in the past year or two and the receipts at the box office have not been good. It's interesting. Speaking of true love, my wife and I, we got married at Disney World. I can't believe that. Okay. And it was like, it was not my idea. And she, she came to me one day and she said. What about this? Because her parent, her family loved Disney, right? Growing up. What about Disney? And I'm like, look, if that's what you want, like, you know, it's your day, like I'm along for the ride, but no Donald Duck at the wedding. That's where I'm drawing the line. And we didn't have, and they actually have a wedding chapel. It was very nice and everything. But it's like, you know, that was not anything, I mean, Disney at that time was viewed as still the all American company. But how do you see, how do you see, I mean, I, to me, it stuck out at me that the notion that you have to choose, right? Like you can't be both a leader and true love. It's one or the other. And I look at somebody like you and I, I, it puts the lie to the notion. You've talked openly about your love with your wife. It's nice to hear, frankly, a strong man and a strong leader talk about his wife a lot and how much, you know, you feel for her, but put it in perspective for us. Well, look, I mean, I'm a better leader because of my relationship with my wife. I mean, I'm a better leader because I have somebody that that's my best friend and the love of my life. So it works hand in hand for me. The idea that you have to choose. Totally ridiculous. And you know, she's been somebody who has gone through trials and tribulations with having breast cancer and things like that. And you know, my job as a, as a husband is, you know, you're there good times and bad and sickness and in health. And so, yeah, I was governor and I had to do the job for the state, but you know, I'd be here on the weekends, you know, I'm here as soon as I get back during the weekdays, I'm here helping her through that because, you know, it's not an easy thing to go through and she handled it very well. And she was not, it was not, not facing a good situation. So she handled it very well, but, but you know, that's just my role. That's my job. I need to be there. The fact that she was dealing with this two years ago, I mean, just two years ago and it is back on her feet and as able and vivacious as she is, is amazing. Last question. She is unfortunately the brunt of a lot of these media attacks and they're vicious, they're, they're cruel, they're unfounded, um, it's harder sometimes to watch your loved one go through it. Than to go through it yourself, right? The media washing machine. Um, how does it affect you and does it ever give you pause? Like is this worth it? You've got the young kids, you've got the great wife is, is this worth it? So I mean, I, I don't mind the criticism to me. It's like, I don't even read it. I mean, I just, you know, it's not, it's not things that I'm interested in doing. And so, you know, I've got very thick skin and, and that helps you as a leader because I don't have to contort myself to try to worry about what people are going to say. Like I know people that don't. Want me to succeed are not going to say good things. That's just the reality. That's just how it's par for the course. Yeah. seeing it with your wife, just because they clearly, this is a good person, you know, who's a good mother, has been a great first lady, and they just don't like the fact that she's effective. They don't like the fact that she's speaking to issues that really do resonate, and they view her as a threat to their political ambitions. And so what do they do? They try to smear her. They try to attack her for all these different things. But she and I, though, have come to the realization, if she was not doing a good job, if she was not a force to be reckoned with, they would not waste time on her. They're going after her because she launched the Mamas movement nationally, which she did in Florida for a reelection. And people are drawn to it. And it's not just Republicans, because independents and Democrat parents, on the whole parents' rights thing, a lot of the Democrat parents sided with us because they knew that that was just the right thing to do for kids. So in some respects, it's confirmation that she's over the target. And when you're over the target, you're taking flack. And that's just the nature of it. So I don't like to see it. But I also understand that they're seeing what so many people in Florida have seen. She's a very dynamic, very strong, very inspirational woman. And there's a lot of moms out there that she's going to resonate with. Governor DeSantis, thank you. Thanks so much. So nice to see you. Thank you. All the best to you. Thanks for listening to The Megyn Kelly Show. No BS, no agenda, and no fear. I'm DeSantis. I'll see you next time.