Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - Ep 763 ｜ Governor Ron DeSantis on the LGBTQ Lobby, DEI, and Fatherhood

00:00:00.000 Maybe the most maligned man in the media today, consistently at the center of the most important culture wars, using his power as the governor of the state of Florida to push for policies that swung the state from purple to red in just four years.

00:00:17.520 Governor Ron DeSantis is here with me today to talk about some of the latest media myths about his moves as the leader of his state, his governing philosophy, and how fatherhood influences the fights that he takes on.

00:00:30.440 Also, yes, I will ask him the million dollar question that all of you are wondering about, but you will not want to miss everything that he has to say first.

00:00:39.180 This episode is brought to you by our friends at Good Ranchers.

00:00:42.340 Go to GoodRanchers.com.

00:00:43.480 Use promo code Allie at checkout for a discount. 1.00

00:00:45.660 That's GoodRanchers.com.

00:00:46.700 Code Allie. 1.00

00:00:47.300 Governor DeSantis, thanks so much for taking the time to join us.

00:01:01.380 My husband and I were just in Miami last week celebrating my birthday.

00:01:06.260 We actually got the worst sunburns of our life.

00:01:08.800 Other than that, it was a great experience.

00:01:11.940 When we were there, I think this was our first time visiting, walking around.

00:01:15.820 You didn't get the sense that it's necessarily a conservative haven.

00:01:20.400 Beautiful city, not necessarily a conservative haven.

00:01:23.900 And yet, in the last election, you won by 11 points.

00:01:28.720 Hillary won by 29 points in 2016.

00:01:30.820 So just tell me, tell me your reaction to that and tell me why you think that shift happened so quickly.

00:01:36.660 Well, look, I think part of it is we were able to produce a lot of great results.

00:01:39.920 I mean, especially during COVID, I was the one that really had to come in and say, you know, these businesses cannot be shut down by local government.

00:01:47.300 People need to be in school.

00:01:48.680 And a lot of the families appreciate that.

00:01:50.900 A lot of the workers appreciate that.

00:01:52.400 A lot of the small business folks really appreciated that.

00:01:55.120 But then we've also stood for really strong policies with respect to education, parents' rights.

00:02:02.060 Big, big deal.

00:02:03.080 I mean, this is a 70% Latino county.

00:02:05.920 And they believe parents should be involved in the education.

00:02:09.600 They believe that indoctrination in the schools is a problem.

00:02:13.620 Some of the people that left from Cuba knew how that government operated.

00:02:18.220 And so they're very sensitive to some of those things.

00:02:21.280 So I think just across the board, we produced really good results.

00:02:24.820 But then you've also have had migration patterns where, especially during COVID, people that wanted to be in a free state,

00:02:33.260 so many people came to Florida.

00:02:35.080 And Miami was a really top destination for a lot of those folks.

00:02:38.800 And so I think they came to Florida for a reason, and they wanted to see the state continue to be governed the way we're doing it,

00:02:45.580 rather than have someone come in and do what the Illinois's and the Californias and the New York were doing,

00:02:51.860 because those policies are obviously failing.

00:02:55.100 Right, which is why you've got so many independents, not just there, but also in Palm Beach and throughout the state,

00:02:59.660 which is kind of unique for the country, actually.

00:03:01.500 You know, the people talk about the Miami Dade because that had been something, as you mentioned, Hillary won by a lot. 0.99

00:03:08.040 And I think it's been like 20 years since a Republican carried it for governor.

00:03:12.080 And because it's such a diverse, big, diverse urban county, and it was a big deal, especially to win it by double digits.

00:03:18.740 But, you know, Palm Beach County had been kind of the rock-ribbed Democrat county for so long in Florida,

00:03:24.860 and a Republican hadn't won that in 40 years.

00:03:27.740 And so we were able to carry Palm Beach County.

00:03:29.960 A lot of people were thinking we were going to do Miami because they were seeing the trends.

00:03:33.600 Very few people predicted Palm Beach.

00:03:35.340 We were confident that we would have a good chance at it, and we ended up doing it.

00:03:39.520 And I think you see similar issues at play there.

00:03:43.160 So we're proud because we had a good agenda.

00:03:46.920 We've delivered a lot of results.

00:03:47.960 But we have converted people who may not have voted Republican in the past, and that's an important thing.

00:03:53.160 Yeah, you know, one thing that I'm sure appealed to those independents, appealed to those people that maybe had been voting Democrat,

00:04:00.140 and this is something that I pick up on when I see you being interviewed about Florida,

00:04:04.020 is that you speak with such a sincere respect for the people of Florida,

00:04:07.380 and you would think that that's common among all politicians, but it's not actually.

00:04:11.620 And that's something I really appreciate about you.

00:04:13.520 And I saw on MSNBC recently someone just denigrate the state of Florida, which is not new for MSNBC,

00:04:20.680 but a contributor said, oh, we don't want the country like Florida because Florida is nothing but meth and alligators.

00:04:27.680 And obviously your team had a response to that.

00:04:30.440 But what do you say to that kind of vitriol about your state?

00:04:33.940 Well, it just shows leftist ideology, their ideology comes before anything else.

00:04:40.780 And so here in Florida, we're succeeding.

00:04:42.680 Like, there's just no way you can slice it and dice it in their way.

00:04:46.100 We're leading, we're the fastest growing state in the country, leading in net in migration,

00:04:50.240 number one in economic freedom, number one in education freedom, number one in new business formations,

00:04:55.520 massive budget surplus, low taxes, all these things,

00:04:58.440 unemployment rate over a percentage point lower than the national average.

00:05:02.220 And so those are just facts.

00:05:04.260 But those are facts that are very threatening to leftists because it calls their whole worldview into question.

00:05:12.480 So they can never admit anything good about Florida.

00:05:15.940 And they have to try to pursue narratives of the like or denigrate the state.

00:05:21.940 But here's the thing.

00:05:22.920 The media has been doing this really since the entire time I was governor.

00:05:26.780 I mean, during COVID, they acted like Florida was a big, you know, COVID haven.

00:05:30.780 And no one, everyone, people dying in the streets.

00:05:33.120 And they were trying to create this fake narrative.

00:05:34.520 But what was actually happened on the ground, as the media is saying Florida is bad,

00:05:39.260 is everyone in the country was trying to get to Florida, either to move or to visit.

00:05:42.980 And we boomed like never before.

00:05:45.020 So I think that when the left does this, and they're basically trying to tell people to believe them

00:05:50.760 over their own lying eyes, it typically is very ineffective.

00:05:54.780 Yeah. Speaking of MSNBC online, Andrea Mitchell, she said in an interview with Kamala Harris recently,

00:06:02.960 she said that the state of Florida is no longer allowing teachers to teach about slavery.

00:06:10.860 And actually, I think it was yesterday she said, I don't know if she really apologized or yesterday

00:06:16.660 as we're recording this, but she did kind of give a caveat.

00:06:20.100 She said, you know, I said that that wasn't really true, which I thought it was kind of incredible

00:06:24.460 to even see that on MSNBC.

00:06:26.860 But I want to hear from you.

00:06:28.380 Is it true that the state of Florida no longer allows schools to teach about slavery?

00:06:33.880 Yeah, of course not.

00:06:34.920 And not only is that not true, that they're not allowed to do it,

00:06:37.820 they're required to do it in Florida standards.

00:06:40.860 And so we have very good standards about and not just black history.

00:06:45.580 We have Holocaust study, but all kinds of important things.

00:06:48.880 So you have to teach all of that.

00:06:51.500 It specifically says in our standards, you have to teach about racial discrimination

00:06:55.640 throughout American history.

00:06:57.580 And so what you'll have the left do is they're upset that we're getting parents involved in the curriculum.

00:07:03.700 And so there are pornographic books that the parents are identifying that are that are being removed

00:07:08.580 and they should be removed.

00:07:10.000 You don't need 10 year olds there with books with hardcore pornography.

00:07:13.500 But what they're trying to do is they're trying to say, oh, well, a teacher can't teach about Henry Aaron

00:07:18.860 who faced racial discrimination because, you know, Florida doesn't allow CRT, which is absurd.

00:07:24.980 But if any of these corporate media people just did basic research,

00:07:29.000 it literally would take you five minutes to show that not only is that not prohibited,

00:07:34.260 indeed, it is required.

00:07:35.960 And that's one of the reasons we got in this tussle with the College Board.

00:07:39.320 They tried to create a new AP course.

00:07:41.480 It was a pilot. It had never not been approved yet.

00:07:43.840 So they did want comment on it and they sent it.

00:07:46.460 It was about it was AP Black African-American studies.

00:07:49.560 And, you know, some of it was was pretty standard fare.

00:07:52.300 But then they had section about queer theory and they had a section about intersectionality

00:07:59.120 and basically neo-Marxism.

00:08:01.520 And so our Department of Education rejected it.

00:08:04.760 They said it doesn't it doesn't fit Florida standards.

00:08:07.060 And so the media kind of had a hubbub about that.

00:08:09.840 And they tried to say that that we didn't want black history, period.

00:08:13.000 And then all you had to do is refer them to Florida standards.

00:08:16.280 And you can see that for not just black history, but many other things.

00:08:19.780 And so they don't want I think the problem with what corporate media has become is it's one thing to be biased.

00:08:26.040 But what they do is they elevate the narrative at the expense of the facts.

00:08:30.480 And so if it's too good to check, they'll just run with the narrative.

00:08:34.460 And if they get caught on it, they figure, well, we've already gotten some people to believe the narrative.

00:08:39.240 So it's worth it for them to try to launder false things.

00:08:43.020 It's pretty incredible how far they take it from the truth.

00:08:57.220 And obviously, we saw this with the whole Disney and parental rights and education bill, which we'll get to in a little bit.

00:09:03.860 But they really do just keep inching more and more towards absurdities.

00:09:09.720 I mean, the idea that you're not able to teach about a black baseball player or something like that in Florida or that you're not allowed to teach about slavery or Jim Crow or things like that, simply because Florida said, you know what, we're not going to teach our kids that just because they're white, that they're a part of an oppressive class or just because they're black, they're part of an oppressed class.

00:09:30.660 It's really amazing, actually, how audacious the media is and just going more and more towards total propaganda without any regard whatsoever to the truth.

00:09:40.260 I mean, that's stunning to me, actually.

00:09:42.300 But I think it's a testament that we're winning these debates because they can't argue for things like genderqueer on the merits. 0.62

00:09:52.700 Should a fifth grader be doing genderqueer? 0.98

00:09:55.600 Should you see some of the graphic stuff that's in there?

00:09:58.620 They don't want to have that argument on the merits, so they try to create these boogeymen and hope that people will buy it.

00:10:08.240 But I think more and more people realize that, no, in Florida, all that, the normal stuff is taught.

00:10:14.940 But, yes, we are not going to teach students that they are inherently racist because they're white.

00:10:22.120 That is not appropriate, and that's not something that is permitted in our classrooms.

00:10:27.240 But they don't want to have that debate because they know the vast majority of the public, of all races, agrees with us that that's inappropriate.

00:10:34.940 So they've got to try to do these other things to try to act like Florida is doing something out of the ordinary when, in reality, what we're doing is supported by parents across the board.

00:10:45.640 And, you know, I've had people come up to me about some of the things we've done thanking me.

00:10:49.920 It's like, look, you know, the madness has got to stop, and we've got to just get to education.

00:10:55.780 Let's give these kids the right foundation.

00:10:57.880 Hopefully they can think for themselves when they get older.

00:11:00.260 But this indoctrination has got to stop.

00:11:03.100 And so we're fighting it.

00:11:04.240 I think the left gets really upset about it because they've just taken it for granted for so long that they had a right to use the school system to impose their agenda.

00:11:14.260 And in Florida, we're saying, no, that is not your purview.

00:11:18.020 These are taxpayer-funded institutions, and they should reflect, the mission should reflect the best interests of the state and the students in Florida.

00:11:26.060 Yep. And it's not just K-12 that leftist ideology has really tried to take over and has successfully taken over in a lot of cases and in a lot of states.

00:11:36.480 It's also higher education.

00:11:37.700 It's academia, of course.

00:11:39.080 And you're going after DEI in higher education as well.

00:11:43.300 And obviously this is going to get the same kind of blowback.

00:11:46.300 But what does this look like and why is this important, not just K-12, but also talking about in academia?

00:11:51.260 Well, this thing of DEI has really just exploded almost out of nowhere.

00:11:56.620 I mean, I think back, I don't even know when I even knew what this was.

00:12:01.360 And diversity, equity, inclusion, I mean, it actually sounds like, OK, maybe you have diverse viewpoints on college campus because that's what you need.

00:12:09.380 Because the diversity is very superficial that they strive for.

00:12:14.380 You do need more ideas and more free speech.

00:12:16.920 But that's not what DEI is.

00:12:18.360 What DEI is, is effectively taking the administrative machinery of the university and imposing under the auspices of these DEI programs an ideology.

00:12:31.080 And they want people to have to conform to the ideology.

00:12:34.060 I mean, it is a leftist ideology.

00:12:36.520 And they want that agenda to permeate every artery of the university.

00:12:42.920 And so some people say, oh, you can't take out DEI due to academic freedom.

00:12:48.860 First of all, I wish we had academic freedom in higher education.

00:12:52.600 I mean, you try getting tenured if you're a conservative professor in some of these fields.

00:12:57.620 You'll have no chance to do that.

00:12:59.620 But that aside, what the administration is doing has nothing to do even with the classroom.

00:13:05.860 I mean, this is like you become a student at a university and you have this agenda imposed on you by the administrators.

00:13:12.920 So this has been a total failure.

00:13:16.020 I don't know if the intentions were good by some when they were doing it, but I know what it has evolved into, or maybe it was always planning on this, is something that is trying to enforce orthodoxy.

00:13:28.920 And it's a very woke left-wing orthodoxy.

00:13:32.140 So we are working with the legislature who comes in in Florida second week of March, and we're just going to eliminate all DEI offices and programs and employees in our state university system.

00:13:45.080 We believe in having a system that treats everybody the same regardless of their skin color.

00:13:51.000 We don't think that that's important involving in terms of their self-worth or their ability to achieve academically.

00:13:57.060 And I think that's what people want to get back to, the idea that we're all equal before the law and we should not have this type of ideology imposed upon us that really ends up dividing us.

00:14:09.580 Yeah.

00:14:10.160 Yeah, which is the exact opposite of what DEI and CRT teach, teaches that we are unequal before the law and the solutions that it tries to give as remedies just always lead to destruction.

00:14:20.980 So that's good.

00:14:22.200 So you're going against this DEI, the CRT, also gender ideology, especially as it pertains to kids.

00:14:27.660 Kids are most vulnerable to indoctrination.

00:14:29.620 They're most malleable, which is why they're indoctrinated with this stuff.

00:14:32.880 And when it comes to the parental rights and education bill, I mean, man, I feel like we talked about that so much on this show because of all the misinformation on it.

00:14:40.140 But really, one of the most remarkable parts of it is you going against Disney.

00:14:46.320 I mean, that's just not something that we see very often from governors and particularly Republicans.

00:14:51.440 We're very pro-business, of course.

00:14:53.280 And so we're just not used to going against these lucrative corporations in our states.

00:14:57.480 And yet you did.

00:14:58.360 When they decided or they said, announced that they were going to go against the parental rights and education bill, you guys said, OK, let's play ball.

00:15:06.380 So you got a lot of reactions on that from both the left and the right.

00:15:12.240 Tell me kind of your thinking and saying, all right, we're going to come back after Disney.

00:15:18.500 Well, as the governor, I got to look out for the best interests of the state.

00:15:22.300 And that means that, you know, our state needs to be grounded in solid values.

00:15:27.820 Also, as a parent, I'm very sensitive about what is being put in our child's education and programming, unfortunately.

00:15:36.380 And, yes, Disney opposed this bill.

00:15:39.020 People thought that.

00:15:40.200 And honestly, it was not a bad thing to predict that if Disney's opposition to this would end up sinking the legislation.

00:15:47.580 Because the fact of the matter is, since the 1960s, they've gotten every single thing they've ever wanted with the state of Florida.

00:15:54.420 I mean, until me.

00:15:56.160 And so we had to put our foot down and say no.

00:15:58.540 But one of the things I think, in addition to them saying that they were going to work to get the law repealed, they were going to sue and all this stuff, was you had those videos that came out where you had the Disney execs on the call talking about it's really their agenda to inject the sexuality into the programming for very young kids.

00:16:19.560 And we have a 6, a 4, and a 2-year-old at home.

00:16:22.640 At that time, I guess it would have been 5, 3, and 1.

00:16:28.300 And my wife and I are just very sensitive about that.

00:16:31.460 I just think that you should be able to raise kids in our country without them having an agenda shoved down their throat when they're watching a cartoon or when they're sitting in a second-grade classroom.

00:16:43.060 So from that perspective of a dad, it was an easy thing.

00:16:47.640 And, yeah, we faced a lot of media fire, and Disney's an 800-pound gorilla.

00:16:51.740 It's interesting, though, when we did that, the media was saying, like, oh, the governor is going to pay for this in his re-election campaign because they're doing it.

00:17:02.960 And it turns out that the county where the majority of Disney employees live, Osceola County, had been a solid blue county, and I don't think the Republicans want it in a while.

00:17:13.140 So not only did we carry Osceola, I think we carried it by, like, 7 percent, and we did better in Orange, which also has Disney employees than a Republican's done in a long time.

00:17:22.660 So it just shows you even people that were working there believe the company was out of line on this.

00:17:29.060 And I think it was an issue, even though superficially you'd see the left have a spasm, corporate press have a spasm.

00:17:35.620 But underneath that, across party lines, I think there was a broad agreement that, you know, this is not appropriate for these schoolchildren, and we need to focus on reading and writing and math and science and not be jamming this down.

00:17:51.320 Now, what we ended up doing, and we're putting the finishing touches on that over the next few weeks, is Disney was unique because they actually had their own government that they controlled in central Florida.

00:18:03.860 And I don't think there's a corporation that wielded that kind of power anywhere in the country, but certainly in the state of Florida.

00:18:10.640 They really were treated better than every individual and every company in our state.

00:18:16.660 And so the state chose many decades ago to put this one company on a pedestal to give them all this special treatment and, indeed, self-governing status.

00:18:24.680 And my view on that was that that had to end because we cannot be putting on a pedestal a company that is going down the road of trying to promote things like gender ideology to young kids.

00:18:38.260 And so we made the decision that that game was up.

00:18:41.860 I'll be signing legislation soon to permanently remove their self-governing status.

00:18:47.940 They've been stripped of any special privileges.

00:18:50.660 And actually, it's reverting to the state of Florida.

00:18:53.200 So we're going to ensure they pay their debts, their fair share of taxes.

00:18:56.800 And, of course, they're not going to have self-governing authority.

00:18:59.820 And so I think that that was an appropriate thing for us to do.

00:19:03.600 And you have some Republicans that think companies are entitled to corporate welfare and that you should just give them all these subsidies.

00:19:11.780 And I just don't believe that.

00:19:14.040 But certainly you should not be using Florida tax dollars to subsidize a political agenda that is not in the best interest of the state of Florida.

00:19:24.700 Exactly.

00:19:25.520 And that is kind of the anti-democratic effort, not the other way around.

00:19:28.840 Some people saw what you and your administration did is anti-democratic or tyrannical.

00:19:33.960 But actually, passing a bill that very simply, just as a reminder to people, said kindergarten through third grade, you can't hold formal classroom instruction to these kids.

00:19:43.760 We're talking like five to nine-year-olds about changing your gender and about sexuality.

00:19:49.140 And it kind of makes you wonder why would you even want to hold those formal discussions with kids that age anyway.

00:19:55.360 That's pretty much what the bill said in addition to some other simple things about parental rights and accessibility and transparency and things like that.

00:20:02.600 And then Disney said, OK, well, we are going to actually undermine the wishes of the people of Florida who duly elected all of these officials who authored and then signed that bill into law.

00:20:12.220 That is actually anti-democratic.

00:20:14.460 So in my mind, I'm like, of course, of course, the role of the duly elected governor then and the legislature is to say, no, you're not going to continue to undermine the wishes of the state of Florida.

00:20:26.480 And more on gender ideology, last year, you guys said that you are going to ban surgeries for minors that would permanently maim their bodies in the name of gender confirmation.

00:20:38.140 The Florida Board of Medicine, State Board of Osteopathic Medicine voted with a plan that will bar anyone under the age of 18 from receiving sex reassignment surgery or taking hormones.

00:20:48.460 I think that's incredible.

00:20:49.680 A lot of conservatives do, too.

00:20:51.460 Tell me a little bit more about that.

00:20:52.840 So what we had to do on that is work through the boards of medicine.

00:20:58.080 So that's an administrative prohibition.

00:21:00.680 If a physician is in violation of that, they will lose their medical license in the state of Florida.

00:21:06.180 And I think that that's appropriate.

00:21:07.540 You know, when you look at this idea of the gender ideology, particularly for young people, I mean, one of the things that we found is by the time they become adults, most of this is resolved.

00:21:19.320 You have like 80 percent just gets resolved.

00:21:21.960 So why would you permanently mutilate a 15-year-old if whatever they're dealing with ends up being resolved by the time they're an adult anyway?

00:21:30.920 It is not based on science.

00:21:32.980 It is ideology run amok.

00:21:35.700 And part of the problem is, you know, kids, especially in that age, they go through a lot.

00:21:40.500 There's things that happen, and parents sometimes are kind of looking for answers.

00:21:46.100 And I think one of the saddest things about this is that you have some of these physicians that are very aggressive at trying to direct these kids into this type of treatment or surgery.

00:21:57.520 And so a parent may not know kind of, you know, what to do.

00:22:00.360 And you have a physician saying, well, your child is transgender, and if you don't do this surgery, they're going to commit suicide or something.

00:22:08.920 And so sometimes these parents are getting kind of not forced, but they're being pushed in this direction.

00:22:14.160 You also have some parents, I think, that have really bought into the ideology, and this is something that they want.

00:22:20.780 But either way, it's inappropriate.

00:22:23.160 What you're going to do with the legislature is the legislature is going to pass statutory prohibitions that will supplement what we did administratively through our boards of medicine.

00:22:44.160 I don't know if you saw that left-wing whistleblower that she spoke out out of St. Louis, and she just chronicled. 0.85

00:22:51.800 I mean, she's left-wing. 1.00

00:22:52.620 She said she's left of Bernie Sanders, and she chronicled all of the horrors that are going on in these gender clinics, these kids and parents, no idea what they're getting into.

00:23:00.880 And then they're met with permanent sterility, the permanent disfiguration of their bodies.

00:23:05.680 Of course, kids can't make these kinds of decisions.

00:23:08.160 Their frontal lobe isn't even fully developed yet.

00:23:11.080 And so to me, I mean, it seems like common sense, but again, kind of as you've noted, the left continues to tell on itself when it defends these kinds of grotesque practices, and they're almost completely unashamed of it, too.

00:23:24.940 Well, I think it's also an indication of something that's happened, I think, more recently in society.

00:23:30.920 I mean, I don't know if you went back 20, 30 years that this would necessarily be the case.

00:23:34.120 But you really have the politicization, the takeover of so many institutions by woke ideology or leftist ideology.

00:23:43.740 So these medical associations are woke, and they're putting the ideology ahead of evidence-based medicine.

00:23:52.280 You look at some of these medical schools.

00:23:54.060 They've changed the Hippocratic Oath.

00:23:56.120 They have these medical students repeating CRT and all the woke nonsense, and you think about it, and that's a huge problem for our society if these elite institutions are all bowing down to this one ideology, which I think is very destructive.

00:24:15.620 And so you're seeing it with the gender ideology with these minors, but I think it has implications in the field of medicine alone for so many other areas and can affect so many more Americans.

00:24:31.200 And so when you see those institutions have been politicized, when you see that they're advancing an agenda that is adverse to the rights of the public or to the best interests of the public, you've got to stand up to it.

00:24:43.320 And we've done that, and I think that you're seeing other states do it, and it's going to be the majority position very soon.

00:24:51.340 And as you mentioned, this is not a partisan thing.

00:24:54.060 There's people across the board who look at this and say, this is just wrong.

00:24:58.380 Yeah.

00:24:59.260 Abortion.

00:25:00.000 Currently, the law is 15 weeks in Florida for abortion restrictions, but you recently said that you would sign, if the legislature put it on your desk, a six-week abortion ban.

00:25:09.220 So what do you think is coming down the pipeline for pro-life legislation in Florida?

00:25:14.320 Well, I think there's a lot of support in Florida for heartbeat legislation.

00:25:18.880 Our 15-week was done last year, so that was prior to Dobbs, but it was also done with the understanding that the state of Florida Supreme Court has ruled in the 1980s that our state Supreme Court, that our state constitution mandates abortion on demand.

00:25:38.240 And so it was, in some respects, even more aggressive than both Roe and Casey.

00:25:43.420 And so we knew that that 15 weeks was going to be challenged under the Florida state case law.

00:25:49.980 So the Supreme Court of Florida has now accepted that case.

00:25:53.580 So they're going to be doing arguments, briefs and arguments over the next few months.

00:25:57.720 So we will get a decision on that probably this year.

00:26:01.700 And so if that decision is, if they reevaluate the doctrine, then that allows the 15 and a heartbeat bill to stand.

00:26:11.720 And so that's going to be a big deal.

00:26:13.180 And I think one of the things we've seen post-Dobbs is you have some state Supreme Courts that are trying to be very aggressive at inventing different provisions and trying to block pro-life legislation.

00:26:26.340 Florida is a little bit different because this had been what the courts had been ruling for decades.

00:26:31.220 And now we're in a situation where we believe I've appointed four of the seven.

00:26:35.200 I think that they're going to look at that and say, you know, that decision wasn't really grounded in the text history structure of the Florida Constitution.

00:26:41.960 But nevertheless, that is playing out right now.

00:26:45.740 A lot of these are culture war issues that we've talked about today that a lot of politicians are just kind of scared to face head on.

00:26:53.020 But you've mentioned a few times in this interview, and then obviously I hear you talk about it a lot, is your motivation as a dad.

00:27:00.140 You and your wife being motivated to fight for the things that you do and against the things that you do because you have three little ones.

00:27:06.820 I have two little ones right around the same age.

00:27:09.440 And most of the people listening to this podcast are moms.

00:27:12.660 And so they're very sympathetic to that.

00:27:14.160 Can you talk about that a little bit more, just how having children and seeing the face of the future, the investment that you have in the future kind of motivates how you govern?

00:27:23.980 Yeah, I mean, you know, one of the things my wife and I will think about is when we were growing up, it seems like there were less hostile influences around.

00:27:33.640 I mean, you know, you didn't have these devices.

00:27:35.380 You didn't have, you know, YouTube, all these other things.

00:27:37.860 And these kids know how to grab this stuff and put things on.

00:27:42.120 And so we have to do all kinds of parental controls.

00:27:44.400 I mean, it's just they're like one step ahead of us.

00:27:46.840 And they're very and our kids are six, four and two.

00:27:49.520 And so you can't just put on a Disney program anymore and be satisfied that it's going to be good.

00:27:56.260 You've got to worry about what type of messaging they're trying to do.

00:28:02.120 And so I think I think it's challenging for a lot of parents.

00:28:04.820 And the last thing that we want to see in Florida is parents feel that they can't send their kid to school like I did when I was growing up

00:28:13.820 because they're worried about the kids coming back with having an agenda shoved down their throats.

00:28:19.800 And so we are we've really empowered parents in Florida.

00:28:23.380 We're going to continue to do that.

00:28:25.280 But I just think it's something that we want the family to be the ones who are imposed, who are inculcating the values.

00:28:34.760 You know, schools are important, but you don't want a school to be negating what the parents are doing in some in terms of some of these these basic things.

00:28:43.820 And it plays in beyond just kind of the curriculum, the parents rights in education.

00:28:49.600 One of the things was there not that this is an issue with our family, but, you know, there were some schools in Florida that were, quote, changing the gender of these students.

00:28:59.460 Right. And without the parents even knowing.

00:29:01.760 And if you think about it, like, how is it the school's right to go in there and supersede the parents and take such a drastic measure?

00:29:10.660 But yet there's some elements in our society to think that parents just need to be butting out of their of their kids lives.

00:29:17.780 We're the ones that are responsible for for the upbringing.

00:29:21.200 So we have not only a right, we have a duty to be involved in this.

00:29:25.600 And so if if other parents in our situation, you know, feel like Florida is a good place to raise the kids, that means a lot to us.

00:29:35.120 Both of us. Obviously, we're doing it for for our family as well.

00:29:39.120 But really just believe it's something that is very meaningful.

00:29:43.200 And I'll tell you, the migration of Florida, we've always had people moving down.

00:29:47.000 A lot of people retire to Florida, as you know, but since covid in particular and since I've been governor in particular, more families have moved than ever before.

00:29:56.800 And a lot of it is because of our approach to education and our willingness to stand up against things like the gender ideology and the woke agenda.

00:30:05.100 Well, I want to honor your time, but there's a couple more quick things.

00:30:08.100 I want to make sure that I get you to talk about the fatherhood initiative, because I've heard of this.

00:30:13.960 I've heard the first lady explained this so eloquently and so well, an event that we did together a few months ago.

00:30:19.160 But I want to hear you talk about the fatherhood initiative and what it is, because I think it's really unique and could be really effective.

00:30:27.780 Well, when I became governor, we would do we provided some money to a group called All Pro Dads, which is run by former NFL coach Tony Dungy.

00:30:36.180 And Tony tells the story that when he became the head coach at Tampa, he went to a prison to minister to the prisoners.

00:30:44.440 And he said, you know, after doing that, I noticed the reason they weren't the reason they were in prison was not because they were poor, their race or any of that.

00:30:53.540 He said the reason they were in prison is because none of them had a dad in the house.

00:30:57.080 They did not have a father figure that that could keep them on the straight and narrow and that could good look after them.

00:31:05.000 And so he said, we got to do something about it.

00:31:06.940 And so those types of programs where you're fostering fatherhood opportunities, you're promoting fatherhood in the community can make a huge, huge difference in the future of so many communities throughout the state of Florida.

00:31:23.080 So our father initiative formalizes the relationship that the state has with so many of these these great groups.

00:31:29.720 We in Florida are different than many states that we work with our faith based community and we're proud to do that.

00:31:36.980 And we work with churches and we work with synagogues.

00:31:40.780 So we've put money behind it to have programs to get the fathers back into the lives of the kids.

00:31:48.460 And I think, you know, if you look, it is kind of the stable two parent household is is the minority.

00:31:55.980 I don't think it's even the majority in terms of in terms of the kids that are being born nowadays.

00:32:00.420 And if we can just change that and have fathers be more involved, some of it is they some of these guys need to take responsibility and some of them don't do that.

00:32:09.080 And so there's a whole host of factors.

00:32:10.480 But if we can get the fathers back in in a really big way and that's just standard, you're going to see a lot of other problems disappear.

00:32:17.900 OK, quickly, two more things.

00:32:30.860 Your book, you've got a new book coming out, correct?

00:32:33.340 Can you tell us a little bit about that?

00:32:35.640 Yeah, so it's called The Courage to be Free, Florida's Blueprint for America's Revival.

00:32:40.500 And you can get it by going to DeSantisBook.com.

00:32:43.560 We also have signed copies for sale at PremierCollectibles.com.

00:32:48.400 But basically what we do in the book, talk a little bit about kind of how I got to be governor, some paths I traveled in life.

00:32:55.900 And then what was my approach to leadership?

00:32:58.780 How did I implement the agenda?

00:33:01.140 And then some of the fights that we had to do to be able to keep Florida free and really make Florida a leader.

00:33:07.480 And I think there's a lot of implications for what other states can do.

00:33:11.520 And some states have done some of the stuff Florida's done.

00:33:14.100 And I do think that there's implications nationally.

00:33:17.160 One of the things we did, and you mentioned Disney, you mentioned taking on the gender ideology.

00:33:24.020 You mentioned some of the stuff we stood up against the elites in COVID is the reality is right now in our country, entrenched progressive elites are a big, big problem.

00:33:35.640 But they control so many institutions that if you really want to have a thriving state, you've got to fight these people and you've got to beat these people.

00:33:45.040 And I think in Florida, we've shown that we've been able to succeed against a lot of really powerful institutions.

00:33:52.500 And we've been able to prove a lot of the naysayers wrong.

00:33:55.420 So it doesn't have to be this way in terms of some of the problems we see in other states or around the country.

00:34:01.640 There's definitely a better path.

00:34:03.300 And I think the state of Florida has forged that.

00:34:05.920 And that's out February 28th.

00:34:07.780 So as this interview is airing or has already or has aired, the book is available.

00:34:13.340 So people can go that go get that, I guess, wherever books are sold.

00:34:16.440 You said DeSantis book dot com out February 28th.

00:34:20.260 And then my last question is the question that I have to ask because everyone is wondering.

00:34:26.140 I mean, everyone's happy that you are a wonderful governor of Florida.

00:34:29.660 But tell us, are you considering running for president of the United States?

00:34:35.040 I don't think I can ever move like two blocks without having someone chime in about it.

00:34:41.580 But I'll tell you, it's been it's been really humbling to see people come up to me and say,

00:34:49.320 you know, we need you to turn the country around because it's not something I've just been doing my job in Florida.

00:34:54.840 But what we've done is reverberated.

00:34:57.180 You know, we were you know, I took my my my two oldest to the Jacksonville Jaguars,

00:35:02.280 Kansas City Chiefs game a few few weeks back in Arrowhead Stadium.

00:35:05.960 And the Chiefs fans were, you know, cheering me on.

00:35:08.380 They're like, we're Chiefs fans, but we're Republicans.

00:35:10.260 We we love you.

00:35:11.360 You need to do do this or do that.

00:35:12.820 But I got elected to to implement an agenda.

00:35:16.560 I have that agenda pending right now in front of the legislature and we've already done a lot of it.

00:35:22.220 But I think we're going to end up delivering on all the promises I made when I ran in 2022.

00:35:27.780 And then once we get through the legislative session, we'll be able to to go on from there.

00:35:33.340 So I would just tell people if you're interested in what we're doing by the book,

00:35:37.620 follow what we're doing in Tallahassee over the next few weeks,

00:35:40.560 because I think this is the best that we've done yet.

00:35:43.520 And then as we get beyond that, we'll be able to to make decisions.

00:35:48.860 OK, good answer.

00:35:50.100 Well, thank you so much, Governor DeSantis.

00:35:51.980 Thanks so much for taking the time to talk to me.

00:35:53.920 I really enjoyed it.

00:35:55.320 Thank you.

00:35:55.900 Thank you.

Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - March 01, 2023

Ep 763 ｜ Governor Ron DeSantis on the LGBTQ Lobby, DEI, and Fatherhood

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