The Charlie Kirk Show - My Exclusive Interview with Gov. Ron DeSantis: The RNC, Ballot Harvesting, Higher Education and MUCH MORE

00:00:00.000 Hey, everybody, today Charlie Kirk Show.

00:00:02.000 Governor Ron DeSantis joins the program.

00:00:05.000 Text this episode to your friends.

00:00:06.000 We talk about African American studies not being part of the AP curriculum, the new College of Sarasota, the RNC race, why Florida's done so well.

00:00:13.000 And is he running for president in 2024?

00:00:16.000 I ask him directly.

00:00:18.000 Email me directly, freedom at charliekirk.com.

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00:00:32.000 Buckle up, everybody, here.

00:00:33.000 We go.

00:00:34.000 Charlie, what you've done is incredible here.

00:00:36.000 Maybe Charlie Kirk is on the college campuses.

00:00:38.000 I want you to know we are lucky to have Charlie Kirk.

00:00:42.000 Charlie Kirk's running the White House, folks.

00:00:45.000 I want to thank Charlie.

00:00:46.000 He's an incredible guy.

00:00:47.000 His spirit, his love of this country.

00:00:49.000 He's done an amazing job building one of the most powerful youth organizations ever created, Turning Point USA.

00:00:55.000 We will not embrace the ideas that have destroyed countries, destroyed lives, and we are going to fight for freedom on campuses across the country.

00:01:04.000 That's why we are here.

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00:01:19.000 Governor DeSantis, thank you for sitting down.

00:01:21.000 Welcome to Tallahassee, Florida.

00:01:23.000 First time in the mansion.

00:01:24.000 It's pretty awesome.

00:01:25.000 Yeah, well, we're happy to have you.

00:01:27.000 Thank you.

00:01:28.000 So a lot of people were talking about how there was going to be a red wave in November, and it seemed as if it was a red ripple, except here.

00:01:35.000 What happened?

00:01:36.000 Well, it was interesting because we knew we were going to do well.

00:01:40.000 They called the race right at poll closing.

00:01:42.000 I gave the victory speech like 9 o'clock, and I really thought that we had set off a red wave that would sweep the country.

00:01:49.000 And then I remember like after I gave this speech, some of my folks in my campaign were like, Governor, this is not a red wave.

00:01:54.000 I'm like, what do you mean it's not a red wave?

00:01:56.000 We win by 20 points.

00:01:56.000 Like, no, no, no, it is here, but we're not seeing it in Pennsylvania.

00:02:00.000 We're not seeing it in some of these other areas.

00:02:02.000 Our candidates are in trouble.

00:02:03.000 Look, in Florida, I think what we were able to do is, you know, I came in.

00:02:07.000 I won a razor-thin election, 30-some thousand votes.

00:02:11.000 But I said, okay, I want a close election, but I got 100% of the executive power.

00:02:16.000 So I'm going to set a vision.

00:02:18.000 I'm going to execute that vision.

00:02:19.000 I'm going to deliver results for people.

00:02:21.000 We obviously had to do that through things like COVID-19, where I had a chance to do things which were not popular with the media, but we stood up for parents, we stood up for business owners, we stood up for people's jobs.

00:02:32.000 And so we were able, I think, to develop a record of achievement and really produce results that resonated with not just Republicans, which of course did strongly.

00:02:41.000 We want independents overwhelmingly.

00:02:44.000 We even want a decent chunk of Democrats.

00:02:46.000 We had the highest percentage of the Latino vote in the history of the state of Florida for any candidate.

00:02:52.000 And I got the highest percentage of the vote that any Republican governor candidate has ever gotten in the history of the state of Florida.

00:02:59.000 You won Miami-Dade County.

00:03:00.000 I mean, that's unheard of.

00:03:01.000 By 11 points, too.

00:03:04.000 And you won Palm Beach County?

00:03:05.000 That's unheard of.

00:03:06.000 That's the big deal.

00:03:07.000 Having spent some time, I think we both have spent time together in Palm Beach.

00:03:11.000 It's not exactly a right-wing haven.

00:03:14.000 And I remember watching the results coming out of Florida, and we were hosting our live show, and I was getting so excited because I thought they were going to be indicative of something that was going to unfold the rest of the country.

00:03:24.000 And it seemed as if it became the outlier, not the trend.

00:03:28.000 And not just like a little bit of an outlier, but a massive outlier.

00:03:32.000 What was the final vote, Tyler, that you won by?

00:03:34.000 Over 1.5 million votes.

00:03:35.000 Yeah, so we went from 32,000 to over 1.5 million.

00:03:39.000 So that's the, I think, the closest or the next highest raw vote margin in a governor's raising history was like 780,000.

00:03:45.000 So we almost doubled that up.

00:03:47.000 But I think it is good when you're going into like a Miami Dade and not just winning it by winning it decisively.

00:03:55.000 You don't do that by speaking to kind of just a small segment of the electorate.

00:04:00.000 I mean, it's a very diverse county.

00:04:02.000 The whole, the county itself is 70% Latino, and we were able to really, really dominate there.

00:04:08.000 Yo, Palm Beach, I think, is a good example of we were able to really win a lot of the independence in Palm Beach.

00:04:15.000 One of the reasons why is because I kneecapped these local governments that wanted to do all the incessant COVID restrictions.

00:04:22.000 And so I think they really appreciated, hey, my kids are in school.

00:04:25.000 I got a job, all this stuff because the governor had my back.

00:04:28.000 So I think some of this stuff, I mean, I think we did some good stuff on the campaign tactically, and I think that that's important.

00:04:34.000 But at the end of the day, really, substance, leadership, and results drive election outcomes.

00:04:41.000 And I think that, at the end of the day, was the story in Florida.

00:04:44.000 We galvanized our base voters, but we did that while also attracting independent voters and really demoralizing the Democrat base because they knew by the time the election came around, they knew their goose was cooked in this one.

00:04:59.000 And so we were able to take credit for that.

00:05:01.000 As one Democrat strategist said, he said, we're only going to invest in Battleground States from this point forward.

00:05:06.000 And they're pulling out of Florida.

00:05:08.000 Now, one of the things I don't think you get enough credit for is how you challenge some of these gerrymandered maps.

00:05:15.000 Now, we barely control the House of Representatives, I think, by four seats.

00:05:19.000 You were sent some maps, and there was some back and forth in that. 1.00

00:05:22.000 Walk us through that because Ana Paulina is now a member of Congress. 0.77

00:05:26.000 We won another seat near Orlando.

00:05:28.000 I believe you sent four new people to the congressional delegation in Florida.

00:05:32.000 That's a huge deal.

00:05:34.000 And in fact, it very well had been decisive in the fact that now Republicans control the House.

00:05:39.000 So we had a dispute about racial gerrymandering.

00:05:42.000 The legislature wanted to racially gerrymander and take a district from Tallahassee and go 200 miles to go to Gatston County, which is west of Tallahassee.

00:05:51.000 And that had just been something they had already always done.

00:05:54.000 I don't believe that that's constitutional.

00:05:56.000 And so we were really doing taking a stand about what's the appropriate constitutional principle here.

00:06:02.000 So I vetoed the map, sent it back.

00:06:05.000 They cleaned up the gerrymandering and produced basically a compact fair map.

00:06:11.000 And in Florida, we actually have provisions in our state constitution that limit how you can draw maps.

00:06:17.000 So you're not allowed to say, well, Charlie Kirk lives in Sarasota.

00:06:20.000 I'm going to draw a district for him.

00:06:21.000 Unconstitutional.

00:06:22.000 You're not allowed to draw a district and say, well, I want to pack Republicans or pack Democrats.

00:06:26.000 You've got to draw nice, compact districts.

00:06:29.000 And so that gerrymander district was not compact.

00:06:32.000 And so we were able to challenge the legislature.

00:06:34.000 We ended up winning and we produced seats.

00:06:38.000 But part of the reason we produced seats in fairness was because we had such a strong electoral performance.

00:06:43.000 I mean, these candidates were able to benefit from a lot of the turnout increases and the persuasion increases that we generated.

00:06:51.000 Yeah, and that whole process, so many other Republican governors refused to even challenge some of these maps.

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00:07:43.000 So other Republicans are looking for answers right now.

00:07:45.000 A lot of Republicans are looking for answers, and they look at Florida as one example.

00:07:51.000 And I'm afraid that some lessons are not properly really being gleaned, one of which is that you in an election year were bold and courageous.

00:08:01.000 Usually courage goes down in election years.

00:08:03.000 People kind of run for the hills.

00:08:05.000 I mean, one thing, for example, the entire media came after you for a misrepresentation of a bill.

00:08:09.000 They called it the don't say gay bill, which was not in the bill.

00:08:12.000 It was a smear job and a hit job.

00:08:15.000 And then you also decided to hold Disney accountable to fairness and proper standards.

00:08:20.000 What was the calculus you went through to do that in an election year of all times?

00:08:24.000 Well, look, we have a situation where there's a movement. 0.96

00:08:27.000 I don't know why, but they want to inject this gender ideology into the schools.

00:08:33.000 And so think about it.

00:08:34.000 You have like a kindergartner.

00:08:36.000 I have a kindergartner.

00:08:37.000 My daughter's in kindergarten.

00:08:38.000 You have a teacher that's going to say, well, you know, you were born a girl.

00:08:42.000 Maybe you're a boy.

00:08:43.000 Do you want to be a boy?

00:08:44.000 That is totally inappropriate to be doing.

00:08:48.000 It confuses kids.

00:08:50.000 And so that has no place in the schools.

00:08:52.000 And so basically, the legislation was making sure that parents had the right to send their kid to school in the state of Florida without having this injected.

00:09:01.000 You also had situations, you see it around the country.

00:09:03.000 We did see examples in Florida too, where schools would, quote, change the gender of somebody's kid without the parents' consent.

00:09:12.000 I mean, you've got to be kidding me.

00:09:13.000 So this was very common sense.

00:09:15.000 The people were with us.

00:09:16.000 Now, the media, we benefit sometimes from how because they just have, it's like a tick.

00:09:23.000 I do something, they have to have a knee-jerk reaction against it.

00:09:27.000 So I think that they thought what they were criticizing me for, that they were in the right in terms of popularity with the public, because Disney came in and all that stuff.

00:09:36.000 I honestly think they thought that they would defeat us on this.

00:09:39.000 And my view on that is, is when the heat gets on you, when they start coming after you, that's when you need to stand your ground more than anything.

00:09:48.000 So all I do is stand.

00:09:50.000 Those tactics don't work on me.

00:09:52.000 But I do explain and I call the media out on what they're advocating for.

00:09:57.000 I would make journalists, if they tried to use these phrases, I'd say, is that in the bill?

00:10:01.000 Oh, it's not in the bill.

00:10:02.000 Okay, well, what is in the bill?

00:10:03.000 You walk me through it.

00:10:05.000 You know, you think, okay, kindergarten, first grade, what are we doing here?

00:10:08.000 And so then they have to admit what the debate is about.

00:10:11.000 And the people of Florida sniffed that out very, very quickly.

00:10:13.000 But you know, Disney was in a situation where they came after it, which, you know, it is their right to do this.

00:10:20.000 They also have a company that's gone in the direction of trying to inject sexuality and sexualization of the programming directed at kids.

00:10:28.000 And that is a parent of three young people.

00:10:29.000 We have a six of four and a two-year-old.

00:10:32.000 That bothers me.

00:10:32.000 It bothers a lot of parents in the state of Florida.

00:10:35.000 So they have had a position in Florida where they have their, they control their own government.

00:10:40.000 They've gotten all these special privileges over many, many decades.

00:10:44.000 And so my view is just, okay, wait a minute.

00:10:46.000 We're putting this one company on a pedestal who does not share the values of the state of Florida with respect to raising our kids.

00:10:54.000 And so we work to say, okay, this self-governing, you're not going to govern yourself anymore.

00:11:01.000 You're going to pay your debts and taxes and live under the same laws.

00:11:05.000 And so, you know, Disney's not really being treated poorly, just being treated like everybody else.

00:11:09.000 We're removing, though, special privileges.

00:11:12.000 And I think as these corporations get into trying to impose a woke agenda on society, we just as conservatives got to say, wait a minute, okay, yes, it's bad if the legislature is trying to enact woke legislation, but if corporate America is doing that without any constitutional process, do we just say because it's corporate, they can do what we want?

00:11:33.000 Or are we going to defend our folks against that?

00:11:36.000 And I think we've just decided to say, we'll fight it in the boardrooms, we'll fight it in the legislatures, we'll fight it in the schools.

00:11:43.000 Our state is where woke goes to die.

00:11:46.000 There's that extra constitutional order that is growing outside of just government.

00:11:51.000 And Disney is one of those companies.

00:11:53.000 And they never would have imagined that they would ever be treated fairly because they thought of themselves as the number one employer in Florida.

00:12:00.000 I think that's actually, that might be true.

00:12:01.000 One of the biggest.

00:12:02.000 I don't know.

00:12:02.000 They're one of the biggest.

00:12:03.000 But I do think, I mean, so since the 1960s, everything Disney has wanted from the state of Florida, they have gotten.

00:12:11.000 I don't think they've ever lost anything major.

00:12:13.000 And so until now, I mean, this is really the first time where we said, you know what, people are free to do business here, but you do not run the state of Florida.

00:12:21.000 And let's just make that very, very clear.

00:12:24.000 This transitions nicely to this emphasis on parents and parental choice and schools and education to another quote-unquote controversial thing the media focuses on, which I fully support what you did, which is saying that this African-American, AP African-American studies class, has no place in the core curriculum in Florida schools.

00:12:46.000 The media, of course, immediately got reaction was that you're a terrible person, all this, but then you responded, wait, do you actually know what's in the course?

00:12:53.000 So walk us through it.

00:12:54.000 Why was this not worthy of being in the core curriculum?

00:12:57.000 So we have certain standards about what is appropriate or not.

00:13:01.000 And basically our mantra is education, not indoctrination.

00:13:04.000 So if it's education, it can be approved.

00:13:07.000 If it's indoctrination, we're going to go and pass on that.

00:13:11.000 In our core curriculum, mind you, requires the teaching of black history, but real black history, I mean, things that really matter.

00:13:18.000 This course had things like queer theory.

00:13:21.000 It had things like abolishing prisons, intersectionality.

00:13:26.000 It advocated for reparations and things.

00:13:28.000 And so, look, that's political activism.

00:13:31.000 If that's what you want to do on your own time, it's a free country.

00:13:35.000 But we're not going to use tax dollars in the state of Florida to put that into our schools because it's not trying to educate kids.

00:13:42.000 It's trying to impose an agenda on kids.

00:13:46.000 And you had, this is ongoing.

00:13:49.000 The media is kind of coming after you.

00:13:51.000 What's the lesson for other Republicans that might be less willing to pick that fight?

00:13:55.000 Because they call you all these bad names, racist, bigot, and all that.

00:13:57.000 It doesn't seem to really shake you or bother you.

00:13:59.000 It doesn't factor into your calculus.

00:14:01.000 Look, if you're winning, they're going to call you those names.

00:14:04.000 I mean, that's just the reality.

00:14:06.000 So if you let the media or the left have a cudgel that they can veto you from doing what's right by just calling you names, then you're not going to be worth your salt as a leader.

00:14:17.000 You've got to understand that that just goes with the territory.

00:14:20.000 These are the tactics that the left uses.

00:14:22.000 And I honestly view it as if the left's not attacking me or the corporate press isn't attacking me, I think to myself, am I not doing a good job all of a sudden?

00:14:29.000 I mean, I got to figure out.

00:14:31.000 So that's what's going to happen.

00:14:32.000 But here's what I think these other Republicans should understand.

00:14:36.000 There's a hunger out there for just common sense.

00:14:39.000 And common sense is, yes, you teach the Frederick Douglasses and the Booker T. Washingtons and the MLK, but you don't do black queer theory to high school. 0.80

00:14:49.000 You don't do intersectionality or say that, advocate for abolishing prisons.

00:14:55.000 That's a political agenda.

00:14:56.000 So when you just say that, people say, you know what?

00:14:59.000 That's right.

00:15:00.000 And think about it.

00:15:01.000 I mean, if you just asked the average person on the street, you know, what do you think is important about African-American history?

00:15:08.000 How many of them would honestly say queer theory?

00:15:10.000 I mean, like, seriously, nobody would say that.

00:15:13.000 So this is an agenda that people are trying to push.

00:15:16.000 And so just call them on it, explain kind of what you're doing.

00:15:19.000 And I think these attacks really do fall flat because they overuse them.

00:15:24.000 They try to do it no matter what.

00:15:25.000 But the worst thing you can do is let them cow you.

00:15:28.000 Once they know they can cow you, then they're just going to keep coming at it.

00:15:33.000 And I think what we've shown in Florida is that's not going to work here.

00:15:36.000 Put them on defense.

00:15:38.000 You also have a vision to, and I want to make sure I'm not mischaracterizing this, but create the Hillsdale of the South.

00:15:45.000 Is that a fair well?

00:15:46.000 Yeah, I mean, I think so.

00:15:47.000 We have a situation.

00:15:49.000 I mean, this is just, we're looking at our higher ed writ large, and I'll get to New College in a minute.

00:15:54.000 But I think the debate in this country is: what's the purpose of higher education?

00:15:59.000 Is it to impose ideology and be kind of an instrument for social justice, quote unquote, or is it about the pursuit of truth and about equipping people with the foundations so that they can think for themselves?

00:16:11.000 So we think it's the latter, but overwhelmingly, modern academia has gone in the direction of the former.

00:16:18.000 They believe it's about imposing an ideology.

00:16:21.000 And so we've been very strong on that.

00:16:23.000 We did a bill last year that reins in tenure for university professors.

00:16:28.000 All tenured professors must undergo review every five years and they can be let go.

00:16:34.000 No questions asked.

00:16:35.000 And so that's important because you can't just have people that are not accountable in any way.

00:16:39.000 With New College, this is a small liberal arts school in Sarasota.

00:16:44.000 It is by statute supposed to be the premier honors college in the state of Florida.

00:16:49.000 Most Floridians have never heard of it.

00:16:51.000 The enrollment had declined.

00:16:53.000 You know, they didn't have great test scores.

00:16:56.000 They focused a lot on things like gender ideology.

00:16:59.000 And so we said, okay, there was a movement in the legislature that I was working with, maybe to just close it or fold it into something else.

00:17:06.000 That didn't have enough support.

00:17:07.000 So I said, okay, look, if this is something being funded by the tax stars, we wanted to follow our vision for what higher education should be.

00:17:15.000 And so I appointed a slew of people to be on the boards of trustees there that share the vision.

00:17:20.000 And it is going to be, and we're going to put money behind it.

00:17:23.000 We're going to recruit great professors.

00:17:25.000 You know, it is going to be what higher education should be: open inquiry, no political correctness, no CRT DEI embedded in the administration, welcoming the classics in Western civilization and giving people an education that's going to be lasting.

00:17:42.000 You know, part of my problem with modern academia, yes, it's left.

00:17:45.000 I don't like the left, but it's like a sugar high.

00:17:48.000 You know, they get this, and then 10 years, there'll be other fads.

00:17:52.000 When you're talking about real serious classical education, the things you learn from that, you carry that with you for the rest of your life.

00:18:00.000 Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Augustine, Aquinas, they're not teaching that at many of these schools at all.

00:18:04.000 Or even our founding fathers.

00:18:06.000 I mean, how many classes could you get on the Constitutional Convention or true inquiries into like the creation of the Bill of Rights and all these things?

00:18:15.000 They don't, they shy away from that.

00:18:17.000 They want to focus on identity politics rather than really the ideas that have stood the test of time.

00:18:22.000 So the vision is to create new college as a shining city on the hill in a very, let's just say, depraved wasteland that higher education.

00:18:31.000 Just the announcement, just the announcement, professors started to ask, how do I go to New College?

00:18:37.000 Parents have been asking, How can I apply?

00:18:39.000 I want to get my kid into new college.

00:18:41.000 So I think what we're doing is it's the right thing to do, but just the reality from a dollars and cents perspective, this is an underserved market.

00:18:49.000 It's the kind of the modern leftist view of academia is oversaturated.

00:18:54.000 You go pretty much anywhere and get that.

00:18:57.000 This, to have a college like this, and you know, it's not going to be exactly the same at Hillsville because it's publicly funded, all this.

00:19:02.000 But I don't think there is a publicly funded liberal arts school who's really taken on the mission of classical education.

00:19:08.000 So I think it's going to be very exciting, but I think we're going to have a lot of success with it because it's not just going to be Florida parents.

00:19:13.000 There's going to be parents from all over the country.

00:19:16.000 And think about it.

00:19:17.000 There are way worse places to go visit your kid in than Sarasota.

00:19:21.000 So I think it's going to be popular.

00:19:22.000 Right near the Ringling Museum.

00:19:24.000 It's beautiful, right?

00:19:25.000 Right off Route 41.

00:19:26.000 It's funny.

00:19:27.000 I've driven by the new school a hundred times.

00:19:30.000 And until you did the announcement, I didn't know what it was.

00:19:33.000 And that just kind of proves your point: oh, wow, there's an honors college here.

00:19:38.000 Let's do something there.

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00:20:19.000 Okay, so I want to now focus on right now.

00:20:22.000 The RNC is meeting in Dana Point, California.

00:20:26.000 And there are some questions of who should lead the RNC and whether it should be Rana for a fourth term or go a different direction with Harmeet Dillon.

00:20:35.000 What are your thoughts on this?

00:20:36.000 Well, we've had three substandard election cycles in a row, 18, 20, and 22.

00:20:42.000 And I would say of all three of those, 22 was probably the worst, given the political environment of a very unpopular president and Biden.

00:20:51.000 Huge majorities of the people think the country's going in the wrong direction.

00:20:55.000 That is an environment that's tailor-made to make big gains in the House and the Senate and state houses all across the country, and yet that didn't happen.

00:21:05.000 And in fact, we even lost ground in the U.S. Senate.

00:21:08.000 And so, you know, I think we need a change.

00:21:11.000 I think we need to get some new blood in the RNC.

00:21:14.000 I like what Harmeet Dillon has said about getting the RNC out of DC.

00:21:19.000 Why would you want to have your headquarters in the most Democrat city in America?

00:21:25.000 It's more Democrat than San Francisco is.

00:21:28.000 So I think you get it in real parts of the country.

00:21:31.000 You attract people who want to live in those parts of the country, not DC insiders.

00:21:36.000 But I do think we need some fresh thinking.

00:21:38.000 And here's the thing: just practically speaking, you need grassroots Republicans to power this organization with volunteering and donations.

00:21:49.000 I think it's going to be very difficult to energize people to want to give money, to want to volunteer their time with the RNC if they don't see a change in direction.

00:21:59.000 Do you have any personal experience with the RNC?

00:22:02.000 I mean, because they'll say that Florida was one of their great successes this last cycle.

00:22:07.000 So we actually ran our election assuming we weren't going to be involved with the RNC at all because they weren't raising the type of money that they needed to be raising.

00:22:16.000 And so our get out the vote, our ground operation, we funded that.

00:22:21.000 We focused a lot on actually low-propensity voters and we turned out a lot of low props, which is very, very good.

00:22:26.000 So it was very successful, you know, but that was really being driven by our agenda, our accomplishments, and us putting a lot of dollars behind this important ground game.

00:22:36.000 Yeah, and there's, I'm talking to a lot of members, and we're going to see how it ends up.

00:22:41.000 And people are kind of looking for direction and for answers.

00:22:44.000 But here's what we do know: 92 to 98% of voters say this is insane what's happening here, this continued lackluster results.

00:22:52.000 Why are we going to put our foot on the gas and accelerate in a direction that is really against us?

00:22:58.000 And I would just say, hey, look at Florida.

00:23:00.000 Maybe Florida's a path forward that actually could show us how we could do things.

00:23:05.000 And so just kind of closing thought on that.

00:23:08.000 The members are meeting, and you've said, you know, it's time for a change.

00:23:12.000 What other ideas do you think the RNC could embrace, you know, regardless of who wins, to actually have a path forward that can achieve victory?

00:23:19.000 It needs to be less consultant-driven.

00:23:22.000 Okay, this money that's going in needs to go to ultimately winning elections and not to be lining the pocket of so many consultants.

00:23:30.000 So we need huge transparency on that.

00:23:33.000 You know, when we ran our election, we had our digital in-house.

00:23:38.000 You know, we've got a great fundraising team.

00:23:39.000 We have all this.

00:23:40.000 But we're not giving commissions to people.

00:23:42.000 Pay them a salary.

00:23:43.000 You know, will you do a good job?

00:23:44.000 I want to pay you.

00:23:45.000 I want you to do well.

00:23:47.000 But you can't have incentives to where the campaigns and the operations are run with an eye to putting more money in the pocket of the consultant class.

00:23:55.000 And obviously, they're very powerful in D.C.

00:23:58.000 So I think if we can get away from that, have more transparency, and then really be in touch with our voter base.

00:24:05.000 I mean, one of the reasons why we did well is because our base voters knew governor's going to do the right thing.

00:24:12.000 I trust him.

00:24:12.000 He's got our back.

00:24:13.000 There's not a lot of trust between the grassroots and the RNC up in D.C. In fact, when I would do fundraising, I'd raise money for the Republican Party of Florida.

00:24:23.000 We would do good, but if I did a fundraising for me instead of for the party, we'd raise much more money because they trust the people that they see doing the job.

00:24:33.000 When you start talking about Republican Party apparatus, a lot of our voters are like, yeah, I don't know about that.

00:24:39.000 So we need to restore that trust because ultimately you want to have an organization that's going to be able to help in a lot of these key races.

00:24:47.000 It's very important.

00:24:48.000 Is it time for us to embrace early voting, in-person early voting, ballot harvesting?

00:24:56.000 That was actually, in some ways, a separating characteristic of your campaign.

00:25:00.000 You did really well with in-person early voting.

00:25:01.000 So here's the thing.

00:25:02.000 Florida, I work with the legislature.

00:25:04.000 We ban ballot harvesting.

00:25:05.000 I don't think you should have ballot harvesting.

00:25:08.000 We ban zucker bucks. 1.00

00:25:09.000 I don't think you should have zucker bucks. 1.00

00:25:11.000 However, if it's legal in your state, you've got to exploit the rules as they exist.

00:25:17.000 So in Nevada, if it's legal, Republicans need to have a ballot harvesting operation in these rural counties.

00:25:23.000 I would do Zuckerbucks in these places. 0.97

00:25:25.000 I think Zuckerbucks is corrupt as hell.

00:25:27.000 But if it's legal and the Democrats are doing it, why aren't we doing it?

00:25:31.000 So I would say whatever, fight for whatever election reforms you think matter.

00:25:35.000 And I would say ban ballot harvesting, do all that.

00:25:38.000 But if it's not banned, you need to do it because otherwise we're fighting with one hand tied behind our back.

00:25:43.000 If you have early voting, we need to tell people to vote as soon as they can.

00:25:48.000 And if you have absentee ballots, you need to tell voters to return absentee ballots.

00:25:53.000 And we did that in Florida.

00:25:55.000 And I'll tell you, a lot of the low props who we ended up getting to come out, a lot of them voted with absentee ballots.

00:26:00.000 So whatever the rules are, I think we need to go to the hilt on all of it because there's some people that may not go to a polling place, but maybe they'd be willing to put something in the mail.

00:26:10.000 Now you can support reforms.

00:26:12.000 I don't think you should have mass mail balloting.

00:26:14.000 And I would even say, you know, early voting, even though we did very well, I kind of like Election Day.

00:26:19.000 But whatever the rules are, do whatever you can to maximize your performance.

00:26:24.000 Last question.

00:26:26.000 We're one year out from the Iowa caucus.

00:26:29.000 I know you get this question all the time.

00:26:30.000 It's the third rail.

00:26:31.000 It's the elephant in the room.

00:26:33.000 The media is asking you about 2024 all the time.

00:26:36.000 How should we think about your place in 2024?

00:26:38.000 Well, I think we've got a lot of runway in 2023.

00:26:41.000 I mean, we talk about winning the big victory, which is great, but what are you going to do with that?

00:26:45.000 And so we're having a legislative session coming up in March, March, April, into May.

00:26:50.000 I think we're going to be able to put a lot of points on the board.

00:26:52.000 So stay tuned.

00:26:52.000 I'm happy to come back and talk about those.

00:26:54.000 I also have a book coming out on February 20th.

00:26:57.000 Yeah, it's The Courage to be Free.

00:27:00.000 Florida Ready?

00:27:00.000 Yeah, Florida's Blueprint for America's Revival, DeSantisBook.com.

00:27:06.000 And you can kind of see what we've done in Florida and how I think that that's something that could make sense across the country.

00:27:13.000 Governor DeSantis, thank you so much.

00:27:14.000 Thanks for your courage.

00:27:16.000 And I was a Florida resident and then I got married, moved to Arizona.

00:27:20.000 And we're trying to turn Arizona to be more like Florida.

00:27:22.000 No, I think we got Florida okay.

00:27:24.000 I think you got to get it done in Arizona.

00:27:26.000 That'll be good for the country.

00:27:28.000 Yes, good.

00:27:29.000 Governor, thanks for watching.

00:27:30.000 Thank you.

00:27:30.000 Appreciate it.

00:27:35.000 Thanks so much for listening, everybody.

00:27:36.000 Email me your thoughts as always, freedom at charliekirk.com.

00:27:39.000 Thanks so much for listening.

00:27:40.000 God bless.

00:27:46.000 For more on many of these stories and news you can trust, go to CharlieKirk.com.

The Charlie Kirk Show - January 26, 2023

My Exclusive Interview with Gov. Ron DeSantis: The RNC, Ballot Harvesting, Higher Education and MUCH MORE

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