Florida Governor Ron DeSantis joined me this AM:

Audio:

10-04hhs-desantis

Transcript:

HH: Hey, good morning, Governor. How are you?

RD: Good. How are you doing?

HH: I’m great. I would be committing malpractice if I didn’t ask for your reaction to what happened yesterday in the House of Representatives. You are an alumni of the House. What do you think?

RD: Well, it’s a strong contrast to how we do business in Florida. I think you see a lot of theater, a lot of chaos. I’m not sure it ever leads to any results, whereas in Florida, everything we do is calculated to deliver outcomes and to create a better life for the people down here. I also think just reflecting on, you had like what, five or six members, Republicans, join with all these Democrats. You know, we were supposed to have a red wave in 2022, and that didn’t happen. It happened in Florida, and we delivered four additional Republicans. But that was one of the best environments to run in for Republicans probably since like the 1940s, and we totally muffed it. And I think that that, this is part of the follow-on from that. But we just need leadership. I mean, we need to put leaders out there, deliver for the folks that we represent. So I think that we need order. We need smooth government operations, and we need to deliver results. That’s what we’ve done in Florida for the last five years, and you see the contrast.

HH: Governor, now let me turn to the big stuff. I had dinner last night with a Marine Corps general, not general officer, a field officer. And they asked me to ask you about grand strategy. And I read your promises to fix the military and how you are going to do that. “Within six months, the performance of all personnel enforced in our command and staff billets will be reviewed…” and it goes on. It’s a very good plan. He asked, though, what is the grand strategy you will sit down behind the Resolute Desk on day one with specifically China, Russia, and Iran. They are working together. How do you break up that deal?

RD: Well, we need a whole of society approach to fending off the CCP. This is our top threat. This decade will be the decisive decade. This is a military confrontation, perhaps, a technological, economic, cultural, all of those things. We need to be, have national policy geared towards fending off the CCP. And I think that Washington’s policy, the D.C. kind of smart set, they’ve had all bark and very little bite with respect to China. I think on the current course, China will surpass us as we get into the next decade. So some of the things we’re going to do, you need more hard power in the Indo-Pacific. We are going to have a Naval buildup. We’ll have, we’ll shoot for 355 ships after the first term. And we’ll get to 385 ships after term 2. But I think even more importantly than that, reinvigorating our Defense industrial base and our shipbuilding capacity so that within 20 years, we could get close to 600 ships. I think that we had an opportunity when COVID hit to really mobilize the country behind a common purpose to fending off the CCP. And we could have started doing some of this Naval buildup there. But that’s really, really important. And so we’re going to do that, but I think everything we do is going to be viewed through the prism of how do we counter the China threat. Obviously, there’s other threats in the world, and we’ll deal with those, but just like Reagan dealt with the Soviets above all else, we need our grand strategy to focus on China above all else.

HH: Now Governor, how does Russia fit into that, because what my officer friend said last night, what’s the end state that he envisions in Russia, vis-à-vis Ukraine? What do you consider stability for the world and a position from which we can turn to the main player in the threat, which is China, in the new cold war?

RD: Well, we can stop empowering Russia through a dysfunctional energy policy. You can have the Green New Deal. I don’t want that. I think it’s bad. But just understand when you go in Biden’s direction, you are helping Russia. You’re helping Iran. You’re helping Venezuela. You’re also helping China. So we put out in Midland, Texas a couple weeks ago our plan for American energy dominance. We’re going to choose Midland over Moscow. We’re going to choose the Marcellus over the Mullahs, and we’re going to choose Bakken over Beijing. Biden is effectively funding both sides of that conflict. His energy policy helps Moscow. He’s also relieved sanctions on Iran, and then of course did the $6 billion. They’re very much invested in helping Russia with all those things. But I think we have the economic levers to be able to weaken Russia, and that’s just beyond the current conflict. That is what they rely on. And Biden’s energy policy will make Russia more powerful. My energy policy will weaken Russia.

HH: Now you are a veteran, and a Navy man. But you realize, I think you realize, the budget just can’t continue on as it has. We have to reallocate between the Navy, the Army, the Air Force, the Space Force, and the Coast Guard. Do you have a plan? And do you have someone in mind who would be the SecDef that would come in and really do what Weinberger did for Reagan, which is reshuffle the DOD so that we get it back to war fighting?

RD: Yes, and so I would say rather than name a name, I’d say that what I’m looking for in a SecDef is somebody, 1) I think it’s been a mistake to have some of the retired generals go in. I supported the Mattis waiver. I think he’s a great officer, and also, but I think you need somebody who’s not part of kind of that club, somebody that’s got strong executive skills, and that’s really going to be able to hold people accountable, is not going to be popular in Washington, but it going to be willing to make the tough decisions and show that there’s a new sheriff in town. Because the bureaucracy in the Pentagon is totally out of control. I do think that if you’re pursuing a China strategy like I would, you do need a stronger Navy and a Marine Corps. I mean, that’s just the reality of the threat that we face. So we’re going to do that. But we’re going to have a culture of accountability. It’s, to me, you look at the Afghanistan debacle, not one person has been held accountable for that entire Afghanistan debacle. And I kind of feel like 50 years ago if that had happened, there would have been massive resignations, massive terminations. And yet, you had none of that. So we do need to have a culture of accountability, and we will deliver that.

HH: When you get there, if you’re the president, will you do an after-action report on everything from closing Bagram right down to Abbey Gate? And will you name names?

RD: Yes, absolutely. We need to.

HH: All right. I appreciate that. I want to talk about running mates for a second, Governor, because it’s always been a tradition to wait until the last week. That’s a stupid tradition. I want a fighter, and I want generational change. And I say that as a 67-year old. We just cannot have an old running mate. We don’t need a Lloyd Bentsen. What is your idea for a running mate, because I don’t believe in racial and gender balance on the ticket. I want someone who can fight and articulate.

RD: No, I think you’re exactly right. I think doing, Biden shows you doing those other considerations what that got you. You know, he did Kamala Harris, and the problem is the number one thing you have to do is somebody that can do the job. Number two is somebody that shares your vision and shares your priorities, and yes, as you say, that can articulate that and be a good spokesman for it. And so that’s what I would look for. I wouldn’t worry about the political considerations in terms of this or that. I don’t think ultimately it really makes a difference. I think this is your first decision as the president, effectively. And you’re going to be judged off the quality of that executive decision. When I ran for governor the first time in Florida, I made a great pick. We got a great lieutenant governor, Jeanette Nunez. My opponent made a pick that wasn’t as good. And then this reelection, my opponent picked the head of the Miami-Dade Teachers’ Union.

HH: Oh.

RD: And so it’s a window, it’s a window into your executive decision making, and so you’ve got to get that right. But the most important thing is someone, you’re on that stage with someone you’re waving. They say that person can be president, and that person is somebody that shares the Governor’s agenda.

HH: And you need someone to take the message to the other side. I mean, you really need a fighter. Let me go back to Russia. George W. Bush thought he could deal with Putin. Barack Obama sent the reset button. Hillary Clinton thought she could deal with Putin. Donald Trump thought he could deal with Putin. Joe Biden thinks he can deal with Putin, and his appeasement ended up with the second invasion of Ukraine. How do you approach Putin, who is a very evil man, Governor?

RD: So it’s not through personality. It’s not that I’m somehow going to charm him. It’s using the leverage that we have at our disposal. I mentioned the energy, doing that, working with allies to be able to bring pressure to bear. These guys, they don’t respond to kind overtures. They don’t respond to personality. They don’t all just want to hold hands and have a better world. They respond to leverage, and they respond to strength. And so we have to do that. I think that when presidents have been strong, I think it’s been a successful deterrent for bad actors. Biden was kind of the worst of all worlds, because I mean he comes in and it was just one thing after another, and that really green lit, I think, a lot of bad people to do a lot of bad things.

HH: Now I want to switch to domestic policy. One of your big wins that nobody knows much about is New College. I applaud completely changing out the board. They named a new president yesterday, which was their acting president. That’s great. They are considering doing away with tenure. I think tenure is a disease that has spread throughout the United States. As president, what can you do about tenure from K-12 and in colleges that are state-funded?

RD: Through the accreditation cartel. So we’re going to totally blow up the accreditation cartel. Right now, part of the reason universities operate as they are is because they need to get accredited. And these accreditors are all trying to create the types of universities that we object to as conservatives. So we’re going to have alternative accreditors. It’s going to be instead of you have to have gender studies, or you have to have DEI to get accredited, it’ll be the opposite. We’re not going to accredit you if you have DEI and some of these other things. And so that is going to create, I think, an opportunity for a lot of innovation in Higher Ed. And what we’ve seen in New College, just by saying, I mean, basically, we came in, new president. They got rid of things like CRT. They abolished the Gender Studies Department. They rebranded the university as being the best classical publicly-funded liberal arts college, and it’s modeled after Hillsdale College. Hugh, the number of parents across this country who are interested in applying is unbelievable. And they were struggling to get applications. And we’re lucky, because our out-of-state tuition in Florida is about $16,000. Our in-state’s about $6,400. So it’s a bargain. It’s a great, great place to go. But there is a huge, huge demand. So we’re going to use the accreditation. I think that’s going to be a good thing, and I do think you’re going to see a lot of changes in Higher Ed. And another thing we’re going to do is we’re going to make the universities responsible for the loans. That’s going to cause them to change their behavior, because they’re not going to be able to go on ideological joyrides with their curriculum knowing that if somebody gets out of the university and they can’t afford to get by, that the university may end up being on the hook. So you’re going to see much more focus in terms of the subjects that are going to be offered because of those incentives.

HH: Now Governor, the first couple of debates have sort of wandered away from Bidenomics. They start on Bidenomics, and then they wander away into some pretty bizarre stuff. You won the last debate with a walk-off homerun when you rejected the question by the moderators. What ought these debates to be discussing?

RD: I think they need to be discussing the economy, particularly why we’re in this mess. I think it’s important to point out it all started with COVID in March of 2020. There was massive borrowing, printing, and spending under both Republicans and Democrats. That’s led to the interest rates being where they are, and it’s put a lot of people in a world of hurt. We obviously need to reverse those policies. And we need to discuss Biden’s attempt to impose an ideological control over the economy, whether that’s the Green New Deal, whether that’s other things that they’re doing in all aspects of the economy. It’s bad for freedom, and it’s ultimately going to be very bad for our standard of living. We need to talk about having an energy independence and energy dominance. We do need to talk about the border and our sovereignty, and the fentanyl overdoses that are happening as a result of that. That moderator in the other debate was trying to blame Americans for the fentanyl overdoses. I was shocked that she would even try to do something like that. We need to talk about the growth of the administrative state. How are we going to re-Constitutionalize government and end weaponization of agencies like the IRS and the FBI? You know, those are all really, really significant issues that, you know, I run the table, nationally, we’re going to have a House and Senate majority. We’re going to have opportunities, you know, to get a lot of this stuff done. So we’re going to be ready to go on day one.

HH: A lot of people just want the government to run by executive over. That’s not Constitutional. You know that. Will you force the responsibility back down to the states, because I’m tired of phones and executive orders. I’m tired of presidents trying to do everything. It’s not supposed to work that way. It’s a federalist system. Are you committed to that?

RD: So with immigration, one of the key portions of our border plan is to deputize the states to enforce immigration law. I want them to do it. Texas wants to do it. Some of these want to do it, so we’re going to be doing that. We will be devolving power back to the states. Look, there is a role for executive orders. I mean, if these agencies are doing things that are bad, you do an executive order to revoke the nonsense that Biden’s doing. If we want to have the agencies behave in a better way, you can do an order. But the executive order is about how government operates. You can’t do executive orders over society. You need legislation in Congress, or you need the states to be able to do it. But one of the things we do, everything that we’re doing, we have a mind about okay, we’ll have 50-some Senators. You need 50 in reconciliation. What can we put into that package? I think we can do stuff with school choice. I think we can do stuff with Naval buildup. I think we can do, obviously, we’re going to repeal a lot of Biden stuff, or as much as we can to get into there, reduce the deficit, extend the tax cuts. So all of that stuff are things that we’re going to be ready to go with, and so that we know we can actually get this stuff to stick. Because if you look at what Biden did when he came in, you know, he reversed every single Trump policy basically on day one, and has just been off the races there. So you’ve got to be able to get this stuff to stick legislatively, and you’ve got to empower the states so that they’re able to get stuff to stick.

HH: Last question, Governor. We need an attorney general who actually knows DOJ who has the respect of judges around the country and can attract talent. Do you have anyone in mind? Because we cannot swing and miss on that as we did with Jeff Sessions, who I like, but he was a terrible attorney general.

RD: I’ve got some people in mind. I’d say here are the qualities I’m looking for. Yes, a very smart, a Constitutionalist, strong, legal mind, but somebody that has backbone, because that swamp does not want DOJ reformed. So when you go in there and you clean house, you are going to face a lot of blowback. And so you just have to be okay with getting smeared in the New York Times and by CNN and all these other, and just know that you’re representing American people outside of D.C. who want to see this justice system corralled. And you have a huge opportunity to make a great difference for the country, but it is going to come at a cost. So if you don’t have that spine of steel, if you don’t have that backbone, don’t even bother applying.

HH: Governor Ron DeSantis, keep coming back. Good to talk to you. I look forward to the next debate in November in Miami, on your home turf. Thank you, Governor.

RD: Thanks, Hugh. Take care. Bye bye.

End of interview.