2024 Election Thoughts, State Constitutional Amendments, and More with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis

Florida Governor Ron DeSants joined Preston for a visit on the day before the general election to offer his confidence level on the election itself, Florida's constitutional amendments, and more. 

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
All right, it's the day before Yeah, November fourth, Monday
on the Morning Show with Preston Scott and Preston. He's
ose it is Show five thousand, two hundred and sixty eight.
Great to be with you this morning. Thrilled to have
time with you. As always, we appreciate you joining us
and we are always thrilled to have with us. Florida
Governor round a santus Governor. Not only how are you,

(00:23):
but how's the first lady? How are the first kiddos?

Speaker 2 (00:27):
Well? Play you? The first lady is excellent. The kids
overall are doing outstanding. But you know, they're all die
hard Florida State fans and this has been a very
rough season for them, especially my first grader, my son Mason,
he is probably the biggest fan there is. I mean
we were when they played SMU you know, remember that

(00:47):
was a Saturday night game. You had Alabama Georgia, which
was the biggest game of the country. And he would
not let us turn the TV off s SMUFSU even
when they were losing big. And so it's been rough.
We are going to not I'd planned to go to
the Notre Dame, So we're going to Notre Dame next weekend,
I'm going to give a lecture on campus and do something.
I've never been to a football game at Notre Dame,
but when I committed to do that, I was thinking

(01:09):
this would be like with a playoff berth on the line,
So that part of it. He's especially my son, a
little little rough fledding on the football.

Speaker 1 (01:18):
Yeah, sach cloth and ashes around here as well. I
know how he feels. We all share that. I'm curious.
We're a day out on a scale of one to ten,
with ten being completely confident. Nationally speaking, we know Florida's
going to hold a good election and a fair election.
What's your confidence level one to ten nationally Well, Florida's.

Speaker 2 (01:41):
Ten out of ten. You will get a very transparent election.
You can track the votes as they're coming in, not
the results yet, but who's voting. You'll be able to
do that all throughout tomorrow. As soon as the polls close,
we'll know how many people voted. The count will continue
to proceed, and the results will be published. That's the
way it's supposed to be. Is it going to be
in some of these states further north? I don't have

(02:03):
the same level of confidence I think they take the
position that you just count for days and that somehow
is okay. Well, what ends up happening is you have
one candidate maybe leading on election night, they just keep
counting the next day and then what Thursday afternoon, a
new candidate takes the lead. It does not inspire confidence.
So unfortunately, I think you are going to see some

(02:25):
of these states lag. I don't think we're going to
get those states though, some of those key key states
called on election night, like you will in Florida.

Speaker 1 (02:34):
When it comes to Florida's ballot measures, We've got some
constitutional amendments, and two of them are really significantly important
as it relates to their impact on the state. Let's
start with Amendment three. Your thoughts on the marijuana amendment.

Speaker 2 (02:48):
First, just this is a constitutional amendment. You can't undring
this bell. You are taking this issue away from future
generations of Floridians to decide through the normal electoral process.
You can't change it once it's in the constitution. So
if they say you're already hearing people say, oh yeah,
Amendment three slat, but the legislature will fix it. You
can't fix a constitutional amendment by normal legislation. So what

(03:11):
I tell people is the default on these amendments should
be no. They, the people proposing this, have a burden
to prove to you beyond any doubt that this is
going to be good for Florida. If they don't have
that burden, the safe vote is no. Now Amendment three.
It's important to say, how did it get on your ballot?
Got on your ballot because one megaweed company CEO wrote

(03:31):
it and they've now put over one hundred and forty
million dollars into passing it. It is written to benefit
them and their other kind of monopolists that they have
a handful of these mega companies. So, for example, you'll
have the right to possess and smoke marijuana, but only
if you buy it from them. They do not give
you the right to grow your own. They also don't

(03:53):
provide any prohibitions on public use of marijuana. And in fact,
the way it's written, I think it would be impossible
to that. Talk to people in Denver, talk to people
in Manhattan. This has permeated those societies that would happen
in Florida tenfold. And here's the thing. Sometimes they'll say
it's about freedom, Well, if it was about freedom, they
would have put that you could grow your own. But

(04:15):
I also am concerned about the freedom of Floridians who
don't want to be involved in marijuana, because I think
a lot of people are like, you know, what you're
doing in your house, like, you know, we don't really care.
But if you're out on the street, you know, in
a park somewhere, walking down downtown, should should this be
something that infringes on you? And that will absolutely happen.
But probably the most galling thing about Amendment three, and

(04:37):
you don't get this from just reading the ballot You
actually have to go online read the text of the
amendment because the text is what will be in the Constitution,
not the ballot summary that was written by by the company.
They do it in a way to make it seem innocuous.
They give themselves total immunity from civil liability, and so
if they sell you defective weed, you're not going to

(04:57):
be able to assue them. You're talking about negli against
product liability, all these things. I've never seen that done period.
And so just understand where this come from. This is
one company looking to guarantee a stream of revenue for itself.
On the backs of Floridians, and they're willing to ensconce
themselves on our constitution to do it. There's a lot

(05:18):
of it. I mean, if you're opposed to marijuana, obviously
you vote no. If you're indifferent about marijuana, you vote
no on this because it's a horribly written amendment. But
even if you're someone that's a marijuana enthusiast, why would
you reward a big weed cartel. This is the opposite
of what you should be doing. So my recommendation is
that this is an easy no. It does not belong

(05:40):
in Florida's constitution. And that's true whether you love marijuana
or hate marijuana.

Speaker 1 (05:47):
Monday, the day before tomorrow, a remarkably consequential day and
sadly series of days because of the way the election
is likely to unfold, an handful of states joining US.
Florida's governor round Is Santas Governor to saying is I
was I was as stunned by the decision of the
state Supreme Court to place Amendment four on the ballot.

(06:09):
I'm sixty four years old now, and this was the
most stunning decision I've seen in my lifetime. What was
your reaction when you learned it was going to be
on the ballot.

Speaker 2 (06:18):
Well, we were obviously disappointed. I mean, they don't define
any of the terms, and you're putting something on the
ballot that we don't even necessarily know what it's going
to do. It was a four to three split, so
clearly you had three justices that saw it a different way.
But here's the thing again, this is a constitutional amendment.

(06:38):
If you're not one hundred percent sure that what's in
here is good, then you vote no on him. I'd
also say this, this is they don't define the terms,
but we know how they would go into court and
seek very radical interpretations of this. And so for example,
there's no definitions anywhere. That'll be a transfer of power
from the people of Florida to courts for decades. They'll

(07:00):
be hashing this stuff out. Second, there's really no limitations
on when elective abortions can be performed now in Florida.
All their ads are lies about Florida law. Florida allows
any necessary medical treatment life health of the mother, that
there's even exceptions for rape, incess victims of human trafficking.
That's mostly what their ads focus on. Even though our

(07:20):
law does not impact that, but they would allow abortions
for no reason through at least six months of pregnancy.
At that point a baby can feel pain, is fully formed, heartbeats, sucking.
To stumb all this stuff, but in reality, if you
read beyond that, it says any quote healthcare provider can
greenlight and abortion at any time if the healthcare provider

(07:41):
thinks it's necessary for quote patients health. But they don't
define patients health. We do in the statute, so it's
effectively no limit. So that's I think very troubling to
a lot of people. And here's the thing late term
abortions in the United States, because there are states like
Colorado that have no limits at all. The way in
nine months they happen. There's tens of thousands a year,
and most of them are in fact elective. That's just

(08:02):
the reality. You will then see that become a factive
life in Florida. But then this idea of healthcare provider,
that's very important language because people that are pro life
have said a lot of people are like, look, they
don't like abortion, they want it to be rare, but
they think it should be a decision between the mother
and the doctor. Mother and the doctor. That's what you hear.
A healthcare provider is not the same as a doctor,

(08:22):
so you will not need to be a physician. And
so I think that opens up a huge can of worms.
I think it's going to be very dangerous to have
these abortion clinics manned by non physicians greenlighting late term abortions.
And then another important thing is it eliminates the parental
consent for miners, and they do it very deceptively because
they say you can do parental notification, but a notice

(08:45):
is not the same as consent. So in Florida, they
can't give your kid a tailant all at school without
parental consent. But somehow they would be able a miner
would be able to get a late term abortion greenlit
by a non physician without the parents consent. That's in
the constitution forever. You're never going to be able to
get those rights back as a parent. And the final thing

(09:07):
just for voters that think about because this is not
a parent from the text of the amendment. But they
did the same thing in Michigan, they passed something similar.
They went into court and said taxpayer money is required
to go to these abortions and so they will do
that here in Florida. They will try to find a
liberal judge and they will see taxpayer fighting of abortions.
So that very well maybe the case if this passes.

(09:28):
So this is a really bad amendment, not good to
put in a constitution. It would not be good policy
if the legislature did it, because a lot of parents
wouldn't want their you know, the rights rescinded. People wouldn't
want to see late term abortions, all these other things.
And I think the fact that they've lied so much
about what Florida law does, you know, why not just
tell the truth about your amendment. This is such a

(09:49):
great amendment, why not say what great things that's doing.
They never talk about that, And now they're basically because
they've been refuted a lot in Florida, so now they're
talking about Ohio and all these other states that have
nothing to do with Florida. So, yes, this is this
is an easy no. Certainly if your pro life, it's no.
But even if you're not, this is definitely not the
way to do it.

Speaker 1 (10:08):
Yeah, it's an extremist amendment. And you know, I just
go back to what Matt Staber and I'm sure, you know,
Matt with Liberty Council. He pointed out, no law shall prohibit,
and I mean it kind of just stops right there,
no law shall prohibit, and then it's filling the blank
from that point forward, isn't it?

Speaker 2 (10:25):
Absolutely? And this is intentional the way they did this,
they know what they're doing. Part of it was pull
tested because they wanted to seem innocuous. And one of
the things we found when it did get put on
the ballot and just doing some research, they were pro
lifers that thought somehow this was pro life because they
thought viability meant the pregnancy itself is viable, instead of
it being twenty six weeks in, which is probably the

(10:48):
minimum they would they would want. So, yes, so this
thing is going to open up a huge can of worms.
It's not not the way to do business. They've lied
to you to try to pass it. Fortunately, I think
people have wised down to it. I think that both
of these amendments have lost support, you know, over the
last couple of months, but this one I think in
particular because I think the lies have been so brazen.

Speaker 1 (11:09):
Governor. Thanks for the time, as always, I appreciate you
prying it out of your schedule and after the election,
when the smoke clears, I hope we have you back
on to talk about what we do next.

Speaker 2 (11:18):
Let's do it.

Speaker 1 (11:19):
Thank you, sir. Governor Ron Desatus with us this morning,
and seventeen eighteen passed the hour. It's The Morning Show
with Preston Scott