Behind the Bastards - Part Two: Ron DeSantis: Florida Man

Episode Date: August 24, 2023

Robert is joined again by Katy Stoll and Cody Johnston to continue to discuss Ron DeSantis.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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get your podcasts. What's still meatball? My continues to be Ron. How we doing everybody? I'm Robert Evans. This is Behind the Bast the bastard a podcast about Ronathon DeSantis with me again Cody Johnston Katie stole How do you guys think your lives would be different if your last names were reversed

Whoo stole Katie no, no, no, if you were if you were Katie Johnston and you were Cody stole Oh In a way, I feel like you'd be called Cody Stoley a lot. Cody Stoley. Yeah, that would have been your college nickname like because of the vodka like, oh, I had asked Cody Stoley. Well, why was that? Why was that not Katie Stoley's nickname? Because that would not be appropriate.

What does it mean? Katie Stoley doesn't sound right to me. People called me Stolley, just Stolley in college because that would be like a cool. I think Katie J would be a nice nickname. Katie J. Katie J. Katie J is solid. I'd go by that. I think I'd be a very different person if I'd grown up with that as my nickname,

Katie J. Yeah. Yeah. I think if I'd have solved that Cody stole too, I think it'd be different too. Yeah. Totally different now. Yeah. You would be working for the daily wire right now.

Before we get into Ron DeSantis, I've just found a list of Gen Z slang terms and in order to boost our appeal with the youth demographic. I'm going to key you in on some of these slang words. Google's AI has co-related them from a mix of mommieDaddy.com, mental floss and parade. So you know this is the best information on Gen Z. Well researched. Wait, is this an article or is this like a Google search? It appears to be, yeah, this is just like the Google search result for Gen Z slang list. Cause I was trying to just stay cool.

Yeah, it's become great. Falling apart. So number three on the list is SIC slash SICK. Just these are the two spellings of sick that Jindzi gets to. It means next level cool. So not just normal cool. That's good. Obviously salty means bitter or angry. Litty again, exciting or wild once more. Litty is something I've heard that is seeped its way into.

I just I know that's what made me look this morning. I used it this morning to describe myself last night. Does that mean I'm hashtag cool? Oh yeah, truly. Yeah, because there is no cap. Sophie or coolness. Those, these words are no longer cool. Yeah, I grew into it.

I'm also, Google is collating it with it. I'm personally pissed at this because dope is number two. And like, that's not a Gen Z term. That's, that's, that's well, well before Gen Z. I've been saying it for a long time. People for me had been saying it for a long time. Yeah. I feel like that's like an X millennial cost term. What else do they have? There's got to be something good. They got Gucci. I do feel like that's solidly Gen Z. Yeah. Yeah. They've got the word Riz.

They do have the word Riz. That is not on this list. I was going to say, is there anything on the list that's like correct or useful? No. Like everything that AI puts together, it's a piece of shit. They don't even have a Riz. That's so weird. Yeah, they don't have no cap. They don't even have a Riz, that's so weird. Yeah, they don't have no cap. They don't have any of that. Riz, Riz. Riz isn't on here.

Riz is Gen Z shortening charisma. Yeah. Wow, you have swag, you have Riz. It's more like in the context of like flirting. Yeah, but it is short for charisma. Anyway, this has been Gen Z corner where we, age ourselves, our credentials with the, with the youngins, with the, with the wee ones.

We might, it worked. We might listen back to this single, wow, we should cut this on account of how we sound so old. All right. I mean, people have been complaining a lot about Gen Z on Twitter lately about them being, you know, prudes, not like insects and things and stuff and watching movies weird, watching movies weird. I just rewatched the original bad news bears with Walter Mathau. And I think

the solution is we got to get cigarettes back in kids hands. Like vapes aren't doing it. We got to get them smoking. We got to get them smoking. Uh, short cut. We just put them back in the minds, put him back in the minds just just just to get to the lungs. Yeah. Okay. And we get some work done to fuck up their lungs. It's not to make them look cooler, make them generally cooler. Okay. Either way, just put them in the minds. Yeah. I was hoping for my cheap labor, but if we want to make them cool, then I guess give us a cigarette. It's fine excellent, so We are back and

We are we are on top of spaghetti. I'll cover it in cheese. I'll cover it in a A meatball made of Ron So yeah Yum I have to find my place. Handsome for meatball. That's right. Often described as handsome meatball. I have not stopped thinking about that to be honest. I mean, I have, but it's been several days since last we met.

Yeah. Disgust Mr. Ronald. Uh, and. Ronathon. Yeah. Ronathon. Apologies. I just can't believe it. Anyway, I've spent too much time talking about. Yeah. Why can't you believe us? So Ron was 33 years old when he went on his first

political campaign. Uh, running for an open district that your party dominates is a pretty sweet spot for a politician trying to break into the national level. This is kind of the easiest way you can possibly start in national politics. And the only stumbling block between him and this first step on the ladder up towards the presidency was the Republican primary, right? Because this is not going to be a general election competition. He wins the primary, the seat is his.

And luckily for Ron, his competition were all utter non-entities. So all he had to do to succeed was make himself into somebody. He opted for the smart play here and decided that rather than focusing on his opponents, he would run against President Obama. This was at the height, we're talking 2012 here. So this is kind of like a little past, maybe the peak of influence for the Tea Party, but it's still like the big name in Republican politics at the moment. And Ron leaned hard into that movement.

He patterned himself specifically off of Ted Cruz. That was his. Whoa. That's so good. That makes so much sense. Yeah, his. That's so funny. That makes so much sense. Yeah, right. Uh-huh. Equally likable, man.

That's so funny. That's so funny. He's all I see when thinking about him. Uh, is Ted Cruz? That's so funny. Yeah, it's on purpose. What it is. And I bet he's just as doomed as old Teddy.

And you get the same thing too, where like his co-workers, no one will say a nice word about Ron as a person, right, who works with him. Oh, yeah. Why would you? He's just deeply unlikable. So yeah, he starts attacking Obama's record. He runs primarily on dismantling the Affordable Care Act, ending gun control, you know, borders, shit, all that good Republican jazz. It was not really, no, it was not a creative line of attack. Nor did it set him apart

from the pack, but it was enough. He kind of is good enough at sort of leaning into these big conservative targets that he gets attention from the the usual pack of right wing funders, these different sort of think tanks and and packs and whatnot, like freedom works in the club for growth, who fund all of the really awful conservative candidates that have made life so colorful in our democracy of late. Ron also makes a habit of showing up at Tea Party rallies and he's able to build a reputation for himself as an economic wonk. Another model that he really embraces is Paul Ryan, right? So like he's he's trying to do that. He really does. It's like he really do see that. So bad nationally.

Honestly, yeah. Yeah, you can see it. It's perfect. It's so funny, especially like obviously, you know, hindsight and all that. But to model yourself after Ted Cruz and Paul Ryan and now try to beat Donald Trump in an election. This is very funny. That's not going to happen, my man. You pick the two wrong guys. Yep. Yeah. Yeah. He really did like pick the exactly wrong dudes. Now, kind of the one intelligent thing he did is he also leans into Glenn Beck's stick of portraying himself

as a historian. This is like a big part of early Ron DeSantis and he's really kind of patterning himself specifically on this style of like conservative media dude who rewrites history in order to make political points. Key to this strategy is self publishing his first book, Dreams From Our Founding Fathers. The title, as in everything else about Ron, was a direct snipe at President Obama, particularly Obama's pre-election memoir, but the content was more in line with the work of pop history big name right wing media stars like Bill O'Reilly, Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh, all of whom

had started publishing history books. Now Ron's self published book does not hit the best seller list. He seems to have made less than $6,000 in sales, which is not bad for an independent book. Well, he was a nice, self published. Yeah. And he's, I guess he's not as known as he is now. Yeah, it wasn't like it. It wasn't. I am thinking I am thinking of it in terms of right now, but yeah, yeah, it's not like it's certainly not a big deal, but the book is a success in a different way, which is that he's able to take copies of it with him when he goes to speak at Tea Party rallies. And even if they don't sell the fact that he's sort of setting himself up as one of these guys who shows up

with their like self-published manifestos and a tea party rallies, that makes him feel like he's one of them, right? Like that's a, he's this very highly educated a Yale guy who is like has been previously tied to the kind of most austere trunks of their public and party and showing up with your self published like manifesto at a tea party rally is a great way to make like make them feel like you're one of them, you know? Absolutely. So we should probably talk about this book a little bit, because it shows off Ron's very consistent obsession with a narrow chunk of the historic discipline, the history of American federalism.

Two of his kids are named after, he has a child named after James Madison and a child named after George Mason, both of whom like our federalists who helped write the Constitution. and in Ron's eyes, they're the guys who saved the early republic from the demagogues who threatened the property of wealthy Americans. Now, you can talk about what that property is, and in fact, in a second, I think that dreams of our founding fathers quotes liberally from the arguments that the Santa agrees with that were made by, quote quote unquote, founding fathers. This largely means equating freedom with the right-to-own property, which is, you know, land and people at this time. Ron, of course, does not defend slavery in his self-published book. He simply denies that our

nation's history with it should have any impact on the way people think about founders or our constitution or property rights. From an analysis in the Atlantic quote, it's rather how his entire reading of American history is enveloped in both unquestioning fieldity to the founders and an insistence that the role of slavery and race more broadly in that history does not seriously change anything about how we should understand the birth and development of our country. For Obama and his teachers, the problem of slavery exemplified the need to adapt and improve the Constitution. For DeSantis, would be reformers who misunderstand the role of slavery in our history are themselves the

root of the problem in our politics. And the most infuriating portion of this book is when Ron makes very limited quotes, takes very limited quotes from Martin Luther King, Jr. and makes them into an argument that he was a famous endorser of the founding documents of this country, right? Because he would, he would quote from the Constitution a lot to make, you know, and the declaration of independence to make certain arguments. Now, we're doing it. Yeah. Love, love when Whitman do that. Take him to a context and use it to fit a narrative. Yeah, it's galling that what King was doing is pointing out how the country has never lived up to even the promises that it made. And Ron is like, see, he was a constitutionalist. Right. He's just like Antonin Scalia. God. This is absolutely not what he was saying at all.

He's a fucking originalist. By far the most galling moment in the book though, is when Ron cites the Dred Scott decision as an example of an activist judge ignoring the letter of the law, something his beloved originalists would never do. Quote, there is a consensus among historians and legal scholars that Dred Scott v. Sanford, which turned on the question of whether a fugitive slave could sue for his freedom after he crossed into a free state, was wrongly decided, because Taney declared that African Americans could not be considered citizens. They had in fact been voting citizens in numerous states, DeSantis wants to distance himself

and the Constitution from Taney's obvious and decisive hatefulness. So he doesn't mention that the entire logic of Taney's willful forgetting of statutory laws rested on his insistence that the founding fathers could never have meant for there to be any kind of racial equality. In other words, Taney made a politically conservative, notably partisan decision precisely on his interpretation of the Founders' intent. It was originalist to the core, the original originalism, where gut feelings about what the Founders thought and wanted trumped a trumped actual state laws, DeSantis can't see or won't admit that it is often originalism

that is selective with evidence. So he's basically saying like the Dred Scott decision is like what liberals do, right? They're just going off of their political opinions and not being originalists where the reality is that like no, it was a fundamentally originalist decision. Yeah. Do you think he knows? Do you think he read the criticism of the book and was like, I've changed my ways now that people who know they're talking about it. No, of course. No.

No. Like, I don't know the degree to which, one of the things that's frustrated me about my research into this, is I don't know the degree to which one of the things that's frustrated me about my research into this antis, I don't know the degree to which he believes the shit he's selling, as opposed to just kind of laying it out because it's an effective argument to make to get the things that he wants. I lean towards he's full of shit and this is just what he saw as the best way to get into power. And like he is all. That seems yeah, especially these days like the like knowing this stuff from this book

and then seeing where he is now with education and history. Yeah. And just the Florida of it all. It does seem like he knows. Yeah. And is to and is smarter than he is letting on by just sort of yeah, I can say this stuff and people eat it up. Oh, yeah, absolutely. He's definitely doing that now, but I do think it's pretty calculated and I do think he's a smart person that he's definitely a smart person. It's been playing, but it's all a part of a game, not a game, but yeah, a plan. It feels strategic.

Yeah. It also feels pathetic because it's pathetic now. Yeah. We're looking at it now because his shit's starting to fall apart, but you do have to note that like from the point at which he starts running, it works startlingly well for quite a while. Yeah. Well, that's why he genuinely skid at the beginning of this.

I've had this conversation with you guys of like he actually, if it was to take, he was to take a route in some way, like he actually does scare me because he's smarter than a lot of them. What he's done is very scary, like he's done a lot. I mean, we'll continue talking about that. So Ron selective reading of our founding documents in history is not new, but it did solidify a place for him on the wonky side of the post-Bush GOP. This caused him difficulty, namely due to the fact that his new funders liked what he had

to say, but didn't like the fact that he was an extremely obvious void of charisma. The kind of the person who saves him here from the fact that he's just terrible at actually like hand-to-hand campaigning is his wife, Casey. She is his charisma. One colleague of Ron's later told a reporter, he doesn't make small talk easily, but Casey was always with him and she filled that gap. He puts so much emphasis on her. Every single speech she ever made, he almost always let off with her or within two minutes

he had mentioned her. And she is like going door to door for him. She's like shaking hands, knocking on doors and shit. Like she is his ground game to a really significant extent. And a big part of like making him feel like a normal person when he's doing these events with donors and stuff. Ron and Casey had been married for just three years when they get start campaigning together. So three years after their fun little Disney wedding, as the election continued, Ron started to collect celebrity endorsements,

Saviour Eyes and the Republican Fold had marked him out for greatness. He earned Joe Arpios endorsement, along with that. How about that? Celebrity endorsement. Celebrity endorsement. Hey, Arpios, a big name, especially in 2012. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's true. And he also gets the coveted John Bolton endorsement. Yeah. That's a big one. Yeah. Wow. Wow. Yeah. But perhaps his most important endorsement was that of Donald Trump. Trump gave to Sanchez. Yeah. This, and again, this is 2012 birtherism Trump gives him an early boost when he tweets out and on March 20th 2012, the wrecked Navy hero, Braun star, Yale, Harvard law, very impressive.

Yeah. I like to hear what Donald Trump has to say about all of those. Is he still in Navy here? It's still in here. You still like Harvard and Yale. You think those are like not where the snappy elites go to do communism. Yeah, the communist communist Harvard law. In his first term, Ron was a rely, so he could, he does get elected, by the way, obviously

in his first term in Congress, Ron is a reliable vote on the piece of shit caucus. He tried to stop hurricane Sandy aid. He voted to support the government. Yeah, he didn't know that. No, no, that don't help people with government money. We need that money to not spend, I guess. And he's allowed to get the chance of meatballs, right? Yeah.

He votes to support the government shutdown. He voted against an update for the Violence Against Women Act. If you want a short idea about what I'm asking you. I'm sorry. How dare everyone not laugh at that joke for Cody. I laugh. I didn't. I didn't.

I didn't. Sophie just silently. I was just silently dying. Cody, can you, can you, can you, I guess I didn't really laugh, but I just, that's okay. It was just a reference to weather and meatballs cloudy with the chance of meatballs. Robert's that was good. It was really good. Better than my Monet joke last week.

Monet. So, uh, good stuff. The heritage foundation gives him 100%. So if you want to know the kind of dude he is as a, as a, as a congressman, there you go. Yeah. Ron gets a junior seat on the Freedom Caucus. He is one of the nine original members, although he's kind of the least of them. He's not very prominent at this point,

but he is, he is, this is kind of show some political foresight, right? He sees, because the Freedom Caucus is really a precursor to a lot of Trumpist shit hitting. Yeah, and he's he's he's on that right from from an early stage. If DeSantis has a reputation in this period, he it is as a a very far right vote who you cannot talk to a reason with, right? He is going to vote against anything Obama wants to do reflexively. Ron openly agreed with Mitch McConnell

that there was nothing more important in this period than interrupting the president's second term. This was a job that played to Ron's strength. He is the kind of dude who does not care much about people or their suffering. And so can just kind of vote to hurt things, right? Like that's what he's doing. It's just kind of like voting to make the country worse consistently. And like brush it off, like brush off criticism. Like, yes, care about being asked a question about it or being confronted about it. He's just like, however, yeah.

Purely, purely obstructionist point of view. Purely want to, and like, gosh, we love a public servant that doesn't get a fuck about the citizens just about being and proving people's lives. Yeah. Just wants to play that game. Yeah. Here's a quote from Politico that really makes no care. Being a dick to the lives. Just wants to play that game. Yeah, here's a, here's a quote from Politico that really makes that point. I wasn't really

there to necessarily to make friends. He once told Politico, he did not. Fowler Republicans noted him as a loner who only got in close with other freedom cock as weird as former Florida Republican Congressman David Jolly said that besides those guys, quote, I don't think he had many relationships at all. One peer, former Florida Democratic Congresswoman, when Graham told Politico, he wore ear buds on the floor of the house so he didn't have to talk to people. To say he was anti-social is a disservice to this term. He does not enjoy being around people.

Now, Gwen has an obvious bias. She's a dim, but former Michigan Republican Congressman David Trott was even more savage in a recent interview with playbook. I think he's an asshole. I don't think he cares about people. Uh, that's, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh at least these days, especially, it's like, well, we're a little callous towards people.

Yeah. And it's like the idea of empathy is like disgusting to us, but even to call out, like, yeah, he doesn't care about people. Well, and I think also what you're seeing with that, especially the whole, I'm going to wear headphones on the floor. I'm not going to talk to anyone. He's not, he has no interest in being a congressman as the job. He has interest in being a congressman in order to set himself up for the presidency and other higher ambition. Yeah, it's the means to an end. Yeah. And so what matters, you can't think about helping

people or doing the job of governance. All that matters is getting that 100% from the Heritage Foundation, locking in donations, locking in support, locking in things you can brag about in a campaign to the worst, most active chunks of the Republican base. So he's going to put those headphones on because he knows he's going to be hurting people and he doesn't want to be confronted with their existence. Like, he wants to be able to ignore everyone around him because he is just here to push some buttons, you know?

Yeah, it's like having a private office in your ears. Yes. Which, yes. Eventually, yeah. Yeah. So, yeah. Yeah. So for his part, DeSantis leans and do his growing reputation as like the fucking kind of a psycho from a right up in politico quote, look, DeSantis said, I was not in Congress to necessarily socialize. He slept in his office. He liked being at home more than he wanted to be in DC. So that's uncomfortable.

Yeah. Wait, he slept in his office. He sleeps in his office. He doesn't talk to people. He sleeps in his office. He's just there to cast the votes that get him marked down as good by the NRA, good by the Heritage Foundation. And then it's away.

He has no interest in doing this job. Right. Cool. In 2015, right as the first stirrings of Trumpism started to ooze into what had been a deceptively placid political media environment, Ron dealt with the first tragedy of his life, his sister, who was just 30 years old,

died of a pulmonary embolism. When interviewed by Pierce Morgan, Ron later claimed, you start to question things that are unjust, and you just have to take faith that there's a plan in place. Trust in God, there's a plan in place trust in God There's no guarantee that you're gonna have a life without challenges and without heartbreak and that's just a function of being human So there you go

Is that him being I guess I got a weird thing to say about Yeah, that's a weird like way to talk about it and like lesson to yeah, I think a normal person would say something like yeah, it's devastating like I'll miss her forever, you know, something something like that like you say about a dead person not be like right? He's like this Republican argument. Well, everybody deals with shit like right. It seems like like sort of like take that tragedy and turn into like well, you got to pull yourself up by your bootstress work hard. Well, he's also taking it into some sort of As an opportunity to paint himself as a masculine

Tough type as someone who Can handle anything that you know, I'm sure he's hoping to come across as a strong Yeah, stuff happens that's life, you know. Yeah, why are you complaining about your problems? Look at me. It's like, that we all, it also just reinforces. Yeah, the bootstrap mentality, which the idea that we all can just buck up in everything is fine.

I think what this best quote, best embodies is that he is always relentlessly on point in this period of his life, right? This is the answer that you give because it furthers your political reputation. It's the kind of conservative who can get elected, right? Like every single thing that you say in public, every word, every action is based on building your future presidential campaign. Like that's who he is. If that's how you're thinking, that's exactly what you have.

Yeah, that's the move and that's what you do. Yeah. Yeah. When the 2016 election got well underway, Ron was as blindsided by Donald Trump's rise to prominence as anyone else. This is evident in the fact that he kept his fucking mouth shut for much of the primaries. And then he did speak out about the controversial GOP frontrunner. It was mainly to dissociate himself from Trump.

He said in one interview that Trump's 2012 tweet had not been an endorsement and he made it clear that he'd never met the man. So he actually this big deal endorsement, he gets as a first term congressman, he's like, oh, that wasn't an endorsement. That was just a nice tweet about me. I've never met the guy. I don't know. No opinions. And this is, this is probably fair to see as a limitation in his political instincts, right? He did, he was not someone who right away, he could have done something. He could have done something.

He could have done something. Yeah. And I think this, this makes sense, like he's a structure guy, right? He plays well with the Republican party. And he plays well with the kind of engine of donors and think tanks and whatnot that support that party. And particularly it's far right flank. He plays well with the kind of engine of donors and think tanks and whatnot that support that party and particularly its far right flank. But as soon as he encounters someone who is running outside of that structure, threatening

to upset it and remake it, he freezes, right? He's just not ready to deal with this. Yeah, it's just that weird, like you're courting, you're courting this aspect of the party in politics, but you don't really necessarily realize the end game or like where it's headed and then it happens. And like, well, by was, but the machine is good. What's this guy trying to wreck this machine? Yeah. It thinks it speaks also to like the fact that he modeled himself sort of after Ted Cruz,

who also had a similar thing where it's like, I don't know what to do here. I mean, you know, his wife's called up. Yeah, they don't know what to take him or to kiss him or to copy him or to. Yeah. And then you get that sweaty phone call picture of Ted Cruz, just like begging for votes. So funny. It is like, it is kind of worth noting that from all the evidence we have, it seems that Ron hated Trump on site or at least saw kind of making fun of him as a profitable enterprise.

One of his former staffers told Vanity Fair, Ron made more fun of Donald Trump than anyone I know. And another added, he thought Trump was fucking nuts. So again, very much not on the Trump train initially. But when Trump starts making this inexorable progress and remaking the Republican party in his own image, Ron is kind of focused continuing his pace towards the White House. He's in a second term by early 2015 and he's already made a lot of connections among the Heritage Foundation

think tank set who determine where campaign funds are going to go. So when Marco Rubio announces that he's going to run for president and steps down, Roma. Yeah, I'm not going to run for reelection for this Senate seat, a representative for the club for growth calls Ron and is like, Hey, Marco Rubios definitely headed to the White House. Do you want to run through the Senate seats? I'm going to quote from Politico here. And May 2015, less than a month after Rubio announced his presidential candidacy, DeSantis announced his Senate bid. He had the post-haced backing of the same array of conservative groups, Senate conservatives fund, Freedom Works, the club for growth. And a year after he got called back to the breakers, at a luncheon of the Republican party

headquarters in Highlands County, Florida, DeSantis spelled it out. I was the only U.S. Senate candidate that spoke at the Koch brothers donor summit where they have all their organizations that get involved in these races. You have everyone from the club for growth on, so we built a huge, huge network of supporters that will be able to turn on. The most important decision Ron DeSantis made that led to his eventual election as governor, a high profile national Republican consultant said was running for Marco's seat in 2016. DeSantis, he said, was able to go network a group of billionaires that he otherwise couldn't have done as a congressman. And this is, he doesn't get this seat,

right? Because Rubio flames out and returns to his seat. But because he had been willing to play ball and run for this to keep it, you know, in house and whatnot and made all these connections, that's what political insiders will argue is what lets him become the governor floors, at least what gives him a fighting chance, right? Or I would say that makes sense anyway. Yeah. Yeah. Cause he shows himself as a team player to these money guys. Yeah.

Yeah. Team player tool for them, whatever you want to call it. Yeah. He is breaking about being a tool of the Koch brothers in this period. Exactly. Yeah. Like I'll do whatever I give me the money. I'll do a I'll do the thing.

Yeah. I'll do the thing. I'll do the thing. Guy Maradena said this. I pick the beat. The ball. Yeah, I'll do the thing. I'll do the thing. Guy Marranda said, this I pick the pizza meat double. That's it. That's perfect. So fake.

Very excellent. Let's replace our audio sting into and out of every episode with that. No. She's like noting it. Here's a spicy and the ball. And God Almighty, that's embarrassing. Shameful. No, it's good. And God Almighty, that's embarrassing. Shameful.

No, it's good. Yeah, we're doing ads. Oh, that's what I was. Oh. Oh. Oh. Sacred Skando, one of best new podcasts of 2022, is back with a closer look at the darkness

surrounding mega church La Luz del Mundo and its leader, Nasson Joaquin García. They believe that he was Jesus Christ on Earth. It wasn't even so much that he liked sex. He wanted something to pray. It's the largest cult in the world that no one has ever heard of. For three generations La Luz del Mundo had an incredible control on his community that began in Mexico and then grew across the United States. Until one day,

a day of reckoning for the man whose millions of followers called him the Apostle. Their leader was arrested and survivors began to speak out about the sexual abuse, the murder and corruption. This is just a business and their product are people. They want to know that they will kill you. Listen to all episodes now on the I Heart Rainy Up, Apple Podcasts, or whatever you get your podcasts. 911, what's your emergency?

It's a nightmare we could never have imagined. And a killer who is still on the loose. My small town rocked by murder. There are certain murders I'm scared to discuss. In the 1980s, we're in high school losing friends, teachers, and community members. One after another, after another, for a decade. We weren't safe anywhere. We're teenagers terrified to leave our own homes. Would we be next?

Who is killing all the kids? And why? In that moment, I saw rage. And why do you some want the town secrets to stay dead and buried forever? I'm not sure why you're digging up all this old stuff again, but I'd be careful. Don't say I didn't warn you, Nancy.

Listen to the murder years on the iHeart Radio app Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts Hey, what's up y'all the Zerogondrake But they made a podcast called bombing about absolutely tanking on stage I'm talking about your most manageable experiences of the Farmer I tell them gnarly stories and I talk to friends about the worst moments of bombing and all sorts of ways. Bombing on stage, bombing in public, bombing in life. Like the time I stole a girl's phone during a set and she dumped on stage and threw

a big A-maker punch to my nose. I want to know what's the worst way they ever bombed or performed way too drunk or high. It was there every time where they thought they were going to crush and they stunk it up. Subscribe to my podcast, Bombing with Eric Andre to hear more crazy stories from me and my friends. I'll have guests like Sam Jay. So we'll say Sloan, Michelle Butteau, Mac DeMarco, DJ Doug Pound, Saturday Night Live, Sarah Sherman, and more! Listen to Bombing with Eric Andre drain will ferro big money players network on the I hard radio app Apple podcast will wear you get your podcasts.

Oh, we're back. What's your guys back favorite favorite way to do an offensive Italian accent. Uh, I don't, because I'm, I'm partially Italian, so I'm very Italian. Yeah. Yeah. I think it's the one we've just been doing. It's a me amario. I love what to do.

I take them on bands in a Pesto sauce. It's a strong. No. I do take bands in Pesto sauce. You do. You do. And I commit a lot of insurance fraud. The perfect Italians, the perfect Italians, this is how my family came to this country. Good times. So if you're going to be influential in politics in this country, you have basically

two broad families of choice. One is to work yourself up from within the system. You do take bit roles and campaigns until you're able to get enough support to run for office, somewhere, probably a local office, you win election, you start schmoozing with big donors, building connections to financiers through the think tanks that ask as they're grasping little hands. The other way to get into politics in this country in a big way is just pure populism. You force yourself into relevance in this country in a big way is just pure populism. You force yourself into relevance by building enough of a following that these same people have to pretend they're not angry that you skipped in line, right?

Trump is a line skipper. He's great at line skipping. Ronnie D is not a line skipper. As one of his friends, a former Florida Republican Congressman told Politico, he's somebody who has his view of his strategy and politics. Do the right little conservative things, but behind that curtain build a network of mega conservative donors, the Koch brothers, Sheldon Adelson, Ron, more than just about anybody I know in politics has built that network very successfully.

And this is the thing he's actually good at, right? Like this is his actual skill. David Bossy, the president of Citizens United and former deputy campaign manager for Trump, has given to Santa's credit for building an operation with quote, very Trumpian tones during Trump's first campaign. I actually don't think this is accurate. Bossy now works on the Sanctis as campaign, which is why he's saying this. But my take is that it would be more accurate to say, Ron and Trump focused on the same issues because those issues have been issues for Republicans as long as most of us listening have been alive, cutting entitlements, border security, culture, war shit against elites.

But those are just surface similarities. Ron has always gone after those things in a pretty normal conservative way, whereas Trump went after them in a populist wildcard way. Given his legitimate, so yeah, I don't know, that's, I think, that bossy's bullshit there. conservative way, whereas Trump went after them in a populist wildcard way, given his legitimate, so yeah, I don't know, I think Bosse's foolish shit there anyway. Yeah. And I think, well, especially now, Ron is doing a clear, terrible Trump impression and not doing, like he's, he's sort of like off the grid in terms of like what he's used to it seems and that's part of why he's sort of floundering

He's like well this is not what I thought politics was supposed to be I did the things I'm supposed to do and now I got to be this freak He's very much out of his depth in what he's trying in the tact that he's taking here Yeah, you're out of your depth Donnie Ronnie exactly Perfect. Yeah, excellent You're out of your depth, Donnie. Ronnie. Exactly. Ronnie. Perfect. Yeah. Excellent.

Okay, Doki karaoke. So given his legitimately impressive history as a ball player, you might expect Ron to have played on the congressional team. And he did. But by all accounts, he did not make an impressive impact. Nor did he devote much time towards it. The only impact baseball was to have on the rest of his career so far is that he left congressional baseball practice in the summer of 2017 just before a gunman opened fire.

By the time 2018 rolled around, Ron was ready to take another shot at the brass ring. In this case, it was the governor's seat in his home state of Florida. And again, he is running to be the governor of Florida, not Florida, the beloved musician who represented San Marino in 2021. Just want to really be clear about that because we keep it as confusion. Yeah. The last episode, people were, did you tell me my face? I'm still I was used and I still think it's low right. Well, I think the only way to solve this is induct flow right into the United States. Yeah, sure. Yeah. And I

think for the flag, we just get rid of the other 50 stars and just have one big star on the flag that represents flow right. United because that would be our biggest star. Uh huh. Yeah. Yeah. That's right. That's right. So still no idea what song that guy wrote. He's got to have at least one right. That was that was probably because yeah. Otherwise, San Marino wouldn't wouldn't sniped him. So his opponent for the Republican nomination, Rhonda Santas' not flow right out. Was a guy named Adam Putnam, a career politician who had been in office, some kind of office since he was 22. At one point, and this is, I think, funny. Putnam is clearly a guy who like is at one point in his career, a conservative wonderkin, right? Like he's

he's starting office in his like early 20s. He's one of these like go getter youth Republican that the party sees as its future. Uh, and but shit starts to change on a dime with Trump and Ron is like, well, I can make hey by portraying Putnam as this like out of touch rhino careerist, you know. Uh, so he uses his connections to get a meeting on Air Force one where he makes his case to President Trump. This was an important meeting. No one else's endorsement mattered if Trump was on his side and no one else could save him without Donald. Now to say it has been putting in groundwork here.

He like started for months prior to this, about a year or so prior to this, really hitting against Trump attacks on social media and stuff. And these are kind of a shallow thing, just the fact. And whenever he goes on TV, he'll defend the president, right? It's very obvious, it's very like shallow, toadying, but that shit works like a dot, like perfectly on Donald Trump. Like very much like that. Trump's to flatter. Yeah. Love that kind of meatball. Yeah. So they have this meeting and DeSantis's chief of staff later recalled, what President Trump saw on DeSantis was somebody that was fighting for him and his agenda on Fox News,

whether it was Fox News or on Fox Business. And DeSantis had a pretty smart strategy to use his committee responsibilities and find ways to insert himself into the national debate and get booked on TV. And we obviously had a lot of media requests beyond Fox, but you know, members of Congress know what shows the president watches and what he doesn't. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And it works. Trump tweets an endorsement soon after this meeting. Ron wins his primary handily and he makes frequent use of Trump's support, named dropping him 21 times in a single debate. He cuts what one Democratic ad man called the dumbest, most effective ad in Florida history.

And it's, it is remarkable. It, it starts with him like reading his son a copy of the art of the deal and telling his daughter to build the wall with toy. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah, that's a real hit. That's a real thing. I'm so funny. It's just the dick writing his dad. Totally. It's so funny. Just the dick writing is dad.

I, he's deeply embarrassing. It's so transparent and funny. Yeah. And that time passed and it's all gone now. Yeah. Yeah. It's all gone now. So despite all this, Florida was still one of America's most infamous swing states.

It is very purple at this point. And the general election is a nail bider. DeSantis barely manages to squeak past Democrat Andrew Gillam with some 32,000 votes, less than half a percentage point. Gillam later gets hit with a 21 count federal indictment for wider wire fraud conspiracy, making false statements all related to fraudulent fundraising from various entities tied to his campaigns. Gillam denies all charges, but that doesn't matter for here. What matters is that the Santas does manage to squeak out of victory and that it is going

to be very narrow, but his second victory is not going to be narrow. And that's pretty worth noting. So today, Ron DeSantis is deservedly reviled for turning Florida into a laboratory for outwardly fascistic and eliminationist public policy targeted particularly towards queer people. His early years in office though are surprisingly mild. He is not the guy he is now, his first couple of years as governor. Another political article notes, he surprised many in the state by tackling towards the center.

He signed a bill that nixed a ban on smokeable medical marijuana announcing it with Matt Gates, one of the most Trump-y members of Congress, and Orlando attorney John Morgan, long a major fundraiser for Democratic candidates. He vetoed a bill that would have prevented local bans on plastic straws. He angled for additional funding for Everglades restoration. He instituted two new state jobs, Chief Resilience Officer and Chief Science Officer. DeSantis actually spoke the words climate change after Rick Scott had downplayed it, is approval rating soared into the 60s and even into the 70s, including sort of shockingly high faves from Democrats and independents too. So that's interesting.

That is interesting. That is interesting. I think it does make sense that it is actually consistent because when he's in Congress, it doesn't matter. Like you're not directly accountable to anyone really in Congress, like because there's all these other guys voting on everything that happens, right? So you can be just an obstructionist if that's the thing that makes you palatable to the base that gets you the endorsements.

When you're governor, you do have to do like, especially when you're governor of a state that is a purple state, right? That's why he's doing this because he doesn't want to lose office because that's fucking death to a presidential campaign. So he has to do something. Yeah, you are the face of it. Exactly. Yeah, so he's he has a fairly you would say pragmatic guy and that is generally like there's political quotes, one Republican lobbyist is saying as someone who has aspirations behind beyond his current office, which I think everyone will concede this probably is not his last office. I think that is how you have to do it. I do think hopefully it will be his last office. But we'll see. Maybe.

We'll see. I mean, like all it takes is just like a Trump to walk on stage and interact with him. Yeah. Put Ron. Bam! Speaking of putting Ron, yeah, let's talk a little bit about putting Ron because it is, it is during the surprisingly mild interlude in his career in 2019 that one of Ron's peculiarities would pass into legend. Everyone who worked with the governor was aware that he was a man who did not socialize easily or well.

He's very intelligent. He's able to digest large dreams of data in hours and come back with pointed questions, but social dynamics baffle him. In March of 2019, during a private flight from Tallahassee to DC, DeSantis decided to take on some energy by eating a pudding snack. According to two sources who were there, he did this with three of his fingers, using them like a spoon and licking them clean and full view of multiple people. Now, no, no, no, no, that's, that's off putting a bit. I, I, I, I, I do we've been putting and I'm a big. Oh, that was accidentally good. Yeah. I, I spent a lot of time in like, you know, the Middle East. I do a lot. I've done a lot of eating with my hands as utensils. But eating pudding that way is just so in public is so off putting too.

It is like putting your finger. It's like beer in like a work business sort of setting. Yeah. Also, well. I'm just all I say is you could just squeeze it in. You don't have to do that at all. You could just squeeze the pudding in here. You could use the lid like a spoon. Okay, thank you. I was gonna say, the lid is foil usually.

I assume he's eating standard pudding cup. Probably, probably you've standard pudding cup. You shape the lid into a little spoon, and then you have a little spoon. You don't have to use your three finger. This is what we've all done. He just gets his pudding the shaker. Like God, not those three fingers. This is what we've all done. He just gives his putting the shaker. Like God, not those three fingers.

Honestly, though, that's what I choose. I know it's like such a silly thing, but there's something wrong with you. If you think it's okay to do that around people, I'm sorry. It's weird. Now, look, have I eaten putting with my fingers when nearly blackout drunk alone in my apartment? Of course. But I don't can all agree. I should not be a governor.

Uh, yeah. And then there's that. But I just imagine you wouldn't do it sober around colleagues in any kind of environment. But if you did, it'd be like, yeah, I'm this type of governor. Yeah. I'm going to, I'm going to, I'm going to put the, I'm going to have a meeting and I'm going to take a shit during the meeting to, yeah, again, I can, right? You could, if Ron, if Ron had the kind of natural charisma, LBJ had, just like, I'm going

to give a fuck. You're not even people to do. This is who I am. And you're dealing with me. Yeah. I go for it. But no, he's just a weirdo who wanted his little putting snack and had to dig three fingers in there to get it down his gullet.

Because this is an unbiased political analysis show. I do want to note here that at the same time, Putin-Ran was being born, another famously unpleasant politician on the other side of the aisle had a similar experience. The New York Times reported that in 2019 during a flight to a campaign event, Senator Amy Klobuchar was told there was no fork for her salad and she pulled a comb from her bag. Can you still to eat? Now, this is maybe the most controversial thing I say on the show. Both of these are weird things to do. I think Ron's choice was more normal than Amy's.

Do you? Yeah. People who it is, it's weird to eat, put it with your fingers, but fingers are acceptable for eating some things. A comb. A comb. It's not my weird, man. Also, I see, we've all seen Amy's hair.

There's product in there. She's cold. She's eating her salad and also eating hairspray. There's an unhinged. Yeah. It is not good. It's not good. First half fully out.

Yeah, I'm trying to look at it. We're getting in a tap by the clobich gang. Like it's not this, but like it's something like, it's like getting your like, like your toothbrush out and using your toothbrush to eat the pudding. Sure. But even that is like not the same as the comb.

Like there's no, there's no quifflet there, right? Like, love it. So prior to 2020, if you were looking at Ron DeSantis, you'd probably have expected him to hue to that wonky Paul Ryan image, which is kind of what he's, he's doing largely with a little bit of Ted Cruz thrown in there to hold on the way lifting photos. Yeah, none of that stuff.

But to try and hold on to his state through whatever happens with Trump's second campaign and hopefully plot a less extreme path to picking up his crown after, right? Sort of let let the Trump storm pass and trust that you're young enough to have, you know, time to get in there afterwards. Given his relatively mild performance at this point, this would not have been a bad strategy. But the coronavirus pandemic changed everything. Initially, Ron responded more or less the same as everyone else. And in Florida, it does have a brief lockdown.

It's like a month or so. Locked down, run. Locked down, run. Once it becomes clear that the pandemic is not like it's not a civilization ender, it's, you know, just a massive threat to the most vulnerable people in the country. He's like, well, fuck those people. And he reverses course and decides to ride the waves of paranoid discontent by flouting every expert recommendation and reopening his state. Here's the Atlantic. Initially, Florida fair better than many states, although its numbers

eventually came to look pretty bad. He has since adopted a sort of soft, anti-vaccine stance, never explicitly rejecting the shots, but declining to promote them and often appearing with skeptics. DeSantis' COVID politics hurt his approval with Democrats, driving down his overall numbers, but they endeared him to conservatives in both Florida and nationwide. His standing remain and remain strong among Republicans in the sunshine state, and he became a darling of the National right wing media, which saw him in him a rare conservative

COVID success story and also a politician who could combine elements of Trumpism with more traditional movement conservatism. The glow seems to have emboldened the Santas. Taking Trump's example, the Santas begun keeping legislators in check with the threat of criticism or backing primary challenges. And this is the start of Ron as the fearsome force of authoritarian governments that we see today, right? He is initially pretty popular governor at one point he has nearly 70%, but he realizes by becoming this culture warrior, he's going to lose 10, 15 points, you know, something like that, but not enough to take him out of winning the governor's seat. And in fact, it'll strengthen

his overall appeal to his base. So that means more money. And crucially, not just as it means more money, it means he doesn't actually need to have any sort of buy-in from the left in order to govern because he can he can get all of the legislators in Florida, lockstep behind him because since he is so popular with the base, he can be like, look, if you don't do exactly what I fucking want, you're out of here. Like, I will endorse your opponent in a primary and you're fucked. Um, and that's what's allowed him to do to push through a lot of the stuff that he's done that's really unpopular.

Um, it's interesting to see when you're laying it out like this, how quickly this, it's not that he ultimately wants, we've talked about it this whole time just to how he's adopted this persona over a period of time, but it's been a relatively short period of time with this latest iteration of Ronald. Yeah, Ronald. Ronald then. Yeah. Yeah, Ronathon. Ronathon. Yeah. Yeah, you know what else articulates well, Katie.

Is it something to add for ticut, Ron advertisements? Yeah, we are actually sponsored entirely by Ron DeSantis. So, uh, yeah. Here's Ron. Hi, I'm here to be your president. And you know what I don't like is not, well, not putting, I love putting. That's a really, that was a good, that was a good, a good, a wonderful, good, a great party. Wow. Really perfect. I have a question, I was one of those social, wow. So, so, okay. Really perfect.

I have a question as we come back from break here. Sure. Do we think that there should be some kind of test for elected officials where we give them some kind of food and no soulware and see what they do? And if it's a great idea, so that's one of the best ideas I've heard. I've been like a long time and I feel like there's like a scale.

And it's like, you know, were you on the comb and the salad or were you, you know, just, you know, I was kidding. I was kidding. As Katie suggested, you eat the pudding without putting your fingers in it because. I mean, what I would really like to see, you would have to do them every when it wants,

but all of our elected leaders, you get it once, you put them in a room and you have them eat like a sandwich or some hummus or something that you have squirted dish soap into and you film them all you do it. Just to see, you don't tell them. You see, yeah. Who powers through it, right? Who, like who? Well, who's yeah. Who powers through it, right? Who, like, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who,

who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, who, or you're like, oh yeah, I love my soapy hummus. Mm-hmm. It's got that soapy taste that we all know and love about. Maybe just maybe one of those, one of them, will take the initiative to say, hey, don't eat this, it's got soap in it, but probably not. It tastes fucked up. It's got soap. It's an opportunity for them to prove themselves

to be a good person. Lear is out there. Lear is taking an issue. You find out if some of them goes, did you put cilantro in this hummus? Yeah. And you find out who has bad taste buds. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Because we should not, I think we can all agree, you should not be able to hold office if you've got the gene that makes cilantro taste bad to you. Yeah, I mean, yeah, for sure. I mean, I just feel like...

Those are even really people. I just feel like we're making really good rules right here. Where I agree. And I feel like the food without support thing should be live streamed. Yeah, for sure. For sure. We can do it.

We can film it in front of the live studio audience of those Philly sports fans from part one. I mean, you know, we're doing, though, we're just sort of like paving the way for another Trump presidency. Cause you know, if he eats the soapy hummus, he's just gonna be like, this isn't the way, this is bad.

Like what are you doing? Give me a diet coke, like he'll just like, he'll bulldoze the entire room. Yeah. You're right. Dangerous games. Anyway, here's a dangerous ad. Sacred Skando, one of the best new podcasts of 2022, is back with a closer look at the darkness

surrounding mega-church La Luz del Mundo and its leader, Nasson Joaquin Garcia. They believe that he was Jesus Christ on Earth. It wasn't even so much that he liked sex. He wanted something to pray. It's the largest cult in the world that no one has ever heard of. For three generations, the Luz del Mundo had an incredible control on his community that began in Mexico and then grew across the United States, until one day.

A day of reckoning for the man whose millions of followers called him the Apostle. Their leader was arrested and survivors began to speak out about the sexual abuse, the murder and corruption. This is just a business and their product are people. Listen to all episodes now on the I Heart Rainy Up, Apple Podcasts, or whatever you get your podcasts. 911, what's your emergency? You shot her! Oh my god!

It's a nightmare we could never have imagined. And a killer who is still on the loose. My small town rocked by murder. There are certain murders I'm scared to discuss. In the 1980s, we're in high school losing friends, teachers, and community members, one after another, after another for a decade. We weren't safe anywhere.

We're teenagers terrified to leave our own homes. Would we be next? Who is killing all the kids? And why? In that moment, I saw rage. And why do some want the town's secrets to stay dead and buried forever? I'm not sure why you're digging up all this old stuff again, but I'd be careful. Don't say I didn't warn you, Nancy.

Listen to the Murder Years on the iHeart Radio app Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. forever you get your podcasts. Bomming on stage, bombing in public, bombing in life, like the time I stole a girl's phone during a set and she dumped on stage and threw a big A-maker punch to my nose. I wanted to know what's the worst way they ever bombed or performed way too drunk or high, and was there ever a time where they thought they were going to crush and they stunk it up. Subscribe to my podcast Bomming with Eric Andre to hear more crazy stories from me and my friends. I'll have guests like Sam Jay. To all say Sloan, Michelle Butteau, Max DeMarco, DJ Doug Pound, Saturday Night Live, Sarah Sherman, and more. Listen to bombing with Eric Andre on Will Ferrell's Big Money Players Network on the I-Hard Radio App, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Hi! I'm wrong. We're bad. That was horrible, Cody. Okay, so yeah, there we go. So Ron DeSantis after COVID is now starts to remake himself in the image of Huey Long basically, like he goes kind of dictator from this point forward. He bases his power and authority on this vice grip that he's got on the Republican voters of Florida, and he's able to use this to push through very unpopular policies by threatening his legislators with primary challenges. Aubrey Jewett, a political scientist from the University of Central Florida, says that DeSantis has control over the Florida legislature is historically unique. Historically, particularly in the Florida Senate, you'd see more independence. They'd buck the governor.

Gem Bush experienced this. Charlie Christ, even Rick Scott. DeSantis's approval is below its pre-pandemic levels, but this does not change his behavior, and he rams, uses it like his power now to ram through Florida's infamous Don't Say Gay Bill, which bans any classroom discussion of gender identity or sexual orientation in Florida public schools through the third grade. It was and remains an unpopular law, but Ron handily won re-election after the pandemic, and in fact he didn't just win. He absolutely blew out his

democratic challenger. You can say one thing for DeSantis, and that's it that he knows how to push when he sees an opening. He is responded to the new tenor of Florida politics by remaking himself as the arch culture warrior, making unpopular policies geared at hurting the left and enemies of conservatism above anything that might be called traditional governing. He's helped to push through what many consider the most partisan redistricting map in the country geared towards reducing the influence of black voters. This has been met with a full-on legal assault against what Ron calls voter fraud, one which has primarily targeted black Floridians.

A good example comes from October of 2022, when body camera footage revealed a raid on voters around Tampa 19 of whom were arrested for so called fraud the ACLU reports quote the footage is disturbing it is clear that the individuals arrested in and around Tampa have absolutely no idea that they have done anything wrong and why they are being detained at moments their confusion and distress are so pronounced that the police are resting them try to console them. As the Tampa Bay Times put it, the police are almost apologetic for their actions. Nineteen people are arrested in this stink, which focused around amendment four. This is an amendment to the Florida State Constitution that was approved by 65% to Florida voters in 2018, and restored voting rights to Floridians with past felony convictions. But the year after this happens, DeSantis has his legislature pass SB 7066, which requires that felons pay legal fines before being eligible to vote.

As the ACLU notes, the state has no central database for information on convictions and the resulting financial obligations. This leaves hundreds of thousands of Floridians unable to assess if they owe money and how much. Essentially, the state created a paid-of-vote system, well, giving people no way to determine how much they must pay. And then he's able to like charge them criminally for voting when they haven't paid properly. It's so fun that they can't know like, yeah, it's really fucked up. It is very clearly targeting specifically Black voters, 13 of the 19 people arrested in this first sweep are Black.

And yeah, it's generally seen as an attempt to chill the vote in low income black and brown communities ahead of the 2024 election. That's absolutely what he's doing here. DeSantis also oversees a ban on critical race theory. One so severe, it's led to even math textbooks being censored. One law makes it a third degree felony to distribute what the state, under DeSantis, calls pornography in classrooms. The actual text of the statute is incredibly broad, defining pornography not just as erotic

material with the intent to cause sexual excitement, but including instruction on gender identity or discrimination by teaching that, quote, an individual by virtue of his or her race, color, sex or national origin is inherently racist or oppressive, whether consciously or unconsciously. So it's basically just like a felony to teach anything that someone conservative might get offended by. And if you know conservatives, you know, there's nothing that doesn't offend them. Oh, it's all that it's everything. It honestly, I don't even know what to say. I mean, we talk about this all the time. But it does blow my mind. It's hard for me to wrap my mind around all that he's,

all the terrible things that he's done in a very short period of time. And the hypocrisy of people talking about, public schools, the schooling is an indoctrination, and then literally what is happening, literally what the things that are being removed from basic elements of our education and how. Yeah, classrooms and school libraries just absolutely shorn of books because yeah, it's ghastly. I'm not going to go into as much. I'm not going to like spend the whole episode just listing every bad thing he's done

as governor. I thought it was more useful because you get this every day, right? People are reading this, they're watching this. I thought it was more useful to explain why he's able to do this because this is not how he governs at the start of his time as governor. This is a change that comes midway through as a result of the COVID pandemic. And it's important to know that he is able to do get away with pushing so many unpopular policies because of how he gains control over the state legislature. That's what I wanted to kind of get into because that's actually a really useful thing to understand. In part, to prevent future authoritarians like the Santas from doing similar things in other states.

You need to at least understand how he got to be able to do all this shit, right? Now, this is all awful. None of it though has stopped the Santas from winning reelection. There's a lot of articles from right before his reelection campaign that are like, you know, is COVID, is his hard right tilt, you know, is this all right before his, his, uh, reelection campaign that are like, you know, is COVID is,

is, is his hard right tilt, you know, is this all going to like hurt his chances of winning, because he barely squeaks it by the first time. His second election, Ron wins by an astonishing margin. He even captures traditionally liberal enclaves in the state, which has led many deposit that however you want to characterize his reign ethically he has ended at least for now Florida status as a purple state. Um, little early to say that, you know, we'll see how 2024 goes, but I think that's probably fair. Uh, it is impossible to say at the moment whether or not this will hold through beyond 2024, but it does point to an undeniable conclusion. Ron DeSantis is probably the most effective elected anti-democratic leader in the country. The good news is that at least for now he seems

to have overreached his capabilities and what is probably fair to say is the most major misstep of his career so far. People have been discussing DeSantis as a probable Republican presidential candidate since at least 2020. And after January 6th, 2021, and the brief relative absence of Trump when he was being shunned for that like couple of months, he seemed to shine as a likely future standard bearer of the authoritarian movement that Donald had helped conjure into being. There were articles in mainstream publications touting the fluid amirical. Ron had decided to campaign on this. Interviews highlighted his intelligence as a counterpoint to Trump's crudity.

But this brief period as a front runner came to an end as soon as the former president made it clear that he intended to run once more in deference to the fact that the Santa's had defended him a few years earlier. Trump gave a couple of quiet warnings. I think the first warnings are probably sent through intermediaries kind of politely. You've got some guys who are because they're both Florida dudes, you know, who are visiting both camps, be like, now's not the time, Ron. Now's not the time, Ron.

But Ron doesn't listen to this. And when that isn't enough, in November of 2022, Trump makes a public warning. And in an interview on Fox News, he threatens to santa's with a release of private information if he runs for president from the Huffington Post. I can tell you things about him. It won't be very flattering. I know more about him than anybody other than perhaps his wife. So funny. I can't believe you did that. But an unbelievable. It's something something like that that he does every week. And it's gone. Yeah. It is it is remarkable, right?

Warned him not to run for president. So you threatened him with that you'll pull it, pull out dirt on him if he does. You just do it openly on TV. That's so what, like during the interview, right? It's not even like off the carpet like a rally. It's like no, you know. I mean, look, I accept it from Trump because it is really funny. Like, it is, it's very funny.

And I'm sorry, I am that shallow with stuff like this. Uh, yeah, yeah, quote, I think he would be making a mistake. I think the base would not like it. I don't think it would be good for the party. Any of that stuff is not good. You have other people that possibly will run, I guess. I don't know if he runs. If he runs, he runs.

Yeah. Well, he runs by morning and he shouldn't. It's gonna hurt him runs, he runs. Yeah. Well, he runs by morning. I mean, shouldn't it? Man of many words. It's going to hurt him badly if he does. And again, up to this point, Ron's career has been meticulous, right? The first time he throws the dice is kind of when he takes this hard right turn on COVID. And that works for him. And I think if I'm going to psychoanalyze him, I think after decades of making all of the careful choices, he sees how kind of gambling works for Trump, how it gets him into at least gets him into the presence he wants. And he's like, he sees how well it works for him in his reelection campaign.

And he's like, well, fuck it. Guess I'm going to keep gambling. And he throws the dice on Donald Trump. And Trump is just a better gambler than Ron DeSantis could ever hope to be like, this is a calamitous mistake. But it is in line with this new image that DeSantis has tried to paint for himself since the pandemic, this kind of getting away from the Ted Cruz, from the careful Paul Ryan sort of thing. And this attitude is embodied in the Trumpi accessories that he starts selling to finance his reelection campaign. My favorite of which are golf balls

with the text Flores' Goffinor has a pair on them. Oh boy. Just sad, Ron. That feels so forced, Ron. Yeah, it does. It does. Also, you know, you're already dealing with the meatball Ron thing. Maybe don't don't add balls here, but or lean into it.

Sell meatball making kits with your face on it. Ron's meatball, Stella. Yeah. In fact, he should. He should. That's what I would do. Yeah. His only strategy seems to be running against Trump as a better Trump, which is a risky move

against a man with so much personal popularity among the same base. And sure enough, as soon as Ron sets himself against Trump, all of this dirt on him starts to spill. Outcome articles noting that he's had three chiefs of staff and three years at Congress, and then three more and five years as governor, right? Like he's got all this turnover, nobody likes him. He can't keep a team together. One of his former strategists let slip to Vanity Fair that Ron and Casey,

quote, use people like toilet paper and that there's an unofficial support group of former aides. Oh, this might just be dismissed as politics. If not for the fact that the the DeSantis campaign has seen even more rapid turnover since then, bleeding nearly all of its hires over the course of a year that seen him go from the best funded candidate on the Republican party to broke and so reliant on his super pack that Trump's campaign recently made a public warning against Republican candidates coordinating illegally with their super

packs just to like stick it Ron a little bit. So funny. Yeah. Yeah. Just. Yeah. Just, yeah, it's very fun. It's a foolish thing to do, like aside from like all the things that you're going out, like, why would you try to out Trump Trump

when you're so severely unlikable? Like, even like, I don't like Trump. But like, he's got, he's definitely has some charm and charisma because he's on TV for decades as like a famous guy. But yeah, it is hard to sort of like necessarily assess yourself like that and admit it. Even if you are a little putting fingers, man.

Yeah. He's really far deep at this point, you know, and he's really like gone down the path. Yeah, he's locked in. Yeah, he has locked in. It's interesting to me, because it's very much like you've got like this boxer who's like just famously good right hook, just knocking dudes out, left and right, and he's a heavyweight.

And you're like, you know, sometimes you like box at the local gym with your friends for fun. And you see him, you see this guy, maybe he's doing some sort of like circus thing, he's just pounded dudes, right? Challenge him guys from the crowd. He knocks like four or five dudes out and you're like, you know what? I bet I can take this man who's twice my head wet. Like, it's just what?

So reckless. The hubris of it, dude. Yeah. The like, I can do this. It's like Mustang wants to fight Zuckerberg. Yeah. Yeah. No, man. Yeah. I think that both what Ron has done and Elon Musk wanting to fight Mark Zuckerberg are just the best evidence you could get of how power and wealth derange you. Like he has lost, he's a guy earlier in his career who very

smartly assesses risk and reward. And he's, it's just kind of fallen apart. He won for too long. That kind of thing. Oh, yeah. No, breaks your brain. It breaks you and turns you into a meatball. Yeah. And do a meatball ground up little meatball. Yeah. And so, you know, alongside Trump, DeSantis has chosen to pick a fight with Disney over the extremely mild resistance the company put up to his anti-Education. Good luck on your Val Renoult, DeSantis.

It's very like, he tries to revoke their special tax status and then Disney uses their much more expensive lawyers to cancel a lot of this out. They should have revoked his marriage. Yeah, he has the ability to do Yeah. They are like the pope. Uh, and it's very funny, like former RNC chair, Michael Steele, uh, was after all this happen is like, once you lose a battle against Mickey Mouse, it's kind of hard to take you seriously. I mean, um, uh, oh, like lose a fight that you started. Yeah. Like that you

started with Mickey Mouse. Max,Panavitch, an influential figure in Tallahassee politics, told Politico last year that DeSantis had to resist becoming the protagonist in his own Greek tragedy, claiming the governor's key rival is not Trump but hubris. I might also add. Well, I said, yeah, yeah, yeah, his own awkwardness to, you know, Putin, Ron. Yeah, his laughing and then scowling. Yeah, that's not a half a second that one of this Nazi ad didn't help. No, that that sure doesn't help. Yeah, it's all very funny. I think the best way to close this out is for me to play a little clip of an interview with a with Old Meatball Ron at a DeSantis 2024 event. Uh, this was taken by Paul Stein

Hauser. So I'm going to I'm going to do this. Yeah. Katie, even waiting for this. So let's see all episode. Maybe he finally has the juice in this clip. Can you guys see it? You got it? Does he got a juicy juice? Yeah. Instead, uh, other day, that the knives are out for you at that debate. I got to ask you about that. Plus, I got to ask you. It's crazy.

I just got to say, right, big estate. Put out a memo that people are talking about. So, like, to get your reaction to both. Well, on the memo, it's not mine. I haven't read it. And it's just, I think, it's something that we have put off to the side. But in terms of the debate, look, when you're I know from the military,

when you're over the target, that's when you're taken flack. And if you look really in the last six to nine months, I've been more hacked than anybody else by the Paris, the media, the left, I feel like the Republican candidates and the four times in tighted president. He's probably more exact because of the threat. So we view it as positive feedback. We'll be ready to do what we need to do, to deliver our message. and Titan president. He's probably more exact because we view it as positive feedback. We'll be ready to do what we need to do to deliver our message, but we absolutely expect

that and we'll be ready for it. That means punching back. It means yes, it means defending ourselves, but more importantly showing why we are the leader to get this country turned around. Yeah, there's so much that first off, Ron, how many times did you take Flack in the Navy as a lawyer? That's my first. I was like, uh, over the combat line, eh?

Yeah. Uh-huh. Okay, Ron, wild time to bring them in. Sure, buddy. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. He is grinding his fucking teeth.

So the reason that the thing he's asking about is, I mentioned that his campaign is broke. His super pack has a lot of money, but you cannot coordinate directly between a campaign and a super pack. So he had his super pack put together his debate prep lists like his debate prep instructions, but the super pack can't send those to the campaign.

What it can do is put them up in a website in a ways that's technically publicly available, right? And then they can say, and that's how we got it, right? They publish this publicly. Now, there's ways to do that where it's not obvious, but like people found it and published his debate prep instructions, which are mostly really like, it's do not attack Trump ever, you know,

never say anything bad about Trump when he're up there. Sounds like he's gonna fight back real hard. Viciously attack, ignored Trump and viciously attack Vivek Ramaswami by calling him. And it like this is the saddest part. It's like you got to give him a Trump style nickname to attack Vivek Ramaswami. Vivek the liar. Oh my God. Oh, don't even try. Yeah. You know what Trump would call Vivek? I don't think anything. I think he would basically ignore him because he's not a serious threat. He would go after Ron. He would be calling Ron to Santa. Although, if you did, it might be a little racist. Might be a little racist. There's a chance. But, um,

Oh, it should be like, it is Vivek, he has made clear. It is, it rhymes with fake. He's wrapped about it. Okay. He's wrapped about it. He's wrapped about it. You'll see.

Is like, is he well known as a liar on the right? Like, that's so weird. That's so weird. Like, because he's like, he, the things Vivek says are like weird, like misunderstandings of how the government works. And like, wait, you wanna do this with the gut? Like, what are you talking about, man? But he's not a liar.

I think so. There's this fundamental misunderstanding about why Trump's nicknames are effective. And they are effective because they get at what most people have as like a primary complaint about a dude in a very like succinct way, right? Yeah.

Yeah. Jeb Bush is like the son of a president who was like the kind of evil genius political manipulator and the brother of a president who was like the super charismatic political candidate, right? Yeah. And he just was absolutely bland by comparison. Low energy Jeb, right? Low energy Jeb.

He's desperate. He's like, it's the thing that hurts him the most, right? He's desperate. It's the thing that hurts him the most, right? Like he knows that about himself. Ted Cruz, lie in Ted. You call Ted Cruz a liar because Ted Cruz is a fucking liar. He's a liar every day. Dude, he exdued lies out of his pores. He sweat flies.

You can tell. My guess is for the Trump, if Trump was going to do a nickname of Vivek is, is nobody, nobody Vivek, right? Like, he's not, he's not a, right? He's a liar, yeah, exactly. For the Trump, if Trump was gonna do a nickname of Vivek is nobody, nobody Vivek, right? Like, he's not a, right? He's a zero, you know? Because he is a zero. Yeah, vapid Vivek, you know, something like that that gets it his like, that he's not a serious candidate, right?

He's just there for his books and stuff and that's, you know. Yeah, vapid Vivek, that's a good one, Katie. You don't call him Vivek the liar, because that doesn't get you anywhere. Also, blank the blank is not the structure of the nicknames. Also, I think vapid's a good one, Katie. That might be the problem. That might be the vapid, vapid, vapid. vapid.

Yeah. Anyway. That might be the thing. That might be the thing. That might be the thing. That might be the thing. That might be the thing. That might be the thing. That might be the thing. That might be the thing. That might be the thing. That might be the thing. That might be the thing. That might be the thing.

That might be the thing. That might be the thing. That might be the thing. That might be the thing. That might be the thing. That might be the thing. That might be the thing. That might be the thing.

That might be the thing. That might be the thing. That might be the thing. That might be the thing. That might be the thing. That might be the thing. That might be the thing. That might be the thing. That might be the thing. That might be the thing. That might be the thing. That might be the thing. That might be the thing. That might be the thing. That might be the thing. That might be the thing. That might be the thing. That might be the thing. That might be the thing. That might be the thing. That might be the thing. That might be the thing. That might be the thing. That might be the thing. That might be the thing. That might be the thing. That might be the thing. Yeah, and I also think we need to lower the drinking age to 18. As long as you're buying your alcohol in a rented car, that's my argument. Uh-huh.

If you drink it in the rented car. And drink it while driving in the rented car? No, no, that would be irresponsible. I just want to, it's kind of like how in Texas, you can buy liquor at a drive-through, but only if they put a piece of tape on it. That's the kind of situation I can create. Apparently. Yes, it's glorious.

64-ounce margarita in your truck, the size of a Sherman battle tank. Literally a drive-through looking store. And it's called, it's called Stays Rights. It's so funny. It's the best thing Texas does. And like, now that I know it exists,

I don't want to get out of my car. No, like a place like a poor. No, absolutely not. Or yeah, anyway. That's a good lunch. Good lunch. Good lunch. Yeah. On Wednesday evening when he is not allowed to talk about Donald Trump in any way.

Good luck to Ron the day before this episode will drop. Yeah, hopefully. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Thanks for having us. Yeah, so we're having us. Yeah, per use.

Yeah, do you want to do your plugs? Katie, you we've got shows we sure do we love for you to listen and watch those shows. What about you channel called some more news and you can watch videos, but we also have a podcast called even more news. And we also have the audio from the YouTube channel in that podcast feed. So it's like, there's two different shows in the podcast feed. Check it out. You'll get it. Check them out. And, and, and, and Cody, you have a band.

Oh, it's so true, Sophie. Oh my God. What a great point from Sophie. Once again, my band is called the hot shapes. You can find them on bandcamp and soundcloud and maybe streaming where you stream songs, I think I tried to do that. I don't know. Check it out. And Robert, you have a you have a book.

I do have a book. It's it's called After the Revolution. You can buy it anywhere books come from. What else I have is a lot of love in my hearts for my co-hosts and my producer who listened to two hours or so of Ron DeSantis. If you at home are feeling kind of bummed out about this, go on Twitter and find the clip of him in that interview we just played next to Homelander.

Oh my God. The same like, boiling, facial features. Oh, just it's not even breaking down under the surface. It is the surface. The bubbling is the surface.

One to one. I've also never seen like, I don't think I've ever seen somebody grind their teeth Like so visibly. Yeah, like no, you're you're also bearing your teeth. Yeah, you're bearing your teeth and you're grinding them Usually like no tight lips you keep it down. You you cleanse them. He didn't seem to be handling Things well no no or for the past years, but um, yeah, no He is grinding and bearing and nesting and tearing. Is that something from where though?

Is that a quote? I made it up. Stop talking, Katie. Be the gnashing of the teeth. Yep, it's gonna stop talking. Bye. Hi. Behind the bastards is a production of Cool Zone Media.

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