Tangle - Ron DeSantis is running for president.
Episode Date: May 25, 2023Ron DeSantis. Florida's Republican governor officially announced his 2024 presidential campaign on Wednesday; first by releasing a campaign launch video, then appearing in a live audio space on Tw...itter, and finally going on Fox News to be interviewed by Trey Gowdy. DeSantis has been widely expected to enter the race for the Republican nomination and is polling better than any of the other challengers to former President Donald Trump, the frontrunner.Tickets are officially live (and public!) for our event in Philadelphia on Thursday, August 3rd. Thanks to all the folks who bought tickets — we're off to an awesome start, and on track to sell this baby out! Remember: Our goal is to sell out the venue, and then take Tangle on the road. Please come join us! Tickets here.You can read today's podcast here, today’s “Under the Radar” story here, and today’s “Have a nice day” story here. Did I ever think I'd be doing a YouTube video about Pornhub being inaccessible in Utah? No, I didn't. But this story is a fascinating look at government regulation, and how that regulation can impact a gigantic industry like pornography. This is a story we didn't touch in our newsletter, but broke down extensively in our latest YouTube video here.Today’s clickables: Quick hits (1:12), Today’s story (2:54), Left’s take (7:08), Right’s take (10:58), Isaac’s take (15:08), New YouTube video announcement (19:39), Under the Radar (20:23), Numbers (21:18), Have a nice day (22:32)You can subscribe to Tangle by clicking here or drop something in our tip jar by clicking here.Our podcast is written by Isaac Saul and edited by Jon Lall. Music for the podcast was produced by Diet 75. Our newsletter is edited by Bailey Saul, Sean Brady, Ari Weitzman, and produced in conjunction with Tangle’s social media manager Magdalena Bokowa, who also created our logo.--- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/tanglenews/message Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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Based on Charles Yu's award-winning book, Interior Chinatown follows the story of Willis
Wu, a background character trapped in a police procedural who dreams about a world beyond
Chinatown.
When he inadvertently becomes a witness to a crime, Willis begins to unravel a criminal
web, his family's buried history, and what it feels like to be in the spotlight.
Interior Chinatown is streaming November 19th, only on Disney+.
The flu remains a serious disease.
Last season, over 102,000 influenza cases have been reported across Canada, which is Chinatown is streaming November 19th, only on Disney+. yourself from the flu. It's the first cell-based flu vaccine authorized in Canada for ages six months and older, and it may be available for free in your province. Side effects and allergic reactions can occur, and 100% protection is not guaranteed. Learn more at flucellvax.ca.
From executive producer Isaac Saul, this is Tangle.
Good morning, good afternoon, and good evening, and welcome to Tangle, an independent, nonpartisan,
subscriber-supported politics podcast where we summarize the best arguments from across the political spectrum on the news of the day and then my take. Today we are going
to be talking about Ron DeSantis. Yes, Ron DeSantis. I learned yesterday during his
presidential announcement, it's not DeSantis, but DeSantis, which is how he says it. And
somehow every person in the world has been mispronouncing that
until now. He's the Florida Republican governor who officially announced his 2024 presidential
campaign on Wednesday. And we are going to be breaking that down today with some views from
across the spectrum. Lots of strong opinions about him out there. But before we jump in,
as always, we'll kick it off with some quick hits.
in. As always, we'll kick it off with some quick hits. First up, U.S. officials said Ukraine was likely responsible for this month's drone attack at the Kremlin. Separately, the head of Russia's
Wagner Group said that more than 20,000 of his troops died in the battle for Bakhmut. Number two,
the state of Texas is suing President
Biden, saying a phone app to help migrants set up appointments at the border is encouraging
illegal immigration. Number three, Trent Sags, the Republican mayor of Riverton, Utah, announced he
would challenge Senator Mitt Romney in the 2024 Senate race. Number four, the January 6th rioter
who famously reclined and then House
Speaker Nancy Pelosi's chair received a sentence of more than four years in prison. Number five,
Fitch Ratings is reviewing whether the United States should retain its top credit rating
as Republicans in the White House struggle to reach a deal on the debt limit. Well, now to our other top story and breaking news in the presidential campaign of
2024. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis just made it official, launching his bid for the Republican
nomination. But his announcement on Twitter was met with a lot of technical issues.
Ron DeSantis planned to make his big announcement in an audio-only discussion with Elon Musk on Twitter.
But from the start, it was plagued with technical difficulties.
His campaign, making the announcement instead with this video.
We need the courage to lead and the strength to win.
this video. We need the courage to lead and the strength to win. I'm Ron DeSantis,
and I'm running for president to lead our great American comeback.
Florida's Republican governor officially announced his 2024 presidential campaign on Wednesday,
first by releasing a campaign launch video and then appearing in a live audio space on Twitter,
and finally going on Fox News to be interviewed by Trey Gowdy. DeSantis has been widely expected to enter the race for the Republican
nomination and is polling better than any of the other challengers to former President Donald Trump,
the frontrunner. DeSantis is a Harvard Law School graduate who previously worked as a teacher at a
private boarding school in Georgia. Born and raised in Florida, he attended Yale University for his undergraduate degree, where he was captain of the school's baseball team.
During his second year of law school, he was commissioned as an officer in the Navy
and assigned to the Navy Judge Advocate General Corps, also known as JAG, as an attorney. He
worked at the military prison camp at Guantanamo Bay where he oversaw treatment of detainees before being
deployed to Iraq as a legal advisor with a team of Navy SEALs. After his time in the Navy, DeSantis
worked as an assistant U.S. attorney in Florida before being elected to the House of Representatives
in 2012, where he helped form the Freedom Caucus and led congressional opposition to President
Barack Obama's second term. He was re-elected two times before a failed
attempt at running for a Senate seat, a race he withdrew from when Senator Marco Rubio announced
his plans to run for re-election. DeSantis then ran for governor in 2018 with the endorsement
of then-President Donald Trump and then defeated Democrat Andrew Gillum by 0.4 percentage points.
As governor of Florida, DeSantis has garnered national attention for
championing conservative positions on some of the most hot-button culture war issues.
He has said Florida is the place where woke goes to die, feuded with Disney over the organization's
opposition to the parental rights bill, dubbed the Don't Say Gay Bill, by critics, and once
organized a flight of migrants to fly to Martha's Vineyard in an
attempt to pressure Democrats into taking action on immigration. He has also championed laws that
give more power to parents to remove books from schools. While many other high tourism states
were implementing stringent COVID measures, during the pandemic DeSantis resisted mask and
vaccine mandates, keeping businesses and tourism destinations open. He has also signed laws banning abortion after six weeks of pregnancy, eased restrictions to carry concealed firearms,
and pushed bills that attempt to ban critical race theory in public schools, though such lessons had
not been part of Florida's state curriculum. He also signed the Fairness in Women's Sports Act,
which bans trans girls and women from participating in middle school, high school,
and college women's sports in Florida. During his time as governor, Florida's population has grown
and the economy has flourished. The state's unemployment rate is around 2% below the
national average, and DeSantis has pushed to keep tax rates for corporations and individuals low
across the state. Crime rates in Florida have hit 50-year lows during his tenure, though some have
credited the trend to a new method for tallying crime that has muddied the picture. While DeSantis
has touted his record as governor, questions remain about how he'll fare on the national stage.
For instance, DeSantis has faced questions about his position on Ukraine and delivered mixed
messages about how he would handle the war as president. On Wednesday night, his presidential
announcement was upended by 20 minutes of technical glitches on Twitter before things got smoothed out. He was
interviewed by Twitter CEO Elon Musk and Republican donor David Sachs before taking questions from
various conservative personalities who support him in the race. He then went on Fox News for an
interview with Trey Gowdy. Currently, DeSantis is 34 points behind Trump in Republican
primary polling, according to FiveThirtyEight, though he's the second choice for roughly half
of Republican primary voters. A separate poll from the progressive think tank Data for Progress
has found about a third of likely voters haven't heard enough to say whether they like or dislike
DeSantis, a sign he can still move a lot the polls. Today, we're going to explore some
reactions to his candidacy from the left and the right, and then my take.
First up, we'll start with what the left is saying.
Many on the left criticize DeSantis' record, saying he obsesses over culture wars while
Florida underperforms in many areas. Some warn that DeSantis implemented a far-right agenda in
Florida that most national voters won't want. Others say he is only scratching the surface
of the damage he can do. In Time magazine, William Klemnek said pundits focus too much on the culture wars
and nobody is talking about what DeSantis has really done to Florida.
Even a cursory dip into the statistics of social and economic well-being reveals that
Florida falls short in almost any measure that matters to the lives of its citizens.
More than four years into the DeSantis governorship, Florida continues to languish toward the bottom of state rankings, assessing the
quality of health care, school funding, longer-term elder care, and other key areas to successful
society, Kleineck said. Teacher salaries are among the lowest, unemployment benefits are stingier than
any other states, and wage theft flourishes. In 2021, DeSantis campaigned against
a successful ballot initiative to raise the state's minimum wage, which had been stuck at $8.65 an
hour, Kleineck said. The core emissions of his government is starving programs for ordinary
citizens to maintain low taxes on the wealthy and corporations. As a result, Florida has the 16th
worst health care among the
50 states. It's no wonder that Florida ranks below the northern blue states in life expectancy
and rates of cancer, death, diabetes, fatal overdoses, teen birth rates, and infant mortality.
In USA Today, Rex Hupke said DeSantis promises to make America Florida, which sounds more like
a threat than a slogan. The governor has implemented a far
right culture war heavy agenda in the Sunshine State and ruled like a power hungry autocrat
bolstered by a Republican controlled legislature, Hupke said. He has barred Florida teachers in
kindergarten through third grade from discussing sexual orientation and gender identity, which was
then expanded through eighth grade and then became a complete K through 12 ban in April.
which was then expanded through eighth grade and then became a complete K-12 ban in April.
He's launched a crusade against Disney, the state's largest employer and tourist magnet.
Disney has now sued the governor for a targeted campaign of government retaliation and recently pulled out of a planned $1 billion development near Orlando
that would have brought 2,000 high-paying jobs to the state, Hupke said.
That mess ties in nicely with DeSantis' borderline
fanatical war on woke, in which he has staked out firm opposition to things like diversity,
LGBTQ rights, and pretty much anything that might make straight white people mildly uncomfortable.
He has signed a six-week abortion ban and a law allowing people to carry a concealed gun
without training or a permit. In MSNBC, Florida State Senator
Chevron Jones said DeSantis was scratching the surface of the harm he can do. I've seen firsthand
how DeSantis' policies hurt our state's families, Jones wrote. DeSantis has prioritized the wrong
things at every turn. He says his agenda is a blueprint for the rest of the country and claims
that his policies are making Floridians more free.
But the opposite is true.
The governor's Florida blueprint has been a disaster for everyday Floridians,
from the property insurance crisis that is pricing people out of the state,
or forcing many who stay to dip into their retirement funds just to stay afloat,
to the draconian attacks on our rights and freedoms.
to the draconian attacks on our rights and freedoms.
How is Florida more free when politicians are regulating our bookshelves and censoring educators from teaching historical truths, Jones asks.
What kind of blueprint for the nation is it when Florida, once considered the ideal for
retirees in their golden years, according to the AARP, ranks dead last in the country
for long-term care for elderly people and people with disabilities.
All right, that is it for the leftist saying, which brings us to what the right is saying.
The right mostly welcomes DeSantis, though they are divided between him and Trump.
Some argue DeSantis' record is superior to Trump's and he is a strong alternative. Others say Trump has a lot of appeal and criticize DeSantis'
launch. The Wall Street Journal editorial board said DeSantis offers an alternative from Trump
and Biden, the divisive oldsters who desperately need each other to win a second term. DeSantis
has an impressive resume, son of middle-class parents, Yale baseball
captain, Harvard Law School Navy veteran, including a tour in Iraq, and a three-term member of
Congress. But he has made his mark politically with his record as the two-term governor of booming
Florida. His legislative record is as impressive as you'll find. That includes near-universal
school choice, $3.3 billion for Everglades restoration,
tort and insurance reform, paycheck protection for workers and public unions, tax cuts,
insisting on free speech in higher education, and resisting woke ideology.
His greatest achievement was his handling of the pandemic, the board said. After initial panic and
shutdowns driven by President Trump and Anthony Fauci in Washington, Mr. DeSantis did his own homework on COVID health risks and the cost of economic and
school lockdowns.
He reopened schools in 2020, a sharp contrast from Trump, who indulged the lockdown lobby
and kept Fauci on the job through the end of his term.
Based on Charles Yu's award-winning book, Interior Chinatown follows the story of Willis Wu,
a background character trapped in a police procedural who dreams about a world beyond Chinatown.
When he inadvertently becomes a witness to a crime, Willis begins to unravel a criminal web,
his family's buried history, and what it feels like to be in the spotlight.
Interior Chinatown is streaming November 19th, only on Disney+.
The flu remains a serious disease.
Last season, over 102,000 influenza cases have been reported across Canada,
which is nearly double the historic average of 52,000 cases.
What can you do this flu season?
Talk to your pharmacist or doctor about getting a flu shot.
Consider FluCellVax Quad and help protect yourself from the flu.
It's the first cell-based flu vaccine authorized in Canada for ages 6 months and older, and it may be available for free in your province. Side effects and
allergic reactions can occur, and 100% protection is not guaranteed. Learn more at flucellvax.ca.
DeSantis also won re-election in 2020 by 19 points in a state that has traditionally been
a nail-biter, while Trump
hasn't won anything for himself or the rest of the party since his inside electoral straight in 2016.
In American Greatness, Nicholas Elwadi said while Trump possesses numerous liabilities,
there are three big reasons he's an attractive choice for 2024. First, Trump has a well-developed
rapport with Republican voters who admire and
trust him. No one can duplicate this visceral connection between Trump and Trumpers, Wadi said.
Second, Trump has a record of victory and, shall we say, near victory against weak Democratic
opponents. He shocked the world in 2016 and outperformed most polls in 2020, very narrowly
losing in three key states that would have swung
the election. Leaving aside the justified qualms about the fairness of that election, Trump almost
prevailed and helped Republicans narrow Democrats' House majority in 2020 and then retake it in 2022.
Third, Trump appears to have learned a thing or two from the slings and arrows that have been
hurled at him since 2015, Waddy said.
His latest campaign for president thus far has been more disciplined and error-free than any he has run before. What's more, should Trump ascend once more to the presidency, there's ample
reason to hope he will, given the experience he's accumulated, perform more effectively and perhaps
with greater resolve in his efforts to defang the deep state. In National Review, Jeffrey Blahar said DeSantis' campaign launch on Twitter didn't work.
It does matter a fair amount, not just because narratives about public figures with powerful
enemies tend to solidify quickly, but because the nature of the event's failure points up
weaknesses DeSantis' campaign will have to address, he wrote. The technical difficulties
that delayed the start
of the event for a half hour were almost comically predictable, but will be forgotten within 24 hours.
More problematic was the format, a Q&A where DeSantis would hit powerful points about his
record in Florida 20 minutes apart, with gormless air in between devoted to discussions of esoteric
technological issues of interest to absolutely nobody except cryptocurrency
speculators. There's also a lack of spotlight, as DeSantis was diluted by Elon Musk and David Sachs,
who spent time blathering and were the subjects of praise from guests who chimed in.
Finally, there was a lack of humor, and I don't know if DeSantis knows how to tell a joke or even
improvise a quick one-liner, and I'll confess at this point I'm afraid to see him try, he wrote. This wasn't some death blow, but it was a missed opportunity,
and DeSantis will not get opportunities better than this from here on out.
All right, that is it for the left and the right are saying, which brings us to my take.
So yes, DeSantis' launch was a bit of a train wreck, but I think it all said more about Twitter
and Elon Musk than about DeSantis, and my opinion on his record, his odds, and his political X
factors are far more important in the long term.
I said yesterday that I liked Tim Scott, which many readers took as some wholesale endorsement
of his politics. All I meant is that Scott is a likable person, that he has charisma,
he's well-liked by his colleagues, and he has a good reputation for being a decent and honest
person. I do not think DeSantis has any of those things.
His biggest obstacle is going to be what happens when he's on stage next to Trump.
And if last night was any indication, I think he's going to get bulldozed. That's just my honest opinion. Our elections are more like electing a prom queen than voting for class president.
DeSantis is going to have to puncture the aura of Trump and win over a chunk of his voters to
have any chance in a primary. I haven't seen anything from him as a retail politician to make me believe
he can do that. As a friend texted me last night during the Twitter launch, he sometimes seems to
exude negative charisma. What DeSantis does have is a strong conservative record and about as many
qualifications as one can ask for. That record is recapped extensively
already in this podcast, so I won't rehash all of it here, but if you're a bona fide conservative,
then DeSantis should be very appealing. He is undoubtedly qualified, congressional executive
and military experience, he served as governor in a populated, politically diverse state where
he enjoys high approval ratings, and he's passed dozens of bills on gun laws, abortion, taxes, the death penalty, education, and trans issues. If you're a liberal,
he is your worst nightmare. A conservative who can competently use the levers of government and
is willing to use those levers to bully purported bastions of liberal ideology, even corporations
like Disney, for perceived slights against him. What I'm curious about is
what happens when DeSantis gets the real limelight. He's already waffled on his positions about
Ukraine. I've been harshly critical of book bans and the parental rights bill he pushed in Florida,
and I don't think that legislation is going to be popular nationally. He's the anti-woke champion,
which will be appealing for many Americans, but I think we over-index for how much culture war issues like the use of pronouns in school actually matter to quote-unquote average
voters. 2024 is likely to be an election about the economy, immigration, abortion, guns, and health
insurance, which is a lot like our last few elections. It will also be about democracy,
and eventually DeSantis is going to have to decide if he wants to get in bed with Trump on the 2020 election, which will determine how many independents and moderate Republicans actually vote for him.
DeSantis has yet to face the music for Florida's high right of uninsured people, its mediocre education rankings, and its extremely loose gun laws that, no matter how you feel, are largely out of step with the majority of American
voters. And then there's abortion. On the issue that is probably the strongest driver of Democrats'
electoral success over the last two years, DeSantis has staked out a pretty far-right position.
He just signed one of the strictest abortion bans into law in Florida, even though more than two
thirds of Floridians think abortion should be legal in all or most cases. Sensing an opening, even Trump, who has bragged about facilitating the fall of Roe v.
Wade, criticized the law as, quote, too harsh. Perhaps this illustrates DeSantis' biggest problem.
He sings the traditional conservative tune about keeping the government out of people's lives,
but he's basically done the opposite in Florida. He has not just used the government out of people's lives, but he's basically done the opposite in Florida.
He has not just used the government to cut restrictions, but he's used them to increase government intervention, book bans, fighting corporations, prohibiting abortions, banning
certain topics in school, and so on. This is relatively new and untested ground for many
Republicans, and I'm very unsure how that brand plays when he goes national. So yes, he is the biggest threat to
Trump. He has the experience and the record to win over voters, and he has clearly tapped into
something special in Florida. But I'm still quite skeptical of how his record will play nationally
and how his likability will stand up against Trump when it comes time for voters to decide.
There is, in other words, a lot of uncertainty in the 2024 cycle,
but at least we can finally stop speculating about whether DeSantis is actually going to run.
All right, that is it for my take. We are skipping today's reader question. If you want to submit a
question, you can always write to me at Isaac, I-S-A-A-C at readtangle.com. But I do want to give you a heads up that we have a new YouTube video out.
Did I ever think I'd be doing a YouTube video about Pornhub being inaccessible in Utah?
No, I didn't.
But this story is a fascinating look at government regulation and how that regulation can impact
a gigantic industry like the pornography industry.
This is also a story we didn't touch in our newsletter, but we broke down extensively in our latest YouTube video, so please go check out our
YouTube channel, give that video a watch, and of course, like and subscribe.
All right, next up is our under-the-radar section. Albuquerque, New Mexico has become
the latest school district to do a trial run for later start times for teenagers. Research has shown teenagers naturally fall
asleep later and wake up later than younger students, yet most schools in the United States
open earliest for high schoolers and latest for elementary school kids. Despite the CDC suggesting
an 8.30 a.m. start time, the average start for U.S. schools is 8 a.m.,
much earlier than other school systems globally. Albuquerque's school board, after reading an
article in Scientific American about the science behind teenage sleep, bumped their opening time
from 7.25 a.m. to 8.40 a.m. Minneapolis and California have also experimented with pushing
back their school start times. You can read more about this legislative trend in an article in Scientific American, and there's a link to it in today's
episode description. All right, next up is our numbers section. The percentage of Republicans
who said they'd support President Donald Trump in a primary race is 54.3%, according to FiveThirtyEight's averages of polls. The percentage
who said they'd support DeSantis is 20.6%. The percentage who said they'd support Mike Pence
is 5.3%. The percentage who said they'd support Nikki Haley is 4.2%. And the percentage who said
they'd support Vivek Ramaswamy is 3.5%. Tim Scott just got 1.6% of the vote. Interestingly enough, in yesterday's Tangle
Readers poll, which we had in our newsletter, we asked readers about a head-to-head matchup
between Joe Biden and Donald Trump. 52% of readers said they'd vote for Biden, while 20%
said they'd vote for Trump, and 27% said they were unsure a wooden vote would cast a third-party
ballot or a selected other.
Meanwhile, in a head-to-head between Biden and Senator Tim Scott, 50% of Tangle readers said
they'd vote for Scott, and 37% said they'd vote for Biden, while 13% said they were unsure,
wouldn't vote, would vote third-party or other. 41% said they'd vote for a generic Democrat,
and 35% said they'd vote for a generic Democrat, and 35% said they'd vote for a generic Republican.
Alright, that is it for our numbers section.
Last but not least, our have a nice day story.
This one is pretty remarkable.
A man who was paralyzed in a 2011 cycling accident is standing and walking again after
doctors planted a device in his brain that can read brain waves and send instructions
to his spine to move certain muscles. Gert Jan Oskum, a 40-year-old, was assured he would
never walk again after breaking his neck, but after 10 years he can stand up and have
a beer with friends and even get around with a walker thanks to a digital bridge device
developed by neuroscientists in Switzerland. The device uses wireless signals to reconnect the
brain with muscles once rendered useless, and scientists believe the device will be more
effective the sooner after an injury. The Guardian has this remarkable story,
and there's a link to it in today's episode description.
All right, everybody, that is it for today's podcast. As I said at the top of the show,
we have a new YouTube video out. I encourage you to go check it out. It is on the ban of
Pornhub in Utah, a super fascinating story about government regulation. And of course,
if you want to get a newsletter from us tomorrow, please go subscribe.
We'll be off on Monday for Memorial Day. So I hope you guys have a great weekend and a good vacation.
And we'll be right back in your inbox on Tuesday.
Have a good one.
Peace.
Our podcast is written by me, Isaac Saul, and edited by John Law.
Our script is edited by Ari Weitzman, Bailey Saul, and Sean Brady.
The logo for our podcast was designed by Magdalena Bokova, who's also our social media manager. Thank you. Thanks for watching! Wu, a background character trapped in a police procedural who dreams about a world beyond Chinatown. When he inadvertently becomes a witness to a crime, Willis begins to unravel a criminal
web, his family's buried history, and what it feels like to be in the spotlight. Interior Chinatown
is streaming November 19th, only on Disney+. The flu remains a serious disease. Last season,
over 102,000 influenza cases have been reported across Canada, which is nearly double the historic average of 52,000 cases.
What can you do this flu season?
Talk to your pharmacist or doctor about getting a flu shot.
Consider FluCellVax Quad and help protect yourself from the flu.
It's the first cell-based flu vaccine authorized in Canada for ages 6 months and older, and it may be available for free in your province.
Side effects and allergic reactions can occur, and 100% protection is not guaranteed. Learn more at flucellvax.ca.