Tangle - Ron DeSantis is running for president.

Episode Date: May 25, 2023

Ron 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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Starting point is 00:00:00 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.
Starting point is 00:01:00 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
Starting point is 00:01:55 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
Starting point is 00:02:43 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.
Starting point is 00:03:37 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,
Starting point is 00:04:15 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
Starting point is 00:05:00 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
Starting point is 00:05:41 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,
Starting point is 00:06:24 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
Starting point is 00:07:03 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
Starting point is 00:07:45 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
Starting point is 00:08:38 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
Starting point is 00:09:24 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
Starting point is 00:10:00 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.
Starting point is 00:10:37 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,
Starting point is 00:11:12 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.
Starting point is 00:11:58 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
Starting point is 00:12:36 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
Starting point is 00:13:15 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,
Starting point is 00:13:50 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
Starting point is 00:14:25 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
Starting point is 00:15:05 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
Starting point is 00:15:54 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,
Starting point is 00:16:31 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.
Starting point is 00:17:25 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
Starting point is 00:18:09 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
Starting point is 00:18:55 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,
Starting point is 00:19:42 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,
Starting point is 00:20:42 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,
Starting point is 00:21:25 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
Starting point is 00:22:09 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
Starting point is 00:22:55 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
Starting point is 00:23:52 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.
Starting point is 00:24:30 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
Starting point is 00:25:05 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.
Starting point is 00:25:48 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,
Starting point is 00:27:01 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.

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