The Megyn Kelly Show - Gov. Ron DeSantis on DOJ Corruption, His Disney Fight, and Pardoning Trump, Plus, Victor Davis Hanson on Hunter's Sweetheart Near Deal | Ep. 597

Episode Date: July 28, 2023

Megyn Kelly sits down with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, 2024 GOP presidential candidate, for an extensive interview about Hunter Biden and DOJ corruption, the health concerns about McConnell and Biden, his recent RFK Jr. comments, his fight with Disney and whether it's government policing speech, "loyalty" and Trump, whether he would pardon Trump, if Trump should have done things differently on January 6, trans athletes in women's sports, if he supports a federal abortion ban, the state of the 2024 GOP race, whether he's adjusting his media strategy, accusations about being too establishment, whether DeSantis enjoys campaigning, media and left-wing attacks on his wife Casey, how to fix our immigration and economic problems, and more. Then Victor Davis Hanson, author of "The Dying Citizen," joins to discuss the state of the DeSantis campaign and the 2024 GOP race, the glaring politicized double standard at the DOJ when it comes to prosecuting Trump and Hunter Biden, if the Biden family is terrified of Hunter, Oakland residents speaking out about crime in the city and against progressive politics, and more.Follow The Megyn Kelly Show on all social platforms: YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/MegynKellyTwitter: http://Twitter.com/MegynKellyShowInstagram: http://Instagram.com/MegynKellyShowFacebook: http://Facebook.com/MegynKellyShow Find out more information at: https://www.devilmaycaremedia.com/megynkellyshow

Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show, your home for open, honest, and provocative conversations. Hey everyone, I'm Megyn Kelly. Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show and my sit-down with Governor Ron DeSantis. I'm so grateful that we did it. It went great. I think it went great for him. I think you're going to really enjoy it and you may learn a lot about him and his policy positions. And it was substantive. We appreciate all the time he gave us. Because if they give you five minutes, you can't really get substantive. We had 45, and we did.

Later, we're going to take a look at the new charges leveled against former President Donald Trump. They've added three new ones now, but not yet charged him on the January 6th thing, which could have happened yesterday, but not yet charged him on the January 6th thing, which could have happened yesterday, but didn't. And we'll talk about the timing of it all coming just days after Hunter Biden's plea deal fell apart in stunning fashion. A lot of thoughts on that. Plus, something extraordinary out of Oakland, California. The residents there fighting back about the rampant crime in their city. The NAACP appears to be openly complaining about the defund the police movement, about the soft on crime DA. We'll talk about all of it when Victor Davis Hanson joins us with the reaction to our DeSantis interview and thoughts on all of those news stories.

But we begin with Florida governor and 2024 Republican candidate Ron DeSantis. I just got back from Tallahassee where I spent time with the governor. We conducted the interview yesterday morning, one of the most extensive of the campaign cycle, and no topic was off limits. We talked about his efforts to restart his campaign. That's a term his campaign is using, restart, reset. We talked about abortion efforts to restart his campaign. That's a term his campaign is using, restart, reset. We talked about abortion, Hunter Biden, whether his legal war against Disney is really what conservatives want. We also discussed his recent comments on Robert Kennedy Jr. that blew up in the media. So there's plenty to get to. But first, a look back at the rise

of Ron DeSantis. He was a World Series baseball player as a kid, a look back at the rise of Ron DeSantis. He was a World Series baseball player as a kid, a graduate of Yale and Harvard Law, then served three terms in Congress as the hometown guy made good. But it was as governor of Florida pushing back on COVID orthodoxy that Ron DeSantis became a star. Excuse me, excuse me. If I could finish my question. You just said what has gone wrong, so I'm answering the question. So are you going to give a speech or are you going to ask a question? Because you got a lot of people in your profession who waxed poetically for weeks and

weeks about how Florida was going to be just like New York. Well, hell, we're eight weeks away from that and it hasn't happened. At a time when few others questioned the likes of Anthony Fauci and the media who loved him on lockdowns, masks, and school closures. Ron DeSantis stood out. While he did lock down Florida for a time in April 2020, unlike most other governors, he was quick to reopen. He stopped businesses from firing employees who rejected the vaccine, and he permanently banned mask mandates, recognizing early on what Fauci and others initially denied, but eventually were also forced to admit.

You do not have to wear those masks. I mean, please take them off. Honestly, it's not doing anything, and we've got to stop with this COVID theater. His bold stances led to mockery from the mainstream press and the nickname Death Santas. Governor Death Santas in Florida. Now as Governor Death Santas that continues to push to infect the Sunshine State's children with his dangerous and stupefying mask mandate ban. You should be criminally liable for that.

You are actually committing negligent homicide when people die on your watch. A Miami Herald editorial board concluded, any public distrust of this administration has been well-earned. But DeSantis never backed down. That's a fake narrative. It's a fake narrative. I just disabused you of the narrative, and you don't care about the facts. He took on the culture wars as fearlessly as the COVID battles,

banning school lesson plans that shamed children for their race, signing a law restricting teachers from including sexual orientation and gender identity in the curriculum of young students. That law later expanded to high school students, also barred teachers from punishing students who declined to use another's preferred pronouns. We never did this through all of human history until like, what, two weeks ago? Now this is something? They're having third graders declare pronouns? We're not doing the pronoun Olympics in Florida. It was moves like those that propelled DeSantis to a nearly 20-point victory in his Florida re-election bid, turning once reliably blue counties red. Florida is where Wolf goes to die. A striking change from his first gubernatorial win. Just four years earlier, DeSantis eked out a victory over Democrat Andrew Gillum by less than half a percentage point. On the trail with him, then-President Donald Trump.

Ron is a veteran and he's a patriot. Ron will keep your taxes going way down, jobs going way up, and he will always support our veterans, our military, and our law enforcement. Is Southwest Florida Trump country or what? Trump backed DeSantis, which helped catapult DeSantis to victory. Neither man appearing to realize their political ambitions would one day collide. I'd like to thank our president for standing by me. I think we'll have a great partnership.

Despite Trump's 2024 presidential bid, 44-year-old DeSantis is now running for president. I got him elected. This guy was dead politically, and I thought he was very disloyal when he said, yes, I'd run. Disloyal to who? I did a lot for him in 2016 and 2020. I'm loyal to my family, to our Constitution, and to the good Lord. DeSantis was born in Jacksonville, Florida. His mother, Karen, a nurse. His father, Ronald, installed audience tracking devices for the TV ratings company Nielsen. Despite humble beginnings, DeSantis would later excel in the Ivy League. After a short time teaching high school history, he headed to law school. Later, he was commissioned as a U.S. Navy JAG officer. A friend once told The New Yorker,

DeSantis was inspired to join the armed forces after watching the film A Few Good Men. I want the truth! You can't handle the truth! The truth for a young Officer DeSantis was, love was in the air. He met his wife, Casey, at a golf driving range. So I kept looking over my shoulder because I wanted, you know, the bucket of balls

that somebody had left because my swing was so terrible. He thinks I'm looking at him. Long story short, we start to talking, and that's how we met. The couple married in 2009, out of all places, Disney World. A choice of venue even he now sees as kind of ironic. They had three children and an unexpected challenge.

In 2021, Casey was diagnosed with breast cancer. Thanks to chemotherapy, radiation, surgeries, and a lot of prayer, she's now cancer-free, a battle she fought with the governor by her side. When I was diagnosed with cancer and I was facing the battle for my life, he was the dad who took care of my children when I couldn't. He was there to pick me off of the ground when I literally could not stand. He was there to fight for me when I didn't have the strength to fight for myself. That is who Ron DeSantis is. After his decisive reelection victory,

many expected an imminent presidential announcement. By February, DeSantis was polling about 10 points behind President Trump, who was blamed by some for the GOP's disappointing midterm results. That is a searing indictment of the Republican Party. And it's a huge loss for Trump. Definitely not a Republican wave, that's for darn sure.

But DeSantis would wait months to declare his candidacy. In May of 2023, he took the unusual step of foregoing a rally surrounded by his camera-ready family, instead opting for the audio-only Twitter spaces. The launch did not go as planned. Well, it's certainly an incredible honor to have Governor DeSantis make this stark announcement. Months earlier, 40% of the GOP electorate backed DeSantis for president. Today, his average is in the low 20s, with Trump polling 25 to 40 points ahead. His campaign is now launching a major reset.

The question remains, can he do it? The governor definitely thinks he can. Here's part one of my interview with Governor Ron DeSantis. Thank you for doing this, Governor. We appreciate it. Sure. So let's start with the news of the day. This week, we saw the plea agreement between Hunter Biden and the DOJ fall apart in court. The judge noted that the agreement as written could give him sweeping immunity for all sorts of charges, including his foreign business deals. This comes on the heels of two IRS whistleblowers coming forward to say that the DOJ repeatedly intervened in

their investigation and undermined it. What does all of this tell you about the state of our Department of Justice? Well, I'll tell you, just to give the judge credit, I mean, I thought the fix was in on this thing. I mean, I thought that this would end up going, sweetheart deal, and then they just kind of move on and say, oh no, we did deal with Hunter. We're not targeting or we don't have two separate standards. So she's really forced this issue. So I think that that's a good thing. But this Department of Justice, they have a lack of curiosity anytime there's incriminating information about somebody that's connected to the DC.C. ruling class. And we see that over and over again. And so in that sense, I think they're likely going to try to figure out a way to not hold him fully accountable on this. And that's sad, but I do not expect Merrick Garland to want

to press hard against Hunter. I know you've got thoughts on the Department of Justice and how to get to the root of the problem there. This really concerns a lot of Republicans. I mean, how do you even begin? It's got to be so much more complicated than getting rid of the guy at the top. True, but you got to understand, okay, how did we get here? We have a weaponized FBI and Justice Department. That obviously is not supposed to happen. But I think part of the reason it's happened is because for decades, presidents of both parties have bought into the canard that the DOJ and FBI are, quote, independent. Well, if you're independent, that means you're not accountable. So they would say, oh, the president can't get involved in those agencies. They're independent, they're separate.

So they've been able to basically do what they wanted to for many, many decades. And so our founding fathers would have said, if you have sources of power and power accumulates, and there's not constitutional accountability, human nature being what it is, they will abuse the power. So like the founders would not have been surprised to see what ends up happening. So the first thing you gotta do as president say you are not independent agencies. You answer to the elected president of the United States. If the FBI is investigating moms going to school board meetings, those FBI agents should be fired.

If they're colluding with big tech to censor speech, they're fired. If the Department of Justice won't go after BLM rioters, then you hold them accountable. So you have to lean in and be part of that. That is totally appropriate. There's nothing wrong. The DC people will freak out about that because they want that to be their little playpen. They don't want a president to come in and hold them accountable. So just understanding how that works, I think takes us a long way. You do need a new FBI director. You do need an attorney general

has backbone that knows if you're cleaning house, you're gonna face blowback from the Washington Post and CNN. They are not gonna like you. So when you go in a position like that, if you wanna be liked by official Washington, you're not gonna be able to get the job you. So when you go in a position like that, if you wanna be liked by official Washington, you're not gonna be able to get the job done. So you just gotta understand. I also think we need to break up parts of these agencies and parcel them out in other parts of the country. I mean, take the Civil Rights Division, put it in Oklahoma, take some of these others,

put it in there. I think you would end up not having a situation where 99% of the people donate to Democrats. I think it would be much more representative, and I think it would get out of just the toxic D.C. climate. But we need a major, major housecleaning. The only way you can do that is if you're disciplined, focused as president, and you are setting the agenda for these agencies to follow. Now, speaking of government agencies, you told Clay Travis this week that you would consider making RFK Jr. the head of the CDC or the. Well, I think that headline misquoted what I said. He asked me about RFK Jr. for VP because there's chatter on our side about doing that.

And I said no, because ultimately he's a liberal like we agree on Fauci. We agree on the medical swamp and how pharma has taken FDA captive. So we are gonna clean house on that. I've said that from the beginning. I mean, we're gonna drain the medical swamp in DC. So it wouldn't be he would be the head of CDC, that would be a doctor or a PhD. But I'm gonna have probably a task force to go in there, hold people accountable for COVID, hold people accountable for what things are happening. So it would be more in that role that I'd wanna get a bipartisan group of people together who understand the problem, understand the federal government's COVID response was a disaster

that hurt people, that hurt this country. We're still feeling the effects of it now with the kids who were locked out of school, the high prices. We would not have had the inflation that we had had they not done the Fauci lockdowns and the CARES Act and all this other stuff. So it was more in that context. So for the CDC and FDA, we will have doctor, PhD type, but they're gonna be people like a Jay Bhattacharya from Stanford who was right on COVID, not gonna be some of these people that are just part of this revolving door. Okay, so not the head, part of a bipartisan task force, possibly. Yeah, yeah, I think the word I use is like, let's sick him on these agencies

to hold them accountable. And that would be part of being kind of outside the agency and getting answers and bringing accountability to bear. We will absolutely do that. That needs to be done. I think I'm really the only candidate that's even talking about that on the Republican side. But I just don't think we can just sweep under the rug what happened during COVID. And it's personal for me, because Florida, we fought back against that. And we took the arrows for that, which is fine. But I think that if we don't hold them accountable, they are going to do it again.

They don't think they did anything wrong. And I don't think we can do that. So accountability means this will never it again. Yeah. They don't think they did anything wrong and I don't think we can do that. So accountability means this will never happen again. Unfortunately this week, Mitch McConnell suffered a medical incident in front of the microphones made a lot of news. Go ahead, John. Let's go back to you. Go ahead, John. Go ahead, John. Now we've learned that he collapsed at least one other time in recent history.

He's 81 years old. We've seen some problems with other politicians around that age, including our current president. What does this tell you, if anything, about the dangers or the risks in electing people in their 80s to serve? Yeah, look, it used to not be that way. I mean, used to, you kind of serve in your prime and then pass the baton to the next generation. And I think this generation has not really been as willing to do that. Look, I think that we need, one of the reasons I'm running compared to Biden, I mean, my gosh, we need energy in the executive, we need some vigor, some vitality. And when I go in on day one, we will spit nails starting January 20th, 2025. I mean, it'll be day after day after day. We're gonna have all the executive orders written before we take office. All the legislation we want will be done. We'll have thousands of appointees to

send to the Senate for confirmation. We're not gonna miss a beat and we're gonna take advantage of every opportunity. But you've gotta be vigorous, you've gotta have energy to be able to do that. And so I think the American people, I do think they're ready to kind of say, okay, let's try the next generation. You think about Joe Biden, you're basically half his age. He got elected as a senator before I was even born. I mean, think about how long he's been around. And clearly, you just watch him. And it's not good for our country to have a president that's floundering around like that. It doesn't project strength to our adversaries. It doesn't inspire confidence in our allies. And I think Americans look and

they want to see a president that they can have confidence in. And Biden is just not that with how he's been behaving. Let's talk about 2024. Right now, according to the RealClearPolitics average of most polls, you're any place from 30 to 40 points behind Donald Trump. The other candidates catching up to you in Iowa and South Carolina, your campaign losing a lot of money, according to the reports, and you just fired one third of your staff. So what happened? Well, no, look, I think that it's not a national primary. If you go into these early states, we are doing very, very well in places like Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina. And that's really what it's all about. In terms of the campaign, we raised more money than both Joe Biden and Donald Trump.

You spent more. I mean, you're done. Less than Trump. But still, as a leader, I have a commander's intent, focus on early states. It's not a national primary. If my organization was not following commander's intent, then I've got to make the change to make sure we're doing what we're doing. So we've done that. And you're going to see more and more in the early states because I think that that's ultimately what it is. I also understand we've tried to use this early period to put the building blocks in place to be able to turn out people on caucus night, to be able to turn out people for the New Hampshire primary. Right now, over the summer, voters are not making decisions

about who they're gonna support finally. I mean, this is kind of like name ID and all this other stuff who's in the news. So we're doing the things on the ground that I think you need to do to be able to win. I can tell you when we're on the ground in these places, we've gotten an incredible response. We've had more legislators in Iowa, New Hampshire endorse us than any other candidate and probably all the other candidates combined, because I think they see that we would be able to be a strong candidate against Joe Biden. They want to see someone at the top of the ticket that's going to lift up the legislative candidates. And a lot of them have viewed me as that guy. Well, what do you make? I mean, the campaign itself has said it needed a reset and that

it's doing a reset right now. Are you saying there haven't been problems? But that's a process part. That's not about message and that's not about getting out there with voters. That's about how you're applying resources to the campaign headquarters versus the early states. So that's been taken care of. But ultimately, that is not what's going to be determinative in the race. What's going to determinative in the race is, we need someone that can beat Joe Biden. We need somebody that's gonna be a strong leader that has a record of success. We need someone that's actually gonna get this stuff done. We talk about things like the border. We talk about things like the economy.

We talk about things like dealing with, say, the medical bureaucracy. But we actually have to bring this to fruition. And what I bring is someone in Florida. Everything I said I would do, we delivered on. And in fact, most people over-promise and under-deliver. We made bold promises and we over-delivered on our promises. And so that's the type of leader they'll get with me. What do you make of the polls that show, including Monmouth yesterday, showing that 69% of Republican voters think that Trump is the most electable candidate running right now in the GOP, that he's the most likely to beat Joe Biden.

That was always one of your best arguments, that you were more electable than Trump. Well, I mean, I think if you look at these, look, I take the polls with a grain of salt. But if you look at polls for general election in the key states like Georgia, Arizona, I beat Biden, Trump loses to Biden. I mean, that's been very consistent in those. And if you can't win Georgia, you can't win the presidential election. I'd also point out, he ran in Florida in 2020, won by three. I won Florida by 20 in 2022. And so we were able to make inroads, winning 60 plus percent of Hispanic voters. We want a majority of female

voters. We want independence by 18%. At the end of the day, you can't do this with just Republicans. And we did very well with Republicans. I mean, I think we won 97% of Republicans, but you've got to be able to get independence. And I think we have an opportunity to do like we did in Florida. Get some of these Democrats who realize their party has gone off the rocker on things like education and parents' rights and crime. And so we have a chance to do that. I just think there's too many voters out there. They just will never vote for Trump under any circumstance. On the subject of independence, a recent CNN poll showed that right-leaning independents favor Trump over you by 27 points. Independent primary voters surveyed by YouGov a month ago said they

plan to vote for Trump over you by a 29 point margin. So what's the evidence that you have that independents favor you? I'm not known nationally as much as Trump is. I mean, so that's why you run a campaign. That's why you go out and do that. That's why we have things like debates. That's why you're in the early states, because you got to introduce yourself to voters. You got to let them know what your accomplishments are, because you got to introduce yourself to voters. You got to let them know what your accomplishments are, and you got to let them know what you plan to do for the country. And if that just happened the day you announced, then there'd be no need to have to run any of these campaigns. And so we're still six months away from Iowa, and we're going to put a lot of work in between now and then.

So let's talk about that. You do have to let them know. You have to get out there. And you haven't been going out there that much. You've been going mostly to conservative safe spaces. But now you seem to be shifting a little bit more. I saw you on CNN recently. Now you're sitting with me. I'm a right-leaning independent. So is this a change in your media strategy? And are we going to be seeing more of you out there? Well, what I've typically done is, you know, I do media availabilities all the time. I've probably done more press conferences as governor than any governor in history. And all these people can come and ask me questions. And so we're gonna continue to do that on the campaign trail. We may sit down

for some more interviews as we continue to go. I think it's good. I mean, I think people like to hear directly. But the idea that I was not engaging with hostile media, that's just not been true. In fact, that's kind of how I got known in Florida. As governor, you did. As governor, you were fighting the COVID wars and all that. Yes, but since you've actually declared, it seems like you've been in a conservative bunker. Well, we have a traveling press. We do the media availabilities. We're going to continue to do that and probably do more as time goes by. Don't you think that would help you? Don't you think having a viral moment with somebody in the far left who hates you

is going to be helpful to you? It could. I mean, it definitely has helped me in the past. And I think a lot of times they are in their own cocoon. And so they're trying to propagate narratives. But these narratives are easy to deconstruct. And so if you just know your stuff, you can handle that very easily. All right, now one of the criticisms I hear about you from people who watch and listen to my show is

he's too establishment, right? You've heard Trump say globalists, the rhino, all that, but he's too establishment. They think that you're too close to the Paul Ryan, Karl Rove wing of the party, and that if they elect you, you'll be too beholden to the big money donors inside the Republican Party. The numbers on that- The evidence for that is what? Well, I mean, this is what my listeners feel. But I'll give you one. Only 17% of your donations second quarter came from small dollar donors. 82% of Trump's did. So you can see why they're worried that you're gonna be beholden to these GOP elites and not worried about the grassroots

concerns. So first of all, I have not spoken to Paul Ryan since I've been governor. So that's many, many years. I've met Karl Rove once. That's all just totally fabricated out of whole cloth. I also have a record as governor of Florida. I beat Disney on the parents' rights. They're a pretty powerful financial institution in the state of Florida. We stood up to the global elites, not just national establishment, international establishment against the COVID lockdowns. We stood up, I mean, I've restored the Everglades in Florida. I had to stand up against the big sugar companies who had dominated Florida for a long time. We've stood up to big pharma, not just by trying to get

cheaper prescription drugs. I actually have a grand jury impaneled to investigate misrepresentations that they made about the COVID-19 vaccine. So I've stood up to these people more than anybody else has done. How many establishment Republicans would have sent illegal aliens to Martha's Vineyard? They just wouldn't have done it. So I think a lot of that is fabricated. And look, I have the second best small dollar operation in Republican politics. I mean, Trump was president. So I mean, of course, he's gonna have a better operation.

But ours is growing and growing. And if you look at the new donors, the smaller ones, 30% of ours never donated to Republican politics before they came to me. So we're bringing more people in and we're gonna continue to do well with that. The other question about Trump, and then I'll move on to some more substantive issues. He says this is a disloyal act, and I know you've spoken to that before. But he says specifically that you got elected governor because of him, that you were dead in the race and that you, quote, came over and begged him for an endorsement with tears coming down from your eyes.

And do you believe that? Is it true? Do you believe that? You tell me. I mean, come on. This was this was, you know, public. We were I think we were on Air Force One. I said, hey, I'm thinking about running. Will you support me? Will you tweet for me? And he's like, yeah, I'll tweet for you. And that was it, and that was all that. But here's the thing, politicians have to earn support. Nobody's entitled to support. I'm loyal to my family, I'm loyal to our constitution, and I'm loyal to God. That is where my loyalty goes.

I'll work with politicians to try to advance what I believe is in the best interests of Florida and the country. But at the end of the day, it's about who can get the job done and that's how I view it and it's interesting. He doesn't say that about his own vice president running against him. He doesn't say that about his ambassador of the UN running against him. He doesn't say that about other people he endorsed in the past who are now running against him. He only says it about me because I think he construes me as the only threat to his winning

the nomination. What about to the people who say it's not your turn? It's still his turn. He got screwed out of his first term by Russiagate and the impeachment. He got an unfair shot at it second time around because of all the election shenanigans. And that he deserves to have this next go at it. We're a republic. We're not a monarchy. It's nobody's turn. You have every right to put yourself forward. I believe at this point in history, 2024 is make or break for this country. I'm not running to be president. I'm running to do something as president for the country. I think I'm the guy that can win the primary, win the general election, and then deliver on all of these things and do it for two terms, which I think is really important.

Because if you look, Trump's first term, he did a lot of good things. Biden reversed almost everything on day one. I think you do need two terms for this stuff to really, really stick. And so I think that I'm the only guy that fits that bill. So I have a responsibility to step up and offer myself for service. Let's talk about Florida for one minute. The Department of Education is in the news this week. They issued new guidelines when it comes to teaching things like slavery. They are teaching its innumerable horrors, that's clear. But they are also requiring teachers to

instruct that, quote, slaves develop skills, which in some instances could be used for personal benefit. As you know, the vice president made an emergency trip down here to Florida to say you were whitewashing history, that these are lies. Even GOP presidential candidate Will Hurd, who is black, weighed in saying slavery was not a jobs program. What's your response to all this? Well, those standards were developed by African-American history scholars. Many of them themselves were black. And the point

about developing skills was those skills were developed in spite of slavery, not because of slavery. And that's what they're doing. And then they're saying they had skills postbellum, then they would use those skills as freedmen. And that's exactly what happened. And there's actually been other courses. So the AP African American history. So we had a kerfuffle on that earlier this year because there was a lot of the course was good, but then they had part of it that was like Marxist studies. And we said, no, we don't want the indoctrination. So we got attacked because we stood up against that. You won that. We won it. But in that course, they had the same basic teaching point about the skills that were developed. And this is not something that was

just made up out of whole cloth by our working group. This is something that people have been talking about. And this was all done in public. It wasn't political. We didn't tell them what to do. We said, we're not doing critical race. We're not doing a political agenda. Just do the facts. And they did a very thorough job. I mean, if you look at all the things they're talking about. But what do you think of Kamala Harris coming down here and try to tell everybody that you're lying, that you've decided to lie to the American public about slavery? Well, the White House has been obsessed with us in Florida from the time they took office. Clearly, they view us as a threat. And so anything that they can do to try to ding us. But I think in

this case, people looked at it and they could tell she was lying and she was demagoguing it. I mean, this stuff was vetted. This was all public. People could do comments. Everyone was praising what a thorough job they did. Then all of a sudden, they cherry pick something, take it out of context, and then try to demagogue it. Because if you look at the entire standards, there is no way you can view those standards and not come to any other conclusion that they are very, very honest about the injustice of slavery. And that's time and time again, you see through that. So I think the thing that's instructive though is, okay, you have Harris doing this and Biden's White House. Corporate media, if they're really

truth tellers, if they're about holding the powerful accountable, they would have pushed back on this. They would have said, wait a minute, that's not true. They would have had Dr. Allen on to shoot it down. And instead, they try to concoct the narrative even further and push it. So I think people like Harris do it because they know they can get away with it with a lot of our corporate press. We had Dr. Allen on and he said the teachers union was sitting there, lying there like snakes in the grass at these meetings, not saying anything, not objecting to any of this until after it became a controversy. All right, let's shift and talk about Disney. You mentioned them just a bit. You and my view

are pretty quick to use the power of the state against certain corporations. So you don't like these woke corporations. Disney, after it attacked your parental rights and education act, Anheuser-Busch recently for hurting the pension investments, you said of Floridians with the whole Bud Light debacle. Much as the base is angry at these woke corporations, and I get it, I know you get it. Aren't you doing the very thing to these companies that conservatives are mad at left-wing leaders for doing, using government to punish citizens for political wrong think. No, not at all. So take Anheuser-Busch. I mean, we're not punishing them. They departed from business practices by indulging in social activism. That has caused a huge problem

for their company and their stock price has gone down. Well, our pension fund in Florida holds Anheuser-Busch InBev stock. So it's actually hurt teachers, it's hurt cops, it hurts firefighters who depend on that pension fund. And so- Didn't you support the boycott against them? No, I did, but that's just as a personal thing. But I mean, we didn't have the state government necessarily putting power about it. But as an American, I said, I'm not doing Anheuser-Busch, I'm not doing Bud Light. But for this, we're defending the people that are beneficiaries of the pension. When you go, look, the wokeness, yes, it's annoying. Yes, when they're trying to throw

an agenda down your throat, you don't like it. But it does have an impact on the economy. It has an impact on people who hold stock. And that's not just rich people. That's those people. So with InBev, they departed from their fiduciary duty. And so we're investigating the state. How can you say they departed? I'm not in favor of the Bud Light thing at all.

But how can you say they departed from their fiduciary duty? They sent a beer can to this very controversial person, which upset the consumers. And the consumers had their say. But how is that a departure from their... And how does the state get involved in that? How is that something that is helping their shareholders or helping their company's value? But how is that for you to weigh in on? Because I have people in Florida that were injured by the company's decline as a result of that.

These are people that rely on the pension. Disney is a different issue than this. But we have to say companies should do their job. If they depart from that and they harm people, then you have an opportunity to potentially have recourse. Now, Disney was an issue where they came after the state of Florida when we were doing fortifying parental rights, saying at that time it was K through three, no gender ideology or any of that in the schools. And to me, that was not a huge leap. I mean, that's common sense. Why would you want to tell a second grader that they may have been born in the wrong body? That is happening around this country. And we said in Florida, we're not. So they came in against us and they're very powerful in Florida. They usually get whatever

they want. So we stood up and we said, no, we're gonna do what's best for students and parents. We're not gonna tout out of Disney. Then after I signed the bill, they put out a statement saying they were gonna make it a mission to see that the bill was repealed or overturned in court. So they said they were taking their corporate resources to basically attack parents rights in Florida and overturn of course state policy. So we had to then make a decision and the legislature started saying, well, wait a minute, Disney is getting these benefits that they've had for a long time. Maybe we should reevaluate it.

And then when you looked at what they got, unbelievable arrangement that they had that no other individual or no other company in the entire state enjoyed. So Florida, for many decades ago, was joined at the hip with this one company. They started going down the road of sexualizing children. We just could not be joined at the hip with a company that was doing that. That's antithetical to our values in Florida. So what we said is, you don't get to control your own government, you don't get to be exempt from laws and taxes. You're gonna live under the same laws as everybody else.

You're gonna be treated like SeaWorld, you're gonna be treated like Universal. So that's actually good policy, that's taking away corporate welfare and putting everybody on a level playing field. But we could not be, I mean, I couldn't look in the mirror as a parent of a six, five and three year old, knowing that this company was getting benefits from, and these are not benefits I gave them, this is many, many decades ago, that they were doing that given the direction that they're going with kids. I draw the line at protecting kids. We are going to protect our kids and we will take

on big corporations to do so. So are you suggesting you would have done this irrespective of them criticizing and fighting your Parents and Education Act? I mean, that this had nothing to do with their stance on your law? Well, obviously, they're supporting sexualizing kids in Florida schools. I mean, they were putting their corporate weight behind ensuring that that could happen. So of course, that was a factor. But another factor- That's an admission that they were punished by you in part by the state for their political viewpoint. It's not a punishment. So that was part of it.

Then they had the Zoom videos that were put out where these Disney executives were acknowledging that they wanted to inject the sexualization into their program. Yes, I understand. That's different and that's less controversial. But that was part of the decision where the legislature, the support to maintain this arrangement just collapsed. And we were in a situation where he said, okay, this is a company that's pursuing this direction with respect to children. That is fundamentally hostile to the state of Florida's policy. Okay, but how is it not viewpoint discrimination? We talked about 303 Creative, you and I privately, about the US Supreme Court case that just came

down. They held in that case, they reminded us that citizens in this country are free to speak as they wish and not as the government demands. So why can't Disney oppose your law? They can. And why can't they promote this agenda in their viewpoint? They can. Without being punished by the state? They're not being punished. We're just simply removing special benefits that they have had that really weren't- They were worse off when it was done than they were before they spoke out. Well, no, I mean, it was, first of all, we didn't actually do anything to Disney. There was a government that had been in place that they had effectively corrupted,

which was not the way it was supposed to be, by the way, if you look at how this started in 68. So we changed the governing structure, which really didn't even impact them directly. They're just indirectly, they don't like it because they don't get to call the shots anymore. But they are not entitled to corporate welfare. You do not have a constitutional right to corporate welfare. I know that, but it's not about an entitlement. It's not about entitlement. If I go to my boss and I say, you sexually harassed me,

and then suddenly he reduces my salary from $200,000 to $100,000, that's retaliation. I am worse off. And it's not a defense to say, well, everybody else at the company was getting $100,000. You've reduced my certainty. You've punished me. No, but that's an employer-employee relationship. I think that that's much different. But this is the state taking away a benefit. But your position is basically that Florida should be forced to subsidize Disney regardless of how it's going to use those subsidies so that they can weaponize the subsidies they get from the state and turn it against state policy.

Why would we want to subsidize that behavior? Why should Florida taxpayers have to underwrite that? I get it, I get it. But I don't want a President Gavin Newsom doing this to conservative companies or companies who have a more conservative viewpoint. Well, here's what I would say. I don't think there's any arrangement in America that mirrored the arrangement Disney had in Florida for many, many decades. I mean, I think it was a unique situation where we just could not justify how could you be exempt from laws that every other company in business has to follow an individual?

How could you be exempt from taxes? How could you rack up municipal debt on your own when they didn't have it? So they had powers to build their own nuclear power plant. They had extra territorial eminent domain. I get it, I get it. They had a lot of that. If you lived in a subdivision outside of Disney, they actually had the right to seize your property if they wanted to expand beyond the district. So this was something that was just totally, totally unjustifiable. But it lived on in Florida for many, many decades because they were just so powerful. But take apart all of the stuff with the sexualization of children, all that. Just on the merits, was this an arrangement that was

justifiable? And the answer is no, but no one really questioned it in the legislature because they enjoyed a lot of political sway. Let's move on. What's your plan to protect women and girls from men who claim they are trans trying to get into our spaces and our sports? Well, in Florida, we've done all of that. So girls sports, women's sports is protected. Men can't be injecting themselves into those competitions. It takes away opportunities for girls and for women athletes.

And we did that years ago here as governor. We've also protected the locker rooms and the bathrooms so that men are not going into women's very sensitive places. And I think that that should be the rule period. We will look within the constitutional authority of the federal government. We'll look to do the same for women's sports and those issues nationally. Title IX? Yeah, I think so. There was an ad recently released that was controversial online that portrayed you as a warrior against certain of these LGBTQ issues and Trump is soft on them. The New York Times reports that you were actually behind that ad, your campaign. You definitely promoted it and

defended it. Do you think that Trump is soft on this issue, the issue of trans rights versus women's rights? Well, I think that what was pointed out there was he had been a pioneer in injecting men into women's competitions because he was doing that with beauty pageants way, way back in the day, 10 years ago or whatnot. And then he's also opposed things like protecting locker rooms and bathrooms when he was running. He said North Carolina shouldn't have done that when they did it. So that, I think, is not where our voters are on that. I think our voters believe that standing up for women and girls means protecting their

right to compete with integrity and protecting things like bathrooms and locker rooms. And so he just had been very clear on that issue. And I don't think that's where our voters are. Do you think he may have changed? I mean, 15 versus now is a lifetime on the issue of the trans rights thing. You know, I don't know. I mean, I think that, you know, it wasn't just that, you know, he had kind of a flippant opinion on it. I mean, you know, he was really one of the leaders in making this a big issue culturally and nationally. Speaking of that campaign ad, one of the leaders in making this a big issue culturally and nationally. Speaking of that campaign ad, one of the complaints I've heard about the DeSantis team is they're too online. There was the Twitter spaces launch, yes, but it's more about the

petty Twitter squabbles that we see some connected with your campaign having that will take up three days of the news cycle that don't really amount to anything substantive for the voters in Iowa and elsewhere. Is that a fair point? So look, we have people that are doing this rapid response. I'm not putting my time into it at all. I mean, they're going and going back and forth. There's kind of a battle that does online. I am not somebody who's following that very closely. It's just not my cup of tea. And so I'm following more about what's happening. Commander. No, I get it.

But I mean, but we have people shooting at us too online every single day. I mean, the fact that you asked about people like Paul Ryan, that's all a manufactured online controversy instead of attacks that have no basis in reality. And so there is need to kind of push back on some of this stuff. So I wouldn't say it's too online. I think that there's a place for that. But ultimately, the people in Iowa and New Hampshire, they're not following the latest Twitter war. They're following what's going on in their lives. And I'm very cognizant of that.

You recently signed a six-week abortion ban in Florida. That is popular with Republican voters. The majority support that. But you haven't yet said whether you would support doing that at the federal level. Will you say so now? So our bill in Florida protects unborn when there's a detectable heartbeat. The heartbeat bill is something that is rooted in science and medicine. And this is the most significant pro-life protections that we've ever done in the state of Florida in the modern history. So I've been a pro-life governor. I'll be a pro-life president, and I will come down on the side of life.

We are running on doing things that I know I can accomplish. So we're gonna end the abortion tourism that is in the military. It's an egregious waste of taxpayer dollars, no funding for abortion. We're gonna ensure that the Supreme Court remains so that Dobbs is not overturned. And I'm gonna be a leader with the bully pulpit to help local communities and states advance the cause of life. But I really believe right now in our society, it's really a bottom up movement. And that's where we've had most success, Iowa, South Carolina, Florida. And I think you're gonna continue to see a lot of good battles there. So you're not in support of a federal law?

I'll always come down on the side of life. And I'm proud to be pro-life, and I'll be a pro-life president. But if you do that, I mean, if you sign a federal law, making a six-week standard, the law across the country, aren't we just then going to get a Democrat administration with Democrat Congress that reverses or that codifies Roe and back and forth? Why isn't it just a states' rights issue? Well, clearly, the states have. I mean, I think the states have the primary jurisdiction over it. They do, but if there's a federal law, that's going to change. I think there is.

I think there is a federal interest, but I think the reality is that the country's divided on it. You're not gonna see Wisconsin mimic what Texas has. Which is an argument against a federal law. You're not gonna see Pennsylvania mimic what Georgia has. Well, but I mean, we're divided. I mean, are these things like on the potential thing? I haven't seen Congress move that. I don't have much confidence that Congress is gonna do anything meaningful in this regard.

And so in a federalist system, you have different opinions and that stuff gets filtered out. But clearly, right now, you are gonna see different states go in different directions, and I understand that. That'll happen until and unless we have a federal law on it. On immigration, the southern border is a mess. It's a mess. In 2022, we had 2.4 million encounters with migrants trying to cross the border illegally. Under Trump in 2020, it was 2 million fewer. It was 450,000. So you've been somewhat critical of Trump on the border, saying he did not complete that wall, he promised. But what specifically would you do differently than Biden and Trump to secure that border? Day one, we'll declare it a national emergency. I'll mobilize all resources, including the military,

to go. We're gonna stop the invasion. We're not gonna entertain the bogus asylum claims. We are gonna actually build the wall, cuz I do think that's important. But we're gonna have both Border Patrol and military authorized to use deadly force against the Mexican drug cartels who were infiltrating our country. I was actually down in Arizona, there actually was a piece of the wall there. And I go, and it's like big steel beams. And these guys are working on it. I'm like, what are you doing? They're like, well, the cartels cut through the wall. And then they bring in drugs. And and basically Biden just lets it happen. So for us, what I've said, if you're doing that, and you got a backpack full of fentanyl on, and you're trying to scurry in, it's gonna be the last thing you do. You are going to end up

stone cold dead, cuz I'm gonna let our folks do their job. And if you just do that a few times, you are gonna see a major, major change. But here's the thing, tens of thousands of people are dying in our country because of fentanyl overdose. You can't go to a community in this country- Number one cause of death for young people. Without running into a mother who's lost a child. And we're just supposed to just shrug our shoulders and let that happen. So we're gonna lean in against the cartels in ways that other presidents have not been able to do. That is going to make an impact. But we cannot allow this poison to just keep coming into our country and killing our young people. On the economy, it's the number one issue.

Number one, still for American voters. Inflation still remains high. People are really suffering. You're not a rich man. You could be with your education and your background, but you've been a public servant. Milk right now, $4 a gallon. Organic milk, $9 a gallon. It's unbelievable. So what are you going to do about it? Well, first of all, what's the root of the high prices? The root is government.

This is a government-induced inflation crisis. Starting in March of 2020 with the $2 trillion CARES Act, the Fed printing money. December 20, you had $2.2 trillion out the door for Biden when he came in. Biden did. American Rescue Plan, another $2 trillion. So when you borrow, print, and spend trillions and trillions of dollars like that, you are going to get inflation. That's a Milton Friedman kind of, he said, 18 months after this happens, you're gonna get it.

So that's what we've had. And then you had the Federal Reserve, not only they print all this money, they said, it's transitory, don't worry about the inflation. It started going. So now they've been jacking up interest rates because they got behind the ball. So now the average person to buy a home that you can't afford a new home. If you make the median income compared to the median home price with the interest rates where they are, it does not work financially. It's harder to afford a car and of course, daily expenses like groceries. So you have to rein in the Congress's spending, which has caused this. You have to increase and expand our domestic energy production.

Biden got rid of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, basically. That kind of kept things. It would have been worse had he not done that, put us in a vulnerable position with fuel. But if we open this up and realize we cannot do a Green New Deal, that is gonna help impact inflation. We also need to grow more. So right now we're settling into persistently high prices with a very sluggish economy. And our growth rate over the past decade has been anemic.

So we got to get growing again. And I think that means getting the bureaucracy and government off the backs of small businesses. More with Governor Ron DeSantis right after this. We'll be right back. Here's part two of my interview with Governor Ron DeSantis. Trump could be indicted again today over the January 6th behavior. How worried should he be? Well, here's what I would say about this

Department of Justice. I'm pledged to end the weaponization of government. I think that they have weaponized these agencies in ways that really hurts the cause of freedom. And it's not just about one person. It's about, do we have a rule of law? Or is it just about wielding power against people you don't like? And so everything that happens in this case and others for me is seen through that prism of a DOJ and FBI that have totally lost their way and have been weaponized against the public. I think in DC, there's a big problem that we have in terms of being able to get fair trials. If you are part of the swamp, when Durham went after that guy, he got acquitted. He had him dead to rights, but he got acquitted in front of a DC jury.

If you're not part of the swamp, man, they will nail you to the wall for jaywalking. One of the things I wanna do and work with Congress is to give Americans the right to remove a case if they're charged in DC federally, remove it to their home judicial district. Because I think you'd get a fairer jury pool. I mean, that's a 95% very liberal jury pool. And in a politically charged case, I don't think it's gonna be fair. And that's an imbalance that we have where the swamp protects its own. So people are effectively immune because they can get acquitted in front of that jury. But then if you're challenging the swamp, man, they will nail you to the wall. Given your views on the weaponization of government,

would you commit to pardoning him on any federal charges against him? Well, what I've said is very simple. I'm gonna do what's right for the country. I don't think it would be good for the country to have an almost 80-year-old former president go to prison. So that's a yes. It doesn't seem like it would be a good thing. And I look at like, Ford pardon Nixon took some heat for it.

But at the end of the day, it's like, do we wanna move forward as a country or do we wanna be mired in these past controversies? And I think the public wants a fresh start. I think they want somebody that's gonna focus on their issues. We've had a lot that's happened over the last five or six years. I get that. But going forward, we've got all these issues that we've gotta deal with. But I've also said this on ending weaponization.

We will wield the pardon power if normal Americans have been targeted unfairly. And what I'm gonna look to see, okay, was there a separate standard of justice applied? As soon as the election's over, we want people to apply who may have been treated dissimilarly. And what I'm going to look to see, okay, was there a separate standard of justice applied? As soon as the election's over, we want people to apply who may have been treated dissimilarly, and then you can go and do that appropriately. And then the flip side of that is people that are connected to the swamp are going to be held accountable. They are not going to get a lower standard of justice. You said Trump should have done more on January 6th, like what? Well, look, I think it's been well documented, kind of his conduct when it first started,

how he sat there, could have obviously leaned in harder. I think, I mean, even his own kids were texting saying, he needs to do more, he needs to do more. Is that criminal though? I mean, that's the thing when you talk about a grand jury and a potential criminal indictment. I mean, you can identify flawed conduct, you can criticize his conduct, but you have to find a statute that was violated. And I think one of the dangers of what Garland's doing in this is they may be taking statutes from like Reconstruction era that was about making sure that freed slaves had civil rights, and they may apply that. Trying to repurpose.

To Trump on that. And that's the thing, when you have a situation where there's this political difference, nobody's above the law. I mean, you could be a Republican administration, doesn't mean you can't prosecute Democrat and vice versa. But the issue is, if someone robs a bank, we know that's a crime. You rob the bank, if they prove it up, then you're held accountable. To take a statute like conspiracy against rights and try to shoehorn in his conduct on January 6th, that is what's

going to cause people to say, well, wait a minute, you're doing it. Yeah. Some of the observations of Ron DeSantis on the campaign trail have been, well, he doesn't seem like a natural retail politician. He's not glad-handing with the crowds the way Bill Clinton did. That's actually not true. So that's what they said before we started. They're like, oh, he doesn't do retail. I don't know where they got that from. I'm, as governor, I was the first governor to visit all 67 counties. Does this bother you? Well, because it's a narrative. It's just not true. I mean, I'm actually on the ground.

All they had to do was watch what I've done as governor, watch what we've done in these campaigns. And I think they say, well, Florida's a media state, all this other thing. Therefore, you must not do that. We do do that. I mean, we go in all those. So we've come and go. And so we did the New Hampshire GOP dinner.

And the party chairman goes to the media. They're like, you guys were saying he doesn't do retail, he doesn't do all this. And what we saw was the complete opposite. He came in, did a great speech, he took pictures, shook hands with every single person that wanna do it. He was there for an extra hour and all this stuff. So I think what the media does, they can't criticize me in a Republican primary on my record very effectively because we've done so much. Politically, we've been a huge success. So they know that. So they've got to try to figure out whatever. So they throw this out there thinking that, I'll tell you what,

it's helped me though, because I think what they do is they just lower the bar. So when you go there and do this, people are like, man, this is a great guy. He can put sentences together and shake hands. Exactly. This may sound like a weird question, but there's a reason I'm asking it. The woman who is playing the lead in your favorite movie company, Disney's remake of Snow White is on camera. Just got recirculated though. She said it in 2022 saying in this remake, we can expect that Snow White will not be focused on true love, but instead is going to be all about leadership. You said you were bringing a modern edge to it on stage. What do you mean by that? I just mean that it's no longer 1937. And we absolutely wrote a Snow White that is not going

to be saved by the prince. She's not going to be saved by the prince and she's not going to be dreaming about true love. She's dreaming about becoming the leader she knows she can be. As somebody who is a sitting governor and seems to have found true love in your life, what do you make of that message? Yeah, I mean, well, I think it's partially Disney. They're departing from kind of what made them a great company with their messaging and they're trying to focus on more social messaging. And I don't think it's been effective for them. I mean, clearly their stock prices had a lot of trouble in the past year or two. And the receipts at the box office have not been good. It's interesting. Speaking of true love, my wife and I, we got married at Disney World. I can't believe that. And it was not my idea. And she came to me one day and she said,

what about this? Because her family loved Disney, right, growing up. What about Disney? And I'm like, look, if that's what you want, it, you know, it's your day. I'm along for the ride, but no Donald Duck at the wedding. That's where I'm drawing the line. We didn't have it. They actually have a wedding chapel. It was very nice and everything. But it's like, you know, that was not anything. I mean, Disney at that time was viewed as still the all American company. But how do you see? How do you see? I mean, I, to me, it stuck out at me that the notion that you have to choose, right? Like you can't be both a leader and true love. It's one or the other. And I look at somebody like you and I, I, it puts the lie to the notion. You've talked openly about your love with your wife. It's nice to hear, frankly, a strong man

and a strong leader talk about his wife a lot and how much, you know, you feel for her, but put it in perspective for us. Well, look, I mean, I'm a better leader because of my relationship with my wife. I mean, I'm a better leader because I have somebody that's my best friend and the love of my life. So it works hand in hand for me. The idea that you have to choose is totally ridiculous. And she's been somebody who has gone through trials and tribulations with having breast cancer and things like that. And my job as a husband is you're there, good times and bad and sickness and in health. And so, yeah, I was governor and I had to do the job for the state. But I'd be here on the weekends. I'm here as soon as I get back during

the weekdays. I'm here helping her through that because it's not an easy thing to go through. And she handled it very well and she was not facing a good situation. So she handled it very well. But that's just my role. That's my job. I need to be there. The fact that she was dealing with this two years ago, I mean, just two years ago and is back on her feet and as able and vivacious as she is, is amazing. Last question. She is unfortunately the brunt of a lot of these media attacks and they're vicious, they're cruel, they're unfounded. It's harder sometimes to watch your loved one go through it than to go through it yourself, right? The media washing machine. How does it affect you

and does it ever give you pause? Like, is this worth it? You've got the young kids, you've got the great wife. Is this worth it? So, I mean, I don't mind the criticism to me. It's like, I don't even read it. I mean, I just, you know, it's not things that I'm interested in doing. And so, you know, I've got very thick skin and that helps you as a leader because I don't have to contort myself to try to worry about what people are going to say gonna say. I know people that don't want me to succeed are not gonna say good things. That's just the reality. That's just how it's part of the course. It's not as easy seeing it with your wife just because they clearly, this is a good person

who's a good mother, has been a great first lady. And they just don't like the fact that she's effective. They don't like the fact that she's speaking to issues that really do resonate and they view her as a threat to their political ambitions. And so what do they do? They try to smear her, they try to attack her for all these different things. But she and I though have come to the realization, if she was not doing a good job, if she was not a force to be reckoned with, they would not waste time on her. They're going after her because she launched the Mamas movement nationally, which she did in Florida for a reelection. And people are drawn to it. And it's not just Republicans, because independents and Democrat parents, on the whole parents' rights

thing, a lot of the Democrat parents sided with us because they knew that that was just the right thing to do for kids. So in some respects, it's confirmation that she's over the target. And when you're over the target, you're taking flack. And that's just the nature of it. So I don't like to see it. But I also understand that they're seeing what so many people in Florida have seen. She's a very dynamic, very strong, very inspirational woman. And there's a lot of moms out there that she's going to resonate with. Governor DeSantis, thank you. Thanks so much.

So nice to see you. Thank you. All the best to you. What'd you think? I think it was one of the more, if not the most robust exchange he's had since he declared his candidacy. And I thought he acquitted himself very well. But I'm more interested in what you think. So you can email me, megan at megankelly.com

with your thoughts. I want to tell you some behind the scenes color on the DeSantis's. We had dinner with them the night before. And so we got to meet Casey as well. And let me tell you, that relationship is legit. They really are in love. You could see it just in the way they look at each other. You could see the way she has his back, the way she would sort of tee up the right conversations that would reflect well on him and her own. She has her own

distinct opinions, of course, but I'm a very loyal partner, very clearly, and he's defensive of her too. And it was nice. I mean, it's just nice. It's nice to have the thought of a couple in the White House that actually is madly in love and has each other's backs and is young and vibrant with the young, beautiful kids who we also had the pleasure of meeting. They're adorable.

They're really little. They've been in politics and in a political house, basically, their whole life because they're babes, six, five, and three, as he said. But my impression of the family was it's a very happy one, which was nice to see. It was just nice to see. I will say that the discussion that we had the night before is off the record, so we're not going to get into the substance here. But I will tell you that he's extremely knowledgeable about every single issue that I teed up to him. I mean, there was no issue on which he couldn't go 10 deep. And it was interesting to hear him talk like that.

We got to some of it in the interview. You know, we went deep on Disney. And I know that the audience is on his side on that. But still, you know, I've got my issues that, you know, I keep raising. But it was interesting to listen to him fight that fight and explain himself, not just once, but go the next layer, go the next layer. And he can do that on everything. His thoughts on the Supreme Court, on the justices that are up there, on Trump's picks versus some of the picks we've had earlier, all very interesting stuff. Didn't have time for it in this sit down, but we'll hopefully get to it

in another one. And I will tell you this too, he's funny. He was doing impressions that had us in hysterics. Like I had never seen that side of him, you know? And I think part of, though he didn't really want to sort of adopt the term reset, and he certainly said that didn't mean any change in messaging. I do think if he puts himself out there more and allows himself the opportunity for more relaxed interviews or long enough that he can show another side because you have five minutes, you just got to beat him up. If you have 45, it's much better. He'll do better.

I do think that's a smart next move for him. All right, another fun behind the scenes piece of color. So I was on the fence about whether I was going to wear that pink dress that you saw or this red dress, which I brought with me. But the red dress was a little too buttoned up. It's 100 degrees. I just was like, I'm not sure if I want that red dress. So I'm going to wear the pink one. I felt the inspo. And so I wore the pink dress, which I thought looked great. However, and we were very

early in the morning doing this interview. As soon as I sit down, I realize on the right side, which you can see I am hiding here behind the governor, there's a rip. There's a tear. Look at me strategically placing my arm over the rip. Now here it goes back. What? My arm. Nope. Do not let the camera see the rip. There was a rip on my dress, my fancy dress for the interview of the sitting governor, presidential candidate Ron DeSantis, that you, I am not taking that arm away from the side because God knows what could have happened. What if the whole thing had torn open? Ladies, have you been there? You know, it's like everything's all set. And then, damn it, your dress tears. There was too much steak at dinner the night before.

Anyway, love to hear from all of you. So let me know what you thought on the issues, right? Did you learn anything? And whether your views have changed, remain the same, or how you're feeling about all of it. Megan, M-E-G-Y-N at megankelly.com. Up next, Victor Davis Hanson weighs in. He's watched the whole thing.

And we'll talk about the debacle of the Hunter Biden plea agreement and the latest new charges they've just dropped on President Donald Trump. Joining me now for his analysis on the state of the DeSantis campaign and whether DeSantis can turn it around, not to mention Hunter Biden and Trump news,

Victor Davis Hanson. He's a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and author of the must read The Dying Citizen. So, VDH, what do you think? I thought I thought he did very well. And I thought you pressed him pretty vigorously at times. And the only bewilderment I had is he did so well that I don't know why he's not doing that three or four times a day, seven days a week, and why cede the exposure to other candidates that don't do as well. That's what I'm confused about.

And so I think he's an underappreciated candidate. And he's got this bad rap that he's the Scott Walker, that he's this perfect governor who did all these wonderful things. But when you see him in person, he's either not charismatic or he's not informed or he won't debate well. But I don't think that applies to him. He does very well. And the race is still wide open. It's really crazy what people are saying about this campaign. If you look back in 2008, everybody at this time and at July of the year before, were saying it's going to be a race between Rudy Giuliani and Hillary Clinton, neither whom

made it to the nomination. And so John McCain was considered inert in 2008, in 2007. And we could go on and on with examples where we, at this point in a presidential campaign, the putative winners were not the eventual nominees. But I don't know why in this particular case, we just assume it's all over. It's crazy. Well, I think that the DeSantis campaign made a critical strategic mistake, which was they assumed because the mainstream media hates him, and they do, that it would not be a good thing for him to go on those channels and help them with their

viewership and sort of, you know, pay them, pay them back by getting ratings for these people, because that's not what conservatives wanted to see. And I think the opposite is true. Going into the lion's den, especially for a guy like this, is a good idea. He is a fighter, as our package setting up the interview showed and reminded the audience. He enjoys it. He understands. As I said, he goes deep on policy. There's nobody at the view who's going to be able to embarrass Ron DeSantis on policy. So I think they're now realizing that, that all that earned media, these viral moments, any, you know, exchange that he has with the media will inure to his

benefit. And so I really hope he does go out there more and, you know, mix it up. He should go on the view. I mean, I don't like those ladies getting ratings because they don't normally, but I would love to see him against them. Wouldn't you like to see him emerge more robustly from that conservative bunker? Absolutely. And, you know, he's been a viable candidate. He has all these position papers. He's got this great record. But the only time we see him in the media is kind of a Florida press conference

where it's back and forth and he kind of crushes them. But he doesn't really develop his full media skills. And if he were to go out like he did with you three or four times a day, I think he would get enormous boost in the polls. And then more importantly, Megan, there's all these things that are going on that we don't even talk about. We've never had a campaign like this where two former president, one president and a former president are going to run. But one president is, former president, is looking at four, I think, politically biased, but nevertheless serious indictments that could tie him up with gag orders, delays, etc. And then we have another president that I think is pretty clearly corrupt. And that's going to come out and build in a way that could be even more serious than I think the bogus Trump indictments.

And we haven't even started the debate yet. Donald Trump says he's not going to debate. I don't believe that because he's a good debater. And I don't think he can see that that stage and others have the attention. So there's all these known unknowns that are in play. And we've got to relax and let them play out before we make these snap judgments on what's happening. I thought his point when I pressed him about, you know, electability and the most recent poll that showed the majority of the party, 69 percent, thinks Donald Trump is a better candidate

against Joe Biden. One of his points was look at Georgia and Arizona, like start looking at the actual states and whether they'll vote for Donald Trump, the states that are going to, you know, as we like to pretend in states like, you know, yours, California or mine, Connecticut, that we have really a meaningful role in deciding the presidential contest, but we don't. Everyone knows how our states are going to turn out. However, there's that collection of states, six to 10, that really do make all the difference in Georgia and Arizona are definitely two of them. And he's pointing out, if you look at those state by states where I actually do need to be more popular than Joe Biden versus Trump's chances against Joe Biden, I do better than Trump.

And that is that's a solid point. We actually went back and checked and he's right about that. So, I mean, it is a point in his favor that Republican voters will and should consider. Yeah, I mean, it is a point in his favor that Republican voters will and should consider. Yeah, I think so. I think the biggest unknown is Donald Trump. He's been so demonized and treated unjustly by Bragg and James and Willis and Smith that he's got an actual empathy. And I think the Democrats encourage that, at least in the nomination cycle. But we don't know the reaction of the voters because it's just starting this cycle. Are they going to get even

angrier and get more empathetic the more that these people politicize these? Or are they kind of getting into a proverbial fetal position and say, you know what, I can't take it anymore. It's just constant news, news, news, indict indictment and transfer that wrath to another candidate that won't be experiencing that. And so it's hard to adjudicate what's going to go on because we've never been here before. We've never been with the two front running candidates that are looking at Syria. And Joe Biden is looking, I think, at far more serious legal concepts than Donald Trump. Well, I mean, that's why DeSantis' comments about not wanting, that he basically said he's going to pardon Trump. I mean, he didn't say it explicitly, but he came as close as you're going to get. It's not, I'll do what's best for the country. And what's best for the country is not to have an 80-year-old indicted former president. That would apply to Joe Biden, too, presumably.

I mean, Joe Biden, Trump might not be the only one under indictment by the time we have a new president in office. Absolutely. And I think you don't have to have four separate prosecutors searching for all sorts of extenuating circumstances and massaging the law to find indictments with Joe Biden, because it's in the constitution. It says bribery and treason. And if you're taking money from foreign entities that are connected with a government, that's bribery. And then you could argue that you're not putting your own nation's security and national interests first. So that's a very serious charge. And I think we're not even talking about that. And the funny thing is, we got this DOJ that in this week, we had three really amazing stories, more indictments of Donald Trump. A judge disgusted with this DOJ deal with Hunter Biden. And in addition to that, Sam Bankman-Fried, who was one of the largest Democratic donors, gets all of these campaign financing violations dismissed, I guess out of deference to Jamaica.

So the DOJ in one week on three different occasions in three different areas really showed that it's weaponized, it's politicized. Yeah, Bahamas. Yeah, I know, the big scary Bahamas. Okay, sure. It mean, it's funny how things always tend to work out for the Democrats. One other point on DeSantis, Tim Scott came out too and hit him on the Florida slavery agenda. I'm not surprised because it's presidential politics. That's why Will Hurd did it undoubtedly too. I mean, most people don't even know that Will Hurd is running for president, but in any event, I have to say I'm surprised that Tim Scott did this because it takes about 30 seconds to figure out that the Democrats were pushing this same lesson plan that they're now

objecting to in Ron DeSantis' lesson plan in Florida when they were pushing that AP African-American history course. They wanted the resiliency of the slaves taught as well. Only they don't like it when Ron DeSantis' Department of Education does it. In any event, here's Tim Scott weighing in on it. There's no silver lining in freedom, in slavery. The truth is that anything you can learn, that any benefits that people suggest you had during slavery, you would have had a free person. What slavery was, was really about separating families, about mutilating humans, and even raping their wives. It was just devastating. So I would hope that every person in our country, and certainly running for president, would appreciate that. And listen, people have bad days.

Sometimes they regret what they say. And we should ask them again to clarify the position. What is he saying? Who is he appealing to? Ask them to clarify. It's not a Ron DeSantis statement. It was a diverse group of 13 philosophers, teachers, professors down in Florida, including six Black people who came up with these standards, which teach all of the horrors of slavery and have this one line. What is it? What, who is he appealing to Victor? I don't know. I mean, going way back to Booker T on Booker Washington, when he wrote up from slavery, that was his theme that slavery did not break black people. It tried its best to break, break black people, but it could not. And Black people emerged out of slavery from that ordeal.

And that's what they were trying to emphasize with a defiance and almost a confidence that they could go through anything, no matter how horrific. And that's what they were trying to stress. They took a line out of context. this is too bad because it channels into it is that when he speaks, he has a very eloquent personal story about up from poverty and disadvantage and odds against him to where he is now spiced in with Scott Phillips about the wonderful American free enterprise system. But he's not going out and talking about, this is what I'm going to do specifically on the border. I have a new idea about how to deal with crime. I want it. But he's not going out and talking about this is what I'm going to do specifically on the border.

I have a new idea about how to deal with crime. I want it. I want to get everybody on my energy program. It's too much of this personal story. And when he comments on this, it's the same racial theme story, which is fine. And it's a good introduction to his candidacy. But he's got to move beyond that or it's just going to be a broken record. Yeah, I don't, like, he's going to win over, I guess, the ladies of The View with that comment, but I don't think the Republican base is going to appreciate him adopting the line, the dishonest line from Kamala Harris

about what's actually being taught in Florida. Okay, that's that. Let's discuss the new, you know, one of my good friends, she listens to the show every day and she always texts me with her thoughts on it, which I love. And she said she has Trump indictment fatigue.

And I have it too, right? It's like, think of the way it was when Alvin Bragg first brought the indictment. It was like a before and after moment. Like, my God, what's happened? We've crossed the Rubicon. Now it's like, okay, they added more charges to the Mar-a-Lago indictment and they're probably going to indict him on Jan 6th. And then we're

going to get the Atlanta indictment. I can't like, I do care. I still think it's wrong, but I just wonder where the Democrats are really just undermining their whole plan with this. Okay. Now they want us to be super outraged that they've now added a new defendant to the Trump indictment on Mar-a-Lago, Carlos D. Oliveira. He is alleged to have tried to get a security guard, like a surveillance video overseer, to delete certain surveillance video at Mar-a-Lago. allegedly, and he looked into it with Trump's right-hand man, Walt Nachua. And they don't actually allege that the guy did it. No one's alleging that they deleted the stuff. And there's no allegation that they even attempted to destroy the tapes, just that they seem to kind of want to, and that Trump may or may not have told them to.

But it doesn't seem to me, Victor, they actually have a witness who's going to take the witness stand and say that about Trump, which means unless they get one of these guys to flip on Trump, which so far they haven't, none of this is going to come into evidence. So where are we? It's really, I think these types of things really get American people mad. These are two people who are of the middle class. Mr. Nauta is an immigrant. He's a 12-year military veteran. And so what is he doing? He said he didn't know. And maybe he did know or didn't know, but they're going to be prosecuting for not being forthcoming about what Trump said

to them. And that's in a context where we have the former CIA director, John Brennan, just flat out lying under oath twice with no consequences. We had James Clapper, who not only lied, but said he gave the least untruthful answer about NSA spying. We have James Comey 245 times under oath doing what Mr. Nauta did. I don't know. I can't remember. And then we have Hunter Biden. So the idea that the government of the United States is going after two mid-level working class people and trying to get them in perjury traps over these classified documents, given all of these grandees in the government at the very highest levels who have lied repeatedly on their own. It's just not sustainable. And people are going to say, and this is what I think DeSantis is trying to say, you have two sets of laws. And finally, what can't go on won't go on. And that's one of the big, I think, one of the great themes that people should be developing on the Republican

side, that there's going to be one set of laws, and he should go back and go really start to enforce perjury, and people not speaking honestly, rather than doing it selectively to people who are about or money or influence to try to turn them. And what they did with Hunter, if you read that, and I know you did, you read that plea deal, and then you juxtapose it to Nauta's fate. It's just disgusting that this guy has done all of these things. He was a foreign agent. He didn't report income tax, hundreds of thousands of dollars of income tax. He had a line on an affidavit about a gun that turned up in a dumpster. He had felonious behavior on his own laptop,

and they are basically giving him a pass, they were trying to, and a pass for future transgressions that haven't even been uncovered. And then they go after Mr. Nalda and all of it. It's just mind-boggling. I want to mention, too, the other charge being added against Trump relates to that now infamous document he allegedly waved around at that book meeting for Mark Meadows, where he was saying, look what Mark Milley gave me. The military gave this to me. They wanted to attack Iran. You know, here's the plan. And Trump has later suggested that he didn't actually have the document, that it was puffery.

And now the new charge, this yet another new charge, is related to a classified document, quote, a battle plan related to attacking Iran. The analysis of this is that the way they've worded it suggests the prosecutors do have the document in question. If so, that would be new information to me. We were not aware of that prior to this. We'll see. Who knows? Just to make sure the audience understands that's what Trump is now facing. The number one thing I see in this document is they need Carlos to flip. If Carlos does not flip, this story really doesn't amount to a hill of beans because it's not going to come in. It's going to be hearsay evidence. Okay, so that's

Trump. The Hunter stuff is so juicy. I'm sorry, but what unfolded while I was down in Tallahassee and traveling down there was unbelievable to me. I have to recommend to everybody that you go and you download Andrew McCarthy, Andy McCarthy's podcast, because he sits with Rich Lowry once a week, usually comes out on Fridays, but they released a new one early. And it's so worth your while. He explains it in such clear terms. I love Andy McCarthy. He's one of the honest men left in legal analysis. And he was a former federal prosecutor who brought these cases. One of the points he makes, Victor, is that in these plea deals, normally, it's a form agreement. And the reason it's a form agreement is because the government has its

form to make sure everybody is subjected to equal justice. This is what you're pleading guilty to, and this is the immunity you're going to get in exchange. It's like you just fill it in as the prosecutor, then you give it to the judge, and he or she approves it or does not. And none of that happened here. The immunity that Hunter was being given was taken out of the main plea deal on the taxes. It was put in a second deal that dealt with the gun charge, and it was sweeping. It gave him immunity, not only on the tax charges and the gun thing, it gave him immunity for everything related to everything he did in 14, 15 and up to present day, everything, the foreign deals, any corruption, any money laundering, all of it. And they tried to hide it from the judge. And she, I mean, she is a hero. He called

her a hero and I agree, Judge Nareika, she said, what are you doing? What is this? I see what you're, why is, is he getting immunity for stuff beyond the taxes? And the government was forced to admit it, even though they very clearly did not want her to know. They had tried to give this to him. That's what the Hunter team expected. And they thought they could pull a fast one over on the judge. And she saw it and she said, are you giving, and they knew as a political matter,

they had no choice but to say, you know, we're no, we're not going to allow him to get immunity on the charges we're investigating. No, heck no, judge. And that's when the Hunter lawyer stood up and said, well, that's bullshit. Then this is off.

Well, forget it then. So that's where it stood. And had it not been for the honesty and the commitment to her job that Judge Nareika did, Hunter would have just gotten away with everything, which he still might. But for today, the battle's still on. Yeah. I think the strangest thing about it, Andy McCarthy pointed out in some parts is that our system, whether we like it or not, is adversarial system. So the DA is at war with the defense lawyers. And one of the tactics or strategies, and we see this with the Trump indictments, they think of every type of

writ they could. I can remember the Conrad Black case where Patrick Fitzgerald, he just threw the whole book at him. And then he had to drop, drop, drop, drop, drop in exchange for focusing on one or two. And I thought that they might do that, what they were doing to Trump. In other words, the prosecutor would come in and charge, you know, throw the phone book at Hunter, and then they would plea bargain and get those down. But in exchange for dropping all those charges, they would be really tough on two or three or four that were ironclad and asked for prison time and huge fines. And they didn't. It was like they were on the same team. And I think the judge spotted that. And, you know,

everybody's had this experience when the IRS makes a mistake and writes you and says, we're going to charge you a point and a half interest per month because you underreported your taxes. Then you call that 800 number and you go through it and through it and through it. And it's a matter of 5,000 or 10,000. And then they admit their mistake after you paid your accountant 500. That's what the average American goes through. But the idea you don't report millions of dollars knowingly so, and they don't even want to have any consequences for that felony. I don't understand that. And when you look at the Biden lifestyle, how did he buy all of these houses, the DuPont mansion at one point? It seems

to me a very easy thing that the IRS and the DOJ working together would just say, these are the expenditures on the left ledger. And this was the income that was reported that was reported on the right. And they don't jive. And then they're not doing that. How dare they try to tell us, the prosecutors, that they have an open, ongoing investigation into Hunter while they quietly give him immunity for everything. That I mean, you don't need to know anything more about this case than that. They wanted to be able to say, ongoing investigation, we're doing, you know, we're just warriors for justice. We're going to take us wherever the facts lead us while they secretly give him immunity for all of it. The only thing he would

have been liable for under this agreement is a criminal act he commits from this day forward, from all the days after he signs the plea deal. Nothing from the past, which includes Burisma, Ukraine, China, all of it. And it all roots back to the fact that they would not appoint a special counsel on this, Victor. There's no special counsel investigating Hunter Biden. It's being handled by daddy. That's what's happening. Joe Biden and Merrick Garland are holding hands on this and making sure the junior doesn't suffer any penalties.

Yeah, I have a theory of why that is. And it may be completely crazy. But if you look at Hunter, why would you let somebody, just to take an example, who has a long history of crack cocaine addiction into the White House? It would make no sense. Or why would you get even close to this case? Why would you have a DOJ that is so politicized and so biased that they're treating Hunter Biden with soft gloves? And why is Joe Biden being accompanied by Hunter?

Why, when he's under subpoena to disclose his financial status on this paternity suit, is he hiding in the White House? You know, when you have a Don Nixon, Richard Nixon or Malik Obama or Roger, or Billy Carter. Presidents knew how to distance themselves from their family. But once you start to read Hunter's laptop very carefully, and he references the big guy of Joe, it's always in very angry terms. They don't appreciate what I'm doing. I gave him this money. I'm carrying this family, especially when he's talking to his niece or his sister. I am the guy that has to do all the dirty work. And you get the impression that somebody who left a crack pipe in a car or a gun was found in a dumpster or a laptop with felonious behavior is on it and he's lost one or maybe two of them, that they are afraid of him. They feel that he's

capable of doing anything at any time. He's angry and they don't want him flipping or they don't want him away talking to people. And they're willing to risk their reputation and the integrity of the DOJ and even embarrassing situations like bringing him into the White House. And we still don't know anything about the cocaine, probably not hunters, but it still cannot be explained by simple statement. It is not a Biden that left the cocaine. We can assure you that. They can't even say that. So I think they, in a weird way, and you saw that with the painting, Megan, why with all of this scrutiny on his corruption and the soft gloves treatment given, would he create a whole new industry of painting these paint by numbers, atrocious paintings, supposedly with an anonymous buyer? And now we learned that one of the buyers has given an aggregate $800,000 and getting perks.

So it's almost as if Joe Biden and Jill Biden are terrified of this guy. He's a loose cannon. They want him around and they do not want him talking because he has a propensity of getting really angry at his. He's frozen. Well, I think I can finish that sentence as a propensity of getting really angry at his father, at his family. We'll try to get BDH back. There he is. Yeah. Okay. I got your point on that, on the Hunter thing. Yeah. So they're keeping him under wraps. Meanwhile, Hunter's business partner and friend, Devin Archer, is supposed to testify. I don't think we're going to see it or hear it, but there's going to be a transcript of it on Monday before Congress, the House Oversight

Committee. And this is going to be really interesting. Tune into the show on Tuesday because we expect this guy to actually finally tell lawmakers about the number of phone calls that Joe Biden made on Hunter's behalf, the number of times Hunter called in the big guy to finalize deals with all these companies that were paying. I mean, Nancy Mace, Representative Nancy Mace was on Maria Bartiromo today

or yesterday, today, and said she puts the number at over 50 million that these guys got as a result of all this Hunter dealing. And, you know, all we know from the laptop is Joe Biden, the big guy, got at least, was supposed to get 10% on at least some of the deals. So how much of that, if any, did he get? And Devin Archer may have those numbers. And Devin Archer seems to be able to tie it all together and say, you know, when Hunter needed to sort of satisfy the Ukrainians or the Romanians or the Chinese, that they were buying access to Joe, that it wasn't just the loser crack cocaine kid. He'd get Joe on the phone. And Joe didn't need to say, hey, I'm in on it. Hey, I'll do what you want me to do. Joe just needed to say, how you doing? Yes, I'm so glad

to meet you through Hunter. Thanks so much for working with him. That's it. And the fix was in. That's where this investigation looks like it's going. Yeah, I agree. I mean, these are verifiable allegations. So when you have Mr. Archer claiming of knowledge of these phone calls, or a Ukrainian oligarch suggesting out of 17 phone calls with the Bidens, two were with Joe Biden. If he can supply the dates or was it on Joe Biden's own phone? There's ways that you can verify that. And this is all in the context of Mr. Bobulinski, who over two years ago laid it out. And then there's the evidence on the laptop. And then there's the IRS whistleblowers. So the left always uses this term, the walls are closing in.

But when you have the IRS coming in from one direction with whistleblowers who are not partisan and are going from the tax consequences, then you have people from Ukraine who are kind of angry at the Bidens for shaking them down and claim that they have both Hunter and Joe on record. And then you have the two business associates, Obolinski and Archer, coming from a different direction. It's very hard to see how anybody in the DOJ is going to square that circle. And they will try. All right. Yeah, they will try. Let me shift it in the last couple of minutes because I've got to get to Oakland. Something extraordinary happened in Oakland. I

mean, I woke up this morning. I'm like, this can't be real. Can't be real. N-double-A-C-P. The N-double-A-C-P writing an open letter now saying that Oakland residents, our Oakland, California, sick and tired of our intolerable public safety crisis that overwhelmingly impacts minority communities, calling for a state of emergency in Oakland, blaming failed leadership, including the movement to defund the police.

I'm quoting here. Our district attorney's unwillingness to charge and prosecute people who murder, and the proliferation of anti-police rhetoric that's created a heyday for Oakland criminals, saying these needs to be addressed or crime will continue to soar, lamenting the shortage of police officers. Quote, unfortunately, progressive policies and failed leadership have chased away or delayed significant blue-collar job development in the city, the port of Oakland, and the former army base. That must change. We demand African Americans to speak out and demand improved public safety.

We also encourage Oakland's white, Asian, and Latino communities to speak out against crime and stop allowing themselves to be shamed into silence. It is not racist or unkind to want to be safe from crime. No one should live in fear in our city. I couldn't believe that the president of the NAACP sent this, but she did. It certainly appears that she did. And she was out talking about it on CBS because Oakland is in a serious crisis right now. Victor, here's just a snippet from the CBS local news as they were lined up around the block. Speaking of Disney with distances, it was like the line to get on Space Mountain to go in there and yell at the local DA about how she won't prosecute crime. Look at this. A lot of the anger tonight was directed at crime sprees where kids are the suspects.

District Attorney Pamela Price said in a recent case, there wasn't enough evidence to take a group of kids to court. What happened after they were let go? They probably attacked someone else. Yeah, I mean, they were vicious little monsters. I just want to say that there must be consequences. It's unreal that there are no consequences for these children. One of my goals is that I will give young people hope.

That because I was on doing some things that I shouldn't have been doing, but because some people believed in me, that they helped me find another way. She doesn't want to hold juveniles to the consequences of their behavior, or even just young people. And that clip that they showed had white people objecting,

but there were plenty of Black people there, very angry, and the NAACP, as I mentioned. So what do you make of all this? Well, I've been to Oakland a lot, and people forget, when you say Oakland, you think it's a poor community, but it has some of the richest enclaves on the West Coast, in Piedmont and other places around there, Mills College. And these areas always thought they were going to be exempt from the consequences of their own ideology and politics. They voted, they vote along with Blacks and Asians overwhelmingly to defund the police. And suddenly they're not exempt anymore. Their money, their influence, their power, it doesn't matter anymore.

Oakland is such a crime-ridden city that it's creeping up to the hills and the higher elevations and the grandees are starting to really, and I feel something for them because their property values are shot. They can't go downtown. And even in San Francisco, which we all talk about, the Laird London Breed just the other day said, I wish we could get rid of all the taxes on business because they're all, if I could do it, I would bring them back. Even if they made money, they're just being driven out. So I guess what I'm saying is that the white bi-coastal elite liberal who created all of this or empowered it, it's finally now in the third or fourth year of what coming back and affecting them personally, and they're outraged. And you're seeing a very weird dynamic where they're turning on black elites that they

helped elect along with an alliance of the black middle class. It's very interesting. And if there were creative conservative politicians, they could step in and really try to find these constituencies and help them and enlist them as part of a rejection of this neo-socialist Jacobin Democratic Party. This is unbelievable. I mean, like, well, of course, we knew these consequences would come, but to hear it directly from the NAACP, from the people who are living it, and we'll talk about it more this week. But I mean, some of the crime videos that are coming out of Oakland are just alarming. You can see exactly the consequences of these progressive policies. VDH, a pleasure, as always.

Thanks for being here. Thank you for having me. And thanks to all of you for joining me today and all week. Would love your feedback on the show, on the interview. Megan, M-E-G-Y-N at megankelly.com. There at megankelly.com, we're gonna post some behind the scenes fun facts,

including a crazy video you've gotta see from my trip to Tallahassee. Have a great weekend. Thanks for listening to The Megyn Kelly Show. No BS, no agenda, and no fear.