The New Yorker Radio Hour - Dexter Filkins on the Rise of Ron DeSantis

Episode Date: June 17, 2022

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has shown himself uniquely skilled at attracting attention beyond the borders of his home state.  Just this month, DeSantis blocked state funds for the Tampa Bay Rays stadium after players voiced support for gun control in the wake of the mass shooting in Uvalde, Texas.  He’s also continuing a fight to punish the Disney Corporation for criticizing Florida’s so-called Don’t Say Gay law.  An Ivy League-educated anti-élitist firebrand, he is willing to pick a fight with anyone—reporters, health officials, teachers, Mickey Mouse—to grab a headline. DeSantis “practically radiates ambition,” the staff writer Dexter Filkins tells David Remnick. “He sounds like Trump, except that he speaks in complete sentences. … He’s very good at staking out a position and pounding the table and saying, I’m not giving in to the liberals in the Northeast.” Yet despite having been anointed by Donald Trump in his primary election, DeSantis has refused to “kiss the ring,” and many see DeSantis as a possible opponent to Trump in a 2024 Republican primary. New Yorker Radio Hour listeners, we want to hear from you.  We have a few questions about the show and how you listen to it. The survey takes about twenty minutes, and your feedback will help us make our podcast better.  Take the survey here.

This is The New Yorker Radio Hour, a co-production of WNYC Studios and The New Yorker. Welcome to The New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick. Governor Ron DeSantis has shown himself to be uniquely skilled at attracting attention to himself well beyond the borders of Florida, his home state. He's willing to pick a fight with just about anyone to grab a headline, reporters, health officials, teachers, even Mickey Mouse. Just this month, he blocked state funds for the state funds for the United States. Tampa Bay Rays Stadium, when players tweeted in support of gun control in the wake of the slaughter in Uvaldi.

And he's trying to punish the Disney Corporation for criticizing Florida's so-called don't-say gay law. Staff writer Dexter Filkins has been reporting from Florida and looking into see whether Ron DeSantis is the potential heir to Trump or maybe his biggest political opponent. Dexter, right now we're watching the January 6 hearings. and at the same time, Ron DeSantis, the governor of Florida, is making a lot of noise as a politician. Is it very likely that he's the number one contender

behind Trump to inherit the mantle of the Republican Party? Yeah, I think so. All the polls suggest that if Trump doesn't run DeSantis is in poll position, and he's ready. I mean, he's got, you know, more than $100 million in the bank. And he's, and he practically radiates

ambition. Well, let's talk a little bit about his background. Who was Ron DeSantis? Where does he come from? What kind of person is he? He's from Florida. He was born in Jacksonville. He grew up outside of Tampa in a town called Teneaton. And it's a working-class neighborhood, a working-class guy, went to public school. He was a great baseball player in Little League, where they won the World Series and in high school. And he went to Yale on a baseball scholarship, and then on to Harvard Law School. So he's come a long way. Did he distinguish himself academically at Yale and then Harvard Law? He did. He did. In fact, one of the more funny quotes that I got from one of his former classmates at Yale was, Ron was so smart that we couldn't plagiarize off of his papers because everyone would know where it came from

because he's the only one that smart who could have made that argument. He's smart in what way? more than a couple of people told me his memory is practically photographic and particularly when I was having conversations about the coronavirus that he was, you know, he was reading medical journals and he'd read them once. He would digest it, he wouldn't understand it and could have a conversation about it. Like he's very, very fast. How would you describe Ronda Santis ideologically and how did you become that way? It's hard to tell how much of Rondisanis is ideological and how. How much is opportunism? He sounds like Trump, except that he speaks in complete sentences. And he's very, very articulate and very, very quick.

But he's competing for the same constituency. So he's very, very angry at the elites, even though he went to Harvard and Yale. He's very angry at Washington. He talks about he's very angry at the politicians. And so he's kind of rallying basically the white working class of Florida, of which the numbers are still quite large. And he's angry. And we're going to make sure that parents

are able to send their kid to kindergarten without having some of this stuff injected into their school curriculum. How did he become governor? My understanding is that although he's now seen as the dominant political figure in state politics, obviously Trump himself is in Palm Beach,

that DeSantis really kind of he squeaked by to get in. He squeaked by. He did. I think he won by less than 1%. And I think there was at least one recount, automatic recount. He defeated a politician named Andrew Gillum, who had been the mayor of Tallahassee. Very, very close race.

And I think he benefited from the fact that Gillum, not only was he black in a state, you know, former Confederacy, but also because Gillum came from the left of the party. And Gillum had squeaked in and sort of beaten a moderate to get the nomination against Gwen Graham, who many people believed would have fared much better against DeSantis. But DeSanis won just by a hair, but he's just been a missile going straight up ever since. What do you mean? He has developed a style, which is very visible, very theatrical, again, very angry, but it has made him a national politician. And he really built over the last couple of years, he really built himself and his persona.

And I hate to use the word brand, but it's a brand around the way that he dealt with the coronavirus. And essentially, it played in perfectly for him and his style because he could say, I don't agree with Fauci and all the pinheads in Washington. And all they want to do is oppress you and make you wear masks and keep your children at home. And so he charted this very, very novel course on the coronavirus, and that's what made him famous. Now, the COVID policy that you describe is not just, you know, sheer obstinate ignorance. We've seen some of that in political quarters in the last few years, but something a little bit more complicated. I had a long conversation with a professor at Stanford of public health and epidemiologist named Jay Bottacharya, who said he was sitting at home one day on a Sunday.

and his phone rang, and it was Ron DeSantis, and he wanted to talk about the coronavirus. And Badachariah very much like DeSantis were kind of charting a slightly different course. And basically, I'm going to make this a little crude, but it's essentially masking doesn't really work. The only thing you can really do is protect the elderly, which DeSantis did from the get-go, protect the elderly and basically try to ride the virus out until a vaccine comes. But don't kid yourself. There's not that much that we can do about it. And so what followed from that, naturally, was keep the schools open, keep the government

offices open, keep the beaches open, keep the shopping malls open, and that's what Florida did, very, very different from, say, New York or California. And so I think the question is, is we can either have a free society or we can have a biomedical security state. And I can tell you, Florida, we're a free state. And how were it statistics? That's very, very interesting. I mean, kind of, you know, they went up and down and up and down. And he caught a lot of hell over the course of the pandemic. But today, in 2022, the numbers aren't bad. I mean, he's kind of Florida is in the middle when you look at, when you look at death rates. It's pretty much in the middle of the pack right next to California. So, you know, California,

down their entire economy, all their schools for two years. Florida kept everything open. So he's looking, he's looking better than he did. Now, another issue that's been crucial to his presence on the national scene is LGBTQ issues and how they're taught in schools. DeSantis has been out front on that. He passed a law a couple of months ago called the parental rights in education or the so-called don't-say gay law where he supported it. What's the deal there? Tell me what happened and what role DeSantis plays there. Well, I think, again, it's a DeSantis has become a master at picking these issues that get everyone excited. Hot button cultural issues. Super hot button, yeah.

And he's very, very good at sort of staking out a position and kind of pounding the table and saying, I'm not giving in to the liberals in the Northeast. One of the stunning things about this episode is that DeSantis goes to war against a war. a huge company in a state against Disney. It's remarkable. And he appears not to have suffered for it politically, not yet. So describe the fight and what was the outcome? So they hate it when you say the don't say gay law, but that's how everybody understands it now,

so I'm going to use that. The legislature passes the law. He signs it. Disney's response initially in Orlando, Disney World, is tepid. And the employees, many employees at Disney World got angry at their CEO and said, this isn't enough. Like, we hate this. And so then the CEO came forward and condemned DeSantis and condemned the law.

And then DeSantis basically went after Disney. And, you know, Disney since it was built in the late 1960s, has basically had its own, basically it governs itself. If there's a fire at Disney World, Disney World, Disney around has put out the fire. And they have special accommodations in some ways. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, very. And they govern themselves, essentially. They are left alone.

And DeSanis just took that and threatened to zero out the entire special district for a Disney World, which would be an upheaval in that part of the state. I mean, not least among the local governments that suddenly would have to put out the fires in Disney World. Taxes would go up. I mean, it would be an upheaval. And he threatened to do it, and Disney got quiet. But not completely, but DeSantis didn't suffer for it. And it's just remarkable. And when you talk to, when you talk to ordinary, say, ordinary voters or people, his supporters, that's what they love about him.

You know, they would say, you know, any other politician would have caved into Disney. You know, would have backed down and said, I'm so sorry. And not Ron. So what's the purpose of the law in the first place? I hate to speculate as to his motives, but it made a lot of headlines. all across the country. And I think just the kind of headlines that he wants to make.

Which is, when you see him speak, he says, I'm anti-woke, I'm anti-elites, I'm against the press, I'm against the pin-ed politicians in Washington. And so he can position himself as very much as a kind of anti-elitist. He doesn't really need to do all that in Florida to win. I mean, he's got that constituency locked up anyway.

So it's all national politics? That's what it seems like. Like, I mean, I think his, every person I talk to who knows him says this is a deeply ambitious man. And he has had, he's had his eyes on the White House since he was in college and that every job he had was basically a stepping stone to the next one. This is the New Yorker Radio Hour. More to come. So you knocked on a lot of doors in the state of Florida in pursuit of a really deep peace on Ronda Santos. One of the doors you knocked on was on the door of the father of Ron DeSantis. Describe that encounter.

Well, you know, I had just come from the CPAC conference in Orlando where Ron Jr. spoke, pounding the table. And I thought... It's the conservative political action committee. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, it's the big gathering. And so I drove to Dunedin, the little town where they still live. I looked up his address. He was there.

I pulled over into a McDonald's and, like, changed into a nice, put out like a white shirt on and long pants. And I went with absolutely no expectation of success. I went and knocked on the door. And it's a... As we learned to do as young reporters many years ago. Yeah, you think there's no way he's going to come out and talk to me. He probably won't even be there. And Long Baldy did.

And he was wearing an FSU t-shirt. Looked like he hadn't shaved in a couple of days, barefoot shorts. Nicest guy in the world. I mean, absolutely, really nice. Didn't really want to talk to me at first. I'm a little suspicious. I'll be frank with you. But then we had a really nice talk about his son.

How did he characterize him? He said, he set up more than once. He said, well, Ron is stubborn. And he gave a really, he told a very funny story about him, which was, you know, Ron's a very good baseball player. And my gosh, I must have thrown a half million pitches to him when he was young, right out there in the front yard. And I think he only swung of 500 of them.

He likes to walk. In terms of character, the guy you describe here is not exactly a winning personality in the standard sense. There's a moment that you describe in the piece where Desanthus is sparring with the CNN reporter named Rosa Flores over the vaccine rollout in Florida. Let's listen to you. What has gone wrong with the rollout of the vaccine that we've seen phone lines jammed, websites crashing? There's a lot of demand. I mean, I think at the end of the day, excuse me, excuse me. If I could finish my question. You just said, what has gone wrong? So I'm answering the question. If I could complete the question, though. So are you going to give a speech or are you going to ask a question?

With all due respect, Governor, I'm trying to answer it. I'm trying to finish my question. You're not, no, you're giving a speech. You're asking how many questions? You're trying to ask how many questions. You get three? They only got one question. Why do you get three? With all due respect, Governor, I'm just asking if I could finish my question. You didn't, you finished the question. I did not. My full question is what. went wrong with the rollout of the vaccine when we've seen phone lines jammed websites so you're repeating your question to complete it for you governor we've seen websites crash and also senior citizens waiting overnight for the vaccine where was that at we've seen it in duval broward orange and lee county why was like in lee why did that happen did you investigate why that's my question to you governor you're the governor of the state i'm not the governor of the state. Okay, but you didn't investigate why that, like in Lee County, why was there a big line?

Did you, did you investigate why? Could you tell us why? Because we, we distributed vaccine to hospitals and the hospital said, first come first serve, if you show up, we'll do it. So they didn't use a registration system. There wasn't anything that was done. And there's a lot of demand for it. So people are going to want to go ahead and get it. So are you saying there was no plan then from the state to make sure that senior citizens didn't wait outside overnight? So the state is not dictating the hospitals how we're not dictating to Carlos Magoya how he runs his operations here. That would be a total disaster. These guys are much more competent to be able to deliver health care services than a state government. God, that's amazing. What struck you about that moment, Dex? Well, he won't let up.

I mean, it just goes on and on and on and on. And he keeps interrupting her and he will not let her finish and he will not let her ask the question. And he doesn't stop. I mean, it just, he must have interrupted her 15 times. And I think the key to that is he knows he's not going to get CNN. He doesn't care about CNN. And what does he care about? He cares about, you know, imagine a typical Trump voter watching that on TV saying, man, beat up the CNN reporter, you know, this is great. Stick it to them. And I think he's got that down to a science. Well, and Fox has had a huge role in DeSantis's assent. You did a public records request and got a lot of emails between Fox News and DeSantis's office.

you learned from those emails? It's pretty amazing. It's basically a symbiotic relationship. It's kind of, you know, DeSantis needs Fox to become a national figure. Fox needs somebody to replace Trump. They kind of find each other. And so over the course of the emails, they're each suggesting programs to the other. They're practically writing the questions for each other.

They're saying, God, that was great. You know, we should make you a host of our show. And so it's, it is so close that, you know, the idea of kind of, kind of, the traditional idea of journalism, which is you keep your distance, journalists keep their distance from politicians. I mean, that's all gone. Not so much. Yeah. And what's been the impact of his appearances on Fox? Is it quantifiable? I think so. It's quantifiable in the polls, which are, he is now far ahead of any of the potential Republican nominee for the presidential election. And I think that's, with the exception of Trump. And there is some speculation that he may

actually run against Trump if Trump doesn't drop out. What is that relationship like? I think the most positive characterization I got of it was that it was complicated. They have a complicated relationship. In English, that means they hate each other. I think so. As I was told, Trump believes, with some justification, that he created DeSantis. He endorsed him during the primary, and DeSantis, who had been far behind kind of just took off and won the nomination. And so I think former President Trump expects a little bit of deference and a little bit more gratitude than he's been getting from DeSantis. As somebody put it to me, Ron refuses to kiss his ring. Or anything else.

If you had to pick one moment or one scene in the governor's career that exemplifies his political stature, his importance, the way he comports himself, what might it be? I think it would be actually the moment with the CNN reporter. That's it in a nutshell. What about the scene where he kind of yelled at a kid? Remember this? That's a remarkable scene. He was going to Tampa to announce, I think, you know, greater funding for a cybersecurity education. And so he gets up on the podium and there's like a line of kids behind him, college kids.

And they've all got masks on. And DeSantis turns to them without cracking a smile. I mean, there's no irony. And he says, take your masks off. And he talks about, I've had enough COVID theater. You do not have to wear those masks. I mean, please take it. Honestly, it's not doing anything.

And we've got to stop with this COVID's theater. So if you want to wear it, all right, but this is ridiculous. He's angry. He's, like, actually angry at these kids. And you can hear kind of nervous laughter in the background. Like, people are like, wow, is the governor joking? And when it becomes clear that he's not joking, some of the kids take their masks off, they don't know what to do.

And this is a winning strategy? That's the thing. I mean, you have to ask yourself. You have to ask yourself. Does anger, how many angry candidates have been elected president of the United States? I can think of one. Dexter, thank you. Thanks, David.

Staff writer Dexter Filkins. His profile of Florida governor, Ron DeSantis, appears in this week's New Yorker. I'm David Remnick. Thanks for listening to The New Yorker Radio Hour. See you next time. The New Yorker Radio Hour is a co-production of WNYC Studios and The New Yorker. Our theme music was composed and performed by Merrill Garvis of Tune Arts, with additional music by Alexis Quadrato and Louis Mitchell. This episode was produced by Alex Barron, Emily Boutin, Avae Carrillo, Breda Green, Calilea, David Krasnow, Louis Mitchell, and Gauphin and Putabwele.

With help from Alison McAdam, David Gable, Harrison Keithline, Alex Barish, Victor Gwan, and Meng Faye Chen. We had additional help this week from Michael May. The New Yorker Radio Hour is supported in part by the Cherina Endowment Fund.