Okay, they just joined. They're just now starting. So I was been waiting for this moment. Here it is: let's listen to be partners or on-prem with Dell Helix Whether on a leading, let's leave that and one sec waiting to get this loaded standby.

Oh yeah, David Sacks did just talk. Now he's stopped talking, waiting, waiting waiting anyway. So you've got David Sacks here. He's a speaker.

Ron DeSantis is in. They're all muted right now. All right. Sorry about that.

We we've got so many people here that I think we are. we are, uh, kind of melting the servers. uh, which is a good sign. Um, all right.

I'd like to just introduce the the uh, the folks in in the room here, so it's safe to say we wouldn't be making history without the man sitting next to me. Elon Musk His decision to purchase this platform last year to restore to its original Mission as a beacon for free speech and even to expose Twitter's past Simplicity with a government censorship regime might have surprised many, but not those of us who've known to work with Iran for nearly a quarter Century somebody's double feeding it in their Twitter spaces I Think that's Elon Honestly, go ahead and send a heart up if you want to say thank you Elon thank you uh Governor DeSantis First Drew My attention and support when I saw how he responded to the covet pandemic and refused to believe what we now know to be the many falsehoods that government experts their media mouthpieces were feeding us. He kept Florida schools open and this economy thriving while my state of California chose two years of learning loss and lockdowns that we have yet to full. Come on folks.

Twitter Let's go Twitter they're having some problems. Let's see if I can. Yeah, you're getting. you got problems with people even trying to join the spaces right now it just says cannot touch space All right.

Well, that's Brewing where's DeSantis this? They're literally crashing the servers with how many people are trying to listen to the space. Okay, well anyway, so Ron DeSantis is expected to make his uh, presidential announcement here. and uh, everything is basically freaking out because there are like 300 000 people trying to uh, listen in on this David Sacks who was just doing the introduction. it is not even listed as a speaker anymore so it looks like he just got Dc'd Oh, let's see, so here we are.

Yeah I think so. Um, just to simplify this, Oh did Elon Justice Oh wow, this is sad it's time for Twitter to get some Nvidia chips I'm tweeting that it's really interesting people alone. All right. great.

So let's see. I agree with that. a just a massive number of people online so it's um, service restraining somewhat. Um, okay.

okay this I guess we're just we'll just hang out Man, you know we could attack more about Nvidia uh scientist is crashing Twitter yeah he has to be loving this. Oh man, 412 finals. It's soon to be 420 000 people in this. I'm not getting any feed right now either.

So I mean we have the feed. We got it up in two places. There we go, right? We're just, uh, reallocating more server capability. uh to be able to handle load here.

It's really going going crazy. So um, yeah, um I'm actually very excited to um, have uh coverage. Santa's uh, make this. Uh well.

dude. another like 80 000 people just joined. We're at 464 000 people. Another 80 000 people joined in.

just like the last three minutes. Well, it's entertaining, you know. Elon does promise entertainment? Okay, this is great PR for DeSantis Former Prime minister Imran Khan Just saw them talking about the santis there for a second. Come on.

Elon get it up. They need to just stop people from coming in. just close it down so you could actually function for the people who are in it. You know that's what um, what's it called used to do Clubhouse Oh I Can't believe I stopped talking.

but Nvidia to come watch a server crash I Literally just learned all about Nvidia taking over the world of servers and how great they are and now I'm watching service fail in real time I'm watching the failure. Uh uh. come on step bro. get it up.

Um yeah. 519 000 dude. another sixty thousand people just joined this. You just cut it off man.

I can't do anything. This is so good for Ronnie D Ude Oh my gosh, maybe it should be streamed on YouTube Well, you should just uh. we'll just hang out together. Uh, we could answer some questions I Suppose no nobody knows Florida better than I do I did grow up in South Florida for 16 years Biden's probably running a DDOS attack I Think this is great for Ron It's not Ron's fault that you know Elon can't get it up right now.

This is fantastic for Ronnie D 535 000 people in here. potentially more just because it doesn't even update, but 570 000 right now. Holy crap. If this doesn't show you like this what we're going into the next year I Don't know what does like for the next 10 years it's all going to be about servers like this.

shows you what Antiquated server technology looks like I know I trimmed a little bit of Nvidia too and I'm like kicking myself in the ass. But that's all right, you know? uh uh. somebody here donate ten dollars to say such a terrible idea to kick off on Twitter spaces. uh uh yeah, not tested for this kind of audiences I Mean that's that is true.

That is true. Yeah, we're 592 000 people. now. you know, maybe if another 500 000 people join, maybe then it'll work.

Uh ugh Nvidia said AI 101 times Nice. Well yeah, let's I wonder if Trump is Tweeting or rather, uh, untruth social saying anything about this that would actually be kind of funny. Let's pull it up. Truth Social I can put it up on screen too if you say anything.

Uh, five minutes ago Donnie T posted a video of DeSantis 628 000 in the space. Now this is what: Donnie T posted five minutes ago Um, big time in his primary race for Governor of Florida polls revealed DeSantis was failing so bad he was losing by a staggering 17 points. Then DeSantis was saved by the endorsement of President Trump Trump Support was so powerful just days after the endorsement DeSantis took a commanding lead that propelled him to being elected governor. I'd like to thank our president for standing by me when it wasn't necessarily the smart thing to do.

You're welcome Ron Unfortunately, instead of being grateful, DeSantis is now attacking the very man who saved his career. Isn't it time to? Santis remembers how he got to where he is. Make America great again, build the wall then Mr Trump said you're fired I Love that part. Truth is there's only one person who can make America great again.

I'm Donald J Trump and I approve this message dude. Donald Taking the W again with just like the timing of this, it's like Ronnie D can't make his announcement because Elon Musk can't get it up and then what happens Donald releases this total attack piece on Rodney D At the same time basically trying to take credit for his whole career. Oh my gosh, this is hilarious. Uh yeah, there's there's nothing to hear on Twitter right now.

But what a day man. Yes, he exactly what a day on. No kidding, huh? Oh, the Spaces has ended. They gave up.

They gave up. This one says it's still up. This: the phone says the Spaces has ended. The one here says it's still I'm still in it All right.

So I have two. Oh man, let's see what else is. uh Donnie up to let's see here. Oh of course.

then he shows, uh, pulls polls about how he's at 69 and Ronnie dies at 13 percent just going after him on through social right now. this is funny. It's just entertaining. All right.

Play recording. Dude, there was there was nothing. Yeah, look why would you post the recording? Let's clip it. That recording was so good we should clip it.

Okay, well Elon this is. uh, this is the worst I've seen Twitter Crash. uh again. great for Ron DeSantis Everyone else is sitting around trying to get this event to play, but there is no event because they can't get it up on Twitter Yeah, it'd be really funny if they're like hey, let's just join.

You know, let's just invite them to join my live stream. Yeah, that'll work. um hey. such as it's kind of mean though.

uh DeSantis hey Elon Musk and Ron DeSantis We got a great audience standing by for this. Want to hop on YouTube DM for link up on YouTube stream while servers recover cover. There we go and let's throw a tag in there Twitter Crash. All right.

So standing by I sent that tweet, maybe you could retweet it and it'll it'll uh, it'll work. Maybe they'll come in I might suppose We'll just stand by for a moment here and we'll wait to see if this, uh, if this goes live again I Think what they ought to do is, uh, just limit the capacity of how many people can go in this given that there was no uh, uh uh, you know, uh, functional stream here. but yeah, I'm sending people here to lighten the load on the Twitter servers. Oh I appreciate that.

Yeah, I see, but I don't think YouTube I mean like I've had probably I mean I haven't had 500 000 like this here. but I've had uh, like 80 000 people on the stream at a time and it's been kind of cool. hasn't crashed over here on YouTube so a little bit of a fail oh is is David the stream's back is David hosting now. Okay, let's go to Sax.

Uh Sax. Oh yeah, here we go here. we go. It's listening.

They're just getting started I hear someone typing. Sax is typing Max wants to know what companies are undervalued Nvidia All right I Think we're broadcasting Yes man. I think we melted the internet there. yeah that was insane.

sorry we uh actually doing this from uh David Sax's Twitter account. uh because uh it looks like doing it from mine basically broke the Twitter system. um anyway thanks everyone for joining. Uh, we're incredibly excited to announce uh if you want to have uh coming to Santa's uh on with us with just a historic announcement um and I look forward to a live Q A from uh the audience so uh yeah with that yeah I mean so uh Governor Santos uh can are you there? can you hear us I think I'm here I know I think I think you broke the internet there We had over half a million people in one Twitter space and it was growing by like 50 000 a minute.

So uh congrats on uh on Breaking the internet there? well yeah yeah I mean try some you know new things that you you're gonna yes uh it's adventurous so yes um so I think the the value here is actually really high for people to hear directly from presidential candidates and to uh answer our q a live and you can get a sense for what how a candidate really is. you know and where it's not just canned speeches and uh teleprompters. uh it's uh in fact you can tell by the you know some of the mistakes that that it's real Yeah so um you know with with that I I guess I should turn it over to um yeah Well let's see. So yeah.

Governor There's been a lot of speculation over the last couple of months about your your plans. um I Understand that you may have an announcement to make. We've got I think a record audience assembled here. Uh, you know, probably the biggest uh room that's probably ever been assembled online.

Uh, what would you like to tell them? Well I am running for President of the United States to lead our Great American comeback. Look, we know our country's going in the wrong direction. We see it with our eyes and we feel it in our bones. Our Southern borders collapse, drugs are pouring into the country, our cities are being hollowed out by spiking crime, the federal government's making it harder for the average family to make ends meet, and to attain and maintain a middle-class lifestyle.

and our president? well, he lacks Vigor flounders in the face of our nation's challenges and he takes his cues from the woke mob I Don't think it has to be this way. American Decline is not inevitable. It is a choice and we should choose a new Direction a path that will lead to American revitalization. We must restore sanity to our nation.

This means embracing fiscal and economic sanity. Stop pricing hard-working Americans out of a good standard of living through inflationary, borrow print and spending policies and please embrace American Energy Independence This also means replacing the woke mind virus with reality facts and enduring principles. Merit Must Trump Identity politics. We must return normalcy to our communities.

America Is a sovereign country, Our borders must be respected. We cannot have foreigners pouring into our country illegally by the millions. We cannot allow drug cartels to poison our population with fentanyl. Public deserve safe communities and Law and Order must be maintained in American cities.

We can't have inmates running the Asylum And we must reject attacks on the men and women of law enforcement. We also must re-establish Integrity in our institutions. this includes the military I'm proud to be a Navy veteran and Iraq veteran and I Revere our services. but when revered institutions like those in our military, are more concerned with matters not Central to the mission, whether it's global warming or gender ID biology and pronouns.

morale declines and recruiting suffers and you need to eliminate these distractions. And we need to get focused on the core. Mission We also cannot have true constitutional government if the most significant issues are decided by the whims of unelected bureaucrats rather than the people's elected representatives. Re-establishing Integrity in our institutions means we must reinvigorate our constitutional system by returning the government to its rightful owners.

We The People no social or Eco transformation without representation. Truth needs to be our foundation. Common Sense can no longer be an uncommon virtue, and in Florida we proved it could be done. We chose facts over fear, education over indoctrination.

Law and Order over rioting and disorder. We held the line when Freedom hung into balance and we're thriving as a result. Florida is the nation's fastest growing State We're number one in net in migration, number one in new business formations recently ranked number one in education. We have a 50-year low crime rate one of the lowest tax in debt per capita in America But we also understand governing is not entertainment.

It's not about building a brand or virtue, signaling, it is about delivering results. And our results in Florida have been: Second To None We can and we must deliver big results for America I Pledge to be an energetic executive that will take on the important issues. Biden's pursued inflationary policies that are hurting working people. We will reverse those policies and we'll build an economy where working Americans can achieve a good standard of living.

Biden's opened the southern border and allowed massive amounts of drugs to pour into the country. We'll shut down the Border construct the border wall and hold the drug cartels accountable bidens Embrace medical authoritarianism such as unconstitutional covid vax mandates. We will ensure that those violations of Liberty can never happen again. Biden's allowed Woke ideology to drive his agenda.

We will never surrender to the Woke mob and we will leave Woke Ideology in the dust bin of History. Biden's also politicized the military and caused recruiting to plummet. We will eliminate ideological agendas from our military Focus The military on the core Mission and we will reverse the poor recruiting trends. Finally, Biden's weaponized the power of the administrative state to advance his left-wing agenda.

We will reconstitutionalize the Executive branch and we'll bring the administrative state to heal. Now you can't do any of that. If you don't win, there is no substitute for victory. We must.

Then the culture of losing that has infected the Republican party in recent years. the tired dogmas of the past are inadequate for a vibrant future. We must look forward backwards. We need the courage to lead and we must have the strength to win and to voters who are participating in this primary process.

My pledge to you is this: if you nominate me, you can set your clock to January 20th 2025 at High Noon Because on the west side of the U.S Capitol I will be taking the oath of office as the 47th President of the United. States No excuses. I Will get the job done now. These past few years have given me a new new appreciation for the fragility of our freedoms.

I Never thought I would see things in America that we saw during the Covid-19 pandemic, but our founding fathers were keenly aware of the fragility of Freedom when they framed our constitution. They came to arm with having studied the history of every Republic in the history of mankind and they noticed that all of those experiments only had one thing in common and it was this. Every single one of them had failed and so they knew it fell to our country. The United States of America to determine whether people could really govern themselves, Could we have a society based on the idea that our rights are god-given not government granted and that was Society functions based on the rule of law, not the rule of individual men.

And when Dr Benjamin Franklin walked out of that convention, he was asked, did you deliver a republic or a monarchy He said a republic if you can keep it They knew Freedom didn't run on autopilot. They knew each generation would have a responsibility to safeguard freedom and it's our responsibility to do so at this important juncture in our nation's history, we have a lot of work to do to ensure the country gets back on track. I Ask everybody listening to please join me on this. Mission Please invest in our campaign by going to Ron Desantis.com and making a donation.

Thank you God bless and I look forward to the discussion. Okay, all right, thank you I Have to say it's a little boring without video. Man, this just feels a little weak the first. uh follow-up uh here.

Thank you for putting up with these technical issues. I Think we're definitely breaking new ground here as far as I know. Uh, no major presidential candidate has ever announced uh, their their, uh, their candidacy uh on social media this way certainly in a in a Twitter space. So thank you for doing that.

Uh, what made you want to kind of take the chance of doing it this way as opposed to just doing it on cables or the the usual way. Well, when Covid hit I had to make decisions about do you go with the crowd or do you look at the data yourself and cut Against the Grain and I chose to do the latter I faced huge blowback uh for doing that from the bureaucracy from Elites from the media. but my view was I had to look out for the people I represented prefer protecting their jobs over trying to safeguard my own political hide. but it was very, very lonely and a lot of those decisions and part of the reason it was so lonely is because there was a concerted effort to try to stifle dissent.

There was an official narrative about lockdowns about closing schools, about Force masking about all these different things that we had to navigate during Covid and it was an Orthodoxy being enforced by the major Tech Platforms in conjunction with the Federal government. And if we can't have an honest debate in a free country about issues that affect hundreds of millions of people like lockdowns, then what good is the First Amendment at that point? Those are precisely the times when we needed to have debate be robust. You should not be taking down articles that criticize uh, those Draconian policies. And yet that's exactly what happened.

So it occurred to me that if that had continued uh I think free speech in this in this country uh was on its way out the door and so when Elon Musk stepped up to purchase Twitter uh, he paid a lot of money for it. Uh, and I'm sure because he's a good businessman Elon I'm sure you'll you'll end up making money off it. But the bottom line is, you had to put your money where your mouth is. Uh, because I think you recognize that uh, you can't have a free Society uh unless we have the freedom to debate the most important issues that are affecting our civilization.

That did not happen during Covid, the truth was uh censored repeatedly and now that Twitter is in the hands of of a free speech Advocate Uh, that would not be able to happen again on this Twitter platform. So I think what was done with Twitter is really significant for the future of our country. We cannot have a society in which government is colluding with major Tech platforms to enforce an Orthodoxy Well, thank you. Um, yeah, we're absolutely committed to freedom of speech.

and Level Playing Field Um, and just a vigorous debate and uh, hopefully uh, this can be a platform that uh, brings people of Divergent political views, uh to exchange those views and and perhaps some Minds will be changed one way or the other. and um, but it's just incredibly important as you as you highlight that that the First Amendment is irrelevant if uh, all the media and all the and the government are operating in Lockstown. it's uh, it makes you know the most important Amendment the one that was most urgently added to the Constitution Um, moot if you if you cannot have a free and open debate. Um, so Twitter was indeed expensive.

Uh, but free speech is priceless. Oh awesome. Um, thank you. So uh, Governor Let me I'm going to ask some questions while we get some other uh, kind of speakers in the queue to ask questions.

Um, I think maybe some people knew this announcement was coming because there's been no shortage of hip pieces on you. Yeah, in the Press over the last week or two, I want to ask you about some of these accusations that are being uh, leveled at you. Uh, last week, uh, the NAACP issued a travel advisory against Florida State claiming that Florida is not a safe place for minorities to visit. Uh, what do you say to those who've been advised that somehow they aren't welcome in your state? Claiming that Florida is unsafe is a total farce.

I Mean are you kidding me? You look at cities around this country, they are Awash in crime in Florida Our crime rate is at a 50-year low. You look at the top 25 cities for crime in America Florida does not have a single one amongst the top 25. And if you look at cities like Baltimore and Chicago you got kids more likely to get shot than to receive a first class education yet I Don't see the NAACP batting an eye about all the outrage and the Carnage that's happening in those areas. So this is a political stunt.

These left-wing groups have been doing it for many, many years and at the end of the day what they're doing is colluding with Legacy Media to try to manufacture a narrative. Now the good news is is fewer and fewer Americans are gullible enough to believe this dribble and platforms like Twitter are there where people can debunk these lies in real time and I would just say as an American citizen, if you are are uncritically accepting narrative spun by Legacy Media and left-wing groups, you're failing at your job of being a conscientious Citizen and I think people just see right through it. And oh by the way, have any of these travel advisories Because they've been doing this for for a while. All these left-bring groups have any of them worked well.

We're the number one state for net in migration and have been every year since I've been Governor We just tapped the highest quarter for tourism in the history of the State of Florida and our view is we want everybody to succeed regardless of their skin color. We don't divvy up people by race at the same time. It is worth pointing out that we have in Florida more black owned businesses than any state in the nation and we've also had more African-Americans lead state agencies under my Administration than at any time in Florida history. But with us, you know they're there because of Merit, not because we're trying to play identity politics.

And if you want to look at education, uh, the black students in the in Florida perform much higher than black students in most other states. We rank number three in fourth grade reading and number two in fourth grade math amongst our black student population. And oh, by the way, the head of the NAACP lives in Florida and a lot of their board members have put out on social media during my governorship Florida vacations where they seem to be having an awful good times. Um, that's great.

Um, well I mean Farm's great state and I think the the people people realize that, um, the the some of the things that are being said are just truly absurd. Um, I mean I I Saw some headline from the Atlantic Uh, basically claiming that anyone who listens, listens to this uh, spaces on Twitter is basically a Nazi um so uh or yeah Vanity Fair said that uh, that you were, you were uh, hosted or interviewing because David Duke wasn't available. Oh yes, although I'm not totally sure who they were saying was. David Duke I don't know if it was you or Governor DeSantis is sort of a little bit unclear, but uh, but I think this is a function of these the Legacy Media these corporate journals.

they're in their little bubble and to to draw Illusions to stuff like that I mean how crazy do you have to be but in their little bubble, it sounds like they're making some type of profound point and so part part of I think what this order is standing for is people should be exposed to different viewpoints and I think the Elites in our society have tried to Cluster themselves to where their assumptions are never challenged and that's not a good way. I think to live. It's also not a good way to to be a critical thinker because no one's ever gonna question, uh, obviously wrong assumptions because everybody around you shares them absolutely. and I think they become totally hysterical because they don't like the idea that their control over the media is being.

you know, just intermediated. yeah because now you know candidates for a president can just speak directly to people through platforms like Twitter yeah I mean the the amazing thing about Twitter and things like spaces are that um, although I happen to be hosting it it well I I had to switch over to David hosting it because my account was actually too much interest, but my account was breaking the system. Um, but uh, it's it's uh, it's really never been a a mechanism before where someone could address the nation or anyone who wanted to listen to them could from from anywhere in the world. Uh, the United States or anywhere.

So this is a I think this is a really profound uh change. Um, and it's also like the it's not just whether the media reports something uh, an article is is true or not. Uh, even more powerful is deciding what the narrative is and so uh, you know. So just like if there's only so much you can actually fit in newspaper, um, or a magazine and what.

and there's only one thing you really put on on the cover of magazines. So uh, that that whoever's deciding that is is deciding to not talk about other things. Um, whereas with a public digital Town Square like we have here is possible for the public to choose the narrative, it empowers the people instead of a very tiny Elite cabal which I don't recognize the irony of using that phrase, but but nonetheless, it's it's true. uh, um and judged by the results that uh, this is a means for the people to decide the narrative and for the people to decide uh What uh, you know which way a debate will go.

Um, not. sort of five editors and Chiefs of a few newspapers. Basically, yeah. and I think.

One of the really crazy things that happened during Covet is that that Social Networks really started censoring dissenting viewpoints on Covid medical viewpoints that ended up being totally correct in in lockstep with what the mainstream media was doing. So basically big Tech platforms were undermining their main reasons for existing, which is giving people a choice and actually there's somebody who I think knows more about that than any of us. which is Dr Jay Bhattacharya who's a professor of medicine at Stanford I Want to pull him in here? Uh Jake You go and mute yourself if you can. Uh, it'd be great to to hear from you.

um I Know that during Covid you worked with Governor DeSantis It'd be great just to hear a little bit about your interactions. and if you have a question for the governor, yeah, thank you. David yeah I mean it was. uh, it was an absolute honor to work with.

uh with Governor uh DeSantis and I was really impressed by his decision making in the face of of an absolute Firestorm of criticism. Uh, but he you know Governor you did the right thing when you opened the schools and uh my kids in California for a year and a half didn't see the inside of a classroom whereas Florida kids were in school and you can see in the results in the learning loss numbers are so much better in Florida Uh I I I'm really curious Governor Um, you know, as you're running for president, what are your thoughts about reforming? Uh, you know the the Public Health Authority in the United States and the federal government that you know the CDC the FDA the NIH How do you see reforms we need so that the mistakes of the lockdowns have that happened during the pandemic don't happen again when there's another pandemic? Well first, we need an honest Reckoning About what happened during Covet and the only honest Reckoning is that all of those agencies all of the elites, the public health establishment they failed. They instituted bad policies. Uh, obviously it's a novel virus, but I think what happened was when the data was becoming more and more apparent that the path they were on was wrong.

They doubled down and wanted to do it even more and I really believe had Florida not just kind of stood in the way I think this country would have had rolling lockdowns for probably a two-year period And So their impulses were authoritarian, they were not following the data and I think the U.S government needs to acknowledge the failures and I think all of those agencies need to be cleaned out. What I saw just dealing with them was I saw a interest in the narrative and in politics over evidence-based reasoning and evidence-based medicine. And so I don't have confidence that those agencies are up to the task. And I think you need major major overhaul of the whole enchilada with respect to Public Health In this country, can I so can I follow up with that with that? I mean I think the um the the other thing that I saw during the pandemic, Governor and you you uh, was subject to it just as much as I was when we were talking about Covid YouTube censored a video of us speaking about in a round table that you hosted on Covet Policy.

Uh, there's so much of the federal government infrastructure went into suppressing honest scientific discussion during the pandemic. So it's not just Public Health agencies, but other agencies inside the federal government that worked to suppress the speech of Americans and I'd love to hear your question, no question. So I'm actually in Florida We we recognize that the danger there. So I'm actually going to be signing a digital Bill of Rights for Florida pretty soon, which will bar all state and local government officials from colluding or working with a technology company for the purpose of censorship of speech because you're exactly right.

You had people in the White House You had people and all these other agencies uh, working with these platforms forms to try to take it down. and oh, by the way, what did they censor Dr Bhattacharya for? It was a Roundtable discussion that I led and convened. We had Dr Bhattacharya MD PhD from Stanford, we had Martin Caldorf from Harvard Medical School and we had Cynetra Gupta from Oxford who was generally viewed as one of the best epidemiologists across the pond until she became anti-lockdown So these are all eminent people and what are we discussing? We're discussing whether there's any scientific basis to force a school child to wear a mask for eight hours a day. They all agreed there was no basis to do it and that you should not have school Mass mandates YouTube Thought that that was quote anti-science and that that should be taken down.

But even at that point, we had already had enough experience in Florida where you had some schools that had done it before. before the state banned the mandates, you had some schools that had done it. some schools didn't and the results were no different. and yet his video was taken down by Google YouTube So it was a huge, huge problem.

And yes, I think the Federal Government FBI DHS any of the health agencies. it's unconstitutional for them to be delegating speech restriction to a private company. You can't do indirectly what the Constitution would clearly forbid you to do directly. Nice.

Let me let me pull in. Uh, we have. uh Congressman Thomas Massey Oh, you're there. Uh, Twitter Go ahead and unmute yourself.

I Mean what we're talking about here is I think really unconstitutional actions by federal agencies uh Congressman Massey I Know that you've been involved in in, uh, this problem of you know, government agencies being weaponized uh and and used against the American people in an appropriate way. Uh, do you have a comment on this? Uh, and do you have a question for governor DeSantis Well, first of all, let me say uh, a big thank you to Elon Musk for buying Twitter and exposing all of this Uh yeah, on our weaponization committee. We wouldn't know so much of it if he hadn't done this almost as a public service to the First Amendment Um, it's a disturbing Trend It's government. As the Governor said, the government is colluding with big corporations.

We found out this week from an FBI whistleblower that Bank of America voluntarily gave names of and and uh, information on anybody who bought a hot dog in Washington DC from January 5th to January 7th and then overlaid that with gun purchases that they had on record anywhere in the country for any period of time and just they say, they voluntarily gave that to the FBI So that's disturbing to me. Uh, by the way, I've never met Elon Musk but I'm one of your biggest fans and the first Congressman to have a Tesla uh monster I'm on starlink and uh I would have bought a power wall but I'm off the grid and you wouldn't sell me one. So I had to make one with a wrecked Model S and it's been running our house for five years. but um, my my.

And just for the record, um I I as a I was with Thomas Uh, our first year is in Congress he's got the Tesla but his license plate is Kentucky coal so it's uh, he's probably one of the only people that have that in the country. Thanks for outing me Governor DeSantis Um, but no. So um Governor DeSantis My question to you is you know you served here in Congress for six years with me and um, why is it that Congress is so feckless at reigning in these government agencies and and what do you think we need to do? And if you were president, what what would you urge? Congress Or what bills would you like to see and sign to reign in this uh, you know, sort of overreach of government bureaucracy? Well first, I think there's a lot that the executive branch can do and I all I will say when it comes to these agencies, we'll put we'll We'll go into this a little bit more as the campaign goes on, but buckle up when I get in there because the the status quo is not acceptable. Um, and we are going to make sure that we reconstitutionalize this government and these agencies are totally out of control.

There's no accountability and we are going to bring that in a very big way now. Part of the reason it's gotten so bad: power's been Consolidated and effectively a fourth branch of government because Congress hasn't used its two main powers that it has under the Constitution. First, the power of the purse. If an agency is gauging in conduct that is outside the realm of what is legal or you think it's not good for the public interest, then you can remove the funding for those for those operations.

Um, there's nothing that they're not entitled to get the same level of funding every year. And yet Congress runs the government on autopilot either continuing resolutions or massive Omnibus spending bills. So these agencies are all bulletproof. They know that they're going to end up getting something similar or more every single year, and it creates an incentive for them to to abuse their power.

The other thing you you can do is actually legislate, so you're not delegating to the bureaucracy. Key issues regarding how to enforce federal law You should Define What you want. All they should be doing is implementing. instead.

Congress will basically give an invitation for the bureaucracy to make really important substantive decisions. And so Congress may never vote on something and the bureaucracy will cite a law from 20 years ago and do things that are going to transform our society or our country. That is not the way the Founding Fathers Drew up the Constitution so would you sign the Reins act? We passed it out a Judiciary today. Oh yeah, no yeah.

Great chat for that. I Also think that we're going to have a good chance to see some of the Chevron deference uh, really curtailed or maybe even eliminated based on the U.S Supreme Court's upcoming jurisprudence. and I Think that's another reason why the bureaucracy has become so powerful because courts have basically been told they can pretty much do what they want and and courts are supposed to just defer I Don't think that that's actually correct I Think the courts they have to make a judgment about what does the law actually say and you can't just defer to quote-unquote experts in the bureaucracy. Thank you.

All right, shifting gears Governor I Want to ask you another topic that's been in the news a lot is: Disney Uh, they blamed you for canceling plans for a billion dollar investment in Florida said it would. they were canceling 2 000 jobs I Saw other reports that suggested Disney was going to make the cuts anyway. Uh, and due to a larger, you know, budget cutting initiative? uh, regardless of why they did it, uh, why do you feel your fight with Disney remains important? Uh, considering you already beat them on the parental rights bills they opposed. And what would you say to some of your opponents in this race who argue that the fight has dragged on too long.

So first of all, Florida stands for the Protection of children. We believe jamming gender ideology in elementary school is wrong. Disney obviously supported injecting gender ideology in elementary school. They did oppose our parents rights legislation and the fact is, when they opposed it, that was a big deal because for 50 years anytime Disney wanted something in Florida politics, they pretty much got it.

but not this time I signed the bill. We did as you say, went on the issue. but what happened was Disney's posturing. Some of the other statements that their Executives were making kind of the corporate culture had really been outed as trying to inject matters of sex into the programming for the Youth and I think a lot of parents including me look at that and say that's not appropriate I mean we want our kids to be able to just be kids and that's kind of our Mantra So you had this this setup that Disney engineered many decades ago where they actually had their own government that they controlled with no accountability.

They were exempt from the laws that all their competitors had to follow massive tax breaks, and they even racked up Municipal debt and Florida basically put them on a pedestal many decades ago and joined the state with this one company at the hip. We just didn't feel that that we were comfortable maintaining that relationship and so we ended their self-governing status. So Disney has to live under the same laws as everybody. They got to pay the same taxes as everybody and obviously they'll be responsible for those debts.

So the reason why there's a quote fight is just because they filed a lawsuit against the State of Florida trying to get their special privileges reinstituted. but I don't think that that's good good policy. and I think some of these Republicans that are taking Disney side uh, they're basically showing themselves to be corporatists because these are all corporate goodies. Uh, this is not the way you would run a competitive economy and the the arrangement had really outlived its usefulness.

But it but it persisted because cause Disney was so politically powerful. I Think the company's ethos have changed in a way that's alienated a lot of people in our legislature and in Florida and so there was really no justification to keep it. But make no mistake, they're suing to try to get special privileges people are making money in Florida hand over fist because we have a great business climate that's not good enough for them. They want to be treated differently than Universal in Sea World and we don't think that that's appropriate.

So you know. I Think that they should withdraw the lawsuit. but obviously we're going to defend our actions because we think we have the right to do what we did. You know it's funny.

the the media used to criticize Republicans for being in the pocket of big corporations and now they're attacking you because you're not. Well, not only that, David it's interesting because the media in Florida for years had had hammered Disney and they would. They would point out like that this was this was not a good arrangement because you know Disney was not accountable to anyone I Mean when we when the state control board took over the this District the firefighters came to the board and they said hey, we weren't getting survivor benefits for for some of these widows and so the state control board actually paid out some of the benefits that they were getting stiffed on. There were a lot of people in Central Florida who were really thankful that there was some accountability being brought to bear because I mean you know it's human nature.

If there's no accountability over any individual or entity, of course they're going to behave differently than if you have a normal accountability. But the media was always very hostile to that. But just because I happened to be involved um, in bringing it back to reality and making sure that they were under the same laws. Well then all of a sudden they're running to Disney's defense.

I Mean are you kidding me? I Know, by the way on this project you know they had announced this many years ago they had not done anything for it but that is actually not in Reedy Creek So that was in a different part of Orlando and so none of the issues that are involved in their suit would have made would have made a difference there. Obviously as a publicly traded Corporation, you know they have a fiduciary duty to do what's best for their shareholders. so I'm assuming if they were in better Financial shape and they saw the project as lucrative, they would have gone forward with it. But I think clearly they've had some problems with their stock price and a lot of other issues and I'd also just finally point out nobody probably has made Disney more money than me because they were open during covet and they were closed in California and that went on for many, many months where literally I had all the theme parks in Florida opened in 2020.

People are going, it's safe, they're having fun and the California Parks were closed I think they were closed for over a year out in California so we were I Think a much better place to be doing business. Uh, certainly since I've been Governor that's a good point. It's a really good point. actually.

let me shift gears here to the topic of: Education I Want to pull Chris Ruffo into conversation, work with you on some initiatives I Think you know. One other thing that the mainstream media has I Think fast on is they've kind of started promoting this narrative that you want to ban books from school libraries. you refuse to teach kids about slavery or other unpleasant realities of American History Uh, or pretend that gay people don't exist? Um, many people I think in this room were now up to wow over 271 000 people. So uh, this is I think Totally unprecedented in terms of the numbers of people we have participating.

By the way: I think Twitter's working much better now I Think it crashed because when you multiply half million people in a room, buy an account with over 100 million followers. Yeah, which is Elon's account I think that great The scalability level. That was unprecedented, but with my meager followership, it seems to be working much better. Yeah, no, it's We have some scaling issues specifically related to my account.

Um, at one point in January uh, if I tweeted it above a certain size, uh, it would crash the service. Yeah, uh. and uh. and and then anyone else who was tweeting at the same time would lose their tweet as well.

Um, yes, you know you're breaking your ground when there are bugs and scaling issues. But anyway, back back to the question I was asking Governor DeSantis about education. The media has been. You know saying you're trying to ban books.

You're free to teach kids about slavery. You want to say that gay people don't exist? What? What is the truth of the matter for people who maybe have never heard from you before And then I want to pull Chris Ruffo in on this as well. Yeah, so the whole book fan thing is a hoax. There's not been a single book banned in the State of Florida.

You can go by or use whatever book you want. What we have done is empowered parents with the ability to review the curriculum to know what books are being used in school and then to ensure that those books match state standards and our age and developmentally appropriate. So for example, parents have flagged books in schools that, for example, teach middle school kids how to use sex apps that provide graphic depictions of sex acts and sex toys for people as young as fifth grade and so clearly that is not appropriate to be in a middle school classroom And so parents object and and the schools take them out. I Did a press conference that we called exposing the book ban hoax and before I had the parents come up.

before I spoke I just played the video that had the images of the books that the parents had objected being in their kids classroom and the local news had to cut the feed because they said it was too graphic. Well, if it's too graphic for the six o'clock news, how is it Okay for a sixth grader or a fifth grader and so nothing's being banned, They're basically ensuring that we make curation choices uh, that are consistent with state standards and on the the racial history. We eliminated critical race Theory from our K-12 schools. That was the right thing to do.

In other words, we're not going to take a kid who comes in um, at six years old and say they're an oppressor or oppressed based on what their race is. That's divisive. That's wrong. We're also not going to be teaching people to hate their country.

But what we are going to do is teach the accurate history. So in the same bill that banned Critical Race Theory we required teaching thoroughly about racial discrimination that occurred in American history and Florida's history standards require all of those subjects. From Slavery Reconstruct destruction, segregation. All of that to be taught and will continue to do that.

So I Think what you see is the the left and the media colluding on this. They don't want to actually defend what it is that we are actually legislating or regulating. Uh, so they create these hoaxes that somehow you don't want kids to learn uh, that slavery existed in America which is preposterous. No one actually defends the offending material and the question is, is, why are there people intent on trying to get this stuff into the classroom? Uh, and I think it's part of a political agenda.

So our our Mantra in Florida is the purpose of the schools is education not indoctrination? Yes. I think it's very inappropriate to have sex. Your quick notes from AOC Tweeted: we had more people join when I played Among Us Joe Biden tweeted uh, that his link actually works for donate to Joe Biden and Kamala Harris It's worth seeing a little bit of the drama. remember we're mad and so I think we're getting it right and I think almost invariably and Chris Ruffos had to deal with this too.

Uh, when they're trying to craft these narratives, you just peel back the onion. you realize that this is something they're Manufacturing Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. I mean uh, I Was actually on the impression that that there were some Books banned. So this is news to me.

Um, and they actually there was a the one this week was that Miami-Dade County took a book that was about like poems from um from I think like Biden's inauguration and they moved it um from elementary school library to Middle School library. The media tried to act like somehow this is being banned and you actually had Miami-Dade County Public Schools spokesperson have to come out and say there's nothing that's been banned or removed. It was basically just determined that this particular Uh book was better suited for middle school and so they put it in the middle school media center and the media tries to act like somehow that is offending. Uh, something with a with a book ban.

So um, but I think part of the reason that they're doing that is because you know there is actually a movement to ban books from like Amazon and some of these others. California Some municipalities have banned things like to Kill a Mockingbird What they're trying to do is see if some of these books pass a woke test and if they don't they are going against some of those books. whereas in Florida you can buy whatever book you want. That's a different question than what would be appropriate for a third grader or what would be appropriate for a sixth grader.

Government by definition has to make those choices about what type of curriculum we want to put in front of our students and the parents obviously have an important voice in that. absolutely. Well, in fact, a friend of mine Tim Urban who has a Blog called wait wait But Wine is really one of the most reasonable people on Earth and one of the most recent people I've ever met had a lot of trouble actually publishing his book simply because it debated uh, sort of sacred Cows of Work ideology um, but incredibly reasonable book. So um, but that that's that.

that is the kind of de facto book Banning and de facto book suppression. That that I see quite a lot of is is that Publishers are unwilling to take risks. Let me let me shift gears here for a second because I know we're running out of time. Um, we're supposed to end I think around four, but uh, sorry, he's a lot louder.

Thank you for giving us a little bit extra time here. Governor Uh, shifting gears To a major federal issue. immigration. Um, we see kind of I've seen these videos uh on social media and on TV of what looks like just Insanity at the border.

uh what? What is your take on what's going on there and how would you address that as president? Well I'd rebirth What? Biden's doing? You need to shut the border down. You should not be entertaining these. Asylum claims for people crossing illegally now Asylum is a legitimate thing, but these are people that, uh, when they come I mean they're being persecuted. These people come in overwhelmingly are economic migrants that are coming across many other different countries.

They should be applying for Asylum there if they were. You know, truly, um, uh, qualifying for that. Uh, but they're not. They know that if they just show up at the southern border and these are people all over the world uh that are coming illegally, they know that they will get a sheet of paper saying okay, come back for a court date in three years and they get released to the interior of our country.

It's an absolutely insane system, so we'll stop that. We will move on day one by declaring a National Emergency we will construct a border wall. We will make sure we have remain in Mexico and that we're not entertaining those claims in that way. And we really need to hold the Mexican drug cartels accountable because as they're facilitating a lot of this migration, they obviously make money off of it.

They treat a lot of these people very horribly as they're trafficking them through Mexico and into the United States And of course, the cartels have been responsible for moving massive amounts of fentanyl into this country and that's killing tens of thousands of Americans every year now. And what they're doing is they lace the other types of drugs with the fentanyl, so you may have like a teenage kid doing something they probably shouldn't do. But in Prior Generations would not have been fatal. And now if it's laced with fentanyl, you know these kids can overdose and die.

and so mothers are losing kids as a result of this fentanyl epidemic. and I just don't think you could allow these criminal organizations to continue poisoning our population. so it'll be a day. One issue: we will bring, uh, overwhelming amount of resources to deal with it and we are going to stop this.

Insanity Once and for all, there's a I think follow-up question on immigration from Steve Dace who is a national radio personality and um I think uh, important commentator in the great state of Iowa Steve Do you have a you have a comment or question I think you just need to unmute good old mute. If uh, Steve can unmute then we'll go ahead and ask him for a question. If not, um, we'll We'll keep rolling here. All right Three is going going all right.

sorry I'm there guys my bad. um first of all I want to Echo What? Congressman Massey said to Elon Um Elon if I put down money on January 1st 2022 that Twitter was going to be the last Bastion of free speech on Earth brother I'd be about as rich as you are on that BET right now I mean it's incredible what you have done here. Uh and the restoration of a lot of accounts of people that were truth tellers and were ran from here for telling the truth I Saw a meme the other day that said, of course you have scientific consensus when you censor all the scientists who disagree. So I wanted to just say first and foremost on behalf of a lot of grateful people around the country in the world.

Really? Uh, thank you very much for that. uh and the investment you made in that cause thank you. Um, a question is a follow-up to you Governor on this very issue with immigration. We have heard a lot over the years a lot Locker up drain the swamp go to build a beautiful wall Mexico is going to pay for it and crowds cheered and everybody loved it and Brands got built and nothing got done.

What? What is the is the bottom line assurance that you can make to the people that are listening right now all over the world and all over the country that you can actually do the agenda that you just articulated when others tweeted about it and talked about it, it then couldn't actually follow through. It's a great question because I shared that frustration I Think even my worst critics in Florida will acknowledge when I tell people I'm going to do something I don't I don't make promises or say I'm going to do something lightly I've thought it through and I know that I am going to follow through on what I tell People I'm gonna do so this is one. there will be follow through number two: I Understand the different leverage points that you would have under article two of the Constitution I studied that a lot of becoming Governor about Florida's Constitution doing the same thing for the Federal Constitution and you've got to know how to use your leverage uh, to advance what you're trying to accomplish. So for example, you know there's leverage that we can use uh vis-a-vis Mexico that I think presidents have not been not been willing to to do I think sometimes for political uh purposes.

uh but I'll look at okay, what are all the variety of options we can do? which buttons can I push and I will do that to be able able to bring this issue to a conclusion once and for all. we had hurricane Ian come through Southwest Florida Category four plus storm September of 2022 and it did a lot of damage but one of the things that did it knocked out a bridge going from the mainland to Pine Island and it severed the Sanibel Causeway in three different locations and the locals were being told it's going to take six months to get that stuff repaired and so they came to me even though these were not state-owned Bridges and they said can you help us and I said okay I'll do it So I got my guys together I said listen, no bureaucracy, no red tape and no excuses. Get it done. We need to open these Bridges back Pine Island Bridge Reopened three days later Sanibel Causeway opened two weeks after that way way ahead of schedule because we wouldn't take no for an answer and we wanted to make sure we got it done.

So for me, it is not a campaign uh, slogan that you get in and then forget about it I'm as an American citizen. If I wasn't running, this would be an issue that bothers me. I've put a lot of my Capital as Florida Governor involved in combating illegal immigration. We ban Sanctuary cities my first year We just did a strong anti-illegal immigration bill in Florida that's working I put Marine Assets in the Florida Keys to help the Coast Guard repel boats from places like Haiti I have people at the southern border right now helping Texas and we've even been able to relocate illegal aliens to places like Martha's Vineyard So I don't think any Governor has probably gone out of his way to do more to try to make an impact on this issue.

and I'm not going to take no for an answer. and I think our voters are sick of the empty promises they want to see action. Thank you Governor Well Governor I thought yeah I Saw a cover of Time Magazine this week and I think they were trying to do a negative story because they had you were sort of scowling in this portrait they made of you uh and in the article they call you uh that they compared you to the Terminator and I think insult but I thought it was kind of cool I thought it was a good thing because I think we need a cool-headed ruthless assassin to go in and basically take on the woke mob take on our out of control government and take on problems like the ones at the border. So again, I thought it made you sound great even though that may not have been their intention.

Well look at the end of the day, this whole business that we're in is about producing results I don't care about Fanfare you know I'm the governor like that is I'm known right and I go around the state and everything and people are very nice and so I mean I appreciate the well wishes but but I don't need any of the Fanfare I don't need any adulation I Just know I'm in a position where I have a chance to make a difference and I'm either doing it or I'm not and I remember sitting at the desk in Um in in the state capitol my first day as Governor four and a half years ago I looked around the room and I thought to myself I don't know what SOB is going to succeed me in this chair but they are not going to have anything to do because I'm getting all the meat off the bone. I am going to make sure that I'm leaning into issues and making an impact and we have done that in the State of Florida and I bring that exact attitude uh up to Uh 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue Governor I'd love to to to jump in and follow up on that. This is Chris Ruffo and you know I've had the honor of working with you in the past few years on critical race theory, gender ideology, and the Dei bureaucracy And what I've seen up close and personal is that while many conservative politicians going back decades have made headlines and got on television uh, playing culture War, they never actually get anything done. And what you've done over the last few years is really astonishing.

You've eliminated CRT from all Florida's public institutions, You've stopped gender ideology dead in his tracks in K-12 and just last week, you eliminated the Dei bureaucracy in all of Florida's public universities. they'll be shut down completely and I think what you've done is established a blueprint for fighting back against the left's Long March of the institutions and making sure that those institutions reflect the value of Florida voters not left-wing activists and the partisan press. So my question for you is you know DC is another animal. It's quite different.

the scale uh, of the federal government and how are you going to deliver results and what is your cultural culture war strategy? uh, facing down the swamp in DC Well, some of it is is these feel like planted questions we're taking on things like Dei you get blowback from Legacy Media and the far left. But that's an example of an issue where they are out of step with the vast majority of Americans. It's not just Republicans, it's independent and a lot of Democrats Because you think about if you're uh, if you're a parent and you've got kids, you want to know when they apply to college, they're going to be judged based on their Merit And they're not going to be roadkill in some type of woke Olympics where they didn't fit some category and so they're denied opportunity. They want to make sure that achievement matters and so we get a lot of quiet support for a lot of those things.

And so I think what I do just because? Look, I'm a blue collar kid I grew up in the Tampa Bay area working minimum wage to get through school. my grandfather worked in the steel mill in Western Pennsylvania um I Just know instinctively. kind of what. Like normal people think about all this stuff and I have a good sense of when the Legacy Media and the left are are outside of where the average American is because people want you to be using common sense and things like Dei I mean when I was growing up I think it things were were better because people were actually told you should try to get along.

Now they're told you need to segregate and it's just crazy that they're trying to do all this stuff. So by eliminating that, there's a lot of people that were really happy about that, including people that certainly are not traditional. Republicans and I think there's similar issues when you do in the federal level. It's also the case that there are some tools at the federal level that we don't necessarily have at the state level.

For example, some of the problems with the university and the ideological capture that didn't happen by accident can trace back all the way to the accreditation cartels. Well, guess what? to become an accreditor? How do you do that? You've got to get approved by the U.S Department of Education. So we're going to be doing alternative accreditation Uh, regimes wear. And instead of saying you will only get accredited if you do Dei you'll have an accreditor that will say we will not accredit you if you do.

Dei We want a colorblind merit-based accreditation scheme and so as President controlling that uh agency, you can then ap