LIVE: Ron DeSantis Speech and Q&A with Jan Jekielek and Kevin Roberts: Mandate for Leadership Series 2023-10-27 13:34

Welcome to the Heritage Foundation, America's outpost for common sense. It's true. We need a lot more of that. It's great to see a more than full auditorium, and I know that we have many people, to say the least, who are tuning in virtually to members of the press. Thanks for being here. We're kicking off this Mandate for Leadership series because as everyone who is here, everyone who's viewing knows, America's at a crossroads. Every election is vital, but this election of 2024 really will dictate whether the republic continues its lurch toward decline, or whether, as we think at the Heritage Foundation, a heavy dose of Reagan-esque optimism, but the plans to implement that optimism will in fact not only arrest that decline, but bring us to a new series of victories, both domestically and in terms of national security. So over the next weeks and months, as long as there are people who want to talk about a mandate for American leadership, the Heritage Foundation is happy to give them a platform for a conservative and aspirational vision of what self-governance and flourishing looks like in this great and noble country. So it is a pleasure to welcome all of you here, and it's a real pleasure to welcome one of the most successful governors in the history of American conservatism. That's just an objective statement. Thankfully, the conservative movement has a lot of accomplished people, a lot of accomplished men and women who are seeking offices of every level. Obviously, our interest in this conversation today is about policies and ideas, and thus, it is a pleasure on behalf of everyone associated with the Heritage Foundation and Heritage Action for America to welcome the governor of Florida, Ron DeSantis. Thank you. Thanks so much. It's great to be here. Thank you to the Heritage Foundation for hosting me today. Thanks to Dr. Kevin Roberts for the great work you have done since taking the helm. Whenever I see the establishment launching attacks against the Heritage Foundation, I know you guys must be doing something right, so just keep up at it and keep on going. During my six years serving in the Congress, I worked very closely with Heritage on a number of issues, but particularly issues relating to national security matters. I came to Congress on the heels of having served in uniform in Iraq during the post-Saddam period of conflict, a time when U.S. troops faced attacks from both Sunni jihadists like al-Qaeda in Iraq, but also Shia militias that were funded and directed by the mullahs in Iran, and those Iranian militias were responsible for killing hundreds, if not over a thousand, of American troops. I knew that the suboptimal outcomes in Iraq and Afghanistan represented a failure of U.S. national security policy. I also believed, as I arrived in Congress, that neither post-911 neoconservatism, which represented a departure from traditional Reagan-esque peace through strength policies, nor the fecklessness of the Obama administration, which merely invited hostility from America's adversaries, were desirable vessels for a successful national security strategy. So my approach was to stress the need to do a number of things. One, for American strength to deter our enemies. Two, to protect our own borders and enforce American sovereignty. Three, to ensure that U.S. foreign policy served the interests first and foremost of the American people. Next, to avoid plunging America into any ill-defined or unnecessary conflicts and rejection of ceding American sovereignty to international organizations like the United Nations. Now in Congress, we led on issues that matter when it came to the nation's national security. I was one of the leading opponents of the Obama-Khamenei-Iran nuclear deal, and we were instrumental in pointing out the flaws of that disastrous policy. As the chairman of the National Security Committee on House Oversight, we exposed a lot of the flaws in this nation's Afghanistan policy and did that in ways that were really embarrassing for a lot of policymakers. I served six years on House Foreign Affairs, and I was one of, if not the leading advocate for pro-Israel policies such as relocating our embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, recognizing Israeli sovereignty of the Golan Heights, combating the boycott, divestment, and sanction movement and seeking to defund entities like Hamas and the Palestinian Authority. I was also one of the voices in Congress sounding the alarm against Hamas terrorism and Israel's need to finally deal with that, as well as the nefarious influence of the Sunni Muslim Brotherhood. We combated Marxism in the Western Hemisphere in places like Cuba and Venezuela. We understood and made it an issue to treat our border security as a national security issue. We also highlighted the dangers of domestic terrorism and the role that immigration plays in fueling that terrorism. Now, since I took the helm as governor of Florida, we have been engaged in a lot of these important issues. We led the fight in Florida against Airbnb's BDS policies against the state of Israel, and as a result of that, Airbnb reversed course. We've expanded academic and economic ties with the state of Israel. We've bolstered relationships between Florida and Japan and Florida and South Korea. We sent law enforcement and National Guard to the southern border to help Texas do what the federal government has failed to do. And we also sent illegal aliens to Martha's Vineyard, which put the issue on the front burner in ways that no other single action has done. More recently, we arranged for the rescue of close to 700 Americans from Israel following the Hamas terrorist attacks. The State Department, the embassy, they weren't doing what needed to be done to get Americans back home. Eventually, they said they'll dump you in Greece and then charge you for that. And I thought to myself, you know, if you come into this country illegally, they don't charge you to fly you all over the place. They put you in hotels. They don't charge the illegal alien that, but yet Americans fleeing a war zone, somehow they're going to get a bill. It isn't right. And then more recently, we deactivated Students for Justice in Palestine in our Florida University system. They are a group, they are a group which publicly says that they don't just stand in solidarity with Hamas, that they are part of what Hamas is doing. That is material support to terrorism, and that is not going to be tolerated in the state of Florida, and it should not be tolerated in these United States of America. So we're proud of what we've been able to do as governor. But as we look across the world now, we are a nation adrift. The Biden foreign policy is rudderless, weak, misguided, and solicitous of America's adversary. Just think of some of the things that have happened in just these two and a half years. The Afghanistan withdrawal dishonored the sacrifices of our service members, and they abandoned billions worth of military equipment to the Taliban. The Russian aggression has empowered Iran with sanctions relief. That has fueled the Hamas attacks. That has fueled what Russia is doing in Europe. Biden also invited the Russian aggression against Ukraine by displaying weakness and even publicly stating that a small invasion would be A-OK. Biden's placed ideological ambitions like the Green New Deal over American energy dominance and independence. That has helped America's adversaries, Iran, China, Russia, Venezuela. Biden's also sacrificed strong policy against the CCP, which we need, in favor of climate talks and a summit with Xi Jinping, all the while China provides patronage to Russia and to Iran. This is just the fact American power is on the decline. Independence has been happening for some time, but it is accelerating under the Biden administration. As we sit here today, we've learned some hard lessons in the post-Cold War world. We've seen the limits and indeed futility of trying to impose democracies on foreign cultures. We understand the perils with nation building and social engineering in foreign lands. We've seen military adventurism go awry, such as the Obama-Hillary-Libya escapade. We've seen the ruling class in this country empower China for a generation. They had promised most favored nation status would lead to a more democratic China, that we would be able to have enforceable rules to protect our technology and intellectual property that American China has been empowered as a result. And then, of course, most recently, the Chinese COVID virus that came from the Wuhan lab. American policymakers had a disastrous response to that, which has weakened this country dramatically. After the Cold War, we were the only superpower. It was a unipolar moment. Some people even said that we had witnessed the end of history, that it would be America standing alone. I think wiser heads knew that that was not something that could last indefinitely. September 11, 2001, ushered in an era in which non-state actors were viewed as the primary threat to U.S. security. And the United States launched a global war on terrorism, with some successes, but also some failures. Where are we now? Well, now we're back in an age of great power rivalry. We are in an age in which we now have a peer competitor, and that competitor is the Chinese Communist Party. And it's something that we have to face, and we have to have policy that's going to be able to protect the American people from the looming China threat. We currently lack the leadership necessary to confront these current challenges. Part of the problem lies in a failure to even articulate what are we trying to accomplish regarding our nation's security. We certainly don't get a lot of clear thinking in many parts of this town. Our national security decisions must be guided by a number of clear and important factors. First and foremost, you've got to put the American people first. The idea that it's even distinguishing to say you want a national security strategy that puts America first shows you how far astray we must have gone with some of this stuff. Of course, that's your obligation to put your own country first. The protection of the lives, safety, and security of our people and the sovereignty of our nation is the fundamental duty of our federal government. This means both guarding against domestic attacks and achieving enforceable, secure borders. Another factor that's important is protecting the economic and material well-being of Americans. Ultimately, our military strength is rooted in economic strength. We're not going to be strong abroad if we are not strong at home. Third, we've got to protect the American way of life. This means not only the protections against the predations of foreign nations, but also foreign non-state actors, as well as threats that can come domestically. Ensuring that we have an immigration system that strengthens America's culture rather than undermines it is a key part in preserving this American way of life. The use of national power cannot be based on the fluff or ill-defined objections that have marked D.C. foreign policy for decades. Power must be rooted in concrete objectives that the U.S. is seeking to achieve through political, economic, and, if necessary, military avenues. But we cannot succumb to Wilsonian abstractions. We cannot expend the people's treasure, much less spill our citizens' blood with murky missions or misguided agendas. When we act, we will act decisively, and we will achieve the goals that we set out to achieve. There will be no better friend to allies than the United States of America. We must work constructively with these nations with whom we have shared interests. We also have a clear-eyed, no-nonsense approach to America's enemies. Those who seek to harm the United States of America will have no worse enemy than the United States of America. National security policies, of course, must be commensurate with the ability to carry it out. As a republic, the policies we pursue must engender sustained public support from the American people. And as a veteran of the Iraq War, I recognize the gravity of deploying U.S. troops in combat, and I hope to never have to do that as Commander-in-Chief. But if such a duty calls, I will ensure that the U.S. will be fully committed to winning. Our armed forces will have what they need to be lethal and capable, preferably to deter conflict in the first place, but also to achieve a decisive, overwhelming victory if conflict arises. So where do we find ourselves now? Chaos abounds. Dangers are gathering. America lacks direction and leadership is in short supply. The world is getting more dangerous as conflicts mount. We have a major national security issue in our own country at our own southern border. We've had seven to eight million people pour into this country illegally since Joe Biden took office. They are not all coming from Mexico and Central America. They are coming from all over the world, from the Middle East, from Russia, from China. Do you think for a minute that America's enemies are not taking advantage of that porous southern border? So dealing with that border is not just the right thing for the United States in terms of a rule of law and our economy. It is a national security issue, and it's one that we need to tackle. The Hamas terrorist attack against Israel raises yet another front in global conflict. How did this happen? It happened because Iran funded and orchestrated the attack against the people of Israel, and this is the most deadly terrorist attack on record, and there were more Jews killed on October 7th than at any time since the Holocaust. We just commemorated last week the 40th anniversary, actually this week, the 40th anniversary of the Marine Corps barracks bombing in Beirut, Lebanon in 1983. That attack was done, orchestrated by Hezbollah and the Iranians, to kill Americans. And when I was in Iraq, Iran was killing our troops left and right. So they have a long history of fomenting jihad throughout the Middle East and killing not just Jews but Americans. It's important that we say as Americans that Israel has the right to fully defend itself against these barbarous attacks. You can't just sit there and have a terrorist group on your border who's going to behead your babies, rape women, and massacre elderly people and think that you can do a glancing blow and somehow that's going to take care of it. They need to end Hamas once and for all, and we should be supportive of that, not just publicly but also in private, not just in words but also in our deeds. It's important that we do it. The Hamas attacks against Israel has taken some of the focus off the war in Europe. Biden invited the Russian invasion of Ukraine through his weakness, and now his policy is basically seeking a blank check to continue a policy that has no identifiable endgame. Biden's also funding both sides of this conflict. His deferential posture to Iran has given them billions of dollars in sanctions relief. They have plowed that not just for terrorism in the Middle East. They're also plowing it into helping Russia with things like drones, and his Green New Deal policies also benefits Russia, which relies on energy production. Now Heritage has correctly pointed out how it's in America's interest to bring this conflict to an acceptable conclusion, to stop the decimation of our weapons reserves and to focus our forces where they are most needed, and I think that is the right approach and I commend Heritage for saying it. And so what is that right approach? Where are our forces needed? China is the key player behind both of those foreign conflicts. The CCP is keeping both Iran and Russia afloat financially. China's purchasing massive amounts of Iranian oil on the black market, thereby enriching the mullahs, and Russia is selling China gas and much, much more, and that is bolstering Russia's war machine. Now lengthy conflicts, particularly between Russia and Ukraine, will ultimately benefit China because it will distract America and it will deplete our already dwindling Western weapons and ammunition stockpiles. The threat posed by the CCP requires our primary focus and attention right now. They are the first truly peer competitor that we have dealt with in our lifetimes. If you look back at World War II, the Allied powers had a much stronger economy than the Axis powers. If you look at the comparison between the United States and the Soviet Union during the Cold War, the economic comparison is not even close. The U.S.'s economy was so much more robust than the Soviet Union, yet China is near a peer competitor to ours economically. They're close to us militarily. They have a lot of leverage over our economy because all of the interconnectedness that has happened over these last many decades, largely due to bad decisions made to America's ruling class, and China has grand ambitions. They seek to be the dominant power in the entire world and they are marshalling all their society to be able to achieve that objective. This is a formidable threat and it requires a whole of society approach. The next president of the United States must have the focus and determination to see major policy changes through. You cannot be focused on short-term political considerations. You have to do what's right and you have to get the job done. Why is this something that we should care about? Well, look, I want to be the top country. I want to be number one in everything we do. It's just kind of competitive, but that's not the crux of it. A world that's dominated by CCP will see them export their authoritarian vision all across the world. This will be a world marked by internet policing, artificial intelligence, facial recognition, and social credit scores. It will end up creating a global dystopia. And this is a regime that you do not want to have control or influence over our society. After all, the death toll of the CCP regime since it seized power in 1949 may very well be the highest of any government in history. It numbers in the tens of millions, many of that at the hands of Mao Zedong. And of course, China was responsible for the COVID-19 virus and pandemic, and they tried to hide it and they put the rest of the world in great peril. And yet they've never been held accountable for any of that. So the United States has to treat the threat posed by the CCP the same way we treated the threat posed by the Soviet Union. We understood that the Soviet Union was trying to export communism around the world. And so we took our whole national security apparatus and we tailored it to be able to meet that first and foremost threat. We have to recognize when we do this, resources are scarce. You have to set priorities when you're determining the proper national security posture for the United States. If you say that you can simply defend everything at once, you end up defending nothing. So I will reorient U.S. foreign policy to prioritize the Indo-Pacific region as the most pressing part of the world for defending U.S. interests and U.S. security. Now some say it's inevitable that the East wind will prevail over the West wind, that the 21st century will be somehow a Chinese century, and that America will continue its dissent. I'm here to tell you, decline is not inevitable. Decline is a choice. We cannot raise the white flag of surrender. We have time to get this right, but time is running out. Just as we don't want to be mired in pessimism and accept the idea of an inevitable American decline, we also can't be deluded with happy talk. Decline will not be averted by looking at our situation through rose-colored glasses, telling Americans that everything is fine and that there is no limit to what we can presently do. That type of happy talk is as off-base as the notion that decline is inevitable. So our goal from a national security perspective vis-a-vis the CCP is very simple. We win and they lose. So how do you do this? You got to do a number of things. First, we will modernize and bolster our military capability to deter CCP aggression. Decrease can only be achieved through strength. Sometimes people say you deter China by worrying about this part of the world or that part of the world. My view is a little bit more simple. If you want to deter China, deter China. What they will respect is strength, particularly strength in their region. We must have adequate hard power to deny China's ambitions vis-a-vis Taiwan as well as the first island chain. As Winston Churchill noted, it's important to keep open and active the saltwater highways that make our world tick. To that end, I'm proposing a four oceans Navy, 355 ships by the end of the first term, 385 by the end of the second term, and a pathway for 600 ships within the next 20 years. That will be hard power that will make a difference. That will be hard power that will preserve the peace. With respect to Taiwan, we need the training and capability to deter CCP aggression, and we need to place first in line for purchasing advanced weapons and munition Taiwan. This is the hotspot and we need to be there and help defend. We also have to reform and slash the bloated defense bureaucracy. We want agile innovation, quick integration of commercial technologies. We want to be able to rapidly address the pressing needs of this nation's national security policy. And then finally, we need a major overhaul of this country's defense industrial base. It is lagging and it is causing huge vulnerabilities for this country. Second thing we need to do is unleash America's full economic potential and prevent the CCP from surpassing us as an economic power. First on that list, we are going to open up our domestic energy resources for production, whether that's federal land, whether that's permitting pipelines, whether that's Alaska. We need to open it all up. I want to be the dominant energy producer in the world by a country mile. We'll choose Midland over Moscow. We will choose the Marcellus over the Mulas, and we will choose Bakken over Beijing. And that will give us a great competitive advantage as a result. We also need to expand domestic mining and mineral processing of key rare earth minerals. Biden wants to force everybody to do an electric vehicle, which then will make us more dependent on China because they're the leader in producing these minerals. But then when we have our own deposits here, he takes that out of circulation and he won't let that be mined. We need to be doing the opposite, reversing the EV mandates, of course, but also doing the mining that we need to be able to make our country stronger. We need to enact tax trade and regulatory policies designed to secure critical supply chains and to effectuate a strategic decoupling of the U.S. economy from China and from the CCP. We must forcefully counter malicious CCP economic behavior, and we have to leverage our alliances in the free world versus the CCP. We could perhaps fend the CCP off just one versus one, but if we have the entire free world on our side, that is going to give us a huge competitive economic advantage over China. Third thing we have to do is ensure robust technological dominance in fields like robotics, quantum computing, artificial intelligence, biotech, and blockchain. I want more money, less money going to left-wing universities, more money for R&D through our defense department. I want to meet our defense needs. We also need to reform export controls and work with our allies so that we're building supply chains and technology free from the CCP's malicious influence. Fourth thing we need to do, we have to defend the homeland against CCP influence, and that means we cannot have an open border. We know that there have been a large number of Chinese nationals that have come across the southern border over the last two and a half years. We need to put a stop to it, and that will be a day one national emergency issue for me. We also need to do what we did in Florida. We need to stop allowing the CCP to purchase land near farm, take farmland near military bases. In Florida, we banned China from buying land outright in our state because I don't think it's in our interest to have them gobbling up land near critical infrastructure or our farmland. We also have to take domestic intel and law enforcement agencies and revamp them. They are not serving this country well. They've had a lot of problems. We need new leadership, and we need a lot of accountability in those agencies. We have to take steps to make sure that our electric grid is resilient and that our cybersecurity defenses are as up to date as possible. We'll also combat malign CCP influence in education like we did in Florida. We eliminated the so-called Confucius Institutes from our K through 12 or from our higher education system, and we cracked down on the ability of China to pour money into our state university system. We need to do that nationwide. China's been very smart about how they get into some of these crevices in our society, and we've basically let them do it. Time for that is over. And of course, this follows from the border, but it'll be more than just securing the border. We've got to take action to stop China-derived fentanyl from ravaging American communities. We're losing tens of thousands of our fellow Americans every year. The precursor chemicals are made in China and shipped to the Mexican drug cartel, CCP oppression. We need to give hope to those chafing under authoritarian rule. At the end of the day, China has a lot of liabilities. They have a lot of weaknesses. They want to maintain ironclad control over their population indefinitely, and there's cracks in that, and there will increasingly be more cracks in that because they are not doing what needs to be done for individuals to ultimately flourish. So this is the decisive decade. We are in jeopardy of being the first generation of Americans to leave to our kids and grandkids in America less prosperous and less free than the one we have inherited. And that would be breaking faith with every generation of Americans leading up to the president if we allow that to happen. So we must arrest our country's decline. Now in affairs both foreign and domestic, we're called upon to preserve what George Washington called the sacred fire of liberty. This is the fire that burned an Independence Hall when 56 men pledged their lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor to establish a nation conceived in liberty. It's a fire that burned at a cemetery in Gettysburg when the nation's first Republican president pledged this nation a new birth of freedom. It's a fire that burned among the boys who stormed the beaches of Normandy to liberate a continent and to preserve freedom throughout the world. It's the fire that infused a young preacher's dream relayed at the steps of the Lincoln Memorial right down the street from here, that the Declaration of Independence said what it meant and meant what it said, that all men are created equal. It's the fire that led a resolute president to stand in Berlin in front of the Brandenburg Gate and say, Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall, staring down communism and ultimately winning the Cold War. So it is our responsibility to carry this torch. We do not run from this responsibility. We welcome this responsibility. And by tackling these challenges head on, we will ensure that the 21st century will in fact be an American century. Thank you all, and God bless you. Thank you. Thanks so much. Epoch Times mugs. I haven't seen those before. I've seen a lot of heritage slag in my day. That's good. Well, you know, Governor, you're revealing what I forgot to say at the beginning, which is that we're glad to be in partnership with The Epoch Times and our friend Jan Jekielek here. Thanks for a great speech. I'm just going to ask the first question because Jan has the smart questions. You know that I will observe that your boots look awesome. I know. Gator? Yeah. So this is, you know, it's like, look, I say what I mean, mean what I say, I don't hedge and stuff. But in Florida, we have some rivalries with college football. So these are authentic Florida Gator boots. Now the good thing about these is that Florida Gator fans love it because it's the Gators. But you know, Seminole fans also like it because it's like, you know what, someone had to kill a Gator to make those boots. So that's the only way I've found to be able to please both sides. You know, it's college football weekend and you know where my loyalties lie with the Longhorns. But that important issue aside, as we sit here, and it is important to remember that we need to have fun in America, but we also know that it's a very challenging time. And I know you know that. Everyone in this audience knows that. And we at Heritage appreciate your prioritization of China as the big threat. Having said that, a quick but important question that would give this crowd some insight into how you would operate kind of day by day or hour by hour as our Commander-in-Chief. My colleague Rob Greenway, late last night and early this morning, was briefing me via email on the American airstrikes on Iranian proxies in Syria. Those seem to be more window dressing, shall I say. What would a President Ron DeSantis do in these days and weeks to confront Iran in a way that hopefully prevents outright war, but also sends a much stronger signal than our current president has done? Sure. Well, first of all, you tighten all the financial screws on Iran. Our goal should be the destruction of the Iranian economy. And if you do that, they are not going to be able to fund Hezbollah, Hamas, they're not going to be able to help Russia. We will put them in a box if we do that successfully. Biden has enriched them intentionally, and it's had disastrous consequences. Now, in terms of, we have troops over there right now. I'm not sure what their concrete mission is. I think 2,800 between Iraq and Syria. Seems to me that's big enough to be a pretty inviting target. I'm not sure if that's enough to really advance U.S. interests in a big way. So the question is, what's the risk of them being there versus what they're accomplishing? And I don't think Biden has given us any leadership on that. But I will say this, they're there. And if I'm president, our enemies should know, you harm one hair on the head of an American service member, and you will have hell to pay. Well, Governor DeSantis, it's great to speak with you again here. I want to kind of ask the elephant in the room question. You mentioned in your speech that you intend to be very consequential, have clear objectives, enact them. The previous president, former President Trump, basically encountered incredible obstacles in trying to enact his policy, in some cases government working directly in the opposite direction. This question has been asked me many, many times. How can a future, how would you as president deal with that reality? Well, I think there's two things. I mean, I think that former president appointed people who worked against his agenda. Those were bad appointments. And you've got to appoint people that are going to not just agree with the agenda, but are going to be willing to toil, tear, sweat in order to do that agenda. Because when you come in and do what needs to be done in this town, you are not going to be greeted as liberators. Like these people in this town, they do not want to give up power. They are not going to like the fact that we just won the election. They're going to fight that. But ultimately, the question is, is who governs this country? Are we governed by we the people under a constitution, or are we just going to say we've departed from that? There's this fourth branch of government. The elections are kind of window dressing, but ultimately, they get to do whatever they want to do. That is totally unacceptable. So you have to have people that are going in, they understand you're going into the lion's den. They're going to be willing to make tough decisions, hold people accountable in ways that they're going to get attacked by the media, they're going to get attacked by people in this town. But you also have to look at the bureaucracy, and you've got to be willing to use Article II power in really robust ways to discipline the administrative state. I mean, I was looking at the Israel issue, and all these State Department people are rebelling because the administration is, quote, pro-Israel. Now we know behind the scenes they're really not. But the fact that they're rebelling, I would say, take a hike. Why are you even working here? It's not your... But it's a... You go in, and it's day one. You have to have all these people ready, not just who's going to be your Attorney General and Secretary of State. I mean, you need all the... So you need hundreds, if not a thousand people, just ready to go. Day one, send to the Senate. Get there. Don't let the bureaucrats take control of that. You go, and it's day to day after day. You're peeling back power from an unelected power center. And it's not going to be something you can just flip a switch on. It's going to require focus. It's going to require discipline. Quite frankly, it's going to require a two-term president to be able to see it all the way through in ways that are going to stick and have lasting impact. And it's just something that you've got to really care about. There's going to be a lot of times where whatever needs to be done is probably not going to be in your short-term political interest. You're going to probably take a lot of incoming. But leadership is navigating that, and leadership is understanding. You have a true North. What is our true North? It's even more than just getting the policy right. Yeah, you got to do that. But it's ultimately returning this government to we, the people. It's rightful owners. It's reconstitutionalizing the government. The reason why we've had bad policies is because we've departed from the constitutional design and we've let the bureaucrats run the show for far too long. That ends on January 20th, 2025. So essentially, you're saying you would like to reduce the bureaucracy in government. Sure. I mean, I think there's two things. The size of it, government's too big and all that, which is important, and we will do that. We've put out a number of things. I'm going to do more of a full expose of what we're going to do in the coming weeks. But for example, we're going to say all cabinet secretaries reduce your footprint in D.C. by 50%. And there's a whole bunch of other things we're going to do. Schedule F, all this. It's important. But just as important of the size is also the scope of the power that's being exercised. Because you could reduce government bureaucracy by 50%. But if the bureaucrats remaining are taking power and they're imposing rules on society and they're doing things that should be in the legislative branch, that's still a major, major problem. And to me, that's probably even a more significant problem because it's unaccountable power being imposed on a public that did not consent to those policies. So I think it's size and scope. On the China issue, you spent quite a bit of your speech talking about China. It's very interesting. You said we win, they lose. That has to be the approach. You mentioned MFN status. We still have most favored nation status. Some people would argue that permanent normal trade relations with China were one of the biggest mistakes or perhaps World Trade Organization accession and so forth. Traditionally human rights have been linked to trade or trade has been linked to human rights. Would you support that kind of an approach? I mean, we have a situation where the U.S. government says that China is committing at least one genocide. Former Assistant Secretary of State will say there's three. So how do we deal with this human rights trade issue? Well, first, I think just identifying what you said, that those policies were with MFN and WTO, those policies failed. I mean, let's just be honest. If you look at what was – you go read Bill Clinton's speech when he was signing the MFN and the WTO stuff and you read what he said, almost everything he said turned out to be bogus. I mean, almost none of it actually happened. And China has used that wealth that we basically bequeathed to them to build up a very powerful military. So yes, I think human rights – it's something that's good to stand for. What is the concrete interest? I do think it informs a concrete interest because this is one of the great weaknesses of the CCP. What they're trying to export around the world ultimately is something that is going to suffocate human freedom. Their vision is a dystopian vision. And to the extent we're highlighting that, not just in the political sphere but economic sphere, I think that that's important. Make no mistake, if they end up the dominant power in this world, if they dominate the Indo-Pacific and they dominate global commerce, they are going to be conditioning behavior for access to their markets that they control. And there's going to be a lot of Americans that will grovel on Wall Street and Hollywood. They already grovel, but it will get much worse. And you will feel this in your daily life if it gets to that point in the next decade, two decades, three decades. A related follow-up, Governor, is if you think about the history of American national security, when it's been the most successful, it is decisive, it's lethal, as you laid out in your speech, but it also has required the President of the United States, as President Reagan did so well, to be a really good communicator about what's at stake. I'm curious, given the dilemma that exists in the United States, how you would tackle that problem as it relates to China. What I mean is, while there is a growing awareness that the Chinese Communist Party is a threat to the quality of life for everyday Americans, Americans are good people who are paying attention to their families, to their businesses, to their work. Of course, a lot of that's challenging. What would your messaging approach be? In other words, to convince Americans that's the threat, and frankly, that each of us will probably have to make some sacrifices in order to prevail? Well, I think the good news is, is I think the public is ahead of the ruling class on this. I go out, I can be like 20 miles from the Canadian border in New Hampshire, and I'll talk about Florida, we stood up to China, we don't let China buy land in the state, and I will get a raucous applause. I will get the same applause when I sign the bill in Florida, or when I'm in Western Iowa. So I think Americans do understand what has gone wrong with this policy. They understood they were sold a bill of goods. So I think that they're a very receptive audience to understand that. Similar to how probably the public was after World War II, when they saw what was happening with Soviet domination in Eastern Europe and the Iron Curtain, I think they understood that. So I think it's there. And I think the issue is, is you've got to articulate the steps you're taking. You've got to be honest about whatever consequences, the benefits, potential risks for that. But I do think people want to get on board. I think that they realize that on the current trajectory, this country is not going to be the country that it used to be. And there's a lot of things domestically that is also driving that, that we need to address. But certainly, this competition with China is one that on the current course, we are going to end up losing. And I think they instinctively know that that will be a disaster for this country. So just to build on China a little more, since it was such a big part of your speech. So I think back in 2016, one of Xi Jinping's top advisors on foreign policy actually articulated the idea that America should be kept embroiled in multiple wars. One of them should actually be a terrorist entity. And so that the efforts, so it can't focus its efforts in the way that you're describing on the CCP and so forth. So well, OK, that's part one of the question. The second question, which I guess is very closely related, because Taiwan, as you mentioned, is a very big issue for the CCP. Our current policy or the U.S. current policy is one of strategic ambiguity, one China policy. A lot of people are advocating that Taiwan be diplomatically recognized. What do you think about this? Well, first, on the first part of your question, I mean, I think that's undeniably true how China thinks. I mean, you know, you hear people talk about the current conflict in Ukraine with the Russian invasion and they'll make the thing that's like, look, this China's watching that. That's the most important thing you can do to deter China. I just don't believe that's the case. I'm not saying it's irrelevant to how China would see the world. But I think China looks at that and they say, you know what, if this can go on for another four or five, six years, like some people are saying it will, and the U.S. keeps plowing money because at this rate, you know, you're talking a half a trillion dollars. You likely wouldn't see a decisive outcome either way. It'd likely be kind of a stalemate. Not only does it take our eye off the ball, we don't have the defense industrial base capacity right now to be able to also do what we need to do to have a strategy of denial in the Indo-Pacific vis-a-vis China with Taiwan and also even beyond that. So yes, China, I think they like the Hamas-Israel conflict. And I'm not saying, I mean, Israel needs to defend itself and they're a great ally of ours and we'll support them of that. But these things clearly, the way the world has gone the last two years benefits China. There's no question. Now, look, in terms of Taiwan, what I've said is we have longstanding U.S. policy. Taiwan's a strong ally. A Chinese invasion of Taiwan, if they were successful of that, it's not just about semiconductors. Yes, that's important. That would have big impact on the economy here in the United States and around the world, no question. But it's more strategically important because it allows them to break out of this first island chain. For them to be able to dominate the Indo-Pacific in terms of the economy and the sea lanes, you've got to get out of that first island chain. So that's kind of their main strategy right now. Taiwan's part of it and there's others. That's why I think what Japan is doing by bolstering their defense is the right thing to do. You actually, I went over there in April and I met with leaders in both Japan and South Korea. South Koreans into Japan, they never get along and they're getting along now because they both see the threat posed by the CCP. So I think the important thing for us is if you have an adequate hard power and you're able to back up a strategy of denial in the Indo-Pacific vis-a-vis China and Taiwan and then even beyond, we will successfully deter them. I mean, they're very smart about how they do risk assessment. They built up their military. They got a lot of question marks on their military. But the time is running out for us to be able to get that done. We've neglected this for a long time. Just this Biden supplemental, I think he put like $4 billion for the, $5, $7 billion for the Indo-Pacific. I mean, like that is not going to get the job done. So we've got a lot of work to do. But yes, I think we can deter it from happening. One of the reasons of the world, Governor, that our national security colleagues led by my friend, Dr. Victoria Coates, are very worried about every day is Latin America. We're worried about that in large part because of the increasing influence of the CCP. But there are some long-running problems there. I would argue, we argue in part because of the fecklessness of this current administration. What would you do as President of the United States to arrest that and revitalize not just pro-Americanism there, that would be nice, but far more importantly, free market principles or freedom just generally? There's more leftist governments in the Western Hemisphere today than at any time during the Cold War. If you look, it's been kind of a bad trend almost all around for the vast majority of the region. And, you know, it's not just Marxists in Cuba and Venezuela, Canada, maybe there'll be a change there, and some of these other governments. I mean, it's been a disaster. I think some of this, there's a cycle to it. I do think we're going to get some cycles back with some of the elections that are going to happen. But it's been a rough stretch. So Biden, we had the Cuba uprising in 2021, and, you know, he did nothing. They weren't asking for like, you know, to send in Americans. All they were asking for is to be able to pipe some internet in there so that the dissidents would be able to communicate. He refused to do it. I was actually willing to do it from Florida. But the Musk sat, and Musk was willing to do it, but you need the devices on the ground, and we didn't have a way to get that in. Then I asked, you could fly a hot air balloon and do internet, go straight to your phones. I was willing to do that, but no company would do it because they knew Biden's administration would probably pull their license or something like that. So he had an opportunity to help there. He's been very weak with how he's dealt with Maduro. I mean, they're basically trying to do deals with Maduro. So I think it's been a disaster. So I think having new leadership with a much clearer vision, but we also need to look, given all the threats, we should have an updated version of the Monroe Doctrine for our own neighborhood in the 21st century. And yes, China's gotten involved, Russia's, I mean, there's some bad stuff, but there's also bad stuff that's happening organically in a lot of these governments and a lot of these societies. So we need some more allies in our part of the world, and that's going to require more American leadership. John, I think we have time for a lightning round question. Lightning round? I don't know if this is exactly lightning, but it's really important. Well, so you talked about U.S. failures during the pandemic, U.S. policy failure. The WHO played a prominent role in that, giving bad information and so forth, and arguably terrible response. Right now, it's just looking, Dr. Tedros is arguing for a pandemic treaty, which a lot of people I think are convincingly arguing would reduce the sovereignty. It's another thing you talked about of many nations, just simply by the WHO declaring an emergency and everyone has to go along with it. You can speak to that as we finish up. Well, all I can say is, so in Florida, we've already passed legislation nullifying any impact of that WHO treaty. It's a lockdown treaty on the state of Florida. We will not recognize it. We will not abide by it. As president, all I can say for people that are trying to do an international lockdown treaty is go ahead, make my day. I will take that treaty and I will throw that in the trash can where it belongs. Don't worry about that. And first of all, it's a sovereignty issue first and foremost. Why would we give up sovereignty? Of course, we're not going to do that. But then you think about like the WHO of all agencies, I mean, like you've got to be kidding me with some of this stuff. How bad were they during COVID? How dismissive were they of people's individual rights and freedoms and aspirations and the collateral damage that was done during COVID? And look, you know, those first few weeks were some bad decisions by Western governments. But what really I think is jarring is like after six, eight weeks, when Florida had all the kids in school, when we do that and everyone was saying life goes on, they still clung to this nonsense, even though the data did not support it whatsoever. So that tells me that they were more interested in controlling behavior than they were about stopping a particular virus. And so if you give these people an inch, they will take a mile. So we will absolutely nix that treaty. But we're going to do a lot more than that. I'm bringing a reckoning to the CDC, the NIH, the FDA. We're going to clean house in these agencies. They're harmed. They've been harmful. And because as it stands now, one of the reasons why were our country's weaker is because of how we responded by COVID, the six trillion in extra debt that was added to really no avail and all that stuff. So part of it is no one's been held accountable. These people will do it again if they're given the opportunity. So we need to bring in accountability, swift and severe, so that this never happens to our country ever again. Governor, we appreciate the thunder and lightning in that response. And truly, it goes back to those gator boots. That's right. To our friends in the in-person audience, we'll wrap here momentarily. And if you would not mind, please remain seated as the governor and Jan and I head out just for the sake of logistics. But let me say to my really good friend, Jan Jekielek, it's always fun to be here with you. And we appreciate your work and that of The Epoch Times. It's great to be in partnership with you. And to our friend, Governor Ron DeSantis, thanks for your time. Thanks for your leadership. God bless you. Thank you. God bless. Thanks.