Facing perhaps the toughest interview so far of his presidential candidacy, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis demonstrated that “Never Back Down” isn’t just a slogan.
As Fox News host Bret Baier relentlessly bored in with pointed questions about Mr. DeSantis’s abortion policy and culture wars, Ukraine statements, and campaign struggles, Mr. DeSantis didn’t give an inch.
In the July 31 interview in New Hampshire, where the Florida governor is currently campaigning, Mr. DeSantis defended his campaign’s rough start and staff changes.
He dismissed as “nonsense” veteran Republican operative Ed Rollins’s statements that he’s a “very flawed candidate.”
He defended the approach that Florida’s curriculum has taken in its teaching about the history of slavery, amid attacks from Vice President Kamala Harris. He rebutted further criticism on the issue—particularly over a line in the state’s curriculum—from prominent black Republicans like South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott and Florida Congressman Byron Donalds.
He also defended his campaign’s controversial ad, labeled by some as homophobic, attacking former president and rival Donald Trump for his stance on LGBT issues. Mr. Trump allowed men into his beauty pageants and supported men using women’s locker rooms and restrooms, Mr. DeSantis said.
“So those are the two issues,” the governor said. “I think those are totally legitimate. I don’t believe in demeaning anybody and we’ve not done that [while] I’ve been governor.”
He pointed to his record in Florida protecting women’s sports, bathrooms, and locker rooms. “And at the end of the day, we can’t go down this road where there are 37 different genders. That’s not true: there’s two.”
Competitors like former Vice President Mike Pence, former Ambassador to the U.N. Nikki Haley, and former Gov. Chris Christie—who jumped all over him for calling the Ukraine war a “territorial dispute”—have mischaracterized what he said, Mr. DeSantis responded.
“The initial invasion was for Putin to decapitate the Ukrainian government and install a Belarus-style puppet regime,” he said. “He failed that. He’s not going to succeed at that. And that’s a good thing.
“So the fight is really on that far eastern flank of the border region between Ukraine and Russia. They read that to mean that somehow, I said Putin didn’t invade or had a right (to invade.) Of course he invaded; I said that at the time. He doesn’t have a right to do it, but the reality is that’s where the fighting has been.”
Mr. Baier repeatedly questioned Mr. DeSantis on Ukraine. The candidate insisted the situation requires “a sustainable peace,” that the European nations have to do more, and that NATO should be cautious of the defense obligations that would come if it took on Ukraine as a member.
“Would you be willing to pressure Ukraine to cede some territory to Russia if it meant stopping this war?” Mr. Baier asked.
“At the end of the day, it’s not for us to say, ‘Give or not give.’ I think that the reality is we want a sustainable peace in Europe. You’re not going to have a sustainable peace if Russia is making out like a bandit, because that will tell Putin that he can do more in the future.”
“The former president says he could end it in 24 hours,” Mr. Baier offered.
“Well, he also said that Mexico would pay for a border wall and all these other things. So, clearly, that’s not going to happen,” Mr. DeSantis responded.
Baier then asked the governor what he’d do if China invaded Taiwan.
Mr. DeSantis, who has laid out a foreign policy asserting China and the Pacific as the primary theater of concern, said, “My policy is going to be to deter that from happening. I mean, we’re going to have a strategy of denial so that China is not going to be able to pull the trigger on that, given the amount of hard power that’s in the region, given the levers we can pull on the economy.
“And our goal should be to stop ... China respects hard power. If they don’t [sic] think that the costs are going to exceed any potential benefits, they’re not going to do it.
“I do think under Biden, we’re on a course where in the next five or 10 years, they probably would be able to take it. If we change course, I think we can prevent it.”
Mr. Baier rolled tape of Mr. Trump criticizing Mr. DeSantis’s COVID-19 leadership in Florida, a statement Mr. Trump concluded by mocking him as “Ron DeSanctimonious.”
Mr. DeSantis laughed it off, noting, “I don’t think a lot of that stuff really tracks with the voters.”
“He used to say the opposite,” Mr. DeSantis said. “Let’s just be clear. You go back a year or two, he would say what a great job I’ve done in Florida. How I’m one of the country’s great governors.”
“He always said that, for years and years. Until about three days before the midterm election. Then he started to attack me, and I think it’s because he saw that we were going to win a big victory, and that he saw me as a political threat.”
“So now, he’s flip-flopped on all that, and he’s trying to say we did a bad job. I fought his administration to keep our state open, to have kids in school. (Dr. Anthony) Fauci, the task force, all those people—they were sending me missives, even in January of 2021, right before he left office. His task force was telling us in Florida to close.
“And so (Mr. Trump) didn’t have control over his own government. He didn’t have control over Fauci. Fauci ran that government his last year in office. Trump should have fired him; he did not do that. He elevated Fauci, and he made Fauci an international celebrity.
“And here’s the thing: I fought back against it. But the reality is, Fauci’s policies were adopted in a lot of the blue states. Kids were locked out of school for a year. You had businesses shuttered for good—small businesses. There was a U.S. in lockdown. No, it was a catastrophic mistake to do that. Back at the time, there was a lot of uncertainty, I get it. But knowing what we know now, that was a catastrophic mistake, and we can never let that happen to our country again.”
“Did the vaccine work?” Mr. Baier asked.
“It didn’t stop the spread. We were told if you take the vaccine, you will not get COVID. That is not true.”
Mr. DeSantis said he supported Alabama Sen. Tommy Tuberville in blocking 250 military promotions because of the Pentagon’s policy granting paid leave for abortions.
“I do because I think the Pentagon is violating the law. They’re basically being told by the Biden administration to do this,” Mr. DeSantis said. The Iraq War vet said he wants the military to drop distractions like “the pronouns and drag queens,” and return to “focusing on mission first.”
“And I think if we can do that, you solve the recruiting crisis,” he added.
Mr. Baier pressed him on his abortion policy. Last year, Florida limited abortions to the first 15 weeks of pregnancy. But this year, the Legislature passed—and Mr. DeSantis signed—a more restrictive bill limiting abortion to the first six weeks of pregnancy.
“The 15 weeks that we did was prior to Dobbs,” Mr. DeSantis said, referring to the historic 2022 Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade. “This was after Dobbs.”
“I know this is a difficult issue for a lot of people. But at the end of the day, when there’s a detectable heartbeat, the right thing to do is to protect that life and welcome that child into the world. I think we’re better off when everybody counts, when everybody has an opportunity.”
Mr. DeSantis clarified he has never said that, as president, he would seek to ban abortion nationally. He supports the Dobbs decision to send abortion policies back to the states to determine.
What he would do, he told Mr. Baier, is use the “bully pulpit” to promote “a culture of life,” oppose funding abortions with tax dollars, eliminate “the military’s abortion tourism policy,” send more conservative-minded justices to the Supreme Court, and “absolutely” block any attempts by a Democratic Congress to “impose abortion on demand, up until birth, nationwide.”
Mr. Baier asked if he supported Ms. Haley’s call—in light of America’s large number of octogenarians in public office including Mr. Biden, Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), and Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.)—for mental competency testing for officials over 75 years old.
“I think the voters can sort it out,” Mr. DeSantis said. “But I do think we need an energetic executive as president. We need somebody that’s going to get in there on Day One and spit nails and not look back.”
