If Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is elected president, he plans to let California be California.
In an interview with podcaster Russell Brand on July 21, DeSantis stuck to his Constitutional guns as Brand zoomed in on the potential conflict between two sides of the candidate’s public philosophy.
Brand noted that DeSantis has been outspoken on culture wars issues but that “devolving power and breaking down centralized bureaucratic power in Washington if undertaken in good faith, would mean in states like California and New York State, you will get different cultural and ideological inflections.”
“Presumably California would have a whole different set of values, different policies on green issues, for example, different policies on homelessness, on many of the topics loosely corralled under, let’s say, wokeness,” Mr. Brand said.
“Would you as president, a president looking to decrease state power, recognize that in states that are conventionally more aligned with liberal values and even the kind of woke values that you have publicly condemned—would they have the right to pursue policies in those areas?” Mr. Brand asked.
“Would they be granted the same freedom that you have demanded and exhibited in Florida, were you president of the United States?”
“I don’t even think it’s a question of granting,” Mr. DeSantis said.
“The states created the Constitution. They retained the bulk of the power. And they’re allowed to use that power to do what their constituents want.”
“And as much as I look to see some of the stuff that may go on in California and shake my head, clearly they’re going to have a right to pursue some of the things like, for example, how they handle their energy situation.
“I think it’s a mistake. You have rolling blackouts; you have all these problems. I think they’re putting ideology ahead of sound science, but nevertheless, if people don’t like that, they can vote in a new government. They can vote them out of office.
“So that’s just the nature of a federalist system. We understand that there’s 50 different states. We say it’s a laboratory of democracy. I would point out, though, that the people are leaving those woke states, and they’re migrating to states like Florida, which are doing it differently.
“So I think in terms of the experiment of people ... voting with their feet. The results of that have been very, very clear.”
Mr. Brand’s “Stay Free With Russell Brand” podcast on Rumble has about a million subscribers. Until his show was expelled from YouTube in March 2022, he got as many as 14.5 million weekly views as he challenged official COVID-19 safety measures.
The long-haired, tattooed Brand is a former stand-up comedian, MTV presenter, and sportswriter. He was known for using his own history of drug abuse, for which he was arrested at least 12 times, and his own sex life as comedy fodder.
He was married for two years to pop star Katy Perry.
Published sources say he’s been drug-free for more than 20 years. He is now married to Scottish blogger and former restaurateur Laura Gallacher, with whom he has two children.
He switched from pop culture and sports to more serious political discussion and activism more than a decade ago.
Mr. Brand recently scooped a huge media news story when Tucker Carlson used his show to announce his firing from Fox News.
Mr. Brand’s colorful style meant, in his interview with Mr. DeSantis, addressing his radio-style ads on things like men’s underwear to “Ron.”
“Surely, we’ve noticed that it’s summer, and it’s getting hot out there. I don’t know about you, Ron. But I’m getting pretty hot down there. Now if you wear traditional old-fashioned underwear, like your granddad, you will be vulnerable to sweating and chafing all over.”
Mr. Brand continued to describe in graphic terms the perils the wrong underwear presents to men during hot weather.
“I don’t know what Donald Trump wears on his privates. But I'll tell you, Joe Biden, that guy goes commando,” Mr. Brand said.
His out-there style notwithstanding, Mr. Brand asked probing questions and gave Mr. DeSantis the time, in a 45-minute interview, to respond thoughtfully.
Mr. DeSantis went a little more deeply into the whys of his bold governing philosophy, which has seen him chart an independent course for Florida when the rest of the country was locking down.
He’s signed bills opposing progressive philosophy’s intrusion into areas Mr. DeSantis and his supporters think it should stay out of, from the investment of pension assets and the banning of gas stoves to the discussion of sexuality with young schoolchildren and the teaching of Critical Race Theory in Advanced Placement curriculums for high school.
Mr. Brand asked, as a follow-up to the state power question, if Mr. DeSantis would stand up to corporate power.
“Are you willing to approach and rebut centralized power in its corporate and private form, in the same way that you would confront it in the state form,” Mr. Brand asked.
“I’m talking of course of the giant monopolies and duopolies in the areas of Big Tech and even energy and media.
“Because, of course, one of the arguments that is advanced, that is pro-state power, is that it gives us the ability to confront corporate power, even if that isn’t happening anywhere in American politics at the moment.”
“I think it’s a great, great issue,” said Mr. DeSantis, who has warred publicly with Disney over its opposition to his signature Parental Rights in Education bill.
“But I actually think it’s just the opposite. I think what you’ve seen is a collusion between big government and big business. Just take Big Tech. A lot of the things that were being censored during COVID, for example—that wasn’t just being done because [Facebook owner] Mark Zuckerberg thought that he wanted it censored.
“No, he was working with people like [Dr. Anthony] Fauci. There were working with people inside of government to censor dissent on lockdowns, on mask mandates, on school closures, on vax mandates.
“All the things, that, if you think about it, a free society has to have debates over, important issues.”
“Yes, obviously, when there’s less power in Washington, individual states, ... they have certain powers to make different decisions.
“But I do think if we break up the relationship between big government and some of these big monopolies, particularly in the tech sphere, that’s actually going to have universal benefit throughout the country. Because there’s going to be more ability to speak freely. You’re not going to have Uncle Sam with his thumb on the scale.”
Mr. DeSantis noted he'd signed legislation in Florida prohibiting state and local government employees “from colluding with Big Tech for any type of speech censorship or to police, quote, misinformation or disinformation.”
“The federal government could not censor you and say you can’t say something about, say, lockdowns that would violate the First Amendment. Everybody knows that,” Mr. DeSantis told Mr. Brand.
“But they can’t subcontract out that to a private entity and have the private entity do what the federal government couldn’t do directly. It’s still a violation of the First Amendment.”
