>>This week on NewsNight, as Governor Ron DeSantis officially enters the 2024 presidential race, we'll have an in-depth analysis of the strategies and issues likely to shape the campaign.

The Floridians vying for the White House.

NewsNight starts now.

[MUSIC] Hello, I'm Steve Mort, and welcome to NewsNight where we take an in-depth look at the top stories and issues in central Florida and how they affect all of us.

We're going to take a deep dive into the race for the Republican presidential nomination this week.

Governor DeSantis, of course, launched his campaign officially in a glitch plagued Twitter Spaces announcement last week and released this video touting his record in Florida.

>>We held the line when freedom hung in the balance.

We showed that we can and must revitalize America.

We need the courage to lead and the strength to win.

I'm Ron DeSantis and I'm running for president to lead our great American comeback.

>>Well, this week, boasting a significant campaign war chest, the governor hit the road, campaigning in several early voting states, holding a campaign kickoff rally in Iowa and events in New Hampshire and South Carolina, as the gloves come off in his fight with Donald Trump.

>>Why would we ever settle for a Trump impostor?

>>Make America great again.

>>When there's only one starting day, one who can make America great again?

>>I'm Donald Trump and I approve this message.

>>Well, before we turn to our panel of political reporters tonight, I spoke with political scientist and NewsNight regular Frank Orlando.

And I started by asking him for his take on the way Ron DeSantis decided to officially launch his campaign on Twitter.

>>It is - I think it was a risky approach.

There was the there's the desire of the DeSantis campaign to do new things, to try new things, to be a new candidate, to strike a difference between the Trump campaign and his own campaign.

But I think it brings a larger issue about the DeSantis campaign in that it's completely focused on online, on Twitter opinion on people that are very connected to Twitter or very active on Twitter, people that are campaign operatives or people that are very strong conservatives or partizans.

But eventually he's going to need to win over the voters that aren't very active on social media.

>>I mean, some polling has shown a bump for the governor since he announced, despite those issues with his Twitter feed.

>>When you've been taking incoming fire from the Trump campaign for the past three, four or five months, this gives you a chance to finally respond back.

And we've seen over the past week the most forceful responses to the Trump campaign.

So you're going to get more coverage.

You're going to get more people paying attention.

You're going to think of more people is being viable.

You're going to see articles about, you know, raising $8.2 million in the first 24 hours.

Whenever you face the type of attacks that he's faced.

And eventually you're going to bounce back.

>>Frank, you mentioned there that the governor is now pushing back against Donald Trump on issues much more strongly than before his campaign launch.

What do you think the key issues will be in this campaign?

>>If you look at a lot of the different people running their I go - their goal, their idea is be conservative enough that we can be an acceptable alternative to Trump.

I think it'll have to be about Governor DeSantis or whatever other Republican emerges, saying our policies are all in the same ballpark, but I'm the alternative that can win.

If you like President Trump and you like his policies.

I'm the person that can actually get those things done.

>>Frank Orlando there.

Well, let's bring in our panel now to break it all down.

Joining us in the studio this week, Christopher Heath covers politics over there at WFTV Channel 9.

Thanks so much for coming in, Chris.

Appreciate it.

And afternoon anchor also dabbles in politics as well, Greg Angel from Spectrum News 13, thanks so much for being here.

Really appreciate it, guys.

Let me start with you, Chris, on this one.

And let's look at the big picture, if we can.

We have the governor's announcement there on Twitter.

We also had this kind of kick off rally in Iowa.

Can we say broad brush strokes?

How are things going so far?

>>Well, the bar got set pretty low with that Twitter announcement.

I mean, you have technical difficulties.

They get some 400,000 people listening to Twitter.

But it's, you know, part of DeSantis reading a speech.

And then you have Elon Musk jumping in.

And really it's an awkward thing.

Then he gets to Iowa and a lot more set up events there.

You know, more of your traditional wearing the, you know, the blue shirt that you always see candidates wear.

And they're out there with the American flag in the background.

They're giving a stump speech, much more traditional campaigning.

So Iowa's going better than Twitter, although Twitter set the bar pretty low for a campaign kickoff.

I mean, there's nowhere to go but up.

And I think there are a lot of voters out there that are saying we want an alternative to Donald Trump, Republican voters, DeSantis still feels like he can be it.

>>And I think there's something there, too.

If you remember, for the 2020 reelection campaign for Trump, where was he?

Where did he announce that?

Orlando, Florida, Amway Center, nearly 20,000 people in there.

And you contrast that to what was Governor DeSantis, his first official speech in Iowa, much more scaled down.

He did do a small media opportunity to the side afterwards, but it does seem they're keeping some of that separation.

And I think that's something to keep an eye on, too, especially as we saw in the ad there, how the Trump campaign is trying to tout Governor DeSantis as kind of a Trump mini me, if you will.

>>I mean, it was interesting to hear Frank Orlando there say that, you know, one of the things it kind of really threw into the spotlight was that the DeSantis campaign is very, very online.

I think is what what how he said it.

But, you know, in New Hampshire, for example.

Greg, I mean, you need to do retail politics, don't you?

I mean, from covering Ron DeSantis over the years, you guys, I mean, is he going to be good at that?

>>And I wonder, too, I mean, you talk about the campaigns being very online and I wonder if it's for the betterment or for the detriment of the campaigns.

And what I mean by that is speaking with potential voters and even Republicans and some of the social issues.

One common theme among a lot of voters is they're exhausted.

>>Yeah.

>>They're tired.

The chaos, that's what they want to get rid of.

And the politics.

And Chris, you can speak to it, too.

I mean, we see how Florida reporters are treated by the governor's campaign online.

And that is an attitude.

And now you've got Trump and DeSantis team members really at it.

And the vitriol seems really high.

And I just wonder if that kind of tone is going to resonate with folks.

>>To kind of use a sports analogy.

I mean, if you're if you're a hitter and you haven't seen Major League pitching in a while and then all of a sudden you step up to the plate and there's a pro throwing, it's going to be hard.

And I think that's one of the things they're saying is I want to see where he goes from here because I remember his first election.

We're talking 2018.

Suzy Wiles, his campaign manager, reaches out to me and says, would you like to do a sit down with then congressman candidate for governor Ron DeSantis?

We do a sit down very, very standard interview, you know, asking the questions, kind of free flowing back and forth.

Then he gets elected and he does your usual kind of media gaggles at events.

He'll say what he has to say and then step aside.

We would all walk up with microphones and we ask questions and one on one.

>>Very traditional way of things.

>>Yeah, pandemic shifts all that.

And part of it had to do with social distancing and everything else.

But he adopted very much a I'm going to go to an event and I'm going to be up on the stage and have a lectern in front of me.

The media's way at the back of the room.

They can shout the questions, but we have an audience.

They're going to people behind me, almost quasi rally.

He's not going to get follow up questions.

He's not going to get hard questions.

He can use the audience as a foil if he doesn't like the question.

And then he goes on to friendly media.

We're talking Fox News, One American News, Newsmax, where he's not going to get those hard questions.

To run a presidential campaign, you're going to get hard questions.

You're going to get him in the primary, and you're definitely gonna get them in the general.

And I think that may be a problem if he doesn't remember how to hit that fastball because they're coming.

>>Well, that's his relationship with the media.

What about the donor class?

I mean, he'd struggled with big name endorsements right towards the beginning when we were all speculating about whether he was going to be running for president or not.

Is there any sign that that tide is turning?

>>Well, I mean, they just had the whole dial for dollars for, for Ron event down in Miami recently.

I don't think you can overstate the success that Governor DeSantis and his team has had in fundraising.

I mean, a huge I mean, setting records for a gubernatorial campaign.

Of course, now what folks are watching is with some of the filings and now some of that money being shuffled over to the presidential campaign.

I know there's been some complaints filed with the Federal Elections Commission about some of the transfer of the state to federal money.

You know, donors want winners, and that is why even though Iowa, South Carolina and New Hampshire, they may not have the most delicate voters and things of that liking, but it at least get you the head headlines if you win, not make or break.

Remember, we had a point, you know, in 2016 when Dr. Ben Carson was the leading Republican in the race.

So we have a long way to go even until the primary.

>>We're talking about wanting winners.

I mean, the governor himself has sort of talked about the GOP having to end what he calls a culture of losing.

Right.

He's sort of pitching himself as the guy that can beat Joe Biden.

Does the polling really bear that out?

>>I mean, it's really early right now.

I think what you start to see, at least this far out is Joe Biden is going to be the Democratic nominee.

So really, what's the stand in there is Joe Biden versus generic Republican.

Even if we say, look, it's going to be Trump or its probably going to be DeSantis, voters are still looking at it as a known commodity versus an unknown.

And they may look at that unknown differently than once we have a name officially tied to that other person, then it change.

So I think, you know, there's a long way to go there.

What does the economy look like?

What does the war in Ukraine look like?

What does inflation look like as we get towards Labor Day of next year when voters are paying attention?

That's, I think, really going to bear out what happens next.

>>One thing that we've covered here in our state in the last legislative session was resigned to run.

As we know, the governor now does not have to resign to run.

Is there a clear dividing line now between governing and running for president in terms of his apparatus like there has to be by law?

>>Well, we're seeing that the FDLE in protection of the governor is growing and expanding, arguably.

I think most folks would say it's very blurred lines.

And look, presidents do it all the time, too, when they're on the campaign trail campaigning.

What do they do?

They gas up Air Force One.

>>Yes.

>>They fly down to Miami.

They have an official event and then spend the evening at a fundraising event.

And that's how they put tax payers on the hook for some of that campaign related travel and the like.

And look, President Obama, President Trump, you go back, every president's done it.

And I think it's kind of blurred lines right now.

But look, you've got a super majority of Republicans running the state.

He's popular among Florida Republicans.

So I don't think there's going to be much pushback on what he does.

It kind of is DeSantis kingdom right now in Florida.

>>He certainly hasn't received much pushback from Republican legislators as we've seen so far in his term.

Just reminder, you can find much more from the NewsNight team online.

Be sure to visit our website wucf.org/newsnight.

All right.

Next tonight, the policy issues.

Ron DeSantis delivered a kickoff speech, as we mentioned, in Iowa this week.

Thatll sound familiar to Floridians accustomed to his message, he promised he'd fight what he called a malignant ideology in America and, quote, the indoctrination of children.

He also looked to weigh in on the debt ceiling issue, opposing the deal struck between the White House and Republican leaders on the Hill.

DeSantis has run into controversy, of course, among some of his party for his positions on issues ranging from Ukraine to his fight with Disney.

And on the campaign trail, he's likely to face cross examination over his positions on LGBTQ issues and education policy, including the tackling of issues of gender and race in Florida classrooms.

Krystel Knowles reminds us of some of the governor's education reforms.

>>The education reforms pushed by Governor DeSantis played out at the recent New College of Florida commencement.

The keynote speaker, Dr. Scott Atlas, a former COVID advisor to former President Trump.

>>Jared Kushner, to help advise the president.

>>He faced opposition from students who turned their seats around.

The crowd filled with students, families and friends chanted Wrap it up.

While Atlas discussed his COVID response and accolades.

>>Wrap it up!

Wrap-- >>A few days later, faculty members voted to censor trustees, citing disregard for fiduciary duties.

DeSantis vision for education, both in grades K through 12 and universities, kicked into high gear this year.

In April, the Florida Board of Education expanded upon the parental rights law that opponents called Don't Say Gay, limiting how sexuality and gender is talked about all the way through 12th grade.

>>I don't know.

We'll see.

>>The governor says parental rights formed the backbone of another piece of legislation allowing parents to object to books in school libraries.

His administration has pushed back on claims it amounts to books being banned in the state.

Earlier this year, Florida rejected the AP course on African-American studies, saying it fell afoul of Florida's new laws.

This legislative session, DeSantis achieved his goal of de-funding diversity, equity and inclusion programs at state universities.

He's now hoping his conservative focus on education in Florida will go down well on the campaign trail, where polls show culture war issues rank high on the agenda for many Republican voters.

>>Krystel Knowles there.

Well, to talk more about how the governor's positions on education, such as his opposition to DEI programs and the teaching of critical race theory, might play into the election campaign.

I spoke with Larry Walker, a professor of educational leadership at UCF.

>>Consistently throughout the United States history, there has been a response to any push for civil-- We talk about racial justice here.

We're not just talking about civil rights.

We're talking about racial justice, which is really economic, political justice.

When a time you've seen that push for African-Americans, for fairness, there has been a response.

And without a doubt we're seeing that.

Let me give you an example.

When people are using the phrase “woke ” we know that that's a phrase that was sent, thats created in the black community.

So what we've seen is that repurposed and then weaponized.

So members of the black community who are voters see that.

And their response to that will be clear on Election Day next year.

>>But what about Americans as a whole?

Do you get a sense that they might be buying the anti-DEI policies that the governor espouses?

>>So we know, Steve, I think by 2042, the United States will come a majority minority nation.

Some of our states like Texas and etc., are already there.

So I think the question is and this idea about DEI in politics is are you moving in a direction is consistent with the electorate?

The majority of students currently in public school system in the United States are from racial and ethnic backgrounds.

Now, the question is, there are people who don't want that.

So as a as a as a politician, you always have to kind of be able to understand what's going on in the present, but also predict where things are going.

And as I said, our electorate is becoming majority minority.

So does eliminating DEI programs and any other proposals you see, is that consistent with the long term needs of this country?

Because you have to understand how we're moving these programs.

We have a long term economic impact on the nation.

>>Larry Walker there.

So let's pick up there.

Chris.

A Washington Post IPSOS poll recently showed 67% of black voters say there would be no way that they would back Ron DeSantis in a race for president.

Does that say anything about how the governor's positions on, you know, quote unquote, woke issues and DEI might play out nationally, do you think?

>>I don't think people know what DEI is.

DEI is something that is kind of a nebulous term to the average voter.

It's repackaged CSR, which when I got my master's in business, we learned about it's corporate social responsibility.

This is a year ago.

It's just a new version of that.

There's nothing new or interesting about it.

It's just a new buzzword that you can tie things to.

And they're going after because it is still a nebulous, undefined term for the average voter.

But you can peg anything you don't like to that.

Oh, that's happening.

Well, that's that's clearly DEI, that's clearly DEI.

>>And you talk about the theme there.

You know people what is DEI?

We hear the same complaints about critical race theory.

Well, what is critical race theory?

Orlando attorney John Morgan made the argument on Twitter not long ago, too.

Part of the challenge with the governor's fight and feud with Disney is the fact that nobody knows what the governor's feud with Disney actually is.

Here in Florida.

We're in this echo chamber.

But when you go out to Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina, Nevada, wherever it's you know, folks are probably more in tune with the headlines or what friends here or there, you know, the game of telephone.

But when you also look at it as the critics say, why is the governor picking all these social fights?

Well, you know, political scientists will tell you Florida is well primed.

Geography, economics, weather, lots of success, naturally, with Florida, when now Senator Rick Scott left low crime, low unemployed.

So the governor had a lot of of of pluses in the column, if you will.

So how do you run for president?

By just saying I maintain the status quo.

So you need something to run on.

And so some critics say that's part of the reason is because it's been a long term goal to run for president anyway.

>>If you are living deep in the fever swamps and this is what you find online in the left and the right, you go back to Kamala Harris's short lived presidential campaign.

It was criticized for being way too online and catering to the far left of the Democratic Party because that's who the advisers for her campaign were listening to on social media.

This is the temptation when you have campaign staff, you have people around you who are gauging public policy off of, you know, what was in the A Block on on Fox News last night or what was on the A Block on MSNBC last night or what is trending on Twitter today.

You know, voters are not there and getting online, going too deep online can be a bad thing.

>>We certainly see the governor leaning into his positions on education.

Right.

We saw him talking about homeschooling convention in Orlando last week.

He talked about it again in Iowa this week.

He seems to be leaning into the his education push.

>>Well, because that's what they see is is the winning strategy right now.

And, you know, to his defense on the campaign trail so far, he is sticking to what we've heard from the governor so far.

Here's what I've done in Florida and all these issues that we talk about.

The DEI, the education, these are all issues that he is putting front and center on the campaign trail.

There's still a lot of confusion as he is back and forth.

You know, folks are saying, you know, books are getting banned in elementary schools.

And then the governor says, well, there's no such thing as a book ban.

And so there's a lot of, you know, back and forth.

Also keep in mind, too, a lot of these critical issues that have come through the legislature because they're priorities for the governor, a lot of them are being challenged in court.

The six week abortion ban is another one that's really still pending as the 15 week abortion ban signed the year before is still pending in court, as are the challenges facing a lot of these social focused issues.

>>I want to talk a bit about personality versus policy.

Let me first play this from Michael Binder.

He's the faculty director of the Public Opinion Research Lab at the University of North Florida.

>>If you can keep these to policy wonk talking points, listen, that might be much more in Ron DeSantis wheelhouse.

The crazier this gets, the more extravagant this gets, the more that favors Donald Trump.

And if you're kind of doing a UFC fight analogy, right, it's a boxer versus a wrestler.

And if you mix it up and you're willing to wrestle, next thing you know, he's got your back and he's choking you out.

But if you can be disciplined and try to stand up and just kind of do the strikes and stick and move with policy points as opposed to going crazy, maybe you have a better chance.

But again, you know, all it takes is one little inroad and the place blows up.

It's celebrity driven.

And Donald Trump is really in his comfort zone.

>>Michael Binder there.

Okay, Chris, I mean, Trump has hit DeSantis for months on, you know, personalities, personality attacks.

But also interestingly on some substantive issues as well, abortion and Disney.

He's he's gone after the governor on.

I mean, how is the Trump campaign kind of tuning its attacks against DeSantis on policy?

>>I think they view DeSantis in two ways.

One, that they look at him and they say, okay, of all the people challenging for the GOP nomination, he is in the strongest position, both money wise and polling wise.

He's number two.

So we've got to go after him.

We've got to knock him out.

That's why you saw Trump not really that upset and actually welcoming Tim Scott into the race, because he doesn't see him as the same threat that DeSantis is.

Trump is also looking at this, and I think he's got some people around him who have done nationwide campaigns before because obviously he ran for president in 16 and won and ran in 2020 and lost.

So he knows that the general election is going to be different than the nomination.

And he's saying, listen, if I can hold on to the first place and get the nomination, I need to be positioned to go into the general.

And that's why you started to see him take some of these positions that I think his campaign would tell you are conservative but not going to alienate people, which is why you've seen some of that pushback on things like the six week abortion ban.

And yet he can still then say, but I delivered three supporting Supreme Court justices who handed down Dobbs.

>>You know, I've been thinking a bit about this.

I mean, fundamentally, right, many in the Republican base say they like Ron DeSantis.

But, you know, I've heard analysis from a lot of reporters who've covered politics for a long time, sort of saying that they believe that he's just not different enough from Trump on on policy.

I mean, to take votes away from him.

I mean, is he just a different flavor of cultural conservatism?

I guess I'm asking.

And is that enough?

>>Well, I think first of all, I think this answers the fact that elections are all about personality.

It's a popularity contest.

It goes beyond policies.

At the end of the day, I think people fall in love with the candidate and then fall in love with their policies.

What is going to be interesting and you see it see it right now between the staffs of DeSantis and Trump campaigns and the back and forth, a lot of average disconnected voters who are not spending their time on on Twitter looking at this.

This is really much to the disengaged.

And I think the question becomes, if Ron DeSantis is the Republican nominee, will the rest of the party fall in line?

I think for the most part, you could probably lean towards, yes, you've got these other individuals, Mike Pence, he's expected jump in the race, Chris Christie, he's expected to jump in the race.

And who knows?

The larger the field, the better it is for Trump.

Because if you're trying to get your share of the pie, if you will, for Trump to have the hold that he has right now, the other contenders are nibbling away from DeSantis's slice of the pie.

>>Splitting that non-Trump vote.

I mean, has the Republican Party, Chris, changed to the extent that it's really hard for candidates like Ron DeSantis to differentiate themselves enough from Trump on policy?

Given where the party is, I mean, do they have to basically run to appeal to the party that Trump built, regardless of whether Trump is still around?

>>Yeah, I think you can see a fundamental change within the party starting around 2015, 2016.

And and yet what was Trump the catalyst for it, or was he just a reflection of the party?

I think you could really go all the way back to what we saw with the Tea Party and that kind of coming of age in the Trump, you know, era with him embracing it.

But it really started at the tail end of the George W Bush presidency and the beginning of the Barack Obama presidency.

So, yeah, the party has changed, and parties, that's what parties do they change.

You know, you look at the Democratic Party, you know, pre-Civil War, then reconstruction and then civil rights, the Democratic Party as making some fundamental changes, Republican Party as well.

The fact that you have a Republican Party where you're still seeing you're seeing splits now over whether or not we should stand up against Russia and their invasion of Ukraine.

That used to be kind of sacrosanct to the GOP, that we will have a strong national defense and we will be, you know, the tip of the spear for democracy around the globe.

Now, you're seeing some Republicans say, no, no, no, we're going back for retrenchment, we're going for isolationism.

These kind of things happen within a party.

And I think, you know, they're just happening faster than ever before and parties are having to be a little more nimble.

>>Well, really interesting conversation, guys.

I really appreciate you can join the conversation as well on social media for WUCFTV, on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

And before we go, just a reminder that we're right at the start of hurricane season, of course, and you can find coverage of that as well on our website, wucf.org/newsnight.

Well, that is all the time we have for this week.

My thanks to Greg Angel, Spectrum News 13.

Thanks for coming in, Greg.

And also Christopher Heath.

WFTV Channel 9 covers politics over there at Channel 9.

Really interesting conversation.

Thank you, guys.

Meanwhile, we'll see you next Friday night at 8:30 here on WUCF.

In the meantime, from all of us here at NewsNight, take care and have a great weekend.