We will publish a biography of the President of the United States of America Ron DeSantisPart 2

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00:00We will publish the biography of the candidate for President of the United States of America

00:08Ron DeSantis.

00:10Part 2 In September 2021, DeSantis A. announced he

00:18would run for re-election.

00:20On November 7, he filed the necessary paperwork to officially enter the race.

00:26In the general election, he faced Democratic nominee Charlie Crist, a U.S. representative

00:31and former Florida governor.

00:33Crist heavily criticized DeSantis' decision to transport illegal immigrants to Democratic

00:38states, arguing that it was human rights abuse.

00:42During an interview with Brett Baier on Fox News, Crist called DeSantis one of the biggest

00:46threats to democracy.

00:49The gubernatorial debate was held on Oct. 23, and the candidates exchanged attacks.

00:55At one point, Crist asked DeSantis whether he would serve a full four-year term in relation

00:59to talk about a potential DeSantis campaign for president in 2024.

01:04DeSantis responded, the only worn-out old donkey I'm looking to put out to pastures

01:08is Charlie Crist.

01:10On the campaign trail DeSantis criticized Crist's role as a U.S. representative, and

01:15at the debate said that Crist showed up for work for only 14 days during 2022.

01:20DeSantis won the November 8 election in a landslide.

01:24With 59.4 percent of the vote to Crist's 40 percent.

01:29It was the largest margin of victory in a Florida gubernatorial election since 1982.

01:35Significantly, DeSantis won Miami-Dade County, which had been a Democratic stronghold since

01:402002, and Palm Beach County, which had not voted Republican since 1986.

01:46Crist conceded the election shortly after DeSantis was projected as the winner.

01:51At DeSantis's victory rally, supporters chanted two more years at various times rather than

01:56the common four more years to show support for DeSantis for president in 2024.

02:01DeSantis became governor of Florida on January 8, 2019.

02:07Inaugurated at age 40, he was the youngest person to assume the office since Park Trammell

02:12in 1913 and the youngest Republican ever to serve in the position.

02:17He has generally governed as a conservative.

02:20On January 11, three days after taking office, he posthumously pardoned the Groveland Four,

02:25a group of black men falsely convicted of rape in 1949.

02:30The same day, he officially suspended Broward County Sheriff Scott Israel, ostensibly for

02:35his responses to the mass shootings at the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, appointing

02:40Gregory Toney to replace him.

02:43In its 2021 session, the Florida legislature passed DeSantis's top priorities.

02:49During his tenure, the Republican-dominated Florida legislature enacted much of DeSantis's

02:53legislative agenda, often on rapid timelines.

02:57Maximizing the power of the governor's office, DeSantis exerted pressure on Republican

03:02legislative leaders.

03:04During his 2018 gubernatorial campaign, DeSantis pledged to lower corporate income taxes to

03:095% or lower.

03:12During his tenure, corporate income taxes in Florida got as low as 3.5% in 2021, but

03:18by 2022 they had increased to 5.5%.

03:22DeSantis has maintained Florida's low-tax status during his time as governor.

03:27In June 2019, DeSantis signed a $91.1 billion budget the legislature passed the previous

03:33month, which was the largest in state history at the time, though he cut $131 million in

03:38appropriations.

03:40In June 2021, he signed a $101.5 billion budget, he used his line-item veto to veto $1.5 billion

03:48of which $1 billion was in Federal American Rescue Plan Act money for an emergency response

03:53fund.

03:55The budget DeSantis signed was more than $9 billion higher than Florida's current state

03:59spending plan.

04:01During the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, DeSantis blamed former Gov. Rick Scott for revamping

04:06the state's unemployment insurance system with pointless roadblocks that he said were

04:10designed to prevent people from claiming benefits, claiming it created massive backlogs earlier

04:15in the year as the pandemic decimated the economy.

04:18Afterward, Florida's economy swiftly started recovering, and the unemployment rate fell

04:23below 7% by the latter half of 2020.

04:27In December 2020, DeSantis ordered the Florida Department of Economic Opportunity to extend

04:32unemployment waivers until Feb. 27, 2021.

04:37By the end of 2020, the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank, graded DeSantis B

04:42in its biennial fiscal policy report on America's governors.

04:47Since May 2022, Florida's unemployment rate has sat around 2%, below the national average.

04:54On Nov. 22, 2021, because of a significant increase in gasoline prices, DeSantis announced

05:00that he would temporarily waive Florida's gasoline tax in the next legislative session,

05:05in 2022.

05:07Florida had a record state budget surplus in 2023.

05:11While in Congress, DeSantis supported proposals to raise the retirement age i.e., the age

05:16to qualify for Medicare and Social Security to 70 and to privatize Medicare, turning it

05:21into a premium support system.

05:24While running for president in 2023, DeSantis reversed his position, saying, we're not going

05:29to mess with Social Security.

05:32In June 2021, DeSantis led an effort to ban the teaching of critical race theory in Florida

05:37public schools though it had not been part of Florida's public school curriculum.

05:42He described critical race theory as teaching kids to hate their country, mirroring a similar

05:46push by conservatives nationally.

05:49The Florida Board of Education approved the ban on June 10.

05:53The Florida Education Association criticized the ban, accusing the board of trying to hide

05:58facts from students.

06:00Other critics said the ban was an effort to politicize classroom education and whitewash

06:04American history.

06:07On Sept. 14, 2021, DeSantis announced that Florida would replace the Florida Standards

06:12Assessment, FSA, test with a system of three smaller tests throughout the school year,

06:17in the fall, winter and spring.

06:20The new system was implemented in the 2022-23 school year.

06:25On Dec. 15, 2021, DeSantis announced a new bill, the Stop Wrongs to Our Kids and Employees

06:31Act, Stop WOKE Act, which would allow parents to sue school districts that teach critical

06:35race theory.

06:37He framed the bill as a bill to combat woke indoctrination that would teach our kids to

06:41hate our country or hate each other.

06:43On Aug. 18, 2022, federal Judge Mark E. Walker blocked enforcement of the act as applied

06:49to businesses, ruling that it violated the First Amendment and was impermissibly vague.

06:54Walker later blocked enforcement of the act as applied to public universities for similar

06:59reasons, writing that the legislation is positively dystopian because it officially bans professors

07:03from expressing disfavored viewpoints in university classrooms while permitting unfettered

07:08expression of the opposite viewpoints.

07:11DeSantis expressed support for the Voting Rights Restoration for Felons initiative after

07:15it passed in November 2018, saying he was obligated to faithfully implement it, as it

07:20is defined when he became governor.

07:23After he refused to restore voting rights for felons with unpaid fines, which voting

07:27rights groups said was inconsistent with the referendum's results, he was challenged in

07:31court.

07:33The Florida Supreme Court sided with DeSantis on the issue.

07:37And the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit also sided with DeSantis in a 6-4

07:42ruling.

07:43In April 2019, DeSantis directed Florida's elections chief to expand the availability

07:48of Spanish-language ballots and Spanish assistance for voters.

07:52In a statement, DeSantis said, it is critically important that Spanish-speaking Floridians

07:57are able to exercise their right to vote without any language barriers.

08:01In June 2019, DeSantis signed a measure that would make it harder to launch successful

08:06ballot initiatives.

08:09Petition gathering for ballot initiatives to legalize medical cannabis, increases to

08:13the minimum wage, and expansion of Medicaid were also underway.

08:17DeSantis instructed Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody to investigate whether Michael

08:21Bloomberg had criminally offered incentives for felons to vote by assisting in a fundraising

08:26effort to pay off their financial obligations so they could vote in the 2020 presidential

08:30election in Florida.

08:33No wrongdoing was found.

08:35In February 2021, DeSantis announced his support for eliminating ballot drop boxes and limiting

08:40voting by mail by requiring that voters re-register every year to vote by mail and that signatures

08:45on mail-in ballots match the most recent signature on file rather than any of the voters' signatures

08:50in the Florida system.

08:52The changes to mail-in voting were notable given that Republicans had historically voted

08:56by mail more than Democrats, but Democrats outvoted Republicans by mail in 2020.

09:02According to a Tampa Bay Times analysis, DeSantis' signature match proposal could have led to

09:07rejections of his own mail-in ballots due to changes in his signature history over time.

09:13Voting rights experts argued that the signature matching proposal could be used to disenfranchise

09:17voters whose signatures varied over time.

09:21After the U.S. Supreme Court decided Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization, which

09:25overturned Roe v. Wade, DeSantis pledged to expand pro-life protections.

09:30On April 14, 2022, he signed into law a bill that bans abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy.

09:38Under the previous law, the limit had been 24 weeks.

09:42The law includes exceptions for abortions beyond 15 weeks if they are necessary to avert

09:46serious risk to the pregnant woman's physical health or if there is a fatal fetal abnormality

09:51but makes no exceptions for rape, human trafficking, incest, or mental health.

09:56The law was expected to go into effect on July 1, 2022.

10:01But a state judge blocked its enforcement, ruling that it violated the right to privacy

10:05guaranteed by the Florida Constitution.

10:08After DeSantis appealed the ruling, the law went into effect on July 5, pending judicial

10:13review.

10:15In January 2023, the Supreme Court of Florida agreed to hear a legal challenge to the law.

10:21In April 2023, DeSantis signed a six-week abortion ban.

10:26The legislation contains exceptions allowing abortion up to 15 weeks in cases in which

10:30the pregnancy was a result of rape, incest, or human trafficking but requires the woman

10:35to provide proof of a crime before being permitted an abortion under any of those exceptions.

10:41The bill will make providing an abortion a felony punishable by up to five years in

10:44prison, ban telemedicine for abortion, and limit the availability of medication abortion.

10:50The six-week ban went into effect on May 1, 2024, after the Supreme Court of Florida upheld

10:56the 15-week ban on April 1, 2024.

11:00I stop at this point today.

11:03We continue to narrate a stage in the life of the candidate for Ron DeSantis.

11:09Soon we will publish part 3.

11:14Until next time, stay curious.

11:17Stay informed, and keep exploring the world's incredible stories.

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