The following is a transcript excerpt from the Sunday Extra edition of Morning Wire. The full video interview can be seen on our DailyWire+ channel on YouTube.
After months of speculation, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis entered the 2024 presidential race late last month and currently finds himself closer to former President Trump in the polls than the rest of the Republican field. Daily Wire Editor-in-Chief John Bickley caught up with Governor DeSantis on the streets of San Francisco earlier this week to witness firsthand the twin crises of homelessness and the fentanyl epidemic. Along the way, they also encountered a group of police officers attempting to move some of the homeless people out of the area. Those officers approached the governor to thank him for his work. They then sat down in a nearby cafe afterwards for the rest of the interview.
BICKLEY: Governor, we’re here in the heart of San Francisco, behind enemy lines, if you will. We’ve got a very progressive California and a very conservative Florida under your leadership. What are you hoping to see here in California? What are you trying to experience firsthand here?
DESANTIS: I think what we’re seeing is the failure of leftist policies. When we pulled in, I saw somebody defecating on the street. I think this is the urban defecation capital of America. You’ve seen a city that used to be one of the best in the country in terms of vibrancy and prosperity. You’ve seen it become hollowed out, as a direct result of leftist policy and ideology. It’s sad. But, I can tell you I never saw a California license plate growing up in Florida. Then, I became governor, and especially in the aftermath of COVID, and we have Californians leaving San Francisco to go to Miami and other places. We like what we’re doing. People appreciate it partly because it was intolerable to live in this area. They don’t care about crime or homelessness. No one wants to live under those circumstances.
BICKLEY: What are some different things you’ve done in Florida, as opposed to California, that’s keeping this kind of situation from happening?
DESANTIS: Whatever they do, we try to do the opposite on a lot of this stuff. They really facilitate increasing homelessness. They’re very tolerant about illegal drug use, particularly in public. We will not countenance that. And their approach to criminal justice has been a total disaster. You cannot have somebody get into office and say, “We are not gonna prosecute criminals.” That just doesn’t work. And I’ve talked to people that have moved to Florida from here and other parts of the country, and they say, “Someone mugged me,” or “They robbed my car,” or “They even broke into my home.” No prosecution. Can you imagine that? Of course you’re going to get more crime as a result. When you don’t do those basics, the whole quality of life can collapse. The fact that that’s happened here — in what would’ve been one of the wealthiest areas in the entire world and probably was 10 years ago — shows you that the ideas we fight over matter. When we put our ideas into place in Florida, we thrived. When the Left wing ideas are put in here, the whole place crumbles.
BICKLEY: We have one of the hubs here of the homeless crisis, and we also have right here the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. And here, we have the Nancy Pelosi Federal Building on their front lawn. We’ve seen a lot of really young drug addicts here.
DESANTIS: It’s a little ironic. I mean, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has done a lot of damage in this country with left-wing rulings over the years. It’s gotten a little bit better, but it’s still very far out there. And then of course, Pelosi’s policies. In some respects, this is the logical culmination of the Pelosi liberalism that has been growing in San Francisco for many decades.
(Police officers approaches Governor DeSantis)
DESANTIS: Hey, how are you doing?
OFFICER: It’s a pleasure meeting you.
DESANTIS: So, hey, good to see you, man. You’re city police?
OFFICER: Yes.
DESANTIS: How long have you been doing it?
OFFICER: 17 years.
DESANTIS: God bless you man. You got your work cut out for you here. How are you doing buddy? Thanks so much for your service.
OFFICER: Good luck, sir.
DESANTIS: We appreciate you guys. We appreciate you wearing the uniform,
OFFICER: You’ve got a fight coming up next year.
DESANTIS: Well if people aren’t going to want a change in approach after seeing some of this, I mean, it’s just sad. You guys deserve better support. It’s unacceptable that you’re going out there, risking your life — and like you can apprehend someone and they just let them go. It’s absurd.
OFFICER: We appreciate it, sir. Have a great day.
DESANTIS: Thank you. Great to see you guys.
(After our walk and talk on the streets of San Francisco, we sat down in a nearby cafe to resume our conversation.)
WATCH: The full interview with Governor Ron DeSantis in San Francisco.
BICKLEY: Governor, I have to bring up the fact that police officers spontaneously came up and shook your hand. I just want to process that for a second. What do you think is going on there? We’re in San Francisco — why are they enthusiastic about a Republican governor? What are they excited about?
DESANTIS: Well, they’ve personally lived through the BLM riots, which the local officials effectively facilitated and urged on. They’ve seen weak-on-crime policies where they’ll apprehend some criminal, and then [local officials] just won’t prosecute them for really serious crimes. In Florida, we’ve stood for law and order across the board. If a cop in San Francisco isn’t being treated well, we recruit them to Florida, and they get a $5,000 signing bonus if they come to our state. We’re proud of that. Our crime rate in Florida’s at a 50 year low. Obviously that’s not what’s happening here in San Francisco. In the heart of the BLM riots, I was one of the few guys willing to say, “We stand with the people that wear the uniform. We’re not gonna tolerate rioting; we’re not gonna do this.” At that time, it was more fashionable to act like the police were the problem, and we never bought into that In Florida.
BICKLEY: On a federal level, how do you think you could make the environment for law enforcement more positive?
DESANTIS: There’s probably a few levers you can pull, but basically to target these Soros funded prosecutors who get elected like they did here in San Francisco on a platform to not enforce laws they dislike. So I’ve met people who lived in San Francisco. They had their homes broken into, they went to the cops, and cops apprehended the guy. “Do you want to press charges?” “Of course we do,” they responded. “Well, they’re not gonna prosecute, you know that.” How would they not prosecute someone who breaks into your home? And so that’s what ends up happening. And that’s really a civil rights crisis for average people here because if the law is not enforced, you basically have anarchy reigning supreme. There’s a lot of reasons why San Francisco’s gone downhill. Covid lockdowns were devastating here. They overdid it for so long; it was draconian. You obviously have bad tax and regulatory policies, but I think criminal justice — not having public safety is — is really the root. If people don’t feel safe, they’re not going to want to be here. That’s why so many people have fled San Francisco — because that’s just the threshold that if you don’t reach, people are gonna get out of Dodge.
LISTEN: Catch the full interview with Governor Ron DeSantis on the Sunday Extra edition of Morning Wire.
BICKLEY: You know, we heard the same kind of sentiment from the activists we talked to that are on the ground trying to work with the homeless crisis and the drug crisis. One of the things they brought up is actually the intersection of illegal immigration and crime issues here, and that the fentanyl crisis is driven a lot by the illegal immigration problem. You’ve taken a lot of aggressive action on illegal immigration and actually had some public spats with Governor Newsom over that. Can you talk about that some?
DESANTIS: There’s no question that what Biden’s allowed to happen at the border is killing Americans with fentanyl. In fact, I’ve been on the streets here in San Francisco for like 10 minutes, and I’ve seen defecation on the streets. We’ve seen crack cocaine used openly on the streets, and we’ve seen fentanyl use openly on the streets. This has really got a vice grip around this community. Part of it’s because the government facilitates it, and they think it’s good to let people do this. But, yes, the border’s been a huge problem for a lot of reasons, but fentanyl is probably the most deadly. Our view in Florida is that we will help at the border. We’re doing that. We’re not a sanctuary state. We’ve banned sanctuary cities. If you bring in illegals from the border and smuggle them into Florida, we’re going to hold you accountable. We’ve even authorized funds to transport illegal aliens to sanctuary jurisdictions, whether it’s Martha’s Vineyard or whether it’s California. And I’ll tell you that part of the reason they want to go to California is because they know they’re going to get benefits in California. And so California has made themselves a sanctuary state, and they’re basically incentivizing people to come illegally. As president, we’ll crack down on sanctuary cities nationwide and sanctuary states, and we’ll pull every lever we have because I think what they’re doing is flouting the law. The border, though, we’ll do on day one, and we’ll marshal all the assets: military, a civilian, you name it. We’ve been talking about this in conservative circles for decades, and yet it’s never been fixed. We’ll bring it to a conclusion.
BICKLEY: Speaking of sanctuary states, California also defines itself as now a transgender sanctuary state. Florida has taken a very different sort of approach to this, through a lot of new policies. What would you do differently federally speaking, in terms of handling the transgender policies?
DESANTIS: In Florida, we said “no sex change operations, sterilization, or puberty blockers for minors.” They are sterilizing these kids and taking off their private parts — and they’re minors. And what we found is as some of these kids get older, they have huge problems as a result of this. Many of them have huge regrets. And so we’re saying, “We’re not doing it in Florida.” What does California do? Not only do they welcome that type of mutilation, they encourage kids, behind their parents’ backs, to go from other jurisdictions where they don’t have the ability to get this type of gender surgery and come to California to do it as minors. I think it’s totally outrageous that that’s happening. What they’re also doing in California, is they want to tell a parent, “If you have a kid and the kid says, ‘I know I was born a boy. I’m 12, maybe I think I’m a girl now.’ If you don’t accept that, you could lose custody of your kid.” That’s what they’re debating right now. I think it’s probably gonna end up passing just knowing the politics here, but how outrageous is that? So that’s a massive attack on parental rights, and I think the modern Left thinks parents have a small role in the upbringing of their kid. And if there’s a clash between leftist ideology and parental rights, they want the leftist ideology to trump the rights of the parents. In Florida, we completely reject that.
BICKLEY: Now you’ve gotten some pushback for your policies, specifically about parental rights. Some people have accused you of being kind of authoritarian in a sort of a strong government approach. How would you defend your policies?
DESANTIS: Well, if you look over the last three or four years, we took more action to limit government involvement in people’s lives by eliminating COVID lockdowns. We would go into local communities, and I would overrule them. And I would say, “You can’t force masks. You can’t force kids to be locked out of school. You can’t force businesses to close.” To me, I think those are actions that promote freedom. I don’t think those are authoritarian at all. I think what some people on the Left get frustrated with is the fact that we are successful in enacting policies. But I’m getting this stuff through the legislature. That’s the way the constitutional system works. We say, “We want a parent’s bill of rights.” We work with the legislature, they deliver it and put it on my desk, and I sign it. We say, “Parents’ Rights in Education,” and we fought Disney to say, “No gender ideology in the schools.” Legislature passes it, I sign it, and it goes into law. That’s the way it should be done. We’ve taken very strong action to protect and expand people’s freedom, and ultimately, that’s the name of the game.
BICKLEY: As president, could you carry over some of those policies, on a federal level?
DESANTIS: I think so. First of all, Washington’s different from a state; there’s no question about that. The swamp and the bureaucracy are way more entrenched. But, you know that going in. One of the things I did as governor before I got in, I had a compendium of all the powers of the governor: statutory, constitutional, and customary. So, I knew which levers to push. Same thing’s gonna happen as president. We’ll know Article II, we’ll know all the statutory powers — every little piece of leverage we have. And what you say is, “Okay, I’ve got this agenda, but I’ve got to get it through a constitutional system.” So what levers can you pull to be able to advance it? We’ll be very active. On day one, spitting nails, we’ll be on offense. And we’re not going to just sit like a potted plant, like some of these Republicans, hoping that good things happen; we’re gonna make these things happen. The good news is while the problems are more severe than what we deal with at the state level, I think your power to counteract them is greater as president. You have the powers and the bully pulpit, and you can really put issues on the agenda in a big way. We did that in Florida to great effect, but a governor is more limited in terms of the reach that he has. So, we’ll be using all tools at our disposal.
BICKLEY: Final question: What wins the 2024 election? What argument or quality wins it? Democrat or Republican, what’s the deciding factor?
DESANTIS: If the election is a referendum on Biden’s failures, and we frame it that way with a candidate like me offering a better path for America, we will win the election. If it becomes a referendum on side issues or other things, and Biden’s allowed to stay in his basement all campaign like he did last time, then I fear that the Democrats will be able to win. So focusing on his failures, how he’s made America worse, and how we’re gonna do it better, not only will you get Republicans, you’re going to get these independents. That’s what we did in Florida, and we won independents by 18 percentage points. We won over 60% of Hispanics because we were identifying the issues that mattered to them. We were fighting the fringe left on all the things they’re trying to do. And I think there’s a huge majority coalition for that. People want a restoration of sanity in this country, and we can deliver that.
BICKLEY: Governor, thank you so much.
DESANTIS: Thank you.