Ron DeSantis on America’s Newsroom

So now the Iowa caucus is coming on fast right around the corner 12 days away and Dana and I will be there to bring it to you. A Fox Business poll shows the former president Donald Trump with a commanding lead. Put your eyes on the far left of that screen. In that poll he was at 52 percent up six points from the poll in September. Ron DeSantis in our polling's got him at 18 percent. He joins me now the Florida governor. Sir nice to have you on today. Good morning to you and thanks for being here. I know you're going to disagree with those numbers. Let me just get a few more out of the way and this is also what that poll found. If you're certain to support Trump, DeSantis or Haley, Trump was at 83 percent certain to support and may change mind. He had the least at 16 percent. You're at 39 and she is at 43. You know you you've been to all 99 counties. You come to us west of Des Moines today. When you're making your pitch to caucus goers in Iowa, how do you contrast your vision with Donald Trump? What's different? Well first we're excited by the support that we have. We've now a top 1,500 precinct captains who are going to actually be there on the caucus. This is what you have to do. It's an organizational intensive effort and so we've really put our mind to doing it that way. You know what I have, I think that no other candidate has, is I have a record of delivering on 100 percent of my promises. If you look at all the problems in this country that the left is inflicting, from open borders to crime to the bad economic policies, I've beaten these people in Florida. Whether it's the teachers unions, whether it's George Soros, whether it's the Democratic Party. We took a state that was evenly divided and the Democratic Party now lies in We've shown how to win. You guys have been covering the issue with the Harvard president getting fired. I'm the only one running for president that's taken on the rot in higher education. In Florida this whole idea of DEI, they say it's diversity equity and inclusion, it really stands for discrimination exclusion and indoctrination. We eliminated it from our public universities. We are focusing our universities on the core mission of what academia used to be, pursuing truth and preparing our students to be citizens of the republic, not to be indoctrination centers. So I've taken on the left and beat them in ways that Donald Trump and other candidates just simply have not. And this is the do or die time for this country. We're in a period of decline. We need to reverse it. I'll get it done. Let me come back to Harvard in a moment here. Here's a quote from the Helley campaign. If DeSantis doesn't win Iowa, there's no rationale for him to move on. Biden was fourth in 2020. That didn't stop him. You're going to do it. These people are trying to. Yeah, I just want to get to the question. You're going to. They're trying to. They're trying to debate. Exactly. We're going to do a debate. OK, on CNN. We're going to do a debate. And we're going to be able to have a sharp contrast in our visions. And I think she's had very difficult time recently because her she had been pumped up by liberal media, which I understand. She's the liberal candidate running, and now she's come under scrutiny and she's not been able to handle basic questions that people are asking. She's not been able to defend her record as governor of South Carolina, where she was the number one governor of bringing in Chinese Communist Party investment into her state in Florida. I banned China from buying land in Florida. I kicked them out of our universities. So it's just a contrast in visions, contrast in records. And clearly, Republican voters are going to pursue are going to prefer my vision to hers. OK, some are saying this. That's the battle for second place. I know you would disagree with that, but we'll watch and see what comes that night. And Donald Trump's going to do a town hall here on Fox at the same time. You mentioned Harvard. You know, the left and progressives feel that Israel is the oppressor. And we had a Harvard student on just this past hour, and we asked him if it weren't for the plagiarism charges, would she still have her job? And he said probably yes. What would lead a student, a Jewish student at Harvard to draw that conclusion? Well, because places like Harvard have been captured by a militant left ideology. And so it's not about academic excellence like universities used to be geared toward in this country. It's really about promoting their vision of so-called social justice. So it's got a massive endowment. It's basically a hedge fund with an indoctrination camp attached to it. That is academia run amok. That is not going to be successful for this country. They are not going to be producing the type of leaders that they may have been able to produce in the past. And so we've taken this on in Florida. We've said our state universities are funded by the taxpayers of Florida. They should be focused on things that are in the best interest of the people of Florida. That means we want academic integrity. We want merit-based academia. And we do not want discriminatory policies like DEI. So we stepped up and we did something about it. You know what's happening, Bill? Places like New College in Sarasota, which we turned from basically a Marxist commune into now a mini Hillsdale College, we have applications going through the roof. There's a hunger for truth in this country. Parents don't want to raise their kids for 18 years and then have a university undo everything in four years. They want to go to a place where their kids are going to be able to prosper. Harvard, I think, has totally dropped the ball. I think the institution needs a total overhaul. And just as somebody that hires people, I see someone come out of Harvard. Usually you would think, man, this is the best of the best. Now I just wonder what kind of stuff was put into their head in terms of this ridiculous ideology. And it's sad that that's the case, but they brought that on themselves. You know, Bill Ackman's going after the head of MIT and we'll see whether or not that's maybe the next shoe to drop here. Sir, thank you for your time. I wish we had more time today. We'll see you in Iowa very soon. Thank you, Governor. Bundle up. It's cold out here. We'll be ready. Thanks for the warning. We'll see you soon.