What We Learned Reading Ron DeSantis's Books

The Ezra Klein Show

New York Times Opinion

Society & Culture, Government, News

4.6 • 11K Ratings

🗓️ 13 June 2023

⏱️ 66 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Although 12 candidates have entered the Republican presidential race so far, only Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida is polling anywhere close to Donald Trump. What does DeSantis actually believe? How has he governed? And what case will he make to Republicans to vote for him over Trump? To answer those questions, I wanted to spend some time reading DeSantis in his own words. So I invited Carlos Lozada — the Pulitzer Prize-winning former book critic for The Washington Post, current Times Opinion columnist and the author of “What Were We Thinking: A Brief Intellectual History of the Trump Era” — to join me. Lozada has read many, many books by and about Republican politicians, including DeSantis’s two books, “Dreams From Our Founding Fathers: First Principles in the Age of Obama” from 2011 and “The Courage to Be Free: Florida’s Blueprint for America’s Revival,” released this year. We discuss DeSantis’s striking definition of — and rhetorical assault on — “elites,” why his campaign book makes no effort to showcase bipartisan credentials, DeSantis’s awkward transition from a Tea Party figure to MAGA crusader, what DeSantis has actually done as governor of Florida, why Florida’s Covid record is such a cornerstone of his political appeal, what DeSantis means by “wokeness” and why he’s waging a “war” on it, the surprising absence of major economic ideas from his book, how he is trying to differentiate himself from Trump without alienating Trump voters, whether his aggressive actions toward Disney will backfire and more. Mentioned: "America's Ruling Class" by Angelo Codevilla Dreams from Our Founding Fathers by Ron DeSantis The Courage to Be Free by Ron DeSantis How To by Randall Munroe Book Recommendations: Personal Memoirs of U.S. Grant by Ulysses Grant An Hour Before Daylight by Jimmy Carter All the Best, George Bush by George H.W. Bush Listen to this podcast in New York Times Audio, our new iOS app for news subscribers. Download now at nytimes.com/audioapp Thoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at [email protected]. You can find transcripts (posted midday) and more episodes of “The Ezra Klein Show” at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast, and you can find Ezra on Twitter @ezraklein. Book recommendations from all our guests are listed at https://www.nytimes.com/article/ezra-klein-show-book-recs. This episode was produced by Annie Galvin. Fact-checking by Michelle Harris, Mary Marge Locker and Kate Sinclair. Mixing by Efim Shapiro. The show’s production team is Emefa Agawu, Jeff Geld, Rogé Karma and Kristin Lin. Original music by Isaac Jones. Audience strategy by Shannon Busta. The executive producer of New York Times Opinion Audio is Annie-Rose Strasser. Special thanks to Sonia Herrero, Edwin Benton, Peter Bergerson, David Wallace-Wells and Kristina Samulewski.

Transcript

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0:00.0	So the Republican 2024 race is off in earnest.
0:27.0	This week, there are now 12 candidates declared.
0:29.0	It's become a big field.
0:31.0	But only two of those candidates are polling above single digits.
0:34.0	Donald Trump, who you may remember from such presidency, says the one right before this one,
0:39.0	he's polling in the mid-50s, and Rhonda Santos, the governor of Florida, was polling in the 20s.
0:45.0	Now, I've not always been on the Dessantus bus in the way some others are.
0:51.0	You may remember that my post-midterm podcast was titled, I don't quite buy the Dessantus narrative.
0:55.0	I didn't think his win in Florida was more impressive than Mike DeWine's win in Ohio, say,
1:00.0	DeWine won by more, or Jared Polis's win in Colorado.
1:04.0	The idea that out of 2022, Dessantus was some unstoppable juggernaut.
1:08.0	I didn't see the evidence for it.
1:10.0	But I now think the situation is flipped, and if anything, he's being underrated.
1:15.0	I've been listening to Dessantus give speeches and listening to him give interviews,
1:19.0	and I don't think he says unlikable or robotic on the stump as liberals have kind of been telling themselves he is.
1:27.0	There was a lot of anti-Dessantus glee and his glitchy Twitter spaces rollout,
1:31.0	but that doesn't really mean anything for his candidacy.
1:34.0	And this is a guy who has won tough races before.
1:37.0	He's a guy who knows the story he is telling, and he's pretty good in precisely telling it.
1:43.0	It's a story, I think, if you listen to a closely that is going to scare liberals,
1:48.0	and the question is whether it's going to actually thrill conservatives.
1:52.0	So what is that story, and how does he tell it?
	...

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