Unpacking DeSantis' Campaign And Distrusting Nikki Haley with Steve Cortes

An important citizen of the United States, and he worked for President Trump in this past campaign and defended him tremendously and did a great job. As I said, the viral PragerU video defending President Trump against the lie that he called Nazis fine people, and Then he went to endorse Ron DeSantis, and I asked him why he did, and he's beginning to answer by noting that in the very poor showing of Republicans in the midterms, there was one extraordinary outlier, and that's the state of Florida under this remarkable— and truly, DeSantis is remarkable. So in light of your respect for him, well, even better, your respect and my respect is not as important as what he achieved in Florida.

Right.

I mean, he has turned the University of Florida around. He has turned the state around. He appointed Joseph Ladapo as the Surgeon General, one of the most courageous doctors in the United States of America. Yeah, I mean, he is— when he said— and I watched his inauguration— Florida's where the woke come to die, that was actually accurate, right? So how do you, how do you explain his relatively poor showing in the primaries? Sure.

And by the way, I'm glad that you mentioned Dr. Ladapo because I really hold him up as He is the anti-Tony Fauci.

That's right. That's correct.

That's right. He's the correct version of what Fauci should be, right, for this country. And kudos to him and to Ron DeSantis for everything they did in the state of Florida. I don't think it's an exaggeration, Dennis, to say that Florida in many ways saved America because all of America could have been locked out the way California was, the way Illinois was, where I used to live, if it were not for that shining example of Florida. So given what happened in Florida, during the lockdowns, given the, you know, the beacon they became for the country, given the electoral triumph that Ron DeSantis had in 2022, which again was such an outlier, I think it was reasonable for him and reasonable for people like me to at that time project, okay, this man is going to be the standard bearer for the America First movement. He is the next leader of this, of the party, of the movement. He can be president of the United States. I still believe all of that, by the way, but it's It's just going to have to happen in time because I was wrong about it happening this year, about it happening in 2024. And the Republican electorate has been extremely crystal clear that they still view Donald Trump as their warrior leader of this movement. And that opinion crystallized through the indictments. In other words, the more that the ruling class continued to persecute—

that's right.

And concoct these sham indictments against him, the more Republican voters rallied to his side. And so given that, I believe— and I've quite humbly stated— that those of us who supported other candidates need to admit that we were wrong in our projections, maybe for valid reasons, but we were wrong.

You might have been wrong in your projections. You weren't wrong in your support.

Sure. And, and that we now need to, to to coalesce, that we need.

Right. Agreed.

The stakes are too high.

All right. So I'm very curious. What's your take on Nikki Haley?

I am not a fan. I mean, look, as you might guess, you know, somebody who is as right-wing populist nationalist as I am, I am not a fan of Nikki Haley, somebody who was on the board of Boeing, who believes in the neocon vision of the world where America is always at war, and constantly intervening across the globe at great cost of American blood and treasure. So I am no fan of Nikki Haley's. I think that she is effectively a spokesman for the corporatist wing of the Republican Party, which thankfully has been largely jettisoned to obscurity through Republican votes. I also believe that if she were to do the honorable thing, she should follow the example of Ron DeSantis, who very honorably— Ron DeSantis, basically bet all of his political chips on Iowa. Okay. When that bet didn't pay off, he did the right thing. He said, okay, it's no longer— I'm not going to try to play spoiler. In other words, it's time for my supporters. It's time for me, Governor DeSantis, to endorse President Trump. He realized that. Similarly, Dennis, Nikki Haley put all of her chips into the New Hampshire bet. It didn't work. Even with a lot of Democrats, even with a lot of independents entering the Republican primary to vote for Nikki Haley against Donald Trump, it still didn't work. She should follow the example of Governor DeSantis. She should do the honorable thing and say he is the presumptive nominee. It is time for all of us to unite behind him because our true opponent is not somebody with an R after their name. It is Joe Biden and what he's doing to this country. And Dennis, to connect that to your, your earlier mention of the PragerU video, which I was of course honored to do on behalf of your organization about the Charlottesville lie, the calumny against Donald Trump. Let's remember Joe Biden, when he launched his bid for the presidency in 2020, he literally predicated it upon that very lie. He said he was running for president because Donald Trump called bigots in Charlottesville very fine people, which of course he never did, as we proved through the transcripts and the videotape of what actually happened regarding that Charlottesville presser. Joe Biden based his entire presidency on an abject lie. I hope people recognize that.

And he almost repeated it in his inaugural address. I'm here because of the racist, of white supremacy in America. To use their favorite, one of their favorite terms, it was the most divisive inaugural address in American history. All he does is hurt the country. I mean, he wakes up and it's almost as if he asks, how can I hurt the country? So why do you think she's still in the race?

Here's my super cynical view. And I look, I don't know this to be true, but I think it's— this is, I think, informed speculation is that she's in the race because there are still very powerful big money interests who yearn for that day of a corporatist Republican Party, right, who want the era of the Bushes to return. And they believe that the longer they keep her in the race, in the hopes that something happens, something exogenous happens to President Trump, particularly regarding his legal problems from these sham indictments, that she should stay in as a sort of almost insurance policy.