Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis appeared at Friday’s Family Leadership Summit in Iowa for Republican presidential contenders where he was quizzed by former Fox News host Tucker Carlson over his different statements on the Ukraine war.
Carlson began by questioning DeSantis over his history of passing pro-life laws, and asked him if he would support similar legislation at the national level if he was elected president.
DeSantis responded by first praising Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds, who on Friday signed a bill that bans most abortions after six weeks of gestation — then said he would support other governors taking similar steps at the state level.
“I’m proud to have been a pro-life governor and I will be a pro-life president. So, I mean, of course, I want to sign pro-life legislation … If you look over the last 50 years, we allowed practices that were barbaric post-birth abortion, abortion when you have a fully formed baby, 6-7 months in. And I don’t think Rome’s built in a day. I think it’s going to take time to make progress in some parts of the country,” DeSantis said, according to transcripts of his response, provided by C-SPAN.
“But as president, I will be somebody who will use the bully pulpit to support governors like Kim Reynolds when she’s got a bill, and other states as they advance the cause of life. It’s a critical issue and it’s one I’m happy to have done …
“At the end of the day, you get into office to be able to do what’s right. And you’ve got to stand on principle and you’ve got to say, why am I here?” he said. “We stood up, we did what was right. Yeah, we lost some support as a result of that. But if I had a chance to do it again, I’d do it every day of the week and twice on Sunday.”
Moving on to the topic of Ukraine and the ongoing Russian invasion, Carlson questioned DeSantis over his changing statements on the issue — which have drawn fire from the left and right. In March, as Newsweek reported, one Fox news correspondent said DeSantis had “flip-flopped” on the issue.
The video is below:
“So in the spring, you described the war in Ukraine as a, quote, ‘territorial dispute,’ you issued a statement saying it was a ‘territorial dispute’ that was not central to America’s national interest. There was an outcry over this,” Carlson noted.
“And then pretty soon after you described, you seem to change your view and describe Putin as a war criminal and say that it was central to America’s foreign policy. Why did you change? And where are you now?”
In responding, DeSantis, a Navy veteran, said his military past has taught him that you need to have a “concrete idea of what you’re trying to achieve.” This clear plan is something that D.C. officials lack, he said.
“They are doing a blank check policy without telling us when we will have achieved our objective,” he said, adding that when anyone dissents from the establishment approach, “they then try to smear you and say, ‘oh you must be for Putin.'”
DeSantis said U.S. officials should be more focused on our own border than that of Ukraine and Russia.
“I think the goal should be to have a sustainable peace in Europe,” DeSantis continued. “We don’t want there to be war breaking out. There have been a lot of people that have been killed, displaced. It’s a horrible thing. But you have to provide an articulation of where you’re going to go to get there.”
“My fear right now is they’re basically doing an open-ended conflict. This is going to be a multi-year quagmire. There’s going to be a lot of people that are going to die and there’s not going to be much facts changed on the ground,” he said. “They’re now trying to mobilize troops, U.S. troops, to go to Europe when we have a major threat in the Indo-Pacific; the Chinese Communist Party, who they’re basically given a free pass to.”
He continued, “As president, I would prioritize the threats to our national security. The top threat to this country is China. It’s China’s ambitions. It’s China’s industrial capacity. It’s the CCP’s ability to pollute our culture [and] impact our universities.”
DeSantis said that managing the Ukraine-Russia conflict, ultimately, isn’t a responsibility of the United States, but Europe.
“Europe needs to do more. This is their backyard … So we would do more in terms of the Pacific and the goal should be to bring it to a conclusion, you bring it to a conclusion in a way that’s a sustainable peace and that doesn’t reward aggression,” he said.
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