Today Florida Governor Ron DeSantis joined Dana to discuss red flag laws, Iowa, the GOP establishment, Trump, the debates, and more. Some excerpts:
On Karine Jean Pierre’s response to the tragic Iowa school shooting by calling for national red flag laws:
Well, Dana, I mean, as a parent, you know, we want our schools to be safe. We've done a lot in Florida as you know, on, on putting an emphasis on school security. But before the reports even came out identifying who did it, the people in that community knew who did it because there were so many warning signs and this is somebody that should have been held accountable multiple times. He should have had mental health intervention. And so I think the tragedy in these situations is that all too often, it's somebody that has a profile where this didn't just happen out of thin air where they have inhibited behavior rooted in problems with mental health. So in Florida, we have particularly in the high schools, things called behavioral threat assessment where folks who are exhibiting these types of warning signs can have an intervention or be held accountable criminally, if in fact, they're guilty of doing that.
On red flag laws and his disagreement on the issue with former President Trump:
When Donald Trump says, take the guns first, then due process later, that's not just an attack on the second amendment. That's also an attack on the fifth amendment. Government can't take anything of you from you without due process. And yes, firearms are sensitive because it's an enumerated right in the constitution, but they couldn't take your automobile or your TV set without due process. That's the cornerstone of a free society. And so I think the danger with red flag laws is that they counterman that. But then I think even something different and you're right in 2018 when that was done by the Florida legislature, I was a candidate for governor and I said I would have vetoed that bill on constitutional grounds, not the most popular position to take at the time because there was understandably a lot of emotion in the aftermath of Parkland. It was a terrible thing and there's an inclination to just want to do something. You have to side with the Constitution when it's hard.