'That's Not What It Says, That's Not What It Says!': DeSantis Defends Controversial Amendment

5 months ago

At a press briefing last week, Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) defended an education-related amendment.

Fuel your success with Forbes. Gain unlimited access to premium journalism, including breaking news, groundbreaking in-depth reported stories, daily digests and more. Plus, members get a front-row seat at members-only events with leading thinkers and doers, access to premium video that can help you get ahead, an ad-light experience, early access to select products including NFT drops and more:

https://account.forbes.com/membership/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=display&utm_campaign=growth_non-sub_paid_subscribe_ytdescript

Stay Connected
Forbes on Facebook: http://fb.com/forbes
Forbes Video on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/forbes
Forbes Video on Instagram: http://instagram.com/forbes
More From Forbes: http://forbes.com

Transcript

00:00 I appreciate, sir, that regarding Amendment 4, the measure reads, "This amendment does not require the change of parental notification."

00:10 That's not consent, exactly. You made the point. How deceptive is that?

00:15 A parent needs to provide a notarized letter to the physician.

00:18 That's not what it says. That's not what it says.

00:20 But that is the law, right? And that will remain the law?

00:23 No, that will trump Florida state law on that. They're doing that.

00:27 There's a difference between consent and notification.

00:30 Notification is after the fact. The consent is obviously a conditioned precedent.

00:35 They did that because they know going after parents' rights is a vulnerability.

00:40 And they tested this with millions of dollars to try to get people. So they did that.

00:45 Now, don't be fooled, though. That is severing the parental consent for minors.

00:52 It does it because it's written so broadly to just take out the notification, which is different than consent, is not going to cut it.

01:01 So I think people that look at that and really understand what's at play here will do it.

01:06 But here's what I would also tell Floridians.

01:08 When these things get on the ballot, if it's confusing to you, you're talking about amending the Constitution.

01:15 This is not something that can just be changed willy-nilly.

01:18 If they're confusing you, if they're not defining these terms and they don't define those terms, just vote no on it.

01:25 And that's on any subject matter.

01:27 If they can't provide you something that's clear and concise where you know 100 percent of how this thing is going to be done,

01:35 then it's not something that's worth putting into the Constitution.

01:39 And that's one of the things like we looked at this marijuana.

01:42 The marijuana one is written so broadly, you are not going to be able to restrict where people use it.

01:50 And it's going to cause -- because I think there's some voters that really use it and they like it, whatever.

01:58 Most voters do not use it.

02:00 But there's some that are like, look, if someone wants to do -- but understand, your life will be impacted by this.

02:05 It will change the quality of life in our communities.

02:09 You will smell it when you're walking down a lot of these streets, particularly in our urban areas.

02:14 We've seen what's happened in Denver and some of these other places.

02:17 I think this amendment is the broadest amendment yet.

02:21 And I think it's basically going to green light marijuana usage in all these different parts of the state where we don't want that to happen.

02:30 That is not good for families.

02:32 It's not good for elderly.

02:34 It's not good for creating an environment.

02:37 And here's the thing.

02:39 The state of Florida is doing well.

02:42 We have all these people who will pick up and move to come here.

02:46 There's many more that would like to live here, partially because -- I mean, you saw this, I think, sometimes like some of these pictures speak a thousand words.

02:56 You had videos where these pro-Hamas protesters were shutting down bridges and streets all across this country.

03:05 What happened when they tried to do that in Miami?

03:08 They got their butt dragged off the street like they should have.

03:11 [Applause]

03:18 So let's just be clear about this, and let's just understand that, again, that would be put in the Constitution.

03:25 So someone walking by an elementary school, just sitting there, toking up, like that's somehow okay?

03:31 How is that good for the state of Florida?

03:34 If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

03:37 You know, I have credibility on this because I implemented the medical marijuana amendment.

03:42 It had not really been implemented, even though it had passed previously.

03:46 I did it.

03:47 I implemented it.

03:48 There are people that have these cards.

03:50 You know, some of them do not have really truly debilitating.

03:54 We know how that works.

03:56 That is what's happened.

03:58 But I did that.

03:59 I see these stores in all parts of the state.

04:02 Do we really need to have, like, ten times more of that than we do?

04:07 No, we don't.

04:08 So I would just say, and understand on that amendment too, you know, people aren't putting tens of millions of dollars behind that out of the goodness of their heart.

04:16 They are going to make a lot of money if that amendment passes.

04:19 And so you'd be making some companies very, very rich.

04:23 Thanks, everybody.

04:24 God bless.

'That's Not What It Says, That's Not What It Says!': DeSantis Defends Controversial Amendment

Category

Transcript

Recommended