John Oliver discusses Ron DeSantis, his track record as the governor of Florida, the pitfalls of comparing him to Donald Trump, and the supposed dangers of “woke math.”

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-♪ ♪ -♪ ♪ We're actually gonna start with our main story tonight, which concerns Ron DeSantis, business Fred Flintstone.

DeSantis has been all over the news this week, as he is seemingly every week.

He appointed his political backers to a new Disney oversight board.

He released a new book, The Courage to be Free.

And by the way, I have a little gift for our studio audience.

And he also put out this eye-catching video.

Florida has proved positive that we, the people, are not destined for failure.

He has made a promise, and he's making good on the promise.

There is a lot there, but Florida's proof that we the people are not destined for failure?

Last year alone in Florida, a man tried to steal a crossbow by stuffing it down his pants.

A woman instigated a police chase so she could cross getting arrested off her bucket list.

And a man was charged with battery for throwing a hot dog at a police officer.

We the people may not be destined for failure, but a lot of individuals down there sure do seem drawn to it.

This all feels like part of a coordinated rollout of DeSantis' inevitable presidential campaign, because even though he hasn't yet officially announced he's running, he's already many conservatives' favorite candidate.

After his landslide re-election as governor last November, the New York Post proclaimed him de-future, which is, you know, de-pressing.

And he received this cringe-inducing introduction from Carrie Lake.

I don't know if you heard of this, but he's got BDE.

Okay, that is obviously terrible, but just to be clear, If you don't know what BDE is, please don't ask your kids about it later.

In fact, for the sake of those kids, I'll just tell you right now, it stands for Big Dick Energy.

A kind of easy magnetic confidence that doesn't necessarily mean you have a large penis, or indeed, a penis at all.

A list of those with BDE would include Brian Cranston, Christine Baranski, the Pixar lamp, Charles Darwin, and Snoopy.

Please come to me and not your kids if you need any penis-related slang explained in the future.

And look, it is worth noting, in general, you can't predict much about a presidential race 20 months out.

Previous early frontrunners include Jeb Bush.

Howard Dean and Rudy Giuliani, who is currently wandering around Central Park covered in Thousand Island dressing and screaming about election fraud to pigeons.

And DeSantis is eventually likely to have to go up against Donald Trump, which history has shown is no easy task.

And while Trump initially struggled to coin a damaging nickname for DeSantis, with his first attempt being the embarrassingly weak Ron DeSanctimonious.

He later unveiled something with a lot more punch.

According to the Times, Trump has spent weeks trying to go DeSantis into a fight, describing him in conversations as Meatball Ron.

Apparently, he was calling him Meatball Ron.

And I hate to say it, but Trump still got it.

It's perfectly stupid, childish, and hurtful in a way that's genuinely difficult to articulate.

Also, it's a pretty good name on its own.

If you asked me to describe the perfect Meatball Ron, I'd say, I don't know, maybe a round little hamster or this smiley cartoon character, you know, little arms and legs, little mustache, maybe voiced by Chris Pratt in a straight-to-streaming kids movie with weirdly Christian undertones that feels vaguely anti-Italian somehow.

But then, if you simply showed me a photo of this guy, I'd say, forget everything that I just said, that is my Meatball Ron right there.

But whatever Trump calls him in the future, the fact is Meatball Ron remains a strong contender for the Republican nomination.

And while many commentators insist on framing him solely in opposition to Trump, saying things like, he's Donald Trump with a brain, That doesn't seem particularly meaningful.

It's like saying, that new restaurant is better than this chicken pot pie that fell on the sidewalk.

Sure, it is, but you're not really giving me much useful information there.

So, if I may quote Tom Brady's publicist while reviewing his old golf photos, Let's take Trump out of the picture.

And tonight, let's examine DeSantis on his own merits and look at just some of what he's done to and for the over 20 million people of Florida.

Because it's sometimes less than he claims, sometimes less than his critics claim, and sometimes worse than you may know.

And let's skip over his early life, the short version being he grew up in Florida, was a standout baseball player, and even got to the Little League World Series with his local team.

He then went to Yale, then Harvard Law School, and subsequently joined the Navy as an attorney.

Eventually, he married his wife, Casey, despite having the most bizarre dating tactic I have ever heard.

According to a former classmate, DeSantis would apparently tell dates he likes Thai food, but pronounced it, -"thigh." And if they corrected him, he would make up an excuse and leave because, quote, he didn't want a girlfriend who corrected him.

You're out at dinner and out of nowhere, your date tells you that he really likes Thai food.

And you think, wait, did he just call Thai food, Thai food, I must have misheard.

But then he goes on to say that he knows a great Thai food restaurant in the area, all while staring very intently at you, almost studying your reaction.

So as politely as you can, you say, Wait, do you mean Thai food?

Like, from Thailand?" And then suddenly his face drops and he says, "...sorry, I forgot I have a doctor's appointment tonight." And he leaves, leaving you both with the check and the single greatest first date disaster story of all time.

In 2012, DeSantis was elected to Congress.

Though while there, a former colleague says that he always had his earbuds in to keep people away.

And if you're picking up on a theme of Ron DeSantis doesn't like hearing anyone's voice but his own, You're onto something.

Because since becoming Florida governor, he's made shutting down dissenting voices something of a feature.

Here's a campaign ad from last year in which he shows off his skill at battling the media.

But when they fire, you fire back with overwhelming force.

I'm asking you to tell me what's in the bill.

Number 2, never ever back down from a fight.

If I could complete the question, though.

I just disabused you of the narrative, and you don't care about the facts.

Amazingly, until around 40 seconds ago, Top Gun Maverick was my favorite movie off last year, but now, I'm sad to say it's my least favorite movie of all time, tied with Cats and the Zabruda film.

Although it is worth noting that in that ad, he's removing some pretty important context from the media.

Take that clip where he said, are you gonna give a speech or ask a question?

If you look at the start of that exchange, you'll notice that only 1 person is doing the fighting there.

Governor, what has gone wrong with the rollout of the vaccine that we've seen phone lines jammed, websites crashing...

I mean, I think at the end of the day, we...

With all due respect, Governor, I'm trying...

With all due respect, Governor, I'm just asking if I could finish my question.

And all she's asking you for is some basic accountability.

When you see that in context, that's a pretty gross case of someone meatball-splaining to a journalist who's just trying to do a fucking job.

Though to be clear, DeSantis doesn't hate all media, because there is 1 notable exception, and it's the exact 1 that you are thinking of.

Even by Republican standards, the mutual affection between him and Fox is pretty extreme.

In just 1 four-month stretch, the network asked him to appear on its airwaves 113 times, or nearly once a day.

With 1 Fox producer even offering to let him pick the subject matter if he agreed to come on, which is just pathetic.

I'll put it this way, if Fox News ever went on a date with Ron DeSantis, they definitely wouldn't correct him when he called it thigh food.

-♪ ♪ -♪ ♪ But DeSantis isn't just another fox talking head.

He sells himself as someone with a proven track record, and he has done some terrible stuff.

For instance, at his urging, his state's medical board banned gender-affirming care for minors, And he signed a 15-week abortion ban into law, while recently suggesting he'd sign a six-week 1 if it reached his desk.

But look, lots of Republican governors have done things like that.

What makes DeSantis extra popular on the right is his willingness to wage big, symbolic culture wars.

He's bragged that he's made Florida the freest state in America, while defending its residents from the greatest scourge of our time.

Wokeism is really a form of cultural Marxism.

The wokeism is the new religion of the left.

We are not and will never, ever surrender to the woke mob.

Okay, first, Florida is not where woke goes to die.

It's where wealthy Upper East Side New Yorkers go to die.

But second, DeSantis says woke so often, it begins to lose all meaning.

But if you wonder what he thinks it actually stands for, his general counsel once helpfully defined woke in court as the view that there are systemic injustices in American society, and the need to have policies that address them.

Which is a hell of a thing for someone to admit to everyone that you are against.

♪ -Desantis might really want to invest in a lawyer more willing to lie for him.

I actually understand, there's 1 currently wandering around Central Park, who is available if you can catch him, but you'll have to be careful, he's slippy.

♪ DeSantis spends a lot of energy decrying wokeness and empty virtue signaling.

Although, he also seems to spend a huge amount of time doing the right-wing version of exactly that.

For instance, there was a time that he weighed in on Leah Thomas, a trans woman who'd won an event in an NCAA swimming championship.

The second place finisher happened to be from Florida, which DeSantis then took as an excuse to come out and do this shit.

If you look at what the NCAA has done, by allowing basically men to compete in women's athletics, in this case, the swimming, you had The number 1 woman who finished was from Sarasota.

We're gonna be doing a proclamation, saying, that Emma is the best female swimmer in the 500-meter freestyle, because she earned that.

Aside from being fucking gross and awful, To be very clear, DeSantis doesn't have the power to declare or disqualify winners in college sports, rendering that proclamation completely pointless.

But since men in suits seem to be using their platforms to invalidate past athletic achievements out of pure spite, I hereby declare that by signing this, Ron DeSantis' Little League team, the Swingin' Meatballs, did not, in fact, ever make the Little League World Series.

Instead, his team's place will henceforth be taken by the season 6 cast of RuPaul's Drag Race.

I declare it, it is declared, It is done.

But it's gone way beyond just empty, hateful proclamations.

DeSantis has also signed a bunch of attention-grabbing bills that seem designed to delight conservatives and enrage liberals.

And while the announcements of these bills tend to get a lot of national media coverage, the actual implementation of them can get far less scrutiny.

Take DeSantis' so-called anti-riot law, which he passed following the Black Lives Matter protests in the summer of 2020.

That law, among other things, strengthens criminal penalties for those deemed rioters at demonstrations.

And he loves to brag to conservative audiences about just how mad it's made people.

And I have to say, brag a little bit, our anti-riot legislation was recently criticized by the United Nations, so I wear that as a badge of honor.

But being chastised by the UN isn't innately positive.

What other admonitions would fill DeSantis with a misplaced sense of pride?

I was also criticized by the Holocaust Museum, Lego called me a scumbag, and Malala Yousafzai said she'd punch me in the throat if she ever got a chance, so I wear that as a badge of honor.

But it is not just the UN that had a problem with that law.

A judge issued a preliminary injunction blocking the key part of it from being enforced, arguing that it could effectively criminalize legal protected speech, and that it was vague to the point of unconstitutionality.

And the same thing happened to his Stop Social Media Censorship Act, which again, got a huge amount of attention when he first signed it.

It threatened social media platforms with fines for banning political candidates, and he proposed it shortly after a number of them had removed Trump in the wake of January 6th, because of, you know, That thing.

But that law is also under a preliminary injunction from a judge who at 1 point told the DeSantis administration's lawyers, I won't put you on the spot and ask if you've ever dealt with a statute that was more poorly drafted.

And look, he is still fighting those lawsuits and future decisions could wind up going his way.

After all, these cases are coming through higher courts that range from fairly conservative all the way up to overturned Roe v.

But even when DeSantis has existing laws on his side, his application of them can be slapdash and gross.

Just last year, he made a big show of announcing his new Elections, Crime, and Security office had spearheaded the arrest of 20 people who'd voted illegally.

But these were lastly people who the state had cleared to join the voter rolls, so they assumed they were eligible to vote, despite the fact that they technically weren't.

Now, 1 way of dealing with that would have been to simply contact those people, explain the mistake, and remove them from the rolls.

But instead, what DeSantis chose to do was to send armed cops to conduct arrests, with body cam video later revealing police with guns drawn, pulling people out of their houses.

And if you listen to the cops involved, even they seem annoyed and embarrassed at what they're having to do.

Well, so that's the thing, I don't know exactly what happened with it, but

you do have a warrant, that's what it's for.

y'all doing this now and this happened years ago?

Do you have any idea how sketchy your order needs to be for cops to enforce it reluctantly?

Enforcing laws on scared people is 1 of their favorite things to do.

It's that, make siren go, -"wee-woo, wee-woo, wee-woo, " and end of list.

Now, since then, several of those cases, including all those we just showed you, have been dropped or dismissed, but it really feels like DeSantis' main aim there, as in so many cases, was just to instill fear, to make people afraid to protest, or to moderate content, or even to vote.

Even his sloppily written laws can end up doing real harm.

And maybe the clearest place to see all of this in action is in Florida's schools, because he has been very busy there.

You probably remember last year's passage of HB 1557, the Florida Parental Rights in Education Act, also known as the Don't Say Gay Bill.

Though DeSantis says that name pushes a false narrative, and has claimed that the bill simply says, no sexual instruction to kids pre-K through 3.

But the truth is, the bill is not as narrow as that at all, as this DeSantis supporter openly acknowledges.

What this bill's trying to prevent is indoctrination of our children.

But the bill is a sweeping, general piece of legislation that doesn't just apply to young children it applies throughout the entire school age where it says age-appropriate teaching of gender identity and sexuality.

So the bill is it does you're right it targets kindergarten to third grade and it says or age-appropriate.

Yeah so when is it age-appropriate to talk about homosexuality?

You would sue a teacher if they started talking to your daughter about same-sex marriage or LGBTQ issues at the age of

If they don't have my consent and I think it's not appropriate for my daughter, yes.

I think a lot of people would be quite shocked to hear that.

I know that's rough to hear, but he is technically right there.

Thanks to Ron DeSantis, right now, it is the law in Florida.

And quick side note, it's funny how it's always the people who think homosexuality as a concept needs to be taught at an appropriate age.

They don't give a second thought to when they teach their kids what heterosexuality is.

Maybe in that guy's family, his kid asks every day, -"Who are you people living in my house?" -$25, 000.

And he responds, -"Well, my name is Dad, that lady is Mom, and we are...

Don't ask me any more questions till you're 18, or I will fucking sue you." And it is not just sexuality in DeSantis' crosshairs.

He's also passed an act called the Stop Woke Act, which limits the ways concepts related to systemic racism and sex discrimination can be discussed in schools.

And to hear him tell it, laws like that are badly needed, because the wokeness in schools goes way deeper than anyone might think.

I will have math books sent to my department of education for review, these textbooks, and they will

a struggle session over that, how do you feel about it?

I mean, out of context, he's completely right there.

If they did, this 1 would be sad, this 1 would be giggly, and this 1 would be exciting for a few minutes, but then the novelty wears off and it mostly just gets tired and sore.

Dessantis has claimed that his state had to reject math books for containing indoctrinating concepts like race essentialism, especially, bizarrely, for elementary school students.

And if it sounds like bullshit to you, that's because it absolutely is.

Reporters for these outlets come through thousands of pages of elementary school textbooks and their reviews and couldn't find any such examples.

And when the DeSantis administration eventually produced just 4 tiny snippets of what they claimed was objectionable material.

For the 2 that came from grade school books, there is nothing about race.

Although, 1 does suggest students practice with empathizing with classmates while they fulfill a lesson objective of identifying numbers from 1 to 5 in sequence.

So his big claim of woke math and race essentialism in grade schools is basically regular math and trying to teach kids not to be dicks to each other.

A kind of math education that Desant himself, frankly, might have benefited from, as his solution to figuring out the difference between 1 and 3 questions seems to be, yell until the other person stops talking.

And the most recent thing you may have heard about are books being pulled from shelves in Florida schools with viral images like these making the rounds online.

Now, in classic fashion, DeSantis has pushed back on those images hard.

They've tried to create in Florida a narrative, it's basically a book ban hoax.

And they're trying to say that because we have parental rights and because we have curriculum transparency, if you have a book that has hardcore pornography in a library that ten-year-olds can access, a parent objects to that, that does not satisfy Florida standards.

It should not be in the library with those young kids.

And I think 99% of parents agree with that.

Okay, first, let's debunk the most egregious claim there, because 99% of parents don't agree on anything.

I'm pretty sure you can find at least 10% of parents who are against covering electrical sockets in reach of toddlers.

They're called Zap Moms, and they're all about letting kids discover their own limits of electricity.

But I will give to Santis this, there has been some misinformation floating around online.

This viral list of books that were supposedly banned statewide in Florida circulated widely, but it's nonsense.

Having said that, those images of empty shelves are very real and are the direct result of DeSantis' actions because he signed legislation mandating that only approved books could be included in any school or classroom library, and that approval must come from a certified media specialist.

That led some districts, including the ones those photos are from, to tell teachers to remove or cover books, not because they were pushing a false narrative, but because they were trying to comply with DeSantis' stupid law.

And while DeSantis might say, well, this is an overreaction because those books will return once they are approved, not all of them.

Because thanks to his new law, as well as that Don't Say Gay Bill and his Stop WOKE Act, he has turbocharged the movement among conservatives to get books removed from libraries that they just don't like.

And this goes way beyond removing hardcore pornography, or the usual kind of give and take between parents and school boards that has been going on for decades now.

What DeSantis has done is make it so anyone in a community can challenge these books.

Reporters tracked down 1 woman who submitted 21 book challenges in 1 county, only to find that she's a retiree with no children who fully admits that she hasn't read all of them, but, I've read them in partial.

So basically, she just skimmed them and said, I'm pretty sure nobody should read this.

Which is coincidentally exactly how I feel about Rhonda Santas' new book, but I'm not trying to get it taken out of libraries, am I?

Meanwhile, this teacher in Escambia County, Florida, challenged around 115 books, among them, titles like, Antango Makes 3, a picture book based on the true story of 2 male penguins at the Central Park Zoo who raised a baby chick together.

Apparently, 1 of her objections to it is that a second grader could read it and the idea would pop into their mind that these are 2 people of the same sex that love each other.

And the problem is, schools are acting on those sorts of complaints.

There was a recent school board meeting in that county to address the calls to ban 3 of the books on that teacher's list, including the Penguin 1.

Multiple community members came to testify in favor of banning it, and some made it abundantly clear exactly what law they felt empowered them.

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Ron DeSantis: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO)