Florida's governor,
Ron DeSantis has announced the suspension of an elected Tampa prosecutor.
Who pledged not to pursue criminal
charges against women seeking abortions in the state.
Or doctors administering gender affirming care to their patients.
Now, here is DeSantis making the announcement that he
unilaterally decided to suspend this prosecutor.
>> We don't elect people in one part of the state to have veto power over what
the entire state decides on these important issues.
The constitution of Florida has vested the veto power in the governor
not an individual state attorneys.
And so when you flagrantly violate your oath of office,
when you make yourself above the law, you have violated your duty.
You have neglected your duty and
you are displaying a lack of competence to be able to reform those duties.
And so today we are suspending state Attorney Andrew Warren
effective immediately.
>> [APPLAUSE] >> As we all know, and
I'm sure we've all experienced it in whichever state we live in.
Prosecutors tend to have quite a bit of discretion in regard to what type of
charges they pursue.
And in this case, you have a prosecutor who was elected in Tampa by people
living in Tampa who said, I'm gonna use my discretion basically.
He signed this pledge and we'll get to the in my opinion modest pledge in
just a moment, but a few more details and context before we bring Emma in.
So DeSantis who of course is a republican, suspended Andrew Warren,
the elected state attorney of Hillsborough County.
In June Warren, a Democrat joined 83 elected prosecutors across
the country who vowed not to prosecute those who seek or
provide abortions after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v Wade.
Florida imposed a 15-week abortion ban in April.
Now again, prosecutorial discretion is very common.
There are cases where prosecutors might look into it, they might decide, alright,
this person maybe shoplifted.
And it's a waste of our resources to pursue criminal charges against this
individual.
In this case, Warren's arguing, well,
do I really want to get in between a patient and their doctor?
And also doesn't really make sense for me to pursue a woman or
possibly a girl who's seeking an abortion.
Should I criminalize that person for seeking an abortion?
In quoting from the pledge Warren signed however, this is interesting.
DeSantis' order makes one notable edit.
The pledge states that the prosecutors would "exercise our
well-settled discretion and refrain from prosecuting those who seek,
provide or support abortions".
Now, here's where it gets interesting.
The DeSantis order's quote of the statement actually leaves out the part
where the prosecutors pledge not to charge those who "seek" an abortion,
replacing the word "seek" with ellipsis.
I wonder why DeSantis would do that?
Could it be because it's incredibly unpopular to pursue criminal
charges against a person who is seeking an abortion, could it be that?
And Emma, we saw what went down in the state of Kansas,
where the voters through a ballot initiative decided to maintain their state
constitutional protections for abortions.
And Kansas certainly is not some blue states.
So even Republican voters, by the way,
voted against an amendment to the state constitution in Kansas.
Which would have scrapped the constitutional rights to an abortion in
that state, which I think is telling.
So what are your thoughts on what's going down in Florida?
>> DeSantis is just running for president with every step.
He wants to do these performative orders, but not just performative,
he is targeting people.
And he wants to build up his bone a few days so
that he can effectively run against Trump in 2024.
We'll see how that goes for
him when Republican voters get a taste of the real deal.
But I mean, this is really gonna hurt people.
The targeting of women and people who can get pregnant and
girls is of course it's inherent to these abortion bans.
But I think people need to realize that the targeting of doctors and
getting in between their medical discretion.
And what's best for their patient by threatening them with
some outside legal liability it's gonna kill women and people.
And it's gonna continue to trickle out.
And I think that the more those stories keep getting publicized and
it is on local papers to make sure that they're on the ground on this.
And there is threadbare as ever, but
it's important to keep our nose to the ground on this.
I think people are gonna start to get really angry and
you mentioned Kansas, there.
Kansas is unique in a variety of ways,
I didn't realize that even ahead of the role reversal,
Kansas was providing abortions for a lot of out of state patients.
Around 50% of the abortions performed in Kansas were for
patients coming from out of state.
And that is just really interesting about the history of Kansas,
they have a history that isn't as straightforward as just red state.
They have had some interesting anti-slavery
movements with John Brown etc.
It is a fascinating state in many regards, but
not to get off too much on the tangent, the Democrats finally see.
This is tried and true it actually worked and so they aren't so scared.
And there was an article in The Times today saying, they might try to
pursue other ballot initiatives across the country for abortion access.
No crap, of course you should do that.
They got to it late at the very least though.
It's also in their interest to do these kinds of ballot initiatives because
it turns out voters and they'll vote for you.
So hopefully they learn their lesson.
And I don't know if it will happen in Florida,
which keeps honestly devolving and it keeps getting redder and redder.
But in other states, hopefully they do this because they see the stakes.
>> I totally agree with your take on ballot initiatives and
what the strategy should be for the Democratic Party.
And it's kind of incredible and incredibly depressing
how scared Democrats are to run on popular issues.
And in this case, the popular take on this whole reproductive
rights issue is to wanna protect a woman's right
to choose what to do with her own body, even in red states.
So stop running away from the word abortion,
call out Republicans on exactly what they're doing.
They are getting involved in our personal lives.
They are making decisions about what we can and can't do with our own bodies.
They're getting in between us and our doctors.
They're having super light conversations,
total creeps about what kind of sex should be
outlawed behind closed doors in our own households.
It is insane.
That is who these people are.
The so called small government party is really about massive government for
individual average Americans.
But tiny, tiny government specifically for corporation so
they can abuse their workers.
So they can under pay their workers.
So they can maximize their profits.
Cause at the end of the day, the people who do benefit the most from that
are the very Republican lawmakers who love that deregulation.
Their stock portfolios certainly do much, much better when they look out for
their corporate donors rather than look out for
ordinary Americans, especially American workers.
And those who might need help in getting back up or might need help in ensuring
that they get the right health care and treatment when they might fall ill.
So we'll see if Democrats are gonna fight this the way that they should but
I agree with you.
What is currently transpiring in Florida is terrifying and
I do think that what we're seeing from Ron DeSantis is
the beginning of his 2024 presidential campaign.
And if he were to win,
I just wanna remind you guys that it could potentially be much worse than Trump.
Because one of the things that might have saved us a little bit
from Trump's terrible presidency was just how incompetent he was.
And how he had really no ability to implement much of the devastating
policies he had in mind.
DeSantis seems a little smarter than him, but who knows,