DeSantis Gets SLAMMED By Federal Judge After Official Throws Him Under The Bus

The administration of Ron DeSantis was slammed during a recent hearing with a federal judge over their attempts to silence a political opposition group that was running ads on local TV stations across Florida. The judge told the defendants from the DeSantis administration, “It’s the First Amendment, stupid,” as he blasted their attempts to silence political opposition. This came as an official for the administration resigned last week and through DeSantis’s underlings under the bus as directing him to threaten the TV stations. Ring of Fire’s Farron Cousins explains what happened.

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*This transcript was generated by a third-party transcription software company, so please excuse any typos.

For several weeks now. I've been talking about the ongoing drama here in the state of Florida involving Amendment four. And Amendment four is an amendment on our ballot in a couple weeks here. Uh, that would actually enshrine the right to an abortion regardless of medical status, regardless of age to everyone here in the state of Florida says the state cannot pass a law prohibiting this. And it allows for abortions up to the point of fetal viability. Meaning if you took the fetus out of the woman's womb, if it survives on its own, you can't have an abortion at that point. If it wouldn't, then yes, you are still able to get the procedure done. And a group called, uh, Florida Floridians Protecting Freedom, ran an ad on local stations across Florida that featured a woman who in the ad was called Caroline, talked about the fact that she was diagnosed with cancer.

She had to undergo chemotherapy. And in order to do that, she was pregnant at the time. She had to have an abortion under Florida's current six week heartbeat Bill. She wouldn't have been allowed to do that, so she would've died. So would the baby, by the way. So she is of course, in the ad encouraging people to support Amendment four. Well, the state of Florida, the DeSantis administrations, uh, uh, instructed Surgeon General Joseph La Dapo to send letters to these TV stations airing the ads, threatening legal action against them if they didn't pull the ads. And that's just the backstory. I have talked about that before. So the group that was putting out the ads sued the State of Florida, specifically La Dapo was one of the defendants. And this past Thursday, a federal judge that was appointed by Barack Obama blasted the entire DeSantis administration telling them that what they were trying to do was a violation of the First Amendment. In fact, he dusted off and kind of paraphrase that old adage, it's the economy stupid. And told La Dapo and DeSantis and everybody else in Florida in his, uh, emergency ruling prohibiting them from threatening TV stations. He said, it's the First Amendment stupid.

It's the First Amendment stupid. And then of course, he did go on to offer a little bit more, uh, you know, in his 17 page ruling where he said, while defendant La Dapo refuses to even agree with this simple fact, plaintiff's political advertisement is political speech. Speech at the core of the First Amendment. And just this year, the United States Supreme Court reaffirmed the bedrock principle that the government cannot do indirectly. What it cannot do directly by threatening third parties with legal sanctions to censor speech

It disfavors. So that is a pretty harsh ruling. And as I mentioned this 17 page ruling from, uh, this judge this past Fri uh, Thursday, excuse me, um, it put an immediate restraining order on the state from threatening these TV stations and some of which had pulled the ads. They were afraid they thought DeSantis was gonna come after them, so they pulled the ads. Well, now they don't have to worry about that. Thanks to this temporary restraining order, it gets worse. That same day in court, a man by the name of John Wilson, who was the general counsel for the Florida Department of Health, resigned not only resigned, but signed an affidavit that was revealed in court last week. On the same day, the judge handed down this ruling, and in his affidavit, he says, quote, A man is nothing without his conscience. It has become clear in recent days that I cannot join you on the road that lies before the agency.