Florida Governor Ron DeSantis defended his record standing up for the pro-life movement during the second Republican Party presidential primary debate on Wednesday night.
DeSantis made the remarks when co-moderator Dana Perino asked DeSantis about how he plans to win over “Independent pro-choice voters in Arizona” after she said that Republicans did not perform well on the issue during the midterms.
“The same way we did in Florida, we won the greatest Republican victory in a governor’s race in the history of the state, over 1.5 million votes,” DeSantis said. “We were winning places like Miami-Dade County, Palm Beach, that nobody thought was possible because we were leading with purpose and conviction. I reject this idea that pro-lifers are to blame for midterm defeats. I think there’s other reasons for that.”
The 45-year-old Republican presidential candidate then called out former President Donald Trump, who was absent from the debate, for his remarks last week calling his pro-life policies in the state of Florida “a terrible thing.”
“The former president, he’s missing in action tonight,” he said. “He’s had a lot to say about that. He should be here explaining his comments, to try to say that pro-life protections are somehow a ‘terrible thing.’ I want him to look into the eyes and tell people who’ve been fighting this fight for a long time.”
“I was at, my wife and I earlier today we’re at the gravesite of President and Mrs. Reagan and I noticed that there was a quote where it says ‘every single person has purpose and worth,'” he continued. “We’re better off when everybody counts. And I think we should stand for what we believe in. I think we should hold the Democrats accountable for their extremism, supporting abortion all the way up until the moment of birth, that is infanticide. And that is wrong.”
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DeSantis rejects the idea that pro-lifers are to blame for midterm losses: "I think we should hold the Democrats accountable for their extremism, supporting abortion all the way up until the moment of birth. That is infanticide, and that is wrong." pic.twitter.com/8Imgwah5kG
— Mary Margaret Olohan (@MaryMargOlohan) September 28, 2023