Florida Governor Ron DeSantis (R) slammed attempts by those on the political Left to smear him over two very small neo-Nazi gatherings that were held in Orlando and Orange County by condemning the individuals involved in the gatherings, noting Florida’s record supporting the Jewish community, and highlighting the Democratic Party’s embrace of anti-Semites.
“So what I’m going to say is these people, these Democrats who are trying to use this as some type of political issue to try to smear me as if I had something with to do that, we’re not playing their game,” DeSantis said. “You know, some jacka**es doing this on the street. First of all, state law enforcement is going to hold them accountable because they were doing stuff on the overpass. So they’re going to absolutely do that. And they should do that.”
“But I’m not going to have people try to smear me that belong to a political party that has elevated anti-Semites to the halls of Congress like [Minnesota U.S. Rep.] Ilhan Omar, that have played footsie with the BDS [Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions] movement, that even had people in their party that have cavorted with Farrakhan,” he continued. “No, we’re going to take our record in Florida and what we’ve done, [including] sign the strongest anti-semitism bill in the country. We’ve stared down companies who were indulged in BDS like Airbnb. And we’ve won.”
“We’ve provided record funding for Jewish day schools. And we’ve had the strongest relationship between Florida and Israel than we ever had in terms of education, business, all these tremendous things that have happened since our since our state visit in 2019,” he continued. “And oh, by the way, Florida is probably, maybe other than Israel, the number one destination for Orthodox Jews to move to if you look over the last two years, because we do it right because we have provided tremendous support. And that’s just what we’re going to continue to do in the state of Florida.”
DeSantis said that the attempts to smear him come from the political Left trying to distract from the numerous failures of Democratic President Joe Biden.
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TRANSCRIPT:
RON DESANTIS, GOVERNOR OF FLORIDA (R): So what I’m going to say is these people, these Democrats who are trying to use this as some type of political issue to try to smear me as if I had something with to do that, we’re not playing their game.
You know, some jacka**es doing this on the street. First of all, state law enforcement is going to hold them accountable because they were doing stuff on the overpass. So they’re going to absolutely do that. And they should do that.
But I’m not going to have people try to smear me that belong to a political party that has elevated anti-Semites to the halls of Congress like [Minnesota U.S. Rep.] Ilhan Omar, that have played footsie with the BDS [Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions] movement, that even had people in their party that have cavorted with Farrakhan.
No, we’re going to take our record in Florida and what we’ve done, [including] sign the strongest antisemitism bill in the country. We’ve stared down companies who were indulged in BDS like Airbnb. And we’ve won.
We’ve provided record funding for Jewish day schools. And we’ve had the strongest relationship between Florida and Israel than we ever had in terms of education, business, all these tremendous things that have happened since our since our state visit in 2019.
And so they try to play games to try to politicize, why would they do that? Why would they want to elevate a half dozen malcontents and try to make this an issue for political gain?
Well, because they want to distract from the failure that we’ve seen with [President] Biden, and they’re all joined at the hip, all these policies, they all support in Florida 100%. The inflation that these policies have caused, that’s absolutely killing people at the gas pump, in the grocery store, making everything we do in the economy more expensive.
You look at the disaster on the southern border, people from like 100 different countries pouring into the country illegally, hundreds of thousands of people a month. They support those policies, those are bad policies.
You look at the crime throughout the country that’s really spiraling out of control because of soft-on-crime policies. We’re not going to let that happen in Florida.
But that is something that they’re tied at the hip with. You look internationally how our country’s been humiliated, how these other problems are happening, all because of the failure of leadership.
And so that is what they’re trying to avoid, is being able to be held accountable for that. So we’re not going to let them get away with these stupid things where they’re trying to smear somebody unfairly, and I will not be smeared by them and that’s just a reality.
And oh, by the way, Florida is probably, maybe other than Israel, the number one destination for Orthodox Jews to move to if you look over the last two years, because we do it right because we have provided tremendous support. And that’s just what we’re going to continue to do in the state of Florida.