Speaking in an interview with The Daily Wire’s Editor Emiritus Ben Shapiro in Miami, Florida, in November, GOP Governor Ron DeSantis warned Floridians of the leftist voters who might emigrate from California to Florida as he called the city of San Francisco a “dumpster fire.”
Addressing a recent question from a Floridian concerned that leftists from California would move to Florida and destroy the state, DeSantis replied, “There is cause for concern. Texas would have all these companies moved from California over the years. So you’d have companies move from San Francisco to Austin, and they’d bring hundreds of employees with them. And those employees would vote the exact same way they voted that turned San Francisco into the dumpster fire that it is.”
“And it’s like the leftism, they will not draw the connection between their leftist ideology and the destruction that’s all around them, and so it is a problem because I do think that there’s a class of voters who would come to Florida and they would continue to vote the same way,” he continued.
ICYMI: Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) calls San Francisco a “dumpster fire” and expresses concern about Democrats moving to Florida:
“It is a problem because I do think there’s a class of voters who would come to Florida, and they would continue to vote the same way.” pic.twitter.com/BYcIvTydKY
— The Recount (@therecount) April 25, 2022
DeSantis has expressed his feelings about protecting Florida from what he sees as corrosive influences before; in July 2021, his campaign team rolled out a series of items they were merchandising, including a T-shirt that read, “Don’t Fauci My Florida.”
NEW TODAY: Our team just dropped EXCLUSIVE merchandise on our brand-new @WINRED storefront.
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— Team DeSantis (@TeamDeSantis) July 12, 2021
That triggered wild-eyed ire from leftists eager to pillory DeSantis, who had been a staunch opponent of the harsh lockdowns that ravaged the financial coffers of other states and left them economically gasping for breath.
As The Wall Street Journal reported in April 2021, “With rare exceptions, the states that shut down the longest suffered the most economic harm. … Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis let nearly all businesses stay open after May. Florida’s private GDP had shrunk only 1.1% by year-end, dragged down by weak international and domestic tourism. New York’s food and accommodation industry shrank more than twice as much as Florida’s and the most in the U.S.”
In February 2021, DeSantis reacted harshly to speculation that the Biden administration might institute travel restrictions on the state of Florida.
McClatchy had reported, “The Biden administration is considering whether to impose domestic travel restrictions, including on Florida, fearful that coronavirus mutations are threatening to reverse hard-fought progress on the pandemic.”
DeSantis fired: “I think it would be unconstitutional, it would be unwise, and it would be unjust,” adding that “restricting the right of Americans to travel freely throughout our country while allowing illegal aliens to pour across the southern border unmolested would be a ridiculous, but very damaging farce.”
He continued: “We will not back down, and if anyone tries to harm Floridians or target us, we will respond very swiftly.”
“People have asked me about, there was some type of report about potential travel restrictions on Americans and on Floridians, and I think it’s an absurd report that they would be doing that; I think it would be unconstitutional, it would be unwise, and it would be unjust,” DeSantis began. “If you think about it, restricting the right of Americans to travel freely throughout our country while allowing illegal aliens to pour across the southern border unmolested would be a ridiculous, but very damaging farce. So we will oppose it 100%; it would not be based in science; it would purely be a political attack against the people of Florida.”