Is “America’s Governor” really a RINO member of the establishment? Some critics, including former President Donald Trump, make that claim.
On Thursday night, Ron DeSantis emphatically made the case to Eric Bolling of Newsmax that rumors of his RINO-ness were misplaced at best, pointing to his record as Florida Governor as proof.
“I mean, all people have to do is just open their eyes. There hasn’t been a bolder governor in the country,” DeSantis contended, before revisiting familiar talking points and well-trafficked feuds and story arcs.
“I mean, who was taking on the establishment during COVID? Me. Everything we did in Florida from April of 2020 to the present I did against people like Dr. Anthony Fauci, the corporate media, a lot of the other entrenched bureaucracies and we made sure that the state was able to thrive,” DeSantis said. “I was pilloried for those decisions at the time. But now you look and see how well we have done.
“We also last year had a bill to make sure we were protecting the rights of parents to be able to send their kids to school without having things like gender ideology shoved down their throats,” DeSantis recounted. “You should not be telling a kid in school that they may have been born in the wrong body.”
He then offered another retelling of the spat with one of the state’s most prominent companies.
“Well, some people didn’t like that, including the strongest, most powerful corporation in the history of Florida, Walt Disney. And so they came out against it, tried to kill the bill, tried to get me to veto it. I rejected that and signed the bill,” DeSantis said.
“So, we basically reoriented the state, we realigned the state and I don’t think there’s any significant issue that we’ve not only gotten ahead of, not only taken on but the important thing is, you know, we’re winning on these issues and we’re delivering huge victories.”
Huge victories notwithstanding, likely 2024 opponent Donald Trump continues almost daily to deride DeSantis as a RINO and “controlled opposition.” Trump said as much as recently as Thursday afternoon.
“Ron’s Poll Numbers are ‘crashing’ at a record pace, he is being abandoned by his most ‘loyal’ people, and I’m sure he’s planning to ask for all of his money back from his Establishment RINO Advisors who are good at one thing, sucking the piggy bank dry!”
Trump took to his Truth Social account Feb. 1 to whack DeSantis as a “RINO GLOBALIST, who closed quickly down Florida and even its beaches. Loved the Vaccines and wasted big money on ‘Testing.’ How quickly people forget!”
It’s doubtful DeSantis’ response on Newsmax response will silence Trump, but is more likely to spur more invective on social media.
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