Legislators still await the Governor’s Office proposal for congressional redistricting, which they are expected to vote on next week.
But Gov. Ron DeSantis is finding time to talk trash about House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries rather than giving the Senate and House some idea of what they’re slated to consider.
“Have you guys heard of him? I don’t know that he’d do very well in Chipley if he ran for office, but he’s threatening Florida,” DeSantis said as he unveiled a statue of George Washington in North Florida.
DeSantis continued to talk tough.
“Make my day. Bring it on. I would like nothing better than to have him campaigning all across Florida,” DeSantis added Friday.
“I don’t know that he would do well here. I don’t know that he would do well almost anywhere in Florida, and I don’t think that’s something that Floridians would want to see. But we are not going to be cowed by threats from some machine politician from Brooklyn. It doesn’t work that way down here. That’s not how we roll. So, I know the Legislature is ready to go. They’re going to get the job done.”
During a media conference Thursday, Jeffries said the House Majority PAC was putting $20 million into Florida races, in his latest assertion that the so-called “dummymander” that is expected to be proposed could end up putting Democrats in the position of controlling more than eight of the 28 seats Florida has in Congress.
“That’s our Democratic gift to Ron DeSantis and the Florida Republicans, who he is putting in jeopardy,” he said.
U.S. Reps. Kat Cammack, Mario Díaz-Balart, Carlos Giménez, Laurel Lee, Anna Paulina Luna, Brian Mast, Cory Mills and Maria Elvira Salazar are among the targeted legislators.
The spend is part of $272 million committed to TV buys nationwide, with more than $9 million targeted to Miami, $6.6 million to Tampa, and $3.9 million to Orlando.
DeSantis had previously targeted Jeffries as being “as left as they come.”
“And yet the far left hates him! They call him ‘Dollar Store Obama’ and ‘AIPAC Shakur,” DeSantis japed.
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