BREAKING: DeSantis Responds To Newsom Running Controversial Ad In Florida

 

Photo credit: Gage Skidmore/CC BY-SA 2.0, via Flickr

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis slams California Gov. Gavin Newsom after the California Democrat runs ads in Florida promoting his state.

On Friday Florida Governor Ron Desantis responded to California Governor Gavin Newsom running ads, urging Florida residents to come to his state. The ads are widely seen as an attempt by the California democrat to boost his national profile they promised quote freedom to those willing to leave the sunshine state for the golden state. Desantis is a top 2024 republican presidential contender who consistently runs second to former President Trump in polls Newsom is said to be considering a possible presidential run of his own his provocative advertisement has only added fuel to those who believe he has ambitions for higher office let's watch DeSantis's response well:

DeSantis while talking to the media said:

I'm like this everyone wants to talk about me in Florida. I mean like I'm just sitting here little old me doing my job. I can just tell you this, I was born and raised in this state and until the last few years, I rarely if ever saw a California license plate in the state of Florida, you now see a lot of them, I can tell you if you go to California you ain't seen very many Florida license plates. 

And so, you know as he (Newsom) was locking down his citizens, he would then go and have these extravagant dinners at the french laundry to basically rub his citizen's noses in the fact that he was treating them like peasants. 

You know in Florida we weren't locking them down, we lifted our people up. We made sure to protect individuals' freedoms, we wanted to guarantee everybody had a right to work, earn a living put food on the table we guaranteed the right of small businesses in particular to be able to operate, and that saved hundreds of thousands of jobs and many thousands of businesses from going under. 

We guaranteed every person every parent had the right to have their kids in school person five days a week starting at the very beginning of this back in 2020. 

In California, they locked kids out of school and they had the lowest occurrence according to the website practice Burbio, they had the lowest percentage of in-person learning of any state in the country in the 2020 and 2021 school years because of the teacher's union-run state. It's not run for the best interest of parents and kids it's run for that, you also look at how we support law enforcement in the state of Florida we would never allow what's happened in places like San Francisco and LA where these areas have been destroyed with drugs and crime and homeless to happen we take those that seriously and we believe when people commit crimes they belong behind bars not released back onto the street.

I would also just note that in Florida, we've actually had even through COVID have had tourism, domestic tourism boom, 2021 we did better than we did pre-COVID and so far in the first quarter of 2022 we're far we're also ahead of where we were in the first quarter of 2021. 

You want to look at tourism in California in 2021 decrease of 22 percent from 2019. Well, of course, do you want to have to show medical papers just to go get a bite to eat somewhere? Of course, you don't, you want them forcing you to wear a mask every time you leave your hotel room. No people don't want to do that so that's one of the reasons why we're able to do it.

And if you look at air traffic this is interesting you know our air transportation now the most recent 12 months April 21 through March 22 is actually up over the same period 2018 2019 and that's very rare in any place in the country. 

You look at the major hubs in California they're down like 31 percent you know over this time period and so you know I think the facts speak for themselves people vote with their feet and you know Florida has always been a place as many of you know you many of you probably have roots in other parts of the country it's natural for people to retire from like Ohio or Michigan come down here to southwest Florida, New York to go down to places like Palm Beach. 

But when families are uprooting from the pacific coast to go almost 3 000 miles in search of a better life that's telling you something yes we've created a citadel of freedom here that has attracted people and we're proud of it but let's just be clear California is driving people away with their terrible governance some of the best weather in the world in southern California, they have some of the best natural advantages probably the best natural advantages of any state in this country and for the entire history of California they never lost population until this recent governor got into office and now they're hemorrhaging population it's almost hard to drive people out of a place like California given all their natural advantages and yet they're finding a way to do it.