Ron DeSantis is continuing to respond to Gavin Newsom’s farcical criticisms of the Florida governor, laying waste to the arguments that have been made.
As RedState reported previously, Newsom has been in a mostly one-sided feud with DeSantis, lashing out with an ad campaign targeting the Sunshine State and its governor, touting California as the true bastion of “freedom.” Further, while visiting the White House (while Joe Biden was out of town) for reasons completely unknown, Newsom again slammed DeSantis, calling him a bully and shouting for him to “stop.”
Most recently, the California governor made the laughable admission that he’s targeting DeSantis because the latter threatened to fine the organization that runs the Special Olympics because of its COVID-19 vaccine mandate. It was necessary to allow all athletes to compete. Apparently, Newsom values the irrational, pointless virtue signaling of partisan adults over the needs of children, hardly surprising given his subservience to the teachers’ unions during the pandemic.
This spectacle was hilarious and absurd. Newsom is desperately flailing about, hoping to gain national attention in hopes of taking Kamala Harris’ ordained spot at the top of the 2024 presidential ticket. DeSantis will be there to ruin his parade. The Florida Man is doing it again on Tuesday, in an expert takedown of Newsom.
BREAKING: @RonDeSantisFL responds to Gavin Newsom’s comments calling him a “bully” in an exclusive interview with @FLVoiceNews
“This is a guy [Newsom] that locked people down, that kept kids out of school” pic.twitter.com/SP0QYuNgq7
— Brendon Leslie (@BrendonLeslie) July 19, 2022
“This is a guy that locked people down, that kept kids out of school, denied people the right to earn a living, wanted to force COVID vaxes on people – what did I do? I stood in the way of all that,” he said. “We made sure that people had the choice about whether they wanted to take this vax or not.
DeSantis responded to Newsom’s criticism on pressuring the Special Olympics to drop the vaccine mandate, which would have violated state law.
“These athletes – they have down syndrome, disabilities, and they wanted to compete in the Special Olympics in Orlando. Well, there’s an international bureaucracy affiliated with the group that imposed vax discrimination on these athletes,” he said. “The athletes I met, their doctors told them not to do it based on their condition.”
Newsom makes false generalizations about Florida, but DeSantis is backed by real-world examples. California is a shining example of how not to run a state over the past two decades. There is a lot of homelessness and high taxes. The population is declining. And the state’s public infrastructure from energy to water has been badly managed, leading to frequent shortages.
Then there’s COVID-19 where Newsom still refuses to relinquish his emergency powers that helped usher in years of widespread lockdowns and ineffective mandates. California is a state that controls everything. This means there is little freedom. Florida is a stark contrast. It prioritizes the rights of individual citizens and does not allow politicians or partisan officials to dictate their decisions.
DeSantis’ fight with the bureaucracy that controls the Special Olympics was simply an extension of that commitment. Children wanted to compete who otherwise wouldn’t have been allowed to. DeSantis ensured they could. This is an extremely strategic mistake by Newsom.
To end, I do think it’s noteworthy that DeSantis has chosen to engage Newsom. He could have sat by and let the California governor flop around on the floor, but the decision to go right at him shows the Florida governor’s confidence in his own record of governance as well as his ability to rhetorically win these battles. That’s a good sign. Republicans are drawn to fighters, and DeSantis is no exception.
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