As part of an event held this past Sunday, California Democrat Governor Gavin Newsom found himself the target of extreme criticism from Florida Republican Governor Ron DeSantis throughout a speech issued in Simi Valley at the Ronald Reagan Presidential.
“I knew you guys got a lot of problems out here, but your governor is very concerned about what we’re doing in Florida, so I figured I had to come by,” stated DenSantis at the beginning of the speech.
This particular speech put focus on his now top-selling new book, “The Courage to be Free: Florida’s Blueprint for America’s Revival,” and his vision for how the country should be run.
It was reported by the Sacramento Bee that the speech was attended by a significant number of very high-profile people, including former Governor Pete Wilson and actor Gary Sinise. It was reported by Fox News that well over 1,300 people were in attendance at the event.
“I think if you look over the last four or five years, and you look at the performances of individual states, and you compare Florida versus California, New York, Illinois, some of those other states, we have had a great experiment, a great test in governing philosophies,” stated DeSantis. “Because, of course, you know, we approach things much differently in Florida than you guys have out here, much differently in Florida than they’ve done in New York and in Illinois.”
“And if you look over the last four years, we’ve witnessed a great American exodus from states governed by leftist politicians imposing leftist ideology and delivering poor results, and you’ve seen massive gains in states like Florida, who are governing according to the tried and true principles that President Reagan held dear,” he went on. “From the beginning of this state’s history, all the way until the last four or five years, people beat a path to California. You didn’t beat a path away from California. And yet now, you see the state hemorrhaging population.”
DeSantis also fired off a shot at Newsom about how poorly California was managed throughout the coronavirus pandemic.
“I can tell you, we had families move from the Pacific coast just for the fact that we had schools open in Florida, when you didn’t have them open in many other states,” he stated. “We did things like ban vaccine passports in the state of Florida. States said, ‘You want to go stay in a hotel, go to a restaurant, you got to cough up your vax papers on these mRNA shots.’ And we said that’s none of their business. Everyone has a right to participate in society. That’s a personal choice that you make whether to take that or not, and we’re not going to let you be excluded.”
“Now, what ended up happening because we did that, one of the things that ended up happening was in 2021, Florida set a record for domestic tourism,” he went on. “If you compare the change in tourism in California from 2019 to 2021, California tourism declined by 22%.”
DeSantis went on to call out the ideology that is pushing politicians such as Newsom. “I think these liberal states have gotten it wrong and why are they getting it wrong? I think it all goes back to ideology,” he stated. “And it goes back to this woke mind virus that’s infected the left and all these other institutions. I mean, think about the way they have governed their states.”
