Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis ripped California Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom during a speech Sunday at the the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley.
“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,” DeSantis joked.
🔥👀Governor DeSantis ROASTS Newsom at the Reagan Library in California:
"I know you've got a lot of problems out here, but your governor is very concerned about what we are doing in Florida… so I figured I had to come by." pic.twitter.com/0xFLrHaMHb
— DeSantis War Room 🐊 (@DeSantisWarRoom) March 5, 2023
DeSantis said Ronald Reagan “understood the vital role that government had to play” and how it could be a “negative force if not applied properly.”
“And 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,” he said. “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 continued. “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 said Florida has become a beacon of freedom wile states like California have become a “biomedical security state” due to Woke politics rather than medical science.
“And 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 said. “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 said. “If you compare the change in tourism in California from 2019 to 2021, California tourism declined by 22%.”
Ironically, Governor Gavin Newsom is being slammed for fleeing the state of California on “personal travel” while hundreds remain trapped in snow-covered mountain communities.
One week after a snow blizzard stranded residents of Crestline, Lake Arrowhead, and other San Bernardino Mountains towns, Townhall reported, Newsom finally declared a state of emergency. However, as of Saturday, the California National Guard had failed to arrive in the areas, the report added.
Senator Ted Cruz had the perfect zinger upon learning about Gavin Newsom’s exodus from the state.
Cancun is nice this time of year. 🌴🌴 https://t.co/KnueG8EtJ3
— Ted Cruz (@tedcruz) March 5, 2023
“Cancun is nice this time of year,” he quipped.
Follow Kyle Becker on Twitter @kylenabecker.