Governor Ron DeSantis: You Sick and Dying Floridians Better Not Derail My POTUS Dreams!!

[Xan]

Little Mr. Temper Tantrum just threw another fit.  At a recent gathering in Jacksonville, one of the citizens complained that his policies allowed people to hunt black people.  Ron reacted with, "I'm not going to take that!" and said that he wasn't about to be accused of criminal activity when he had done so much to support law enforcement.  (The black guy who made the statement was, of course, ejected from the event.)

He might as well just drop out.  The man is terrible at campaigning.

[GreyhoundFan]

Interesting read:

 

[GreyhoundFan]

His popularity is sinking by the hour. 

[GreyhoundFan]

Party Central:

 

[GreyhoundFan]

 

Quote

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis took at least six undisclosed trips on private jets and accepted lodging and dining in late 2018, according to flight manifests, tracking data and other documents obtained by The Washington Post that reflect his proclivity for luxury travel and leisure time with wealthy donors.

The trips came during the period between DeSantis’s election and inauguration as governor. On one, DeSantis traveled to the prestigious Augusta National Golf Club on a plane owned by Mori Hosseini, a major home builder who supplied a golf simulator in the governor’s mansion and later benefited from $92 million in federal pandemic funding that the DeSantis administration steered to a highway interchange project he sought. DeSantis took four other flights on a plane that was registered at the time to John Cwik, another DeSantis donor, records show.

DeSantis did not report the flights or accommodations as gifts or campaign contributions and it’s unclear whether he used a separate legal option to personally reimburse for the flights at the cost of coach airfare. A DeSantis spokesman said he complied with regulations but declined to specify how the costs of the trips were paid or how they met ethics and disclosure requirements.

His then-campaign lawyer wrote in a memo to his transition team that as governor-elect, he was “required to report with the Ethics Commission all direct and indirect gifts accepted that are worth over $100,” including “transportation,” “lodging” and “food.” Paid travel for political purposes was required to be disclosed as an in-kind campaign contribution, lawyer Ben Gibson advised in the 17-page memo.

Costs that are reimbursed are not considered gifts and do not have to be reported, Gibson’s memo explained. Ethics Commission rules allow private jet trips to be paid back at the cost of a coach ticket on the same route, rather than the actual operating cost of the flight, which is typically many times higher. This provision could have allowed DeSantis, who is not personally wealthy, to ride on donors’ planes for a fraction of the cost, all while avoiding any public scrutiny.

“All travel and events you mention — from almost five years ago — were compliant and received proper payment,” the DeSantis campaign spokesman, Andrew Romeo, said. “Efforts to fundraise for state political parties and cultivate relationships with state officials are standard for political leaders, especially during an election year.”

The undisclosed trips, which have not been previously reported, reflect how DeSantis fueled his political rise through close bonds with rich patrons and had a taste for luxury travel, in contrast to his campaign’s portrayal of DeSantis’s humble blue-collar roots and aversion to moneyed interests. His preference for private jet travel has continued into his White House bid, even as his campaign has struggled to rein in spending. In an unusual arrangement, the campaign is sharing some costs for private plane travel with the super PAC supporting him.

Romeo called this story “Trump-legacy media collusion” and claimed DeSantis has the best chance to defeat President Biden. “Ron DeSantis has always fought back against the establishment and won, and this election will be no different,” Romeo said.

“Additional questions regarding events, itineraries and documentation from almost five years ago should be directed to Susie Wiles, the staffer who oversaw such matters prior to her dismissal,” he continued.

Wiles, a top Republican operative in Florida, was the head of DeSantis’s transition team in late 2018. She was publicly ousted from his political operation in 2019 and is now a top adviser to Trump. Wiles referred questions to the Trump campaign.

“The DeSantis campaign’s ridiculous statement doesn’t even merit a response,” Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung said. “Instead of pointing fingers and trying to place blame on others — like they have historically done — the DeSantis’ should take a good, hard look in the mirror to better understand why they chose to act unethically and sell access to their office.”

DeSantis has not filed any gift disclosures throughout his time in office, according to the Florida Ethics Commission. The commission has received 12 complaints about DeSantis, all of which were dismissed. None were relevant to the undisclosed trips.

Searches of state campaign finance disclosures by DeSantis’s campaign, his affiliated political action committee and the Florida Republican Party did not produce any records of donations or expenditures corresponding to the private flights documented in the records obtained by The Post. In other instances later in his administration, DeSantis’s private flights were disclosed as in-kind contributions to his PAC or the state GOP. The state GOP did not respond to a request for comment.

The state disclosure requirement contains an exception for some relatives but not for friends. The Ethics Commission has repeatedly determined that free flights on private planes count as gifts, according to Caroline Klancke, a former commission general counsel and deputy executive director. State law provides penalties including fines of $10,000 per violation of the gift rules and Klancke said DeSantis’s actions could prompt further scrutiny.

While state rules generally value gifts at the “actual cost to the donor,” they allow the value of private jet travel to be “given the same value as an unrestricted coach fare.” Valuing lodging and golf rounds that are not generally available to the public would be more complicated, Klancke said.

“It’s always hard when there’s golf involved. These gift issues are very complex,” Klancke said. She added that the situation could receive further scrutiny from the Ethics Commission: “Were they given for the purpose of influencing the public official or engendering goodwill? These are things that go to the fabric of the fairness of the government.”

DeSantis’s willingness to accept perks after being elected troubled some of his advisers at the time, who feared that he would run afoul of the state’s ethics laws, according to multiple people familiar with the situation. The Gibson memo was written partially to explain to DeSantis exactly what he could and could not do, according to people with knowledge of the document, who like others interviewed for this story spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation. The memo also warned against taking gifts from those seeking to curry favor with the incoming governor.

“Public officers are prohibited from soliciting or accepting anything of value, such as a gift, loan, reward, promise of future employment, favor or service that is based on an understanding that their vote, official action or judgment would be influenced by such gift,” the memo said. “Public officers and employees are prohibited from corruptly using or attempting to use their official positions or the resources thereof to obtain a special privilege or benefit for themselves or others.”

Gibson, who remains a top Tallahassee lawyer for Florida Republicans, did not respond to requests for comment.

The Post reviewed travel documents in 2018 showing a governor-elect who showed a penchant for private plane travel and maintained close relationships with wealthy donors and other associates. After taking office, DeSantis was frequently given the use of planes by influential Floridians and others, records show. His team was often seeking out supporters who could provide planes, according to former advisers and a list of potential donors who could be asked to provide planes that was obtained by The Post, a practice that is allowed and ordinarily subject to disclosure requirements.

The trip to Augusta National Golf Club occurred on Dec. 20 and 21, 2018. A private jet registered to one of Hosseini’s companies took off from Daytona, where Hosseini and the plane are based, and flew to Sarasota to pick up then-state Senate President Bill Galvano, according to an itinerary prepared by DeSantis’s team and plane-tracking data. Gift or campaign finance disclosures for Galvano from the trip could not be found.

Hosseini did not respond to specific questions about the Augusta trip but said he had always acted “legally.” A spokeswoman for Galvano declined to say how the trip complied with ethics rules. “Any and all travel I did during my time as Senate President to raise support for the Republican Party of Florida was always done in accordance with Florida law and part of the job,” Galvano said in a statement.

From Sarasota, Hosseini’s jet proceeded to St. Augustine, near where DeSantis was living at the time, to pick him up along with an adviser and two state bodyguards, according to the documents.

The plane next flew to Walterboro, S.C., where DeSantis’s security team brought the group to the Congaree Golf Club for a round between Hosseini, DeSantis, Galvano and the adviser, according to the itinerary. Ground transportation was provided by DeSantis’s security team, according to the itinerary. Two people familiar with the trip said the security team consisted of state officers.

The Florida Department of Law Enforcement, which protects the governor and the governor-elect, declined to comment.

In South Carolina, the group returned to the airport to fly to Augusta, Ga., according to the itinerary and flight data. There, DeSantis and Hosseini were picked up by Fred Ridley, a Tampa-based lawyer and chairman of the Augusta National Golf Club, according to the itinerary. The Florida security officers followed them in a separate vehicle, according to the itinerary.

The advisers and bodyguards were not allowed to follow DeSantis, Hosseini, Galvano and Ridley into the club, the itinerary said. A person familiar with the trip confirmed that the guards were not allowed to trail DeSantis on the course — and sometimes were left off other courses, or at high-end homes where he stayed. Ridley did not respond to a request for comment.

Augusta National boasts an exclusive membership list that includes some of the world’s most powerful people and hosts the annual Masters tournament, widely regarded as the most prestigious golf competition. The itinerary noted that DeSantis needed to wear a jacket and tie for dinner and would stay the night in the club’s Eisenhower room, a cabin built for the 34th president, Dwight D. Eisenhower, who was a club member, and marked with the presidential seal above the door. The meal and lodging also do not appear in disclosures for gifts, contributions or expenditures either.

DeSantis, Hosseini, Ridley and Galvano played the next day, according to the itinerary, and then Hosseini’s plane flew the governor-elect back to St. Augustine.

DeSantis returned to Augusta for the Masters in 2019 and 2021, according to photographs of him at the event. It was not clear how those trips were paid for; there were no disclosures of the travel costs as gifts or political activity, according to The Post’s review of ethics and campaign finance disclosures. Romeo declined to comment on how those trips complied with the law.

DeSantis’s love of golf has been one recurring way for lobbyists and donors to spend time with him in exchange for campaign contributions. When he became governor, he approved a plan that involved attempting to “sell” appointments with DeSantis at a course he enjoyed in Tallahassee, according to documents reviewed by The Post.

In 2021, DeSantis named Ridley to the University of Florida Board of Trustees and reappointed Hosseini, who has made substantial campaign contributions to benefit DeSantis in Florida, as the board’s chairman. Companies he controls gave $1 million to the super PAC supporting DeSantis’s White House bid this year.

After DeSantis was reelected last year, his administration directed $92 million in covid relief funds to build a controversial highway interchange that would directly benefit one of Hosseini’s development projects. “With or without the interchange, we would have built Woodhaven there, but it certainly helps,” Hosseini told a local newspaper of the project in 2019. Hosseini denied seeking any special favors. DeSantis’s office referred questions to the state Department of Transportation, which did not directly respond to questions about DeSantis’s or Hosseini’s involvement in the decision to fund the project.

Hosseini sent a lengthy document to The Post on Tuesday that showed discussions about the interchange dating back to 1998, well before DeSantis was in office. But the documents also show that questions were raised about the viability and wisdom of the project over the years.

“I or my company have never ever asked for anything from this governor or any other previous governors,” he said in an email to The Post.

Flight manifests, itineraries and tracking data showed four other flights DeSantis took in November and December of 2018 on a plane that was registered at the time to John Cwik, another DeSantis political donor who is the CEO of a window manufacturer in Ocala, Fla. Those flights also did not appear in any campaign finance disclosures. Cwik said he did not know how the flights were paid for because the arrangements were made through a chartering company called Rennia Aviation. A search of Florida political expenditures did not return any disclosures for payments to that company. The company did not respond to requests for comment.

“I tried to give it to him one day at a fundraiser and he said ‘I can’t do that,’” Cwik said of offering to let DeSantis use his plane free.

In another trip documented in a flight manifest and plane-tracking data reviewed by The Post, DeSantis flew between Tallahassee and St. Augustine on Nov. 15, 2018, on a plane that was registered to a Utah-based company called TVPX Aircraft Solutions. The company’s website says it provides Federal Aviation Administration registration services for foreign entities and other clients that do not meet ownership requirements or want higher privacy protection. The company did not respond to requests for comment.

 

[GreyhoundFan]

I guess Faux is no longer 100% in the DerSantis camp:

 

[GreyhoundFan]

I love when they go after each other:

 

[Ozlsn]

On 9/7/2023 at 9:33 PM, Xan said:

And he thinks making men pay early child support will decrease abortions?  That would cause an increase in abortions.  How many men have to be taken to court now to pay their child support?  Ronnie has lost his mind.

It would also likely cause an increase in domestic violence and murder, but hey, tell us how pro life you are again Ronnie.

[GreyhoundFan]

Interesting:

[AnywhereButHere]

https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/4226966-desantis-attacks-trump-for-not-taking-part-in-debate/amp/

DeSantis is pretending to be a tough guy. With Trump’s absence, I guess he thought he’d try to recover his balls? Of course the minute he sees a nastygram from Fucknut, he’ll recant it in a millisecond. 

Quote

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis slammed former President Trump for not taking part in Wednesday night’s second GOP presidential primary debate. 

“Where’s Joe Biden? He’s completely missing in action from leadership. And you know who else is missing in action? Donald Trump is missing in action. He should be on this stage tonight,” DeSantis said, jabbing at both the current and former presidents. 

“He owes it to you to defend his record where they added $7.8 trillion to the debt, that set the stage for the inflation that we have now,” DeSantis added of Trump.

 

 

[GreyhoundFan]

No big surprise:

 

[GreyhoundFan]

I’m surprised he’s speaking out so directly:

 

[fraurosena]

21 hours ago, GreyhoundFan said:

I’m surprised he’s speaking out so directly:

 

It's probably because the realization has hit his campaign managers that attempting to be Trump 2.0 is not doing him any favors with neither the MAGA base nor with any other Republicans. They've altered course and are now openly attacking Trump, as Trump in all probability will be sentenced to some form of incarceration before the end of 2024, and Trump’s base will never leave him anyway, so courting the other twothirds of Republican voters is a better bet.

[GreyhoundFan]

You couldn't make this up:

 

[GreyhoundFan]

[GreyhoundFan]

"Spurned by moderates and MAGA: How DeSantis’s coalition has deflated"

Quote

BEDFORD, N.H. — Some moderate Republican voters here recoiled at ads that Ron DeSantis’s allies started running last month broadcasting the Florida governor’s vows to use deadly force at the southern border.

“I don’t like the fact that we’re going to start murdering people,” said Becki Kuhns, 71, who is eager for an alternative to Donald Trump and brought up the commercials unprompted.

Down the road at a cigar bar in Nashua, where regulars talk politics and watch debates together, a different DeSantis problem came into focus: Trump supporters were unmoved by DeSantis’s pitch that he’d deliver the former president’s agenda more effectively.

The people he’s targeting “belong to Trump,” said Howard Ray, 43, who went to a DeSantis event but wasn’t persuaded. “He comes across kind of hard right.”

He added: “Those types of people are in Trump’s camp, and they’re not moving.”

DeSantis began the year widely viewed as the Republican with the best chance to build a winning coalition against the former president — the Trump alternative who could entice Trump critics yet was also in many ways a continuation of Trump’s “America First” platform. But DeSantis’s support has shrunk dramatically since then, eroding on both ends of the party spectrum, interviews with dozens of early state voters, as well as pollsters and strategists, show.

The GOP minority that disapproves of Trump — and that favored DeSantis before he and most other candidates announced — has splintered to other hopefuls. Boosted by them and by independents, former U.N. ambassador Nikki Haley has surpassed DeSantis in New Hampshire and, in one poll released Monday, pulled even with the Florida governor in Iowa — where DeSantis has poured his resources.

At the same time, DeSantis has struggled among Trump supporters, losing ground with those who approve of the former president, who has used his four criminal indictments to re-energize a base that once looked readier to move on from him. And DeSantis has struggled on both ends to make personal appeals that resonate, with a stiffer presentation than freewheeling Trump.

Now, DeSantis is left in a perilous position with just over two months until the first nominating contest, mired in a second tier of candidates well behind Trump.

“He’s done good for the state of Florida, but it doesn’t seem to resonate for the rest of the country,” said Glen Pesquera, 69, who votes Republican and says he’s still “listening” to everyone, as he made his way out of a Manchester, N.H., diner that proudly advertises all its visits from 2024 candidates.

Despite his appeals to the Trump base, DeSantis has at times tried to offer something for everyone, eliciting sometimes discordant descriptions of his candidacy from voters.

To some in Iowa and New Hampshire he was a “fresh voice” and a “true conservative” unlike Trump. To others he was “America First” or, to those who disdained him, a “Trump wannabe.” They said he stood for “freedom” and “families” and fighting wokeness in schools, with his record in Florida sometimes defining him despite his months-long efforts to talk in national terms.

DeSantis’s average support in national polls of the GOP primary dropped from more than 30 percent in March to 24 percent in May, when he officially joined the race, to 14 percent today.

Faced with that slide, DeSantis’s team has focused most of its attention on Iowa, where it hopes intensive campaigning and a sophisticated ground operation will turn the tide against Trump. DeSantis-aligned operatives note that a pro-Trump super PAC is resuming ad spending there against DeSantis — after earlier signaling that it was focused on the general election — and that polls show a growing share of voters considering candidates besides Trump, who holds a large polling lead.

But Haley, rather than DeSantis, has been gaining there, with a highly anticipated Des Moines Register/NBC News/Mediacom poll on Monday showing both Haley and DeSantis at 16 percent and Trump in the lead at 43. In a sign of Haley’s rise, a pro-DeSantis super PAC has started to air ads against her.

Advisers and allies argue that Haley appeals to the anti-Trump wing with stances that alienate the rest of the GOP and that DeSantis is still the only candidate who can bridge those camps — with most of his voters migrating to Trump if he drops out. Anti-Trump voters will eventually coalesce behind whoever can beat the former president, they say.

“The reality is this party is going to nominate somebody … that has a record of delivering on America First principles,” DeSantis said last week in New Hampshire, embracing that core identity even as he underlined moderate-friendly themes like “economic vitality.”

Speaking to voters at a bar in Creston, Iowa, this month, DeSantis said he would enact Trump’s ideas and take them further. He said he would “clean house” at the Justice Department, push to end the war in Ukraine and finish the wall at the southern border. He said that he would “make Mexico pay for it” by charging fees on remittances and that if drug traffickers tried to break through, they would wind up “stone cold dead.”

Trump backers ‘just not voting for him’

As DeSantis launched his campaign in May, adviser Ryan Tyson laid out the strategy to wealthy fundraisers who gathered at the Four Seasons Hotel in Miami. “Trump without the crazy,” was how supporters saw him, Tyson said.

The “Never Trump” voters in the party were saying DeSantis was too much like Trump, he added, but they made up about 20 percent of the GOP. Tyson was more focused on what he called “soft” Trump voters. “These voters here in this segment are gonna collapse to the governor,” he predicted.

Trump has instead consolidated support, surging back from a low point after last year’s midterm elections, when many Republicans blamed him for their losses and took note of DeSantis’s landslide reelection victory. Indictments on a slew of criminal charges, starting in March, galvanized the base and rallied the party back to Trump’s side, all as the former president attacked DeSantis. “I am your retribution,” Trump has told voters.

Some DeSantis allies debate whether he should have announced earlier, to capitalize on his post-midterms momentum. Maybe, they say, he should have hit Trump hard from the start. They lament certain comments — like DeSantis’s dismissive statement about a “territorial dispute” in Ukraine — as unforced errors. But mostly they view Trump’s resurgence as a force beyond DeSantis’s control.

“To this day he has a very high favorable rating among those favorable to Trump,” said Charles Franklin, who directs the Marquette Law School Poll. “They’re just not voting for him.”

Dennis Martin, for instance, worries that Trump’s indictments will be a distraction and even says, “I don’t like Trump as a person.” The 57-year-old from a suburb of Des Moines is considering Trump, DeSantis and Vivek Ramaswamy, a first-time candidate who has also embraced the Trump agenda.

But Martin is also outraged at the charges against Trump, thinks he did “a hell of a job as president” and says he’s leaning slightly toward supporting Trump again.

Heading to breakfast in nearby Ankeny, David Melssen said he’d been following DeSantis’s response to the war between Hamas and Israel. “Great man. He sent an airplane to bring back Americans,” he said immediately when a reporter mentioned DeSantis’s name.

Asked if he could vote for DeSantis, he said: “Yeah, if Trump decides that Ron DeSantis is the guy to back.”

While DeSantis has started making his case against Trump more directly, polls and studies from a range of groups have found that GOP voters are remarkably resistant to critiques of the former president. One DeSantis-aligned strategist said they were flabbergasted when criticisms of Trump’s coronavirus response fell flat in focus groups and sometimes backfired on DeSantis.

Many voters were furious about lockdowns, mandates and former White House coronavirus adviser Anthony S. Fauci but were “simply unwilling to attach any of that blame on Trump,” said the strategist, who like others spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe nonpublic findings. This person said the indictments appeared to make Trump even more immune to criticism.

Trump has also forged a more personal connection with many Republican voters who say they view the former president as a vessel for anger at the country’s “elite.” DeSantis has spent far more time than Trump has mingling with voters on the trail this year but has struggled to shake criticisms that he’s stiff or rehearsed.

“Trump’s deal is, he’s working for us,” said Bryan Richardson, a 54-year-old from Ankeny, who called DeSantis his second choice.

Hopeful DeSantis allies point to how his pitch has resonated with some longtime Trump supporters, such as Joe Thomas, 38. Thomas likes DeSantis’s opposition to “identity politics” in schools; says Trump failed to “drain the swamp”; and hopes DeSantis’s support will grow as more “normie” voters — less dialed into politics — tune into the race.

Trump has benefited from an advantage in earned media — the term campaigns use for television, online and print news coverage — as voters get “a steady diet of two things: Biden sucks, they’re coming after Trump,” said one DeSantis adviser, who added that the former president’s edge has shrunk.

“This nomination won’t be won with a silver bullet, but instead with a three yards and a cloud of dust approach,” campaign spokesman Andrew Romeo said in a statement, adding that “no one will outcampaign or outorganize” the Florida governor.

Losing ground among moderates

The same positions that have aligned DeSantis with the GOP base have alienated many centrists who were initially drawn to him. They point to the six-week abortion ban he signed in Florida; his combative tone; his fight with Disney over classroom restrictions on discussion of LGBTQ+ issues; and his declaration that the United States had no vital interest in a “territorial dispute” in Ukraine, which unnerved top donors.

In March, one Marquette Law School Poll found, DeSantis was winning about 45 percent of registered Republicans who view Trump unfavorably — even more than his 32 percent support among those with a favorable view of Trump. In late September, he was in the teens with both groups.

Jennifer Hodgdon, an independent who plans to vote in the Republican primary, said DeSantis has aligned himself too closely with the Trump core of the party to appeal to her.

“I think he’s going for a base that is probably Trump’s base, even though he’s trying to not be Trump,” Hodgdon said. “I’m not sure how that’s going to work out for him.”

One voter, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to protect his privacy and went to a DeSantis town hall in New Hampshire, said the governor had every credential he could want in a candidate — but lamented in a recent interview that he was “divisive” like Trump and said that he felt drawn, later on, to Haley’s tone and appeal for consensus on abortion. Kevin Donohue, an independent who plans to vote in the New Hampshire primary, said he was drawn to DeSantis’s military service — he’s also a veteran — but worried the governor was “an intimidator rather than a solver.”

DeSantis operatives say it’s unsurprising that voters interested in a Trump alternative would shop around as the race heats up, and they point to candidates who’ve popped and then deflated. Many moderate voters who have policy differences with DeSantis said those differences aren’t dealbreakers if he’s the best bet against Trump.

But DeSantis’s decline with that group has opened the door for Haley to vie for the role of primary Trump alternative — particularly in New Hampshire, where Haley has focused her efforts and where moderate Republicans and undeclared voters could play an especially large role.

CNN polls of Republican primary voters there found that DeSantis’s support dropped across many subgroups from midsummer to September but took a particular dive with self-described “moderates” — from 26 to 6 percent. Haley, whose approach to abortion and support for Ukraine aid have helped her appeal to centrists, benefited from an opposite trend.

At recent Haley events in Iowa, including a multicandidate gathering, many voters said that they were leaning toward Haley after narrowing their shortlists to her and DeSantis, often citing the former U.N. ambassador’s foreign policy experience.

Threading the needle, creating a muddle

Throughout this year, DeSantis has tried to thread the needle on some divisive issues as he navigates clashing wings of the party, at times appearing eager to satisfy one, only to later nod to another.

He’s embraced strict abortion bans at the state level but often sidesteps questions about his support for national restrictions. He’s touted the election police force he created in Florida as Trump and other Republicans made false claims of rampant fraud, but he’s also admitted, when pressed, that Trump lost the 2020 election.

At the first GOP debate, when the moderators asked who was opposed to more U.S. funding for Ukraine, DeSantis raised his hand. But he didn’t rule out some funding, telling the debate audience that U.S. support should be “contingent” on other countries ramping up theirs.

Some donors who revolted over DeSantis’s Ukraine comments in the spring are eyeing Haley as a better fit.

At the same time, any move to assuage conservatives more hawkish on foreign affairs can stoke suspicion from the party’s “America First” flank.

Shortly after the first debate, at a packed Pizza Ranch in Garner, Iowa, one voter told DeSantis that he was troubled by his comments on foreign policy. It seems like “you’re in favor of sending more of my money over to the corrupt nation of Ukraine,” he said. DeSantis tried to clarify: He’d called for Europeans to take charge and was focused on American problems like the southern border with Mexico.

The same day, a reporter asked if DeSantis would “cut off other aid to Ukraine if Europe doesn’t step up their commitment.”

“Europe needs to step up their commitments,” DeSantis said.

 

[GreyhoundFan]

It looks like Kim Reynolds is regretting her endorsement of Ronnie:

[WatchingTheTireFireBurn]

yikes!  Why are republican guys so creepy and cringe

[GreyhoundFan]

I don’t care about his height, but I think it’s pitiful that he feels the need to don heels to appear taller. 
 

[GreyhoundFan]

DeSantis and Gavin Newsom had a debate moderated by Hannity. Newsom was awesome. DeSantis, not so much. 
 

Here’s a clip:

 

[GreyhoundFan]

[GreyhoundFan]

Gavin brought receipts:

 

 

[AnywhereButHere]

2 hours ago, GreyhoundFan said:

Gavin brought receipts:

 

 

And I love that this was on Fox. Maybe it will sink in for some of the people who need to hear this. 

The extreme crazies have decamped to Newsmax and whatever, but they wouldn't listen anyway. The less extremes who wouldn't be caught dead watching CNN (let alone MSNBC) but still trust Fox,  may have some receptors still open...

Edited December 1, 2023 by AnywhereButHere

[Becky]

DeSantis always looks to me like he feels nauseous and is about to lose his lunch.  That grimace he thinks looks like a smile is just ....   ew.  

[SPHASH]

As a football fan I hate the Florida schools, Notre Dame, Texas, and most of the SEC but even I admit FSU got hosed here.  Probably because Alabama and Texas got picked over FSU.  But since Ronny is crying over it I'll smile