CNN first reported that Florida’s principled limited government constitutional conservative Governor Ron DeSantis was not scheduled to speak at the upcoming Republican National Convention.
DeSantis was initially not scheduled to have a main stage speaking slot during the weeklong celebration of former President Donald Trump's renomination, three people familiar with convention plans but not authorized to speak publicly told POLITICO on Tuesday.
However, two of those people told POLITICO that, as of Wednesday morning, the plans had changed, and DeSantis is now in the mix for a spot. A DeSantis adviser familiar with the matter, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, insisted on Wednesday that the governor’s team was consistently told for months he would have a speaking slot and was never told otherwise.
With or without a main stage speaking role, Gov. DeSantis was scheduled to appear at a town hall hosted by Moms for Liberty and is set to appear at the “Southern States Fest” being held at the Milwaukee Brewers’ stadium that will feature other GOP governors from the region.
DeSantis will also be the main speaker at a breakfast meeting hosted by the Republican Party of Florida. DeSantis is also allowed to be on the convention floor. Evan Power, the chair of the Republican Party of Florida, said that sitting governors and members of Congress are given floor passes, POLITICO reported.
Few convention speakers have been rolled out ahead of next week’s nominating convention. Another 2024 primary rival, former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley, will not be speaking — and was not invited to the convention at all, POLITICO reported.
Trump has had a famously touchy relationship with his former Republican Primary rivals whom he refused to debate and torched, often in harshly personal terms, on social media. When DeSantis announced his campaign Trump saw it as an act of treachery and remarked that the Governor could forget about the 2028 Republican nomination for President.
After he dropped out in January, DeSantis endorsed Trump. “But the two did not attempt a rapprochement until months later when they held a private meeting at a South Florida golf course,” POLITICO reported.
The animosity toward DeSantis held by Trump may have dissipated somewhat, but Trump’s inner circle appears committed to keeping DeSantis frozen out of the national campaign.
We think any attempt to freeze out Ron DeSantis is a grave mistake on the part of the Trump team.
It is Governor DeSantis and the Republican majority in the Florida legislature that have made Florida into a test lab for much of the Make America Great Again agenda, and in the process turned Florida from a swing state to a solidly Republican bastion.
In the six years DeSantis has been Governor, after winning his first election by little more than 30,000 votes, Florida Republicans now have an almost 1 million vote registration advantage over Democrats.
And thanks to Governor DeSantis insisting on his own very carefully crafted congressional district map Florida Republicans elected 20 members of the House of Representatives in 2022, adding four members to the GOP delegation and providing the “majority makers” necessary to GOP control of the U.S. House of Representatives.
In almost every sphere of the MAGA agenda Ron DeSantis has not just talked a good game, but actually gotten policies implemented and legislation passed:
DeSantis signed an expansive school-voucher law
DeSantis got pornographic books off the shelves of elementary-school libraries
DeSantis proposed and got passed a ban on mutilating minors in the name of "gender-affirming care"
DeSantis signed Florida's constitutional concealed carry law
DeSantis eliminated diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs at public universities
DeSantis ended pronoun madness in public schools
DeSantis sent Florida law enforcement and National Guard troops to the Texas border
DeSantis shipped illegal aliens to Progressive Democrat sanctuary jurisdictions
“We’ve had conservative leadership in Florida for the past 23 years, but we’ve passed more conservative bills in the past two years than the previous 20, and more this year than the past 22,” says former GOP state chairman and state senator Joe Gruters. “It’s a rocket ship, a steam engine.”
By operationalizing the culture war into a set of concrete policies, DeSantis has transformed the nation’s third most populous state. What was once the butt of jokes about gators and retirees is now the swaggering, Southern-tinged Free State of Florida—where men are men, woke is broke, and business is booming, wrote Time Magazine.
“We’ve shown that you don’t have to do it the liberal way, and we’re the envy of the nation when you look at our results,” said Republican state representative Randy Fine. “DeSantis says what he’s going to do and he does it. People like that, even if they don’t agree with him.”
Next to Donald Trump there’s no better spokesman for the MAGA agenda than Ron DeSantis and we are glad to see him have a speaking role in next week’s Republican National Committee.
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