By Chris Frost
EAGLE TIMES NEWS EDITOR
NEWPORT, N.H.— During Saturday’s campaign stop in Newport, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis took aim at the “Washington Elites” that he said have allowed China to take all manufacturing and supply chains away from the United States, making our country vulnerable.
“We’re going to reclaim our economic independence from China,” said DeSantis. “We should not be controlled by the CCP [Chinese Communist Party] and will not be when I’m your president.”
DeSantis said as president, the southern border’s madness stops on day one.
“We’ll declare the border a national emergency. We’re going to use all resources, including the U.S. military, to stop the border invasion, build the border wall and hold the Mexican drug cartels accountable for what they are doing to this country.”
He said Biden’s policies make every American community a border community because they’re bringing in and killing Americans with “massive quantities” of fentanyl.
“When we did our border announcement in south Texas, I met a woman named Tracy. Her son took one Percocet that happened to be laced with fentanyl and he died. That is not something uncommon, unfortunately.”
He said the D.C. elites don’t care.
“When we are in charge, we’re going to treat the drug cartels like the foreign terrorists they are and authorize the use of deadly force if they’re bringing fentanyl into our country. I’ve seen where they cut through walls and come across the border with packs of fentanyl on their backs. If they try that when I’m President, we’re going to shoot them stone-cold dead.”
He said the military is experiencing its worst recruitment levels since abolishing the draft and he noted that forcing COVID vaccines on service members was a mistake and unnecessary, since it didn’t stop infections.
“We are going to rehire any military member discharged because they did not take the mRNA shot and give them their positions back in the military. The shots don’t stop you from getting infected so what’s the rationale to do this in the military, especially when most of these members had COVID?”
He disagrees with the military focusing on pronouns and gender ideology.
“When people see the mission is not first, that does not inspire confidence. One thing I remember from being in Iraq is it doesn’t matter where you come from. When you put on the uniform and you’re out there on the target, you’ve got to put the mission first. You can’t be distracted and focused on other things.”
DeSantis said it’s not individuals; it’s about the shared mission.
“If you don’t do that, you’ll die. We’ll rip out all the military nonsense on day one when I’m commander in chief and return the military to mission first.”
He said people abuse power if not held accountable, and that the Founding Fathers knew weaponizing the FBI, DOJ and the IRS would happen.
“These agencies exercised power without being held accountable for decades. Now you have FBI memos saying traditional Catholics are potential terrorists. Parents going to school board meetings are identified as potential terrorists.”
After seeing all the political rantings against Republicans, he said the FBI claimed a gunman targeting the Republicans’ Congressional Baseball practice was not politically motivated; it was “death by cop.”
“Something has gone wrong,” DeSantis said. “As president, I’ll end the weaponization of the federal government and the abuse of power.”
He asserted it won’t happen if Republicans don’t win the next election.
“With me, you have somebody who has not talked the talk but walked the walk. We made bold commitments across a series of issues [in Florida] and not only did we meet those commitments, we over-delivered. That’s the type of leadership we need.”
He highlighted Florida’s budget surplus, tax cuts, creation of universal school choice, expansion of Second Amendment rights, elimination of critical race theory in grades K-12 and a 50-year low in the crime rate.
“We stood for what was right and it was not popular with the left, the media and some Republicans. We took a lot of abuse and incoming, but a leader should be more about protecting the people he serves and not his political hide.”
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