Florida Governor Ron DeSantis (R-FL) was interviewed by Piers Morgan and spoke on a plethora of issues such as his handling of the pandemic, President Joe Biden (D), and of course, his possible Republican nominee opponent, former President Donald Trump (R).
According to Gov. DeSantis, he has not decided whether he will run for the Presidency yet but was very careful about his word choices. This interview was perhaps the closest that Gov. DeSantis has come to declaring a candidacy without actually doing so.
Morgan described one of Gov. DeSantis’ answers in his article like this:
“’If I were to run,’ he said confidently, ‘I’m running against Biden. Like we [him and Trump] are competing for the Republican, potentially, I get that, but ultimately you know the guy I’m gonna focus on is Biden because I think he’s failed the country. I think the country wants a change. I think they want a fresh start and a new direction and so we’ll be very vocal about that.’
‘Do you think you could beat Biden?’
‘I think so,’ he replied, unhesitatingly, and emphatically.”
DeSantis touted his huge victory in the state of Florida during the 2022 midterm election, which saw the Republican bring in massive vote totals and nearly a 20-point victory over a former Governor of the state.
“One of the things that was interesting about my election is that voters in Florida overwhelmingly thought the country was on the wrong track, but they thought Florida was on the right track. So, they saw the difference in terms of how things are governed,” DeSantis stated.
He would go on to mention exactly how Florida is run differently, showcasing the results of the Sunshine State to that of the “federal government’s $31 trillion dollars in debt.”
“We run big budget surpluses . . . the federal government’s $31 trillion dollars in debt. We’re very tough on crime, the policies in Washington are to be more weak on crime. We believe in being good stewards of the environment, but I don’t want to control everyone’s behavior with some of the stuff that’s going on.”
DeSantis believes that his path to the Presidency is through the independents that former President Trump has pushed away.
“I won with independents by 18 points,” he said, “and so that will be the same formula that we would take, and honestly forget about me, I think anybody should take the formula like that nationally. You can’t win with just Republicans. You’ve gotta win with independents and you need to convince some of these Democrats, which I was able to do in Florida, because they’re not woke, they don’t like some of the nonsense going on. They want their streets safe, and they want quality education. So I think you could appeal to people across the canvas.”
When Morgan asks if he will run, DeSantis’ response was “Stay tuned.”
Quotations from this interview were pulled from Piers Morgan's article in the New York Post.
