Transcripts For CSPAN2 Campaign 20240702

Everything he does he does with honor and distinction. A persons word is what you need, its about all you have. Its a great honor that i introduce Governor Desantis, the next president of the United States. [applause] how are you all doing . Its great to be at the grand again and thanks to the veterans of foreign wars for hosting us. I am a lifetime member. I think my home post is still Saint Augustine but we have a lot of great veterans in florida and we appreciate all the great veterans in South Carolina so thank you for your service and god bless each and everyone of you. Thanks to representative goose toes for the introduction thank you for your service and captain dick, thank you for coming out and doing it again. I am excited to be here. I know our country has a lot of problems and was seen that day after day. You have this situation in israel for suffered where they have suffered a brutal terrorist attack from hamas for joe biden flow. He didnt take a 2 a. M. Phone call. Its really important to do that as president. He did that floundering around in what i said that day was America Needs to stand with the state of israel and its people as they fight to defend themselves. They have a right to defend themselves to the hilt. They have a right to eliminate hamas entirely. The media reported that israel struck a hospitals what was there evidence for that . There evidence was a press release from hamas. Thats what they relied on. This caused a lot of people around the world that was a total lie because they are trying to pursue a narrative and thats what the narrative is all about. I think you have to be strong in these situations and they have to be able to do what they are going to do. Its about them doing what they can do. Hamas has peaceful has people hostage right now and americans are being held hostage and yet biden wants to send 100 million to the gaza strip. That will get commandeered by hamas. We know thats the case. Ive been very clear, not one red cent to hamas, not one red cent. That will not happen. [applause] the other thing we saw was before the blood was even dry on the civilians in israel who had been massacred, you had people in our own country on College Campuses demonstrating in favor of hamas. Are you kidding me . What is going on . There is a sickness and a lot of these universities. I will look at the statements put out by the president s of our universities which is different. [applause] thats a huge problem for our country to see that. Some of those people demonstrating are not even american citizens. They are here in a student visa. When im president , youve got foreigners here on student visas, if they are making common cause with hamas, im canceling their visas and sending them home. [applause] and you now here calls from the very leftwing politicians saying that the u. S. Should be absorbing refugees leaving the gaza strip. I was the first one to come out on this and i said we are not going to do any gaza refugees in the United States and the reason is, its not our responsibility first of all. The arab country should be taking them in. It used to be refugees, you leave the danger but you stay close by. You dont go halfway around the world. Nevertheless, the people will say not everyone in the gaza strip is hamas. Thats true. They did elect hamas. Most people were cheering in the streets when the attack happened so the idea that hamas does not have support is ridiculous. Thats not even the question. They teach the kids in the gaza strip to hate jews. They teach the kids to seek the destruction and annihilation of israel. There is a toxicity to the culture they have created their. When you are doing things, we need to do things that are in the interest of our people. Is it in the interest of americans to be importing some of that toxic culture from the middle east into our country . Its not in our interest to do that. You see what europe is done with their immigration policy. They have basically brought in these middle eastern blood feuds to germany and england and these places. It is not the right way to go. You can count on me, we will not do that. It will not happen. Its important we are honest about that. So much of the problems in our country are selfinflicted. There are bad decisions being made by people in our ruling class and d. C. This is one of them. When biden commit to office, he relaxed sanctions on iran. Theyve gotten massive amounts of infusion for oil revenue which should have been made tighter. What have they been doing since 1979 since the ayatollah took power, the regime is dedicated to fomenting jihad in the middle east and throughout the world. They were responsible for the death of over 240 u. S. Marines in beirut in 1983. That was funded and directed through hezbollah by iran. When i was in iraq, and im the only one running for president who served in the military, by the way, and i would be the first president [applause] i would be the first president since 1988 elected with service so i served in iraq and at that time, there was a lot about al qaeda in iraq. Most of the combat debts for americans were not done by al qaeda in iraq. It was done by militia groups Shia Islamist militia groups funded and orchestrated by iran. They were responsible for killing hundreds of our Service Members and maybe even over a thousand. They fomented attacks against israel for years through hamas and hezbollah. When youre doing that like biden did, course they will plow into terrorism. If you think you can do a deal with iran, you need to turn the screws on them and deny them the oil revenue. If you starve them financially, they will not be able to further the jihad through the middle east. You have to worry about whats coming to our country. You watch whats going on there and you understand we have an open border at the u. S. Mexico border weve had 7 Million People come to this country illegally and i said publicly many times before the hamasisrael war i hope im wrong but the math doesnt lie, there will be a terrorist attack in this country we can trace back to the southern border. Youve had people from china who have come, iran, russia, all these countries in the middle east because people from all over the world are pouring in, we have no idea who these people are but we know some of them are on the terrorist watch list. You think Bidens Administration will admit they are on the terrorist watch list . We also know there is criminal agents coming across the border. We know the mexican drug cartels are involved in drug and Human Trafficking and bringing in massive amounts of fentanyl. This border is a National Security risk and threat to our citizens and their country. Much as i look at israel in one israel to defeat hamas, that is much less likely to directly affect is than our own open border is and yet the people in d. C. Dont give a dam about what is happening. They havent lifted a finger to do anything on any of this. There is a lack of leadership in this country. They have created this mess with their bad policies we need a new direction. As president on day one, i will declare the border to be a national emergency. [applause] we will mobilize all available resources including our u. S. Military to stop the invasion at the southern border cold. What will happen is you have to say when people come illegally, the pendley for that test the penalty for that is to take commence on the back to their home country and thats what we are going to do. [applause] we will build the border wall and i will actually have mexico pay for that wall. [laughter] i remember going to the rallies in 2016 candidate trump would talk about that and that was my favorite because i knew the border was a big issue then. It is of is the gotten worse but it was a big issue. It didnt work out to where the wall was paid for by mexico but i think trump has said recently, he said he had no mechanism to do it. There actually is a way you can get them to pay for it. Mexico will not just pony up money. What you do is you impose fees on the remittances people sent back to mexico, Central America and south america from the United States. That will raise billions of dollars per year that goes right into constructing that wall. We will get that done. [applause] even more important than that is no president has been willing to until i get into treat the mexican drug cartels like foreign terrorist organizations. If you look at what they are doing, they are invading our country and they are killing our people. We have tens of thousands of people who are dying from fentanyl overdoses. In florida, new england, its not just border states. Every state has become a Border Community because of the drugs and ive had a chance to meet a lot of mothers who have lost a child through fentanyl overdose. Drug addiction is tough and thats part of it, no question but what you find is when you have young people in high school and college in their 20s, they may think they are taking some pill that is not fentanyl but if its laced with fentanyl, they can die on the spot. Come in florida, family was renting in airbnb and the baby was crawling on the carpet and there was fentanyl residue left over in the baby died. Can you imagine that is apparent , child crawling on the carpet and all of a sudden they die . This is happening all over the country. We are having americans die in severe numbers. People in d. C. Shrugged their shoulders but i care about it. I wanted to stop and we will do something about it. We will treat them as foreign terrorist organizations. As president , i not only have the right but the responsibility as commanderinchief to fight back when people are coming in and killing your citizens. We will authorize the use of deadly force against domestic drug cartels. You have cartels trying to bring in through our southern border and we catch him and we will shoot them dead at the southern border. [applause] speaking of shooting yourself in the foot with the people in d. C. , all the prices you had to deal with with groceries and gas , by the way, i will talk about gas in a minute, but all the stuff was created by government. Government started borrowing and spending starting with covid and how would botched the response. Trillions and trillions of dollars, federal reserve, all the stuff, course you will have inflation. There is no way you couldnt have inflation. Now youre in a situation where people in d. C. Are continuing like nothing needs to be done. They can even elect a speaker of the house now up there. I is that inspiring any confidence in whats going on. So much of politics washington has devolved into political theater. Its all about drama but there is no results being delivered. We need results. In florida we do the opposite. There was no drama and anything we do. We just get the job done. My job as a leader is not to create trauma and sideshows, my job is to get the job done for the people i represent. Just recently, you had the situation with israel and i knew instinctively this would be an issue for florida because we have so much back and forth with their citizens and friends and family. Couple of days go by and people in florida and all americans, people are stranded in israel in the middle of this conflict. The state department wasnt helping them. The embassy in israel wasnt helping them. I said, i will do it. We did an executive order last week and scrambled our Emergency Management resources and we sent planes to pick up american citizens and bring them back to florida from israel. [applause] weve now done, i think weve done probably between 5700 and we have more planes coming. We will end up doing between 7001000 rescues of people. Notice, we are doing it, i have the ability to do it and i have the wherewithal to make it happen. The federal government has decided that we will help you and we will dump you ingreece. Then they are charging them for the transportation. Wait a minute, you come across that southern border and they will fly you all over the country free of charge. They will put you up in hotels free of charge as an illegal but somehow an american citizen fleeing a war zone, they will send them a bill for this . Talk about putting americans last. Weve done it and when the planes go back to israel, we bring cargo and other things that a been donated to help the effort. Thats just what leadership is about. People have said some of these governors will now go to israel for a photo op. Im not doing it because im here in the United States making this happen and getting the job done. We need to stop with the carnival show and show we can actually get the job done. When we come in in washington in january of 2025, we will bring order to the chaos. We will bring leadership, we will get behind our vision like we did when president reagan came in in 1981 and we will get this stuff done because we dont have a lot of time to waste. We got to get congress to stop spending this country into oblivion because they are hurting us and youve got to be willing to exercise leadership there. We will take bidenomics there and put them in the trashcan. We will take care of that. [applause] maybe the easiest thing we can do to get inflation down is to expand Energy Production here in the United States. We will be funnily energy cash we will be fully energy independent. We have so many resources in places like the marcellus shale, Permian Basin and these different things. That will lower your gas prices. Our target is to dollar gas again. The only way you do that is by producing more. We want to use federal lands in alaska and pipelines and we will do all of that, that will be a day one thing and part of it is because its important for peoples pocketbooks. It affects everything that goes into the economy. It affects all the power all the goods and Services Provided to this country. It will be good for jobs and good for our Industrial Base but also good for our National Security. When we are the dominant energy producer, that hurts russia and iran and china area when we go with bidens green new deal, it kneecaps our Energy Production. It weakens us against china, iran and russia. Its a nobrainer to be able to do that so we will do that day one and turn it on. It will make a big difference and we will be aggressive at permitting and the things we need to do to overcome the bureaucracy. That will make a big difference for everyone. I look at congress and i look at how inapt its become. We need term limits for members of congress. [applause] its got to get done. We will work on that and you have to do it through the states. I think its important we do that. How is it you have people up there who have been up there for 40 years, a lot of them are in their 80s. Im from florida and i love people and their 80s. Is that really what you want is people claim to power for so long . When eat a balanced Budget Amendment added to the constitution and we will have views on that pretty soon. You got to do all those things which is important. Right now, the American Dream is out of reach for millions and millions of americans. Its cost prohibitive just to raise kids. In florida, we make baby items, everything tax free permanently. You pay no tax on raising a kid in florida which is our way of trying to help families cope with the rising costs. If you are working hard and youre getting it all in the field, you cant do better if you fall behind when you do everything right. You will just not succeeds we need to have the ability for people to get ahead and aspire again. That will come when we reverse bidenomics. We have a lot of veterans here and we will make veteran issues a top shelf priority in my administration. Veterans have been ignored for a long time and i think they been mistreated by different agencies. We need to stop that and we will focus on a couple of things. One is we need to get the veterans linked with all the help thats out there. The bureaucracy cannot solve these problems. [applause] with cut organizations and businesses that want to help. In florida, what we do for a welfare system, we dont rely on the government to solve the problem. The government just writes a check and people come back and thats not the way to do it. We enlist churches and charities and businesses and volunteers to come in. If somebody need something, we have a portal and people snap into action and help. Then they dont go back to government assistance anymore. We have so many great veterans organizations to help with posttraumatic stress, help with employment, businesses that want to get involved and help. We have volunteers want to do it. I remember when i left activeduty, i got a packet of veteran stuff and i didnt understand it. It was like bureaucracy after bureaucracy and people just get ground down and dont know where to look. Our government for veterans need to facilitate those connections to all these resources out there. We will start doing that and we will focus on helping with Veterans Mental Health and reducing the suicide rate in reducing the substance abuse. [applause] theres other Veterans Issues we will talk about but when veterans come to me and i hear about all those things. The number one thing i hear from veterans is not what you can do for them, they want to see the current military. They see whats happened and they see the culture has changed and they see there is a lot of folks with orientation going on and woke ideology. They see the leadership of civilian driven. They have for their eye off the ball. You saw how many people got carved out for this covid rna shot. You do check your freedom at the door when youre in the military. Who are part of a unit and cannot just say what you want. Its different. I remember you have to take shots from time to time and that happened in my day. On this one, it was very clear early on the thing wasnt preventing you from getting infected. People had covid and they were still making them take it. They lost a lot of warriors and there were people that decided not to join. I think the cultural change, we now have the lowest recruiting we have had since the end of the vietnam war when the draft ended. We will not be able to deter china. There military has been expanding. None of these other countries are going to be able to match that. They want us to pass they want to pass us in economy, they want to dominate the pacific and they want to be able to basically be the leader of the entire world economy. If they ever get to that point, everyone in this room will feel the effects of that. That will not be good for this country. This coming decade throughout the 2020s and the 2030s, this is a decisive period where we have to fight off that threat by strengthening our economy, strengthening our military so that we can keep china at bay. China acts like biden isnt a threat and they are going to pass us by. As president , i can tell you this. We will, i will leave office with this country being the undisputed number one superpower in the entire world. [applause] the other thing i think this country has really shot itself in the foot on is with our Education System. My wife and i, we have kids ages 6, 5 and three. We are very sensitive about all of those issues and in florida, we have shown the way with respect to education. We have enacted a parents bill of rights where the parents are recognized as having the fundamental rights to direct the education and upbringing of their kids. School systems are fine and important parts of the community, but they dont supersede the rights of parents. So you end up getting into these things where we have to fight battles about what is appropriate to have an schools. Parents have the right to know the curriculum being used in their kids school. They are putting pornographic material in front of school kids who are at a very young age. The parents of florida can blow the whistle, if it is not ageappropriate. It can be removed from the classroom. The media has said florida, you are banning books. First of all, you can get any book in florida you want. There is nothing that has been banned, but adult material should not be injected into a fifth grade classroom. You want to do adult material, do that on your own time. Go look at Hunter Bidens laptop for all i care. Keep it away from our kids. This hoax, the narrative about buck manning, i just left office about six or nine months ago and instead of me going to the podium, i just played for the first two minutes, a video that show the images of what the parents were objecting to. The local news covering that press conference cut their feed. They said it was too graphic to air on tv. Im thinking to myself, ok if it is too graphic for the 6 00 news, how in the world is it ok for a for great schoolchild . You have to get these schools out of the idea that they are supposed to indoctrinate our kids. That is not what they are supposed to do. They are supposed to educate. In florida we have a limited Critical Race Theory and we fought and defeated the most powerful company in florida, disney, to keep the transgender ideology out of the school. [applause] the idea that it would be appropriate to tell a kindergartner that they can change gender, that they were born in the wrong body is just insane. That is not even something we were talking about 10 years ago but could you imagine going back . I look at my kids and how young they are and i would not even die to raise that. It is just ridiculous. We did the right thing to ensure that. We need parents rights all across this country. We need to get our Education System on better footing. We have Universal School choice in florida, so parents can go to your neighborhood school, you can choose other schools within the school district, you can go to a Charter School or get a private scholarship and go to a private school, including religious schools. The result is our state is now ranked number one in education by u. S. News and the world report. That was not the case 25 years ago. Another thing we have to look at is Higher Education and these universities. People said the students that were demonstrating in favor of hamas and the aftermath of the terror attacks, signing letters in support of that, people said those are people you would not be willing to hire, knowing that, of course i wouldnt be willing to hire them. Are you kidding me . This is ridiculous, but part of it is they are a symptom of the underlying problem with how radical academia has become. My parents were bluecollar, i grew up working minimum wage jobs. I got recruited to play baseball out of high school at places like princeton and yale and i had never been to new england in my life. I had no family connections. I ended up going to gail and i show up, first day and this is like what i would do in the tampa bay area, i wore jeans shorts, flipflops, first day. Not exactly what the kids from Andover Academy and all that were doing. Fish out of water. But i got there and i didnt know colleges were liberal at the time. I didnt know. I get there and very liberal left and growing up in florida, i didnt know if i was a republican or a democrat. Everyone was patriotic. God, family, country. This was much different. Very leftwing stuff. This is just not good. I can honestly tell you, im one of these few people in the entire country that can say i got through both yale and harvard and came out more conservative than when i went in, and that is not nick that is not easy to do. A lot of other people, i remember that and i didnt like that. Even then, i think it has gotten a lot worse. I dont think there would have been protests in favor of hamas. I think there would have been other crazy things but i dont think they would have done quite that far. That is just not going to work for this country that these institutions are totally corrupted by radical ideology. In florida, what we have said is our universities are not here, they are not being funded by tax dollars so that professors can impose an ideological agenda. I have no interest in funding that. We will Fund Universities to follow the Classical Mission of the universities, to pursue truth, preparing our citizens, our students to be citizens of this republic. That is the point. We have taken action to make that happen. In florida, all tenured professors must undergo review every five years and can be let go for low performance. That is accountability. We also have a Small Liberal Arts College in sarasota called new college and no one had heard of it. It was supposed to be that they werent Honors College and it really had fallen off and it was basically like a marxist commune. Left of the left. Im just thinking that is not an appropriate use of tax dollars, so i came in and we appointed seven conservatives to the board of trustees. They fired the president , they hired a conservative president. They eliminated critical race and di. They abolished the gender studies department and they reframed the mission of the college to be the nations top public Classical Liberal arts college, similar to telltale college in michigan. We now have a situation where they have said we are not doing the agenda, we are going to focus on education, similar to what our Founding Fathers would have studied. Things that are really substantive. Now you have parents across the country trying to get their kids in. I dont let them raise tuition. Our tuition is 6,400 a year. Outofstate is 16,000, less than almost anywhere, because we have all of this interest. They started to weed out some of the faculty and they are bringing in new faculty and it is funny because the media will say some of these professors are leaving, saying there is a brain drain leaving florida because of Governor Desantis and im picking a myself wait a minute, if a professor of intersectional marxism is leaving florida, that is not a bad thing for florida. That is a good thing. [applause] i think that the education issue is important and also some of the other fights weve had in florida are important because with all that is going wrong, it is not enough to win a policy fight. Youve got to do that. They get into these institutions and corrupt them and whether it is these corporations with the esg or academia with the bureaucracy, and you have to have a leader that understands that and is going to be willing to fight back and make sure that these institutions are institutions that reflect the values of the country and not just the far left elite and that is what has happened over many decades. Florida, why are we the freest state in the United States question mark partially because we won those fights, not just in the legislature but at the institutional level. We will continue to do that and have that leadership. Another thing that we have shot ourselves in the foot as a country on his crime. Is crime. California was compared to florida, on crime. You have the governor of california, since hes gotten here, its down there and since ive gotten in, it is down here. We support the people of law enforcement, people that wear the uniform. We dont denigrate the police. We dont defund the police. We have strong laws that hold people accountable for misconduct. Part of it is one of the reasons why we have crime spiraling out of control in the cities is because prosecutors get elected, a lot of times with funding from people like george soros where they get elected and they pledge not to enforce laws that they disagree with. You end up in los angeles, you can get mugged and they probably wont even prosecute the guy most of the time. Criminals have the upper hand. They commit more and more crimes. Ive had more people move from california to florida since i have been governor than probably any other time in the history of the state. Ive never growing up in florida, i never saw california like this. I became governor and i see california license plates and a lot of my voters were spooked about it, because they said how are these people going to vote when they come here . A lot of them were disaffected from the nonsense going on, so they appreciated. We had a few of those prosecutors in florida. Whether you live in a red state or a blue state, criminals must be held accountable for their conduct. You do the crime, you do the time and we cant just be releasing people back on the street so that they can victimize more people. The doj, all the different available resources to hold these soros back prosecutors accountable because we cant be successful as a country if every major city is like a war zone. It doesnt work. Like what is happening in chicago and san francisco. This is a total collapse of public safety. We are going to make sure every family in america is able to raise their kids in safety and security, and just because some bozo prosecutor gets elected, that should not mean that laws are not going to be enforced. We will hold them accountable for that. There is a lot more to say, but finally what i would be able to do is there has been another selfinflicted wound where so many generations now, certainly in the last several decades, our elites have turned their back on the constitution. If you look at the bureaucracy that we have, that is not what the Founding Fathers intended. You look at the weaponization of agencies like the fbi, the doj, the irs. If you dont hold them accountable, human nature being what it is, they will abuse their power. They are not held accountable, they are allowed to exercise Authority Without our consent and it has gotten to the point where can we govern ourselves or not . If you can win an election as president of the United States and yet you have this whole branch of government that does whatever it wants anyhow, we dont rule ourselves at that point and that is not what our founders intended. But is not what a republican system is all about. With me there is going to be a new sheriff in town on day one stop we are going to rain in this in ministry to state, we are going to reconstitution allies the federal government. You will have a new fbi director on day one. A new head of the doj. Far less bureaucrats in washington, d. C. And on down the line. We really have no choice in the matter because if we dont tackle it now, i dont think we will ever be able to put the genie back in the bottle and we are a government that is supposed to be based on the American People and we have lost control over so much of the power of our government, so we are going to downsize and do all of that and make sure to hold these people accountable. Some of these bureaucrats just need to be fired. If any fbi agent is going after parents going to a school board meeting, im firing them. If they are working with Silicon Valley to censor political speech, im going to fire them. You have to be willing to use your authority and stand strong, so we are going to do that. Now there is more to say and i will be happy to take some questions but none of it matters if you dont win and then if it matters if once you win, you dont actually convert on all of this stuff and get the job done. With me and am the only one running that can say nobody has had more political success than what we have had in terms of florida. Florida used to be considered an evenly divided state with very difficult to win elections. Since i became governor, four years of strong leadership, delivering results, one of the greatest landslides ever in a governors race in the entire history of the state of florida. 20 point margins. 1. 5 million votes. We are winning urban areas. We are winning Miamidade County by double digits, which nobody thought was possible. We are winning these rural areas by massive margins. You get 92 of the county. I used to think that had to be fraud. Like Saddam Hussein would get 92 , because if you didnt vote for him, they would shoot you. 92 , philadelphia. We did it in florida, because we were able to galvanize voters. The republicans have lost in how many elections we had these substandard outcomes . 2022 was a disaster because biden was so unpopular. We should have been able to win massively and we didnt. What we have done in florida shows that we can win as conservative and win big across the country. I will get the job done, whether it is against biden or newsom or harris. I dont know if biden is even going to make it as a candidate. Hes falling asleep, he is struggling. The other thing is you have to be able to convert. Im the only one running that can say i have delivered on 100 of what i promised. We made sure to get the gender ideology out, we have protected womens sports in florida. The integrity of that. Sad to say we had to do this, but we prohibited the sex change operations for kids. No mutilation of minors. We band sanctuary we banned sanctuary cities in florida. We transported 50 illegal aliens to marthas vineyard. We have enacted strong law and order policies. No government is permitted to define police in florida. If you engage in mob violence in florida, you dont get a slap on the wrist. You go to jail when you commit those crimes. We recently enacted the Death Penalty for pedophiles in the state of florida. We cut taxes by record amounts, generated mid budget surpluses and i have actually paid down almost 25 of our state total debt, that we have accumulated from statehood all the way to the present. Imagine if we actually paid down debt in washington. You know how good that would be . Leave you limited to things like esg, environment social governance, finding tiny govern companies to advance with leftwing policies. We eliminated socalled dei from Public University systems. They say it is diversity, equity and inclusion but you look at how it is practiced, it is discrimination, exclusion and indoctrination and that has no place in our public institutions. We got rid of it. We enacted the strongest protections for medical freedom anywhere in the country. They cannot force you to take the covid jab in the state of florida matter where you work, no matter what you do. That is your choice. They cant force you to wear a mask matter where you work or where you go. We dont let local government shut down businesses. We have the strongest protections. And of course part of the reason we are now number one for economy, number one in education, Fastest Growing state, number one for net migration. Part of the reason we did that is because when covid hit, we had to plant our flag in the ground and we said we are not going to let this state descendant do some type of dystopia, where peoples freedoms were curtailed. We fought found she, we fought the left, we fought a lot of republicans. Supporting businesses down the line. I took a lot of flak for that at the time. Ive been attacked probably more than any governor in modern history, because we are cutting against the narrative, fighting against the grain. A lot of people told me i was making a political mistake by doing that because i was taking so much incoming fire, but a leaders job, youve got to care more about protecting the jobs and the people you represent, than about your own political hide. I dont know how it was going to shake out but i was content with letting the chips fall where they may and we ended up leading the nation and leading the world. I had people not just from other states come to florida for refuge. I had people coming from australia, from new zealand, from canada, from all of these other lockdown countries, escaping and coming to the free state of florida. We did it right, we exercise leadership when it counts. You can count on me and trust me that when i tell you im going to do something, im going to do it. I dont believe in Campaign Slogans just to get elected and then turning your back on those promises. There are things i could promise but i dont think i would be able to deliver, so i dont promise them. Anything i promise, we have a plan, we are going to follow through and get the job done. We have no other choice. 2024 is a make or break election for this country. We are not getting a mulligan. We are not going to be to make excuses. The time is to get the job done now and im going to be the guide to get the job done. I have a 6, 5 and threeyearold at home, my wife, we see this country, this generation being the first generation of americans that is going to leave to our kids and grandparent grandkids a america that is less free if we let this country continue to decline. I am not willing to waive the white flag of surrender. Im not going to accept managing the countrys decline a little bit better. Were going to turn this country around. Were going to reverse the countrys decline and usher in an american revival and we will give this country a new birth of freedom so that our kids and grandkids have the same opportunities that we did we were growing up, and are motivated not just by that but also motivated i motivated to make sure we get this right. We owe a debt of gratitude to the previous generation who have fought and sacrificed for us. I used to take a trip when i would go to washington, d. C. You could go into reagan airport and there was one route the plane would take that would take you parallel to the national mall. You looked on the left and saw the lincoln memorial, the reflecting pool, washington. All of other memorials and monuments, in the u. S. Capitol building up it gives you a sense because all of that represents at its best, american principles, the values that have made the country unique, the tourists love to see it. It was always a thing where you kind of pinch yourself. I realized after doing that just a few times, that was not the best monument to this country. If you look out the other side of the plane, you looked over the potomac river, you saw a series of small nondescript monuments orderly arranged over the rolling hills, the Arlington National cemetery. It occurred to me then and now, the best declaration of independence in the world. These things do not run on autopilot. They require every generation of americans to step up and answer the call, and that may mean putting on a uniform, risking your life and indeed giving the last full measure of devotion in service to this country. We are not doing justice to those folks who fought for us, if we allow this country to continue its dissent. I will not be a part of that. Im going to do something about it. As your republican nominee, im going to get the job done, not just in my election. We are going to sweep in republicans up and down the ballot. As the leader, i will always be someone you can be proud of, and as your president i promise you this. I will not let you down. Thank you so much. [applause] weve got some questions. Anyone got anything . Yes sir . [an audible] [inaudible] the First Amendment is obviously sacred. [inaudible] gov. Desantis a false narrative gets put out. We have to deal with that because it is hurting our country bat the same time, we have the First Amendment that protects, it really does protect in some instances, your right to say things that are false. If it is against the public figure like me, you can pretty much say whatever you want, even if you know it is false. It is very difficult to have any kind of private action that would be effective on that. I think, you have to understand where they are coming from. Part of it is an ideological agenda. Part of it, they are trying to get subscribers, get clicks, do all of this stuff. What they do come a some of the elite outlets, they are catering to a certain part of the american electorate. They will say things to pursue those narratives that will reinforce those views. A lot of that is not going to be positive with people like me but what i have found, no governor took more flack from the media than me throughout my entire first term, because not only did we do the covid battle, we did the disney battle, we beat disney on the gender ideology. We did a lot of battles on critical race. We would get smeared and attacked and all of this stuff. I ended up winning this massive victory because we were able to go out there, deliver our message and when you are in an era where deceit rules the day, the truth does have the ability to push through. In florida, they were saying this guy is speaking the truth. That is how you win these areas where usually they vote democrat. People had not voted republican before but they saw me speaking the truth. As president , you have an opportunity to transcend that anyway that a normal elected official cant because you have the bully pulpit. What they can do as they can but people will judge what they see out of a horses mouth. Overtaxed in order to overcome that bias, you have to be disciplined, have to be focused, when they are shooting at you, dont shoot yourself in the foot. Dont be somebody that cant control their mouth. Dont create needless controversy. Keep the rounds on target. Execute the mission. Everything you are doing is being about is about being able to bring this in for a landing. I will do that. We know they are fake narratives. Thats the thing. It is one thing to be biased in a liberal direction. It used to be, they would have to reckon with the fact and they would say the coverage is more liberal but it is all about the narrative now. They will ignore the facts. I think most people get that. Most people dont trust it. But i tell people is this. Benjamin franklin when he walked out of the Constitutional Convention in 1787 in philadelphia after they created the constitution did, he was asked on the street, dr. Franken, did you give us a republic or a monarchy question mark he said a republic, if you can keep it. He understood that each one of us have a responsibility as citizens of a republic to make sure that we protect freedom. One of the ways you do that now is to acknowledge, you are not doing your job as a citizen if you are accepting the media narrative uncritically. You have to know they are pushing an agenda. You have to know they are not telling you the whole story. I think most americans get that. We have a leader out there speaking truth, it is going to resonate. You are going to see that as you get into a general election situation. Someone like biden, like me versus biden. It would be a very good contrast for us, for somebody who is energetic and being able to articulate himself and someone who has trouble doing all of those things. [ laughter] [laughter] heres the thing, i totally get where you are coming from. You do have these inappropriate books in the school. Could there be a rating for some of them. I do not think that is necessary. If there is a movie advertised, you do not know what is in the movie just by watching a 32nd commercial. These are School Administrators that are making this decision to put those in there. In fact, when these books become issues at school board meetings, parents will come with it, they will read the book in the School Board Members will say, silence, you cannot say that here. It is not appropriate. This is just some people have an agenda. The agenda is not a good agenda. We just need to hold people accountable. In florida i got involved with 34 school races. Theyre making a difference. They are in there, they are doing it. I could have the best policy at the world as a state level. Just like covid. Then i said you cant force tickets to wear masks. It is just when you have people all pushed in the same direction, local and state makes it a lot easier. The integrity of elections. I have faith in florida because we cleaned it up. We band of valid harvesting in florida. We have universal voter id. No mass mailing of the balance. We have election crime unit now and State Government sold jobs in election jobs. Now, other republican states have done some good stuff too. Youre going to have some states that are not going to be ran. Nevada, they mailed everybody a ballot. They allow ballot harvesting and all of that. We are not going to whine about it. Were going to have organizations in the key states that are going to explore whatever the rules are and pulleys the other side. We will do all of that. Let me be honest about this. If you win a strong victory, by landslide they will not be able to stop that. In florida we won by so much, i think yes, we will do all that and it is important. You cannot i also think will lose sight of the fact that the most important things is to win the argument. We have not been reading the winning the argument in the last few years. I think this country i just think they want to president that is going to deal with their issues. That is what. I think it is a great question. Why did we have all of the ballot harvesting in 2020 . It is because of fauci and the Trump Administration elevating fauci. They thought donald trump signed the cares act, which has 400 million for mail ballots. Republicans and democrats funded pose mail ballots. The way the 2020 election, all of the harvesting, that was not just a democrats doing that. Republicans were involved in doing that. In florida, we took care of it. This is what i do. The campaign did nothing, none of them did anything. This was a problem that was created in part by republicans because of the overreaction with the covid stuff. That was a huge mistake to have funded those mail ballots. You cant just mail everybody a ballot. If someone asked for an absentee ballot, that is one thing. In florida, you can do that because you have to show an idea to get the id to get the ballot. Therell be five ballot showed up for like the last people who entered the apartment. You know, there would would be in their covert circles or whatever covid circles or whatever. Nobody likes biden. They were harvesting the energy for people not liking trump. With the democrats were doing, there were going doortodoor. They were getting ballots and turning in these ballots. They did that and all of the major swing states. We will be doing the same thing. We will not let them get away with anything. You cant just sit on the sidelines and complain about it. The bottom line is, we do not control nevadas election process. We do not control pennsylvania because we got our bikes kicked u butts kicked in 2022. In the govenor races. That is what you have to do. [applause] what is that . [inaudible] we are going to do like we did in florida. In florida banning the purchase of land by the Chinese Communist party. I think that should apply nationally, they should not be able to do farmland, which they want to do. They should not be able to come near military bases, which they want to do. Florida has a model on that. You soon me on that sued me on that. I do not think anybody in the country has been more consistent five the danger of the ccp. We eliminated from our university, which china funds it. We crackdown on china infiltrating research in our university and then of course on land very important to be able to do that. China already has way too many economic and china. We need to make things here and not rely on china. God forbid there is a world war that broke out and we were on opposite sides of china. We would have to rely on china to supply as things. Is that really smart to do . One thing we did nationally in florida, we knocked out the pharmacy benefit manager, the middlemen all of this is basically, they are in the middle of pharmacist and the companies. They basically just make money by being eight middlemen and the prices go up dramatically. They are vertically integrated in this. They make their money no matter what. Small pharmacies, familyowned pharmacies and it causes the price of the drug to be more. We did that. Big pharma, they just get a free ride in the country they put a lot of money in developing the drug and everything like that to be able to make about otherwise it wont be on economical to do that. Were the ones paying for that. We are subsidizing with these high prices, people using these drugs and other countries. There was not evidence for them to do that. They basically run the fda, pharma does, they run all of these major organizations. The major problems with health care, big government, big pharma and big insurance and the patient really is in the back of the bus. The doctor in the back of the bus. We want to get some sunlight in there, we want to get some freedom. That is a heavy lift in congress because of how those indices have. Entities have. We have a lot of problem with our intelligence agencies. There are a lot of things that will need to be different. Some of those things will need to be publicly discussed but i see it as a problem that needs to be addressed. [inaudible] we have almost 300,000 more registered democrats in florida then republicans. We never had more registered republicans in the entire state of florida. Fast forward four years, i am running the second time november 2022, we not only had more republicans by democrats by then, we have 300,000 more republicans by then. Today, we added another 300,000. I think what a lot of it has been, people in miami, some places you had just been democrats, they do not want to be a part of the. They say we fundamentally shifted the dynamic. Theres almost five states into one. You go to southwest florida in january, it is like being in wisconsin and michigan. You want to talk about being in Northern New York city, fort lauderdale, palm beach, all of those areas. You talk about more southern and northern florida, the panhandle. The center part of the state and in the orlando area kind of a mix of a lot of different things. To do that in florida, and is unrepresentative. We showed it could be done. It is just about leadership. They want something they can be proud of and trust. People saw me digging in, taking the area. And just fighting for them. If someone is willing to fight for me, im going to show up to vote. People know whether or not he will fight for them. Yes . The media will attack florida over this one ours is less than florida by a lot. Probably more state breezed. We streamline the ability of veterans to be certified with teachers in our school district. That is something that the Teachers Union attacked me for. We also have a loan repayment in florida to be able to go to that. We have done billions of dollars of increase their to try to help. I think theres a lot of things that you can do. One of the things we just did is too soon to know whether or not it had a strong impact. And a lot of the students are destructive. If they try to discipline, then teachers get in trouble. Not only every student learns gets to learn and peace, the teachers do. Having order and getting the teachers back will make it more likely. Why would he want to do that if everyday is going to be miserable . We at least had really good discipline in the country growing up. If that is what you need to have when you conduct yourself accordingly in school. Thank you for your service. [inaudible] he takei noted support that he took a note to support and save the constitution. He is not satisfying his duty of commander in chief to protect his country. What is that . We will get that done. No, look you have these guys in washington. They are not doing anything about this. They should be heard should be one of the top issues that they are doing. What is that . [inaudible] exactly. I think that the democrats appeared had Republican Congress of the first two years and i was there for that trump had Republican Congress and the first two years and i was there for that. Congress is a Second Branch of government. As governor, i have a legislature i work with. They are not subservient to me. What you do this, you have an agenda that speaks to what the public is looking for. What happens is, those folks when the state senators or congressmen go back to the district, voters say, you better be with the governor, the president on that. They want to see you supporting the agenda. That is a bottom up way to do it. With me coming in, we will have majority in the house of senate again. You have to make the most of them. They when you have to be ready to go. In is like 150 days to win the first term. That is the high tide in the first term you might get another bite at the apple or two throughout the first term. Then you come and reelected and you have a nice little run for nine months. In eightyear in eightyear period, you probably have 12 months where the rubber will hit the road. You got to get it done. I will get it done with that. All of these issues are very important that we finally get done. Yes . [inaudible] the cyber in some respect is the best thing for adversaries to go after us on. Theres a lot of danger in that. The cyber stuff, then they do it all the time and continue to get more sophisticated. We have got to make sure that we are ahead of the curve on that. One of the things that will play into this, will demote promote more resources into Research Development to our defense department. Research that may not have a commercial benefit at some point on weapons, Artificial Intelligence come all of the things we have to do to stay ahead of china and russia. We are meant to put some resources into it. Another thing we have got to do and taking steps into florida more nationally, election grade. We cant have vulnerability in the grid. In california they have blackouts, rolling blackouts, all of these mandates. You want reliable energy. Attacking the grid is something that our adversaries can do. When we had hurricanes in florida, it is likely have the power people ready to go. They go right in there and get the power back on. We have the fastest restoration last year for ian. If people are without power for two to four weeks, everything starts to go downhill. Getting that on, that is what you got to do. It is vulnerability and they get a bang for their buck. [inaudible] i support not allowing members of congress to trade stocks. I think there is too many problems with that i recovered from that respin your experience for three terms. I sold my stocks and i didnt do a single trade in all six years because i do not want to be in a situation where someone could look back. I just did not want the appearance. You voted for this to two years ago. I mentioned you still have some small. Evidently it just sat there. We do not do it and i do not think you should do it. People have no confidence on what is going out there because of the way these people are. You need term limits and all of these things the question is, why are you in this . Are you in this for preserve ends above salt or personal stuff. I just think it will give more in the leadership to have that reform. Thanks guys. I appreciate it. [applause] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] you guys are doing great stuff. Keep up the great work. It is a great place to be. You guys are doing it right. Similar to the announcement i made after the hamas attack, anything that could potentially go into the conflict of the regime, we know theyre going to turn around for terrorism. Hopefully, they will be showing biden and the administration that they need to do more iranian sanction. They need to turn this on the oil revenue. The hamas attack is not a topic. I have not seen that. Someone told me there was an report. We have the record that people can trust to be a strong leader. As a twoterm president , which we really need and somebody as a military veteran who has men in these areas, understand terrorism has been in these areas, understand terrorism. The country wants to move on from biden. They do not want to move backwards, they want to move forward. I will be a president that focuses on your issues. Once they know you will fight for them, once they know you will be strong, once they know you will request value, we garner a lot of that support. We are going to earn it. Im going to get residency in South Carolina. I think it is unfortunate these guys cant get their acts together. They have from running around like chickens with their heads cut off. I am not trying to create drama. Im just trying to produce history. Ultimately, people want to know what youre able to complete. You have to pull it together and you have to move forward we have problems with our city with crime. We do not want to be importing the stuff in the middle east here and divide our country with it. Jewish people have been under attack. People are taking that out on people based on their nationality or religion. That is a dead end this country. That is not what we want to do. With israel, they have a right to defend. What happened to their citizens shouldnt happen to any countries in the world. I think the people who are demonstrating and hamas is very chilling news. Very soon after the attack. I do not think that is representative of people, even on College Campuses. I think it is unfortunate. If you look at the university of florida, they have come out very strong about it. The antisemitism we have seen has been a big problem. Once all this aside, do not do that. We are all americans. It is totally wrong to do in illinois. Thanks, guys. [applause] cause