DeSantis holds town hall in Osceola

OSCEOLA - Florida Governor and Republican presidential hopeful Ron DeSantis held a town hall meeting Thursday at Revelton Distillery in Osceola as a stop with the Never Back Down movement to elect DeSantis as president in 2024.

Iowa District 12 Senator Amy Sinclair spoke in support of DeSantis, sharing several of her reasons for support were his ability to accomplish in Florida are in line what a lot of what she and others are working on in Iowa; rights of parents, lower taxes, lower regulation, better education and a better economy. Sinclair had endorsed DeSantis in May.

“We’ve got a choice before us - we’re going to select the next President of the United States of America and it starts right here in Iowa and it starts with our caucus process,” said Sinclair, who welcomed the governor to the stage.

“It’s wonderful to be here. I am ready to send Joe Biden back to his basement in Delaware,” said DeSantis.

DeSantis spoke about the decline of the country under the current administration, specifically in regard to the economy, culture and the military.

Economy

He said that a lot of the decline began during the COVID-19 pandemic, with many parts of the country being shut down and Congress’ borrowing money at a high rate that drove inflation up, which in turn hurt the working class citizens.

“That is a government induced problem that we have to work ourselves out of,” he said.

DeSantis talked about China having a great majority of industry and a growth in military, which is bad for the United States from an industrial and military standpoint. To help ease the United States’ reliance on China, DeSantis said there needs to be more production and manufacturing in the U.S., which will in turn grow the economy for the future.

Education and border control

“We told kids for a generation that you have to go to college and get a degree. The reality is, we have kids that will go to school, go $100,000 in debt. Would it have been better for a lot of those students to go into workforce education and vocational education? The answer is yes,” DeSantis said.

DeSantis does not support taxpayers bearing the burden of paying off student loans for others, but suggested universities should be held accountable for taking the loan money and offering degrees that aren’t sustainable for a living wage.

“If they’re on the hook for this, they’re going to be offering courses that go to gainful employment,” he said.

With the southern border, DeSantis’ Day One priority is to declare a national emergency and mobilize all available resources including the military to the border. He will build the wall at the border and hold the Mexican drug cartels accountable for the human trafficking, sex trafficking and fentanyl coming across the border.

Military, families and government agencies

A Navy veteran, another of DeSantis’ priorities for his first day in office will be to take the politics out of the military and get it back to being about the “mission first.”

For DeSantis, families are the building blocks of the country, and allowing parents to have the rights to do what they feel is best for their children is something he has emphasized in Florida and will do as president, particularly when it comes to education.

“Schools are important, school systems. They do not supersede the rights of parents. It’s the parents that have the fundamental obligation,” DeSantis said.

For the government as a whole, DeSantis spoke of holding various agencies accountable, including how different health organizations handled COVID policies; “clean house” with a new director of the FBI and a new Attorney General and get back to utilizing the three branches of government as laid out in the Constitution.

“End of the day, this bureaucracy for far too long has been imposing its will on us. When I become president, we will impose our will on it for a change and this country will be freer as a result of us doing that,” DeSantis said.

DeSantis spent a few minutes taking questions from the audience, answering questions about income issues for those on disability, artificial intelligence, renewable fuels, Social Security, bipartisan leading. He ended with a question about why one should vote for him.

“One, I think my background being blue collar ‘he’s not running to be somebody, he’s running to do something for the country.’ Second, you’re not going to find anybody running who has a better record of accomplishment in office than I have in Florida. We’re not just running to run. We’re running to be able to deliver results to people. I’m a leader. That’s what you’ll get from me, somebody that will deliver results. If I tell you I’m going to do something you can take it to the bank, I’m going to do it.”

He had visited Chariton and the Wayne County Fair earlier in the day.