WATCH: Ron DeSantis Proves He's The Anti-Free Speech Candidate Amid His Shadow Presidential Campaign Disguised As a "Book Tour"
Governor Ron DeSantis still won't admit whether or not he's running for President in 2024, but he made it pretty obvious when he BANNED supporters of President Trump from his book signing in Florida.
WATCH: Ron DeSantis Bans and Calls Cops on Trump Supporters at His Florida Book Signing
As you may have heard, earlier this week, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis launched his new book, “The Courage to be Free: Florida’s Blueprint For America’s Revival.” DeSantis’s book deal is through Harper Collins, a publishing company owned by Rupert Murdoch’s media conglomerate, NewsCorp, and the deal is reported to be over $2 million.
As part of his book launch, DeSantis is currently on a media and book tour throughout the country and the state of Florida. While the Florida legislative session begins in Tallahassee next week on March 7, 2023, it appears that DeSantis couldn’t care less, as he is more focused on selling his book, giving out of state speeches, and attending exclusive retreats at posh resorts with GOP Establishment insiders, billionaire donors, and social media influencers, who were recently accused of being paid to promote Ron DeSantis and trash President Trump.
One can’t help but wonder why DeSantis is aggressively fundraising at secretive retreats and trying to garner national media attention just weeks after being inaugurated for his second term as Governor. Florida Governors are only allowed to serve two full terms, and although DeSantis won a second term and doesn’t need to fundraise for a re-election campaign, he continues to fundraise outside of Florida.
Well, the cat is out of the bag. The worst kept secret in Florida for the last two years has been the fact that DeSantis and the GOP establishment are, and have been actively planning and laying the groundwork for DeSantis to launch a 2024 primary challenge for the GOP nomination against President Donald Trump. And because he doesn’t want to file until Florida’s Republican legislature changes Florida’s Reign to Run law, Ron DeSantis is now running a Shadow Presidential Campaign disguised as a book tour, in violation of FEC laws. He should be subjected to an FEC violation, and at bare minimum, an ethics complaint for his Shadow Presidential campaign and suspected coordination with pro-DeSantis 2024 Super PACS like the “Ready for Ron” Pac.
On February 23, I tweeted that an elections complaint should be filed against Ron DeSantis since he is campaigning and fundraising for a Presidential campaign without being filed with the FEC, and in direct violation of Florida’s Resign to Run law, a Florida election law, which requires him to resign his seat as Governor if he is also running for President.
For two years, I have known that DeSantis is planning on launching a 2024 campaign against Donald Trump, because some of my former campaign donors from Palm Beach approached me in 2021 and told me they were asked to help bundle money for DeSantis's 2024 Presidential campaign.
While DeSantis himself continues to dodge questions when asked about whether or not he’a running for President in 2024, the manufactured hype surrounding DeSantis 2024 couldn’t be more obvious and overbearing than it is at the present moment.
You see, DeSantis’s book deal and his book tour is not simply an “innocent book tour”. It is a political strategy to garner national exposure, media attention, and millions of dollars of revenue before launching his Presidential campaign in either May or June of 2023. DeSantis is expected to file to run for President at the end of May 2023, which is when the Florida legislative session ends. For those wondering why he is waiting to file, it’s because he has instructed Republican members of the Republican controlled Florida Legislature to change Florida’s “Resign to Run” Law for the sake of only benefiting himself so that he can keep his seat as Governor and also run for President at the same time. Currently, Florida Statutes Chapter 99.012 (4)(a) reads, “any officer who qualifies for federal public office must resign from the office he or she presently holds if the terms, or any part thereof, run concurrently with each other.”
In other words, if DeSantis files to run for President against Donald Trump before the legislative session is over, he would have to resign his seat as Governor. That is why he is actively abusing his power as Governor by pressuring the legislature to change a Florida election law for the sake of benefitting only himself, hurting President Trump, and abandoning Floridians by being an absentee Governor whose time will almost certainly be entirely consumed while running for President full time.
By his own admission, DeSantis recently told Brian Kilmeade of Fox News that he viewed his first book, Dreams From Our Founding Fathers, published in 2011, as a way to help himself get elected to the US Congress.
Speaking to Kilmeade about his 2011 book, DeSantis said,
“What it did is it took me in different parts around Florida where I would speak to like 100 people. I’d sell 20 or 30 books …. And what happened was a lot of these people that were buying the book were saying, ‘Hey, you should run for office.’ And I’m like, well, run for what?”
DeSantis then added that he saw an opportunity to run for Congress while he sold his first book.
“What happened was they did the reapportionment in 2012. It created a new congressional district where we lived, my wife and I at the time, in Ponte Vedra Beach. And so I started: no name ID, no money, a six-month campaign, and we ended up winning a seven-way Primary by 15 points and … just gutted it out.”
It’s clear that DeSantis is using his second book as a lunching pad for a Presidential run in 2024.
And given that he cannot run for Governor again, and only won re-election less than four months ago, it is clear DeSantis has no intentions of serving out his full, second four year term as Governor of Florida.
Given that I have known this for two years, I decided to organize a pro-Trump 2024 rally in front of the Books A Million store in Leesburg, FL where DeSantis had a book signing on Tuesday, the first day of his book launch and book tour.
Many of the people who showed up to rally with me wore their “Make America Great Again” caps, shirts as well as their “Trump 2024” flags to show support for President Trump’s 2024 campaign. Our rally was not a protest, but rather a positive show of support for Trump.
But, within minutes of our peaceful rally taking place, a security guard approached us and told us we needed to leave.
The security guard said, “The (Team DeSantis) told me that anyone wearing Trump has to go right now, during the signing.” The guard continued, saying, “DeSantis’s people are in there saying, to have me come out and tell you guys not to be here while he’s here.”
Loomer asked, “So DeSantis’s people told you we have to leave?”
The guard responded “Yes.”
Given that we have a First Amendment right to peacefully assemble, the pro-Trump group and I refused to leave. When we refused to leave, the security guard said we were “acting like Leftists” (ironic since we were there rallying in support of Trump), and he said he would be calling the Leesburg Police Department (LPD). Shortly after, a police captain from LPD arrived on scene with several other police officers, and they ordered us off the premises under the threat of being cited and arrested for trespassing if we didn’t leave.
Following the altercation, I posted the video of the incident on my Twitter account.
The video has since gone viral, and has over 3 MILLION VIEWS. Along with going viral, the incident and the video has also been reported by dozens of media outlets, including Daily Mail, The New York Times, Newsweek, The Guardian, The Independent, The Gateway Pundit, The Villages News, Mediaite, and many more.
Some people will tell you that Ron DeSantis is not running for President simply because he “has not yet filed with the FEC”. However, it became even more obvious on Tuesday that he is in fact running for President when his staff gave the mall security and the local police specific orders to kick supporters of his competitor, President Donald Trump, off the mall property and out of the DeSantis book signing.
Several political commentators, news hosts, and even ajudge have weighed in on the controversy. Former Fox News Contributor and Judge, Andrew Napolitano, who is a well known critic of President Trump’s, slammed Governor Ron DeSantis and his staff for violating free speech rights. In a video about DeSantis that was posted to Napolitano’s Twitter and Tik Tok accounts, Napolitano said,
“That’s absolutely prohibited by the Constitution of the United States. Moreover, Florida has a public accommodation law.” You cannot discriminate against people on the basis of their politics. That’s Florida law. So, the Governor, or his people, he’s going to claim he didn’t know about it, directly or indirectly violated the Constitution he swore to uphold, the First Amendment he swore to uphold, and Florida law he swore to enforce,” concluded Napolitano.
If one thing is clear, it’s that Governor Ron DeSantis has just established himself as the anti-free speech candidate. President Trump created Ron DeSantis’s political career when he saved his failing 2018 Gubernatorial campaign against Andrew Gillum and endorsed DeSantis over Adam Putnam against many people’s better judgement. That being said, nearly all of DeSantis supporters are Trump supporters and Trump voters, but there are many Trump supporters who are not DeSantis supporters. By banning Trump supporters from his book signing, and calling the cops on peaceful Trump supporters, DeSantis only alienated millions of Trump supporters whose votes he otherwise would have needed in a primary election against President Trump.
Given DeSantis’s total disrespect for the First Amendment, MAGA, and his extremely thin skin, it’s evident he will have a hard time surviving a debate, let alone an entire primary campaign season against President Donald Trump. If DeSantis can’t even handle me and a group of seniors from The Villages, FL peacefully rallying in support of President Trump outside of a bookstore, how will he handle Putin and Xi? Will he call the police on them too someday if he manages to make it to the White House? Or, will he adopt tyrannical styles of leadership and send the police after all of his detractors?
These are important things for American voters to think about as we enter the pre-2024 Presidential primary season.
It’s WAR. And, the battle has just begun!
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Awesome Post Laura
De sanctimonious is getting exposed
Thank you Laura, you have always been brave.
Sad many of the comments so far don't see who Ron DeSantis really is. Maybe they will if he signs the new Florida law on bloggers having to register.
https://theconservativetreehouse.com/blog/2023/03/02/florida-republican-bill-would-require-bloggers-to-register-with-the-state-in-order-to-criticize-state-government-officials-including-ron-desantis/?lctg=95100701