Please welcome governor ron desantis. [applause] a thank you. Its good to be in Southern California. Thanks so much. Its great to be here. I didnt know if i was allowed to. Im close to disneyland thats okay. We are excited to be here. We dont need teleprompters we will just let it rip and have a good time. We just got a taste of Southern California traffic. I did an interview for the belmar show and i guess its somewhere in hollywood. We drove from there to here and i dont know how many miles it was but it took about two hours to get here so we saw bumpertobumper and we were able to w do that which i know a lot of people in Southern California but ihe also remember we got into town at the Reagan Library wednesday and my wife andgo i got into town in southen california on sunday night and went to an event at the vfw and that was my intro to california. I was born and raised in florida. Id never spent time in california in any meaningful way. I was a naval officer and got orders to Naval SpecialWarfare Group and wrong in preparation for deploymentep to iraq. So im very green and i show up and check into the bachelor office corridors. First thing i looked for is the air conditioning. And they said there is no air conditioning just open your window. So i opened the window and there was no screen on the window. So you open it up and im like i could get used to this. This is a really nice part of the world so we did the training and i will never forget after being in iraq not the best place in the world in terms of a lot of things but being in the desert and then landing at the naval air space on coronado and getting off the c5 and just having the freshness of the pacific ocean, i felt so pleased to be an american and the next morning i am all running on the beach doing all this stuff so i hador a very fond memories of california but particularly that part. Truth be told i dont rememberr seeing a single california license plate in my life. I never met anybody that moved from california to florida. Fast forward 15 years later and ive b become governor and all f a sudden we see california license plates in the state of florida. [applause] mind you, florida before i got elected florida had been viewed as a onepoint state. Democrat, republican from 2010 to 2018 the governor and president ial races were decided by one point. I understand one of my residence residentswas here saying he turd florida red. Ronald reagan made the point theres no limit to what you can do when you dont care who gets the credit. I wish if he was the one that turned florida red he would have turned others blue because that hasnt been good for us at all. [applause] when you see california license plates, a lot of my supporters thought they are going to voteot like they vote in california and its going to turn florida blue and we are not going to be able to have a good state anymore but i tell you i started meeting these people and they would tell me why they moved. You dont pick up and move from Southern California to florida because of the weather. We have good weather most of the year. You dont leave friends and family behind to go thousands of miles on a whim. These were people that were doing it because they were seeking to live in a free state that respected their rights where they can thrive. I think most of you know we are scheduled to have a little hustle with your governor on fox news on november 30th. All i can tell you and i know he will pull out the statistics and this and that and i can pull up statistics. Florida got ranked number one for education freedom by the American Legislative Exchange council. I could go all day with stuff likeff that but all you really have to do you can take all this and that and put it by the wayside and ask how our peopleti voting with their feet because you could havee a corporate meda outlet and try to put lipstick on a pig. Thats part of an agenda but all you have to do is when people havehe to make decisions about themselves, about their family, about their freedom, how are they behaving and people are leaving for the first time inir the history of california people are leaving to the state of california. The number one these failed blue states are going to the free state of florida so we will be able to have those debates but the debate about what the state has governed better, florida or california that debate has already been answered by people voting with their feet. The debate is useful because it is the petri dish for liberalism and but biden is doing are things that california was doing many years ago what california niis doing now is likely what a second biden term or god forbid news on himself. Thats what they would do so the country is in a state of decline, economic, cultural. The california model represents more america decline. The florida model represents a way to reverse the decline and a way to have an american revival. That is the choice people will have to make. This is our time for choosing. If freedom is at risk more so today than any time in my adult lifetime. We also can make the choice as republicans are we going to be satisfied with just managing the decline little bit better than the democrats. I can tell you i reject managed decline. I want reversal of the decline and we will do that so we will be able to hash that out and i think it will be fun, but what we need to do the Republican Party in recent years has been very long on rhetoric, on sending emails asking for money and all these other things but short on results. The only reason you should be donating your time, energy and money is to produce results that are good for your community, your state and country and in florida we have produced results that are second to none. I get up there and get to debate on this semivalley and we did the other ones and i listen and its fine, people say things that i think they think you want to hear and saying the wrong things, dont get me wrong but im the only one onge the stage that delivered on every single issue that we are talking about as republicans. [applause] you want to talk about the economy and the budget . We know the inflation we are suffering under is the result of borrowing, printing and spending by members of congress in both parties across to administration over the last three and a half years the sole trillions of dollars into the economy paying people not to work, doing all this other stuff. Of course you are going to get inflation when that happens and thats why we are in this mess. What have we done in florida . We cut taxes by billions, we ran big budget surpluses into since ive been governor in 2019 we paid down 25 of the total outstanding debt that it accumulated in its entire history as a state so we are showing you how its done. We were talking about education saying should people be doing School Choice, yes we should do schoolol choice. We did the School Choice in the state of florida. We had universal School Choice. Every parent in florida has the right to send their kids to the school of their choosing. May be private, maybe charter. The sky is the limit and since weve embraced that where does florida rank and education . We got number one in u. S. News world report. [applause] the university of florida got ranked 15th best University Overall in america. Go no one would have thought that was possible. I need the Football Team to start doing better. So weve done School Choice. You want to talk about parents rights. You as a parent has the right to know what is being taught. Curriculum transparency and they are trying to jam things like pornographic materials in front of kids. Thats wrong and in florida we put a stop to it. If a parent objects to a book in fourth grade that is pornographic and you remove it from the fourth Grade Library they will claim that is banning the book. Theres nothing band. As an adult you can knock yourself out without material just dont do it to the kids. Leave the kids alone. [applause] you can read Hunter Bidens laptop but all i care but dont bring it to kids. So what i did, we did a press conference about six or seven months ago titled exposing the book band hoax and instead of going to the podium and talking about it before i stepped off we played on the video screen the images of the books the parents objected to. The news stations covering the press conference had to cut their fees because they said it was too graphic to put on the air. If its too graphic for the 6 00 news how is it okay for a 10yearold schoolchild . We complain as republicans about schools and universities trying to indoctrinate kids get in florida we put a stop to it we eliminated Critical Race Theory from our k12 schools. We prohibited the use of gender ideology particularly on the end Elementary Schools and had to stand up to the media and the left and even to a company in Central Florida thats pretty well known that you know about in Southern California called disney but its wrong to tell a second grader that there gender is a choice. Its not true and its inappropriate and we will stand up when its tough when the media is bearing down on us i will stand up when the left is bearing down on us i will stand up. When the most powerful company in florida is bearing down on us i will stand up because its the right thing to do to stand up for the wellbeing of our kids and i will battle with anybody that seeks to rob them of their innocence. [applause] you want to talk about crime . Since weve been in Southern California weve run into six or seven people that have gotten mugged and they are telling stories g about getting mugged because people in california, the district attorneys in San Francisco and los angeles, they get elected usually with funding from people like george soros and they decide that they are progressives and they dont agree with all the laws passed so they let the inmates run the asylum and it puts the people of the communities at risk. In florida when we had at the te prosecutors that got elected with funding they said or did not enforce the law as they took an oath to do. I didnt talk about it. I removed them from their post. When blm was ransacking cities in the summer of 2020 i wasnt just descending social media messages saying law order. I ensured law order and we called up the state guardian had it ready. Thats why we rejected the idea. Not only did we not defund, we now gave 5,000 signing bonuses to any Police Officer from outofstate. The crime rate is at a 50 year low. Thats what you call taking care of business. We talk about things like the communist party of china. We didnt just talk about it in florida. We are the only state in america we band of the purchase by the Chinese Communist party and we need to do that nationwide. We sometimes talk about things like the esg movement in places like black rock. We eliminated the use of social Credit Scores and financing and told the Credit Rating agencies we cant use the criteria its now on the defense because of what florida is doing. Eliminate the crypto currency and make the Central Bank Digital dollar the way that you can participate in the economy. Are they just trying to make your life a little easier, no, they want to be able to impose the social credit score, social credit system. They are bragging about how it would allow them to target their favorite purchases. They dont want you purchasing firearms or lot of gasoline. Theres things the government will do they will dress up in benevolent ways thats kind of like a wolf in sheeps clothing. Its a wolf showing up as a wolf. They are coming after your freedoms when the state of florida. We are not going to let them get a foothold and take away the financial privacy. We talk about having an equal Opportunity Society where people are not divvied up in the different racial groups but we are the first state to actually eliminate from the public universities. We are not going to shoehorn people into different groups. We are going to base that on merit and they say that its diversity equity and inclusion the way that its practiced is discrimination exclusion and indoctrination and has no place in our public universities. So, on issue after issue, we dont virtue signal, we act and we deliver. We want to know why florida has gone from a state where a guy like me would have the greatest republican governor victory. My election Miamidade County is the most populist county. 2. 8 Million People and in 2015 Hillary Clinton won the county by 30 percentage point. The question is how do we move forwardor nationally as a party because the florida Success Story i can point you to a couple other examples in the country where weve had strong republican leadership. Iowa for example under governor reynolds, georgia, texas, thereve been good ones dont get me wrong but the party has lost more than its one over the last three cycles and thets democrats are cleaning the clock in washington and so many other areas so we need to try a different way going forward. We need to try a way that youre going to be able to win but then more important than that, everything you say youre going to do, youve got to get up there on day number one. You need to do it for two terms to make sure that it all fits. When i was at president reagans library, one of the things that i think was remarkable he is the last president we had that served for two terms but the legacy isen extended way beyond the two terms. His achievement marked 20 to 25 years of the country and some of thein things we were able to accomplish. Thats what you get when you have somebody that can serve the terms to turn the country around so what does that look like . I started looking at the speeches and the writings. I thought they may ask i a questionea about the legacy. They didnt. He was on the brink of seeing the berlin wall later. It occurred to me and that that is a great way to think about the campaign right now going forward. What wouldo i want to say to you in january hopefully handing off to a worthy successor i think i would want to say a number of things. We would want to restore the americanca dream. People can get ahead. We are not going to let the bureaucrats fromom our society r left the left politicize the economy and deny t the chance to make the most of your godgiven ability. The country has restored its National Sovereignty because we will have a a border that is airtight and secure and is not allowing mexican drug cartels. We t are the only state in the country that seen a decline in Overdose Deaths because of how weve tried to go and help people. If the pills laced with fentanyl, that could be the end of their lives and theres mothers across the country not just in border towns whove lost kids because of what is going on. One of the reasons we have our sovereignty restored is, yes, i will change the policy and do the border wall because its important. They are killing our people and its time we leave them stone cold. The threat posed by communist china this decade how we navigate the confrontation undercurrent course undernt President Biden we are probably going to end up in a war with china that we would lose. We will also be able to say thas the School Systems in the country are dedicated to educating our kids and no longer indoctrinating our kids. [applause] we will be able to say the rights of parents are universally respected throughout this country. If the parent didnt so you see the direction the society is going. We will make sure parents are in power. We see so many people that have fought hard for us. They are held responsible for theco misconduct and the inmates are no longer running the asylum and that is on the most conservative city to the liberal city. Everywhere is going to have law and order and people will be savored as a result and finally we will be able to say that together we restored the original understanding. We will not have an unaccountable bureaucracy thats been weaponize against us. I look at these agencies like the department of justice, like the fbi, like the irs. They cant tell you where the money they sent to ukraine has gone or how many people are coming across the border illegally. We will have restored this government to its rightful owners. We have no choice but to make sure we get all this done. My wife and i and then my wife is here the first lady in florida. We appreciate everything that she does. We have a six, five and 3yearold. We are sensitive about whats going to happen in this next generationhi because it is going to impact them we will not have been doing our part as americans, and i am motivated to get in the fight because of that reality. But im also motivated because i have an appreciation for the people that have come before us. When i used to fly to washington, d. C. There was a particular route the plane could take going to the Reagan National airport and it would take you parallel to the National Mall so if you look at the left side of the plane you would see sweeping up close views of the lincoln memorial, the reflecting pool, washington monument, all the other monuments into then on top of the hill and then on to distant younger the Capital Building and you think to yourself all the stuff symbolizes the principles and the ideals that make our country unique, and it fills you with a sense of pride of being an american and i can tell you a of the tourists would get excited about it so it made you feel good. What i noticed after doing that a few times looking out the left while the monuments were spectacular and nice to see, w those were not the greatest monuments to the country because if you look outside the right side of the plane you look overo the Potomac River and soul a load of small monuments over the Rolling Hills of a place called arlingtonle national cemetery. These things do not run on autopilot they require each generation of americans when tested to step up and defend freedom and yes in certain instances to put on the uniform for the last full measure of devotion and service to the greater cause. We are not doing justice to cetheir sacrifices if we allow e country to continue its dissent. We have the responsibility to step up and fight back and to reverse the countrys decline and give the country a new birth of freedom so now is the time to do it. F the time for excuses is over. We are not going to get a mobile mulligan on the 202014 election. When we had 50 senators in 2021 barely other majority in the house. The way the society functions if you stand up for whats right and exercise r leadership you could be a governor or president ial candidate or running for city council, you could just bern a concerned citizen and a mom going to school board meetings. S. If you are standing up for whats right and exercising leadership that isnt free. People will come after you come of the left, the media will come after you. I was a little disappointed. Do not want to get out there and have to put up with it. If people are willing to put on the uniform that is the least we can do. [applause] lets resolve to take the next year, year and a half to ensure in every corner of the country we are bringing a message of hope and renewal and freedom to every citizen and jurisdiction i dont care if its dark red like we made florida or it fits in the heart of San Francisco. Weve got to carry the message and do whats right. I can tell you this. Im not backing down. Weve got a country to save. God bless you and thank you so much. [applause]