DeSantis Campaign Press Release - ICYMI: Ron DeSantis on The Mark Belling Show: "We've shown an ability to win these battles against Democrats and against the left."

MILWAUKEE, Wisc. — Ron DeSantis joined Mark Belling, on WISN 1130 AM, The Mark Belling Show.

Listen to the full interview HERE.

On how to build a coalition and win the White House:

"I look at Wisconsin, and I say, if you can't win Wisconsin, you will not get the keys to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. It is a must win state for a Republican. It's a very closely divided state kind of like Florida was before I came on the scene. I think we have the ingredients with how unpopular Biden is to move Wisconsin red in 2024 and build off that success going forward. How do you do it? You have got to make sure your base is coming out, which in Florida we did. I got the highest percentage of Republicans that any governor candidates ever gotten in history. But we won 62% of Latinos, we won women by 8%, we even won independents by 18%. I think it's important that Republicans will win if we can appeal to people outside of our base."

On Mamas for DeSantis:

"When you go after the children, you awaken a sleeping giant with the mothers in this country, and we've already shown it in Florida. We protected them from the school closures and the mask mandates. Some of it was just, quite frankly, protecting their jobs with all that, but we leaned in on protecting their kids from indoctrination. When we fought on gender ideology and tussled with Disney, the media was upset at us, the left. I'll tell you, the parents across party lines agreed with us. They want schools focused on basics. They don't want schools doing things behind their back, and they want a seat at the table. We really believe that parents have a fundamental role in the education of our children, and we're going to continue stressing that."

On ending the weaponization of government:

"I was actually in Congress when the whole collusion hoax started. I was one of probably five congressmen who actually spoke out very early. One, a lot of Republicans believed in collusion at the time. There were Congressional investigations launched in 2017, with Republican majorities on Trump, Russia collusion, and I was there really on the front lines, saying that it was a hoax. Obviously, as we got more and more information, the amount of power that was abused by the FBI, DOJ, by the intelligence agencies, was really just jaw dropping and it was something that represented one of the biggest abuses of power that we've seen in modern American history. That just goes without saying, and I have a very clear record on that. I think the question is, is, what are we going to do about it, because we had the swamp, the promise in 2016, was that he would drain the swamp, but the swamp got way worse. It's way worse today than it was in 2016. I will end the weaponization of government. And part of the reason I will do that is because I'm going to come in, and I'm going to make very strong executive decisions to clean house. For example, we will have a new director of the FBI. On day one in my administration, the former president said the jury's still out on the FBI director, I don't think the jury's still out. I think we all know, we need a new direction there, we will clean house at the Department of Justice, we will parcel out parts of these agencies to other parts of the country, so that we can stop the accumulation of power in DC. So, I think what we need to do is look forward and figure out who has the discipline, who has the commitment to detail, who's going to keep their eye on the ball, so that you can actually bring the administrative state to heal, they are not going to give up their power willingly. And they are going to eat the lunch of anybody that goes in there. And isn't focused on this day after day."

On winning:

"I have a better record than any Republican in the country of actually beating the left. You want to talk about George Soros prosecutors, I'm the only Republican in the country that has removed a Soros prosecutor, which is what I did with one of the guys we had in Tampa. We beat the left on COVID lockdowns, we beat the left on indoctrination of our kids, we beat Disney on sexual indoctrination of our kids, we beat the left on illegal immigration, and so on. We've shown an ability to win these battles against the Democrats and against the left. I think that that's the frame of mind. I just view my job is to deliver results."