DeSantis Campaign Press Release - ICYMI: Ron DeSantis on WFEA's Morning Update with Drew Cline

"We need to return the government to its rightful owners — we the American people."

TALLAHASSEE, FL - Ron DeSantis today joined WFEA's Morning Update with Drew Cline.

Listen to the full interview HERE.

On how he will give the power back to the American people as president:

One, we really recognize threats to freedom before they materialize. For example, we've gone after the ESG movement in Florida more aggressively than anybody else. We need to do that nationally. I mean, these are people that are trying to use businesses to impose a left-wing agenda on society. That will absolutely lead to less freedom for people. The other thing we did in Florida, is we say, we're not going to recognize a central bank digital currency. They want to impose that nationally. When I'm president, that will be dead on day one. That would be an evisceration of your financial privacy, and ultimately, they would exert control over the economy. And then you have this bureaucracy that is just run amok in Washington. In Florida, I actually eliminated two different agencies, and we have the smallest number of state employees per capita anywhere in the country. So we're going to go in there, and you're going to see a big downsizing of government. I'm going to order all my cabinet secretaries to reduce the footprint in DC by 50%...we need to return the government to its rightful owners--we the American people, but if we don't get that right, ultimately, we're not going to have freedom secure in the long run in this country.

On Florida's rise in the national rankings for personal and economic freedom:

We are fiscally very conservative, no income tax, second lowest tax burden per capita in America. Since I've been governor, we've run surpluses, and I've actually paid down 25% of our state's total debt that we've had since the inception of statehood. So we have a triple A plus rating. Everyone has confidence in Florida fiscally, and that makes a big difference. We also are a state that's really done well in education. That was not true 25 years ago. We've embraced school choice. We have universal school choice...Our crime rate's at a 50-year low. Since I've been governor, violent crime rate has declined over 30%. We back the blue, we hold criminals accountable for their misconduct, and people who have migrated to Florida, particularly since COVID, they say public safety has been a big deal. And then just finally, I think in the last however many three years, our approach to COVID of choosing freedom over Fauci-ism, that attracted so many people who were fleeing lockdown states, businesses moved to Florida, people were bringing their wealth to Florida. So you have all those things, I think, that have contributed to a really great success story.

On the Seminoles vs the Gators:

I'll tell you what, as governor, I'm neutral. But my kids... because we're in Tallahassee, they are big time Nole fans, and we were all watching the game on TV. We thought about going to Gainesville, but we're like, you know what, we've been traveling so much. So we watched it. It didn't start out well for the Noles, but it's the first time in a long time that a state of Florida team has competed for a national championship. And so if they win the conference championship this weekend, which hopefully they will, there'll be in the college football playoff. And we've actually never had a team in the college football playoff since the playoffs started. Fast forward, rewind when I was growing up in the 80s and 90s, it was like a Florida team was competing for the national title almost every year.