Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis touted his culture war battles Saturday during a speech at an Iowa fundraiser ahead of a possible presidential bid in 2024.
“Truth is enduring, they can cover it up, hide it, they can try to distort it, but at the end of the day, eventually, the lies and deceit fade away and truth is what remains,” DeSantis, a potential 2024 candidate for the Republican nomination in 2024, said at the Feenstra Family Picnic near Sioux City, Iowa. “I believe that the truth will set us free. Now, this advent of woke ideology really represents a challenge to this. I think it’s a war on truth and because it’s a war on truth, we must wage a war on woke.”
“It is wrong for a teacher to instruct a student that they were born in the wrong body or that their gender is a choice,” DeSantis continued. “We should not have transgender ideology in our schools and in Florida, we have eliminated it, it’s not there, and if that means we had to stand up to a company like Disney, here I stand, I’m not backing down from that. I’m standing for the parents and the students of the state of Florida, and we are doing what is right.”
Disney and the Florida governor have clashed since DeSantis signed parental rights legislation in March 2022 over the company’s opposition. DeSantis also approved legislation that ended Disney’s control over the Reedy Creek Improvement District, which Disney reportedly attempted to undermine with last-second agreements.
Former President Donald Trump, businessman Vivek Ramaswamy and former Republican Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey criticized DeSantis over the Disney feud.
“It is wrong for a swimmer to compete for three years on the men’s team and then switch to the women’s team and then win the women’s national championship,” DeSantis continued, citing Lia Thomas competing in the 2022 NCAA Swimming Championships. “Sorry, that is a fraud that they are trying to perpetuate on us, and we should not accept that.”
Never Back Down, a political action committee supporting the Florida governor, announced plans to send mailers to voters in Iowa, Nevada, New Hampshire and South Carolina touting the “DeSantis playbook.”
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