Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is unflappable in his pursuit of providing the residents of his state with maximum liberty and opportunity, much to the chagrin of his critics, as he demonstrated during a speech in New York City.
The GOP governor refused to back down during a speech to the Tikvah Fund’s Jewish Leadership Conference, which was relocated because the first host is not a DeSantis fan.
“They can’t cancel me, I’m going to speak my mind,” he said after his arrival was met by protesters.
“You know, I saw that there was a little opposition to me coming here. All I can tell you is this,” he added. “When the Left is having a spasm, that just tells you that in Florida we are winning.
“We have said that the state of Florida is not going to be overrun by woke ideology. It’s just not going to happen. I think it’s a cancer,” the governor continued.
“I think it will destroy this country if it’s able to get more of a foothold than it already has. My duty and my oath of office was to not subcontract out responsibility to a corporation based in Burbank, Calif.,” DeSantis he added, noting his signature on a bill that stripped Disney World of its special governing status after CEO Bob Chapek publicly criticized a law that barred K-3 students from being shown transgender and LGBTQ materials.
Governor Ron DeSantis's visit to New York City on Sunday drew protests from the LGBTQ community who are still raw over the 'Don't Say Gay Bill.'
— Newsweek
“That is not going to happen, they’re not going to run this state,” he vowed.
The conference was originally set to take place at the Museum of Jewish Heritage, a Holocaust memorial.
However, the conference was relocated after the museum refused to host DeSantis because he didn’t “align with the museums’s values,” conference organizers Elliott Abrams and Eric Cohen wrote in a Wall Street Journal op-ed.
The museum denied that claim, saying in a statement that Abrams’s and Cohen’s op-ed contained “factual inaccuracies,” that “no contract with the Tikvah Fund was ever signed.” Abrams and Cohen countered that the move was “a political decision.”
The conference was ultimately held on Sunday at Chelsea Pier 60 instead of at the museum.
The governor used his speech to tout Florida’s Covid-pandemic policies, including the decision not to order lockdowns, vaccine mandates, or mask mandates, and he said Floridians in general enjoyed higher levels of freedom during the pandemic.
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