Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, while speaking at an Arizona rally for Republican candidates, condemned the FBI's raid on former President Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago home, saying federal law enforcement agencies have been "weaponized."
DeSantis, stumping Sunday night for Trump-endorsed candidates Blake Masters (U.S. Senate) and Kari Lake (governor) in Phoenix, warned the crowd that the Department of Justice and FBI were "enforcing the law based on who they like and who they don't like."
"These agencies have now been weaponized to be used against people that the government doesn't like," said DeSantis, drawing a comparison to the FBI's investigation of Hillary Clinton's private email server, The Hill reported.
"And you look at the raid and Mar-a-Lago, and I'm trying to remember, maybe someone here can remind me about when they did a search warrant at Hillary's house in Chappaqua [New York] when she had a rogue server and she was laundering classified information.
"That is not a republic, maybe it's a banana republic when that happens."
DeSantis, a Republican, gave more than a 40-minute speech at a campaign rally organized by Turning Point Action, Politico reported.
He urged Arizonans to "be united against the Democrats."
"Once areas go left, buckle your seat belt. It's not going to be an easy ride," DeSantis told the crowd, Florida Politics reported. "I don't want to see that happen in Arizona."
DeSantis, who is running for reelection in November, spoke of future cooperation with Lake on southern border policy enforcement if she wins the governorship.
"If you're willing to put people at the border, I'm willing to send National Guard to help," DeSantis said he told Lake.
Currently favored to defeat Democrat challenger Charlie Crist, DeSantis has been mentioned as a possible contender to be part of the 2024 Republican national ticket.
Lake introduced the Florida governor to the crowd, and said that being called "DeSantis of the West" was a compliment.
"He's got BDE. I call it Big DeSantis Energy," Lake told the rally attendees. "He's got the same kind of BDE President Trump has."
DeSantis appeared as the "Real American" theme song of former pro wrestler Hulk Hogan played. The governor told the crowd that Republicans will "fight back" on Election Day.
He spoke of Florida's success in handling the COVID-19 pandemic, and ripped the "the woke mind virus," Florida Politics reported.
"What we did in Florida was we really led the nation," DeSantis said, who added that "international media" and "establishment Republicans" scolded him for such things as opening beaches during the COVID wave during the summer of 2020.
DeSantis also took aim at President Joe Biden.
"How many times did he test positive for COVID?" DeSantis asked the crowd. "Hopefully we don't have a case of Long Biden."
Turning more serious, DeSantis said, "Jimmy Carter was a better President than Biden."
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