The attacks from the left are one thing, Florida GOP Gov. Ron DeSantis told Newsmax, but seeing former President Donald Trump hit him from the same angle on Disney and immigration has been surprising.
"I think some of the things he's been attacking me on, I've been a little bit surprised at, because he's attacking me from the left," DeSantis told Thursday's "Eric Bolling The Balance." "And that really wasn't the Donald Trump from 2015 and 2016. He was a hard-charger, leaning in on all the issues — very edgy on conservative issues, and it was part of the reason he did so well.
"But when he's taking Disney's side against me, I just kind of wonder. OK, I get that he wants to hit me, but don't take the side of a multinational corporation that wants to sexualize kids."
DeSantis is also surprised Trump, who has been an America First champion, is attacking him on not voting on a bill that included amnesty for illegal immigrants already in the U.S. That bill was for border wall funding, but DeSantis voted against it due to the amnesty provisions tucked into it.
"He's also hitting me against voting against immigration amnesty," DeSantis lamented to host Eric Bolling. "To hit me for taking the America First position, I just think is a little strange.
"I'm not sure what his strategy is, but I think he's taking positions that are a little bit different than four or five years ago."
And Trump supporters trying to cast DeSantis as backed by the establishment — including anti-Trump Fox board member Paul Ryan and anti-Trump Fox News analyst Karl Rove — were scoffed at by the Florida governor.
"I have not spoken to Paul Ryan since I've been governor," DeSantis said. "I've met Karl Rove once in my life. They are not involved in my political operation, so that's just manufactured garbage that people put out there on the line.
"So people are telling you that, I hope that they'll look at the facts rather than do that.
"You also look at my record. How many establishment Republicans would have sent illegal aliens to Martha's Vineyard? How many establishment Republicans would have stood up against Disney?"
DeSantis added he has also passed Florida laws to keep Chinese Communist Party investors from buying up land in the state, something "establishment Republicans" have not stood beside him on.
DeSantis, despite the attacks from the left, establishment right, and Trump will still work to "leave woke ideology in the dustbin of history."
"How many establishment Republicans would have leaned into defend our children against the pronoun olympics?" DeSantis concluded. "We banned the pronoun olympics in our schools. We're the first state to do that.
"How many establishment Republicans would have banned gender transition surgeries for minors? We not only would take the doctor's medical license, we'll put the doctor in jail if they are mutilating minors."
DeSantis concluded that unlike many Republicans, he is winning against the media and the leftists that are pushing ideology on Americans.
"So on every issue that kind of the old guard of the Republican Party would have shied away from in a New York minute, I am not only leaning into them, I'm winning against the media and against the left," he concluded. "We say Florida is the place where woke goes to die, because we've defeated the left on all these fronts.
"And my pledge, if I am elected two terms, we will leave woke ideology in the dustbin of history."
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Eric Mack ✉
Eric Mack has been a writer and editor at Newsmax since 2016. He is a 1998 Syracuse University journalism graduate and a New York Press Association award-winning writer.
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