“I have this money. I want to be useful. Maybe we’ll go to Texas and help. Maybe we ship to Chicago, Hollywood, Martha’s Vineyard. Who knows?” he said to applause at a speech Friday afternoon at the Four Seasons in Orlando, where hundreds of the party’s top donors gathered to hear him, according to a detailed description by one person in the room. The account was confirmed by a second person who was present at the speech. Both spoke on condition of anonymity to reveal details of the private event. DeSantis sent two planes full of immigrants Wednesday to Martha’s Vineyard, an island enclave in Massachusetts where many prominent Democrats, including former President Barack Obama, have homes. That followed similar efforts by the Republican governors of Texas and Arizona to offer immigrants free bus rides in more liberal parts of the country. Flying immigrants from Florida to Martha’s Vineyard is DeSantis’ latest move to grab the spotlight and cement his position among conservative supporters. The donor’s 51-minute retreat speech provided a clear outline of how he might sell himself to base Republican voters during a possible 2024 presidential bid. the nation’s political future as a battle against a leftist conspiracy to impose their ideology and turn dissenters into “second-class citizens.” His message, according to people in the room, was that America needed to become more like Florida — and that he would be a culture warrior. “We don’t just disagree about tax rates. We don’t just disagree about normal policies. You know, we disagree about whether people who disagree with leftist ideology should have a voice in our government, in society,” DeSantis said, according to people in the room. Of the Liberals, he said: “And they’ve been winning this race, I would say, for the last five or ten years.” Immigrants flock to Martha’s Vineyard as GOP steps up protest over immigration DeSantis has built a massive political enterprise in recent months, raising more than $100 million as he zigzags the country at elite fundraisers. He is leading in his re-election race this year and advisers want him to win by a wide margin to send a message to the national party, according to people familiar with the matter. He has repeatedly refused to rule out a run against Trump, who has increasingly focused on DeSandis and his rise in the Republican primary, Trump advisers say. DeSantis said in the speech that the purpose of sending immigrants to Martha’s Vineyard and other enclaves was to send a political message, people at the event said, and they called similar efforts by Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) “brilliant.” “I think it’s been very effective,” he said of the flood of liberal cities with immigrants. The Trump administration — led by immigration adviser Stephen Miller — originally had such a plan, but concerns at Immigration and Customs Enforcement led them to scrap the idea, which caused significant backlash at the time. Much of the speech was devoted to his response to the coronavirus, where he boasted that Florida had stayed open and contrasted his response favorably with most scientific experts. He boasted that he did not allow “vaccine passports” and did not mandate the use of the vaccine in Florida, although the state initially promoted the distribution of vaccines and ran ads encouraging people to do so. It also raised questions about the safety of coronavirus vaccines. DeSantis didn’t joke with the crowd, or thank his hosts, or wait for the occasional standing ovation as the audience cheered him on, according to several people with knowledge of the gathering. At a private roundtable of top donors, he gave essentially the same speech he gave to the larger group. He was in the shelter for about three hours. Several people familiar with the event said he received mixed reactions from donors, who liked his broader message but wished he could connect more personally. Much of the talk seemed focused on the national culture wars. He protested the statues of historical figures being torn down and attacked Disney for being too liberal in their dispute with him over a Florida law limiting what teachers can say about gender and sexual orientation, nicknamed the ” don’t say gays’. by critics. “You know, unfortunately, we’ve had a lot of Republican governors over the years who have caved to corporate pressure,” DeSantis said. “Well, here I stand. I didn’t shake any. I was standing up for what was right.” He raised fears of voter fraud and attacked Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg for funding election managers in 2020. Democratic billionaire donor George Soros for supporting more lenient prosecutors. and teachers who develop in young students the idea that gender is a choice. He criticized the New York Times’ “1619 Project” and the way race and racism are taught in many schools. Floridians give DeSantis points for his stance on Covid. It will last; “We need to focus on teaching these young children to read and write and add and subtract and not shove ideology down their throats,” he said. He also warned the crowd that Democrats planned to change the structure of the US government system if they continued to hold power. It included, he described, efforts by liberals to add justices to the Supreme Court, add representation in Congress for the District of Columbia, replace the electoral college with a popular vote system and loosen voter ID laws. Most Democrats are not united behind these efforts and lack the votes to pass them in the current Congress. “If you don’t bend the knee to their leftist agenda, they want to make you a second-class citizen,” he said. “Unity for them is taking everyone in the majority who disagrees with them, making them second-class citizens, and then uniting what’s left.“ He said the only solution was to fight back and be prepared to withstand criticism from both Democrats and the media. “We have the full armor of God on,” he said. “We stand strong.”
