Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis on Monday fired back at fellow Republicans who have criticized him.
“If you’re an office holder and you’re just sitting there twiddling your thumbs and not getting anything done, no one ever says anything,” he said on Fox News on Feb. 20. “You can kind of just fly under the radar.”
“But when you’re out there leading, when you’re out there setting the agenda, not just for Florida, but really for the nation, which we’ve done over the last few years, people see that, and the people that don’t necessarily like that are going to respond accordingly,” continued DeSantis. “But I can just tell you, if people are not firing at me, then I must not be doing my job.”
Former President Donald Trump, who has already announced his third run for the Oval Office, has gone after DeSantis over the past few months, nicknaming him “Ron DeSanctimonious.” In his customary no-holds-barred style, the president joked that won’t call the Florida governor “Meatball Ron” as “it would be totally inappropriate to use the word ‘meatball’ as a moniker for Ron!”
Former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations and South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, who announced her 2024 run last week, told a town hall in New Hampshire on Thursday that the Florida Parental Rights in Education Act, which DeSantis enacted last year, is insufficient in protecting children in school from gender ideology or sexual orientation, which the law prohibits teachers in grades K-3 from teaching.
“There was all this talk about the Florida bill—the ‘don’t say gay bill.’ Basically what it said was you shouldn’t be able to talk about gender before third grade,” she said. “I’m sorry. I don’t think that goes far enough.”
“When I was in school you didn’t have sex ed until 7th grade. And even then, your parents had to sign whether you could take the class,” said Haley.
“That’s a decision for parents to make,” she added.
“I think Ron’s been a good governor. I just think that third grade’s too young. We should not be talking to kids in elementary school about gender, period,” she said.
“And if you are going to talk to kids about it, you need to get the parents’ permission to do that. That is something between a parent and a child. That is not something that schools need to be teaching,” said Haley. “Schools need to be teaching reading and math and science. They don’t need to be teaching whether they think you’re a boy or a girl.”
Former Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan, another possible presidential candidate, called DeSantis’ education policies “big government” and “authoritarian.”
“I’m a small government, common sense conservative, and to me, it sounds like big government and authoritarian, ‘You have to agree with me, and I’ll tell you what you can and can’t do.’ But it’s an issue. It’s not the most important issue,” he said on NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday.
“Most people are worried about the economy, inflation, and they’re concerned about crime, but education is one of the things that we’ve got to talk about.”
