By Bill Penn
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said Monday he still has unfinished business in the coming months before he officially enters the 2024 presidential race.
The “two big things” he has on his hands are a book tour promoting his upcoming memoir, “Being Free,” and the 2023 legislative session, which runs from early March to early May, the Republican governor told “Fox & Friends.” in »
The book talks about “Florida’s American Renaissance Project,” DeSantis said. “We’re going to tour around it. We are going to sell books. We’re going to spread the Florida message.”
After the legislative session begins on March 8, Floridians will see a Republican “supermajority” working to advance their agenda, DeSantis added. The 60-day session will end on May 5.
“You haven’t seen anything yet. It’s going to be the most productive legislative session we’ve had as a whole, and I think people are going to be really excited,” the governor told reporters. “So those are the things we’re going to do over the next couple of months as we get out of that, and then we can make a decision from there.”
Two Republicans, former President Donald Trump and former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, have so far announced their 2024 White House bids.
At another point in the interview, DeSantis dismissed recent criticism from Republicans Haley and former Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan, while not directly responding to them.
Haley’s criticism is aimed at an education law that prohibits Florida public school teachers from discussing sexual orientation or gender identity in kindergarten through third grade classrooms, which has been misleadingly described by the corporate media as the “Don’t Say Gay” bill.
“There’s been all this talk about the Florida bill, the Don’t Say Gay bill. It basically said you shouldn’t be able to talk about gender until third grade,” Haley said at a Feb. 17 town hall event in New Hampshire. “Sorry. I don’t think that goes far enough.”
“When I was in school, you didn’t have sex until the 7th grade. And even then, your parents had to sign off on whether you could take the class,” he continued. “It’s the parents’ decision.”
Meanwhile, Hogan also took issue with DeSantis’ handling of Florida education, which he described as a “big government” and “authoritarian” approach.
“I’m a small government, common sense conservative, and to me that’s big government and authoritarian,” he said on NBC’s “Meet the Press” Sunday.
During his Fox & Friends interview, DeSantis said there will be criticism until he sits idle in his office.
“If you’re in office and you’re just sitting there twiddling your thumbs and doing nothing, nobody ever says anything. You kind of just fly under the radar,” he said. “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 those people do that.” : they are definitely going to respond accordingly.
“But I can just tell you, if people aren’t shooting at me, then I shouldn’t be doing my job. And so I really look at that as a positive response.”