DeSantis Campaign Press Release - ICYMI: Ron DeSantis Delivers Remarks to the NC/SC Federation of Republican Women

"We are going to build the border wall, and I'm actually going to make Mexico pay for it like the promise from 2016."

Tallahassee, FL - Ron DeSantis today delivered remarks to the NC/SC Federation of Republican Women. The highlights are below.

Watch the full remarks HERE.

On Biden's proposal to aid Ukraine and Israel in one package:

They should not do one package. These are separate issues. They should debate them separately, and let the American people weigh in accordingly. You know, I'll say this. So we've had a long standing relationship with Israel. I've always supported that relationship that has involved military support, and whatnot. I mean, usually a few billion dollars a year, we've done about 150 billion to Israel, since its inception over 75 years. I think it's 158 billion. They're not really asking us for that much now. Now maybe he'll say 'Behind the scenes, Bibi has asked for some of this.' But they have a good military. I got asked in the town hall today, you know, would you would you put our troops in Israel? Of course not. They can defend themselves. We support their right to defend themselves, but it's their war. It's not it's not our war. And so I don't know what they've asked for. So I want to see what they've asked for. I think my sense about what Biden's doing is, he knows that Ukraine money is not popular with the public because they've spent a lot. They haven't put a clear objective to it. It's kind of a stalemate. A lot of that money is going to like social services and salaries for bureaucrats and things that American taxpayers do not want to fund. So he understands that there's a political problem. And I think he thinks if he can attach Israel and just throw a bunch of money there, then because it's Israel, everyone's going to have to say yes, but I think that Congress is not going to just eat that. I think they're going to separate them. And I think that they're going to do so. I'm supportive of Israel. But even with Israel, you have to identify, you know, how much money and justify that. I mean, I think the way these people have spent your money and put us in debt, the burden should be on them to make sure that all this is something, you know, that's on the up and up. But I think that by and large, the support for Israel is going to be important, but I don't think it's going to be 10s of billions. I really don't. I don't think they're asking for 10s of billions and I think that is what we would save money by just saying do the job and take out Hamas and don't try to undercut them if we just did that. I think they'd be able to take care of this in relatively short order.

On why this is a two-man race:

I've been very weary of saying what anyone else should do, but I think, clearly, if you're not even able to meet that criteria to even get into a debate, then that's a problem. I mean, what's your path to victory at that point to be able to do? So, here's just the honest to God truth, you know, there's two people with a pathway to victory. You know, you have the former president, who obviously, he's the best known and he's got a lot of legacy support and then you got me. I'm the only guy that can appeal to enough voters to be able to actually get it done ultimately. And you know, you were showing that as we work through Iowa, you're going to start to see that I think more and more as we get to the end of the year, and people start to dig in. But that's just, that's just the reality. And I think if that's your choice, and it comes down to that, and it may come down to that by South Carolina, who knows, right? My argument would be a couple things. One, we need a president that can serve two terms. A lame duck president is not going to be able to get the job done. I don't care who you are. You know, George Washington, I don't know could get this done as a lame duck president. So you need to have that. You also need a nominee who can win. And I think the way you win is to focus the election on Biden's failures, and our positive vision for the future. If the elections about all these other issues, then it's going to give the Democrats a huge advantage, it's going to give the media and ability to drive that in. And they will do that, they'll change their tune on all this, you watch if the former President's the nominee. So we want it to be an election on Biden and us as the positive, just like it was for Reagan versus Carter, in 1980. So I think that that's really important. Also, you need a president that's going to be able to attract the personnel necessary to fill the administration. I don't think Donald Trump could get the people to serve in the administration. I mean, think about all the problems, so many of them have already had, how he's treated a lot of people, you know, as a leader, when things go wrong, you've got to take responsibility, you know, it's easy to try to throw someone else under the bus, but they need to know that, you know, you'll have their back when the going gets tough. And so you know, I've shown that in Florida. So, the personnel because you can make the best decisions in the world, you can have the best vision and the best policy, if you don't have a cadre of people there that are helping to implement that, particularly in the face of a hostile bureaucracy, then it's not going to amount to very much. So that's another thing. And then I think you want somebody who has the track record of delivering on the promises. And, you know, I went to Trump's rallies in 16. I was excited about build the wall, have Mexico pay for it, didn't deliver, drain the swamp, didn't deliver, special counsel for Hillary. He said that and then two weeks after the election, he said, never mind Hillary, he said he likes her now he says she's beautiful Hillary, that's how he refers to her. He's promising the same stuff this time except the special counsels for Biden. So it's like, okay, well, wait a minute, you're running on the same stuff. You didn't do it the first time, you'd be a lame duck, if you could even get elected and all that. Why not have, give somebody a chance, who is going to spit nails from day one is going to be energetic is going to be forceful, discipline, focus, and deliver for you. It's not about me, it's about you.

On his plan to reverse Bidenomics:

Any money that has not actually gone out the door, I'm calling back. They still have COVID money out there. So whatever's there, we're calling back. We're going to set a new standard with Congress. I'll veto if you if you go over certain levels of spending, because their spending habit has caused this. We're going to take all the Biden rules and regulations, rip them out, throw them in the trash can, because we need to grow the economy again. I mean, part of the way you reduce inflation, you increase productivity and investment, we need to do that. We are going to open up energy production, federal lands, Alaska, all this stuff will be the dominant energy producer in this country. It'll lower your gas prices, lower energy costs, effects, everything that you buy, so it's going to be good for the economy prices generally. It'll be good for jobs, and it'll be good for our our national security.

On securing the border and combatting cartels:

We are going to build the border wall, and I'm actually going to make Mexico pay for it like the promise from 2016. Here's how you do it. Yeah, Mexico is just not going to cough up money. What you do is, we're going to impose fees on the remittances that people send back to Mexico and Central America. You'll raise billions of dollars, and we'll build the wall, and we'll actually get the job done. We're also going to hold the Mexican drug cartels accountable for killing tens of thousands of our fellow Americans. I've met Angel moms who have lost kids to fentanyl overdose. And the thing is, you know, drugs can be a tough thing, addiction is tough, but a lot of these kids are high school, college, they're not even addicted to drugs; they may have taken one thing and it happens to be laced with fentanyl. And then they die. And we had a situation in Florida, we had an 18-month-old baby at an Airbnb rental crawling on the carpet, and there was fentanyl residue on the carpet, and the baby died. So this is causing massive amount of damage to our country and to our communities. And I'm going to treat the Mexican drug cartels like foreign terrorist organizations, and we are going to use deadly military force to defeat the Mexican drug cartels.