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'There are millions of them'
Ron DeSantis says he's surprised Donald Trump is attacking him 'from the left,' explains why he's not an 'establishment Republican'
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis announced that he is running in the 2024 presidential election on Wednesday, directly challenging former President Donald Trump for the Republican presidential nomination.
Following the announcement of his White House run, DeSantis engaged in a media blitz, including an interview with Glenn Beck about how he would dismantle the deep state.
During an appearance on Newsmax, DeSantis sternly repudiated accusations that he is an "establishment Republican."
DeSantis told Newsmax host Eric Bolling on Thursday:
How many establishment Republicans would have sent illegal aliens to Martha's Vineyard? How many establishment Republicans would have stood up against Disney? How many establishment Republicans would have signed the bill that I just signed to ban land purchases from people affiliated with the CCP in the state of Florida? We're now being sued by the ACLU for that. How many establishment Republicans would have leaned in to support our children against the pronoun Olympics. 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. So on every issue, that kind of the old guard of the Republican Party would have shied away from it a New York minute, I'm not only leaning into them, I'm winning against the media and against the left. You know, we say, 'Florida as the place where woke goes to die, because we've defeated the left on all these fronts. And my pledge if I'm elected president after two terms we will leave woke ideology in the dustbin of history.
\u201cThis Ron DeSantis counterpunch to the label "establishment Republican" is pure gold:\n\n"How many establishment Republicans would have sent illegal aliens to Martha's Vineyard? How many establishment Republicans would have stood up against Disney? How many establishment Republicans\u2026\u201d— Scott Morefield (@Scott Morefield) 1685068012
DeSantis also addressed the barrage of attacks that Trump has levied against him.
I think that some of the things he's been attacking me on, I've been a little surprised at, because he's attacking me from the left, and that really wasn't the Donald Trump from 2015 and 2016. I mean, 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 taken Disney's side against me, I just kind of wonder like, okay, I get he wants to hit me, but don't take the side of a multinational corporation that wants to sexualize kids. He's also hitting me against voting against immigration amnesty.
DeSantis said he took an "America first" approach regarding amnesty.
"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," he stated.
\u201cRon DeSantis hits back at Trump's attacks: "He's attacking me from the left, and that really wasn't the Donald Trump from 2015 and 2016 ... I get he wants to hit me, but don't take the side of a multinational corporation that wants to sexualize kids."\u201d— Scott Morefield (@Scott Morefield) 1685065261
DeSantis also accused Trump of "running to the left" during an interview with Tennessee radio host Matt Murphy.
"It seems like he’s running to the left, and I have always been somebody that’s just been moored in conservative principles,” DeSantis said of Trump.
"These will be interesting debates to have, but I can tell you, you don’t win nationally by moving to the left," the Florida governor continued. "You win nationally by standing for bold policy. We showed that in Florida. I never watered down anything I did."
Speaking of the DeSantis campaign announcement on Twitter Spaces with Elon Musk that was temporarily plagued early by technical glitches, Trump declared the event to be a "disaster."
Trump wrote on Truth Social, "Wow! The DeSanctus TWITTER launch is a DISASTER! His whole campaign will be a disaster. WATCH!"
He added, "I know Ron. The way he handled his announcement, he will handle the country!"
Trump also claimed that DeSantis had "zero chance of winning the Republican primary for governor of Florida before a man named President Donald J. Trump endorsed him."
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Indiana lawsuit challenges parties’ right to keep candidates off the ballot
Liz Cheney primary challenger admits to impregnating 14-year-old girl when he was 18
A Wyoming state senator who is running in the Republican primary election against Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wy.) admitted to having a relationship with and impregnating a 14-year-old girl when he was 18, disclosing the relationship in a Facebook Live video to supporters and to a local newspaper.
U.S. House candidate Anthony Bouchard, a gun rights activist, told the Casper Star-Tribune that he went public with the story after he became aware opposition researchers and an unnamed reporter were investigating his personal life. Bouchard, who has served in the Wyoming Senate since 2017, is one of the more prominent Republican challengers seeking to unseat Cheney for her vote to impeach then-President Donald Trump earlier this year.
"So, bottom line, it's a story when I was young, two teenagers, girl gets pregnant," Bouchard said in his Facebook Live video. "You've heard those stories before. She was a little younger than me, so it's like the Romeo and Juliet story."
Facing pressure to have the baby aborted, Bouchard instead married the girl when she was 15 and he was 19. He explained to the Tribune that they were both living in Florida at the time, and Florida state law permitted people to marry at any age with a judge's approval if a pregnancy was involved and a parent consented.
"A lot of pressure. Pressure to abort a baby. I got to tell you. I wasn't going to do it, and neither was she," he said. "And there was pressure to have her banished from their family. Just pressure. Pressure to go hide somewhere. And the only thing I could see as the right thing to do was to get married and take care of him."
The couple divorced after three years of marriage. Bouchard said that his ex-wife killed herself when she was 20, and the Tribune reported that online records list a woman with her name being buried in Jacksonville, Florida, in 1990.
"She had problems in another relationship. Her dad had committed suicide," Bouchard said in the video.
After his ex-wife's death, Bouchard said he raised their son, but is now almost estranged from him.
"Sadly, he's made some wrong choices in his life," he said. "He's almost become my estranged son. Some of the things that he's got going on his life, I certainly don't approve of them. But I'm not going to abandon him. I still love him. Just like when he was born."
Bouchard decided to go public with his story to get in front of a report about his previous marriage he expects will be published sometime soon. He told the Tribune his campaign was aware of a political opposition research company and a "U.K. media reporter" who were investigating his personal life. In his video, he slammed "dirty politics" and "the establishment swamp" for trying to discredit him without mentioning his conservative voting record.
"This is really a message about how dirty politics is," he said. "They'll stop at nothing, man, when you get in the lead and when you're somebody that can't be controlled, you're somebody who works for the people. They'll come after you. That's why good people don't run for office."
Bouchard committed to staying in the race, declaring himself the front-runner in a field of seven Republican candidates seeking to unseat Cheney.
"They wouldn't be doing this if I wasn't the front-runner," Bouchard said in the video. "I'm not controlled by leadership; they all know that. Everyone knows that. And if this is the best you've got, bring it on. Because I'm not intimidated. I've been pushed on and bullied all the time I've been in politics. Doesn't work. I don't really care. Bring it on."
Liz Cheney draws primary challenge from gun activist, hardcore conservative Wyoming state senator
U.S. House Republican Conference Chairwoman Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) has drawn her first 2022 primary challenger after voting last week to impeach President Donald Trump.
Wyoming Republican state Sen. Anthony Bouchard filed a statement of candidacy on Wednesday for Wyoming's lone congressional seat, initiating a primary challenge against Cheney for the next midterm elections.
"Wyoming was President Trump's best state both times he ran. That's because Wyoming voters are strong conservatives who want our leaders to stand up for America, defend our freedoms, fight for our way of life and always put working people first as President Trump did," Bouchard said in a statement.
"Liz Cheney's long-time opposition to President Trump and her most recent vote for Impeachment shows just how out-of-touch she is with Wyoming. Wyoming taxpayers need a voice in Congress who will stand up to Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats, and not give them cover. That's why I'm running for Congress."
Cheney, the No. 3 House Republican, infuriated Republicans in her home state by supporting the Democratic-led effort to oust Trump from office two weeks before his term was set to expire in response to the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol. The backlash was so severe that the Wyoming Republican Party felt obligated to publish a "message" to Cheney sharing some of the scathing remarks they had received from Republican voters upset with her position.
On Tuesday, Republicans in Carbon County, Wyoming, voted unanimously to censure Cheney and submitted their resolution to the state GOP for consideration.
"Representative Cheney has violated the trust of her voters, failed to faithfully represent a very large majority of motivated Wyoming voters, and neglected her duty to represent the party and the will of the people who elected her to represent them," the resolution states.
Additionally, some of Cheney's colleagues in the House last week circulated a petition to remove her from GOP leadership, an action opposed by House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.).
In a conference call with Wyoming reporters last week after the impeachment proceedings, Cheney defended her vote and condemned President Trump.
"I will continue to talk to and hear from my constituents all over Wyoming. But when it came down to it, the president of the United States inciting a mob ... is, in my mind, absolutely high crimes and misdemeanors," she said.
"I really don't consider the politics at all. There are just times when those of us who are elected officials are called on to act in a way that does not take politics into consideration," she added. "I think it would be wrong to think about this decision and this vote in the context of politics."
According to KPVI-TV, Bouchard, the founder of the gun rights activist group Wyoming Gun Owners, has a reputation in the Wyoming legislature as one of the most conservative lawmakers, an uncompromising legislator who has at times been at odds with state Republican leadership.
In the 2020 election, Bouchard was challenged in the state Republican primaries by a lobbyist supported by incumbent and former state senate Republicans, going on to defeat his challenger and win re-election to the Senate.
After Cheney announced her intention to impeach Trump on Jan. 12, Bouchard slammed her on social media.
"Liz Cheney's insistence on ATTACKING President Trump at this late hour is a despicable representation of the people of Wyoming, which President Trump won very easily and which supports the Trump agenda 100%," he posted on Facebook.
His campaign website indicates he's running for Congress to "to stand up and defend our rights and our republic against angry Socialists and their allies in Big Tech, academia and the Fake News Media."
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