Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis has fired another shot at Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom, whose attacks on him and the great state of Florida have escalated in recent months.
DeSantis, who is vying for the Republican Party’s nomination, launched a counterstrike against Newsom from his own backyard Tuesday — the streets of decaying San Francisco.
In a video he posted on Twitter Tuesday evening, DeSantis called Democrats out over the state of the dying city.
“We’re here in the once-great city of San Francisco,” DeSantis said in front of a backdrop of street trash and graffiti. “We came in here and we saw people defecating on the street. We saw people using heroin. We saw people smoking crack cocaine.”
DeSantis said the state of the city is the fault of people like Newsom.
“You look around, the city is not vibrant anymore,” DeSantis declared. “It’s really collapsed because of leftist policies and these policies have caused these people to flee this area. They don’t prosecute criminals like they do in most parts of the country.”
Leadership matters. Cities like San Francisco that have embraced leftist policies have destroyed the quality of life of their citizens and sparked an exodus of productive people to greener pastures. We need to restore sanity across this country. pic.twitter.com/LF86omZ1e6
— Ron DeSantis (@RonDeSantis) June 20, 2023
The video could have been filmed in Oakland, Los Angeles, Stockton or any number of California’s once-great and once-safe cities.
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Each has failed at every level thanks to Newsom’s brand of “progressive,” one-party leadership, which makes his decision to continue to take on DeSantis all the more peculiar.
Newsom has recently shown a fixation with thriving Florida, where people are fleeing to from places like California.
In April, Newsom traveled to Sarasota where he attacked DeSantis during remarks to students of New College of Florida.
Earlier this week, he said DeSantis has no chance at dethroning former President Donald Trump as the Republican Party’s standard bearer.
The democrat called Florida’s governor a “weak candidate” who will be “crushed” by Trump, the Associated Press reported.
Last week, DeSantis challenged Newsom to stop “chirping” from the sidelines and to enter the race.
WARNING: The following video contains language that some viewers might find offensive.
“What I would tell [Newsom] is, ‘You know what? Stop p***y footing around. Are you going to throw your hat in the ring and challenge Joe?’” DeSantis said.
“Are you going to get in and do it, or are you just going to sit on the sidelines and chirp?” DeSantis also said. “So why don’t you throw your hat in the ring, and then we’ll go ahead and talk about what’s happening.”
“You know, it’s interesting. He’s got huge problems in his state […] Yet with all those problems, he has a real serious fixation on the state of Florida.”https://t.co/joxBdMZMTa
— Florida’s Voice (@FLVoiceNews) June 15, 2023
Newsom will without a doubt continue his attacks on DeSantis, Florida and Republican leadership in general.
But DeSantis’ Tuesday tweet is evidence of the gap between the results of Republican versus Democratic governance.
The 60-second clip was also essentially a kill shot in the budding feud between two polar opposite governors.
That open-air drug use, defecation and urban decay witnessed by DeSantis has Newsom’s fingerprints all over it. While cities such as Miami, Orlando and Tampa each struggle with crime like all major cities do, California’s problems are on another level.
Retailers aren’t abandoning Sarasota, while some residents of San Francisco struggle to get their prescriptions filled after Walgreens abandoned numerous locations because of rampant theft.
Thieves aren’t afraid of city and state leaders prosecuting them.
Meanwhile, Jacksonville’s more than two dozen CVS and Walgreens locations were all open on Wednesday morning, presumably serving orderly customers who know where to use the restroom.
