Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who is running for President, told a group of supporters in South Carolina on Tuesday he will remove “the woke” from the U.S. military if elected.
During his speech, he showed some parallels between how he’s run the state of Florida and how he wants to run the military if he’s elected President, focusing on eliminating things like DEI and vaccine mandates.
The podium he spoke at had a sign that read, “Mission First” which is what he says his vision for the U.S. military is about.
“We need a military that is focused on being lethal, being ready and being capable and if there’s anybody’s agenda that gets in the way of that, that agenda needs to take a hike,” DeSantis said.
DeSantis is a Navy veteran who laid out a multi-point plan to eliminate what he calls the “woke mind virus” from the military. The plan includes things that have been hallmarks of his time as Florida Governor.
- Rehiring military members who declined to take the COVID vaccine and giving them backpay
- Eliminating DEI from the Department of Defense
- Not allowing what he refers to as gender ideology or transgenderism in the military
“It’s a military that has been ordered by civilian officials to pursue a political ideology to social experimentation, to be yet another experiment in American life to be infected by the woke mind virus,” DeSantis said.
A few other parts of DeSantis’ military plan include not allowing things like Critical Race Theory to be taught at military academies and rejuvenating military recruitment.
But the military isn’t all DeSantis is talking about. On Tuesday afternoon, DeSantis appeared on CNN to talk with Jake Tapper about a range of topics, including his primary competitor Donald Trump.
“So, I do have to ask about the breaking news today. Your chief competitor, the front-runner right now, Donald Trump, says he was informed that he is the target of Special Counsel Jack Smith’s investigation into efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election. And Mr. Trump has until Thursday to report to the grand jury. If Jack Smith has evidence of criminality, should Donald Trump be held accountable?” Tapper asked DeSantis.
“So here’s the problem,” DeSantis responded. “This country is going down the road of criminalizing political differences. And I think that’s wrong. Alvin Bragg stretched the statute in Manhattan to be able to try to target Donald Trump. Most people, even people on the left, acknowledge if that wasn’t Trump that case would not have likely been brought against a normal civilian. And so you have a situation where the Department of Justice, FBI have been weaponized against people they don’t like. And the number one example of that happened to be against Donald Trump with the Russia collusion. That was not a legitimate investigation.”