Congressman Ron DeSantis, a candidate for the U.S. Senate, is in Pensacola. He came on “Pensacola Speaks” yesterday.
He said that Rep. Kevin McCarthy made the right decision to drop out of the Speaker of the House race.
“About a month ago there was a poll that said 72% of Republican voters were dissatisfied with the Congressional leadership,” said DeSantis. “We’re in a representative business. That is not a sustainable model to have the people that put you there be that dissatisfied with the people who are leading in the Congress.”
On the campaign trail, voters have told him that things aren’t really changing in D.C. like they want to see happen.
“The American people are hungry for Washington to go in a different direction,” he said. “I think we need to just elect leadership who’s going to be committed to changing Washington and to making good on the promises that we made to the people who elected us.”
Does Congressman DeSantis believe that Rep. Dan Webster would be a good choice for Speaker?
He said, “I think Dan would be. Dan understands that to really get people to succeed on behalf of their constituents they need to be part of the process. They need to be empowered to advance their views. It doesn’t mean you’re going to win everything, but I think right now there is a sense that the Congress is run very top-down. We’ll get these ridiculous bills plopped on our desk 10 hours before we vote on it. That is really not the way that you should do business. I think Dan is committed to changing that.”
DeSantis said that national security is becoming a big issue in the Senate race.
“People are saying with this Iran deal we cut them a check for $150 billion and what do they do a month later? They start firing and testing missiles. That’s a direct slap in the face of the President of the United States, and yet the Middle East is only going to get more dangerous over the next year and a half,” he said.
He added, “I think that people realize we need to 1, rebuild our military, 2, the morale in the military needs to improve. That will improve once we have a better leader at the top, but you do got to have a new President who can set the tone to tell our allies we’re going to be behind you and to be firm with our enemies, so they don’t think they can run roughshod over us and the rest of the world.”
