Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida disputed claims made by Democratic gubernatorial nominee Charlie Crist that he was a dictator during a Thursday press conference.
“I think the interesting thing over the last couple years is you had people that kept wanting to lock people down. I was one of the few in this country that lifted people up,” DeSantis said in response to a question from a reporter about Crist’s claim. “We protected people’s freedoms, jobs, businesses, we made sure kids could be in in school, and we liberated 22 million Floridians from local mandates and restrictions. We protected them against vax mandates so that they could keep working without having that.” (RELATED: ‘Chuck Him Across The Potomac’: DeSantis Shares His Thoughts On ‘Little Elf’ Anthony Fauci)
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“He’s a barbaric, wannabe dictator,” Crist claimed Tuesday in reference to DeSantis, according to the Guardian.
Crist, who was governor of Florida for one term after winning the 2006 election as a Republican, won the Democratic nomination for governor to challenge DeSantis Tuesday, defeating Nikki Fired with just over 60% of the vote. He attacked DeSantis supporters Wednesday, declaring he did not want their votes.
“I think the people that are dictatorial are the ones that want to lock you down,” DeSantis said. “I think the people that are dictatorial, the ones that wanted to lock kids out of school for a year, which all of them wanted to do here in Florida, and I stopped it and made sure that kids could be in school. I think it’s dictatorial to say that someone should lose their job based on their choice about whether to get a Covid shot or not. So that’s just the reality.”
“Now there’s a lot of revisionist history, everyone says, ‘Oh, we were supporting the governor all along.’ No, that was not true.” DeSantis said. “I was out there on my own, doing what I thought was right, and I was willing to take whatever political consequences came my way.”
Crist did not immediately respond to a request for comment from the Daily Caller News Foundation.
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