Ron DeSantis now blames ‘global warming’ for military recruitment woes

Desantis warm
'We need to eliminate these distractions and get focused on the core mission at hand.'

Florida’s Governor is telling Iowans that the military’s focus on “global warming” is a reason recruiting has fallen off, and he vows to “eliminate” such “distractions” if elected President.

Ron DeSantis told a crowd in West Des Moines Tuesday of several issues of social consciousness that he believes are keeping people from signing up for the U.S. Armed Forces.

“And it pains me when we see revered institutions like our very own military become more concerned with matters that are not central to the mission, whether it’s global warming or gender ideology or pronouns, morale is declining, and recruiting is suffering. We need to eliminate these distractions, and we need to get focused on the core mission at hand,” DeSantis said Tuesday.

This continues a series of similar critiques from the Governor, who appears to be road-testing a list of grievances.

During a Memorial Day hit on the Fox News Channel, the Florida Governor and freshly minted Presidential candidate has revived criticisms of armed forces policies that, to him, have prioritized equity over winning wars.

“Well, first, I think we need to look at what’s going on with the military right now. And I think the military that I see is different from the military I served in,” DeSantis said on “Fox and Friends.”

“I see a lot of emphasis now on political ideologies, things like gender pronouns. I see a lot about things like DEI, and I think that that’s caused recruiting to plummet. I think it’s driven off a lot of warriors, and I think morale is low,” DeSantis said.

The Governor has vowed to work against equity initiatives in the military, even saying he would act on his first day as President.

During an interview on Good Morning Orlando, the new Republican presidential candidate spotlighted DEI and using various gender pronouns as “nonsense” ripe for instant removal.

“I think it’s been politicized. I think you have a focus on things like DEI. A focus on things like gender pronouns. And that’s diverting from the core mission, and the core mission is really what attracts people to the military. So recruiting is suffering; people are leaving the service,” DeSantis said.

“One of the things I’ll do as President on Day One, you know, reassert the power of Commander in Chief, get all the nonsense out of the military, say this is going to be mission-focused again. And I think you’re going to see recruiting respond very, very positively, and I think you’ll see morale increase,” DeSantis added.

The Governor has spotlighted these and other culture war issues as reasons people aren’t signing up for the armed forces.

“You see them recruiting with, like, using drag queens and doing stuff with the pronouns and all this other stuff. That’s part of the main reason recruiting is so low,” DeSantis told podcaster Dinesh D’Souza this month.

DeSantis also discussed “drag queens” and other social trends troubling him in an Iowa stump speech.

“When you see videos of folks recruiting for the military services using things like drag queens, you know, that is just fundamentally wrong,” DeSantis said earlier this month at the Feenstra Family Picnic, a major confab of Iowa Republicans.

The U.S. Navy, where DeSantis served, used a drag queen as a “digital ambassador.” The service member, Joshua Kelley, performs as “Harpy Daniels.”

A.G. Gancarski

A.G. Gancarski has written for FloridaPolitics.com since 2014. He is based in Northeast Florida. He can be reached at [email protected] or on Twitter: @AGGancarski


8 comments

  • Josh Green

    May 30, 2023 at 8:46 pm

    Last week he was blaming Drag Queens, and today it’s this?

    Dude is all over the place. Does he even have an original thought in his head behind those blank eyes, or is just making up all this bull$h!t on the fly?

    • Michael K

      May 31, 2023 at 1:31 am

      I blame everything on cornholing, which is practiced widely in the Florida of the Midwest formerly known as an Iowa.

  • John Barron

    May 30, 2023 at 8:59 pm

    So… does this mean he’s acknowledging that climate change is real??!!

  • SteveHC

    May 30, 2023 at 11:23 pm

    Lol. That’s all I can say, guy’s gone nuts.

  • PeterH

    May 31, 2023 at 12:40 am

    Ron DeSantis Conspiracy Theory number 9 …..

    DeSantis has no evidence that global warming has anything to do with military enrollment.

  • Ocean Joe

    May 31, 2023 at 9:13 am

    Adults in the room understand that a warming planet, rising seas have consequences, result in upheaval and mass migration, not to mention impacts on agriculture, our food supply, our entire way of life. Glad our military is awake to all threats, not just those that shaped the 1950’s.
    As for the green energy movement, nobody ever said it was going to be free. The benefit of levelling off temperature rise to the world is a bit greater than squabbling about the price of gas at the pump.
    The more that comes out of this guy’s mouth, the less serious he can be taken as a presidential candidate, then again…Trump is still the king of nonsense,

  • Joe

    June 5, 2023 at 2:17 pm

    Anybody else playing culture-war BINGO everybtime Lil Ronnie starts talking about all those things Casey hates?

  • Aztecace

    June 10, 2023 at 11:18 am

    He may make it a priority, but he knows it takes an act of Congress, even though his real desire is to become dictator in chief, ruling by decree.

Comments are closed.


#FlaPol

Florida Politics is a statewide, new media platform covering campaigns, elections, government, policy, and lobbying in Florida. This platform and all of its content are owned by Extensive Enterprises Media.

Publisher: Peter Schorsch @PeterSchorschFL

Contributors & reporters: Phil Ammann, Drew Dixon, Roseanne Dunkelberger, A.G. Gancarski, Anne Geggis, Ryan Nicol, Jacob Ogles, Cole Pepper, Gray Rohrer, Jesse Scheckner, Christine Sexton, Drew Wilson, and Mike Wright.

Email: [email protected]
Twitter: @PeterSchorschFL
Phone: (727) 642-3162
Address: 204 37th Avenue North #182
St. Petersburg, Florida 33704




Sign up for Sunburn


Categories