Ron DeSantis pillories Chicago, San Francisco in New Hampshire stop

Ron DeSantis denounced two liberal cities in a trip to a rural town in the Granite State.

In front of a crowd in Hollis, New Hampshire, the 2024 presidential candidate dunked on San Francisco and Chicago, the latest in his series of cautionary tales against liberal jurisdictions.

“I’ll tell you, it’s personally shocking when you roll into San Francisco and within five minutes, you see somebody defecate on the sidewalk. Then you see people doing, smoking crack, you see people doing fentanyl, you see all this and all these businesses boarded up, energy from the place is totally sapped, no vitality,” DeSantis lamented.

“And this used to be one of the great cities in America.”

The Governor has invoked the alleged street defecator at least twice in the last week.

“Don’t tell me it doesn’t affect people’s lives. I was just in San Francisco. I saw — in 20 minutes on the ground — people defecating on the sidewalk. I saw people using fentanyl. I saw people smoking crack right there in the open, right there on the street. It was a civilization in decay,” the Governor said at a Faith & Freedom Coalition event Friday.

“We saw people defecating on the street. We saw people using heroin, we saw people smoking crack cocaine,” DeSantis added in a campaign ad. “The city is not vibrant anymore. It’s really collapsed because of leftist policies, and these policies have caused people to flee this area. They don’t prosecute criminals like they do in most parts of the country, and the wreckage is really sad to see.”

The Governor also turned his attention to Chicago, another familiar target of attack.

“I just look at real estate values in Naples,” DeSantis quipped. “When those are going up, I know Chicago has done something stupid again and people are fleeing. So that’s what’s happened. They had a horrible run under their Mayor (Lori Lightfoot) and how do they respond? They elect somebody even more left than the current Mayor,” DeSantis said, referring to the recent election of Brandon Johnson.

“That is not going to work. Crime, I think, has already started to shoot up even above what it was because the attitude is like, you know what, let the inmates run the asylum,” DeSantis continued. “That does not work.”

DeSantis also vowed if elected President to “liberate” students in Chicago and Baltimore from teachers’ unions, with access to school choice.

The Governor has taken his Chicago chiding literally around the world, even warning Japanese businessmen about the city’s problems during his global trip this year.