Ron DeSantis says legislators know he’d get cheered for vetoing TRUMP Act

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis continues to tub-thump against the TRUMP Act, a “grotesque” and  “weak, weak, weak” legislative bill fighting illegal immigration that he says he will veto if they ever send it his way.

As has been the case all week, DeSantis is delivering his verdict at press conferences, the latest in Destin on Friday where he urged legislators to buck Senate President Ben Albritton and House Speaker Daniel Perez. He suggested the bill hadn’t been transmitted yet because legislators can’t handle the rejection he believes will inevitably come.

“If this is such good legislation, why have they not sent me the bill yet to act on? Why are they holding the bill for me to act on? And I think the reason is because if we get the bill and we do an event where we have a lot of people and I veto the bill in front of this crowd, is the crowd going to cheer or is the crowd going to boo? The crowd’s going to cheer and we know that.”

DeSantis suggested that legislators were cowed by the power leadership has in the Senate and House.

“A lot of these guys get spooked by that… because they get a lot of pressure from the leadership. If you buck the leadership, they take away your committee assignments. They won’t hear your bills, they take away your projects. And a lot of these guys get spooked by that, although let me just tell you, you need to be willing to take consequences to stand to do what’s right. You shouldn’t let them bully you,” DeSantis said, before issuing a threat of his own.

“We’re going to get involved in some of these legislative primaries because I just think that if you’ve campaigned one way and you get up and you do something different, we need to expose that for the voters,” DeSantis said.

DeSantis’ frustration voiced Friday about legislators who “fall into line” under “pressure” to support a “jalopy” of a bill from legislative leadership didn’t stop there, as he said many in Tallahassee would vote for the “stronger” product he prefers.

“I’m so sick of politicians campaigning, telling you they’re going to be tough on it and then squish out,” DeSantis said, blasting Senate and House leaders for saying his call for a Special Session was a “stunt” and “premature” before not complying with enacting his proposals.

“They fought back, they had their excuses,” DeSantis said, accusing House and Senate leaders of creating legislation that “didn’t answer the call” and would make immigration enforcement less effect under “willing partner” Donald Trump than even under Joe Biden with current law.

“It actually undercuts what we’re already doing,” DeSantis said, citing Haiti as an example.

“We’ve interdicted thousands and thousands of illegals,” he said, “saving lives” from the contraband carried by refugees.

“The bill the Legislature sent me actually terminates the state of emergency,” he said, adding that it disempowers his authority as Governor.

“They eliminated any immigration enforcement from the Governor and state agencies … and they lodged it in the Commissioner of Agriculture,” DeSantis complained, reprising his “fox in the henhouse” harrumph about Wilton Simpson, the egg farmer from Trilby who would be charged with immigration enforcement in the legislature’s bill. DeSantis further lamented the legislature’s approach to immigration enforcement offers a “mother may I” process for coordination between state, local, and federal officials.

“The reason they did it,” he said, was to “stymie” immigration enforcement and allow illegal “cheap labor” for various industries under Simpson’s watch, creating a “massive corporate subsidy” with socialized costs “on our communities” via policy choices that would make Florida a “sanctuary state.”