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DeSantis defends removing prosecutor, open to drone strikes on Mexican cartels
The Florida governor and GOP presidential hopeful stopped in Coralville
Aug. 10, 2023 5:29 pm, Updated: Aug. 10, 2023 5:57 pm
CORALVILLE — Republican presidential candidate and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis defended his decision to suspend an elected top state prosecutor in Orlando, accusing her of incompetence and being lenient with violent criminals, a charge her office denies.
“You see these prosecutors who say they’re not going to prosecute people, they’re not going to hold them accountable,” DeSantis said Thursday during a campaign stop in Coralville. “ … She wouldn’t prosecute cases. She’s putting people out back on the street. This one guy shot two police officers, because he should have been in jail. And he’s out there. So I removed her from her post.”
DeSantis suspended Monique H. Worrell, the state attorney for Orange and Osceola counties, citing her handling of three cases and a low incarceration rate. One of the cases involved a man who shot and injured two Orlando police officers last weekend.
It is the second time in a year the Florida governor has removed an elected state attorney. Both were Democrats.
DeSantis and his wife, Casey, stopped Thursday in Coralville as part of a statewide bus tour hosted by super PAC Never Back Down ahead of his visit Saturday to the Iowa State Fair. About 100 people crammed into Iowa River Power Restaurant to see him.
DeSantis told the crowd he had a track record of delivering conservative wins — from enacting universal school choice legislation to expanding Second Amendment rights and banning the instruction of “critical race theory and gender ideology” in schools.
DeSantis also spoke about his response to the coronavirus pandemic, framing his decision-making as putting the good of his constituents over his political future. He used the topic as an opportunity to take aim at how former President Donald Trump’s administration handled the pandemic, blaming Dr. Anthony Fauci, a former top public health official, for overemphasizing lockdowns and restrictions early in the pandemic.
DeSantis also took aim at Democratic President Joe Biden over his economic and immigration policies, promising to reverse “Bidenomics” and unleashing U.S. energy production to help the United States become more energy independent.
His economic plan in part proposes wresting economic control from China by ending the nation’s preferential trade status, banning imports of goods made from stolen intellectual property and preventing companies from sharing critical technologies. He noted Florida passed legislation banning the purchase of all land by the Chinese Community Party, and favors legislation to limit Chinese purchase of U.S. farmland.
“Why would we want them to have a foothold in our food supply?” DeSantis asked.
DeSantis pledged, if elected, to put the military on the U.S.-Mexico border, build the border wall and authorize the use of “deadly force” against Mexican drug cartels. And said he was open to drone strikes on Mexican drug cartels.
What voters had to say
Steve Ruckdaschel is an undecided conservative Republican who caucused for Trump in 2016. He said he’s unlikely to do so again.
“I don’t think the former president is electable,” the Coralville retiree said while waiting for DeSantis at the restaurant. While he supports Trump’s policies, Ruckdaschel said the former president is too much of a “lightening rod” and too polarizing.
“I think he’s the present-day version of what Hillary Clinton was several years ago,” he said. “ … So I’m looking at the other candidates and paying attention to what they all have to say,” including DeSantis and former U.N. ambassador Nikki Haley.
Asked about the mounting legal battles and felony charges Trump faces, Ruckdaschel said he “doesn’t put much stock into it all.”
“I think there is an agenda … and made a much bigger issue,” he said of the most-recent indictment over Trump’s role in the Jan. 6, 2021 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.
Julia Bartsch, of Iowa City, said she, too, is undecided and “keeping her options open.”
“I think he appeals to a lot of conservatives in Iowa, because he stood his ground, you know, fighting against excessive COVID restrictions and things like that,” the 50-year-old teacher said of DeSantis. “I think he knows the system well. … Honestly, his history is one of his strongest assets.”
Bartsch said the economy is her No. 1 issue. “We need less involvement from the federal government,” she said. “I’m shocked at the way prices have gone up in this administration. My cost of living has increased a lot.”
Windschitl: Trump needs to stop insulting Iowans
Never Back Down on Thursday released an op-ed by Iowa House Majority Leader Matt Windschitl, a Republican from Missouri Valley who is among 39 state lawmakers who have endorsed DeSanits, attacking Trump for “insulting behavior towards Iowans” ahead of visiting the Iowa State Fair on Saturday.
“Donald Trump's refusal to participate in the Fair's signature campaign event shows his open contempt for Hawkeye State voters,” Windschitl wrote.
Trump won't participate in either the Des Moines Register's Political Soapbox or the "fair-side chat" series with Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds.
Comments: (319) 398-8499; tom.barton@thegazette.com
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