Gov. Ron DeSantis

Gov. Ron DeSantis announced he was running for president Wednesday on Twitter after he signed a law allowing him to continue serving as governor of Florida while seeking the office.

In a fiery speech that began after a long delay due to technical difficulties on Twitter, DeSantis painted a gloomy vision of the country “going in the wrong direction,” speaking of cities “hollowed out by spiking crime,” of broken borders, and “drugs pouring into the country” while deriding institutions focused on “global warming or gender ideology.”

“We will never surrender to the woke mob,” DeSantis said, in a phrase that he has commonly used during his governorship. DeSantis touted a law and order message and blamed President Joe Biden for declining military recruitment numbers. Speaking of global warming and gender ideology, DeSantis said “We need to eliminate these distractions.”

In a message signaling former President Donald Trump, his main competitor in the Republican primaries, DeSantis called on primary voters to reject a “culture of losing that has infected the Republican Party” and said “governing is not entertainment.”

“Law and order must be maintained in American cities. We can’t have inmates running the asylum,” DeSantis said. DeSantis said he would “shut down the southern border” and build a wall.

In a broadcast with Twitter owner Elon Musk and entrepreneur David Sacks who share many of the views of DeSantis, DeSantis took questions about some of the issues he has made prominent in Florida, including bans on teaching critical race theory and altering curriculum in schools and limiting which books can be used and read in schools.

DeSantis took questions on his war with Disney over taking over control of their special district.

“The arrangement had outlived its usefulness,” DeSantis said.

“There was really no justification to keep it.”

DeSantis boasted Florida’s economy and the state’s lead in net migration, saying “people were making money hands over fists because of our business climate.”

On illegal immigration, DeSantis spoke up his efforts to use state law enforcement resources to relocate migrants in Texas to Martha’s Vineyard.

DeSantis announced his run for the presidency on the day he signed legislation that will make it much tougher for Florida citizens and environmental groups to sue government bodies over approvals of real estate developments by making it easier for the groups to be responsible for the attorney fees of the municipalities and developers. The bill had been strongly opposed by environmental groups.

DeSantis confidently predicted that he would win the presidency and told Republican primary voters to set their clocks to noon on Jan 20, 2025 when he said he would enter the White House.