DALLAS — Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, Friday evening, made no explicit indication of his ambitions for 2028 at the State Freedom Caucus Network summit’s second annual dinner, but his remarks about reshaping the state’s electorate sounded like a stump speech, attendees said.

“Looks like [Desantis] is running for president again,” one dinner guest from Florida said.
 
Another dinner attendee from Louisiana agreed Mr. DeSantis’ remarks sounded like a campaign speech, but that the Florida governor has a tough hill to climb with Vice President J.D. Vance as the “heir apparent” to the GOP nomination.
 
Mr. DeSantis, a founding member of the House Freedom Caucus, told the over 100 lawmakers from 13 state legislatures representing their own freedom caucuses and their guests, that since he was elected twice as Florida’s governor, the state has welcomed more registered GOP voters as he has instituted a more aggressive conservative agenda.
 
“When I got elected, there were 300,000 more registered Democrats in Florida, and we had never had more registered Republicans in state history,” Mr. DeSantis said. “That’s 2018. Today, we have 1.3 million more registered Republicans than Democrats. That’s because people respond to results, and it’s important. But what we’re doing in the States is we are proving that these principles work, and we are showing how a Republican form of government can be preserved and how freedoms can be protected for future generations.”

Mr. DeSantis, who is term-limited as governor, recalled Florida as one of the most competitive states politically in the country for decades, but that has changed since he came to the governor’s mansion.

“Every race last decade, 2010, ’12, ‘14, ‘16, and then my election in ’18. One point races sometimes. Mine was even less, and Florida was like, ‘Oh, it’s a delicate balance,’” he said.

 “And I’m here to tell you we then said, we win this big, 20-point victory. What that shows you is that bold conservative policies work.”

Mr. DeSantis boasted about his accomplishments in the state, including his recent victory in an appeals court that will allow Florida to continue operating the state’s “Alligator Alcatraz,” a first-of-its-kind detention facility in the Everglades that houses and deports illegal immigrants rounded up under the Trump administration’s push to increase deportations.

“We just had a leftist judge say, ‘You can’t do that because you didn’t do an environmental impact statement.’ First of all, state government doesn’t have to do that. And so the media was like, ‘Oh they built this, and now it’s closed. I’m like, ‘It’s not closed. We’re still doing it…Deportations are continuing…we’ve been through this song and dance before,” Mr. DeSantis said.

 “Every time I get out of bed in the morning, I get sued by the left. You can’t be worried about getting sued. That’s what they’re going to do. And they go to liberal judges, and we know, based on the judge, we have no chance in the trial court, and so we know we’ll just win on appeal. So that’s exactly what happens here.”

Another deportation facility opened outside Jacksonville and another facility is intended to be built in the state’s Northwest Panhandle.

Other conservative policy reforms in the state, Mr. DeSantis touted he attributed to the GOP’s success in Florida include universal school choice, educational curriculum transparency, efforts to eliminate “gender ideology” and DEI in schools, demanding tenured professors at public universities undergo review and keeping the state open during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“I’m proud to say that of all the things we’ve done, probably the most impactful was the state of Florida was the most responsible of any entity in this country for dragging this country out of the lockdowns and the mandate,” he said when telling the state lawmakers that not every conservative policy decision will be initially received in a positive light. “Of course, kids should have been in school. Of course you shouldn’t mandate masks.”

“I’ve gotten involved in a lot of very hot button issues, and I’ve taken a lot of incoming fire in my time. If you add up all the incoming fire that I’ve taken throughout my entire career in elected office, and compared to the incoming fire that I received,” he said, “Just for covid…I got more for just covid than everything else combined.”

Nevertheless, the Florida governor said he was ultimately vindicated and his decisions were “the best, most positive, consequential decisions for the lives of the people I represented.”

Mr. DeSantis is currently getting blowback for recently proposing to make Florida the first state to end all vaccine mandates, including for schoolchildren.

During his remarks, he said the state is “leaning on medical freedom” and that his administration does not believe that government should coerce anyone when it comes to medical intervention.

 “You have a right to exercise informed consent and make the best decision for yourself and your family, and the laws of the state of Florida reflects that.”

While the Florida governor’s agenda appeared on track with President Trump’s, Mr. DeSantis seemed suspicious about the rapid change with artificial Intelligence among tech giant CEO that the Trump administration has recently embraced.

“I think we need to recognize that there’s a lot of changes afoot in society with respect to artificial intelligence. I welcome technology that will enhance the human experience,” Mr. DeSantis said. “I do not welcome things that are going to supplant the human experience. We can’t rely on machines to totally take away our responsibility to think for ourselves.”

Mr. DeSantis said his administration is working on an artificial intelligence individual bill of rights that have the protections against some of these technologies “if they run amok.”

“I understand we’re in a new world. I understand things are changing, but I want to be governed by ‘We the People.’ I do not want to be governed by a handful of oligarchs in Silicon Valley.”

• Kerry Picket can be reached at kpicket@washingtontimes.com.