ORLANDO, Fla. — Gov. Ron DeSantis still isn’t ready to announce any presidential plans despite another Republican jumping into the race.
The governor on Tuesday also tried to deflect controversy over school library books, including one on baseball legend Roberto Clemente that was removed in Duval County.
At an event in Jacksonville, a reporter brought up Nikki Haley, a former South Carolina governor and U.S. ambassador to the United Nations who launched a bid Tuesday for the GOP nomination for president in 2024.
Asked if he was planning on following suit, DeSantis responded, “Wouldn’t you like to know?”
The answer drew laughter and applause from supporters, crowds of which he routinely gathers for news conferences.
DeSantis is reportedly building a campaign behind the scenes in preparation for a widely expected presidential bid, with an announcement that could come in May after the Legislature’s regular session ends.
Even though he hasn’t officially declared a bid for the White House, DeSantis has been continuously attacked by former President Donald Trump since Trump’s reelection launch in November.
Trump has said DeSantis has been “disloyal,” criticized his COVID-19 shutdown in 2020, and called him “Ron DeSanctimonious.” The New York Times reported his latest nickname for the governor is “Meatball Ron.”
DeSantis was also asked about Duval County schools putting more than a million books up for review to make sure they meet new state guidelines, including more than 100 books seemingly permanently removed.
DeSantis said images of empty bookshelves were a “fake narrative,” adding, “nothing that we’ve done since I’ve been governor has done anything (like) that. There is a longstanding Florida law that prohibits an adult from giving a school child pornography. … So I think they’re trying to do things to virtue-signal. I think it’s all politically motivated.”
But Duval Schools wrote in January that because of the “anti-woke” law pushed through by DeSantis last year, new guidance from the state requires books be free not only of pornography, but also “discrimination in such a way that ‘an individual, by virtue of his or her race, color, sex, or national origin is inherently racist or oppressive, whether consciously or unconsciously.’”
In Duval, according to the nonprofit group PEN America, more than 30 of the 176 books seemingly on permanent bans were by Hispanic authors or about Hispanic characters and people, including “Roberto Clemente: Pride of the Pittsburgh Pirates” by Jonah Winter and Raúl Colón.
The book describes the discrimination Clemente experienced as a Black Puerto Rican playing in 1950s and 1960s America, which could have triggered its removal under the new guidance.
Asked specifically about the Clemente book, DeSantis called it “politics” and claimed without providing any evidence that school unions were “doing it unilaterally to try to create an issue.”
DeSantis said state education officials are willing to help school boards decide what is appropriate.
“Our Department of Education will be working very quickly, if they need any type of advice on that,” DeSantis said.
