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CHARLESTON, S.C. (WCSC) - Florida Governor and Republican presidential hopeful Ron DeSantis made a stop in the Lowcountry Friday night. DeSantis was the special guest at The Citadel Republican Society’s annual dinner. The dinner recognizes a national, state or local official who “embodies the selfless leadership of Nathan Hale” with the “Nathan Hale Patriot Award.”
Past recipients of the award include presidential hopefuls Nikki Haley and Donald Trump.
DeSantis said he was honored to receive the award and spoke for around a half hour at the event about what he thinks Republicans must do to get the United States back on track.
The governor laid out what eight years from now would look like if he were to serve two terms as president, explaining that “the American dream” would be restored.
“You’re not going to be held back by crippling inflation, by interest rates, by bureaucracy and red tape,” DeSantis said. “We’ll have opened up all of our domestic energy for production and we’ll have lowered energy prices across the board and be completely energy independent and energy dominant, and we will have disciplined congress so that they’re not spending us into oblivion any longer and we will be on a much better fiscal course.”
DeSantis said if elected, school systems will be dedicated to educating versus indoctrinating kids.
“Kids should be able to go to school, watch cartoons and just be kids without having an agenda shoved down their throats,” DeSantis said. “You should not be telling a kindergartener that they were born in the wrong body, and you should not be telling a third grader that their gender is a choice.”
He said right now, the U.S. is in jeopardy of being the first generation of Americans to turn over an America less prosperous and free to our kids and grandkids.
“If we do that, we will be the first generations of Americans to do so and that would be a total disgrace,” DeSantis said. “Our founding fathers understood, President Reagan articulated that freedom is just one generation away from extinction, it’s not something that’s passed along in the bloodstream.”
The dinner also recognized two cadets with scholarships.
The Henry E. Brown Republican Workhorse Award is presented to the cadet “who has worked the hardest for the Republican cause in Charleston.”
The Barrett-Buyer Republican Scholarship is given to a member of the society who has shown leadership in the club and in the South Carolina Corps of Cadets.
The dinner is a fundraiser for the club to send them to the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington D.C. every year.
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