DeSantis’ BOSS response to Gov. Pritzker saying he’s not welcome in Illinois – dude sent his family to Fla during lockdowns!

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is a no-nonsense Navy veteran who has a tendency to land devastating political punches, a reality that Illinois Gov. JD Pritzker would learn the hard way.

DeSantis was the keynote speaker Friday at the Lincoln Day Dinner for Peoria and Tazewell counties, and Pritzker released a scathing statement essentially declaring the Republican persona non grata. The problem here is that the Democratic governor resides in a glass house and DeSantis soon sent it crashing to the ground.

“I’m a little disappointed your governor said I wasn’t welcome in Illinois,” DeSantis told dinner attendees. “Because I seem to remember when he was locking down this state, he sent his family to live in my state and live in our freedom.”

Speculation over whether DeSantis will run in 2024 or not is at a fever pitch, and while he has yet to make a declaration he hinted at the Lincoln Day event that there was more to come.

“I say to you this, decline is a choice, success is attainable and freedom is worth fighting for,” he told the crowd. “I’m proud of what we’ve done in Florida but I can tell you this, I have only begun to fight.”

Pritzker admitted in May 2020 that while he locked down Illinois with a “stay at home” order, his family was enjoying the freedom available in Florida. Citing safety concerns, he was tight-lipped about the trip, saying he was being “very private and very reserved” about his family “because there are threats to my safety and to their safety,” according to the Chicago Tribune.

“You have seen that there are people that stand outside the Thompson Center and stand outside the Capitol in Springfield, holding, I mean, hateful signs that reference me personally and that suggest, if not say, but suggest the potential for violence,” Pritzker said.

The Illinois governor did not pull any punches in last week’s statement.

“DeSantis swears that he is fighting to protect people’s ‘freedoms’, but he has no problem taking away their reproductive rights, attacking schools and libraries to limit what parents and teachers want for their students, disregarding the humanity of LGBTQ people and failing to protect people of color seeking to live free from discrimination,” the statement said.

“DeSantis has made a career of punching down and othering anyone who doesn’t subscribe to his petty tyranny, which makes him a natural fit for the GOP’s Lincoln Day dinner,” he continued, before adding, “In Illinois, we reject the cruelty he espouses and stand firmly against his hateful agenda.”

You may recall that Gov. DeSantis dropped another money line in Jan. 2022 when U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., escaped Covid restrictions in New York to go party in Miami.

“If I had a dollar for every lockdown politician who decided to escape to Florida over the last two years, I’d be a pretty doggone wealthy man,” DeSantis quipped at the time.

Here’s a quick sampling of responses to the story from Twitter:

Tom Tillison

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