The Florida Governor announced his decision not to send National Guard troops to Washington to help with logistics around President Joe Biden’s speech.
“Last week, the Biden administration requested the assistance of State National Guards to deploy to Washington, D.C. I have rejected this request — there will be no Florida Guard sent to D.C. for Biden’s State of the Union,” DeSantis tweeted.
Though the Governor discussed the State of the Union during remarks in Indian River County Monday, he did not describe further his refusal to deploy Florida Guard members.
A total of 700 unarmed troops were authorized by the Pentagon last week, amid concerns about traffic and logistics relative to what a Pentagon spokesperson called the “potential challenges stemming from possible disruptions at key traffic arteries” that could be created by a Canadian-style “trucker convoy.”
Interestingly, the Governor has taken positions supportive of these protests.
“Truckers in North America are standing united to protest heavy-handed mandates from liberal politicians with a ‘Freedom Convoy,'” asserted a Feb. 4 email from the Governor’s re-election campaign. That email’s title: “We stand with freedom freighters.”
“We stand with the freedom freighters who are standing up to the heavy-handed mandates and power grabs from authoritarian officials obsessed with their newly sequestered power,” the email added.
A second campaign email, entitled “Truck Yeah,” hit the same points.
“In protest of a vaccine mandate imposed on unvaccinated truckers in Canada, the ‘Freedom Convoy’ was formed. Truckers are driving cross-country to protest the authoritarian edicts. People have realized if they don’t speak up and demand their freedoms, these tyrants will never give back the power they have seized,” DeSantis contended.
Last week, the Biden Administration requested the assistance of State National Guards to deploy to Washington D.C. I have rejected this request — there will be no @FLGuard sent to D.C. for Biden’s State of the Union.
— Ron DeSantis (@GovRonDeSantis) February 28, 2022
This article first appeared at Florida Politics.
