WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. — The new bookfrom Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, released Tuesday, is generating a wide range of reactions, especially since it may signal a run for president.
"I think DeSantis' appeal is carrying nationally," Michael Barnett, chair of the Palm Beach County Republican Party, said. "Republicans across the country, they wish they had Gov. DeSantis as their governor. I hear it all the time from my friends in California and New York."
The book covers DeSantis' upbringing and his first term as Florida governor, including his handling of the COVID-19 pandemic and Disney.
DeSantis sums up his first term in the epilogue by writing: "We also refused to bow down to the woke mob and fought ideological capture of our schools and fought back against big corporations that pursued a leftist agenda."
"He's looking for an extension of power to create a fascist state," Rolando Chang Barrero of the Palm Beach County Hispanic Democrats said. "Antisemitism is on the rise, anti-gay, anti-trans, anti-Black, everything is on the rise, and we can no longer afford to work individually. We have to work as a group to fight back in this state."
DeSantis has not yet said if he will run for president. He begins a book tour Wednesday night in West Palm Beach. The event at the Palm Beach County Convention Center is sold out and not open to the public or the press, according to the governor's office.