Loomer Unleashed - July 12, 2023


How Ron DeSantis Appropriated MILLIONS of Dollars from Trump Supporters to Attack MAGA

Hosted by
Laura Loomer
Mentioned
Donald Trump Cord Bird Paul Renner Andrew Gillum Joe Biden Getter
Florida GOP Tries To Rig 2024 Election For DeSantis With Unconstitutional Loyalty Oath Mike Lindell Explains Why Ron DeSantis Must NEVER Be President

Episode Stats


Length

10 minutes

Words per minute

163.92

Word count

1,672

Sentence count

70

Harmful content

Hate speech

1

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

During the 2022 election, when he was running for re-election as Governor of Florida for another four-year term, Ron DeSantis actually broke fundraising records when it comes to gubernatorial elections. He raised over $200 million and spent over $100 million for his gubernatorial campaign, which was the most money ever spent for a gubernatorial race in the history of the country. But after the race ended, people began to question why he needed to spend so much money on his campaign and what exactly was he going to do with it.

Transcript

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Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
Hosts, guests, and mentioned names generated with spaCy (en_core_web_sm), reconciled against Wikidata.
00:00:02.000 Hey everybody, welcome to a new episode of Loomer Unleashed.
00:00:05.000 I'm your host, Laura Loomer.
00:00:06.000 And on today's episode, we're going to talk about how Ron DeSantis deceptively fundraised and then weaponized millions of dollars from Trump supporters during the 2022 election, only to turn around and use that money to attack President Donald Trump, pay off the Florida Speaker of the House,
00:00:23.000 and also change Florida's election laws.
00:00:26.000 Presidential campaigns are expensive.
00:00:28.000 That is an undeniable fact.
00:00:30.000 But what's also an undeniable fact is the fact that fundraising numbers can easily be distorted and manipulated to make a candidate appear stronger than they really are.
00:00:40.000 And that's exactly what's happening in the case of Ron DeSantis' presidential campaign.
00:00:45.000 During the 2022 election, when he was running for re-election as governor of Florida for another four-year term, Ron DeSantis actually broke fundraising records when it comes to gubernatorial elections.
00:00:56.000 He raised over $200 million and spent over $100 million for his gubernatorial re-election.
00:01:04.000 It was the most money ever spent for a gubernatorial race in this country, and it left a lot of people asking questions when the race ended.
00:01:12.000 What exactly does Ron DeSantis need an extra $100 million for?
00:01:16.000 And what's he going to do with this money now that he has successfully won re-election for a second term as Florida's governor?
00:01:23.000 But if you're a reader of my Substack and you've been following me and my reporting for the last two years, then you're ahead of the curve because you know that Ron DeSantis has been plotting a presidential run for the last two years.
00:01:33.000 And that's exactly what he did.
00:01:35.000 And that's why he made an effort to raise over $100 million more than he really needed to win re-election in 2022 because he's stockpiling that money for his presidential run.
00:01:46.000 Now, if you take a look at Ron DeSantis' fundraising numbers from 2022, then you'll see that majority of the donations came from Trump supporters.
00:01:53.000 Why is this?
00:01:54.000 Well, that's because Ron DeSantis only became a known entity in Republican politics after 2018 when President Donald Trump endorsed his failing gubernatorial run against Andrew Gillum and essentially dragged him across the finish line.
00:02:08.000 The same thing happened, of course, in 2022.
00:02:11.000 But of course, Ron DeSantis was more well known than he was in 2018.
00:02:15.000 But most of the donors are Trump supporters.
00:02:19.000 And so these people who donated the $200 million to Ron DeSantis in 2022 were hoping that their money was going to be used to support what they thought was an America first pro-Trump governor.
00:02:32.000 Now, their money, without their consent, is being used to attack President Donald Trump because just days before officially filing to run for president, Ron DeSantis had the name of his PAC, Friends of Ron DeSantis, changed to the Empower Parents PAC. And you can see this on the Division of Elections website.
00:02:51.000 They changed the name of it so that it wouldn't look like a Ron DeSantis PAC was transferring $82.5 million of funds that were left over from the 2022 election over to his presidential PAC called Never Back Down.
00:03:06.000 But that's exactly what happened.
00:03:08.000 And making this even more sketchy and more unethical, one day after they transferred the $82.5 million to the Never Back Down PAC, The Empower Parents PAC, otherwise known as the Friends of Ron DeSantis PAC, filed paperwork with the Division of Elections in Florida asking to officially disband the PAC. So now you can no longer see these records online.
00:03:32.000 You can see their previous expenditure reports, but the PAC no longer exists because if you look at the Division of Elections website, you'll see that Ron DeSantis took nearly $82.5 million of money sent by hard workers This is an incredible act of deception and corruption by Governor Ron DeSantis.
00:03:57.000 The expenditure reports from Ron DeSantis' PAC And some of the last transactions that were made before the PAC was completely shuttered following his announcement for president and the transfer of the $82.5 million to Never Back Down shows that an additional $1 million was transferred over to a newly propped up PAC that was created on May 8th of 2023.
00:04:19.000 This is the Empower Parents Florida PAC that is controlled by Speaker of the House Paul Runner.
00:04:25.000 And that matters because it really begs the question, was this $1 million transfer of funds to Paul Runner's newly propped up PAC a payoff or a form of bribery?
00:04:35.000 So that he could get the job done and get the Florida legislature to change Florida's resigned to run law?
00:04:40.000 What exactly does he need a million dollars for?
00:04:44.000 And why was the name created to match the name of Ron DeSantis' PAC as a way to turn people off from following this money trail?
00:04:53.000 And I personally think there needs to be an investigation by the U.S. Attorney's Office into Florida Speaker of the House Paul Renner because the people of Florida need to know what exactly was this $1 million for?
00:05:02.000 Not only was Ron DeSantis able to get Paul Renner to change Florida's resigned-to-run law, but he also was able to get his hand-selected and hand-appointed Secretary of State Cord Byrd, who he appointed in May of 2022, to change the Florida Political Handbook.
00:05:18.000 And what were the changes that he had Secretary of State Cord Bird make?
00:05:21.000 Well, the changes relate to the transfer of funds, specifically how funds could be transferred from state political entities over to entities outside of the state.
00:05:31.000 DeSantis and Bird's altering of the Florida Political Committee Handbook is significant as it covers this specific kind of transferring of funds that Ron DeSantis and his allies are counting on throughout the 2024 election, So that they can secure the nomination for Ron DeSantis and send him to the White House.
00:05:47.000 In fact, the rule changes by DeSantis and Byrd has already prompted the Campaign Legal Center, a watchdog group, to file an official complaint with the Federal Election Commission regarding the legality of the nearly $83 million of donations that were transferred from DeSantis' state PAC To his presidential PAC,
00:06:04.000 Never Back Down, for the sake of attacking President Donald Trump.
00:06:07.000 If you read the complaint, you'll see that it alleges that Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has violated federal campaign finance laws by directing and transferring over $80 million from his state PAC, Friends of Ron DeSantis, to the super PAC, Never Back Down.
00:06:21.000 How can Florida voters or voters all across the country trust that the Florida Republican presidential primary is going to be fair when Ron DeSantis has only centralized the amount of power that he has over Florida elections?
00:06:34.000 Previous versions of the Florida handbook stated, quote, a Florida political committee must use its funds solely for political activities.
00:06:42.000 However, the version for the 2024 cycle that was changed by Cord Bird at Ron DeSantis' request now states, quote, And what's even more sinister about this is these updates were made to the Florida Political Handbook in March of 2023,
00:07:04.000 which happens to be the same exact time that the Never Back Down PAC was created to support Ron DeSantis' presidential campaign.
00:07:12.000 Gee, what a coincidence.
00:07:14.000 And then shortly after, just two months later, Ron DeSantis officially filed to run for president, and what do you know, his Ron DeSantis has a history of changing Florida laws for his own benefit.
00:07:34.000 His continued financial entanglement with the Florida GOP is not only unethical but it's highly questionable.
00:07:39.000 Additionally, last week, the Florida GOP announced a change of rules for candidates who wish to be on the ballot for the presidential primary.
00:07:46.000 Combined with their last minute rule changes, if you want to get access to the ballot, along with their financial entanglement, as is seen in these expenditure reports with Ron DeSantis' presidential campaign, the Florida Republican Party has a lot of questions to answer.
00:08:00.000 Ron DeSantis has weaponized the Florida government and the Republican Party of Florida for the sake of rigging the Florida Republican primary to not only benefit himself, but to also buy off loyalty from key state and election officials within the Republican Party of Florida.
00:08:14.000 If Republican voters are truly focused on combating the weaponization of government, well, they need not look any further than the administration of Ron DeSantis.
00:08:22.000 Because clearly, just like Joe Biden, Ron DeSantis has no problem bending the rules and enriching himself, his family, and his political allies so long as the price and the long-term political payoff are just right.
00:08:43.000 It's free to subscribe, but if you want to support my independent journalism, you can subscribe for $7 a month or $70 a year.
00:08:51.000 Also, please be sure that you're following me on Twitter, Gab, Getter, and Truth Social at Laura Loomer.
00:08:58.000 I'd also like to take a moment to thank the sponsor of this episode of Loomer Unleashed, Goldco.
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