Ron DeSantis is continuing to rip protesters who have charged him with being funded by oil companies, questioning their timing during remarks Saturday in Iowa.
"We were doing stuff the other day and we have these young people, I think they're from like Seattle or some, I don't think they're from Iowa, but they're protesting and screaming and trying to rush the stage," DeSantis said.
"I was on Fox News during a town hall on Tuesday and they rushed, tried to rush me, they tried to rush me the next day and it's all about, you know, kind of the global warming and attacking me saying, you know, you know, oil is bad, all this stuff. And I'm just thinking to myself, I'm like, you know, you know, you shouldn't be behaving like that, first of all, but second of all, you know, if you are going to come out and try to protest global warming, you may not want to try to do that in the middle of a blizzard."
The Governor made the comments in Council Bluffs at an event put on by the Never Back Down super PAC. They aren't his first comments about global warming or climate change, of course.
DeSantis previously told Iowans that the military's focus on "global warming" is a reason recruiting has fallen off, and he vows to "eliminate" such "distractions" if elected President.
"And it pains me when we see revered institutions like our very own military become more concerned with matters that are not central to the mission, whether it's global warming or gender ideology or pronouns, morale is declining, and recruiting is suffering. We need to eliminate these distractions, and we need to get focused on the core mission at hand," DeSantis said in May.
Meanwhile, he's taken a number of positions on climate change and global warming.
In December, he told an Iowa reporter that human activities are a factor in the changing climate. Yet back in 2019, the newly-inaugurated DeSantis dodged a question about whether he agreed with many scientists "that humans cause climate change" by simply calling out for the "next question" at a gaggle.
During a debate back in August, co-host Martha MacCallum of Fox News called for a show of hands from candidates who think Earth's rising tides and record heat waves are human-made.
DeSantis rejected MacCallum's request before any candidate hoisted their arm, explaining that he and his candidates are "not schoolchildren" and should "have the debate" on the subject.
"I don't think that's the way to do it," he said of Martha's phrasing, before pivoting to an attack on President Joe Biden's response to the deadly fires in Maui and touting his own action following Hurricane Ian's devastation of Southwest Florida last year.
DeSantis stuck to his guns in the wake of President Joe Biden claiming that Hurricane Idalia's impacts were exacerbated by climate change this year as well.
"I studied history and they act like this is somehow unprecedented," DeSantis said during a Fox News interview. "It's not."
"This area, the Big Bend, got hit by a storm, almost the exact same track in 1896 that had 125-mile-per-hour winds. So the idea that we've not had powerful storms until recently, that's just not factually true. And so when they, that's the first thing they want to say, you have to ask, why are they trying to politicize the weather?"
DeSantis groused about "politicizing the weather" during a state press conference shortly before the TV hit. He condemned "people trying to take what's happened with different types of storms and use that as a pretext to advance their agenda on the backs of people that are suffering and that's wrong and we're not going to do that in the state of Florida."
Thus far, he's dealt with protesters twice, including once after the Fox News event.
In Ames on Thursday, DeSantis was accused of taking money from the fossil fuel industry.
"This is wrong with the college system right there. That's exhibit A," DeSantis said. "He was stumbling around to get his flag out. He telegraphed that a mile away."
On Fox Tuesday, he dealt with what appeared to be a few people chanting "no oil money" during a town hall characterized otherwise by friendly questions and few moments where the Republican presidential hopeful was challenged off script.
"You live and you learn with these people," DeSantis quipped as they were ushered away. "Well, you guys. That was a mistake. You didn't get that one right."
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