Ron DeSantis Wasted $1 6 Million Trying To Learn About Foreign Policy

The month before he officially entered the presidential race, Florida governor Ron DeSantis went on a week-long tour overseas, trying to meet with foreign leaders and learn how foreign policy actually works. That trip cost Florida taxpayers a staggering $1.6 million, and most of that money - well over a million dollars - was just on the private plane that took DeSantis and his wife on their world tour. This information is only now coming available because Florida Republicans passed a law earlier this year shielding the governor's travel records. Ring of Fire's Farron Cousins explains what happened.

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*This transcript was generated by a third-party transcription software company, so please excuse any typos.

Ron DeSantis campaign, according to recent reports, is, is pretty much on life support at this point. He is now struggling to raise money. He's had a lot of high profile donors pull out, and it was revealed recently that he also wasted $1.6 million from a group called Enterprise Florida that's now defunct. But back in April, Ron DeSantis went on a little bit of a world tour. Him and his wife, they went to countries like Japan, South Korea, Israel, England, you know, they were, they were trying to bolster his foreign policy credentials before he officially announced that he was running for president. This was April. He announced in May the trip cost $1.6 million. And that group Enterprise Florida swears that, oh, no, no, no, no, no, no. There was no taxpayer money used to fund any of it. We got all this from private donations.

Okay. So reporters said, well, cool. Who, which, like, who are the donors? That's what Politico asked Enterprise Florida. Even though they're defunct, they're like, okay, but, but who are the donors then Enterprise Florida, or at least what's left of it didn't respond. So they insist that no tax dollars were used on this trip for Ron DeSantis to learn foreign policy, and then they refuse to tell us where any of the money came from, which totally makes their story 100% believable, right, folks. Not to mention the fact that earlier this year, the Republicans who do whatever Ron DeSantis wants them to do actually pass legislation, shielding the governor's travel records from the public. So if tax dollars were in fact used for this, we would not know. So it's easy for Enterprise Florida to claim that, oh, no, no tax dollars were used when they know that we actually cannot look up to see if tax dollars were used. So we don't know what the truth is. Were these private donations?

Was this, I mean, was this my tax dollars? Did I blow $1.6 million? I haven't paid that much in taxes for Ron DeSantis to try to learn how to be a leader. God, I hope not. But here's the thing. Here's how that money breaks down. Okay? $1.6 million wasted for this idiot to learn foreign policy. 1.49 million was spent on transportation. So you spent 1.6 and 1.5 of that was just on the private jet that flew you around to all these places. $66,000 was spent on hotels and 10,000 was on food, and another 20,000 paid for quote programs and mission administration. So that's, that's where all the money went, right? We had a lot of food. We stayed in some hotels. Oh, and, uh, yeah, we, uh, uh, spent $1.5 million on private jet. You better hope that money is from private

Donors, because if those were our tax dollars being spent for this idiot to go and try to learn how to do foreign policy, then there's gonna be some pretty off people down in the state of Florida. I can promise you that. But again, thanks to those Republicans in Tallahassee, we may never know where this money came from, which is exactly why they passed that law in the first place. Oh, and for the record, yes, that 1.6 million was wasted because R DeSantis campaign is going down in flames. So looks like he and his wife just got a bit of a world tour for nothing more than their enjoyment.