Florida governor Ron DeSantis launched into an impassioned defense of his one-time political rival at the start of his Republican National Convention speech: “Let’s send Joe Biden back to his basement, and Donald Trump back to the White House.”
The Florida governor mocked President Joe Biden’s “Weekend at Bernie’s presidency,” in an apparent reference to the 1989 comedy in which the lead character who’s dead is being propped up.
“I am alarmed that the current president of the United States lacks the capability to discharge the duties of his office. Our enemies do not confine their designs to between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m.,” the Republican governor said. “We need a commander-in-chief who can lead 24 hours a day and seven days a week. America cannot afford four more years of a Weekend at Bernie’s presidency.”
Following his disastrous debate performance earlier this month, even some of the president’s allies have begun to question whether he has the vigor to serve a second term.
The president’s old age and mental decline have since come to the forefront of the Democratic Party’s concerns for his reelection bid, causing numerous Democrats to urge him to step down in favor of a younger replacement. DeSantis then focused his attention to Democrats more broadly, accusing progressive prosecutors of caring more about “coddling criminals than about protecting their own communities” and calling DEI “division, exclusion, and indoctrination” instead of diversity, equity, and inclusion.
By the end of the speech, he called on the convention audience to vote for Trump in November and make him “the 47th President of the United States.”
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