As Ron DeSantis uses his new book release as a vehicle for his 2024 ambitions, what he chose to include in – and leave out of – the book are magnifying glasses into his long track record of pushing an extreme agenda and chasing after the MAGA base. 

Despite spending most of the book touting his red meat record as governor of Florida, DeSantis pointedly omits his signing of an extreme abortion ban with no exceptions for rape or incest – even as he’s pledged to go even further to sign anti-abortion legislation.

Florida Politics: “Gov. DeSantis ‘ready to sign’ abortion ‘heartbeat bill’”

The Daily Signal: “‘The upcoming 2023 Florida legislative session starts in March, and we look forward to working with the Florida Legislature to further advance protections for innocent life,’ [DeSantis’s] press secretary Bryan Griffin shared with The Daily Signal on Tuesday afternoon.”

Before he gets to his time as governor, DeSantis brags about being a founding member of the extreme right-wing House Freedom Caucus – but left out his record of supporting cuts to Social Security and Medicare.

P. 62: “To try to bring the House GOP in line with the aspirations of the voters who elected us, I joined a handful of my House colleagues to create the House Freedom Caucus… The handful of original members included future Trump director of the Office of Management and Budget Mick Mulvaney, future Trump White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, future Idaho attorney general Raúl Labrador, and Ohio congressman Jim Jordan.”

DeSantis is not shy about his admiration for Donald Trump and the MAGA agenda throughout the book, detailing his time seeking Trump’s endorsement and fiercely defending him to the public.

P. 78: “I knew that a Trump endorsement would provide me with exposure to GOP primary voters across the State of Florida, and I was confident that many would see me as a good candidate once they learned about my record. I had developed a good relationship with the president largely because I supported his initiatives in Congress and opposed the Russia collusion conspiracy theory.”

P. 79: “Early in the Trump administration, I was one of only a handful of Republicans willing to speak out publicly in defense of the president when it came to the allegations of Trump-Russia collusion.”

Before charting his current plot to try and make it easier for criminals to carry guns, DeSantis uses his book to flaunt his opposition to gun safety laws that were signed into law by the former Republican governor in the wake of the Parkland mass shooting.

P. 102: “The Florida Legislature responded to the tragedy by enacting a series of firearms restrictions, which my predecessor signed into law. I campaigned saying that I would have vetoed those restrictions on Second Amendment and constitutional due process grounds. This was a tough position to take, as it was a very emotional time, and there was a natural human desire to ‘do something’”

DeSantis heaps praise on his anti-vax, conspiracy theorist surgeon general who helped him deny Florida families access to COVID-19 vaccines for their young children.

P. 93: “As my tenure in office wore on, I became increasingly interested in personnel who had a good sense of the way corporate media pushes partisan narratives rather than report the facts, and who would be ready, willing, and able to withstand media smears. When I appointed Dr. Joe Ladapo to be Florida’s surgeon general, he had already written several articles challenging the prevailing narratives about COVID-19, from lockdowns to mask mandates to school closures.”

While he takes the time to boast about his voter fraud unit, DeSantis conveniently leaves out that many cases were thrown out.

P. 128: “To ensure that our reforms had teeth, I established the first-of-its-kind election integrity unit within state government with the responsibility for investigating election law violations and pursuing prosecutions of offenders… Within two months of the office being established, the state was able to bring charges against dozens of individuals who voted illegally,”

On top of all this, DeSantis defends the horrifying abuse and torture of detainees in the Abu Ghraib prison during the Iraq War.

P. 41: “Because the media had such a field day with Abu Ghraib, largely to further partisan attacks against the administration of George W. Bush, the detainees themselves knew that they could claim “abuse,” and that such allegations would throw sand in the gears of the operation, regardless of whether any abuse occurred.”

P. 41: “From listening to corporate media outlets at the time, one would have thought that the US detainee system, whether in Iraq or at the detention facility in Guantanamo Bay, resembled a Soviet gulag. In reality, detainees much preferred to be in US custody than in the custody of Iraqi authorities in places like Fallujah.”