PHILADELPHIA, Pa.—The Moms for Liberty “Joyful Warriors” National Summit in Philadelphia kicked off its first full day Friday with three headliner speakers, Republican presidential candidates Ron DeSantis in the morning, Nikki Haley mid-morning and former President Donald Trump closing out the day.
It was a rare, early chance to see the candidates live and compare their messages on the same day.
Each was met with enthusiasm, but the strongest reaction went to Trump, with summit attendees offering the longest-standing ovation when Trump entered and exited the event. Most of the room had their cell phones out, snapping photos of Trump, whereas more folks kept their phones in their pocket during the other two speakers.Trump’s New Education Promise
Perhaps the biggest applause in Trump’s speech came when he announced his plans for education.“I’ve laid out the most aggressive plan to liberate our children from the Marxist, lunatics, and perverts who have infested our nation,” Trump said. “I want to move our education system back to the states.”
The U.S. spends more per student than other countries, Trump said, yet other countries see better outcomes for their students.
He seeks to reward good teachers with merit-based pay, and he would advocate for school principals to be elected to office by parents so bad principals can be removed.
“This will be the ultimate form of local control and parental rights,” Trump said, noting that it is hard to believe a fight for parental rights is necessary. “They want to take your children away from you,” he said.
“I will take historic action to defeat the toxic poison of gender ideology,” Trump said. He would have all federal agencies cease the promotion of sex or gender transition at any agency.
And any hospital or healthcare provider that participates in a chemical or physical mutilation will no longer meet federal health and safety standards, Trump said. They will be terminated from receiving federal funding.
“I'll ask Congress to send a bill to my desk prohibiting child sexual mutilation in all 50 states,” Trump said.
He would also direct the relevant agencies to investigate whether big pharmaceutical and health care systems illegally marketed puberty blockers and other unapproved uses of those drugs.
Trump, who appointed four Supreme Court Justices during his four-year term, said he was pleased with major decisions the court announced this week, including the ruling on affirmative action that will no longer allow colleges to consider race when considering eligibility for acceptance into the school.
“If you’ve worked hard and gotten fantastic grades and all the other various things, somebody that hasn’t done nearly as well, who perhaps has not worked as hard, will not be taking your place at a school, college or university,” Trump said.
The court also struck down President Joe Biden’s plan to pay off college loans.
“This was a way to buy votes. That’s all it is,” Trump said, noting that a year ago, the Supreme Court turned over Roe. V. Wade, sending abortion laws back to states.
“People that believe in life will be able to stop the radical left Democrats from killing babies in their fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth, ninth month,” he said.
DeSantis Speaks
The DeSantis speech focused on education and parenting.“Parents have the fundamental right to direct their children’s education,” DeSantis said to a round of applause.
In Florida, DeSantis said, they are actively involved in rejecting textbooks that include ideological indoctrination, which he said is seen in social studies and even math books.
He has received pushback for such policies from the left, which claims he is banning books. It is the same criticism Moms for Liberty faces; some protesters outside the event held signs saying, “Moms should try reading books instead of banning them”.
“They have these books like ‘Gender Queer.’ They have hardcore pornography that talks about paedophilia. They have a book in Florida instructing middle schoolers how to use sex apps on their phones,” DeSantis said.
“This is totally inappropriate, and so parents blow the whistle, and obviously, no one defends this, and so it gets removed. Now the left and the media tries to say that means you’re banning books. Let me tell you something, in Florida you can buy any of those books if you want. There’s not been a single book that’s been banned. Schools have to curate what’s in a library or what’s in a classroom, and they make decisions about that.”
For example, he said, you may have one book on George Washington, but there are 50 others you could have. “It doesn’t mean you’re banning the other 50. You’re making a judgement about what’s appropriate,” he said.
“To use tax dollars to bring that type of garbage into our schools is fundamentally wrong,” DeSantis said.
“The only reason you would not want the parents involved is that you want to shut them off from knowing what the curriculum is because you’re worried that the parents represent an impediment to you using the schools to advance your agenda.”
The idea that someone would instruct a second-grade student that their gender is a choice or that they were born in the wrong body is wrong, he said.
“We oppose the sexualization of children,” DeSantis said. “And if anybody, or any institution, seeks to rob our children of their innocence on those principles, we will never compromise.”
He spoke of protecting women’s sports from infiltration by transgender men, school choice, and requiring college professors to undergo a review every five years.
“It is important that we recognize that we need to be rooted in truth. Men can’t have babies, and babies aren’t born racist. None of that is true. And so we’re not going to let our society function on the false premises of woke ideology,” DeSantis said.
Haley Says Woman’s Concerns Beyond Parenting
Boys playing in girls’ sports is the woman’s issue of our time, Haley said.“We have to fight for our girls,” she said.
But women are also concerned about issues beyond parenting, such as security at the border. Haley said she had travelled 400 miles along the southern border.
“You’re not ready for what I saw,” Haley said. “Mounds of clothes. Mounds of shoes. Paraphernalia. Rape areas that the women and girls have to walk through.”
In the mornings, rangers scout the border areas, looking for anyone who died in nighttime crossings.
Then they round up any illegal immigrants and turn them over to border patrols, Haley said.
She said that illegal immigrants are given some documents, a court date several years from now, and told to return for court.
“Five million illegal immigrants. We had enough Fentanyl come over the border last year to kill every single American,” Haley said. “And don’t think for a second China doesn’t know what they’re doing when they send it over.”
She would defund sanctuary cities and return to Trump’s “remain in Mexico” policy. “And instead of catch and release, we will start to catch and deport.”
Haley said she tackled education as governor of South Carolina.
She said that children who can’t read by the fourth grade are four times less likely to graduate, adding that to help struggling students, the state’s schools offered reading remediation programs, worked with parents, and provided summer reading programs.
“We started setting our kids up for success. We need to do that across the country,” Haley said. “We have one job. And that’s to make sure that we give our kids the best education, the best opportunities, and the freedom to do and be anything they want without anyone getting in the way. There is no reason school bureaucrats should hide what they teach. What they say or what they know from us when it comes to our kids.”
Parents should send children to the school of their choice, and more vocational classes should be taught in high school.
“When it comes to our universities, we’re going to say, you either take Chinese money or American money, but the days of taking both are over,” Haley said.
