An alert reader referred Fig City News to this article in The Justice, the Brandeis University student newspaper, noting that Florida Governor Ron DeSantis spoke in Newton on Friday, October 13 at an event held at the Newton Marriott hotel. The event was a fundraiser for the Massachusetts Family Institute (MFI), a 501(c)(3) charitable organization founded in 1991. The MFI website contains several materials advocating for generally conservative views of family, sexuality, and religious issues.
Information regarding DeSantis’s speech is not publicly available on the MFI website, the DeSantis campaign web page, campaign Facebook page or X (formerly Twitter) account, Newton GOP nor other Newton-focused Facebook group. Fig City News could not locate any other news article, social media posting, or other public acknowledgement of the event except for this article in the New Boston Post containing a transcript of the Governor’s speech. The New Boston Post states it was founded in 2015 as an online newspaper “from a conservative point of view.”
The Justice Feature’s Editor Cayenn Landau told Fig City News, “We were made aware of the speech here [New Boston Post article]. None of us attended the event.” Fig City News located a former resident, who declined to be named in this article, who stated she was having dinner at the Marriott on October 13 when a waiter informed her party that Gov. DeSantis was at the hotel and it was being “locked down.” The Newton Police Department’s weekly log lists a “POL-ASSIST-GEN” incident on October 13 beginning at 6:14pm (see page 22) at the hotel’s address.
The New Boston Post article contains what it states is a transcript of the Governor’s speech. It contains language generally consistent with MFI’s mission:
“It’s great to be back here in Massachusetts. You know, I was born and raised in Florida, but I spent seven years, as was mentioned, in New England with the education. And I can tell you this: I’m one of the few people in this country who was able to get through both Harvard and Yale and come out more conservative than I went in.”