The Florida governor’s bid for the presidential nomination in an interview with Elon Musk on Twitter did not go smoothly
Ron DeSantis saw the long-awaited launch of his bid for the White House descend into farce last night as the Florida governor’s livestreamed interview with Elon Musk on Twitter was plagued by technical glitches.
DeSantis’s decision to announce his presidential run through the social media platform, the first campaign launch of its kind, backfired when Twitter crashed repeatedly for almost half an hour as up to half a million people logged on to hear his talk with Musk.
Instead of a climactic moment for DeSantis, the 44-year-old governor challenging Donald Trump for the Republican presidential nomination, listeners heard the Twitter chief executive in urgent conversation with staff trying to reboot the system, followed by squalling feedback and then electronic hold music.
“Sorry about that, we’ve got so many people here that I think we are kind of melting the servers, which is a good sign,” Musk said at one point, before the platform crashed again.
By the time DeSantis began speaking, some 200,000 people had abandoned the Twitter Space venue — but the governor still ploughed ahead with his announcement.
“I am running for the United States of America to lead our great American comeback,” he confirmed. “We know our country is going in the wrong direction, we see it in our eyes and we feel it in our bones. Our cities are being hollowed out by spiking crime … American decline is not inevitable, it’s a choice.”
It was an inauspicious start for the conservative governor seen as Trump’s most formidable rival for the Republican nomination. DeSantis’s challenge will test his appeal on the national stage and decide if the Republican party is ready to move on from the former president.
DeSantis has embraced Trump’s aggressive style towards the mainstream media and the same culture-war policies, but has cast himself as a younger and more electable alternative than his 76-year-old Republican rival, better placed to take on Joe Biden in 2024. He took early swipes at both men last night, attacking Biden’s record on the economy, immigration and his age, claiming that the president has “allowed woke ideology to drive his agenda”.
“Our president lacks vigour, flounders in the face of our nation’s challenges and takes his cues from the woke mob,” DeSantis said of Biden, 80. “We should take a new direction.”
In an indirect jab at Trump, DeSantis pitched himself as the future of the Republican party and the cure for the GOP’s recent election losses, alluding to the former president’s defeat by Biden in 2020 and the disappointing results at the midterms in November.
DeSantis releases campaign video announcing his run for President
“There is no substitute victory,” DeSantis said. “We must end the culture of losing that has infected the Republican party in recent years. The tired dogmas of the past are inadequate for a vibrant future. We must look forward, not backwards.”
DeSantis has built his reputation on fighting the culture war battles on race, sexuality, abortion, education and Covid-19 vaccines that have gripped America’s political right. The governor leant into those issues again as he made his pitch last night.
He attacked the Biden administration’s “authoritarian” Covid strategy of vaccine and mask mandates. DeSantis shot to national prominence by lifting most of Florida’s pandemic restrictions early and reopening schools and businesses before other states.
“If Florida had not stood in the way, I think this country would have had rolling lockdowns for a two-year period,” he claimed last night, promising to crackdown on overreach of federal health authorities if he becomes president.
“I think you need major, major overhaul of the whole enchilada with respect to public health in this country,” he said.
“Buckle up when I get in there, because the status quo is not acceptable … These agencies are totally out of control. There’s no accountability, and we are going to bring that in a very big way,” DeSantis added.
On immigration, which is set to be a decisive issue at the 2024 election, DeSantis said he would reimpose border restrictions set under Trump’s presidency that were lifted earlier this month. Biden has faced mounting criticism for lifting the controls as the US faces record-breaking numbers of migrants at the Mexican border.
“We will move on day one by declaring a national emergency. We will construct a border wall … and we really need to hold the Mexican drug cartels accountable, because they’re facilitating a lot of this migration,” DeSantis said.
The governor has himself been denounced as authoritarian by Democrats for passing a raft of conservative legislation in the months leading up to his campaign announcement as he bids to occupy the same right-wing political turf as Trump, courting the former president’s devoted supporters. Florida has passed a ban on abortion after six weeks of pregnancy and a law allowing people to carry guns without a permit.
Wading deeper into culture-war issues, DeSantis has expanded his controversial Parental Rights in Education bill, known by critics as the “Don’t Say Gay” law, which bans the teaching of LGBT issues in Florida public schools. He has faced criticism after hundreds of books were removed from the state’s libraries and schools following complaints from parents about titles that discussed sex and LGBTQ issues.
Last night he claimed that the book bans were a “hoax” spread by “the left and the media”.
“The whole book ban thing is a hoax. There’s not been a single book banned in the state of Florida … What we have done is empower parents to review the curriculum … to ensure that those books match state standards,” he said.
The technical troubles that threatened to derail DeSantis’s launch were ridiculed by Republican rivals and Democrats alike. The hashtag #DeSaster was soon trending on Twitter, and Trump was among those to pounce on his challenger’s chaotic big night.
“Wow! The DeSanctus TWITTER launch is a DISASTER! His whole campaign will be a disaster. WATCH!” Trump posted on his Truth Social platform.
Trump also posted a video mocking the launch, intercutting video footage of his own campaign launch with the glitch-ridden audio of De Santis’s announcement on Twitter, complete with feedback, echo loops and an admission of a “server meltdown”.
DeSantis did not mention Trump by name last night, but has been urged to go on the offensive as the former president holds a commanding lead in the Republican primary race and has honed his attacks on the Florida governor.
Trump labelled DeSantis “disloyal” and in need of a “personality transplant” ahead of the governor’s announcement yesterday, hurling insults and abuse at his former protégé. Trump endorsed DeSantis when he first ran for governor in 2018, catapulting him to victory. Yesterday he denounced him for refusing to step aside.
“Rob DeSanctimonious came to me asking for help. He was losing badly, by 31 points. He was getting ready to drop out of the race — ran a terrible campaign!” Trump posted on Truth Social. “Ron told me he had one last chance, my support. I gave it to Ron, and the race was over. In one day, he went from losing badly to winning by a lot … DISLOYAL!”
DeSantis enters the race with his campaign in need of a reset after a torrid few weeks in which his poll numbers have slumped. He led Trump in the polls after winning a landslide victory to secure a second term as governor in November’s midterm elections, cementing his status as a rising star and potential future leader of the Republican party. That lead has evaporated.
DeSantis’s lurch to the right with his flurry of conservative legislation has alarmed his billionaire donors, however, who fear that it will make him unelectable in a general election even if he were to defeat Trump in the Republican primary.
Trump, for his part, has painted his rival as a phoney who is courting his voter base while being bankrolled by the Republican establishment they despise. He denounced him again as a “Rino” — Republican in name only — yesterday and mocked his awkward personal touch, exposed at a string of campaign events in recent weeks.
“He desperately needs a personality transplant and, to the best of my knowledge, they are not medically available yet,” Trump said.
DeSantis’s task is further complicated by the increasingly crowded Republican primary field, which could split votes among anti-Trump candidates. It includes Nikki Haley, the former South Carolina governor; Asa Hutchinson, the former Arkansas governor; Tim Scott, the South Carolina senator; and the businessman Vivek Ramaswamy. The former vice-president Mike Pence is also considering a bid.
DeSantis’s team sought to gloss over last night’s troubles. The governor’s press secretary, Bryan Griffin reported that the campaign had raised $1 million in donations during the hour-long Twitter livestream.
“There was so much enthusiasm for Governor DeSantis’s vision for our Great American Comeback that he literally busted up the internet,” Griffin tweeted. “Washington is next.”
Ron DeSantis with Casey and children Madison, Mason and Mamie at an event at the Convention Center in Tampa, Florida
Profile: Casey DeSantis
For all the strategists and advisers that any presidential candidate gathers around them, Ron DeSantis will rely on one — above all others — to help him to chart a path to the White House: his wife, Casey (Jacqui Goddard writes).
A former television news anchor with a flair for public relations, she is at ease with being in the spotlight, offering a charismatic counter-balance to her husband’s awkwardness and helping to frame the warm family backdrop that can be so influential in a campaign.
She is also an architect of his political strategy and a pivotal figure in his career master-plan — a position that some, including employees and supporters, consider a potential liability. She is seen as not only a confidante but as his co-governor and the “X-factor” behind his political fortunes.
“She is very smart … very talented. But she also needs to realise if they want to play on this stage, they need serious help … she does make him warmer, softer. But he needs to be surrounded by professional people, not just her,” Dan Eberhart, a DeSantis donor, told the Politico website.
A former colleague of Casey DeSantis said: “When you hang on the wisdom of one person more than any other, the danger is that you’re building yourself an echo chamber rather than a sounding board.”
DeSantis and Casey married in 2009 and have three children: Madison, six, Mason, five, and Mamie, three. Aged 42, she has been in remission from breast cancer for a year. She rolls her eyes at references to being her husband’s “secret weapon” and is described by those who know her well as witty, smart, polished, loyal and someone who can sift what matters.
“I’m not going to let day-to-day things irk me … It’s not a given that I’ll get to grow old. The rest of the stuff just doesn’t matter,” she told the New York Post.
Source: The Times
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