Florida

Subterms

    More stories

    • 113 Shares169 Views

      in Elections

      Florida Lawmakers Clear a Potential Presidential Roadblock for DeSantis

      by

      The Florida Legislature passed an elections bill on Friday clarifying that Gov. Ron DeSantis would not have to resign early if he ran for president.Gov. Ron DeSantis has gotten just about everything he wanted out of Florida’s legislative session, which draws to a close next week.A six-week ban on abortion. The ability for Floridians to carry concealed weapons without a permit or training. An expansion of school vouchers. All laws that Mr. DeSantis could lean on heavily in a potential Republican primary for president.Now the governor’s legislative allies in Tallahassee have delivered another boon, one that is procedural but just as important: an elections bill that eliminates a potential roadblock to Mr. DeSantis declaring his candidacy for president, which he is expected to do next month. The law will ensure that Mr. DeSantis does not have to resign the governorship early if he runs for president.On Friday, the State House of Representatives approved the law with a 76-34 vote along strict party lines, with nine lawmakers abstaining. Having already been approved by the State Senate, it now heads to Mr. DeSantis’s desk.The previous provision in state law, known as the “resign-to-run” statute, could have posed a problem for Mr. DeSantis’s presidential ambitions.Although legal opinions varied, it might have compelled Mr. DeSantis, if he became a presidential candidate, to resign as governor in 2025 with two years still left in his term. The new bill cleared up any ambiguity by stating that the law does not apply to elected officials running specifically for president and vice president, meaning Mr. DeSantis can make a bid for the White House without the prospect of giving up the governor’s office should he lose the 2024 Republican primary or general election.Allies have been urging Mr. DeSantis to formally jump into the 2024 race, seeing it as the only way to deal with former President Donald J. Trump, the Republican front-runner.Sophie Park for The New York Times“I can’t think of a better training ground than the state of Florida for a future potential commander in chief,” State Representative Tyler I. Sirois, a Merritt Island Republican, said on the House floor.Republicans said they wanted to leave no ambiguity in the law and argued that presidential and vice-presidential candidates are different than others seeking elective office because they are chosen by political parties in national conventions — instead of having to simply qualify for the ballot. Democrats countered that Mr. DeSantis was getting special treatment from his legislative buddies.“Why are we signing off on allowing Ron DeSantis the ability to not do his job?” said State Representative Angie Nixon, a Jacksonville Democrat, who argued during the floor debate that Mr. DeSantis was neglecting his duties as governor.In the months before the legislative session kicked off in March, it seemed that the bill’s passage would mark a time for quiet celebration in the DeSantis camp — a tactical milestone for a campaign that seemed to have front-runner status in its grasp. But since then, the governor has frequently seemed to stumble or been stymied at crucial moments, often to the delight of former President Donald J. Trump, a declared candidate who now leads him in the polls.As Mr. DeSantis seeks to recover his footing, he will hope to present the new laws he has steered through Republican-controlled Tallahassee as evidence of what he might accomplish in the White House, while pointing to his landslide re-election last year as proof that his conservative policies have a broad base of support.“In November, December and January, Republicans all around the country were looking to DeSantis as the future of the party,” said Alex Conant, a Republican political strategist who worked as communications director for Senator Marco Rubio of Florida during his 2016 presidential campaign. “He was really hot coming off the midterms. But now it’s not so clear that Republican voters are ready to move beyond Trump.”Those close to Mr. DeSantis say he plans to make his presidential bid official in mid-May or late May, and he has already assembled the makings of a senior campaign staff.Matias J. Ocner/Miami Herald, via Associated PressPart of Mr. DeSantis’s struggle has been the challenge of running for higher office only unofficially. Such a shadow campaign limits how strongly his message can carry beyond Florida and seems to curtail his ability to criticize his presumptive main rival, Mr. Trump. Allies have been urging Mr. DeSantis to formally jump into the race, seeing it as the only way to deal with the former president.“Trump was born without gloves,” Mr. Conant said. “He is always on offense. If you’re going to run against him, expect him to wake up every day punching you.”As the pressure builds, the end of the DeSantis campaign-in-waiting finally seems near. Those close to him say he plans to make his presidential bid official in mid-May or late May. And he has assembled the makings of a senior campaign staff in Tallahassee, including veteran advisers from his time as governor and when he served in Congress. A super PAC backing his candidacy says it has raised $33 million and has hired operatives in key early voting states.The group, Never Back Down, also brought in Adam Laxalt, the former Nevada attorney general, as its chairman. Mr. Laxalt is a Trump ally who amplified the former president’s conspiracy theories about the integrity of the 2020 election. But he has longstanding ties to Mr. DeSantis, too, dating back to their days as roommates during naval officer training.“If Governor DeSantis heeds the growing calls for him to run for president, we can hit the ground running for him to win,” said Erin Perrine, the communications director for Never Back Down.As the political operation backing him grows, Mr. DeSantis has spent more and more time out of state, which has included appearances promoting his new memoir and a foreign trade mission this week. In his absence, cracks have started to appear in his political coalition back home for the first time.On Wednesday, State Senator Joe Gruters, a Republican who is a close ally of Mr. Trump, made an open show of defiance against Mr. DeSantis by voting no on a bill related to Disney. The bill — part of a yearlong feud between the company and Mr. DeSantis that has energized segments of the Republican base while alienating some members of the donor class — would nullify development agreements involving Disney.Crowds gathering to hear Mr. DeSantis during a book-signing event in Garden City, N.Y., in April.Johnny Milano for The New York TimesIn a statement, Mr. Gruters, a former chairman of the Republican Party of Florida, said that the state should “support our job creators” and avoid influencing the behavior of corporations with “the heavy hand of government.”While he was the lone Republican to vote no, and the bill passed easily, the moment came as a sign that tensions between Mr. DeSantis and Mr. Trump are spelling the end of the days when the state party stood unanimously behind the governor.Mr. DeSantis’s attacks on Disney have also recently led some national Republicans to publicly air words of caution. Mr. Rubio said he did not have a problem taking on Disney but expressed concern that businesses might be fearful of coming to Florida if politicians continued to put pressure on companies over politics. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy also weighed in.“I think it would be much better if he sat down and solved the problem,” Mr. McCarthy told CNBC on Thursday.Local leaders have taken shots at Mr. DeSantis, too.Last week, Mayor Francis Suarez of Miami, a Republican who may also run for president, criticized how Mr. DeSantis treats others during an appearance on Fox News. “Well, he seems to struggle with relationships, generally,” said Mr. Suarez, who has occasionally clashed with the governor over the years but had not attacked him so personally. “I mean, I look people in the eye when I shake their hands.”Even Dwyane Wade, the popular former star for the N.B.A.’s Miami Heat, seemed to weigh in, saying in a television interview that he left Florida in part because of the state’s stance on transgender issues. (Mr. Wade’s teenage daughter is transgender.)“My family would not be accepted or feel comfortable there,” he said, without directly referencing the governor.As part of Mr. DeSantis’s agenda, state leaders have pushed laws banning children from drag shows and criminalizing gender-affirming health care for minors, as well as expanding a law that restricts the discussion of sexual orientation and gender identities in public schools.Drag queens and their supporters marched in a protest to the State Capitol in Tallahassee, Fla., on Tuesday.Alicia Devine/Tallahassee Democrat, via Associated PressThe change to the resign-to-run law is not the first time a pliant legislature has helped out a governor. Legislators under former Governors Charlie Crist and Rick Scott adjusted the law when it seemed in their interest. Mr. DeSantis’s office did not respond when asked if he supported the change.Not every new law the governor sought this session is sure to pass.A proposal on immigration looks like it will be somewhat watered down. And the sponsor of a bill that would make it easier to sue the news media has said that the legislation is unlikely to move forward this year.Still, those who have seen Tallahassee in action say it was an unusually productive time.“I think it’s clear the governor has had a remarkable session, one of the best I can remember,” said Brian Ballard, an influential lobbyist who has served as a fund-raiser for both Mr. Trump and Mr. DeSantis.With Republicans holding supermajorities in both legislative chambers, Florida Democrats could do little but watch.Dan Gelber, the Democratic mayor of Miami Beach and a former state senator, said many of the governor’s priorities were “not important” to most Floridians.“It’s a heaping portion of red meat for his base,” Mr. Gelber said.Maggie Haberman More

    • 113 Shares199 Views

      in US Politics

      Florida school superintendent who criticized DeSantis could lose job

      by

      Florida officials are threatening to revoke the teaching license of a school superintendent who criticized the governor, Ron DeSantis.The educator is accused of violating several statutes and DeSantis directives and allowing his “personal political views” to guide his leadership.A revocation by the state education department could allow DeSantis to remove the Leon county superintendent, Rocky Hanna, from his elected office.The Republican governor did that last year to an elected Democratic prosecutor in the Tampa Bay area who disagreed with his positions limiting abortion and care for transgender teens and indicated he might not enforce new laws in those areas.Disney sued DeSantis this week, saying he targeted its Orlando theme parks for retribution after it criticized the governor’s so-called “don’t say gay” law that banned the discussion of sexuality and gender in early grades and has now been expanded.Hanna has publicly opposed that law, once defied the governor’s order that barred any mandate students wear masks during the Covid pandemic, and criticized a DeSantis-backed bill that will pay for students to attend private school.The Leon county district, with about 30,000 students, covers Tallahassee, the state capital, and its suburbs.“It’s a sad day for democracy in Florida, and the first amendment right to freedom of speech, when a state agency with unlimited power and resources, can target a local elected official in such a biased fashion,” Hanna said.A Democrat then running as an independent, Hanna was elected to a second four-year term in 2020 with 60% of the vote. He plans to run for re-election next year and does not need a teacher’s license to hold the job.“This investigation has nothing to do with these spurious allegations, but rather everything to do with attempting to silence myself and anyone else who speaks up for teachers and our public schools in a way that does not fit the political narrative of those in power,” Hanna said.He said the investigation was spurred by a single complaint from a leader of the local chapter of Moms for Liberty, a conservative education group.“We are fighting tirelessly with our local school board to no avail,” Brandi Andrews wrote to DeSantis, citing Hanna’s mask mandate, opposition to new education laws and directives and public criticism of the governor.Andrews noted she had appeared in a DeSantis re-election TV commercial. Her letter was stamped “Let’s Go Brandon”, a code used by some conservatives to replace a vulgar chant against Joe Biden. Andrews said her complaint against Hanna was one of many.An education department spokesman, Alex Lanfranconi, said that while officials would not discuss the Hanna investigation in detail, “nothing about this case is special”.“Any teacher with an extensive history of repeated violations of Florida law would be subject to consequences up to and including losing their educator certificate,” he said.The threatened revocation was first reported by the Tallahassee Democrat newspaper.Hanna can have a hearing before an administrative judge, attempt to negotiate a settlement or surrender his license. He said he had not decided what to do.Hanna received a letter from the education commissioner, Manny Diaz Jr, earlier this month saying an investigation found probable cause he violated a 2021 directive barring districts from mandating that students wear masks.Hanna required students to wear masks after a Leon third-grader died of Covid. The fight went on for several months until Leon and other districts had their legal challenge rejected.Diaz also cited a memo Hanna issued before this school year telling teachers, “You do You!” and to teach as they always had, allegedly giving approval to ignore laws enacted by DeSantis.His letter also cites the district’s failure for a month in 2020 to have an armed guard or police officer at every school as required after the 2018 Parkland high school shooting. Hanna said there were not enough available officers to meet that requirement. The education department cleared him of wrongdoing.Diaz also complains parents were told children could get an excused absence if they chose to attend a February protest at the state capitol opposing DeSantis’s education policies.Offering students a “free day off of school” to attend the rally “is another example of [Hanna] failing to distinguish his political views from the standards taught in Florida schools”, Diaz wrote. More

    • 138 Shares189 Views

      in US Politics

      ‘A dangerous trend’: Florida Republicans poised to pass more voter restrictions

      by

      Florida Republicans are on the verge of passing new restrictions on groups that register voters, a move voting rights groups and experts say will make it harder for non-white Floridians to get on the rolls.The restrictions are part of a sweeping 96-page election bill the legislature is likely to send to Governor Ron DeSantis’s desk soon. The measure increases fines for third-party voter registration groups. It also shortens the amount of time the groups have to turn in any voter registration applications they collect from 14 days to 10. The bill makes it illegal for non-citizens and people convicted of certain felonies to “collect or handle” voter registration applications on behalf of third-party groups. Groups would also have to give each voter they register a receipt and be required to register themselves with the state ahead of each general election cycle. Under current law, they only have to register once and their registration remains effective indefinitely.Groups can now be fined $50,000 for each ineligible person they hire to do voter canvassing. They can also be fined $50 a day, up to $2,500, for each day late they turn in a voter registration form.Those restrictions are more likely to affect non-white Floridians. About one in 10 Black and Hispanic Floridians registered to vote using a third-party group, according to Daniel Smith, a political science professor at the University of Florida who closely studies voting rights. Non-white voters are five times more likely to register with a third-party group in the state than their white counterparts, “a fact likely not lost on those pushing the legislation”, Smith said.“This will likely be the final nail in the coffin for third-party groups to be able to register voters in Florida,” added Smith, who has served as an expert for groups challenging similar new restrictions.The bill passed the Florida senate on Wednesday and is expected to clear the Florida house later this week.The measures are the latest in a wave of new restrictions Florida Republicans and DeSantis, who is on the verge of a presidential bid, have enacted in a little over four years. After the 2020 election, the state passed sweeping legislation making it harder to request and return a mail-in ballot. Republicans have also made it nearly impossible for Floridians with a felony conviction to figure out if they are eligible to vote. Last year, DeSantis created the first of its kind state agency to prosecute election crimes.The new measure marks the second time since the 2020 election that Florida Republicans have raised the maximum fine for third-party voter registration organizations. In 2021, the legislature raised the maximum fine groups could face in a year from $1,000 to $50,000. The new bill would increase the maximum fine to $250,000.The higher fines will probably cause some groups to stop registering voters, said Cecile Scoon, the president of the Florida chapter of the League of Women Voters, which frequently hosts voter registration drives.“I think there are a lot of small organizations that don’t feel they can play in that league of fines,” said Scoon. “I think you’re going to get a lot of people that say, ‘hey we can’t handle this. We’re just a little church. We’re just a little chapter of a sorority. We don’t have the resources.”Republicans dispute that the bill will make it harder to vote.“This bill does not and will not hinder anyone’s right to vote, nor would I ever subscribe my name to something that could even remotely be concluded to be voter suppression. There is nothing in this bill that makes it harder for a lawfully registered voter to cast their ballot,” state senator Danny Burgess, a Republican who chairs the state elections committee, said during debate on the floor, according to the News Service of Florida.The office of election crimes and security, a new office created under DeSantis to target voter fraud, has targeted voter registration groups during its first year in operation. In 2022, the agency levied $41,600 in fines against voter registration groups, and made several criminal referrals.A spokesman for the Florida department of state, which oversees the agency, did not provide a detailed breakdown of the groups fined or their offenses.In an annual report filed with the Florida legislature, the office said that it had reviewed “a large number of complaints” involving voter registration applications that were turned in late.The new legislation would make it even harder for groups to turn in applications on time, giving them four fewer days to do so. That cut increases pressure on groups that take time to review the applications they collect to ensure that the information in them is accurate and that the voter is eligible.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionWhen a group hosts a registration drive, they will often get people signed up from many counties who pass by. But a law passed in 2021 makes it so voter registration groups have to turn in applications they collect to the county in which the voter resides – they previously could return it anywhere – making it even more difficult to turn in the forms on time.“You’re either gonna burn gas and find the time to drive an hour or two hours to wherever it’s located from wherever you are. And where your volunteer is. Or are you gonna put it in the mail and cross your fingers,” Scoon said.Burgess, the Republican pushing the bill, said that it would ensure voters can get on the rolls.“The reality is if a third-party voter registration organization fails to submit timely somebody’s voter registration, that voter is disenfranchised,” he said, according to the Tallahassee Democrat.The language in the bill barring non-citizens from participating in third-party voter registration groups will also make it harder to reach immigrant communities, said Andrea Mercado, the executive director of Florida Rising, a non-profit group.“When we do our work to help register new citizens, it makes sense to hire people who come from that community. Sometimes they’re on the path to getting their US citizenship, but they don’t have it yet,” she said. “That doesn’t mean that they’re not excellent at reaching out to other people in the Colombian community, in the Venezuelan community, in the Jamaican community and talking to them about why voting matters and why you should be registered to vote.”The bill also appears poised to cause even more confusion about voting eligibility for people with felony convictions. The measure would change the language on the card people in Florida receive after registering to confirm their addition to the voter rolls to say that possession of the card is not proof of eligibility to vote. Republicans are making the change after reporting revealed that 19 people with felony convictions who were charged with illegal voting last year had received voter registration cards in the mail and had not been warned they were ineligible to vote.The sweeping changes are the latest move to restrict voting rights for people with felonies after Floridians approved a constitutional amendment in 2018 expanding the right to vote to many people with criminal histories. After the measure passed, the Florida legislature passed a law that required those with felonies to pay off any outstanding debts before they can vote again. Florida has no centralized database where people can look up how much they owe, and the state has been backlogged reviewing the applications.“Changing the law and adding such a disclaimer to Florida’s voter ID cards is a direct admission by the state that it is unwilling to or incapable of creating a centralized voter system to determine voter eligibility,” the Florida Rights Restoration Coalition, the main group that pushed the constitutional amendment in 2018, said in a statement.The bill is an alarming attack on voters in Florida, Mercado said. “It represents a really dangerous trend in Florida and across our country that is moving away from democracy,” she said. More

    • 163 Shares169 Views

      in US Politics

      Ron DeSantis to meet UK ministers on tour to boost foreign policy credentials

      by

      Ron DeSantis is due to spend Friday in Britain on the last leg of a world tour aimed at enhancing his foreign policy credentials before an expected run for the Republican nomination.Formally, DeSantis will meet the foreign secretary, James Cleverly, and the business secretary, Kemi Badenoch, in his role as governor of Florida, the third most populous US state.Nigel Farage’s new rightwing Reform UK party is also trying to secure a meeting with DeSantis, Politico reported on Thursday.Despite being greeted by the prime ministers of Japan and South Korea on earlier legs of the trip, he won’t meet the British prime minster, Rishi Sunak – in part because it is not standard diplomatic protocol for a prime minister to meet a US governor, UK officials say.There is additionally an issue of logistics, with Sunak in Scotland on a pre-planned trip to the Conservatives’ conference there.DeSantis’s visit is not completely on a pretext. The UK regularly ranks as Florida’s top business partner, and there are more than 600 British businesses in the state, employing more than 50,000 Floridians. However, the timing of DeSantis’s tour, which has also included Japan, South Korea and Israel, has been dictated by the brewing primary contest with Donald Trump. It is a race in which he is trailing badly, though as he pointed out on the Japanese leg of the trip, the numbers could change when he formally declares his bid.The fact he has not officially entered the race has not stopped attacks from the Trump camp, who view him as the only serious challenger. While Trump boasts of his personal rapport with some of the world’s leaders, suggesting it gives him a unique ability to resolve big conflicts around the world, DeSantis’s previous experience abroad is limited to his deployment as a legal adviser to a Navy Seal team in Iraq, and some limited travel as Florida governor. This trip, and the accompanying footage of handshaking with foreign officials, will provide a rebuttal to claims he is too inexperienced in the ways of the world to be president.“It’s an irony that people like him who make the case that America should focus more on itself, also sees it as indispensable to go around and present themselves in a dog and pony show to the world,” Elisabeth Braw, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, said.Trump is due to be in the UK next week for a visit to his golf course in Scotland.Such tours are a rite of passage for presidential candidates. In 2008, Barack Obama, who also had a foreign policy experience deficit, visited Afghanistan, Iraq, Jordan, Israel, Germany, France and the UK. On the last three stops, Obama met Angela Merkel, Nicolas Sarkozy and Gordon Brown. But, unlike DeSantis, he had already secured the nomination at that point.The inclusion of Tokyo and Seoul in DeSantis’s tour is telling, a reflection of how the centre of US foreign policy has shifted.“I think it really does indicate a growing focus in US foreign policy generally, but even in the public consciousness, on the Indo-Pacific, on competition with China,” Emma Ashford, a senior fellow at the Stimson Center thinktank, said. “I think the fact that he chose to go there really does suggest that’s the direction foreign policy is moving.”skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionIsrael has long been a must-do for US presidential hopefuls on tour, though now that is more true of Republicans, who are generally in lockstep with Benjamin Netanyahu’s hard-right government, than Democrats. It has been called the “new Iowa” for Republican hopefuls – a primary for the Jewish and evangelical vote.In his speech at the Museum of Tolerance in Jerusalem on Thursday, DeSantis repeated a story about how he had used water from the Sea of Galilee to baptise his children. He talked about “Judeo-Christian values” binding the two countries. The only mention of the world “Palestinian” was in a line about terrorism.DeSantis disowned the Biden administration’s criticism of Netanyahu’s efforts to curb the independence of the judiciary, saying: “It shouldn’t be for us to butt in to these important issues”, but there was nothing of substance separating his position from Trump’s.The one area of policy difference with the Republican frontrunner is over Ukraine. DeSantis’s support for a ceasefire and for less US involvement sparked a backlash from the more hawkish end of the Republican party, and Cleverly can be expected to echo those misgivings. DeSantis has tried to hedge his position, potentially opening space between his stance and Trump’s pro-Moscow inclinations.DeSantis’s world tour has come at an awkward time, as support among congressional Republicans has slid towards Trump in his absence, but the fact that he felt he had to leave the US at all, suggests that the maxim foreign policy does not matter in US presidential elections is not always true.“Differences over foreign policy can matter in the team-building phase of the campaign,” Daniel Drezner, professor of international politics at Tufts University, said. “This seems like a box-checking exercise and actually a horribly timed one from DeSantis’s perspective, because the last thing you want to do, when your campaign is faltering, is go overseas.” More

    • 113 Shares199 Views

      in Elections

      In Israel, Ron DeSantis Promotes His Foreign Policy Credentials

      by

      The Florida governor, a likely contender for the Republican presidential nomination, stressed his strong interest in the country’s affairs, an issue that Donald J. Trump once made his own.Ron DeSantis, the Florida governor and a likely contender for the Republican presidential nomination, expressed strong support for Israel during a brief visit to Jerusalem on Thursday, as he promoted his diplomatic credentials in a country considered crucial to any U.S. president’s foreign policy portfolio.Mr. DeSantis declined once again to confirm his candidacy for the presidential race in 2024, but he used a speech and subsequent news briefing to showcase his experience and interest in Israeli affairs, an issue that his chief rival, Donald J. Trump, once made his own.The governor, a foreign policy novice, stressed his track record of support for Israel and for Floridian Jews, highlighting his efforts to combat antisemitism in Florida and build business ties between his state and Israel.“Maintaining a strong U.S.-Israel relationship has been a priority for me during my time in elective office,” Mr. DeSantis said in speech at a conference hosted by The Jerusalem Post, a right-leaning English-language newspaper. The event was attended by leading right-wing figures, including David M. Friedman, who was Mr. Trump’s ambassador to Israel; and Miriam Adelson, a longtime Israeli American supporter of Mr. Trump.“Our alliance with Israel rests on unique cultural and religious affinities and Judeo-Christian values that trace back thousands of years to the Holy Land and which have been essential to the American experiment,” Mr. DeSantis said.Mr. DeSantis also met Thursday morning with Isaac Herzog, Israel’s figurehead president, and later with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Mr. Trump had an initially strong relationship with Mr. Netanyahu, but that ebbed after Mr. Trump left office.While never mentioning Mr. Trump by name, Mr. DeSantis on Thursday tried to differentiate himself from his rival by noting how he had pushed the Trump administration to move the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, months before Mr. Trump decided to do so.“I was an outspoken proponent and advocate of relocating our embassy,” Mr. DeSantis said to loud cheers from the audience. “We were trying to cajole the previous administration to do it,” he added.As president, Mr. Trump broke with decades of American policy by moving the embassy, recognizing Israeli sovereignty in the Golan Heights, cutting funding for Palestinians and backing the legality of Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank.President Donald J. Trump, at the White House, signing a proclamation in 2017 recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.Doug Mills/The New York TimesAny U.S. president is seen in Israel as a crucial partner: Israel relies on American support to ward off censure from the United Nations and receives more than $3 billion in annual funding from Washington. But Mr. Trump made support for Israel a signature foreign policy, helping to broker several landmark diplomatic deals between Israel and three Arab countries.In his appearances on Thursday, Mr. DeSantis underlined how he also had a legacy of unwavering support for Israel and American Jews, recalling how he led a trade delegation there in 2019 and promoted Holocaust education in Florida. He also hailed the deals brokered by Mr. Trump, known as the Abraham Accords, and saying that he supported efforts to secure a new one between Israel and Saudi Arabia.Mr. DeSantis also took a swipe at the Biden administration, criticizing the deterioration under President Biden in relations between the United States and Saudi Arabia, and suggesting that Washington should avoid taking sides in Israel’s domestic debate about the future of its judiciary. Mr. Biden has taken an increasingly vocal stance against efforts by the far-right Israeli government to assert greater control over the Supreme Court.“We must also in America respect Israel’s right to make its own decisions about its own governance,” Mr. DeSantis said. “You’re a smart country; you figure it out, it shouldn’t be for us to butt into these important issues.”Mr. DeSantis arrived in Israel on Wednesday night and was scheduled to leave on Thursday afternoon. His visit was the third stop of a rapid tour in which he has already passed through Japan and South Korea and which he is set to end in Britain, where Mr. DeSantis is scheduled to land on Thursday night.The tour is nominally a chance to build trade ties between Florida and key global economies such as Israel; Mr. DeSantis is accompanied by several Florida investors and entrepreneurs, who were set to meet with Israeli businesspeople on Thursday. At his news briefing, Mr. DeSantis announced several new business initiatives between Floridian firms and Israeli counterparts, including medical researchers and airline companies.But Mr. DeSantis has also used the trip to showcase his stance on foreign affairs and to be photographed with world leaders.Mr. DeSantis has never set out a comprehensive foreign policy vision. But analysis of his comments and interviews with former colleagues suggest that he supports decisive international action by the United States to protect its own interests, but is less interested in U.S. efforts to shore up the liberal international order.Mr. DeSantis was recently criticized by fellow Republicans for describing Russia’s invasion of Ukraine as a “territorial dispute” that was not of crucial interest to the United States, before later walking back those comments.In Japan, he met with Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and announced his support for the U.S.-Japan alliance — in what appeared to be a departure from Mr. Trump’s more lukewarm position when he was president. And on Thursday in Jerusalem, Mr. DeSantis used part of his news briefing to sign a proclamation hailing the 75th anniversary of Israel’s establishment, which falls this year.He then signed into a law a bill that he said would fight antisemitism in Florida.During a news conference in Jerusalem on Thursday, Mr. DeSantis signed a Florida bill that he said would fight antisemitism in the state.Amir Levy/Getty ImagesHe also flagged his efforts as governor in targeting Airbnb, after the holiday listings company briefly removed from its website properties in the Israeli-occupied West Bank a few years ago. He repeated his long-held position on the West Bank, which Mr. DeSantis says is disputed territory and which he referred to as “Judea and Samaria,” using the biblical name for the territory used by right-wing Israelis.His stance is at odds with that held by most countries, who consider the West Bank occupied territory because it was captured by Israel from Jordan during the Arab-Israeli War of 1967.At his news briefing, Mr. DeSantis mainly took questions from reporters for right-wing outlets including the American outlet Newsmax; Israel Hayom, a right-wing free sheet published by Ms. Adelson; and Channel 14, a private pro-Netanyahu television channel in Israel.But some journalists fired in questions without being called on, including one reporter who asked Mr. DeSantis about his time as an officer at the American base at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, where the United States held people suspected of terrorism.The reporter, who did not give his name, said he had spoken to former detainees who accused Mr. DeSantis of having attended the force-feeding of prisoners at the base. Mr. DeSantis replied: “Do you honestly believe that’s credible? So this is 2006, I’m a junior officer. Do you honestly think that they would have remembered me from Adam? Of course not.” More

    • 113 Shares169 Views

      in US Politics

      DeSantis assembles senior staff for expected 2024 presidential campaign

      by

      Florida’s governor, Ron DeSantis, is quietly assembling a senior staff for an expected 2024 presidential campaign that will be headed by his top political adviser, Generra Peck, and around seven other Republican operatives serving as top advisers, according to two people familiar with the matter.The leadership roster remains subject to change since the campaign – which could launch as soon as the start of next month – does not yet technically exist and most salaries are being paid, for the moment, through the state Republican party.But some of the senior staff have started to move in recent weeks to the campaign’s base in Tallahassee, the people said, as DeSantis prepares to announce his presidential ambitions as perhaps the closest challenger to Donald Trump for the 2024 Republican nomination.The leadership roster, described to the Guardian, shows an initial team of advisers drawn from people who have previously worked for the governor, either from his time in Congress or his re-election campaign last year, as well as relative newcomers to his circle.Yet the lack of presidential campaign experience among the senior staff and the wisdom of recruiting a team that appears conventional in nature to take on an unconventional candidate like Trump has emerged as an early concern among some of the governor’s allies.DeSantis has recently taken curveballs from the Trump campaign, which cut a television ad mocking him for using his fingers to eat chocolate pudding, something he has denied, and slammed him as unelectable in a general election after he became the face of a six-week abortion ban in Florida.The campaign manager is expected to be Peck, one of DeSantis’s most trusted advisers, who most recently shepherded his 2022 re-election effort for Florida governor, which saw him defeat the Democratic challenger and former governor Charlie Crist by almost 20 percentage points.Peck is considered a highly adept political operator – notably including by Trump’s own team – who associates say earned the trust of DeSantis and his wife, Casey. At the governor’s inauguration, Peck was one of the people he thanked for his success.The political director is expected to be Ryan Tyson, another top DeSantis adviser and one of the best-known Republican pollsters, who has been tasked with turning DeSantis’s legislative record in Florida into campaign policy that could work for a national audience.Tyson has had a rocky start. This week, DeSantis made a special trip to Washington to meet with Republican members of Congress, only for them to mostly turn around and endorse Trump. The only endorsement for DeSantis came from Representative Laurel Lee, who served in his administration.The policy team is expected to be headed by Dustin Carmack, DeSantis’s chief of staff when he was a member of Congress, from 2013 until 2018, before he ran for Florida governor. Carmack was also the chief of staff for the director of national intelligence during the Trump administration.The communications team is expected to be headed by David Abrams, who came over from the Republican State Leadership Committee. Abrams previously worked for the former New Jersey governor Chris Christie and the New Hampshire governor, Chris Sununu – both potential 2024 candidates.Also a senior adviser for press is Christina Pushaw, responsible for rapid response. Pushaw came under scrutiny last year when the justice department directed her to retroactively register as a foreign agent for her work on behalf of the former president of Georgia Mikheil Saakashvili from 2018 until 2020.In a reflection of Casey DeSantis’s influence on her husband’s political career, her top aide, Melissa Peters, is also expected to serve as a senior adviser, with the title of chief financial officer overseeing operations, acting effectively as “the voice” of the would-be first lady on the campaign.The chief technology officer is expected to be Carl Sceusa, who helped set up the WinRed platform, which generated more than $1bn in digital fundraising for Republican candidates in the 2020 election in only 15 months. He is expected to work with Ethan Eilon, who is heading the digital team.DeSantis had discussed having Heather Barker run the finance operation, but last month, she joined Never Back Down Pac – the main fundraising vehicle for the DeSantis campaign. Barker’s deputy, Tucker Obenshain, is now expected to lead the advance team.Also regarded as senior staff is Jason Johnson, the former chief strategist for Senator Ted Cruz, though it was unclear whether he will be leading a specific team or whether he will take on a broader top advisory role with the campaign.A spokesperson for DeSantis declined to comment on personnel moves.The senior staff roster effectively outlines a leadership team of around eight people as DeSantis looks to finalize his campaign operation ahead of a 2024 announcement that could come as early as the first two weeks of May or as late as July, one of the people said.That number could still expand, and some DeSantis allies have told associates that they believe other close aides to the governor could yet join the campaign. One name that has frequently been floated as an expected addition to the senior staff, for example, is the veteran national Republican operative Phil Cox.The campaign’s ambition is to reach a headcount of around 80 people by the time DeSantis announces. That would rival the Trump campaign, which has been staffing up since November – but it is unclear whether DeSantis has a payroll system in place for such an expansion, the person said. More

    • 113 Shares189 Views

      in US Politics

      Trump lawyers say Mar-a-Lago boxes contained foreign leader briefings

      by

      Donald Trump’s lawyers in the Mar-a-Lago documents investigation found the 15 boxes the former president returned to the National Archives a year after the end of his presidency mostly contained briefings for calls with foreign leaders, according to a new letter they sent to Congress.The majority of the letter – seen by the Guardian and earlier reported by CNN – served to characterize Trump’s retention of classified-marked documents as inadvertent, and due to White House staffers sweeping all documents into boxes during a chaotic departure at the end of the administration.But the 10-page letter that was sent to the House and Senate intelligence committees also revealed the order in which the documents were placed, as well as their contents, inside 15 boxes the National Archives struggled to retrieve for months and precipitated the criminal investigation.The investigation into Trump’s potential retention of national defense information and obstruction of justice led by special counsel Jack Smith is ongoing, though it may be near its end given prosecutors have subpoenaed almost everyone who conceivably could have knowledge of the matter.Trump’s two main lawyers involved in the documents investigation – Tim Parlatore and Jim Trusty – in late December last year formally asked the National Archives for access to the 15 boxes that Trump had returned through the relevant provision in the Presidential Records Act.The request was granted several weeks later, and Parlatore and Trusty went to one of the top floors in the main National Archives building overlooking the National Mall and started going through the boxes, which they found preserved just as when Trump had sent them up from his Mar-a-Lago resort.The boxes, according to the letter, contained a mixture of documents from the White House that were grouped by date and included newspapers, magazines, notes, letters and daily presidential schedules.Where there had been classified documents – which was what prompted the National Archives to first alert the justice department to start an investigation last year – officials had inserted placeholder pages that described the document that had been removed, the letter said.“That allowed Parlatore and Trusty to discern what the documents were, as well as what other materials in the boxes were in proximity … The vast majority of placeholder inserts refer to briefings for phone calls with foreign leaders that were located near the schedule for those calls.”The letter then described the ensuing criminal investigation as “misguided” because, in their eyes, the way the boxes were packed was indicative of White House staff pulling all documents into the boxes during a chaotic “pack-out” process at the end of the Trump administration.Left unsaid was that the criminal investigation has evolved since the initial referral.The obstruction part of the investigation is centered on Trump’s incomplete compliance with a subpoena last May that demanded the return of any classified-marked documents in his possession. That was after documents he returned earlier to the National Archives included 200 that were classified.Last June, Corcoran searched Mar-a-Lago and produced about 30 documents with classified markings to the justice department, and had another Trump lawyer, Christina Bobb, sign a certification that attested to compliance with the subpoena “based on the information provided to me”.But the justice department developed evidence that more documents that were marked as classified remained at the resort, according to court filings, and when the FBI searched Mar-a-Lago in August they found 101 documents marked as classified in a storage room and in Trump’s office.Last month, Corcoran was ordered by a senior US judge to testify and hand over his notes to the grand jury hearing evidence in the case, piercing his attorney-client privilege protections through the crime-fraud exception because Trump might have used his advice in furtherance of a crime.The special counsel is also investigating whether Trump violated the Espionage Act, and prosecutors have recently asked witnesses whether Trump ever showed a map to donors or a book author, a person familiar with the matter said. More

    • 50 Shares169 Views

      in Elections

      DeSantis’s Puddin’ Head Campaign

      by

      WASHINGTON — Back in the more openly sexist days of Hollywood, writers would get notes on their scripts about women characters. The studio suits would ask questions like, “Can they go to a strip club here?” or “Can you chain her to a wall?”The most common note from male executives was, “Make the girl more likable.”No doubt Ron DeSantis’s advisers are getting notes from donors these days with the message, “Make the guy more likable.”As David Axelrod told me, the Florida governor is coming across like “the high school quarterback who throws the geek against the lockers to get a laugh from the cheerleaders — and that’s not a good look.”He said DeSantis is learning a lesson: “The kind of tricks you use to get elected to other offices don’t work in a presidential race because you get scrutinized so closely.”Even in a world made crueler by social media and Donald Trump, DeSantis seems mean, punching out at Mickey Mouse, immigrants, gays and women; pushing through an expansion of his proposal to ban school discussion of sexual orientation and gender identity to include all grades, as well as a draconian ban on abortion after six weeks. He even admonished some high school kids during the pandemic for wearing masks. On Thursday, DeSantis signed a bill cutting the number of jurors needed to give a defendant the death sentence from 12 to 8.DeSantis seems contrived with Tucker Carlson, weak against Robert Iger, robotic against Trump and inept with potential donors and endorsers. The 76-year-old Trump and the 44-year-old DeSantis can both be nasty, but Trump’s base finds him entertaining, with his “DeSanctimonious” and “DeSanctus” nicknames for the rival he deems “dull.”Trump is so eager to trash DeSantis that he jumped in on the side of woke Disney and later posted an MSNBC headline on his social media site, “Ron DeSantis’ D.C. charm offensive was a massive failure.”On Friday, speaking at a Heritage Foundation event outside D.C., DeSantis took a shot at Trump, saying he could send Florida workers to finish Trump’s wall.But as Axelrod dryly noted, “If they’re going to get into a food fight, Trump always comes with more food.”Trump 2024 put out a slashing attack on DeSantis the same day, describing Florida as tumbling into destruction (even though Trump seems quite happy living there), harkening back to Bush père’s vicious attacks on Massachusetts when he ran against Michael Dukakis.The bitchy Trump has plenty of ammunition when DeSantis wears white boots redolent of Nancy Sinatra, as Jimmy Kimmel said, to tour Southwest Florida after a hurricane; or when a report alleges (denied by the governor) that DeSantis ate chocolate pudding with his fingers. (Trump backers already have an ad up about that beauty.) DeSantis let Fort Lauderdale go underwater, inundated by flash floods, while he gallivanted around testing the waters.The word “likable” became a flashpoint for Hillary Clinton, Elizabeth Warren and Kamala Harris, with some women supporters claiming it was sexist to talk about that with women candidates.But as Jerry Brown once told me: “I think we’re always judged on likability and I think that’s something a lot of politicians don’t want to admit. But I can tell you, when they throw you out, most times they didn’t like you. They got tired of you.”Ken Langone, a Republican megadonor who gave $200 million to the N.Y.U. medical center, told The Washington Post that he was concerned about DeSantis’s rigid manner and his strict abortion ban. Former Representative David Trott, a Michigan Republican, told Politico’s Playbook that in the two years he sat next to DeSantis on the Foreign Affairs Committee, “he never said a single word to me,” even hello. “If you’re going to go into politics, kind of a fundamental skill that you should have is likability,” Trott said, adding, “He’s just a very arrogant guy, very focused on Ron DeSantis.”Representative Greg Steube of Florida also told Playbook that the governor had never reached out to him — or replied to his efforts to get in touch — even when he was in the hospital after falling 25 feet off a ladder in January. Trump was the first to call him, he said. Trump has also wined and dined Florida lawmakers at Mar-a-Lago.On Monday, Steube endorsed Trump (as of Friday, 11 Florida representatives were for Trump and one for DeSantis) and he later tweeted, “Sad to see the Florida House and Senate, two bodies I had the honor to serve in, carrying the water for an unannounced presidential campaign.”DeSantis had declared himself “kind of a hot commodity” to The Times of London. Now the governor is prowling in that uncomfortable place best conjured by Hemingway in “The Snows of Kilimanjaro.”People are wondering: What is that leopard doing at this altitude?The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Twitter (@NYTopinion) and Instagram. More