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      Ron DeSantis Is Gambling on Out-Trumping Trump

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      Ron DeSantis, the Republican governor of Florida, is giving Donald Trump a run for his money as the most divisive politician in America.“We want people that are going to fight the left, and that’s what we need to do in this country,” DeSantis declared in an interview with Fox News on Feb. 8. “That’s what we’re doing in Florida, standing up for people’s freedoms. We’re opposing wokeness. We’re opposing all these things.”In a Nov. 5, 2021 article on the liberal Daily Beast website, “Desperate, Deranged DeSantis Devolves Into Dumb Troll,” Ruben Navarrette Jr. wrote that DeSantis “is a terrible governor who is failing his leadership course with flying colors. Driven only by politics and naked ambition, he pursues reckless policies that divide Floridians and may even put them in danger.”The governor routinely succumbs to right-wing pressure groups, Navarrette continued, “because he apparently has no core beliefs other than the unshakable conviction that he should sit in the Oval Office.”On Jan. 17, 2022, The Guardian followed up from the left:In a red-meat-for-the-base address at the opening of Florida’s legislature last week, themed around the concept of “freedom” but described by critics as a fanfare of authoritarianism, DeSantis gave a clear indication of the issues he believes are on voters’ minds. They include fighting the White House over Covid-19, ballot box fraud, critical race theory in schools and defunding law enforcement.The view from the right is starkly different.On March 14, Rich Lowry, editor in chief of National Review, heaped praise on DeSantis as “the voice of the new Republican Party,” a politician who “opens up a vista offering an important element of Trumpism without the baggage or selfishness of Trump.”Lowry argues that DeSantis has strategically positioned himself on the cutting edge of a political movement with the potential to have “broad appeal to GOP voters of all stripes without the distracting obsessions of the former president.” This “could be one of the most persuasive arguments to Republican voters for Trump not running again — not that he needs to go away so the old party can be restored, but that he’s unnecessary because a new party has emerged.”DeSantis’s political strength among conservative voters — and the reason for the unanimous hostility toward him on the left — lies in his capacity to stay relentlessly on message.His dealings with the press result in headlines that are red meat to his conservative loyalists: “Ron DeSantis Berates Reporter Over Question About Florida’s ‘Don’t Say Gay’ Bill,” “AP urges DeSantis to end bullying aimed at reporter,” and “DeSantis and the Media: (Not) a Love Story.”“If the corporate press nationally isn’t attacking me, then I’m probably not doing my job. So, the fact that they are attacking me is a good indication that I’m tackling the big issues,” DeSantis tweeted on Jan. 7.A Yale graduate with a law degree from Harvard, DeSantis served as an attorney in the Navy’s Judge Advocate General Corps at Guantánamo Bay and in Iraq as a senior legal adviser to SEAL Team One. He is smart and disciplined and runs his political career like a military campaign. Lacking Trump’s impulsiveness and preference for chaos, a President DeSantis, with his attention to detail and command of the legislative process, might well match or exceed Trump as liberals’ worst nightmare.Susie Wiles, a Republican consultant who helped guide the last month of DeSantis’s 2018 campaign for governor, described the candidate as a “workhorse.”“It’s like watching an actor who can film the whole scene in one take,” Wiles told the Miami Herald. “He can gobble up a whole issue in one briefing, and when I saw that on my second day, I thought, ‘This is a whole different kind of thing.’ ” Wiles added, “If he doesn’t have a photographic memory, it’s close.”I asked a number of Democratic strategists which 2024 Republican nominee worried them most, Trump, DeSantis or Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas.Paul Begala, a national Democratic strategist, argued by email thatDeSantis seems to be the furthest down the track on replicating Trump’s politics of grievance and bullying. For a great many Republicans, politics is no longer about allocating resources in the wisest, most equitable way. It is instead about “owning the libs.”Geoff Garin, a Democratic pollster, compares DeSantis to Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas and finds both men disturbing. “DeSantis and Cotton are dangerous because they are both true-believer ideologues who would be smarter and more disciplined than Trump about using the levers of power to push their right-wing agendas,” Garin wrote by email, before adding:Each of them are lacking in personal charm and I don’t think voters would find either one to be particularly likable or relatable over the course of a long presidential campaign. DeSantis’s meanness in particular could come back to haunt him in a national campaign.DeSantis relishes using the state to enforce his aggressive social agenda and has consistently plotted a hard right course on issues from critical race theory to transgender rights.For example, DeSantis sponsored and pushed through the legislature the “Stop the Wrongs to Our Kids and Employees (W.O.K.E.) Act” — or the Stop Woke Act for short — which now awaits his signature.The measure not only bans teaching what is known as critical race theory but also gives parents the right to sue public schools accused of teaching the theory and cuts off public funds to schools that hire critical race theory “consultants.”Among the new state guidelines:An individual, by virtue of his or her race or sex, does not bear responsibility for actions committed in the past by other members of the same race or sex. An individual should not be made to feel discomfort, guilt, anguish, or any other form of psychological distress on account of his or her race.A second bill, the Parental Rights in Education Act, is also on DeSantis’s desk for signature. The measure declares thatClassroom instruction by school personnel or third parties on sexual orientation or gender identity may not occur in kindergarten through grade 3” and that “A school district may not encourage classroom discussion about sexual orientation or gender identity in primary grade levels or in a manner that is not age-appropriate.At a March 4 news conference, DeSantis told reporters: “Clearly, right now, we see a lot of focus on transgenderism, telling kids that they may be able to pick genders and all that. I don’t think parents want that for these young kids,” before adding, “I think it’s inappropriate to be injecting those matters, like transgenderism, into a kindergarten classroom.”On April 10, 2021, DeSantis signed the “Combating Public Disorder Act,” a conservative response to Black Lives Matter and other protests that turn violent or destructive. On Sept. 9, 2021, however, U.S. District Judge Mark Walker blocked enforcement of the law because a person of “ordinary intelligence” could not be sure if he or she broke the law while participating nonviolently in a protest that turned violent:The vagueness of this definition forces would-be protesters to make a choice between declining to jointly express their views with others or risk being arrested and spending time behind bars, with the associated collateral risks to employment and financial well-being.DeSantis has capitalized on Florida’s outdoor culture to become the nation’s leading opponent of mask mandates and lockdowns of schools and businesses, including a May 3, 2021, executive order declaring:In order to protect the rights and liberties of individuals in this State and to accelerate the State’s recovery from the Covid-19 emergency, any emergency order issued by a political subdivision due to the Covid-19 emergency which restricts the rights or liberties of individuals or their businesses is invalidated.For DeSantis, the pandemic offered the opportunity to distinguish himself from Trump. In January, Jonathan Chait described his strategy in New York Magazine:Where Trump was tiptoeing around vaccine skepticism, DeSantis jumped in with both feet, banning private companies like cruise lines from requiring vaccination, appointing a vaccine skeptic to his state’s highest office, and refusing to say if he’s gotten his booster dose.DeSantis “may or may not actually be more delusional on Covid than Donald Trump,” Chait wrote, “but it is a revealing commentary on the state of their party that he sees his best chance to supplant Trump as positioning himself as even crazier.”Michael Tomasky, editor of The New Republic, has a similar take on the Trump-DeSantis Covid feud, writing on Jan. 18:What’s suddenly intriguing is that DeSantis has decided to try to outflank Trump, to out-Trump Trump, in terms of his hard-trolling of the libs on the vaccine question. And it’s Trump —Donald Trump! — who is playing the role of civilizing, normalizing truth teller.Politically speaking, however, DeSantis’s stance on Covid policy, together with his culture war agenda, has been a success. His favorability ratings have soared and in the third quarter of 2021, the most recent data available, Florida’s gross domestic product grew by 3.8 percent, third fastest in the nation, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis, behind Hawaii and Delaware.DeSantis’s aggressive posture and threats to bring legal action have created anxiety about retribution in some quarters. In January, for example, Dr. Raul Pino, the administrator for the Florida Department of Health’s office in Orange County, wrote his staff to say that only 77 of 558 staff members had received a Covid-19 booster, 219 had two doses of the vaccine and 34 had only one dose, according to reporting by my colleague Patricia Mazzei in The Times. “I am sorry but in the absence of reasonable and real reasons it is irresponsible not to be vaccinated,” Dr. Pino added. He went on: “We have been at this for two years, we were the first to give vaccines to the masses, we have done more than 300,000 and we are not even at 50 percent. Pathetic.”Shortly afterward, Pino was put on administrative leave for a month. Jeremy T. Redfern, the press secretary for the Department of Health, said when the leave of absence was announced that the department was “conducting an inquiry to determine if any laws were broken in this case.” Redfern said in a statement that the decision to get vaccinated “is a personal medical choice that should be made free from coercion and mandates from employers.”This and other similar developments have certainly not hurt DeSantis’s poll numbers. The latest survey released Feb. 24 by Public Opinion Research Lab at the University of North Florida not only found that “of the elected officials on this survey, Governor Ron DeSantis had the highest job approval rating at 58 percent, with 37 percent disapproval,” but also that Florida Republicans preferred DeSantis over Trump 44-41 as their presidential nominee.John Feehery, a Republican lobbyist who previously worked for the party’s House leaders, argues that DeSantis isattuned to the libertarian impulses of an electorate that simply doesn’t trust the conventional wisdom coming out of Washington. DeSantis also seems willing to court cultural conservatives in ways that most Washington politicians don’t, like with the sex education bill that he signed. DeSantis also seems willing to take on big corporations for their wokeness, a potent issue among the G.O.P. base.Feehery described DeSantis as “a wild-card,” noting “he was also right on Covid, which took an incredible amount of courage.”As governor, DeSantis is wary when he senses the potential for blowback, waiting days before commenting on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. When he finally did so, his comments were largely focused on domestic politics.At a Feb. 28 news conference, DeSantis placed blame for the invasion on the “weakness” of the Biden administration while lavishing praise on Trump: “When Obama was president, Putin took Crimea. When Trump was president, they didn’t take anything. And now Biden’s president and they’re rolling into Ukraine,” DeSantis said, arguing that Biden’s withdrawal from Afghanistan was a “total catastrophe” that emboldened Putin.Along with supporters, DeSantis has many harsh critics.Nancy Isenberg, a historian at L.S.U. and the author of “White Trash: The 400-Year Untold History of Class in America,” wrote by email that “DeSantis is yet another Ivy League graduate of Yale and Harvard, pretending to be one of the people,” adding thatDeSantis represents a tried and true feature of American politics: You pretend to care about the “common man,” speaking his language, and while his gaze is captivated by the dazzling show, as Lyndon Johnson remarked of poor white rage, “he won’t notice you’re picking his pockets.”Anthony Brunello, a professor of political science at Eckerd College in St. Petersburg, Fla., wrote in an email that “Ron DeSantis is like Trump in that he is a creature of power.” Brunello posed the question, “Who believes in their ideology more — Trump or DeSantis?” DeSantis, he answered:His conservative values lean against responding to climate change, dealing with environmental problems, providing health care, establishing disaster insurance on a statewide basis, improving social services, rebuilding infrastructure, improving public education, improving the foster care system, protecting the ocean and coastline and fisheries, moving on prison reform, protecting the right to vote and so on. DeSantis has no plans to do any of those things in a state that needs them all. Instead, he is deep into culture wars, battling against critical race theory — and backing anti-L.G.B.T.Q. legislation — because it will win votes and hold that conservative core. He calculates Trump will fade in the months to come and he will pick up the pieces.DeSantis is running for re-election this year and is clearly favored to win a second term. He has raised more than $86 million, dwarfing the seven-figure totals collected by the two leading Democratic contenders, former governor Charlie Crist and Nikki Fried, the Florida commissioner of agriculture.Campaign finance in Florida is a major deregulated industry in itself.Large donors to DeSantis, according to the website Florida Politics, include:$200,000 from a single source, West Palm Beach-based company Kane Financial. Two political committees also wrote six-figure checks. The Strong Communities of Southwest Florida PC and The Committee for Justice, Transportation and Business, both chaired by lobbyist David Ramba, each donated $150,000. Floridians for Positive Change and Focused on Florida’s Future PC, two other Ramba-headed political committees, also wrote $75,000 checks to Friends of Ron DeSantis this month.DeSantis has dismissed speculation that he will run for president in 2024 as “nonsense,” but Trump does not believe him. How do we know this? Because Trump has issued a series of direct and indirect hostile comments targeting DeSantis, but often without naming him.On Jan. 12, Trump criticized “politicians” who refuse to say whether they have been vaccinated: “The answer is ‘Yes,’ but they don’t want to say it, because they’re gutless.”Axios reported on Jan. 16 that Trump was telling associates that DeSantis is “an ingrate with a ‘dull personality’ and no realistic chance of beating him in a potential 2024 showdown.”Trump, whose own interest in running for president grew after Barack Obama baited him at the 2011 White House Correspondents’ dinner, should know better than to toss insults at a politician like DeSantis — a bulldog who does not back down from a fight.As Rich Lowry, whose admiration for DeSantis I discussed earlier, wrote in Politico on Jan. 20, 2022:The Trump-DeSantis story line is inherently alluring, considering the chances of a collision between two men who have been allies and the possibility of the subordinate in the relationship, DeSantis, eclipsing the figure who helped to elevate him into what he is today.Some version of what DeSantis represents, Lowry continued, “has the greatest odds of coaxing the party away from Trump and forging a new political synthesis that bears the unmistakable stamp of Trump while jettisoning his flaws.”Lowry even suggested a line of attack: that Trump “elevated Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, early in the pandemic and listened to his advice for too long”; that “despite all his talk of building a border wall, Trump didn’t get it done and left a desperately flawed immigration system intact, even though he had two years of a Republican Congress”; that Trump “rattled China’s cage but didn’t make fundamental changes”; and that Trump “lost to Joe Biden, a desperately flawed candidate who only made it into the White House because Trump made himself so unpopular.”For DeSantis, there is nothing to gain by declaring now what he will do in 2024. Instead, he continues to gain national stature as his builds a powerful fund-raising base, stressing themes that draw support from conservatives in Florida and from across the nation.In one fund-raising solicitation, DeSantis warns of “cultural Marxism,” according to the website Florida Politics, telling prospective donors: “We delivered on a promise to the people of Florida by banning critical race theory. This ‘curriculum’ of hate and divisiveness has no place in society, let alone our schools. Critical race theory indoctrinates our children and teaches them to judge each other as ‘oppressors,’ ‘inherent racists’ and ‘victims.’”A second DeSantis fund-raising letter reads: “Joe Biden might want Governor DeSantis to get out of the way so he can impose his radical agenda, but Governor DeSantis will not kowtow to authoritarian bullying from Joe Biden or anyone else.”Not only do these themes stand ready for use in a presidential bid, but their very pugnacity suggests that Trump may want to reconsider his provocative bullying strategy when it comes to DeSantis.DeSantis has a wide range of options. He has positioned himself as a leading 2024 presidential candidate, if Trump falters. If Trump does run and looks unbeatable in the race for the nomination, DeSantis can hold back and wait until 2028, when he will be 50 — the prime of life for a presidential candidate.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

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      in US Politics

      ‘Don’t Say Gay’: Disney clashes with DeSantis over Florida bill

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      ‘Don’t Say Gay’: Disney clashes with DeSantis over Florida billEntertainment giant suspends political donations as CEO apologises for silence and governor hits back with ‘communist’ barb The Republican governor of Florida, Ron DeSantis, claimed the Walt Disney Company was too cozy with communist China, as the chief executive of the tourism and entertainment criticized a state bill that bars teachers from instructing early grades on LGBTQ+ issues.Disney accused of removing gay content from Pixar films Read moreDeSantis, who has not yet signed the so-called “Don’t Say Gay” bill, also reportedly criticized Disney as “woke”, after the company’s leader opposed the legislation.Controversy surrounding the bill could cut off a significant fundraising pipeline for Florida Republicans: Disney said it would suspend political donations in the state.The move came after the Disney chief executive, Bob Chapek, experienced extensive blowback for not using the company’s influence to thwart the controversial bill.“I do not want anyone to mistake a lack of a statement for a lack of support,” Chapek said early this week in a memo obtained by USA Today.“We all share the same goal of a more tolerant, respectful world. Where we may differ is in the tactics to get there.“And because this struggle is much bigger than any one bill in any one state, I believe the best way for our company to bring about lasting change is through the inspiring content we produce, the welcoming culture we create, and the diverse community organizations we support.”Chapek’s first public statements on the bill came in a shareholder’s meeting on Wednesday.“We were opposed to the bill from the outset but we chose not to take a public position on it because we thought we could be more effective working behind the scenes engaging directly with lawmakers on both sides of the aisle,” he reportedly said.Chapek claimed such efforts had taken place for weeks. The executive said he had called DeSantis to express Disney’s “disappointment” with the “Don’t Say Gay” bill.Chapek posted a statement online and emailed staffers on Friday, saying Disney was wrong to stay silent as the Republican-majority Florida legislature greenlit a bill he called “yet another challenge to basic human rights”.Republicans contend that parents, not educators, should discuss gender issues with children in early grades. The bill bars prohibits instruction on “sexual orientation or gender identity” in kindergarten through grade three.DeSantis, who has indicated that he supports the measure, has chafed at calls for a veto. A potential frontrunner for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, he sent a fundraising email that said: “Disney is in far too deep with the communist party of China and has lost any moral authority to tell you what to do.”The statement shocked Republicans and Democrats. Disney theme parks are a multibillion-dollar economic engine for Florida. The company has given outsize amounts to state parties and politicians and holds significant influence in state government.DeSantis also criticized Disney at a campaign event in South Florida Thursday.“Companies that have made a fortune catering to families should understand that parents don’t want this injected into their kid’s kindergarten classroom,” DeSantis said. “Our policies will be based on the best interest of Florida citizens, not the musing of woke corporations.”Rick Wilson, a former Republican operative now part of the Lincoln Project, told the Associated Press: “The weird hypocrisy of Florida politics right now is DeSantis has been happy to take Disney’s money but to pass a bill that’s anathema to the values of their customers and their institution.”A Republican lawmaker who didn’t want to be named because he or she did not want to comment publicly against the governor told the same outlet Disney was the third-highest contributor to state Republican candidates. Disney has given millions to both Democrats and Republicans.Disney opened a theme park in China six years ago and has landed access to that country’s booming film market. It has also been accused of altering content to satisfy China’s leaders.DeSantis’s critics charged that he was opposing Disney out of his ambition to win the Republican primary.“It’s really pretty shocking,” former Republican governor Charlie Crist, now a Democratic congressman who hopes to challenge DeSantis, told the AP.Outcry as Georgia lawmakers aim to pass Florida-style ‘don’t say gay’ bill Read moreCrist noted that DeSantis has gone head-to-head with other industries important to Florida, pointing to a legal fight with cruise companies which wanted passengers to show proof of Covid-19 vaccinations.“Now it’s Disney. Who’s next on the hit list for this governor?” Crist commented.The Democratic US congressman Darren Soto also questioned the governor’s attack.“This is another strike in the hate agenda that Governor DeSantis is pushing right now,” Soto said, noting that Florida’s budget relies heavily on sales tax generated by Disney and other theme parks.“Now he’s putting that in jeopardy because he wants to attack LGBTQ+ families, families that make up a fundamental part of the Disney atmosphere.”
      The Associated Press contributed to this report
      TopicsFloridaRon DeSantisRepublicansLGBT rightsWalt Disney CompanyUS politicsUS domestic policynewsReuse this content More

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      Florida Senate Passes Voting Bill to Create Election Crimes Agency

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      The bill would make Florida one of the first states to have a force dedicated to election crimes and voter fraud, despite such offenses being exceedingly rare.The Florida Senate passed a sweeping new bill overhauling the state’s electoral process, adding new restrictions to the state election code and establishing a law enforcement office dedicated solely to investigating election crimes.The bill, which passed 24-14, now goes to the state’s House of Representatives, where it could pass as soon as next week and land on the desk of Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican, who is expected to sign it. One Republican, State Senator Jeff Brandes, voted against it. A Democratic senator, Loranne Ausley, initially voted yes, but immediately posted on Twitter that she “pushed the wrong button” and has since changed her vote.Though Republicans in the state had passed another sweeping voting law in May of last year, Mr. DeSantis made election reform one of the top priorities for this legislative session as well. Both efforts come after the 2020 election in Florida was without any major issues, and Republicans in the state touted it as a “gold standard” for election administration.The legislation is poised to become the first major election-related bill to pass this year in a critical battleground state, and it would indicate no sign of cresting for the wave of new election laws, adding more restrictions to voting, that began last year — with 34 laws passed in 19 states.The core of the bill is the establishment of a permanent election crimes office within the Department of State, which would make Florida one of the first states to have an agency solely dedicated to election crimes and voter fraud, despite such offenses being exceedingly rare in the United States. An investigation last year by The Associated Press found fewer than 475 potential claims of fraud out of 25.5 million ballots cast for president in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.The new office would assist the secretary of state’s office in investigating complaints and allegations, initiating their own independent inquiries and overseeing a voter fraud hotline. It would include an unspecified number of investigators, and Mr. DeSantis would also appoint at least one special officer in each of the regional offices of the State Department of Law Enforcement to investigate election crimes.The bill would also raise the penalties on those collecting and submitting more than two absentee ballots from a misdemeanor to a felony.Voting rights groups are worried that the continuing criminalization of the voting process could both frighten voters away from participating and leave election officials fearing prosecution over honest mistakes.“Involving law enforcement with this sort of vague mandate obviously creates issues and can have certainly a detrimental effect in terms of the ability of voters to cast ballots if they’re worried about law enforcement involvement,” said Daniel Griffith, the policy director at Secure Democracy USA, a nonpartisan organization focused on elections and voter access. “And it has a detrimental effect on election officials if they’re worried that there’s going to be law enforcement over their shoulder.”Previously, investigations into election fraud were handled by Florida’s secretary of state, the Department of Law Enforcement and the attorney general. Democrats argued that the bill effectively creates a new agency to do work that was done by existing agencies. The agency’s creation, Democrats say, is just a political ploy to signal that Florida and Mr. DeSantis are staying tough on an issue core to both the Republican base and to former President Donald J. Trump.“Why are we doing this?” said State Senator Lori Berman during debate on Friday. “The only thing I can think is that we’re motivated by the ‘Big Lie’ that the elections nationwide didn’t take place in a proper manner. But we know that is not true.”State Senator Travis Hutson, the sponsor of the bill and a Republican, defended it during debate on Friday, stating that having a dedicated force would both uncover more fraud and make the state able to handle more allegations.“We did have great elections, the governor mentioned that,” said Mr. Hutson. “But I would submit to you that we can always do better.”He added: “I will say there is no voter intimidation or no suppressing votes in this bill.”The new election office drew criticisms from some Republican members as well, who argued that it was unnecessary.“For 15 people to go after what is potentially a handful of complaints that will ultimately be substantiated is just absolutely almost comical,” said Mr. Brandes during debate on Friday, referring to suggestions from the executive branch that they assign 15 investigators to the office. “So I am not going to support this bill today.”Uniformed law enforcement officials have been used in the past to deter and suppress voters. In 1982, the Republican National Committee dispatched a group of armed, off-duty police officers known as the National Ballot Security Task Force to linger around New Jersey polling locations during a closely contested governor’s election. The Democratic National Committee sued, forcing the R.N.C. into a consent decree to ban such tactics.Those memories appeared to be still on the minds of lawmakers in the Florida legislature. During debate on Thursday, State Senator Victor Manuel Torres Jr. asked Mr. Hutson, the sponsor of the bill: “Will these individuals be in uniform or civilian attire?”Mr. Hutson responded that the current enforcement arm of the secretary of state dresses in civilian attire, and that members of the Florida Department of Law Enforcement are likely to be uniformed.In addition to the new Office of Election Crimes and Security, the bill adds other new restrictions to voting, including banning ranked-choice voting; raising the cap on fines of third-party registration groups from $1,000 to $50,000; extending a ban on private funding for election administration to include the “cost of any litigation”; and replacing references to “drop boxes” with “secure ballot intake stations.” More

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      Ron DeSantis suggests France would ‘fold’ if it was invaded by Russia

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      Ron DeSantis suggests France would ‘fold’ if it was invaded by RussiaThe 2024 presidential nominee contender also angrily chastised students on stage with him for wearing masks as ‘Covid theatre’

      Ukraine crisis – live news
      Ron DeSantis, the governor of Florida and a serious contender for the Republican presidential nomination in 2024, has said France would not put up a fight if Russia invaded, as it did in Ukraine.White House unveils new Covid strategy including ‘test to treat’ plan – liveRead more“A lot of other places around the world, they just fold the minute there’s any type of adversity,” DeSantis told reporters at a press event at South Florida University in Tampa on Wednesday.“I mean can you imagine if he [Vladimir Putin] went into France? Would they do anything to put up a fight? Probably not.”The governor also began the event by angrily attacking students present on the stage with him for wearing masks against Covid-19. “You do not have to wear those masks,” DeSantis said, pointing a finger.“I mean, please take them off. Honestly, it’s not doing anything and we’ve gotta stop with this Covid theatre. So if you want to wear it, fine, but this is ridiculous.”Federal authorities have relaxed mask guidance in much of the US but the coronavirus pandemic has killed more than 950,000 – and more than 70,000 in Florida alone.Anyone French who saw DeSantis’s remark might remember the bad jokes (“cheese-eating surrender monkeys”) and Orwellian doublespeak (french fries renamed “freedom fries”) that followed Jacques Chirac’s refusal to back the US invasion of Iraq in 2003.Amid much online mockery of DeSantis’s remarks, Maggie Haberman, a New York Times reporter, tweeted: “He went to Yale.”DeSantis also went to Harvard, to study law. Before entering politics, he was a Jag or US navy lawyer in Iraq and at Guantánamo Bay. He regularly polls second in surveys of likely contenders for the Republican presidential nomination, behind Donald Trump.On Wednesday, after dissing the whole of France, he had praise for Ukrainians fighting the Russian invasion.“And so those folks are stepping up,” he said, “but it’s, there’s a lot of problems I think between now and then and I think unfortunately it’s going to end up very, very ugly over the next weeks and months.”He also offered his view of Putin’s psyche, the evils of communism and whether the US should develop its own energy resources, at the expense of federal lands and efforts to fight the climate crisis, in order to lessen reliance on Russia.“Look at what’s going on and someone like Vladimir Putin,” he said. “You know, I analogise him to basically an authoritarian gas station attendant.“You look at their country, it’s a hollowed-out country but for the energy. And yes they have legacy nuclear weapons, which makes them much more dangerous than if they didn’t have those.“And so [Putin is] being fueled because America is not serious about energy independence. Right now Europe is not serious at all. So Europe is funding this guy. So he has the ability now to go in and flex muscle.”DeSantis also said Republicans under Trump “funded a lot of weapons for Ukraine … that has helped them put up a fight”.He did not mention that Trump’s first impeachment trial was for seeking dirt on his political rivals by withholding military aid – to Ukraine.TopicsRon DeSantisUS politicsRepublicansFloridaUkraineFrancenewsReuse this content More

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      Trump ignores Farage – and risks midterm elections farrago – with insistence on big lie

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      Trump ignores Farage – and risks midterm elections farrago – with insistence on big lie Analysis: His British friend tried to help but the former president did not want to forget his voter fraud obsession and focus on the future. CPAC loved it but Republicans hoping to take Congress know they are courting disasterThe sagest advice given to Donald Trump all week came from a man who is neither a Republican nor an American.Donald Trump defends calling Putin ‘smart’, hints at 2024 presidential bidRead moreNigel Farage, the British politician, broadcaster and demagogue whose Brexit campaign coincided with Trump’s rise to power, warned his old pal against endlessly fixating on the 2020 election.“This message of a stolen election, if you think about it, is actually a negative backward looking message,” Farage told the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Orlando, Florida.“There is a better, more positive message the Republican party needs to embrace and it’s this: ‘We are going state by state, vote by vote to make sure that America has the best, the cleanest, the fairest election system anywhere in the western world.’”Urging an end to the “big lie” obsession is heresy at places like CPAC, the Woodstock of the red meat right. Perhaps no pro-Trump Republican would dare breathe it to the former president, lest he slap them with a demeaning nickname, endorse a primary opponent or blackball them from his luxury Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida.But Farage, as foreigner and fellow traveller, may have felt liberated to speak an inconvenient truth: that endlessly re-litigating the last election with false claims of voter fraud could prove a serious liability for Republicans in November’s midterms.The former UK Independence party and Brexit party leader went on: “That negative anger must be turned into a positive. You’ve got to offer the voters of this country a shining city on the hill. You’ve got to give them a vision. People want dreams, people want hopes, and the deliverers of that message are you guys.”The audience sounded receptive enough. And while some CPAC speakers did promulgate “the big lie” – Ohio Senate hopeful Josh Mandel declared, “I want to say it very clearly and very directly: I believe this election was stolen from Donald J Trump” – they generally gave greater emphasis to winning Congress in 2022 and, of course, Trump returning to the White House in 2024.Jim Jordan, an Ohio congressman and close Trump ally, declared: “I believe President Trump is going to run again … I think if he runs, he’s going to win.”But the annual CPAC straw poll testing who should get the Republican nomination raised more questions than answers. Of course Trump won with more votes than everyone else combined. But his 59% was not quite the overwhelming show of force he might have hoped for in what is usually the capital of Trumpistan.There is now a clear alternative. Ron DeSantis, the governor of Florida, finished second on 28%, well clear of Mike Pompeo, the former secretary of state, on 2%.In a separate poll where Trump was removed from the equation, DeSantis won by a landslide 61%.On the other hand, Florida is DeSantis’s home state, so he might expect to punch above his weight here. The governor gave a well received speech on Thursday that notably failed to mention Trump. But the audience for Trump’s address on Saturday was appreciably bigger and brimming with “Trump 2024” badges and caps.Even those sporting DeSantis regalia were not quite ready to back him. David Duffy, 57, a retired insurance worker sporting a giant “DeSantisLand” flag, said: “We want to keep President Trump as our president. We believe he still is our president and, with DeSantis being 42 years old, we want to give him a little bit more time.”Asked for her 2024 preference, Marnie Allen, wearing a “DeSantisLand” cap, said: “Trump, only because I owe him. I think we all owe him to make up for the disasters and because he’s going to go in with a vengeance this time and take care of our fourth level of government: career bureaucrats. He will go in this time and he will take a machete to them.”The 51-year-old from Orlando, who works in higher education, felt compelled to add: “Not a real machete, of course, but a figurative machete.”Unless something dramatic happens – a criminal indictment in New York, say – the nomination remains Trump’s to lose. On Saturday he dropped his strongest hint yet that he does intend to pursue it.The strange Republican world where the big lie lives on and Trump is fighting to save democracyRead moreHe clearly did not get Farage’s memo. Trump told the audience: “The Rinos [Republicans In Name Only] and certain weak Republican politicians want to ignore election integrity also but we cannot ignore it. We have to fix it. Make no mistake, they [Democrats] will try to do it again in ’22 and ’24, and we cannot let them do that.“And the way we [let them do that] is to come to a very powerful conclusion as to what happened in 2020. We stand down to stop talking about it, we stop making Americans aware of the cheating and corruption that went on. That’s really saying, ‘It’s OK, you can do it again.’ We can’t let that happen.”The slapping sound you heard was a hundred Republican midterm candidates planting their hands on their foreheads. Trump is coming to a district near you, with a big lie to tell. It remains Democrats’ best hope of a midterm miracle.TopicsDonald TrumpCPACUS politicsRepublicansUS midterm elections 2022US elections 2024Ron DeSantisanalysisReuse this content More

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      Trump v. DeSantis: Does the Florida Governor Really Have a Shot?

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      In early 2016, as Jeb Bush floundered, the Republican establishment began to throw its support behind a different politician from Florida who seemed as if he could defeat the upstart Donald Trump. Senator Marco Rubio was 44 and handsome, and had put together a somewhat impressive legislative record during his five years in office. National Review called Rubio a “Republican dream” and hedge fund managers were donating millions to his campaign. Trump led comfortably in the polls, but it was still early, as G.O.P. insiders reminded us, and they still hadn’t put their thumbs fully on the scale. We all know how the story ends: Rubio wasn’t able to mount any sort of credible challenge to Trump and withdrew after just a few months.Today, we are hearing about yet another Florida politician in his early 40s — Gov. Ron DeSantis — who, according to many of those same establishment figures, will collect a vast majority of support from donors. And he is already the subject of plenty of positive media coverage. The headlines about DeSantis are eerily similar to those about Rubio in 2016: “The Rise of Ron DeSantis,” “Why Never-Trumpers Should Bet on DeSantis Now” and “Looks Like Ron DeSantis Could Turn Into Trump’s Personal Nightmare.” If DeSantis runs for president, his job won’t be so much to win the presidency on his own merits, but rather to stop Donald Trump.How seriously should we take DeSantis’s chances?Trump holds sizable margins in pretty much every poll you can find, but some of the numbers are tightening. Last week, the polling firm Echelon Insights published a raft of data on the Florida governor. It found that Trump’s lead over DeSantis among G.O.P. voters, which, according to its own poll, was 62 percent to 22 percent of respondents in October, had shrunk to 57 percent to 32 percent as of late January. Perhaps the most compelling bit of information Echelon found was that while 54 percent of Republicans thought “Trump was a great president and should remain the leader of the Republican Party,” 22 percent said Trump “was a great president but it is time for the Republican Party to find a new leader” and 18 percent said Trump “was not a great president and the Republican Party would be better off without his influence.” Which means that 40 percent of G.O.P. voters are at least open to the possibility of someone new.So things, perhaps, aren’t quite as locked up as they might appear, Kristen Soltis Anderson, a co-founder of Echelon Insights, told me. When asked whether Trump should run again, many of the respondents to her poll showed “a shocking level of ambivalence” to that question, she said. These people were not never-Trumpers or center-of-right Republicans; they were people who had thought Trump had done a good job but also now believed that it might be time for a fresh voice.These polls, of course, measure sentiment at a fixed moment in time. Given that, it’s difficult to know exactly what to make of a seeming growing hesitancy among Republican voters about Trump, or, for that matter, what it says about DeSantis’s shot.What’s clearer is that Trump has some built-in advantages that are unlikely to change.When the election machine truly kicks in, Trump will no doubt garner a vast majority of the media attention once again. He obviously enjoys unrivaled name recognition. And Trump’s absence from office this term could give him an edge because he has not had to take the blame for what now feels like an endless pandemic. That burden has mostly been shouldered by Joe Biden and can explain, in large part, the president’s tanking approval numbers.Plus, a December University of Massachusetts Amherst poll found that only 21 percent of Republicans thought that Joe Biden won a legitimate victory in 2020, a number that hasn’t budged much over time. There’s also some evidence that shows that G.O.P. voters who think the election was illegitimate appear more likely to vote.When all these things are considered, DeSantis, then, should be seen more as a primary challenger to a popular incumbent. Nobody since the advent of the modern-day presidential primary has successfully unseated an incumbent for the nomination.There’s also a question of timing at play here. DeSantis’s recent rise to national prominence has come from his handling of the pandemic — he has become the loudest anti-lockdown voice in the national conversation and can point to his repeated refusal to shut down his state. This might be a popular stance in 2022, but it’s hard to imagine how it will play in two years. If Covid is shutting down schools and businesses in two years, we will most likely be looking at a vastly different country. If we have returned to some semblance of normalcy, it’s quite possible that nobody will really care how DeSantis handled the pandemic.Anderson believes that DeSantis’s success comes in large part from his willingness to fight, a trait that Trump, of course, also possesses. While she thinks that DeSantis has a chance, she also pointed to the former Wisconsin governor and presidential candidate Scott Walker as a cautionary tale. “Walker is an interesting example of someone who captured the conservative imagination because he was fighting with the teachers unions, and he was standing strong against those Democratic legislators,” Anderson said. “And yet, when push came to shove, that effort fizzled out. And so if you’re DeSantis, you want to avoid that path of being someone who gets a lot of attention and a lot of interest because, hey, you were fighting the right fights at the right time against the right people.” This approach works to a certain extent, Anderson said, but there are also times when things just don’t translate onto the national stage.DeSantis’s stances on Covid have garnered him a reasonable amount of national name recognition. Last month, a Reuters poll found that 80 percent of Republican voters had at least heard of him. If this were a normal Republican election run-up, DeSantis would probably be leading right now: An Echelon Insights poll from December that did not include Trump found that DeSantis comfortably led all other potential G.O.P. nominees. But Trump’s path to power is littered with the campaigns of other upstart Republican candidates who checked off all the right boxes and got along well with the establishment. Is it really reasonable to think DeSantis’s fate will be any different?Have feedback? Send a note to kang-newsletter@nytimes.com.Jay Caspian Kang (@jaycaspiankang), a writer for Opinion and The New York Times Magazine, is the author of “The Loneliest Americans.” More

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      DeSantis and the Media: (Not) a Love Story

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      The Florida governor and the mainstream press have had a rocky relationship that he has often worked to his advantage.If Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida somehow becomes the Republican Party’s presidential nominee in 2024, two factors will help explain why: his mastery of his party’s hostile relationship with the mainstream media, and his relentless courtship of Fox News.An exchange in August 2021 is a typical example of how DeSantis interacts with the press — with a combination of bluster and grievance modeled on Donald Trump, his political mentor and potential rival.The Delta variant of the coronavirus had just arrived, and a question about the rising number of Covid-19 cases in the state set him off. There was plenty of room in Florida’s hospitals, he explained.Then, with a jerky, almost robotic forward-chopping motion, he gestured at the reporters gathered in front of him. “I think it’s important to point out because obviously media does hysteria,” he said. “You try to fearmonger. You try to do this stuff.”Awkward and ineloquent as the moment was, it was vintage DeSantis — a frequently underestimated politician who has made the media his focal point and foil throughout his rapid rise. The clash, not the case numbers, which averaged nearly 25,000 a day in Florida at the peak of the Delta surge, led that day’s headlines.“It’s the undercurrent of his operation,” said Peter Schorsch, the publisher of FloridaPolitics.com. “Trolling the media.”Former aides say that DeSantis views the press as just another extension of the political process — a tool to weaponize or use for his own benefit. During a recent interview on “Ruthless,” a conservative podcast, he expounded on his philosophy.“Too long, for many of these Republicans, they would always defer to the corporate media,” DeSantis said. “They would try to impress the corporate media. Don’t work with them. You’ve got to beat them. You’ve got to fight back against them.”He’s proven remarkably deft at fighting back.The day after a “60 Minutes” report suggesting that Florida’s vaccine program had been influenced by political donors, DeSantis gave a 26-minute news conference — complete with a PowerPoint presentation — to decry CBS’s reporting as “malicious smears” and “a big lie.” Media critics agreed the segment was flawed.“I think you need that approach,” said Dave Vasquez, his former press secretary. “Some outlets are out to land a big punch on him, so he goes into it thinking, ‘I’m going to fight really hard.’”How Donald J. Trump Still LoomsGrip on G.O.P.: Mr. Trump remains the most powerful figure in the Republican Party. However, there are signs his control is loosening.Trump vs. DeSantis: Tensions between the ex-president and Florida governor show the challenge confronting the G.O.P. in 2022.Midterms Effect: Mr. Trump has become a party kingmaker, but his involvement in state races worries many Republicans.Just the Beginning: For many Trump supporters who marched on Jan. 6, the day was not a disgraced insurrection but the start of a movement.The incident with “60 Minutes” earned him the sympathy of the right-wing media ecosphere, which cheered DeSantis as he pounded CBS for deceptive editing and misleading innuendo.“I view it as positive feedback,” he later boasted. “If the corporate press nationally isn’t attacking me, then I’m probably not doing my job.”The candidate from FoxDeSantis has shrewdly cultivated the right-wing media — and Fox News above all.It began in 2012, when DeSantis was an unknown candidate for a U.S. House seat in Florida. Somehow, he managed to score an appearance on Sean Hannity’s Fox News show, where the nervous-looking, 33-year-old Iraq veteran spoke about then-President Barack Obama and his supposed lack of support for Israel.DeSantis won that race, and the relationship blossomed over the ensuing years. When DeSantis ran for governor in 2018, he appeared regularly on Fox in what former aides acknowledged was a strategy aimed at securing the primary endorsement of the network’s No. 1 fan. Sure enough, Trump endorsed him, and DeSantis went on to defeat Andrew Gillum, the Democratic nominee, by fewer than 33,000 votes.Lately, it often seems like Fox News is promoting another campaign: DeSantis’s thinly disguised bid for the Republican presidential nomination in 2024.Last year, The Tampa Bay Times revealed that various Fox shows requested the Florida governor appear on the network 113 times between November 2020 and the end of February 2021 — almost once a day. The Times quoted emails from Fox staffers gushing about DeSantis, with one producer calling him “the future of the party.”In response to the Tampa Bay paper, Fox said it “works to secure interviews daily with headliners across the political spectrum, which is a basic journalism practice at all news organizations.”Last March, DeSantis invited Brian Kilmeade of “Fox and Friends” to the governor’s mansion in Tallahassee for a fawning feature on his family.“I’m just so proud that he’s been able to be there for the people of Florida,” his wife, Casey, says in the segment. “I mean, it’s not every day you can say that you’re married to your hero.”A ‘sandpapery’ relationshipThe mainstream press, which DeSantis invariably describes with epithets like “the corporate media” or “the Acela media,” tends to get brass-knuckle treatment — when it gets access to him at all.Former advisers say DeSantis was often dismissive of the Florida press corps in particular, which he saw as biased and irrelevant. “I don’t think anybody reads them,” he told one aide.In a March 2021 profile, Michael Kruse, a senior writer for Politico Magazine, described the governor’s relationship with the media as “sandpapery at best.” Aminda Marqués Gonzalez, the publisher of The Miami Herald, in 2020 accused the governor’s office of pressuring the newspaper not to file a public-records lawsuit seeking information on how elder-care facilities were handling the pandemic. His spokesperson denied the allegation.After The Associated Press ran a story implying that DeSantis was helping a top donor by promoting Regeneron, a biotechnology company selling a coronavirus treatment, Twitter briefly suspended the combative account of his press secretary, Christina Pushaw, for what the social media company said was abusive behavior.In one tweet aimed at The A.P. that she has since deleted, Pushaw wrote: “Drag them.” In another, she wrote, “Light. Them. Up.”In a letter to DeSantis, Daisy Veerasingham, A.P.’s chief executive, asked him to stop Pushaw’s “harassing behavior.” The A.P. reporter later described receiving death threats, and took his account private.In an interview, Pushaw said she was merely asking her followers to criticize The A.P.’s coverage. “Frankly,” she said, “they deserved that criticism.”Journalists in Florida privately describe a climate of fear since the arrival of Pushaw, who often engages in late-night Twitter battles with her foes. On Sunday night, she suggested that Democratic operatives posed as Nazi sympathizers at a rally in Orlando. She deleted the tweet after an outcry, acknowledging it was “flippant.”“There’s nothing in there that could be interpreted as giving cover to neo-Nazis,” Pushaw said. “It’s despicable what they’re doing. I would never condone that in any way.”As for the criticism that she is too combative with the press, Pushaw is unapologetic. “I think the press has been combative with the governor, and I call that out,” she said.Asked about DeSantis’s relationship with the media, she said, “The governor is willing to work with any reporter who covers him fairly.”His former aides as well as his critics describe his approach to the media as methodical and ruthless, in contrast to Trump’s haphazard, seat-of-the-pants approach.“He has studied what has worked and left behind what doesn’t,” said David Jolly, a former Republican congressman who has contemplated running against him for governor. “He’s very good at maximizing the Trump benefit without bringing along the liabilities.”Conservative writers have celebrated DeSantis for regularly coming out ahead in his battles with the press. Dan McLaughlin, a columnist for National Review, compared the governor to the Road Runner for his ability to keep “escaping with his head high while his pursuers’ plans detonate in their faces.”‘Will you stay strong, or will you fold?’When Rush Limbaugh, the right-wing radio host, died in February of last year, DeSantis ordered flags in Florida lowered to half-staff — an honor usually bestowed on public officials or law enforcement heroes.Announcing the move, DeSantis hailed Limbaugh for connecting with “the hardworking, God-fearing and patriotic Americans who were and are the subject of ridicule by the legacy media.”The flag order provoked an uproar in Florida, but DeSantis made sure to mention it days later in his speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference.The question facing conservatives, he told the audience, was this: “When the klieg lights get hot, when the left comes after you, will you stay strong, or will you fold?”What to read Trump’s grip on the Republican Party faces new strains, Shane Goldmacher reports, though the former president remains the party’s dominant figure. At a rally Saturday in Texas, Trump said he would consider pardons for the Jan. 6 defendants if he won the presidency again.Jennifer Medina, Nick Corasaniti and Reid J. Epstein dive deep into the previously obscure office of secretary of state, which has become a major point of contention between the parties ahead of the 2022 midterm elections.Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, a leading contender to replace Justice Stephen G. Breyer on the Supreme Court, was shaped by her uncle’s cocaine conviction, according to a new profile by Patricia Mazzei and Charlie Savage.Justice Breyer, who is retiring from the Supreme Court, brought his own musings to cases during oral arguments.Sarahbeth Maney/The New York TimesOne more thing …Justice Stephen G. Breyer, who announced his retirement last week, is famous for spinning long-winded, hypothetical scenarios during Supreme Court arguments.In his column today, our colleague Adam Liptak recounts an episode from October, in a case involving a dispute over water rights between Tennessee and several other states:“San Francisco has beautiful fog,” Breyer said during oral arguments. “Suppose somebody came by in an airplane and took some of that beautiful fog and flew it to Colorado, which has its own beautiful air.”“And somebody took it and flew it to Massachusetts or some other place,” he continued. “I mean, do you understand how I’m suddenly seeing this and I’m totally at sea? It’s that the water runs around. And whose water is it? I don’t know. So you have a lot to explain to me, unfortunately, and I will forgive you if you don’t.”Is there anything you think we’re missing? Anything you want to see more of? We’d love to hear from you. Email us at onpolitics@nytimes.com. More