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      Criminal investigation launched into DeSantis asylum seeker flights

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      Criminal investigation launched into DeSantis asylum seeker flightsTexas county sheriff says it seems evident that asylum seekers had been ‘lured’ to travel to Martha’s Vineyard ‘under false pretenses’ A criminal investigation has been launched in Texas into whether dozens of asylum seekers were illegally flown from the state to Martha’s Vineyard, as new evidence continues to emerge suggesting they were misled.Attorneys for ‘duped’ migrants flown to Martha’s Vineyard call for criminal investigationRead moreThe Bexar county sheriff, Javier Salazar, said on Monday that his office was investigating the flights, chartered on behalf of the Florida governor, Ron DeSantis, which brought dozens of migrants to the island in Massachusetts.While Salazar did not name possible subjects in the inquiry, he said: “Everybody on this call knows who those names are already,” according to NBC News.Salazar did not discuss what specific laws might have been broken, but said it seemed evident that asylum seekers had been “lured under false pretenses”, with a recruiter given a “bird dog fee” to gather dozens of people who were outside a San Antonio migrant resource center.“They were promised work,” said Salazar. “They were promised the solution to several of their problems.”Many of the asylum seekers were given pamphlets advertising cash assistance, help with housing, job training and other resources if they came to Massachusetts.But the promised benefits are only available for refugees, a specific categorization under US immigration law that the asylum seekers do not currently fall under.Lawyers for Civil Rights, a Boston-based group representing 30 of the recent arrivals, shared links and images of the brochures on Twitter.“This is additional evidence that shows in writing that those false representations were made in order to induce our clients to travel,” said Oren Sellstrom, the group’s litigation director, to NBC News.The group has also called for a federal and state criminal investigation into the chartered flights.A spokesperson from DeSantis’s office defended the flights and the brochures, saying that migrants were sent to “greener pastures” and to places that had more resources than Bexar county.The flights are just one instance of a broader pattern of Republican officials sending thousands of asylum seekers to predominantly Democratic-voting areas, a stunt that Democrats have slammed as illegal and wrong.“There is a process that is in place. And what they are doing is an illegal stunt, is a political stunt,” said the White House press secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre.TopicsUS immigrationRon DeSantisFloridaMassachusettsUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

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      DeSantis actions on migrants is ‘mini-ethnic cleansing’, expert warns

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      AnalysisDeSantis actions on migrants is ‘mini-ethnic cleansing’, expert warnsStephanie Kirchgaessner in Washington Philosophy professor says treating Republican’s decision to move unwitting migrants to Martha’s Vineyard as a political stunt risks diminishing its ‘moral seriousness’Florida governor Ron DeSantis’s decision to move unwitting migrants to Martha’s Vineyard last week has been compared to a “mini-ethnic cleansing with genocidal precedence” by a philosopher who has closely studied dehumanization and its role in genocide and the Holocaust.“Of course this is not genocide, but it is somewhat reminiscent of awful things that have happened in the past. As soon as you start treating human beings as undesirable problems to dump on others, you are in very dangerous territory,” said David Livingstone Smith, a professor of philosophy at the University of New England.“What frightens me most actually is that someone who does these sort of acts is capable of doing much worse,” he said.The remarks by Smith, who is the author of Making Monsters: The Uncanny Power of Dehumanization, come as dozens of more people, many of whom are migrants who are believed to have come from Venezuela, arrived in Washington DC on Saturday morning after being bused from Texas. The migrants, including a one-month-old baby, were dropped in front of the Naval Observatory, where Vice-President Kamala Harris resides.The shuttling of about 50 migrants from Texas to Martha’s Vineyard – with a stop in Florida – last week has been condemned by US president Joe Biden and human rights groups after it emerged that the migrants were misled and told they were being sent to Boston to find jobs and opportunities. Lawyers for the individuals have called on state officials in Massachusetts to investigate the incident, including the circumstances around the two charter flights that transported them to the Massachusetts island, which were arranged by DeSantis.The Florida Republican, who is expected to run for the Republican party’s presidential nomination in 2024, has claimed that “every community in America should be sharing in the burdens” of migrants and that he was seeking to draw attention to the Biden administration’s handling of immigration issues between the US and Mexico.But Smith warned that seeing the incident as merely a political “stunt” by an attention-seeking Republican politician risked diminishing the “moral seriousness and the possible future implications of what they are doing”.“In effect,” Smith said, “DeSantis is intimating that this is an ethnic cleansing operations, that he will take these so-called undesirables and pick them up and dump them in the lands of [his] political enemies.”Stone said he was also struck by the way in which both DeSantis and Texas governor Greg Abbott appeared to see liberal American cities like Washington DC or the wealthy liberal enclave of Martha’s Vineyard as being like a foreign country.“You could say that’s no surprise: there’s often talk of ‘real Americans’ living in the heartland. But this takes it to a new level. To use a gross but apt analogy, it’s as if someone is taking their garbage and dumping it in their neighbors’ yard. DeSantis talks about it like that,” he said.Tucker Carlson, the Fox News host who regularly engages in racist diatribes on his show, raised the idea of dropping migrants on Martha’s Vineyard in this summer. In a segment that aired on 26 July, he suggested sending “huge numbers” of migrants to the Massachusetts island, which he claimed must be “begging for diversity” since its major city was overwhelmingly white.“Let’s start with 300,000 and move up from there,” Carlson said.Fox News spokesperson Irena Briganti did not respond to questions about whether Carlson had discussed the issue with DeSantis directly or whether Fox had any concerns about Carlson encouraging human trafficking.Carlson has also praised authoritarian leaders such as Russia’s Vladimir Putin and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, who argued in a speech earlier this year that Europeans should not become “peoples of mixed race”.TopicsUS immigrationRon DeSantisUS politicsRepublicansanalysisReuse this content More

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      DeSantis criticized for sending migrants to Martha’s Vineyard: ‘It’s un-American’

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      DeSantis criticized for sending migrants to Martha’s Vineyard: ‘It’s un-American’Democrats outraged at the ‘reckless’ and ‘soulless’ actions and question the legality of what some called a political stunt Joe Biden has accused Ron DeSantis of “playing politics with people’s lives” for flying Venezuelan migrants to the wealthy liberal island community of Martha’s Vineyard without warning, while the legality of the Florida governor’s move is also under scrutiny.In what immigration activists and Democratic politicians have decried as a “political stunt”, DeSantis, who is expected to run for the Republican party’s presidential nomination in 2024, arranged for two charter planes of about 50 migrant adults and children to fly from Texas to Martha’s Vineyard on Wednesday. DeSantis sends migrants to Martha’s Vineyard, causing ‘humanitarian situation’ Read moreClaiming that “every community in America should be sharing in the burdens,” DeSantis told a press briefing he wanted to draw attention to what he claimed was a failure by the Biden administration to secure the US-Mexico border.The president attacked DeSantis’s action in a speech late on Thursday, also criticising Texas’s Republican governor, Greg Abbott.Abbott arranged for two buses from his state to drop off more than 100 migrants from Colombia, Cuba, Guyana, Nicaragua, Panama and Venezuela at the Washington DC residence of the vice-president, Kamala Harris, on Wednesday, shortly before the Massachusetts planes landed.The leader of the anti-trafficking charity Polaris on Friday issued a strongly-worded statement that pointedly questioned whether the governors’ actions amounted to human trafficking, citing migrants’ claims that they were deceived about where they were going.“Acts of calculated deception were reportedly used to trick migrants onto buses and planes,” the statement from Polaris chief Catherine Chen said. “Unfortunately, this tactic is one that we know far too well in the anti-trafficking world. Migrants are regularly tricked and defrauded as part of their trafficking experience, with traffickers and exploiters taking advantage of their recent arrival, limited English proficiency, and unfamiliarity with our government systems and labor laws.”Chen added: “If migrants were defrauded, and if this fraud was intended as a vehicle for anyone’s material gain, including that of an elected official, then there is a case for investigating it as trafficking.”DeSantis, Abbott and Doug Ducey, governor of Arizona, have sent thousands of migrants to predominantly Democratic-run “sanctuary” states and cities they deem to be liberal over immigration, although Massachusetts has a Republican governor, Charlie Baker.Attack on asylum seeker in New York sparks outrage over conditions Read more“Instead of working with us on solutions, Republicans are playing politics with human beings, using them as props,” Biden said at a gala for the Congressional Hispanic Caucus in Washington DC.“What they’re doing is simply wrong. It’s un-American, it’s reckless and we have a process in place to manage migrants at the border. We’re working to make sure it’s safe and orderly and humane.“Republican officials should not interfere with that process by waging these political stunts,” he added.Veronica Escobar, a Democratic congresswoman from Texas, meanwhile, said DeSantis was “a soulless human being”.On Friday, as Baker said he had ordered up to 125 members of the Massachusetts national guard to help move the migrants to more secure accommodation at a military base in Cape Cod on the mainland, questions were mounting over the legality of DeSantis’s action.The US attorney for Massachusetts, Rachael Rollins, said she planned to speak with the justice department, and Nikki Fried, a member of the Florida cabinet and the only statewide-elected Democrat, wrote to the US attorney general, Merrick Garland, to demand a federal investigation into potential human trafficking.California’s Democratic governor, Gavin Newsom, said he had also written to the justice department, which declined comment when contacted by the Guardian on Friday.Charlie Crist, the Democratic nominee for Florida governor, who will challenge DeSantis in November’s midterm elections, said he had filed a sunshine law request demanding information about the state’s legislature-approved “relocation programme”.Earlier this year politicians granted $12m (£10.5m) for DeSantis’s plan to relocate migrants to other states, but the language is specific to undocumented immigrants physically in Florida.Both flights to Massachusetts touched down briefly in Florida en route between San Antonio and Martha’s Vineyard, but DeSantis’s office did not say if that was an attempt to meet the requirement of the programme.The southern Republican governors have been transporting migrants who are, at least temporarily, legally in the US waiting for their immigration cases, such as seeking asylum from violent regimes, to be processed.Crist in a statement accused DeSantis of trafficking humans with Florida taxpayer money. “He owes the people of our state answers,” Crist added.In Edgartown, the Martha’s Vineyard county seat and old whaling port, on Friday, residents and aid groups were working to care for and relocate the Venezuelan families, many of whom speak no English and say they were not told of their destination when they boarded the plane.Several told journalists there was nobody at the airport to greet them, and they walked almost four miles to find help in the town, where they were put up in a church overnight.“They were told there was a surprise present for them, and that there would be jobs and housing awaiting for them when they arrived. This was obviously a sadistic lie,” Rachel Self, a Boston immigration attorney assisting with the migrants’ cases, said at a press briefing.Self said she believes the migrants in question were kidnapped and defrauded, and any who cooperate with investigators may become eligible for a visa granted to crime victims.On Friday afternoon, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre accused Republican governors involved of lying to migrants, and said DeSantis did not notify Massachusetts that “migrant children, in need of food and shelter, were about to land on their doorstep”.“These vulnerable migrants were misled about where they were headed.”She condemned what she called Abbott and DeSantis “creating political theater [without] creating actual solution.She noted, however, that any legal challenge would have to come from the US Justice Department rather than the White House.Shaw Drake, senior policy counsel on border and immigration at the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) said the Martha’s Vineyard case has raised “particular concerns about the level of coercion and lack of informed consent”.“The issue of consent is of core legal concern,” Drake added.Meanwhile, NBC News reported friction between the White House and the Department of Homeland Security about how to cope with the latest rise in unauthorized border crossings.TopicsUS immigrationJoe BidenRon DeSantisUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

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      Maybe US mainstream media should begin using the term ‘fascism’ | Robert Reich

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      Maybe US mainstream media should begin using the term ‘fascism’Robert ReichMy tweet about Ron DeSantis provoked outrage in rightwing media – perhaps it hit the nerve of the fascism now taking root in the Republican party? I’ve been watching the Florida governor, Ron DeSantis, for some time. Last Tuesday I tweeted: “Just wondering if ‘DeSantis’ is now officially a synonym for ‘fascist’.”I was surprised at the outrage my little tweet provoked in rightwing media.The Washington Examiner, for example, called me an “ultra-leftwing elitist” who wrote an “insulting slur”, which is “what leftwing ideologues do when they discuss Republican politicians who pose any threat to the existence of their political ideology … Anyone the Democrats don’t like or disagree with is a fascist.”This was among the kindest responses.After a half-century in and around politics, I’ve got a thick skin. But the size of the blowback on my little tweet makes me think I struck a nerve.DeSantis is the most likely rival to Trump for the Republican nomination in 2024. The Harvard and Yale educated DeSantis (what do they teach at Harvard and Yale?) has been called “Trump with a brain”.DeSantis is the nation’s consummate culture warrior. Lately he has been campaigning on behalf of Republican election-deniers around the country, including gubernatorial candidate Doug Mastriano in Pennsylvania and US Senate candidate JD Vance in Ohio.In Florida, discussions of sexual orientation and gender identity are now barred in schools. Math textbooks have been rejected for what officials call “indoctrination”. Claiming tenured professors in Florida’s public universities were “indoctrinating” students, DeSantis spearheaded a law requiring them to be reviewed every five years.Teachers are limited in what they can teach about racism and other tragic aspects of American history. DeSantis has got personally involved in local school board races, endorsing and campaigning for 30 board candidates who agree with him (so far, 20 have won outright, five are going to runoffs).Abortions are banned after 15 weeks. (DeSantis recently suspended an elected prosecutor who said he would refuse to enforce the anti-abortion law.)A new state office has been created to investigate “election crimes”.Florida’s Medicaid regulator is considering denying state-subsidized treatments to transgender people. Its medical board may ban gender-affirming medical treatment for youths.Disney (Florida’s largest employer) has been stripped of the ability to govern itself in retaliation for the company’s opposition to the crackdown on LGBTQ+ conversations with schoolchildren.Florida’s congressional map has been redrawn to give Republicans an even bigger advantage.DeSantis also spews culture-war rhetoric. “We are not going to surrender to woke,” he said last Tuesday. “Florida is the state where woke goes to die.”He describes an America under assault by leftwing elites, who “want to delegitimize our founding institutions”.He calls the state of Florida a “citadel of freedom” and says his job as governor is to fight critical race theory, “Faucian dystopia”, uncontrolled immigration, big tech, “leftwing oligarchs”, “Soros-funded prosecutors”, transgender athletes and the “corporate media”.He charges – using a standard racist dog whistle – that “we’re not letting Florida cities burn down … In Florida, you’re not going to get a slap on the wrist. You are getting the inside of a jail cell.”So, is it useful to characterize DeSantis’s combination of homophobia, transphobia, racism and misogyny, along with his efforts to control the public schools and universities and to intimidate the private sector (eg, Disney), as redolent of fascism?America’s mainstream media is by now comfortable talking and writing about “authoritarianism”. Maybe it should also begin using the term “fascism”, where appropriate.Even Joe Biden, never known as a rhetorical bomb-thrower, last Thursday accused the Republican party of “semi-fascism”.Authoritarianism implies the absence of democracy, a dictatorship. Fascism – from the Latin fasces, denoting a tightly bound bundle of wooden rods typically including a protruding axe blade, adopted by Benito Mussolini in the 1930s to symbolize his total power – is different.Fascism also includes hatred of “them” (people considered different by race or religion, or outside the mainstream, or who were born abroad), control over what people learn and what books they are allowed to read, control over what had been independent government units (school boards, medical boards, universities and so on), control over women and the most intimate and difficult decisions they’ll ever make, and demands that the private sector support the regime.Perhaps my “just wondering” tweet about DeSantis hit the nerve of the fascism now taking root in the Republican party?Or is DeSantis’s own nascent presidential campaign behind the outsized reaction to my tweet?After all, if you’re seeking a presidential nomination in today’s GOP, there’s nothing like an accusation of fascism to rally Trump supporters. It might be a particularly useful strategy if your primary opponent in 2024 will be Trump.
      Robert Reich, a former US secretary of labor, is professor of public policy at the University of California, Berkeley and the author of Saving Capitalism: For the Many, Not the Few and The Common Good. His new book, The System: Who Rigged It, How We Fix It, is out now. He is a Guardian US columnist. His newsletter is at robertreich.substack.com
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      Florida: Charlie Crist wins Democratic primary to challenge Ron DeSantis

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      Florida: Charlie Crist wins Democratic primary to challenge Ron DeSantisFormer Republican governor who became a Democratic congressman edges out Nikki Fried to face the Donald Trump protégé in November Charlie Crist will challenge Florida’s Republican governor, Ron DeSantis, in November after trouncing Nikki Fried, the state agriculture commissioner, in Tuesday’s Democratic primary.Crist, a former Republican governor of Florida who switched parties and became a Democratic congressman, fought a campaign touting his experience in office and opposition to the 15-week abortion ban signed by DeSantis.Florida governor Ron DeSantis attacks media in ‘Top Gun’ campaign adRead moreIn his victory speech in St Petersburg, Crist promised that if elected he will on his first day in office sign an executive order overturing the abortion law.And he pledged to end the White House hopes of “wannabe dictator” DeSantis, who is tipped as a likely contender for the Republican presidential nomination in 2024. DeSantis has signed a raft of culture war legislation in Florida, attacking LBGTQ+ rights and “woke” corporations.“Our fundamental freedoms are literally on the ballot,” Crist said. “A woman’s right to choose on the ballot. Democracy on the ballot. Your rights as minorities are on this ballot.“That’s what’s at stake in this election, make no mistake about it, because this guy wants to be president of the United States of America and everybody knows it.“However, when we defeat him on 8 November, that show is over.”With fewer than 15% of votes left to count, Crist held a commanding lead over Fried, a progressive and the only statewide elected Democrat currently in office, by roughly 60% to 35%. But turnout, particularly in central Florida, was far below that of four years ago, a lack of enthusiasm among Democrats one of the main fears of party officials.In his final pre-election press conference, Crist said he planned to appear at a “unity rally” with his beaten opponent in south Florida later in the week.Their focus will switch to ousting DeSantis, whom Crist has branded Florida’s “absentee” governor for constantly attacking Joe Biden’s policies and appearing to concentrate on out-of-state fundraising for a national campaign rather than problems at home.“He’s campaigning this last weekend in New Mexico, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and I think another state, but he’s been doing that for a year, maybe more,” Crist said.“We have issues here the governor ought to be dealing with, the housing crisis, we pay our teachers 48 or 49 of 50 states, that’s embarrassing.“And the fact he already has taken away a woman’s right to choose with the law that he signed, the 15-week law that has no exceptions for rape or incest, is barbaric.”During her campaign, Fried attacked Crist’s Republican roots and perceived flip-flops over abortion, and painted herself as the only candidate capable of beating DeSantis. Crist, who ran unsuccessfully for the Senate in 2010, has the unenviable distinction of losing statewide races as a Republican, Democrat and independent.But he appears to have been more popular with women voters in this primary, and pointed out that, when he was governor 12 years ago, he vetoed an anti-abortion bill.On Tuesday night, Fried told NBC News she would accept if Crist asked her to be his running mate.“I’ve said to Charlie, both tonight and throughout this entire election, that my No 1 priority is making sure that we make Ron DeSantis a one-term governor and not eligible to run for president of the United States in 2024.“Ron DeSantis is our greatest threat to democracy, so I will do everything in my power, including being on Charlie’s ticket, to make sure that happens in November.“What we did here in this election, is we created a movement for women across the state of Florida. We gave inspiration, we gave motivation, and so whatever it takes to make sure that Ron DeSantis is defeated in November – I’m all in.”DeSantis won the 2018 election against the Democratic challenger, Andrew Gillum, by barely 30,000 votes, or 0.4% of 8.2m cast. But toppling him in November will be a formidable task as Florida has trended increasingly Republican in recent years.The incumbent also has a war chest in excess of $100m, far above what Crist has been able to raise. Even so, Crist remains confident he can win on the issues.“Today the people of Florida clearly sent a message,” he said. “They want a governor who cares about them to solve real problems, who preserves our freedom, not a bully who divides us and takes our freedom away.”In another much-watched Democratic primary, Val Demings, a congresswoman and former Orlando police chief, easily secured the nomination to challenge the Republican US senator Marco Rubio in November.Rubio’s seat is one of several targeted by Democrats as they attempt to build a majority in the 50-50 chamber and negate their reliance on Vice-president Kamala Harris’s tiebreaking vote.A competitive and crowded Democratic primary for the House seat Demings vacated went to Maxwell Frost, a 25-year-old progressive endorsed by the Massachusetts senator Elizabeth Warren and Pramila Jayapal, a leading House progressive from Washington state.In a tight Republican primary for another central Florida House seat, the far-right extremist Laura Loomer, a self-declared Islamophobe, election denier and conspiracy theorist, narrowly lost to the incumbent, Dan Webster.TopicsUS midterm elections 2022FloridaDemocratsRon DeSantisRepublicansUS politicsnewsReuse this content More

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      Florida governor Ron DeSantis attacks media in ‘Top Gun’ campaign ad

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      Florida governor Ron DeSantis attacks media in ‘Top Gun’ campaign adRightwing Republican viewed as serious 2024 presidential contender accuses reporters of ‘peddling false narratives’ Governor Ron DeSantis of Florida on Monday released a campaign advertisement drawing on the movie franchise Top Gun to attack the news media.The ad is the latest stunt by DeSantis to promote far-right talking points before Tuesday’s statewide primary and a possible future run for the Oval Office in 2024.In the parody, posted to Twitter, DeSantis wears a bomber jacket similar to outfits worn by the Top Gun star Tom Cruise in the franchise’s two films and discusses “taking on the corporate media” in an airbase.“The rules of engagement are as follows: number one – don’t fire unless fired upon, but when they fire, you fire back with overwhelming force,” DeSantis says in the video. “Number two – never ever back down from a fight. Number three – don’t accept their narrative.”DeSantis also dons a helmet with the logo “Top Gov”.The ad is intercut with a reel of DeSantis at previous news conferences and other events where he accuses journalists of “peddling false narratives”.In addition to attacking members of the press, DeSantis has embraced almost all conservative social issues in his quest to gain prominence among Republicans ahead of a potential 2024 presidential run.DeSantis has largely aimed his efforts at Florida’s education system, promoting Republicans on local school boards and signing bills that censor classroom material.Ahead of Tuesday’s primary race, DeSantis launched a statewide tour promoting 29 hand-picked candidates for non-partisan school board positions that support his education platform.He signed a law in March criminalizing discussions of sexual orientation and gender identity in Florida classrooms. The “don’t say gay” bill is a policy that critics overwhelmingly say further marginalizes LGBTQ+ communities.Last year, the governor took further aim at trans girls and women, banning their participation from sports in public schools and universities, with critics calling the law “cruel” and “horrific”.After the signing of that bill, Florida became the eighth state in the US to ban trans people from athletic events in schools, reported CNN.DeSantis has also severely restricted race education in Florida, signing a measure in April that bans teachers from instructing on certain topics around race and ethnicity.“We believe in education, not indoctrination,” DeSantis said during an April press conference.DeSantis also supported the banning of books, including mathematic textbooks, arguing that textbook manufacturers were “indoctrinating” children.He has also sought to curb abortion rights in the Sunshine state.After the US supreme court overturning Roe v wade in June, DeSantis supported a 15-week abortion ban in Florida that was contested and later reinstated.On 4 August, the governor suspended an elected state prosecutor who promised not to enforce the near-total ban, arguing that the elected official was violating his oath of office.DeSantis like other Republican candidates has also moved to investigate election fraud, a priority stemming from former president Donald Trump’s false claim that the 2020 election was stolen from him.Studies have shown that voter fraud is rare, usually happening in isolated instances and generally detected.But in April, the governor established a police force to prosecute voter fraud, with officials arresting and charging 20 people with previous felony convictions for voting illegally despite complexities around voting eligibility after a conviction.TopicsFloridaRon DeSantisUS politicsRepublicansnewsReuse this content More

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      Best of frenemies: Ron DeSantis stalks Trump with Republican primary tour

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      Best of frenemies: Ron DeSantis stalks Trump with Republican primary tour The Florida governor has been dubbed a ‘mini-Trump’ and was once boosted by the ex-president but a potential rivalry in 2024 has turned relations sourAs Florida’s governor, Ron DeSantis, packs his suitcase for a five-day trip to campaign for Trump-endorsed candidates, he might afford himself a dastardly chuckle.The trek, taking in Arizona, New Mexico, Ohio and Pennsylvania is nominally aimed at boosting Republicans’ chances ahead of November’s crucial primaries. For DeSantis, however, there is surely a grander design. Each of the rising Republican star’s destinations is a swing state, key to winning the 2024 presidential election.As Trump’s star wanes, another rises: could Ron DeSantis be the new Maga bearer?Read moreThe Florida governor – who must walk the tightrope of being both ally and rival of Trump – is hotly tipped to run for president, and this outwardly benevolent campaigning trip will further swell his profile.There is a downside, however. DeSantis’s sojourn will put him on a collision course with the Republican party’s most sensitive, volatile and powerful figure: Donald Trump. With this tour, DeSantis’s tightrope is getting more and more rocky.Trump was key to getting DeSantis, who has been dubbed a “mini-Trump”, elected governor in 2018, but bad blood between the pair – particularly from Trump’s side – has been brewing for some time.As DeSantis has become a new darling of the right, fueled by his introduction of anti-gay and anti-trans laws in Florida and a populist crusade against coronavirus lockdowns and masking, Trump, muzzled by his Twitter ban and besieged by lawsuits and congressional investigations, has found himself under siege.The rise of DeSantis has not always gone down well with the twice-impeached former president who, according to one report, now “hates” his former protege.The apparent feud is a far cry from 2018, when Trump swooped into the Florida gubernatorial primary, endorsed DeSantis, and propelled the then relatively obscure congressman to the Florida governorship.DeSantis had been struggling in the 2018 governor primary. Most of the polls through 2017 and early 2018 had Adam Putnam, then the Florida agriculture commissioner, leading DeSantis. The few polls that didn’t have Putnam ahead showed the pair in an effective tie.Until late June, that is, when Trump endorsed DeSantis in a tweet that hailed the gubernatorial hopeful as “strong on Borders, tough on Crime & big on Cutting Taxes”. In the next poll following that endorsement DeSantis was 20 points ahead. Trump held a rally for DeSantis in Tampa in July 2018, and the Floridian won the Republican nomination and beat Andrew Gillum, his Democratic opponent, by about 32,000 votes in the election proper. A star was born.“I’d like to thank our president,” DeSantis said in his victory speech, to cheers from the crowd, “for standing by me when it wasn’t necessarily the smart thing to do.”But even during that campaign there had been warning signs that the DeSantis-Trump relationship might not be entirely harmonious.In September 2018 Trump questioned, without evidence, the number of people who died when Hurricane Maria hit Puerto Rico a year earlier. A study commissioned by the Puerto Rican government found that almost 3,000 people died as a result of the category 4 hurricane.There was outrage from many. From DeSantis, there was a more tepid, but still meaningful, disagreement.“He doesn’t believe any loss of life has been inflated,” DeSantis’s campaign said in a statement.That rebuttal, the New York Times reported, was enough to leave Trump “absolutely livid”.Vanity Fair reported in July 2021 that Trump and DeSantis were on a “collision course”. That June, DeSantis beat Trump in a conservative poll of candidates’ approval ratings, albeit by less than 3%. DeSantis’s popularity was soaring, and his one-time benefactor was upset.“Trump fucking hates DeSantis. He just resents his popularity,” a Trump confidant told Vanity Fair’s Gabriel Sherman.At 43 years old, Ronald Dion DeSantis is more than three decades younger than Trump, who will be 78 on election day in 2024.Born in Jacksonville, Florida, DeSantis studied at Yale and at Harvard law school before becoming a prosecutor in the navy, where he received decorations for prosecuting cases involving fraud related to military medals, according to a Freedom of information request submitted by the Florida Phoenix. DeSantis was deployed to Iraq in 2007, where he served as a legal adviser, and was honorably discharged in 2010.In 2012 DeSantis ran for the US House of Representatives and won, and went on to co-found the House Freedom Caucus, a particularly rightwing group of congressmen, many of whom had emerged from the early Obama-era Tea Party.After a pretty unremarkable spell in Congress – the Miami Herald reported that none of the bills DeSantis introduced as the original sponsor became law – DeSantis found himself as governor of Florida, a position which propelled him into the national spotlight.He would become a regular contributor to Fox News, the conservative movement tastemaker, and in the year following the 2020 presidential election was asked to appear on the channel more than 110 times, according to the New Yorker, agreeing at least 34 times.So far in 2022, the trend has continued. DeSantis has been among the most interviewed Republicans on Fox News, while Trump, as of mid-August, had not been interviewed on the network for more than 115 days.DeSantis is seen by some conservatives as a more palatable, more electable, version of the original: still outspoken against the media or perceived foes when he wants to be, but less prone to explosions of temper, and with a less turbulent past. DeSantis has also not been impeached twice, and is not being investigated for inciting an insurrection, which could help win over wavering voters.But DeSantis is just as extreme – perhaps more extreme – than Trump. As governor he has targeted minority groups, introducing legislation that seems designed to thrill the rightwing Republican base.In March of this year DeSantis signed into law a “don’t say gay” bill, which prohibits discussion of sexuality and gender identity in schools, a move that advocates say could harm the mental health of LGBTQ+ youth. The governor’s administration has also moved to ban gender-affirming medical treatment for trans youths, an effort described as “transparently political” by the Human Rights Campaign.DeSantis suspended a Florida state prosecutor in early August after the latter said he would not enforce a 15-week abortion ban, while the state has also banned certain math textbooks, alleging references to critical race theory.That resentment continued to fester. In January 2022 a spate of stories emerged in the political press that Trump had become increasingly unhappy with DeSantis.Axios reported that behind the scenes, Trump would frequently criticize his former charge.“He says DeSantis has no personal charisma and has a dull personality,” a source told Axios. The news site reported that Trump’s irritation stemmed from the fact that DeSantis has not ruled himself out of the running for the 2024 presidential election, should Trump himself run.Marco Rubio, the Florida senator who also ran for president in 2016, Rick Scott, Florida’s former governor and current senator, and the rising antagonist congressman Josh Hawley have all done so, to varying degrees.Trump still dominates the Republican party. A slew of Trump-endorsed candidates – including the ones DeSantis will campaign for – won their primaries, and could be elected in November, cementing Trump’s reputation as a GOP kingmaker.But with Trump’s travails ongoing, there is an opening for others. A July poll, conducted as the congressional hearings into the January 6 insurrection drew to a close, found that one-third of Republicans think Trump should not run for president again in 2024.All this leaves DeSantis in a prime position to sweep up Republican voters, ahead of a 2024 primary.That process will start when the governor will be the main attraction at a rally in Phoenix for Blake Masters, a Senate candidate endorsed by Trump.The rightwing media are expected to cover the event closely. Also watching, no doubt, will be Donald Trump.TopicsRon DeSantisRepublicansUS politicsDonald TrumpUS midterm elections 2022featuresReuse this content More

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      Newsom airs Florida ad urging people to fight for freedom – or move to California

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      Newsom airs Florida ad urging people to fight for freedom – or move to California‘Freedom is under attack in your state,’ California governor says in ad paid for by his re-election campaign that aired on Fox News Governor Gavin Newsom of California has aired a commercial in Florida over the Fourth of July holiday weekend urging residents there to fight for freedom, or move to his state in order to find it.The ad – which pits blue state California against currently red state Florida – exemplified the growing divides in the US as Republican-led state legislatures have pursued rightwing policies on a slew of issues from banning abortion to attacking LGBTQ+ rights and voting issues.As Trump’s star wanes, another rises: could Ron DeSantis be the new Maga bearer?Read more“Freedom is under attack in your state,” California’s Democratic leader said in the punchy advertisement, paid for by Newsom’s re-election campaign and aired on the rightwing Fox News channel.“Republican leaders – They’re banning books, making it harder to vote, restricting speech in classrooms, even criminalizing women and doctors. I urge all of you to join the fight, or join us in California, where we still believe in freedom.”Newsom appeared to be taking jabs at Florida’s far-right governor, Ron DeSantis, and his recent efforts to disenfranchise voters, chip away at the civil rights of LGBTQ+ communities, and restrict access to abortion. It’s a picture of the current political landscape in America: two state leaders on opposite coasts of the country with directly conflicting ideologies.But Newsom’s strategy of fighting fire with fire is one not typically seen from the country’s democratic party.While Newsom has ruled out any interest in running for president in the near future, some speculate DeSantis, a Trump favorite and fellow rightwinger, will bid for the Republican party’s presidential nomination in 2024. In April, after DeSantis signed the “don’t say gay” bill into law, books were banned across the state. Florida’s department of education has also rejected 41% of math textbooks they believed were pushing ideologies like critical race theory or social and emotional learning in order to “indoctrinate students”.Last year, DeSantis also signed more restrictive voting measures into law, like limiting ballot drop-box hours and requesting mail-in ballots every year, instead of every four years. DeSantis said the restrictions will curb voter fraud, despite little evidence there is such a problem.And after the supreme court overturned landmark case Roe vs Wade, which gave US citizens the constitutional right to an abortion, DeSantis signed a law into effect banning abortions after 15 weeks without exception for rape or incest. A state judge temporarily blocked the law, calling it unconstitutional. But a spokesperson for DeSantis said the state plans to appeal the ruling.By contrast, Newsom signed a bill protecting abortion providers in his state from liability or prosecution for providing out-of-state abortions. California lawmakers also voted to ask voters on their November ballots to add an amendment to the state’s constitution that would explicitly protect reproductive rights.TopicsGavin NewsomFloridaCaliforniaFox NewsRon DeSantisUS politicsnewsReuse this content More