Curtis Houck spent a Dec. 4 post going on DeSantis Defense League patrol for the Media Research Center, complaining that other people were noticing the floundering state of Ron DeSantis’ presidential campaign:
On Monday’s editions of ABC’s Good Morning America and NBC’s Today, the two gleefully ripped Governor and 2024 GOP presidential candidate Ron DeSantis (R-FL) despite his completion of the “Full Grassley” (visiting Iowa’s 99 counties) over the weekend by mocking his “losing” bid and “problems…mounting” with “tensions” at fever pitch as former President Trump continues to “stomp” him.
Good Morning America (GMA) was, of course, the most gleeful given its place as chief corporate shill for parent company Disney and prostituting itself for all things Disney theme parks (such as here). In other words, why wouldn’t Disney sic its top AM news show on a man who’s waged a successful war embarrassing Disney?
Better yet, this came at the same time a scathing state audit came out about Disney and the special governance and tax district created to oversee DisneyWorld, Reedy Creek.
Houck offered no evidence to back up his claim that ABC is following corporate orders in criticizing DeSantis.
From there, we jump to a Jan. 5 post by Alex Christy, in which he complained about the “worst questions” from CNN town hall events for both DeSantis and Nikki Haley:
CNN held two presidential town halls on Thursday in Iowa, one with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and another with former Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley and while most of the questions were good or unobjectionable as they came from actual Republican voters. However, when CNN deviated from that formula things went sideways as DeSantis was asked how many people he was willing to kill to secure the border and Haley was asked about kicking Gazans out of Gaza.
DeSantis went first and moderator Kaitlan Collins introduced the questioner as Joseph Howe, “He is a business consultant from Des Moines, who is the former Iowa Libertarian state chair. He now says he is Republican and he’s undecided. Joseph?”
Bad Libertarian habits die hard as Howe quizzed DeSantis about the border, “Yeah, thanks for being here. Governor, almost all illegal migrants crossing the border carry a backpack or bag, very few are cartel members. If you order to shoot on sight, now excepting women and children, how many innocent people are you willing to have killed to kill one low-level drug mule?”
DeSantis responded by comparing drug cartels to the insurgents in the Iraq War, “Well, Joseph, thanks for that, but I take issue with the premise of that. When you’re conducting military operations, you’re not just doing that willy-nilly. I’m the only one running for president that actually has served overseas, in a war, in the Iraq campaign. They didn’t dress, they didn’t wear uniforms. You had to positively identify. People would have hostile actions, hostile intent. And then you would be able to engage.”
Later that day, Christy had a meltdown because “The View” honored drag queens from Florida who are being targeted by DeSantis:
Friday was Ana Navarro’s birthday and she and her colleagues on ABC’s The View marked the occasion by welcoming and celebrating a bunch of drag queens from the R House, which was investigated by Florida. Naturally, the investigation was mentioned in order to allow Navarro to claim R House defeated Gov. Ron DeSantis, but the reason for the investigation was never mentioned.
Sara Haines offered up an affirmation for the guests, “One of my favorite things about a drag show is there’s no one’s that’s out of place at a drag show. It does feel so inclusive which I love, but the R House is located in Miami, which is under the state rule of Governor DeSantis and I know he’s really come for drag shoe– shows and LGBTQ+ communities lately—”
Amidst the laughter from Haines’s shoes/shows slip up, Joy Behar would ask “What’s his problem? What’s his problem?”
DeSantis’s “problem” with R House was summarized by NBC’s Miami affiliate in September, “Gov. Ron DeSantis announced in July 2022 that an investigation by the Florida Department of Business and Professional Regulation was launched following the release of a video showing an exposed drag queen and young girl hand-in-hand at an R House show. In the clip, the drag queen is seen wearing lingerie as she parades the girl around the restaurant.”
In the accompanying video, NBC Miami censors the drag queen in question the way that a network would typically censor frontal nudity. They go onto report that the state and R House settled with R House paying a fine, but not having to admit guilt.
Christy left out the part where the investigation found no unlawful sexually explicit content at R House shows. Nevertheless, Christy tried to justify DeSantis’ targeting of drag queens by hyping his re-election numbers: “One can debate why DeSantis’s presidential numbers are what they are, but it is silly to pretend that the man who won re-election by almost 20 points is being punished by Republicans for opposing lingerie-clad drag queens parading around with young children.”
Tom Olohan helped DeSantis do a victory lap in a Jan. 9 post over a prosecutor he fired:
A Soros-backed district attorney and fifteen-minute legacy media hero will have more time to spend on MSNBC.
Former Florida State Attorney Andrew Warren announced Tuesday on an X (formerly Twitter) video that he would not seek reelection following his removal by Governor Ron DeSantis (R-FL). Warren — who has been promoted by legacy media after refusing to prosecute abortion cases — whined that DeSantis “shot democracy in the middle of our courthouse and he has gotten away with it.”
Warren went on to claim that he would be unceremoniously thrown out of office a second time if he won reelection and complained that, “DeSantis broke our democracy, and it’s too fragile and too important to let him do it again.”
It’s a tough break for his cheerleaders in the legacy media.
A few days later, a federal appeals court overturned a lower court’s decision to toss Warren’s request to return to office, pointing out that Warren had engaged in protected activity and that DeSantis acted in his own personal interests in suspending him. Neither Olohan or the rest of the MRC mentioned that.