As the final days of Ron DeSantis’ presidential campaign rolled around, the Media Research Center remained in DeSantis Defense Brigade mode — therefore, you heard nothing about the growing reports about how badly his campaign was run, or even about DeSantis’ own regrets about hiding inside the right-wing media bubble instead of talking to media outlets that weren’t filled with right-wing partisans. Instead, we got a Jan. 19 post from Brad Wilmouth reciting culture-war talking points, complaining that “CNN contributor Ashley Allison was allowed to wrongly claim that Florida Governor Ron DeSantis is ‘trying to erase black history’ from schools even though this claim is demonstrably false.” Wilmouth’s redundancy seems to be a sign that the Defense Brigade was getting a little worn out.
When DeSantis dropped out of the race before the New Hampshire primary, the Defense Brigade was on full alert to complain when people pointed out how terrible of a campaign he had. Mark Finkelstein complained in a Jan. 22 post when “Morning Joe” addressed it:
But in its second half-hour, today’s show eventually got around to the DeSantis news–and did so with a nasty smirk. Katty Kay kicked things off. You might imagine that BBCer Kay represents the more refined wing of the liberal media. But there she was with a mocking laugh as she suggested to Charlie Sykes that they do a DeSantis post-mortem, “before we consign him to oblivion and forget his name.” Klassy Katty!
Scarborough took it from there. His theme was that Trump is “Fat Elvis,” the “sweaty Fat Elvis” of 1977, and that’s what his fans want. Thus, they were not going to switch to a knock-off Fat Elvis in the person of DeSantis. According to Scarborough, DeSantis needed to find another lane, but never did so.
Curtis Houck whined further about the criticism:
Unsurprisingly, Disney-owned ABC News was ebullient on Monday’s Good Morning America with the news from Sunday afternoon that Governor Ron DeSantis (R-FL) – who took on and embarrassed the Sunshine State behemoth — had dropped out of the 2024 presidential race, calling it an “implosion” and “spectacular failure” that hadn’t been seen in American history.
Having helped in vanquishing their most-hated candidate, ABC pivoted to their preferred candidate, former President Trump, and proclaimed he’s not only continuing to spew lies on various issues, but is the 2024 candidate in cognitive decline. Nowhere was it mentioned that President Biden has shown a major mental decline and has voters across the spectrum concerned.
Comedy cop Alex Christy huffed about the late-night shows addressing DeSantis:
The late night quintet spent their Monday shows celebrating the news that Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has decided to drop out of the Republican primary by mocking his appearance and making fun of his Winston Churchill blunder by claiming that is what happens when you “ban textbooks.”
CBS’s Stephen Colbert was the most bitter towards DeSantis on The Late Show as he made the curious claim that DeSantis did not win the Republican primary because he made liberals like himself quite upset, “I don’t understand why Americans didn’t rally behind a guy who declared war on the Magic Kingdom, attacked trans kids, denied COVID, kidnapped migrants and flew them to Martha’s Vineyard, and ate pudding with his fingers.”
Over at ABC, Jimmy Kimmel played a clip DeSantis posted when he made his announcement, “Winston Churchill once remarked ‘that success is not final, failure is not fatal. It is the courage to continue that counts.’”
Kimmel, who spread fake news of his own on Thursday and did not correct the record on Monday, retorted that, “Well, not only did DeSantis opt not to continue, Winston Churchill never said that. The state of Florida, you know, the state banned all books about Churchill after deciding the name Winston sounded too gay so Ron DeSantis didn’t know.”
Meanwhile, over at NBC, The Tonight Show host Jimmy Fallon did a Mickey Mouse impersonation, “Bye, bitch!”
Referencing the DeSantis-Churchill clip, Fallon added, “That’s right, DeSantis posted a video announcing that he was dropping out. And during it, he attributed a quote about failure to Winston Churchill, but Churchill never actually said it. See, this is what happens when you ban textbooks.”
Later on NBC, Late Night host Seth Meyers claimed that “the weirdo community suffered a major blow on Sunday when, in a completely unsurprising move, one of the most off-putting people on the planet, Ron DeSantis, seen here waiting for someone to hit a golf ball into his mouth, dropped out of the GOP presidential primary.”
That was one of only two references at the MRC to DeSantis reading a fake quote from Winston Churchill in his drop-out announcement (which may have originally come from a beer ad); the second was in a Feb. 2 post by Christy whining that it was referenced on the new late-night show “After Midnight.” Still, Christy tried to play whataboutism over the misquote to attack others he claimed made false claims about DeSantis:
Poking fun at the Churchill goof is one thing, but to say that believing men are men is problematic, or that he kidnapped migrants, or that banning sexually explicit material for children is the same as banning history books is quite different. In fact, if anyone was to ban Churchill books, it would be the left. Additionally, DeSantis is still governor, so the comedians should tamper their celebrations.
Finkelstein returned to complain about more “Morning Joe” criticism of DeSantis:
What’s up with these Morning Joe regulars who had cultivated something of a benign image suddenly turning nasty?
Yesterday, we noted BBCer Katty Kay with a mocking laugh as she suggested to Charlie Sykes that they do a DeSantis post-mortem, “before we consign him to oblivion and forget his name.”
Today, it was Eugene Robinson’s turn to turn mean. Though Robinson is an ardent liberal, he has something of an avuncular air about him. But both in his current Washington Post column, snidely entitled “The Nation’s Gain is Florida’s Loss,” and on today’s Morning Joe, Robinson took nasty swipes at Ron DeSantis as the Florida governor exited the GOP primary stage.
The show quoted Robinson’s very strained analogy in his column [emphasis added], “I fear DeSantis will continue using the state as a stage to boost his MAGA profile — just like those awfully high heels on his cowboy boots.”
[…]Who’s next? Although Willie Geist has become an ardent Trump critic, he has somehow managed to maintain an affable air. Should we expect Willie, sometime soon, to unload ugly shots at Trump or another unsuspecting Republican?
Finkelstein didn’t explain why DeSantis is above criticism. Brad Wilmouth, meanwhile, groused about even more criticism of DeSantis:
In the aftermath of Ron DeSantis dropping out of the GOP presidential race over the weekend, MSNBC anchor Ayman Mohyeldin led a panel in trashing the Florida governor over his electoral misfortune, hitting him with personal attacks and accusing him of being a terrible governor.
Setting up one of several segments on the subject on Sunday night, Mohyeldin posed: “Can you think of a single Republican primary contender who has embarrassed themselves more or tarnished their reputation more than Governor Ron DeSantis?”
He then went to disaffected former Republican Tara Setmayer, who currently works for the disgraced Lincoln Project, giving her a chance to gloat that she and her former colleague Rick Wilson had predicted DeSantis as an “Epic Fail” when it began. Mohyeldin ended up declaring that he has never “seen someone as cringeworthy as DeSantis.”
Christy had another late-night watch post grumbling that Seth Meyers was still taking shots at DeSantis for his culture-war obsessions:
Amongst the late night comedians there exists a peculiar theory that says the reason why Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis struggled and ultimately failed to win the Republican presidential nomination is because he pursued policies as governor that they, a bunch of liberals, do not like and that nobody else cares about. NBC Late Night host Seth Meyers was the latest example on Tuesday as he claimed that nobody cares about “what bathroom someone uses,” pronouns, or anything else that conservatives actually do care about.
DeSantis’s withdrawal from the race put Meyers in a self-admittedly awkward place as he moderated a fake debate between DeSantis and Nikki Haley. For the most part, Meyers asks silly questions and uses cut up sound bites from the candidates’ answers at the most recent real debate for humorous effect. However, occasionally Meyers will try to make an actual political argument as he did when he turned his fake debate into a parody of the game show Pyramid.
The “category” DeSantis, who still won re-election by almost 20 points, was supposed to “guess” was “things no voter cares about” and Meyers began with “banning LGBTQ books.”
DeSantis faux-replied, “Things that are going to help seniors.” That’s cute, but Meyers never does explain how books that Joy Reid’s show won’t even tweet out without censorship are suitable for children.
Trying again, Meyers tried again “No. Complaining about someone for preferred pronouns.”
DeSantis’s fake reply this time was “Things in Florida,” but as hard as it may be for Meyers to understand, some people really do care about putting truth before subjective feelings.
Christy went on to whine that “Meyers will be surprised to know that a great many people actually do care what bathroom people use because a society that cannot get basic concepts of male and female right does not have much of a chance of getting anything else right.” Then again, he and DeSantis marinate in the same right-wing media bubble that created — and ultimately doomed — the campaign, so it’s hard to gauge what he thinks whether any of the “great many people” Christy is talking about actually reside outside of it.