Flailing presidential candidate Ron DeSantis may want to seem more likeable but his divisiveness came through loud and clear.
DeSantis got Fox News Sunday anchor Shannon Bream to visit him in his Florida’s governor’s mansion, where he played the family-man card.
Bream asked a lot of good questions but there were none about DeSantis’ thin-skinned fight with Disney. Nor did she confront him on his contradictory claims made during the interview.
DeSantis claimed he went after social media companies because they were censoring “consequential” matters such as COVID lockdowns. “I want robust First Amendment speech. I want people to be able to express themselves and debate issues,” DeSantis laughably claimed. I guess he wants us to forget that he has been relentlessly attacking Disney because the company had the audacity to oppose his “Don’t say gay” law. Which, by the way, is not exactly pro-free speech, either.
Later, Bream challenged him for banning books. DeSantis replied, “there’s not a single book that’s been banned in the State of Florida, that is a media hoax. To take a book out of a fourth-grade classroom that’s pornographic because it’s not appropriate for kids of that age. It’s not banning the book. You’re free to do that as an adult if that’s what you want to do.”
Bream pushed back: “But ban from certain classrooms and age groups,” she said.
“Well, but you have to make decisions about what’s appropriate for curriculum,” DeSantis insisted. Mr. First Amendment went on to claim that a lot of the books banned were pornographic. “They need to be focusing on math and they need to focus on reading, they need to be focused on science. So I think what we're doing is really vindicating what education should be.” Actually, what he’s doing is imposing his authoritarian vision of what education should be on local communities, instead of letting them decide.
In Part two of the interview, Bream brought up one of Fox’s latest anti-Democratic obsessions, Hillary Clinton calling Trump followers a cult that should be deprogrammed.
DeSantis had already forgotten how much he values robust debate!
DESANTIS: That is deplorable. I mean, she is part of the reason why this country is so divided. I mean, to attack people that support a candidate just because you couldn't get the job done and you're still bitter about that. But we need to stop casting aspersions on people that disagree with us.
Look, people that support the former president are patriotic Americans. I think he's got, you know, a good following. I think that you're going to see a lot of movement in the next few months, particularly in places like Iowa. We look forward to doing that. But what she's doing is part of the reasons this country is so polarized, and we need to stop that.
Next out of his mouth was his ridiculous claim to want to be a uniter, even as he demonized “the far left”:
DESANTIS: As president, you know, I'm going to try to bring people together. I'm not Pollyanna-ish about this. I know the far left has done a lot of bad things. We're going to do like we did in Florida, we're going to beat the far left.
But I really do believe that there's a strong working majority in this country to restore sanity and normalcy, get the people's business done, but not have politics always get us at each other's throats.
Yeah, I’m sure the guy who has complained about the infestation of “woke-mind virus” plans to reach out a hand of comity – not. The fact is, he has already revealed he wants to install loyalists at the Department of Justice and the FBI and cut Social Security and Medicare.
So, when DeSantis says he wants to bring people together, what he really means is he wants to impose his will on everyone. The only “robust debate” he wants is the kind that opposes anyone who disagrees with him.
You can watch DeSantis try to make himself more likeable (but utterly fail, in my opinion) below, from the October 8, 2023 Fox News Sunday.