Johnny Van Zant, lead singer for Lynyrd Skynyrd, joined Fox & Friends during a Florida diner visit that was a thinly-veiled Ron DeSantis campaign commercial.

Brian Kilmeade was the cohost in Florida, at a diner Gov. DeSantis once frequented. “They really love him,” Kilmeade said, shortly before launching a list of DeSantis’ supposed accomplishments. “It’s not just Disney,” Kilmeade said, then suggested DeSantis was responsible for bringing Disney to Florida, instead of trying to take it over and dictate to it.

KILMEADE: We know what Disney did for central Florida. … They made Florida a place to go to. No one’s minimizing their impact.

But if you think about Ron DeSantis taking on 60 Minutes and winning. He just took on NBC who mischaracterized a bill he had out and they haven’t – they kind of apologized. He didn’t like it, said, “I’m not gonna go on that channel again.” He took on the riots, the [George] Floyd riots directly and he backed the cops, specifically. He took on the teachers’ union, he’s taken on CRT, he’s taken on the AP courses.

But these are all things that are not manufactured. One thing he prides himself on he has not taken a poll for anything that he’s done. He says, “This is what I do, I collect as much information as I can, I make my decision and I ask my staff to implement it. I call a press conference and let the chips fall where they may.”

And if you ask yourself where do the chips fall? A 19-point win in the last election. … It shows [that] performance matters.

You probably get the picture.

Later in the show, Kilmeade interviewed Van Zant. After slobbering over the Lynyrd Skynyrd band, Kilmeade prodded Van Zant to do his part for the DeSantis effort. “You wrote a song for Governor DeSantis. So, how did that come about?” Kilmeade asked.

“Me and my brother Donny did. We love our governor, right?” Van Zant said, to applause from the diners. He explained that the governor asked him to write a song for his campaign, presumably the most recent one. Van Zant added, “It just came naturally. What a wonderful guy. Him and his wife, his wife is just a lovely lady.”

“Wonderful people,” Van Zant later reiterated. He acknowledged that he had received some blowback for his support. But, he said, “We live in America, we’re free. We’re supposed to be able to believe in what we believe, whether it’s on the left or on the right.”

Nobody mentioned how DeSantis is trying to control and limit what students read, what they study, and what Disney produces, e.g.

But "freedom loving" Van Zant raved again, “I love our governor, I think he’s doing a great job."

That “great job” also includes opposing the expansion of Medicaid, while Florida has one of the highest rates of uninsured residents in the country. His handling of COVID-19 was not nearly the kind of success DeSantis boasts it was. And he steamrolled over the voters’ decision to grant convicted felons voting rights by instituting a modern poll tax – requiring them to repay court fines and fees before their voting rights would be restored.

You can watch it below, from the February 28, 2023 Fox & Friends.