Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis dismissed criticism of his administration on Monday after an aide questioned, in a since-deleted tweet, whether Democratic staffers were posing as neo-Nazis at a weekend rally that members of both parties condemned.
“Do we even know they’re Nazis?” DeSantis spokeswoman Christina Pushaw said in a deleted tweet that compared the Orlando rally to people at a campaign rally last fall who posed as white nationalist supporters of Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin.
The flap over his press secretary’s tweet is the latest political dust-up for the GOP governor as he mulls a presidential run that already has drawn the ire of his party’s de facto leader, former President Donald Trump.
Trump is said to be considering a second run at the White House himself and has lobbed criticisms at DeSantis, who has aligned himself with the far-right on hot buttons ranging from the COVID-19 vaccine to critical race theory.
DeSantis did not weigh in on the rally until he was asked about it Monday, when he focused on Democrats. He said they were using the rally to “smear” him and distract from President Joe Biden’s record, according to the Sarasota Herald-Tribune.
'Do we even know they're Nazis?'
On Sunday, members of DeSantis’ own party condemned the rally. Florida Sen. Rick Scott tweeted that “the hateful & anti-Semitic demonstrations reported in Florida today have no place in our state.”
DeSantis’ press secretary questioned whether the demonstration was really put on by neo-Nazis, providing no evidence to support the claim.
“Do we even know they’re Nazis?” Pushaw tweeted. “Or is this a stunt like the ‘white nationalists’ who crashed the Youngkin rally in Charlottesville and turned out to be Dem staffers? I trust Florida law enforcement to investigate and am awaiting their conclusions.”
Pushaw later deleted the tweet referring to a rally for Youngkin, then the Republican candidate for Virginia governor. People posing as white nationalists showed up at a rally to support Youngkin, but the Lincoln Project, a group funded by anti-Trump Republicans, claimed responsibility, not Democrats.
The tweet drew a swift rebuke from Democrats and Jewish leaders, according to the Sarasota Herald-Tribune. The Anti-Defamation League of Florida accused Pushaw of giving “cover to anti-Semites rather than immediately and forcefully condemning their revolting, hate-filled rally and assault.”
DeSantis responds to criticism a day later
DeSantis didn’t address the rally and his press secretary’s tweet until Monday afternoon.
Asked about it, he defended his administration and turned the criticism around on Democrats, claiming they are elevating “a half-dozen malcontents” for political gain and to take attention off the White House.
DeSantis said his administration is a strong supporter of Israel and called the demonstrators “jackasses.” Law enforcement in Florida would “hold them accountable,” he said, for an illegal demonstration on a highway overpass.
DeSantis raises national profile
DeSantis has been raising his national profile and shoring up his far-right bona fides as he considers a run for president in 2024.
That groundwork has made him a target of Trump, the front-runner in the polls to win his party’s nomination should he choose to run again. Both have downplayed the rivalry, but Trump took a shot at DeSantis over vaccines in a recent OAN network interview.
In a veiled reference to DeSantis, Trump said politicians who don’t answer directly about whether they have been vaccinated against COVID-19 are “gutless.”
More:Frenemies? Donald Trump, Ron DeSantis eye each other warily before 2024 presidential race
DeSantis has refused to discuss whether he has received a booster shot and has downplayed the effectiveness of vaccines public health officials have said are the best protection against COVID-19, while pushing for the use of unproven treatments against the virus.
DeSantis also is running for re-election as Florida governor in 2022 and has backed policies that are popular with far right, including new voting restrictions, halting undocumented immigrants from coming into his state and stopping schools from teaching critical race theory.
During his state of the state speech in January, he promised that his state would not adopt the same type of lockdown policies others have used to fight COVID-19 and railed against Dr. Anthony Fauci, the White House's point person on the pandemic and head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.
“Florida has become the escape hatch for those chafing under authoritarian, arbitrary and seemingly never-ending mandates and restrictions,” DeSantis said. “These unprecedented policies have been as ineffective as they have been destructive. They are grounded more in blind adherence to Faucian declarations than they are in the constitutional traditions.”
Contributing: Sarasota Herald-Tribune Political Editor Zac Anderson, USA Today reporter David Jackson, Palm Beach Post, Forbes, Associated Press
