Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has had enough of his war against ‘woke’ Disney.
“Where we are today, you know, we’ve basically moved on,” DeSantis said during an interview Monday evening on CNBC’s “Last Call.”
DeSantis proceeded to urge Disney to drop its “government retaliation” lawsuit against the state—as if that didn’t sound desperate after making his “War on woke” a central pillar of his 2024 presidential bid.
“They’re suing the state of Florida, they’re going to lose that lawsuit. So what I would say is, drop the lawsuit,” DeSantis said, giving Disney free legal advice it surely neither wants nor needs.
As part of his persuasion campaign, DeSantis then took credit for Disney’s profits.
“No one has made Disney more money recently than me,” DeSantis claimed. “Because during COVID, they were open in Florida.”
Hear that, Bob Iger? No one. Not exactly nailing the charm offensive, is he?
In actuality, DeSantis has been outmaneuvered by the iconic American corporation ever since the governor retaliated against it after Disney’s CEO criticized DeSantis’ fascist “Don’t Say Gay” bill, which seeks to chill all speech about queer Americans in educational settings.
In June, the governor asked a federal judge to dismiss Disney’s lawsuit, arguing that he and the head of the state’s Department of Economic Opportunity are “immune” from being sued. Now it appears DeSantis is trying to publicly wriggle out of the lawsuit after railing against the company on the campaign trail and pledging in May to never retreat from his fight against Disney.
“The chance of us backing down from that is zero,” DeSantis said in Manchester, New Hampshire, a day after Disney announced it was abandoning a $1 billion investment in building a new campus in Orlando. Disney plans to invest $17 billion in Florida over the next decade, “which is what the state should want us to do,” Iger said during the company’s second-quarter earnings call in July.
Other businesses have already begun canceling events due to Florida’s discriminatory laws, costing the Sunshine State millions in convention business, which is a key economic driver for the state. It could be just the tip of the iceberg. Ask North Carolina, which is estimated to have lost billions in revenues after Republicans pushed through an anti-transgender “bathroom bill.”
More headlines along those lines can’t look good on the campaign trail for a governor who supposedly gets stuff done. Disney, by the way, is the single biggest driver of Florida’s largest industry: tourism.
