President-elect Donald Trump has been quite vocal when it comes to speaking out about the devastating fires in California. This applies not merely to this week, as he’s also been warning Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom for years about concerns, including during his first term as president. The media have hit back against Trump, with POLITICO even putting out a “Republicans pounce” piece. On Thursday night, while at Mar-a-Lago with other Republican governors, however, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis put the media and Newsom in their place in a clip that has since become a trending topic.
As a reporter asked DeSantis if it was “appropriate” for the president-elect to be criticizing Newsom, DeSantis turned it around on her by asking, “is it appropriate for people in your industry to try to create division and to try to create narratives any time these things happen?”
“Now you’re not as interested in doing that because Newsom is a D, if Newsom was a Republican, you guys would try to go–you would have him nailed to the wall for what they’re doing over there,” DeSantis continued, bringing up a valid point on media bias. “And I know we’ve dealt with it, we just assume in Florida, any time something happens, it’s going to be politicized by the media. So you guys sitting in judgment of Donald Trump. I mean, excuse me, uh, I think your track record of politicizing these things is very, very bad.”
Speaking of politicization, including and especially in Florida, the state was just rocked by Hurricane Milton late last year. It was Vice President Kamala Harris, at that point installed as President Joe Biden’s replacement as the nominee, who tried to politicize the issue by throwing a temper tantrum because she said DeSantis wouldn’t take her calls. Not even Biden came to her rescue on that one, as he instead praised DeSantis for the job he was doing with storm preparation.
As the press briefing went to the last question, another reporter still focused on Trump’s comments, specifically that Newsom should resign and the problems are all his fault.
When the governors were asked if they agreed with Trumps’ remarks, DeSantis jumped in once more to bring up the 2021 Surfside Tower collapse in Florida. As DeSantis reminded, The Washington Post even tried to blame him for it, “immediately, without having any facts.”
A reporter cut DeSantis’ response off to snippily add that “Biden didn’t.”
“Well, but what I’m telling you is you guys are trying to make an issue of it, when I have watched from this seat,” DeSantis pointed out, as he detailed how upon being elected, and while meeting with other Republican governors, he was warned that the media would blame him for any natural disaster.
“It’s not the same,” DeSantis insisted. He also went after Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, who has behaved in a particularly horrific fashion, and was away on a taxpayer funded trip to Ghana for the new president’s inauguration there, despite how there had been reports on possible fires. Trump has called her out by name as well.
“That mayor of LA, if that were a Republican mayor, I could only imagine what that would do! I mean, you know the fires are at high risk, and you try to go to Africa, or wherever she was to go on some type of voyage?! She should have been there preparing and doing that, and yet I don’t see a lot of heat being directed in that thing. And so, you know, I’d like to see some balance in how this is done!”
“You can criticize the president-elect, but I think you also have to hold these other people accountable when I have not seen that,” DeSantis said to conclude his response.
