Ron DeSantis Attacks the Media, Ilhan Omar After Being Asked to Denounce Nazis He Calls ‘Jackasses’
Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) denounced reporters Monday after he was asked about a violent neo-Nazi event held in central Florida over the weekend.
A small group of people donning swastikas held an event near Orlando in which they hurled anti-Semitic slurs and reportedly committed assault.
Videos of the event went viral online.
#Update: Other video footage of the small group of people dressed up like Nazis, shouting profound languages at people passing by them, and attacking some of them in the are of Waterford Lakes in #Florida. pic.twitter.com/ocSAV4PKMR
— Sotiri Dimpinoudis (@sotiridi) January 30, 2022
Christina Pushaw, a spokesperson for DeSantis, was asked on Twitter if DeSantis intended to denounce the group and its actions.
Pushaw tweeted, “So – If the governor himself does not issue a public statement of specific condemnation of whoever this group is, within a time period that the Left deems acceptable, he is smeared as a Nazi sympathizer by default?”
After initially questioning if the group was legitimate in a tweet that has since been deleted, Pushaw tweeted that the group is a small band of anti-Semites who have been active in Florida for two decades.
Pushaw tweeted, “It’s apparently real, it’s called ‘National Socialist Movement.’ Never heard of this group before today. It’s ~200 people and they’ve been around for 20 years pulling nasty hateful stunts. In any case, it has nothing to do with Governor DeSantis, the GOP, etc.”
The story grew legs throughout the day as DeSantis was pressured online to disavow the group and its actions.
A defiant DeSantis was in Palm Beach Monday afternoon when he was asked about the neo-Nazi event and his decision not to immediately comment on it by a reporter.
A reported asked, “Please respond to the Nazi demonstration in Orlando over the weekend. Why do you feel hate groups [are comfortable in Florida]?”
DeSantis equated the reporter’s question to a media hit job.
#BREAKING: @GovRonDeSantis blasts Democrats in response to this weekend’s Neo-Nazi, anti-Semitic rallies in central Florida.
He accuses Democrats of trying to “smear” him, and says the party has “elevated anti-Semites to the halls of Congress like @IlhanMN” (1/2) @WFLA #WFLANow pic.twitter.com/voOfepsojj
— JB Biunno #HeyJB (@WFLAJB) January 31, 2022
DeSantis said,
So what I’m going to say is these people, these Democrats who are trying to use this as some type of political issue to try to smear me as if I had something to do with it, we’re not playing their game. Some jackasses doing this on the street, first of all, state law enforcement is going to hold them accountable because they were doing stuff on the overpass. So they’re absolutely going to do that, and they should do that. But I’m not going to have people try to smear me who belong to a political party that has elevated antisemites to the halls of Congress, like Ilhan Omar, that have played footsie with the BDS movement
“And so they try to play games to try to politicize, why would they do that? DeSantis also said, before he asked, “Why would they want to elevate a half dozen malcontents and try to make this an issue for political gain?”
DeSantis also said that the narrative he was supposed to comment on the controversy was crafted to create a distraction from inflation and other issues.
