AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta, File
Former President Donald Trump took a swipe at his fellow Floridian and expected rival for the 2024 GOP presidential nomination, mocking Gov. Ron DeSantis over his spat with Disney in a Truth Social post Tuesday morning.
The Florida governor has been battling Mickey Mouse for about a year, ever since the prior Disney CEO Bob Chapek issued a press release criticizing the Parental Rights in Education bill (dubbed “Don’t Say Gay” bill by many of its critics) after it passed. The GOP-controlled Florida legislature rushed ahead with an ill-conceived bill that would have repealed outright the Reedy Creek Improvement District (RCID), the special taxing district for Disney’s property that stretches across Orange and Osceola County, and then backed down from that plan after RCID’s billion-dollar-plus bond debt posed too tricky of a political problem.
A new bill reversed course and purported to revoke Disney’s landowner authority to appoint the RCID board and instead granted that power to the governor. But before the new DeSantis-appointed board could seize the
It’s all led to a lot of online mockery and “humiliating media coverage” for the governor, as The New York Times reported: “Mr. DeSantis, outwitted by a mouse.”
The ex-president was all too happy to join in the ridicule.
“DeSanctus is being absolutely destroyed by Disney,” Trump wrote in a Truth Social post, trying one of several nicknames he’s thrown at the governor.
“His original P.R. plan fizzled, so now he’s going back with a new one in order to save face,” Trump continued, and then offered some advice for Mickey.
“Disney’s next move will be the announcement that no more money will be invested in Florida because of the Governor – In fact, they could even announce a slow withdrawal or sale of certain properties, or the whole thing,” he wrote. “Watch! That would be a killer.”
“In the meantime, this is all so unnecessary, a political STUNT!” Trump concluded. “Ron should work on the squatter MESS!”