Ron DeSantis Predicted the Media Would Use Nazis to ‘Smear’ Him, Rachel Maddow Just Proved Him Right

Kipp JonesFeb 2nd, 2022, 11:17 pm
 

Rachel Maddow proved Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) right Wednesday, two days after he declared that attempts by the media to get him to disavow a group of Nazis he did not know was a cloaked attempt to connect him to their ideology.

Maddow omitted important facts and relied on deceptive editing in order to mislead her audience into believing that Florida’s Republican governor downright refused to repudiate avowed racists.

Video of an anti-Semitic group which had assaulted people during a gathering over the weekend in Orlando went viral on social media on Sunday.

The following day, DeSantis spokesperson Christina Pushaw was blitzed by commenters who had asked when her boss intended to disavow the group.

In a tweet that has since been deleted, Pushaw questioned whether there was any proof the group was made up of actual Nazis.

She later confirmed the group was called “National Socialist Movement” in a subsequent post.

She also wrote, “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?”

It wasn’t clear at what point the governor became aware of the group or its actions. But the implication was clear online: The Republican was by default supposed to issue a statement on the matter.

The longer he went without doing so, the louder those who wanted him to distance himself from the Nazis grew in their shaming of him.

On Monday afternoon, DeSantis was in Palm Beach when he was asked by a reporter to answer for the group’s actions. He responded,

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.

On her eponymous show Wednesday, Maddow reported on the saga, and proved the governor right by omitting key context with relation to his non-involvement in the non-scandal.

She also ignored the fact that DeSantis disavowed Orlando’s anti-Semites, and in no uncertain terms.

After airing video of the goons harassing people in Orlando, Maddow noted that a bipartisan coalition of civic leaders, including Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL), had denounced the hate group.

She then cited only one of Pushaw’s tweets to offer her viewers context.

“The only initial response from Florida’s Republican governor was this tweet from his press secretary saying, ‘Do we even know if they are Nazis?’” Maddow stated, before she answered, “Yeah. Yeah, they volunteered that they are.”

The host then aired the exchange in which DeSantis was asked by the reporter about the hate group — but only a snippet of it.

She paused the clip after DeSantis said, “So what I’m going to say is these people…”

Maddow commented:

What do you think he’s going to say next, right? What I am going to say is these people, these neo-Nazi hate groups, they have no place in or society, no place in in Florida. I condemn them in the strongest terms. Like, you figure that’s what he’s going to say, right? You figure that is where Florida’s governor is going with that statement.

The host called a disavowal of anti-Semitism “the easiest, most straightforward question an American politician can get.”

“There is only right answer to that, and you shouldn’t have to memorize it,” she said. “It’s an easy one. Please respond to the Nazis.”

Playing up the suspense, she again asked, “What do you think he says next?”

Maddow aired more of DeSantis’ exchange with the reporter, but cut it off — again.

The clip showed the governor say, “…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.”

Maddow’s monologue abruptly ended there. She concluded that DeSantis “never actually got around to condemning the Nazis.”

In fact, during his first appearance before the media since the controversy was stoked on Twitter, DeSantis referred to those who harassed peaceful Floridians as “jackasses,” and assured everyone listening that the police in Orlando were handling the situation.

The governor predicted on Monday that a non-controversy was going to be used to smear him.

With a few intentional omissions and some deceptive editing, Maddow proved him right.

Watch above, via MSNBC.

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