Ron DeSantis announces 2024 run – as Twitter event with Elon Musk crashes
Ron DeSantis attacked Disney, the NAACP travel ban to Florida and Republican’s ‘culture of losing’ in a campaign launched with Elon Musk plagued by glitches on Twitter Spaces.
The highly-anticipated start of his 2024 White House run started 26 minutes late and crashed multiple times as hundreds of thousands of users tuned in to listen to DeSantis’ conversation with the Twitter CEO.
The Florida Governor shrugged off the shambolic start to then tout his record dealing with COVID, taking veiled swipes at Donald Trump and promising to reverse ‘everything’ President Biden was doing at the border.
Musk at one point said the ‘servers were strained’ and the host blamed the glitches on the number of people tuning in, which he claimed were a ‘good thing.’
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis announced Wednesday that he is running in the 2024 Republican presidential primary – as his scheduled Twitter Spaces announcement resulted in chaos as the feature continuously crashed
Instead of starting off with the anticipated ‘historic’ Twitter Spaces announcement, the app experienced a series of glitches that wouldn’t let the event kick-off
‘Just try and get it going,’ listeners could hear as it became clear frustration was growing.
Moderator David Sacks, a tech entrepreneur close to Musk, started the talk by claiming DeSantis was engaged in a ‘first is social media’ by ‘making history’ with the announcement.
The event, however, is more likely to be remembered for its series of glitches.
Once the event was finally off the ground, DeSantis did confirm to the Tesla and Twitter CEO that he has entered the Republican presidential primary race just hours after filing the appropriate paperwork needed to launch a bid for the White House.
‘Thank you for putting up with these technical issues, we are definitely breaking new ground here,’ Sacks said when the event was up and running. ‘As far as I know, no major presidential candidate has ever announced their candidacy on social media in this way.’
Throughout the talk, DeSantis was able to promote his presidential platform for the first time as an official candidate to an audience of around 300,000 people, at times.
A series of political figures and lawmakers were invited to ‘come off mute’ and ask the new candidate questions. This included Rep. Thomas Massie, one of the five lawmakers who have already endorsed DeSantis, and conservative personality Dana Loesch.
DeSantis specifically attacked the federal response to COVID-19, and how he paved the way for reopening earlier than other states; the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) issuing a travel advisory for Florida; and Disney for ‘injecting gender ideology in elementary school.’
DeSantis also took a veiled swipe at Trump by claiming he will put an end to the recent Republican ‘culture of losing.’
‘Last week, the NAACP issued a travel advisory against your state claiming that Florida is not a safe place for minorities to visit,’ moderator Sacks said to DeSantis. ‘What do you say to those who’ve been advised that somehow they aren’t welcome in your state?’
‘Claiming that Florida is unsafe is a total farce,’ the governor replied. ‘I mean, are you kidding me? You look at cities around this country… In Florida our crime rate is at a 50 year low. You look at the top 25 cities for crime in America, Florida does not have a single one amongst the top 25.’
‘And if you look at cities like Baltimore and Chicago, you got kids more likely to get shot than to receive a first class education, yet I don’t see the NAACP batting an eye about all the outrage and the carnage that’s happening in those areas.’
‘So this is a political stunt,’ DeSantis insisted. ‘These left wing groups have been doing it for many, many years. And at the end of the day, what they’re doing is colluding with legacy media to try to manufacture a narrative. Now the good news is, fewer Americans are gullible enough to believe this dribble.’
DeSantis poses with his family, Florida first lady Casey DeSantis and their three children, Madison, 5, Mason, 4, and Mamie, 2
DeSantis is seen as the main competitor for Trump. Pictured: Trump shakes hands with DeSantis as Florida first lady Casey DeSantis looks on during a rally in Estero, Florida on October 31, 2018
Just one hour before the video was released, Donald Trump got one more swipe in at his main competitor – and almost asking for DeSantis to get the same sort of attacks from the left that the former president has received over the last several years.
‘I’d like to personally congratulate ‘Rob’ DeSanctimonious on finally announcing that he will be entering the race for President of the United States,’ he quipped in a post on his Truth Social platform. ‘Hopefully he will get the full experience of being attacked by the Marxists, Communists, and Radical Left Lunatics of our Country, without which he will never know the kind of job he is doing.’
Trump added: ‘These Lowlifes & Misfits are far worse than the leaders of hostile foreign countries. They must be soundly defeated in order to MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!’
Regarding the disastrous start to the Twitter Spaces announcement, Democratic National Committee spokesperson Ammar Moussa said in a statement: ‘In true Ron DeSantis fashion, his presidential launch was quite literally not ready for primetime. Welcome to the race for the MAGA base, Ron!’
Former President Donald Trump issued one final attack before the event kicked-off on Wednesday, and continued to release them against DeSantis during the conversation on Twitter Spaces
Just 24 hours ahead of the chat, the candidate’s wife Casey DeSantis posted to her Twitter a 30-second clip previewing the launch. DeSantis reposted the Florida first lady’s tweet.
The video sparked some confusion, with some believing it was the official launch of DeSantis’ presidential campaign and others questioning why his team decided to use a narrator with a British accent.
Before launching a bid, DeSantis had to rely on his allies in the Florida legislature to pass a law that would allow him to run for the highest U.S. office while still continuing to serve out his second term as governor of the Sunshine State.
The so-called ‘resign to run’ rule was nixed last month by the Republican supermajority in the Florida legislature and DeSantis signed the bill into law, paving the way for him to launch a presidential bid without being required to step down as governor.
DeSantis is largely seen as the only candidate that might be able to give Trump a run for his money in the 2024 primary.
But Trump still holds a commanding poll lead over DeSantis – and all other 2024 Republican challengers.
The former president holds an outright majority, leading the field with support from 53 percent of Republicans in the latest CNN/SSRS poll released Wednesday, which puts his backing from voters at double that of DeSantis’ 26 percent support.
This is keeping in line with other recent surveys that show DeSantis far behind Trump, with a spread that has only grown with Trump facing a slew of legal challenges.
At the age of 44, DeSantis is one of the younger candidates to launch a bid for the Oval Office and is more than three decades younger than his main rival.
Some supporters of DeSantis say it’s time for new blood and there are even calls for there to be an age limit put on who can run for President of the United States as the country braces for a showdown between 76-year-old Trump and 80-year-old President Joe Biden.