Ron DeSantis is going to announce a presidential bid on the internet
The first real time social media conversation with Musk after the January 6th riot: How Trump and his Twitter replacement are going to be reinstated
He is the fifth major GOP candidate to announce a presidential bid. In addition to Trump, also running are: former Florida Gov. Nikki Haley, South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott, former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson and former tech CEO Vivek Ramaswamy.
“It will be the first time that questions and answers are happening on social media in real time,” Musk said. “Not scripted. It’s going to be live. Let’s see what happens.”
Since taking over Twitter in November 2022, Musk has garnered significant support among Republicans who have spent the last few years accusing social media companies of wrongfully censoring conservative content and users. Throughout his presidency, Trump championed these criticisms and was ultimately banned from mainstream platforms, including Twitter, following the deadly January 6th riot at the US Capitol. Shortly after taking over the company, Musk restored Trump’s Twitter account after posting a poll asking his followers for input on the decision. “The people have spoken. Trump will be reinstated,” Musk tweeted at the time.
DeSantis’ Campaign for the Early State Republican Presidential Nominating Contest in Iowa During a Tease-theoretic Event on Twitter
DeSantis’ wife, Casey DeSantis, further teased the likely run on Twitter with a video showing DeSantis taking to a stage with an American flag backdrop.
Trump’s standing has improved considerably in the last three months, and if DeSantis is going to beat Trump, he’s going to have to turn the narrative in his favor quickly just months until the first early state nominating contest in Iowa.
Since taking over Twitter last year, Musk has amassed tremendous support and admiration from Republicans who have long accused social media platforms of unjustly censoring conservative speech. Musk has repeatedly played into this grief by rallying behind various right-wing talking points and offering up troves of internal Twitter documents as evidence that the company’s previous leaders were bias against conservatives. Tucker Carlson and The Daily Wire decided to move their programs to micro-blogs after he was fired from Fox News.
Lindsey Curnutte, a DeSenatis spokesperson, confirmed the event in an email to The Verge Tuesday. The company’s usual poop auto-reply responded to the request for comment.
DeSantis eventually did launch his campaign, but the event was mired with problems from the very beginning — and DeSantis didn’t manage to use the initial Space hosted by Musk. When moderator David Sacks, a venture capitalist and former PayPal product lead, first unmuted himself to start the talk, the Space was filled with loud, echoing feedback sounds before quickly going silent. The accounts of DeSantis and Sacks popped in and out of the initial room, muting and unmuting themselves before leaving entirely.
DeSantis is also already trying to combat a narrative that he lacks a certain charm as a candidate. Stories are highlighting how he’s retail politicking in early states.
Why Donald Trump Shouldn’t be tomorrow’s Trump? The frustrations of a young man who will not be afraid to try to get into office
As many as half a dozen others are considering getting in, including former Trump Vice President Mike Pence, New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu, former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin.
There are cautionary tales of GOP candidates who have risen and fallen sharply. During the 2016 Republican primary campaign, for example, Jeb Bush, also a former Florida governor and political scion, then-Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker and even neurosurgeon Ben Carson had fleeting moments atop the polls.
Because Trump has such a solid hold on a significant slice of the GOP pie, the larger the field, the better for Trump if other-than-Trump Republican voters don’t coalesce around one alternative.
Why does the 44-year-old seem so young if he is supposed to be tomorrow’s Trump? From his style of hair, to his emotional remove, to his fugitive persona, there is something odd about the Florida governor. He is more of a sedan than a coupe, as even that is too generous.
The fact that Trump is limited is one point that candidates have not made a larger issue of. He only had to serve four more years if he won.
The brutal attacks on the taxman, social Security and Medicare have shown Trump that he is willing to do what it takes to win.
The onslaught from Trump and his allies was the reason for the change. In recent years, there have been many attacks that went unanswered and left DeSantis supporters wringing their hands.
Trump’s continued lies about the 2020 presidential election he lost, defeats racked up by candidates he backed in swing states and competitive districts, plus the myriad investigations in multiple states was giving Republicans pause about the 76-year-old former president.
One thing DeSantis does have, though, is money. He has about $90 million left over from his reelection bid for governor last year, and a super PAC supporting him expects to have a $200 million budget, half of which is being devoted to voter outreach in key early states and some 2,600 field organizers.
It’s not an easy task to go from congressman to governor. The endorsement of Trump by the GOP greatly aided the candidacy of DeSantis, who eventually won the governorship.
What have we learnt about Donald Trump and Russia from his actions during the COVID-19 pandemic? “We’re not here for you, but we know you’re going to be,” tweeted DeSantis
He ran an ad showing him playing with and reading to his children, helping them build the wall with paper blocks, and reading from The Art of the Deal, noting that he likes where Trump says “You’re fired.”
DeSantis became one of the loudest voices defiantly opposing the expert guidance of Dr. Anthony Fauci during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic; he pulled stunts, shipping migrants to Martha’s Vineyard and other liberal enclaves and cities run by Democrats; and DeSantis has pugilistically taken on universities, school districts and even Disney for how sexual orientation, gender identity and race are taught in schools.
His right-wing, Trumpian tendencies have put him at odds with his potential base of Republican supporters, the sort of Republicans who would be open to voting for someone other than Trump. It’s hard to out-Trump Trump, and the people inclined to go a different way than Trump in the primary, tend to be college-educated and wealthier Republicans, according to the February NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist poll.
He walked that back after criticism. He went on to call Russia’s Vladimir Putin a “war criminal,” and added, “It’s just — it’s a messy situation. Russia didn’t have the right to enter or leave its territory in February of 2022, which is when the referendum took place. And that should be clear.”
Why Did Ron DeSantis Veto the Propagator’s Ban on Abortions in Florida When He Was Running for Governor?
Why didn’t Ron DeSantis veto the ban on most abortions in Florida when he was running for governor? That’s manna for the Christian conservatives who matter in Republican primaries, but it’s a liability with the moderates and independents who matter after that point. On his argument that he is the version of Trump that can beat Biden, it was very hard on him. It flattens the pitch into a pancake.
A version of the account is back up but provides tracking information on Musk’s jet with a 24-hour delay. The page that follows the jet is also delayed.
In December, the account Sweeney created to track Musk’s jet was was suspended after Musk bought Twitter and said the account posed a personal safety risk.
Sweeney told NPR that he doesn’t have a specific goal in mind for theJet, other than to let the people know about it and make it available.
It’s not uncommon for governors — especially those in large states — to take government-owned planes or helicopters on official business. But DeSantis has been criticized for how he’s used taxpayer-funded aircraft in the past.
“It was on my list to do, and with all the things going on, I thought it would be good to bring transparency there to everybody and bring my abilities for everyone else to see where the jet is going,” Sweeney said.
He said he had been intending to create an account following Florida’s government jet and eventually got around to it, given the buzz around the expected Republican presidential hopeful.
“Elon Musk has already turned Twitter into a hellscape of hate and conspiracy. But his full-throated embrace of Ron DeSantis – only weeks after Tucker Carlson announced he would revive his Fox News show on Twitter – is a new low for what was once one of the world’s most important communication platforms,” said Nicole Gill, co-founder and executive director for Accountable Tech, in a statement Wednesday.
Both DeSantis and Musk have painted people with progressive positions on issues like LGBTQ+ rights as members of an existential “woke mob” intent on corrupting conservative tradition. Despite suggesting that he would back DeSantis if he were to run for president late last year, Musk said that he was not “at this time planning to endorse any particular candidate” during an interview at a Wall Street Journal conference on Tuesday.
Asked about censorship Wednesday, DeSantis said he would soon be signing a “digital bill of rights” that would ban state and government officials from “colluding” with social media companies.
Melting the Internet there was a backreaction on Elon, Sacks, Musk, and the emergence of a new “scalable universe”
“Man, I think we melted the internet there,” Sacks said in a separate Space he created with his account after the first one shuttered. “I think it crashed because when you multiply a half million people in a room by an account with over 100 million followers, which is Elon’s account, I think that creates just a scalability level that was unprecedented. But with my meager followership it seems to be working much better.”
As of publication, it’s not entirely clear what went wrong, but Musk (one of the only people to actually speak in the first Space) chalked the problems up to overloaded servers. More than 600,000 people were tuning in a few minutes before the room ended.
