The Presidential election is more than a year away, but candidates are already on the campaign trail and going after their opponents. At this time, the two primary Republican contenders appear to be former President Donald Trump and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis. Over the past couple of years, DeSantis has catapulted from relative unknown to main face in the Republican Party. However, things changed drastically for the controversial governor when he began fighting with The Walt Disney Company in March of last year.
The issue started when Disney CEO Bob Chapek spoke out against Florida's Parental Rights in Education Bill. Governor DeSantis supported the bill and didn't like Disney taking a stance. Since then, the governor has been targeting the House of Mouse and has passed several laws, putting Disney under more state control. This has given DeSantis' opponents plenty of ammunition to go after him. On top of that, Disney has filed a lawsuit against the governor, claiming he is retaliating against them and violating their First Amendment Rights.
One of the people going after DeSantis for his fight with Disney is Republican Presidential candidate, Nikki Haley. Haley — the former Governor of South Carolina — recently spoke at a CNN Town Hall. During the Town Hall, the topic of Disney came up. Haley took the opportunity to criticize DeSantis for fighting with Florida's largest employer. She also called the governor “hypocritical”, because he has accepted money from Disney in the past. DeSantis also got married at Walt Disney World Resort.
Haley said that DeSantis should stop wasting Florida taxpayer money on the Disney fight. According to reports, taxpayers have already had to pay over $6 million.
“Because they went and criticized him, now he’s going to spend taxpayer dollars on a lawsuit. Pick up the phone, deal with it, settle it the way you should. I think he’s being hypocritical in that…
Here you have DeSantis, who accepted $50,000 in political contributions from Disney. He went and put their executives and their lobbyists on prominent boards throughout Florida. And he went and basically gave the highest corporate subsidies in Florida history to Disney. But because they went and criticized him, now he’s going to spend taxpayer dollars on a lawsuit. It’s just like all this vendetta stuff. We’ve been down that road again.”
This is not the first time that Haley has attacked DeSantis over his fight with Disney. And she is not the only one. Former President Donald Trump has said that DeSantis was, “outplayed, outsmarted, and embarrassed by Mickey Mouse and Disney.”
With the Republican candidates just starting to get their campaigns underway, DeSantis will have to address the battle for months to come. At a recent rally, the Florida governor said that he was not “backing down one inch.”
DeSantis recently won a small battle in his Disney fight. Chief Judge Mark E. Wallace recused himself from the case and the case was reassigned to a more conservative judge who has ruled in favor of the Parental Rights bill in the past.
