Appearing Sunday on Fox News, Florida governor Ron DeSantis addressed various reports about brewing campaign trouble, arguing the media is against him.
“Clearly you see an effort to create these narratives,” DeSantis told Howard Kurtz after the media reporter noted some of the recent coverage of his 2024 presidential campaign. Sunday’s print edition of the Washington Post had a piece entitled “Doubts rise amid early pains for DeSantis” on the front page and the New York Times published a report entitled “DeSantis Sheds Staff Amid Heavy Spending.”
The Florida governor said he doesn’t think this coverage is hurting his campaign at all, arguing: “I think the good thing about it is that Republican Primary voters are very smart. They know where these corporate outlets stand on the political spectrum and so to the extent that they become convinced that the media does not want me to be the nominee, that will in the long run absolutely help me.”
“It’s interesting they’re talking about some of this campaign process,” DeSantis said pointing to his fundraising numbers for the second quarter which he said were stronger than those of both Donald Trump and Joe Biden.
The Times reported that DeSantis indeed had a strong haul of $19.7 million, more than the $17 million Trump reported. However, Trump’s campaign claimed it raised more than $35 million in the second quarter through his joint fund-raising committee, which then transfers the money to his campaign and to a political action committee. The $35-million figure has yet to be confirmed. In the separate report mentioned by Kurtz, the Times called the decision of the DeSantis campaign to cut fewer than 10 staffers this early in the cycle an ominous sign.
“I think they know that I would beat Biden and beat him soundly,” argued DeSantis. “More importantly they’ve seen what I’ve done with Florida where we’ve beat the left on all these different issues.”
The Florida governor argued that “the corporate press wants the status quo.”
“They want the bureaucracy to be in control. They don’t want somebody like me to come in and dismantle the administrative state,” said DeSantis. “Both from an electoral perspective and a substantive perspective they view me as the most significant threat to their agenda.”
DeSantis also argued the press focuses on “superficialities and trivialities” like his supposed lack of charisma rather than his record.
“I think when they do the subjective things the reason why they’re doing it is that objectively I’ve got a great record to run on: political success, huge policy success,” the Florida governor said, claiming that the media has also had to correct its claim that he doesn’t do retail campaigning well.
While polls had DeSantis within 15 points of Trump as recently as March, the gap has more than doubled in the months since. The article from the Washington Post cited by Kurtz zeroed in on this gap and the skepticism it says is growing around DeSantis’s presidential campaign.
But DeSantis said his support is growing in the early nominating states, which are his focus. “It is a state-by-state primary. I think it’d be political malpractice to be running for president fixated on national, rather than Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina,” DeSantis said.
Kurtz asked DeSantis why he doesn’t do media appearances on mainstream networks. The Florida governor disputed that, saying he’s done more press conferences than any governor in history and all the mainstream-media outlets are embedded in his campaign.
However, the Florida governor did recently decide to do a sit-down interview with CNN, set to air next Tuesday, signaling a potential change in strategy.
“Some of our best moments as the governor and as a candidate are in hostile environments. We’re going to do that. We’re going to do more of it,” DeSantis said.
The Florida governor also said he refuses to get into the insult game like his fellow candidate Chris Christie because it turns voters off.
“I don’t do insults,” DeSantis said.
While the Florida governor has avoided attacking Trump on January 6 and his indictment in the classified-documents case, he has pointed out things Trump didn’t accomplish while president, zeroing in on the former president’s promises to “drain the swamp” and bring greater border security.