Fox News mocks Ron DeSantis after ‘disaster’ presidential launch

Fox News has taken a swipe at Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, after he snubbed the right-wing broadcaster to launch his presidential campaign for the 2024 Republican nomination on Twitter instead.

DeSantis launched his bid during an event which was broadcast on the social media platform’s Spaces feature on Wednesday (24 May) – and ended up being marred by outages, garbled audio and feedback.

The Hill reported that Twitter owner Elon Musk and moderator David Sacks could be heard saying the event crashed because “so many people” were joining, with more than half a million listeners tuning in at its peak.

After the event, DeSantis made an appearance on Fox News Tonight for his first televised interview, where host Trey Gowdy shared a brief history of DeSantis before opening the interview with: “I can’t promise you that I won’t crash, but Fox News will not crash.”

DeSantis laughed off the comment and made Trump-esque remarks about how large the audience on Twitter had been.

Fox News did not stop there though. A banner headline was published on FoxNews.com the same night labelling the announcement on Twitter a “disaster” and “amateur hour”, and advertised the Gowdy interview with the caption: “Want to actually see and hear Ron DeSantis?”

The race for the Republican nomination in the 2024 US presidential election is widely seen as a two-man race between DeSantis and indicted former president Donald Trump.

Trump took a jab at DeSantis’ calamitous launch too, posting to his Truth Social platform: “Wow! The DeSanctus [sic] TWITTER launch is a DISASTER! His whole campaign will be a disaster. WATCH!”

President Joe Biden also used DeSantis’ launch to his advantage, posting a tweet that read “this link works”, with a link to donation page for his and vice-president Kamala Harris’ re-election.

This link works: https://t.co/9PzIJkseYI

— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) May 24, 2023

When DeSantis’ announcement did finally get underway, it saw him stick to the classic Republican script of denouncing the Biden administration for pandering to the so-called ‘woke’ agenda.

DeSantis’ anti-LGBTQ+ legacy

DeSantis is arguably best known for working against minority communities as governor of Florida, where he is currently in his second term.

In March 2022, the hardline right-winger introduced Florida’s reviled Don’t Say Gay law, which lawmakers recently voted to expand.

Six new anti-LGBTQ state law have been signed by DeSantis in the past month, including a ban on gender-affirming care, restrictions on trans people using toilets and a ban on drag shows.

The politician is currently embroiled in a complicated feud with Disney because of the media conglomerate’s opposition to the Don’t Say Gay law.