The war between conservative Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and the Associated Press has been escalating steadily. The governor threw a big can of gasoline on the flames with a nastygram to the editors. They don’t like the truth, especially when it’s aimed at them.
DeSantis on the offensive
Everybody knows that the mainstream network media outlets manufacture news to suit their liberal editors.
They don’t like how popular Ron DeSantis is getting with the deplorable voters so they tried to manufacture a “scandal” out of thin air. To keep things green they pumped it full of methane emitted from their private stock of bull crap, then watched it blow up in their faces.
Casual readers, which is most of them, would read the AP story and be totally convinced that the sky was falling.
They carefully imply “that DeSantis has been unethically pushing an unproven snake oil COVID treatment on behalf of a major political donor, who stands to profit handsomely from the arrangement,” TownHall writes.
Ron DeSantis fires back at @AP for complaining that his press secretary called them out for publishing a misleading hit piece on him. pic.twitter.com/zTdinJkfso
— Arthur Schwartz (@ArthurSchwartz) August 23, 2021
Once again, the AP fails the fact-check sniff test. As soon as the governor’s press secretary saw the hit piece she shot back with an assault word processor. It was violent enough to get Christina Pushaw Twitter Gulaged. “Twitter suspended the account of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ press secretary for violating rules on ‘abusive behavior’ after The Associated Press said her conduct led to a reporter receiving threats and other online abuse.”
They couldn’t handle the response when their readers learned the truth. “You will ban the press secretary of a democratically-elected official while allowing the Taliban to live tweet their conquest of Afghanistan?” Pushaw wrote back in the punishment response.
The ‘temerity to complain’
When DeSantis learned of the Twitter ban he sat down and wrote a burning letter to the editors of Associated Press.
“I assumed your letter was to notify me that you were issuing a retraction of the partisan smear piece you published last week. Instead, you had the temerity to complain about the deserved blowback that your botched and discredited attempt to concoct a political narrative has received.”
Across the state of Florida, there are 14 monoclonal antibody treatment sites set up to serve COVID-19 positive Floridians—with more to come.
For more information, visit: https://t.co/7Qq1sNv1dQ pic.twitter.com/rzGX60YtgS
— Ron DeSantis (@GovRonDeSantis) August 22, 2021
Homey don’t play dat. “The ploy will not work to divert attention from the fact that the Associated Press published a false narrative that will lead some to decline effective treatment for COVID infections.” DeSantis was furious, and rightfully so.
AP produced “zero evidence” and may just be sued for defamation over it. “While the public’s trust in corporate outlets like the AP is at historic lows, there is no doubt that some will decline to seek life-saving treatment as a result of the AP’s inflammatory headline.”
Not only that, DeSantis added, you “cannot recklessly smear your political opponents and then expect to be immune from criticism.” It doesn’t work that way. Not in Florida anyway.
“The corporate media’s ‘clicks-first, facts-later’ approach to journalism is harming our country. You succeeded in publishing a misleading, clickbait headline about one of your political opponents, but at the expense of deterring individuals infected with COVID from seeking life-saving treatment, which will cost lives. Was it worth it?” The lawyers will be getting back to him soon with an answer to that.
