Morning Wire - DeSantis Enters Race & Target Pride Backlash | 5.25.23

Episode Date: May 25, 2023

Ron DeSantis announces his presidential run on Twitter, the legacy media continue their attacks on the Florida Governor and Target stores face backlash from shoppers over Pride merchandise. Get the facts first with Morning Wire.   Indeed: Start hiring with a $75 sponsored job credit with Indeed at https://indeed.com/wire   Balance of Nature: Save $50 when you join American Home Shield. Visit http://www.ahs.com/WIRE Get 35% off your first order as a preferred customer. Use promo code WIRE at checkout: https://www.balanceofnature.com/   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

It's official. Ron DeSantis announced his candidacy for the president of the United States in a Twitter space with Elon Musk. There is no substitute for victory. No excuses. I will get the job done. How will the Florida governor reshape the GOP primary contest? And why is the media trained so much fire on him already? I'm Georgia Howe with Daily Wire editor-in-chief John Bickley. It's Thursday, May 25th. And this is Morning Wire. First Bud Light and now Target. Amid backlash, the department stores are now pulling some pride-themed items, they say, to protect employees. There is no coming back from this target. You have dug a grave.

You are dead. You are buried. You are finished. Thanks for waking up with Morning Wire. Stay tuned. We have the news you need to know. After months of speculation, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis officially launches his presidential campaign in a Twitter space with Elon Musk. Daily Wire Culture reporter Megan Basham joins us now to tell us more about the DeSantis campaign's unconventional launch.

So, Megan first, DeSantis announced on Twitter in an interview with Musk. That's definitely a first. Yeah, it was for both social media and a presidential campaign. And they may be feeling a few regrets about that today. They definitely had something of a rocky start with the Twitter space crashing a few times. And that was a lot of the focus of the media coverage immediately following that announcement. Now, we should note that Musk did say that the cause was nearly 800,000 people trying to log in to listen. And his message to all of those eager listeners was that American decline is not inevitable.

We must restore sanity to our nation. This means embracing fiscal and economic sanity. Stop pricing hardworking Americans out of a good standard of living. And please embrace American energy independence. This also means replacing the woke-minded, virus with reality, facts, and enduring principles merit must trump identity politics. It was also clear that Twitter was a symbolic choice for the DeSantis campaign. He and Musk talked about the bubble of the legacy media.

And they also talked about the disruptive force that Twitter has been in democratizing and protecting free speech. The First Amendment is irrelevant if all the media and the government are operating in lockstep. And then as the interview went on, you did get this sense that this, was a deliberate effort to stake out a different lane than former President Trump, who is known for, we have to say, giving the audience a show. This was something that was more tailored for the age of Joe Rogan. DeSantis answered questions in depth. He talked about energy independence. He talked about returning integrity to American institutions, especially the military. And he really came

across as a man fully engaged in all of these important issues. He even addressed the Disney controversy going right at the big issue that Trump has been attacking him on. Florida basically put them on a pedestal many decades ago, and we just didn't feel that we were comfortable maintaining that relationship. And so we ended their self-goverting status. So Disney has to live under the same laws as everybody. And it does seem like some voters liked that Twitter launch. The DeSantis campaign announced that it had raised a million dollars immediately following that interview. Not too shabby. So now to turn from the announcement,

to the horse race, we're already seeing a lot of pundits framing this as a two-man contest between DeSantis and former President Donald Trump. Trump right now holds a commanding lead in the primary polls. What's DeSantis' plan to narrow that gap? Yeah, DeSantis definitely has some ground to make up. Five-38's running average of polls has Trump ahead by about 34 points. But we do have to remember he wasn't technically running until last night. So things could change quickly now that an actual campaign, is being mounted. And one of the things that was very clear in this announcement is that he's framing himself as the governor that delivered the most conservative policy agenda in the country. He leaned into his legislation to keep gender ideology out of schools. He talked about how Florida is number one in new business formation and how that's attracting a lot of people to the state. It's currently

the fastest growing one in the nation. It's also number one in education. He talked about how he kept schools open during COVID and faced down federal vaccine and lockdown mandates. And on the border, he took a very hard line. You need to shut the border down. You should not be entertaining these asylum claims for people crossing illegally. They know that they will get a sheet of paper saying, okay, come back for a court date in three years and they get released to the interior of our country. It's an absolutely insane system. So we'll stop that. And we really need to hold the Mexican drug cartels accountable. Now, DeSantis didn't talk about Trump during that Twitter interview, but Morning Wire spoke to him last night right after his big announcement, and he went on offense against Trump

on several topics. One of those topics was who's going to be more electable in the general. I think obviously that Trump would turn out Democrats because that's their reflex. I think in Florida, what we showed is we demoralized the Democrats. They did not have a good turnout running against me. And how about money? Desantis currently has a financial advantage, correct? He does. By some estimates, the DeSantis campaign has about twice the war chest that the Trump campaign does. Hotel tycoon Robert Bigelow, who's already given the DeSantis pack $20 million, has said that he'll go broke helping DeSantis get elected president if he has to. So now's

when the big fund starts. And a lot of work. Megan, thanks for reporting. Anytime. Coming up, we discuss the media's treatment of DeSantis and targets pride controversy. Even before Ron DeSantis officially entered the 2024 presidential race, he was drawing sharp attacks from across the political spectrum. The Florida governor has been the primary target of President Trump for months, and the establishment media has likewise increasingly focused their attacks on DeSantis. Here to discuss is Daily Wire contributor David Marcus. Hey, Dave. So what kinds of attacks have we seen in the past few days? Morning.

It's really quite a parade. You have Vanity Fair, which in a headline compared DeSantis launching, alongside Elon Musk as the equivalent of launching with David Duke. The NACP has issued a bizarre travel advisory warning about the state of Florida that appears to be based on nothing but woke talking points. We even saw Bill Crystal, who likely owns voodoo dolls of Donald Trump, praising the former president as the alpha in the race. There's been attacks on his wife, Casey, arguing that she's a drag on him, that honestly, if they were about a Democrat, would probably be viewed as, sexism. It's been a full court press. Yeah, the attacks on Casey, a cancer survivor has really raised some eyebrows.

Is this really evidence that Democrats see DeSantis as a tougher candidate to beat than Trump in 2024? Or are they just sort of spreading their fire as wide as possible? There's a sense, I think a growing one, that many on the left think Trump will be easier to beat than DeSantis, especially given the fact that Democrats seem stuck with Joe Biden. The hosts of the view have basically flat out said this. This is probably rooted in the notion that Trump has a pretty firm ceiling. He's obviously a completely known quantity. But DeSantis was able to get a lot of people in Florida to switch to the GOP, much to his credit.

And I think obviously Democrats are fearful that he could do so on the national stage as well. Yeah, 20-point victory will do that. This campaign against DeSantis isn't entirely new. He's been a lightning rod of attacks from the left for a couple of years. What is it about him that creates this dynamic? To use another electrical analogy, Ron DeSantis lives on the third rail of politics. His signature issues have drawn hysterical ire from Democrats. During COVID, he was Ron Deathsantis for opening Florida.

In his battle with Disney, he was smeared as homophobic with false claims that the legislation he championed was a don't say gay bill. Then he was called a racist for opposing a deeply flawed African American history AP course. these aren't zoning and budget issues. He is right in the middle of the most red meat, contentious social battles that our country is having. And so, yeah, he draws a lot of fire. Now, even within the field of Republican candidates announced and otherwise, DeSantis has taken some heat. Are we seeing a race for the number two spot shaping up?

Absolutely. Trump wants as large and confusing a mix of candidates as possible to avoid a one-on-one matchup that he could lose. And for their part, you know, whether it's Ramoswamy, Haley, Scott, eventually Pence maybe, those candidates have to go through Ron DeSantis before they can take on Donald Trump. Right. Is all of this negative attention, particularly from the media, something DeSantis can use to his advantage? Yes, and it's a big part of his style. Announcing on Twitter, looks like a bit of a middle finger to the mainstream media. And really, some of his best public moments have come confronting the news media, often making them look quite foolish. For all their differences, Trump and DeSantis kind of hold

this in common. And I think it's going to help both of them. Yeah, probably so. Dave, thanks for joining us. Thanks for having me. Amid strong backlash retail giant Target has removed some of its LGBT pride merchandise aimed at both children and adults, including tuck-friendly women's bathing suits and designs from a company that sells satanic-themed clothing. Here to discuss the backlash and Target's response is Daily Wire reporter Amanda Presti Giacomo. So Amanda, what are we seeing from Target in the face of this controversy. Well, Target decided this week that they will be removing certain pride items due to outreach from customers, though the company hasn't specified which items.

Moreover, video and reports have indicated that some target stores, primarily in the south, have moved their gay and trans pride displays away from the front of the store, where they're typically set up. The corporation said they're making these adjustments to supposedly protect their employee's safety, but a report sourced by a target is. Insiders said that the company started backtracking last week to avoid a Bud Light situation. Now, that's a reference to a damaging boycott against Bud Light for its sponsorship with transgender activist Dylan Mulvaney.

So rainbow items, though, have gone on sale in June for a few years now with pretty minimal public backlash. So what's causing the stir this year? Yeah, that's right. For years now, Target has placed their Pride merchandise displays at the front of their stores for the month of June, which has been deemed LGBT Pride Month. But this year, leading into the month, some of that merchandise has just really upset customers, especially in light of the national attention on campaigns, sexualizing children. For example, the displays in question have LGBT apparel for children and even babies.

Critics are not seeing this as promoting inclusion or tolerance, but instead pushing a sexualized agenda. Here's some audio of a conservative activist named Morgan McMichael browsing through one of those pride displays. These are baby clothes. They say that grooming isn't happening, then why are their pride baby onesies? Honestly, Target, what is going on? This is pretty disgusting. And we haven't even got to what's being objected to most here. Target is selling so-called tuck-friendly bathing suits.

These are designed for biological males who identify as female. There's extra material on the suits meant to cover up a certain male appendage. Customers were incensed. Target appeared to have. have them for teens too. Target claims that's not true, since the swimsuit that has a, quote, tuck-friendly tag on it comes only in adult sizes. But of course, many teens can wear adult sizes, and there is a kid's swim skirt with a tag that reads, quote, thoughtfully fit on multiple body types and gender expressions. It's specifically the trans merchandise, particularly aimed at

young people that seems to have hit a nerve with customers. Target caught some heat just last year when the store started stocking compression bras that are branded as comfortable chest binders. Those are highly controversial because they're often used by adolescent girls who are confused about their gender to stunt the growth of their breasts. Now, another strange wrinkle in this controversy is that the company partnered with what's being described as an openly satanic artist or design firm to create some of these pride designs. Is that true? Yeah, so none of the Target merchandise has satanic imagery on it, but Target has partnered to create LGBT pride designs from a London-based company called Aprallon that creates a call in satanic themed LGBT clothing and accessories.

A prolin's social media pages openly boast about affections for Satan. One post reads, quote, Satan respects pronouns and he loves who you are. Now, sometimes these controversies live and die on Twitter and nothing really comes of it. But once in a blue moon, of course, you see. a full Bud Light meltdown. What's it looking like for Target? Well, it's not clear right now what the fate is for Target, but like you mentioned, Bud Light has been just crushed by a boycott over its team up with Mulvaney. The Beer's parent company has reportedly lost nearly $16 billion in value since this backlash started just last month. And now we do see Target changing course,

probably to avoid that same fade, at least for right now. All right, well, it'll be interesting to watch. Amanda, thanks for reporting. Thanks for waking up with us. We'll be back this afternoon with more of the news you need to know.