Gov. Ron DeSantis, R-Fla., dismissed criticism for not immediately condemning neo-Nazi demonstrations in Orlando and blasted Democrats for trying to "smear" him.
"So what I’m going to say is these people, these Democrats who are trying to use this as some type of political issue to try to smear me as if I had something to with do that, we're not playing their game," DeSantis said Monday.
And he ripped into the demonstrators.
"Some jackasses doing this on the street ... first of all, state law enforcement is going to hold them accountable because they were doing stuff on the overpass, so they are absolutely going to be doing that," DeSantis said.
The Orlando Sentinel said the governor was referring to a group of about 20 demonstrators waving Nazi flags and chanting antisemitic slurs while near a Orlando shopping plaza on Saturday.
Another neo-Nazi demonstration took place on an Interstate 4 overpass on Sunday.
The newspaper said he accused Democrats, who had called on him to condemn the neo-Nazis, as exploiting the protests for their own political gain.
"They try to play games to try to politicize — why would they do that?" he asked. "Why would they want to elevate a half dozen malcontents and try to make this an issue for political gain? Well, because they want to distract from the failure that we’ve seen with [President Joe] Biden, and they're all joined at the hip, all these policies, they all support in Florida 100%."
The Miami Herald reported DeSantis’ press secretary, Christina Pushaw, had suggested on Sunday that some of the people could have been Democratic operatives.
In a now-deleted tweet, she reportedly wrote: "Do we even know if they are Nazis? Or is this a stunt like the 'white nationalists' who crashed the Youngkin rally in Charlottesville pretending to be Dem staffers?"
The newspaper said Pushaw said she regretted her "flippant" tone of the tweet.
The Herald said her tweet had referred to campaign stunt from last October in Charlottesville, Virginia. Five people carrying tiki torches had stood in front of a campaign bus of then-gubernatorial candidate Glenn Youngkin.
It turned out it had all be orchestrated by The Lincoln Project, an anti-Donald Trump Republican group, according to the newspaper.
Jeffrey Rodack ✉
Jeffrey Rodack, who has nearly a half century in news as a senior editor and city editor for national and local publications, has covered politics for Newsmax for nearly seven years.
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