Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, his presidential campaign starting to drip and melt like a Mickey Mouse ice cream bar dropped on a hot Orlando sidewalk in August, says he’s ready to “move on” from his culture war fight with the Walt Disney Company, as long as Disney just drops its lawsuit against Florida and lets DeSantis revoke the special tax district under which Walt Disney World operated for over 50 years.
Generous!
In an interview on CNBC’s “Last Call” Monday, DeSantis explained to host Brian Sullivan he’s willing to let bygones be bygones, as long as Disney agrees he wins.
We’ve basically moved on. They’re suing the state of Florida. They’re going to lose that lawsuit. So what I would say is, drop the lawsuit.
For reasons we can’t possibly begin to understand, Politico wrote up that ultimatum as if it indicated a new flexibility on DeSantis’s part, claiming that DeSantis had “signaled … that he wanted an end to his war with Disney.”
We aren’t so sure Politico understands what DeSantis has in mind here. Telling Disney it should capitulate in its federal lawsuit is pretty far from a peace offering. By that standard, Vladimir Putin has been letting Ukraine know for well over a year that he’s willing to end that war, too, if Ukraine would please surrender.
The Disney lawsuit argues that DeSantis violated the state’s contract with Disney for no reason at all. In doing so, the suit says DeSantis stomped all over Disney’s due process and First Amendment rights, because the whole mess got rolling after Disney’s then-CEO Bob Chapek very cautiously spoke out against Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” law.
Aug 18th 09:21 am