DeSantis changes tune on mainstream media: ‘I should’ve gone on all the corporate shows’
After placing a distant second behind President Donald Trump in the Iowa caucuses this week, Gov. Ron DeSantis said he regrets his campaign’s media strategy going into the presidential election.
In a radio interview with Hugh Hewitt on Thursday, DeSantis was asked what errors he and his team made along the way during his presidential campaign. He pointed to their lack of involvement with the media.
“I came in not really doing as much media,” said DeSantis. “I should have just been blanketing. I should have gone on all the corporate shows. I should have gone on everything. I started doing that as we got into the end of the summer, and we did it. But we had an opportunity, I think, to come out of the gate and do that and reach a much broader folk.”
DeSantis went out of his way early in his campaign to avoid interviews with cable news networks and widely circulated publications, even choosing to launch his campaign for president in a glitch-marred appearance with Elon Musk on Twitter Spaces.
The Florida governor also has a history of being combative with the media, both prior to and during his presidential campaign. The governor supported legislation that would have limited press protections during Florida’s legislative session last year, a Miami Herald journalist was barred from entering one of his coronavirus press conferences in 2020 and he had campaign ads that attacked the press.
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In his “Top Gov” ad, which parodies the Top Gun movie franchise, he says he’s “taking on the corporate media” for spreading false narratives.
Following his loss in Iowa to President Trump, his Super PAC, Never Back Down, let go various staff members including almost all of his online “war room” team, according to the New York Times.
Heading into the New Hampshire primary election next week, DeSantis is trailing far behind both Trump and former U.N ambassador Nikki Haley in a recent Suffolk University/NBC10 Boston/Boston Globe poll.
