Gov. DeSantis starts changing his tune on Disney. Trump made him do it | Opinion

If Ron DeSantis’ latest message to Disney sounds a little familiar, it’s because it echoes what the Florida governor has been hearing, more or less, from Donald Trump when it comes to the GOP presidential primary: Just give up.

Ain’t gonna happen, in either case.

DeSantis, in a Monday interview with CNBC amid a struggling presidential campaign, suggested that he and his allies had “basically moved on” from his fight with Disney, a battle against the Mouse that, up until now, he’s been shouting about from the mountaintops.

“They’re suing the state of Florida. They’re going to lose that lawsuit. . . . . So what I would say is, drop the lawsuit,” he said, adding that Florida is a “great place to do business.”

Just a few short months ago, in May, the governor was still calling Disney “a multibillion-dollar company that sexualizes children.”

Smooth pivot, governor. Make it about business — and quick. Time to distance yourself from that whole “anti-woke” thing, the strategy you’ve been banking on for years to carry you to the White House in the 2024 election.

The issue, of course, is that the anti-woke battle cry isn’t resonating for DeSantis the way it used to, especially now that his extreme views have been exposed on the national stage as he tries to make his case to people outside of Florida. And now that he’s up against a dominant Trump, who continues to hold on to support despite an incredible four indictments, including the one this week in Georgia.

Taking revenge

If you remember, the Florida fight kicked off last year when Disney stood up and criticized DeSantis’ “Don’t say gay” law; DeSantis, in a move that can only be considered retaliation, pushed for legislation that dissolved the company’s special governance structure and replaced it with a hand-picked board. The mess has wound up in court, with Florida voters once again paying the tab for the fight DeSantis picked.

Some powerful GOP donors see DeSantis’ attack on Disney as anti-business. We see it as anti-free-speech.

But no matter how you view it, the idea that DeSantis is trying to tell Disney to walk away from the fight is a sign of just how much he’s had to change his political tactics to remain even somewhat relevant in the increasingly lopsided contest for the Republican nomination. Rather than boasting about the legal fight against mighty Disney as part of his “woke warrior” credentials, he’s trying to lay it to rest.

During the interview, he even noted that he and his wife had gotten married at Disney, “so it’s not like we’re opposed.” He added that, “We’ve appreciated working with them over the years.” For a guy getting his main support from a super PAC called Never Back Down, those words are positively conciliatory.

And he’s right about working with the company — to the tune of $100,000. That’s the money DeSantis’ political committee received from Disney in 2019 and 2021.

The Disney feud may also be costing the governor critical financial backing at a time when he needs the money to keep him in the game against Trump. Ken Griffin — founder of hedge fund Citadel, which has moved to Miami — has made it no secret that he thinks the Disney fight sends a bad message about doing business in Florida. And in Tampa on Wednesday, a group of Republican state lawmakers held a dial-for-dollars fundraising effort for the governor, rarely a good sign for a campaign.

A new narrative

In the CNBC interview, DeSantis tried to turn the conversation from woke wars to talk about how Disney shouldn’t get special privileges. “So all we want to do is treat everybody the same, and let’s move forward. I’m totally fine with that. But I’m not fine with giving extraordinary privileges, you know, to one special company at the exclusion of everybody else,” he said.

Oh, right. Except he had no trouble with those special privileges when his political committee took Disney’s money. Also, there are lots of other special districts in the state, about 2,000. If the Republicans in Florida are truly interested in applying the laws evenly, without favor, they have a lot of work to do beyond Disney.

DeSantis’ change in tone is another political calculation, just like attacking “wokeness” in Florida. If he has any hope of gaining ground against Trump, he needs to abandon some of his extreme stances. But it’s not that easy for the rest of us. He may want to “move on” from the Disney attacks, but we have to live with the damage he’s done to the state.

This editorial has been corrected to reflect that, according to his spokesman, Citadel CEO Ken Griffin, despite giving $1 million in March to a Florida political committee tied to Miami Mayor Francis Suarez, does not back Suarez in the Republican presidential primary. Suarez, long rumored to be a candidate, announced he was running in June.

This story was originally published August 16, 2023 at 7:27 PM.