Gov. Ron DeSantis on Thursday continued his tirade against the rebellious Florida House, accusing them of using a "political agenda" to attack his wife's embattled charity organization.
His comments came at a Miami press conference located in the district of Republican House Speaker Danny Perez, who has clashed with DeSantis on illegal immigration, tax cuts, and the alleged illegality surrounding First Lady Casey DeSantis's Hope Florida charity. It's the fifth press conference in the past week where he's attacked the lower chamber, which has shown signs of independence for the first time since DeSantis took office.
"This is a political agenda. These Republicans in the leadership office are working hand in hand with the Miami Herald and the Tampa Bay Times—very liberal media outlets," said DeSantis, alleging the House Republicans are trying to "sabotage" conservative progress.
"Is that what Republicans do?...And they think that somehow you're going to believe this dribble," he added.
The Tampa Bay Times first broke the story that the Agency for Health Care Administration diverted $10 million of a $67 million settlement to the non-profit Hope Florida, an initiative started by First Lady DeSantis to connect people in need to community resources.
A House panel, chaired by DeSantis critic and Republican Rep. Alex Andrade, questioned AHCA Secretary Shevaun Harris on Wednesday for over two hours, where she denied any wrongdoing and insisted all was above board. She, alongside three other agencies, later posted a video to social media criticizing the line of questioning as an "ambush."
"It was a good settlement...it was entirely appropriate," DeSantis agreed.
Under state law, this money is supposed to be deposited into a trust fund or the general fund where lawmakers can oversee it, and the failure to do so has been called illegal by some House Republicans—including Speaker Perez, who told reporters it "looks like it could be illegal" and denied that Harris was ambushed.
The House has pushed back on DeSantis's agenda since January, when Perez led the charge to close out DeSantis's special session and forced a compromise illegal immigration bill. More recently, he's overridden six of the governor's budget vetoes from last year and proposed a dueling tax cut proposal. This is the first time the governor has faced legislative backlash from the conservative supermajority since he took office in 2018.
