2024 Republican presidential hopeful Vivek Ramaswamy came out swinging against Governor Ron DeSantis (R-FL) in a recent interview on NBC's Meet the Press, criticizing the Governor's war with Disney.
Specifically, Ramaswamy spoke against Gov. DeSantis signing Florida Senate Bill 7072 in 2021, which allowed Floridians to sue Big Tech platforms that censored their political opinions. However, a loophole for companies who own theme parks in Florida (Disney) to be exempt was added just before signing.
"In 2021 Florida passed a strong anti-woke law that stopped companies from engaging in viewpoint discrimination online. But Disney lobbied & won a special exemption from the law before @RonDeSantisFL signed it. It’s hard to fight against wokeism if you’re practicing cronyism for woke companies," Ramaswamy stated.
In 2021 Florida passed a strong anti-woke law that stopped companies from engaging in viewpoint discrimination online. But Disney lobbied & won a special exemption from the law before @RonDeSantisFL signed it. It’s hard to fight against wokeism if you’re practicing cronyism for… pic.twitter.com/AMUiOqtI4x
— Vivek Ramaswamy (@VivekGRamaswamy) April 30, 2023
Though Ramaswamy agreed with DeSantis that Disney should not have "crony capitalist" lobbying privileges in the first place, such a stance rings hollow with DeSantis's signing of the bill that Disney lobbied to exempt itself from.
"Here's where Ron DeSantis really lost it. He's gone on the wrong path here. He claimed, and this part actually sounded good to me, Disney should have never had crony capitalist lobbying-related privileges in the first place. Here's the part he doesn't mention: One of those crony capitalist privileges was, and I think the most relevant one, was codified into law by none other than Ron DeSantis in 2021," said Ramaswamy.
Ramaswamy then described Florida Senate Bill 7072, "which [he] applauded at the time," which included anti-viewpoint discrimination measures applying to streaming companies (like Disney Plus).
"Now here's the funny little dirty secret of that," Ramaswamy continued, "they wrote a last-minute exception into that law for anyone who also operates a theme park of more than 25 acres in the state of Florida. That's crony capitalism."
He then noted the irony of DeSantis going after Disney now, plugging his campaign, "I prefer to get to root causes rather than do political stunts."
"So the irony is Ron DeSantis who's now railing against crony capitalism and rolling that back was the one who actually passed that into law for the case of Disney. So I think that undermines the credibility of his crusade. I prefer to get to root causes rather than do political stunts," Ramaswamy concluded.
