Fox Business host Larry Kudlow on Wednesday shared a harsh assessment of Ron DeSantis’s ongoing battle with Disney, warning the Florida governor is “close to making a fool of himself with his Walt Disney obsession.”
DeSantis launched a legal battle against the Florida-based entertainment giant last year after Disney executives criticized the state’s Parental Rights in Education law. The governor signed a bill stripping Disney of its “independent special district” status, which had granted it the privilege of creating its own regulations, building codes, and other municipal services. DeSantis later settled for control of the board that oversees the district once it became clear taxpayers would be on the hook for Disney’s various municipal services and the tax district’s debt of around $1 billion.
The feud reignited this week when members of the district’s outgoing board passed agreements to nullify governmental intervention. The latest update has even fellow conservatives questioning DeSantis’s handling of the situation and suggesting he has been outmaneuvered by Disney.
“This has been going on now for months and months and months. And I would argue that it is unseemly, No. 1. A governor should not come crashing down on, if not biggest, one of the biggest businesses,” Kudlow said.
He went on to say DeSantis “should make a deal and stop already.”
“He’s not running against Walt Disney for president,” Kudlow said, alluding to DeSantis being widely seen as Trump’s most formidable opponent in the 2024 Republican presidential primary, despite not having entered the race.
Radio host Mark Simone agreed with Kudlow’s assessment and said DeSantis “has no campaign skills.”
“He can’t debate and he can’t negotiate,” he said. “Donald Trump would be in a room with Disney working this out. DeSantis’s problem was, it was easy to slap Disney around. They had the dumb CEO. But he’s gone. [Bob] Iger is here. And Desantis is no match for Iger, who’s ten steps ahead of DeSantis on every move.”
Kudlow replied that DeSantis’s feud with Disney “sets a bad precedent.”
“The cause may be just. I don’t like woke anymore than anybody else. But it’s not good for a governor of a state because it suggests maybe as a president he would be attacking business. And that’s what the lefties do, not what the conservatives do,” Kudlow said.
The comments echo a similar sentiment shared by Chris Christie earlier this week.
“I don’t think Ron DeSantis is a conservative based on his actions towards Disney,” he said, adding that the job of government is to “stay out of the business of business.”
“Where are we headed here now? If you express disagreement in this country, the government is allowed to punish you? To me, that’s what I always thought liberals did,” said Christie, who is considering his own 2024 bid.
He went on to say that DeSantis’s failure to foresee Disney’s response to his actions means he is “not the guy I want sitting across from President Xi and negotiating our next agreement with China or sitting across from Putin and trying to resolve what’s happening in Ukraine.”
More from National Review
[ad_2]
Source link
