The feud between Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and the Disney Company has once more escalated. A board backed by DeSantis on Monday said it will counter-sue Disney over the state’s long-running dispute for authority of the entertainment giant’s central Florida theme park.
The Disney Company is claiming that the governor retaliated against it for speaking out against Florida’s Parental Rights in Education bill, better known as “Don’t Say Gay,” and that the ensuing harassment is all political revenge. Disney’s former CEO, Bob Chapek, denounced the law and in response, DeSantis last year pushed the GOP-controlled Legislature to strip Disney of its self-governing status that the company has enjoyed for decades.
Martin Garcia, chair of the Central Florida Tourism Oversight District, said during a meeting Monday that Disney left it with very few options after it launched its lawsuit last week. “Disney sued us, we have no choice now but to respond,” he said. “The district will seek justice in state court here in central Florida where both it and Disney reside and do business.”
The lawsuit was filed on Monday.
DeSantis has repeatedly justified his battle with Disney as a fight against “woke” companies, but in recent weeks he has faced growing criticism from Republicans for continuing the clash.
Most recently, Speaker Kevin McCarthy said last week that the governor should “sit down and negotiate” with the company while GOP presidential hopeful Vivek Ramaswamy on Sunday said on NBC’s “Meet the Press” that DeSantis “really lost it here. He’s gone on the wrong path.”
The persistent attack on Disney has in fact hurt DeSantis politically, as his poll numbers, once strong enough to suggest he could wrest the GOP presidential nomination from Donald Trump, have virtually collapsed lately.
The fight has also provided fuel for Democrats as they seek to attack DeSantis. President Joe Biden, during Saturday’s White House Correspondents’ Dinner, joked: “I had a lot of Ron DeSantis jokes ready, but Mickey Mouse beat the hell out of me and got to them first.”
A representative Twitter comment underscores his damaged image, “Ron DeSantis got humiliated by the Mouse and is now trying to save face with a frivolous investigation. He is a weak, laughing stock who got completely outplayed. He is desperate and flailing. Sad!”
DeSantis is doing himself no favors by persecuting Disney, he has become a target of criticism even in Europe. John Oliver, television personality and commenter on American politics, summed up the extreme positions that the governor has pushed: “When you take all of this together – the books being removed, the inane proclamations to shame trans athletes, the sloppy attempts to criminalize protests – and you combine it with everything else, from the support of restrictive abortion bans to the efforts to stop gender-affirming care, it really begins to feel like the ‘freest state in America’ is only free to the extent that anyone wants to behave exactly the way that Ron DeSantis thinks they should.”
During a Monday press conference, DeSantis said that no business is above the law and Disney was usurping the will of the people by defying legislative attempts to strip it of its power.
“It is wrong for one corporation to basically corrupt the local government and run it as their own fiefdom,” DeSantis said Monday in Titusville, about an hour from Orlando. “It’s been very disappointing to watch this particular company, what they’ve done by advocating things like the sexualization of children, very close relationship with the Chinese communist party — that’s all very problematic.”
