Frontrunner DeathSantis announces 'boycott' of NBC after Andrea Mitchell's criticism
A spokesman for Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) has announced that the governor will be "boycotting" NBC and MSNBC, over remarks that Andrea Mitchell made about his education policy during an interview with Vice President Kamala Harris, according to The Daily Beast.
"'This will be the standard response from our office until @mitchellreports apologizes and your track record improves,' DeSantis' Press Secretary Bryan Griffin tweeted Wednesday, urging others to pass his message along," reported Matt Young.
DeSantis' point of contention is a moment in the speech in which Mitchell asked Harris, “What does Governor Ron DeSantis not know about black history and the black experience when he says that slavery and the aftermath of slavery should not be taught to Florida schoolchildren?”
Many of DeSantis' other policies have sharply limited racial and LGBTQ topics that can be discussed in schools; his controversial "Stop WOKE" Act has led to teachers in some districts emptying school library shelves entirely as hundreds or thousands of books need to be "reviewed" for state-approved content. DeSantis and his allies have denied this was in fact mandated by the law.
However, an analysis by The Nation earlier this month found that DeSantis is falsely downplaying the effects of his law.
"DeSantis accused unnamed evil forces of 'trying to act like somehow we don’t want books.' (Well, actually, he named one force of evil — 'the school unions' — while providing zero evidence that unions are behind the missing books. I’ve seen none either.)" wrote Joan Walsh. "'You hear people talk about felony charges' for having unauthorized books in classrooms, DeSantis scoffed. In fact, his own Department of Education confirmed to The Washington Post just weeks ago that educators who shared improper content could, yes, face felony charges."
'Never seen anything remotely like this'
The goal of the legislation, writes Politico, appears to be to "spark a larger legal battle with the goal of eventually overturning New York Times v. Sullivan, the landmark 1964 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that limits public officials’ ability to sue publishers for defamation."
Seth Stern, director of advocacy for the Freedom of the Press Foundation, tells Politico that he believes the legislation is a flagrant violation of the United States Constitution's First Amendment.
“I have never seen anything remotely like this legislation,” he said. “I can’t say I have seen every bill ever introduced, but I’d be quite surprised if any state Legislature had seriously considered such a brazen and blatantly unconstitutional attack on speech and press freedoms.”
DeSantis has been notoriously combative with non-conservative media outlets and typically only gives interviews with friendly outlets such as Fox News. This bill, however, would take DeSantis' war with the mainstream press out of the realm of public jousting and into the realm of courtrooms.
