Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis ripped into the Washington, D.C.-New York media, saying news outlets will use Thursday’s one-year anniversary of the riot at the Capitol to "smear anyone who ever supported Donald Trump."
His comments, tweeted by Patricia Mazzei of The New York Times, came during an appearance in West Palm Beach in the morning.
"It’s interesting how everything in our society becomes very politicized and so today is going to be – honestly, I’m not going to watch any of it – but you’re going to see the D.C.-New York media, I mean this is their Christmas, Jan. 6, okay?" DeSantis, a Republican, said.
"They are going to take this and milk this for anything they could, to try to be able to smear anyone who ever supported Donald Trump."
DeSantis, a former congressman, recalled the attempted assassinations of Republican members of Congress during practice for a charity baseball game in June 2017.
"This guy, who was a big Bernie Sanders guy, was definitely a political motivated attack, came up and we didn’t think anything of it," he said. "We walked out to go to the car, and we came in contact with him. He wanted to know if it Republicans were out there.
"We get in the car, leave, and then we find out he shoots up a bunch of people."
DeSantis said the media didn’t cover the story for long.
"This was like a one-day, two-day story," he said. "That was not something the Capitol-based press wanted to talk about. Why? Because it totally undercut their preferred narratives.
"January 6 allows them to create narratives that are negative about people that supported Donald Trump."
But, he noted, people in Florida are more concerned about inflation, gas prices, education and crime.
"And that’s what they talk to me about," DeSantis said. "They’re concerned about…all those things."
Meanwhile, former President Trump blasted President Joe Biden on Thursday claiming America "has lost its confidence."
And Biden, without ever mentioning Trump by name, said the former president "rallied the mob to attack" the Capitol.
Jeffrey Rodack ✉
Jeffrey Rodack, who has nearly a half century in news as a senior editor and city editor for national and local publications, has covered politics for Newsmax for nearly seven years.
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