The Florida Governor who benefited like no other politician in state history from compliant and cooperative press is now changing his tune about media on the right.
Ron DeSantis told Iowans Thursday that conservative media is every bit as duplicitous and mendacious as the mainstream press, in the latest sign that the final days of his Iowa campaign are driving rhetorical reconsideration.
"It used to be, 'Oh, Republicans, you know, don't like the liberal media, the NBC, CNN, all that stuff or whatever, but that the conservative media were like the good guys, right? They're fighting for us,'" DeSantis said in Clive.
"Well, let me tell you, it's all a racket. OK? It's all a racket," DeSantis continued. "They're trying to get clicks, they're trying to do all this stuff. There's as much fake news on the right as there is on the corporate press now."
The outlets don't "want to lose viewers," DeSantis said, and "almost every entity out there is plagued with this in one sense or another."
"Which is fine," he added. "I mean, that's just the way it works. It's ultimately a business. You gotta do that. But if we're not able to speak as individuals and if we have to rely on those filters, whether they're traditional liberal media or kind of the more conservative media that's done, look, I mean, I think it's just the case people have said, you know, any great movement, you know, great causes start out as a movement, you know, end up a business, and degenerate into a racket."
DeSantis' derision of conservative media has picked up in recent days, with the Governor fuming at Fox News offering no "pushback" against Donald Trump's claims in a town hall Wednesday, and calling the conservative press a "Praetorian Guard" for the former President and current GOP front runner.
The Governor has relied on conservative outlets in Florida in recent years, with the now-shuttered "Florida Standard" and the still-going "Florida's Voice" offering generally uncritical reports and editorials promoting his positions and his political goals.
