The one person who could stop DeSantis isn’t Trump

Over the last few weeks, I’ve taken an informal survey of Republicans and independents who I know favor Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis for the Republican nomination to challenge President Joe Biden in 2024. Many of those I spoke with still feel that most of the policies put forth by former President Donald J. Trump reflect their values and positions. That said, not one I interacted with was in favor of Trump running next year. 

Some fear, as in 2020, that millions of additional Democrats will come to the polls simply to vote against Trump. Others feel Trump was too divisive and too much the schoolyard bully, such as the Iowa voter who was quoted during DeSantis’s visit to a Pizza Ranch restaurant: “I really like Trump’s policies … but he’s not a good man. I would not want to sit down and have dinner with him.”

Like him or not, Trump seems to be in the race to stay. More than that, he has already proven that he will use any misstep — invented or otherwise — by DeSantis to not only bash the Florida governor but have his political action committee turn it into an anti-DeSantis commercial. 

Which brings us back to my informal survey of over 20 Republicans and independents. The question I posed to them was this: “Was it a mistake for DeSantis to declare rhetorical war on Disney and its CEO, Bob Iger?”

Trump is already on record as saying it was.

While all I spoke with agreed that Disney and Iger were themselves bullied by elements of the left into opposing an education bill signed by the governor in 2022 that prohibits discussion of sexual orientation or gender identity in the classroom until after the third grade — a bill the left, Disney and many in the media took to calling “Don’t Say Gay” — about half felt that DeSantis took on a reckless and unneeded battle with a seasoned and politically savvy CEO in the person of Bob Iger. 

Back in the late 90s, when I was the director of communications for former Senator Bob Dole (R-Kansas), I had the chance to speak with Iger a couple of times. He was a vice president at Disney and honestly could not have been nicer or more professional.

But even then, it was clear that Iger not only very much understood how Washington worked in a political and relationship way, but was better positioning Disney to engage in the political process if needed.

Today, over two decades later, he is one of the most powerful and respected CEOs in the world. Now, while Iger is a Democrat and seemingly leans left, I suspect the fight he is now waging against DeSantis — originally initiated by his predecessor, Bob Chapek — is one he would have preferred to avoid.  

But, as he and his company are now smack in the middle of it, he has no intention of losing. And that is the fear of several Republicans and independents I spoke with. They worry that DeSantis picked a fight with a man and a company that have a virtually bottomless budget and can roll wave after wave of the nation’s best corporate and litigation attorneys across the state of Florida. 

As if to confirm that worry, last week Iger went on the attack against DeSantis and his team, stating, “This is about one thing and one thing only, and that’s retaliating against us for taking a position about pending legislation” — the “this” being the ever-escalating fight for control of the Reedy Creek Improvement District, which was created in 1967 to give Disney broad self-governing powers. 

To demonstrate that they have no intention of backing down, earlier this month Disney sued DeSantis and his handpicked Central Florida Tourism Oversight District for allegedly violating the company’s free speech rights.

DeSantis immediately shrugged off the lawsuit and said he would continue to try to rein in Disney’s power by taking back control of the land used by Disney World.

“Sometimes you just need an executive to come in and tell them to pound sand,” DeSantis said in an interview with The American Conservative.

“Retaliation” accuses Iger. “Pound sand” responds DeSantis.

A seemingly very deep line has been drawn in that sand by both men.

But again, the fear a number of Republicans and independents I have spoken to amounts to this: If DeSantis can’t beat “The Mouse” in his home state, how is he going to defeat Trump and then the Democratic nominee in the fall of 2024?

No matter, DeSantis is clearly in it to win it. Many of his supporters only hope it does not amount to a Pyrrhic victory.

Douglas MacKinnon, a political and communications consultant, was a writer in the White House for Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush, and former special assistant for policy and communications at the Pentagon during the last three years of the Bush administration.