Christina Pushaw, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’s (R) new press secretary, locked down her Twitter account this week due to what she described as “deranged harassment & threats” — including “nasty sexual comments” and one death threat — from the administration’s left-wing opponents, telling Breitbart News exclusively that the attacks likely stem from the left’s “pathological” hatred of the governor.
DeSantis recently tapped Pushaw, a conservative journalist whose work has been featured in the National Interest and Human Events, as his new press secretary. She rose to the spotlight in recent months, standing as an outspoken and prominent opponent of Rebekah Jones, the fired Florida Department of Health data manager whom the mainstream media inaccurately described as an “architect” and “scientist” behind Florida’s COVID-19 dashboard. Jones originally claimed she was fired for her failure to manipulate data to “drum up support for the plan to reopen,” but her story quickly crumbled. She has a history of delinquent behavior, as Breitbart News detailed at the time. Pushaw penned a comprehensive piece about Jones in Human Events in February 2021, walking readers through Jones’s fake narrative.
However, Pushaw was forced to lock her Twitter account mere days into her new role as press secretary due to what she described as “waves of disgusting, deranged harassment & threats” stemming from a “coordinated attack” on her.
Speaking exclusively with Breitbart News on Thursday, Pushaw provided background on what led to her decision to lock her Twitter account. She suspects the origins of the attacks have roots with Rebekah Jones, who has continued to target Pushaw, as detailed by Charles C.W. Cooke in a May 17 post in National Review. As he explained, Jones “filed for an interim peace order (essentially, a restraining order) against Christina Pushaw, for the crime of having critically examined Jones’s claims on the Internet and then tweeted about it.”
Pushaw, speaking on her behalf and not that of the governor, told Breitbart News she has not communicated with her since winning the court case. Cooke has since discussed the Jones-Pushaw saga on major news networks in recent days. Around the same time, prominent left-wing Floridian activists began targeting Pushaw online. She suspects Jones is behind some of the harassment, also naming community organizer and DNC delegate Thomas Kennedy, a prominent DeSantis opponent, as another figure. Anti-DeSantis lawyer Daniel Uhlfelder, who gained temporary fame after dressing up as the grim reaper to shame Floridians for going to the beach during the pandemic, has also targeted her. (He later violated his own purported beliefs, attending a protest with a “huge” crowd after making a scene on Florida beaches). Occupy Democrats editor Grant Stern has piled on as well, continuing to target Pushaw on his personal Twitter account as recently as Thursday afternoon.
While Pushaw said their specific accounts have not threatened her, other accounts, some of whom she identifies as their followers, have crossed the line with “nasty sexual comments” and one death threat, which she has since reported.
She believes the unmitigated attacks are coming because the left “pathologically hates DeSantis.” But Pushaw told Breitbart News that this is not even a “tiny percentage” of what DeSantis and his family go through.
Because of the flurry of attacks, she locked her account, noting she could not even post non-controversial statements without harassment, identifying it as a huge distraction.
Currently, the Republican governor’s press secretary’s Twitter bio reads, “Temporarily locked” and references John 15:18, scripture featuring Jesus speaking of the world’s hatred.
“If the world hates you, you know that it hated Me before it hated you,” the scripture reads.
DeSantis and his administration have continued to face a barrage of unbalanced criticisms and attacks from members of the mainstream media, particularly throughout the coronavirus pandemic last year.
Unlike blue state governors, whom the corporate media continually praised, DeSantis refused to embrace extended shutdowns and never implemented a statewide mask mandate. As a result, his state thrived, achieving an unemployment rate below the national average. Additionally, for weeks on end, Florida continued to report fewer new cases of the virus per capita than pro-lockdown blue states such as New York, Pennsylvania, and Michigan. Nevertheless, the establishment media systematically shifted gears and began falsely accusing DeSantis of malfeasance in vaccine distribution. The accusations rose to the national spotlight after CBS News’s 60 Minutes deceptively edited a segment making it look as if the Republican governor failed to sufficiently address accusations of “pay for play.” In the end, even the Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ) said 60 Minutes “should have provided more context” to the segment.
Speaking exclusively to Breitbart News in April following the signing of the state’s anti-riot bill, DeSantis identified the corporate media as “one of the most divisive forces in our country.”
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