Gov. Ron DeSantis’s (R-FL) presidential campaign is beset by a steady stream of leaks of message coordination communications, yet another serious setback for the flailing candidate.
The latest leaks to Semafor show that the DeSantis campaign’s senior-most levels oversaw the creation of highly controversial Twitter meme videos that were then quietly distributed by campaign staffers to anonymously run Twitter accounts they called “anons” before being amplified by the campaign. One such video, which featured the use of a Sonnenrad behind DeSantis–a Sonnenrad is an image often used by Nazis–led to the ouster of one DeSantis aide named Nate Hochman. Hochman’s firing came amid a broader set of layoffs of dozens of DeSantis staffers that the cash-strapped DeSantis campaign was forced to make in July. But it turns out, leaked communications from DeSantis world show, that Hochman may not have been the responsible party for this video, and it might have been more senior campaign staffers including some people who still work for the governor.
So turns out that the DeSantis campaign dishonestly scapegoated Nate Hochman to take the blame over those viral videos and fired him over it – Despite the fact that the videos were actually approved by senior DeSantis staff. What absolute scumbags. pic.twitter.com/3HKSPh412U
— Andrew Surabian (@Surabees) August 1, 2023
The meme videos in question emerged from a “War Room Creative Ideas” group chat on Signal, an encrypted messaging app. The chat includes several high-level DeSantis staffers, including Rapid Response Director Christina Pushaw, Press Secretary Bryan Griffin, and former research and data director Kyle Lamb.
As Breitbart News reported:
Over the weekend, a pro-DeSantis account tweeted a video bashing former President Donald Trump and uplifting Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL). The end of the ad featured an image of DeSantis with Florida’s state seal as the backdrop. However, the seal then turned into a sonnenrad, a Nazi symbol.
“This belongs in the Smithsonian,” Lamb wrote in the group chat in response to the video that featured Nazi imagery.
Lamb was one of the 38 staffers laid off last week as part of the “aggressive steps” the campaign has taken to “streamline operations” and boost DeSantis’s position in the polls.
The leaked messages showed members of the group chat that included several senior DeSantis campaign officials “actively sharing images to put in the video while it was in the editing process, though not the Sonnenrad symbol that was in the final version,” Semafor reported.
That one video is hardly the only time such senior campaign officials took similar actions.
Other messages leaked to Semafor revealed Pushaw asking the group if anyone knew “any Anons who might want” to post a “fun” clip of former President Donald Trump talking about China at a Fox News town hall, according to Semafor.
What’s more, the controversial “pride month” video the DeSantis campaign posted that attacked Trump for his commitment to “protect” LGBTQ+ Americans in the aftermath of the Pulse Nightclub shooting was also produced within the campaign, according to the New York Times.
As Semafor detailed:
The creator of that video remains on staff, and the content was approved by senior staffers before being sent out, according to the person familiar with the campaign. The chat was shut down after the video featuring the Sonnenrad caused a national media firestorm, and an image of members being removed from the group was reviewed by Semafor.
The messages offered a “glimpse of a strategy that mixes digital aggression and (unsuccessful) attempts to keep the campaign’s own activities secret,” Semafor reported, noting that the messages were set to disappear after one week.
The messages are just the latest in a series of leaks from the campaign after a “confidential” internal memo on the campaign’s strategy to reassure donors surfaced in July.
That memo reiterated that “Governor DeSantis is THE leader of the culture fight in America.” However, DeSantis has faced criticism for his culture warrior campaign strategy, primarily for it being “too online.”
Rolling Stone reported that media tycoon Rupert Murdoch has “privately winced at DeSantis’ nonstop cultural-grievance strategy, arguing that it is being executed sloppily.”
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Jack Knudsen / Breitbart NewsThe actions of these staffers has affected the candidate himself as well. During an interview with Fox News this week, anchor Bret Baier actually pressed DeSantis on some of the controversy surrounding these odd pieces of content his staff was creating. In the interview DeSantis defended the premise of the controversial “pride month” attack against Trump, chalking it up to being a “rapid response thing.”
“These things get shared, or whatever — and look, I’m responsible for it. Don’t get me wrong,” DeSantis responded to Baier. “But the idea that I was sitting there, like — oh, share this video? No. It’s a rapid response thing.”
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Jack Knudsen / Breitbart NewsJordan Dixon-Hamilton is a reporter for Breitbart News. Write to him at jdixonhamilton@breitbart.com or follow him on Twitter.
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