Ron DeSantis Backs Down on NBC Boycott

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has backed down on his boycott of appearances on MSNBC and NBC, sitting down with NBC’s Dasha Burns this week.

“TOMORROW: @DashaBurns sits down with Republican presidential candidate and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and Casey DeSantis,” NBC News announced on Sunday.

“Tune in to @TODAYshow and @NBCNightlyNews,” it added:

TOMORROW: @DashaBurns sits down with Republican presidential candidate and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and Casey DeSantis.

Tune in to @TODAYshow and @NBCNightlyNews. pic.twitter.com/L55RweswRx

— NBC News (@NBCNews) August 7, 2023

The appearance comes mere months after DeSantis made a point to boycott the networks over a question Andrea Mitchell posed. At the time, Mitchell asked Vice President Kamala Harris about DeSantis’s education policies in the Sunshine State.

“What does Governor Ron DeSantis not know about black history and the black experience when he says that slavery and the aftermath of slavery should not be taught to Florida schoolchildren?” Mitchell asked, later admitting that her question was, perhaps, “imprecise.”

In February, DeSantis’s press secretary at the time, Bryan Griffin, shared a response to all inquiries from individuals associated with NBC News and MSNBC, who were requesting an appearance from DeSantis on their shows.

“To all of the bookers and producers reaching out to our office from @NBCNews and @MSNBC for @GovRonDeSantis to join your shows, this will be the standard response from our office until @mitchellreports apologizes and your track record improves,” Griffin said, sharing the statement, which said in part that “there will be no consideration of anything related to NBC Universal or its affiliates until and at least Andrea Mitchell corrects the blatant lie she made about the governor.”

The statement added that there will also be no consideration until NBC and its affiliates “display a consistent track record of truthful reporting”:

To all of the bookers and producers reaching out to our office from @NBCNews and @MSNBC for @GovRonDeSantis to join your shows, this will be the standard response from our office until @mitchellreports apologizes and your track record improves. pic.twitter.com/8kQcLLEVzW

— Bryan Griffin (@BryanDGriffin) February 22, 2023

The DeSantis administration has continued to face critiques over its decisions to root out woke agenda items from classrooms. Last year, DeSantis announced the STOP WOKE Act, which he described as the “first legislation of its kind in the nation, going on the offense against what the governor described as both corporate wokeness and Critical Race Theory in schools.

At the beginning of the year, the Florida Department of Education (FDOE) came under fire for rejecting the AP African American Studies course over content, as it originally contained a section on “Black Queer Studies” as well as cultural appropriation and reparations. And most recently, the DeSantis administration came under fire over the FDOE’s approval of a new black history program, which states that students will “examine the various duties and trades performed by slaves (e.g., agricultural work, painting, carpentry, tailoring, domestic service, blacksmithing, transportation).” It adds that “instruction includes how slaves developed skills which, in some instances, could be applied for their personal benefit.”

DeSantis has defended the new standards and, ironically, addressed this topic during his interview with the outlet he previously boycotted. Notably, Mitchell and NBC never met the original demands from DeSantis for a clear apology.

“So that means they developed skills in spite of slavery, not because of slavery. It was them showing resourcefulness and then using those skills once slavery ended,” DeSantis said during the interview, emphasizing that his administration has been all in on “education, not indoctrination.”

“Those standards were not political at all. The legislature didn’t dictate any of that. Governor’s office didn’t dictate anything of that,” he reiterated.

During the interview, DeSantis continued to contrast himself with former President Donald Trump, particularly in how he views the 2020 presidential election, which Trump has maintained was rigged and stolen.

“Whoever puts their hand on the Bible on Jan. 20 every four years is the winner,” DeSantis told Burns, later clarifying, “Of course he [Trump] lost.”

“Joe Biden’s the president,” DeSantis said, essentially doubling down on remarks he made during an Iowa stop on Friday, where he said that the election fraud theories “did not prove to be true.”

“All those theories that were put out did not prove to be true. But what I’ve also said is the way you conduct a good election that people have confidence in, you don’t change the rules in the middle of the game,” DeSantis reportedly said at the time.

Trump spokesman Steve Cheung responded to DeSantis’s remarks, telling NBC News, “Ron DeSantis should really stop being Joe Biden’s biggest cheerleader.”

It remains unclear if DeSantis, prior to agreeing to the interview, determined that NBC and its affiliates had displayed “a consistent track record of truthful reporting,” as his office previously demanded.