DeSantis Branded ‘Authoritarian-Curious by ‘Morning Joe’

With Morning Joe namesake Joe Scarborough returning to the show after an early summer vacation on Monday, he got right back into the swing of things by attacking Republican Florida Governor Ron DeSantis by suggesting he has an “authoritarian streak” because he vetoed spending taxpayer money to help build a new baseball stadium for the Tampa Bay Rays. In contrast, Scarborough proclaimed himself the real “conservative.”

Scarborough and his guests began their day by bashing the GOP in general. During this insightful conversation, Scarborough labeled himself as a “small government conservative,” criticizing him for “telling businesses what they should or shouldn’t do” when it came to nixing certain COVID mandates.

It is certain that viewers were scratching their heads at this claim considering that Scarborough was all for what New York’s former, disgraced governor, Andrew Cuomo (D) did during the COVID pandemic; which was tell businesses and schools what they could and could not do.

When Scarborough asked MSNBC senior national political reporter Marc Caputo his thoughts on the motive for vetoing these bills, Caputo admitted that because DeSantis is conservative, he is trying to save the Florida government money. “Conservatives traditionally don’t like a lot of government spending,” Caputo said.

This is contradictory to what both Scarborough and Caputo said earlier, which was that DeSantis was only cutting budgetary spending for companies that said things that he did not agree with. Marc and Joe, can you please explain the true reasons behind the budget cuts?

Scarborough switched the conversation over then to Dave Aronberg (Florida State Attorney for Palm Beach County). However, before Aronberg could say his piece, Joe did the one thing he is good at: more anti-GOP ranting.

“He’s punishing a private company, a private enterprise because of their political views with taxpayer money,” Scarborough raged. “Same thing again, I talked about it before with Disney. Talked about with cruise lines that wanted, at the height of COVID, to keep their people safe, to have them wear masks, which any doctor – sane doctor would have said, this makes sense.”

Adding: “I mean, it is just craziness. It’s not conservative. This is autoritarian. It’s plain and simple. Conservatives know that.”

Aronberg butted in saying that he would not label DeSantis as authoritarian, but as “authoritarian-curious”, resembling the “socialist dictators he loves to hate.”

He then referenced how DeSantis punished Disney for opposing his ‘Don’t Say Gay’ bill, even though the bill’s purpose is to keep educators from indoctrinating LGBTQ ideologies into school children’s daily lessons. Does MSNBC actually think that DeSantis outlawed the word ‘gay’ in the state of Florida?

The buck didn’t stop there though. Aronberg then accused the Florida Governor of bullying the Special Olympics into dropping their vaccine mandate, calling this action “a new low.” “And if you’re keeping score at home, he’s attacked the Special Olympics, baseball, Mickey Mouse, and even the First Amendment itself,” ranted the attorney.

But, it would seem that people believe that a Florida lawyer would examine the laws in Florida. This is because the law prohibits vaccine mandates within the state. DeSantis was not calling out the organization, this was a requirement for any event.

DeSantis appears to be simply performing his duties as Florida’s Governor. But because Scarborough doesn’t agree with DeSantis’ political views, he is automatically a bad governor.

This example of media bias was made possible by Xfinity and Kayak.

Click “expand” to see the full transcript:

MSNBC’s Morning Joe
6/6/2022
Eastern, 6:46:22

JOE SCARBOROUGH It’s obvious that you are a reporter. You are a conservative small government guy. I was. I still am. And I don’t like government on any level stepping in, telling businesses what they should or shouldn’t do.

COVID showed that he told small businesses what they couldn’t or could not do. He also informed school boards about what they could do. And he even revealed to Walt Disney what a company can and can’t say. A tweet. It costs a baseball team – a beloved baseball team a heck of a lot of money because he’s vetoing bills because of tweets. The situation seems more extreme, and I’m not referring to yours. How can this be?

MARC CAPUTO : In this particular case I feel he logrolls these two issues. He wanted to veto large amounts of spending, as he considers himself conservative. This is an enormous budget. It is full of excessive government spending, which conservatives are not fond of. This is a $109 billion budget and he vetoed $3.1 billion. He had been looking to trim.

And this is an easy one because a lot of people don’t like the idea of subsidizing sports teams. And then it was one of these things like, ‘oh, hey, you know, and they did this.’ So for him, it was kind of a win-win.

You will be seeing more of it, however. This was what we saw with Disney. And you’re going to see it with other companies that step out of line, in his view.

With that haven been said, though he did say, ‘hey, I’m against sports stadiums,’ Formula 1 and NASCAR did get some sales tax breaks and legislation signed. He’s open to the idea of giving breaks to sports enterprises or franchises. But in this case, he – (Caputo’s internet connection cuts out here)

SCARBOROUGH: Yeah. And Dave Aronberg, though he did, if it were just about the sports stadiums, he could have vetoed it and said, “I don’t support giving money to sports stadiums or sports outfits,” when, of course, Marc just pointed out that he does for ones he prefers. But again, there’s just– there is an authoritarian streak here.

Tweeting something the governor does not like will result in him vetoing your spending. He will then tell you why. He could have done noth– He could have just vetoed it and said, “I don’t like sports stadiums,” and leave it there but no, he wanted people to know. He’s punishing a private company, a private enterprise because of their political views with taxpayer money.

It’s the same thing, Disney has already discussed it. Talked about with cruise lines that wanted, at the height of COVID, to keep their people safe, to have them wear masks, which any doctor – sane doctor would have said, this makes sense. I told them that they wouldn’t be able to do this. I told small businesses that they can’t mask mandates, if that was how they want to manage their business. In spite of the fact that there are 67 counties throughout Florida, I told school boards what they could and couldn’t do.

It is pure madness. This isn’t conservative. This is autoritarian. It’s plain and simple. Conservatives understand this.

DAVE ARONBERG : Yes, Joe. This attack on private enterprise is the latest by a conservative governor running as pro-business. You know, as you say, he’s gone after social media companies who banned Trump, he’s penalized cruise lines for requiring vaccine mandates. He has punished Disney for opposing his ‘Don’t Say Gay’ bill.

And yes, his critics call him an authoritarian. I would say he is more authoritarian-curious. He is often likened to the socialist dictators he loathes while calling our state the “free state” of Florida. And he just last week bullied the Special Olympics — that’s a new low — he said drop the vaccine mandate or you’re going to face a $27.5 million fine.

The Special Olympics responded, ‘we don’t want to fight, we just want to play,’ and yet they capitulated because otherwise they would face hefty legal fees to challenge it.

So, this is yet another attack by DeSantis on an iconic American institution. He has also attacked American institutions like the Special Olympics, Mickey Mouse and baseball. He will run in 2024 for President as America First Candidate, which is a common practice in MAGA World, where performance is more important than policy and cruelty is the main point.