As the Iowa caucuses draw close to, Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida has more and more targeted on a peculiar goal as he appears to win the Republican nomination: the conservative information media ecosystem that helps former President Donald J. Trump.
Desperate to make his case that he’s a greater candidate than Mr. Trump — whereas trailing by large margins in recent polls — Mr. DeSantis appears to have turned on most of the information shops that when promoted his candidacy, for being unfair of their protection.
“He’s got basically a Praetorian Guard of the conservative media — Fox News, the websites, all this stuff,” Mr. DeSantis instructed reporters exterior his marketing campaign headquarters in Urbandale, Iowa. “They just don’t hold him accountable because they’re worried about losing viewers. And they don’t want to have the ratings go down.”
He added: “That’s just the reality. That’s just the truth, and I’m not complaining about it. I’d rather that not be the case. But that’s just, I think, an objective reality.”
It was essentially the most animated model of a message that Mr. DeSantis, regardless of saying he isn’t complaining, has delivered repeatedly over the past a number of days. While the previous governor’s personal criticisms of Mr. Trump are comparatively muted, he has urged conservative information media to be extra crucial.
Calling on the conservative information media to carry Mr. Trump extra to account permits Mr. DeSantis to look like doing so himself, if in a roundabout way. But he and his crew have additionally taken to attacking Fox News, which was glowing in its protection of Mr. DeSantis till it circled the wagons for Mr. Trump as soon as the previous president was first indicted in March 2023.
When Mr. DeSantis was a House member, he turned a star amongst conservatives via appearances on Fox News. He quickly constructed a supportive community with different conservative information shops.
The New York Post, which, like Fox News, is owned by Rupert Murdoch, declared him “DeFuture” after his profitable re-election effort in 2022, making him a goal for some Trump allies who portrayed him because the conservative information media’s institution decide. He had grown used to being defended by conservative information media in his tradition conflict fights, and by a military of on-line allies who would defend him on social media.
But that was then. Mr. DeSantis’s standing within the race for the Republican nomination eroded over many months. Fox News hosted Mr. Trump simply this week for a stay city corridor from Iowa.
Mr. DeSantis, who as soon as consistently criticized the mainstream information media, has shifted gears and provides interviews to mainstream shops like CNN and even left-leaning networks like MSNBC.
He now finds himself floating attack strains towards onetime allies as he fights for second place within the caucuses earlier than bringing them on the path. To that finish, Mr. DeSantis used his line about Mr. Trump’s Praetorian Guard throughout an interview with MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” earlier than deploying it once more on Friday.
