 You've done a great job pushing back against woke. We know that, but I'm wondering what's going on with your campaign. There was a lot of optimism about you running for president earlier in the year, but here's this weekend's headline from the Politico Playbook, failure to launch. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis' campaign to topple Donald Trump has stalled. We are way behind, says a top DeSantis PAC official sounding the alarm. What happened? That was Ron DeSantis' reaction to Fox News host, Maria Bartiromo, asking him about his flailing 2024 presidential campaign. And we're gonna get to his full response in a moment here. But first, I just want to give you some additional context because her framing doesn't adequately portray just how badly he's doing currently. So according to real clear politics, polling averages DeSantis is more than 30 points behind Donald Trump and he's trending downward. Now he's trailing Trump in early primary states as well by double digits on average, 24 points in Iowa and 26 points in New Hampshire for example. And he was also 50 points behind Trump according to a Fox News poll conducted between June 23rd and June 26th and is only able to capture support from, get this, 14% of GOP voters under 45, ouch. But most humiliating is the fact that he is 20 points behind Trump in his own home state of Florida according to Florida Atlantic University's main street, Paulcom Lab. And again, it's still early, but I don't think that things will improve for DeSantis. In fact, I think things are going to continue to get worse because the more he speaks, the less people want to hear from him. Whereas with Trump, being back in the spotlight has very clearly helped his campaign despite multiple indictments and scandals. But it's evident that DeSantis is still in denial. So I want to listen to his answer because he is trying to cope by claiming that really this whole narrative that he's failing, it's a media phenomenon. Let's listen. Maria, these are narratives. The media does not want me to be the nominee. I think that's very, very clear. Why? Because they know I'll beat Biden, but even more importantly, they know I will actually deliver on all these things. We will stop the invasion at the border. We'll take on the drug cartels. We'll curtail the administrative state. We'll get spending under control. We'll do all the things that they don't want to see done. And so they're gonna continue doing the type of narrative. I can tell you, we understand this is a state-by-state process. We've had incredible support in the early states building an organization, signing up the key people that you need to be able to compete in a place like Iowa. We just launched our mama's movement. My wife was in Iowa with Governor Kim Reynolds launching that. Parents and particularly moms, I think are gonna be the secret weapon both in this primary and in the general election. Nobody has been a better champion for those folks than me. And I would just also point out, my reelection in Florida, we had the greatest victory that any Republican governor candidate in the history of the state had. And yet a few months before the election, I had media saying that somehow my reelection campaign was stalling, that we weren't doing anything. And so we're doing what it takes to win. It's not a national primary. That's not how these things are going. It's really on the ground in those key states. You gotta have the organization. You gotta have do it. So that's what we focused on. And oh, by the way, we just announced last week better fundraising than any non-incumbent has ever had. If you look at what was reported, it was about $150 million. And that hasn't even been deployed yet. So we've got a long way to go. I'm looking forward to being able to participate into debates, but this is not something that, I ever expected to just snap fingers and all of a sudden you win seven months before anyone happens. You gotta earn it and you gotta work. And it requires a lot of toil and tears and sweat. And we're gonna do that. I mean, it's possible that things do change between now and Iowa, but in order for him to make up that big of a deficit, he needs to start gaining ground right now immediately. We need to see a massive shift, but that's just not happening, right? Now things can change fast, sure, but the problem is that he's falling further behind and what the polling tells us is that he peaked. And I don't know what to say about that. That's just not changing currently, right? There's no indicators that he's going to start doing better. And his argument is extremely disingenuous. So he basically says, oh, these are narratives. The media does not want me to become the nominee, which is such a wild thing for him to say of all people because conservative media absolutely wants him to be the nominee. They are 100% in the tank for DeSantis pretty openly so. I mean, you have Rupert Murdoch's entire media empire going to bat for him, but he's claiming, nope, the entire media is against me. Okay, well, let's look at some headlines. So this is from media item July of 2022. Fox News posts stunning three minute montage of Trump voters ready to ditch him for DeSantis. Quote, he's too polarizing. Keep in mind, this was before the 2022 debacle when Trump endorsed candidates harmed the broader GOP's electoral efforts. Also, this is from the New York Post. DeFuture, young GOP star DeSantis romps to victory in Florida. This was their headline after last year's midterms. Now, there were numerous reports about how Murdoch's media empire had turned on Trump after the 2022 election, and that was obviously to DeSantis's benefit. And to be fair, I think that they're more anti-Trump than they are pro-DeSantis, but that doesn't change the fact that right-wing propagandists are desperately trying to go conservatives into supporting DeSantis over Trump since he's seen as the more electorally viable option. And it's not just Fox News who has turned against Trump to DeSantis's benefit. So when Trump was at his weakest in November, do you notice how a bunch of daily wire hosts started to conspicuously pounce on him? For example, Candice Owens, a Trump sycophant, decided to attack Donald Trump. Obviously, who is this benefited? Benefits DeSantis. Now, they've since platformed DeSantis and have given him the opportunity to respond to Trump's attacks. So this man has multiple media outlets in the tank for him, and yet he's still claiming that the media doesn't want him to win. I mean, no other candidate has this benefit, and you do, but you're still flailing. And guess what? In response to him awkwardly laughing about how bad he's doing, do you wanna know who defended him? Media, because the media, believe it or not, they love Ron DeSantis and they want him to win. So here's what Fox News mainstream media said in response to that awkward interview. And speaking of spending, the governor also brought up the fact that he's got $150 million in his campaign war chest that he has not touched, and he said that he's looking forward to the debates. And keep in mind, it's still early, months and months and months before people start voting. Oh, but media hates me so much. Aren't they so biased against me? What was me? I'm a victim. If you are going to push this victim complex, you have to come up with evidence that the media hates you. You can say that liberal media does not like you because that would be accurate. But when it comes to a GOP primary, Republican Party voters, Republican primary voters, don't care what MSNBC says. They don't even care what CNN says. They care about what conservative media says and conservative media, they like DeSantis. They're in the tank for DeSantis. They are desperately trying to prop up the corpse of his campaign so he beats Donald Trump. So no, they don't hate him. They are desperately trying to prop him up so he defeats Trump, but it's not working, right? But what does he do? He blames media for pointing out these flaws because it's a little bit, if you have run DeSantis on and you don't asking this question, then you kind of look foolish, right? So in order to at least maintain plausible deniability in the eyes of Republican primary voters, they've got to ask this question, right? Because Republican primary voters, Fox News viewers, they want Donald Trump to win. So they have to at least try to uphold this facade of legitimacy, right? But because they dare to ask that question, DeSantis thinks he's the victim. Amazing. Now, DeSantis referred to the fact that his campaign is flailing as a narrative. But I mean, first of all, I think that the polling speaks for itself, right? Sure, you can use polls to cultivate narratives in media, but we're not talking about these media outlets cherry picking one poll where DeSantis is doing really, really bad. We're talking about an average of polls that show he is doing terrible. Second of all, let's actually look at the Politico article that he was asked about because they're simply parroting what a spokesperson for DeSantis' own super PAC said during a Twitter Spaces event. So to the extent that it is a narrative, it's a narrative being created by DeSantis' own people, quote, right now in national polling, we are way behind. I'll be the first to admit it, said Steve Cortez. This is the top spokesperson, by the way, for DeSantis' super PAC. This is what he said in Twitter Spaces, and it was an event that was recorded on Sunday night. Keep in mind, this is from July 3rd. I believe in being blunt and honest, it's an uphill battle, but clearly Donald Trump is the runaway front runner. Calling the DeSantis campaign the clear underdog, he added, in the first four states, which matter tremendously, polls are a lot tighter, which we are still clearly down. We're down double digits, we have work to do. So he's trying so hard to be charitable, but still, not a great look. When asked about his comments, Cortez responded in an email that Trump has debated through two successive presidential cycles. So of course, he possesses a lot of experience in that arena, but I am convinced that Governor DeSantis will outperform expectations and inform large audiences about his amazing life, political record, and winning agenda for the presidency. How dare the top spokesperson for Ron DeSantis' main super PAC parrot this narrative that they're not doing good, even if that is objectively true. Now, I think that that last sentence there tells you exactly why they're doing so poorly. They are so out of touch with just regular voters, even Republican primary voters, right? Because he said that once voters learn about DeSantis' amazing life, that was one of the things that he said would captivate voters, that's when they're really gonna love him. What? Who cares about how amazing Ron DeSantis' life is? I mean, do you think that the people who are struggling to buy groceries and pay rent care that candidates have amazing lives? That's such a weird thing to say. I don't even know how to analyze that, right? They're so out of touch. And to be clear, Republican primary voters are the dumbest people in the country, but even they want you to at least sprinkle in like a little bit of kitchen table issues, right? Like taxes, social security, which is something that DeSantis just has not done and Trump has done, right? Hyperfixating on woke can only get you so far because to average Republicans, they expect the fascist and they expect the attacks on marginalized communities that comes with the territory, right? So if it comes down to this question of, well, who's gonna attack minorities the most? Then I don't think that that is space that's gonna gain you the most ground because it's a matter of yes and, right? Yes, you hate LGBTQ people and what else? What are you gonna do for me? And DeSantis is just like, well, I hate them the most, but that's not enough even for GOP primary voters. But I hope that DeSantis continues to flail. I hope that he continues to not speak to economic issues and not even pretend to be populist because I actually do think that he is more capable and evil than Donald Trump. And I also think that he's a stronger general election candidate than Trump. And so Trump winning the GOP nomination amid multiple legal scandals is going to hopefully keep Republicans out of the White House for another four years. So in this very limited sense, as a leftist, I am admittedly rooting for Donald Trump in the GOP primary. I want him to win and I hope that he does. Now, at this point, it looks like he will, right? But again, things can change. The problem is that there needs to be a lot of things that happen in order for it to change, right? Basically every single other GOP candidate besides DeSantis needs to drop out and endorse DeSantis, but they probably won't do that because ego. Or he can try to work really hard in Iowa and try to pull off an upset and create a bandwagon effect. Things can change based on that too, but it doesn't look like they will and I hope that they don't. Because the faster that DeSantis' brand of fascism becomes a losing strategy for Republicans electorally, the better off I think that we'll all be. So I honestly hope that he continues to eat shit and we'll enjoy watching him face plant at every step of the way. Woke my mama. Pekano, Pekano, Pekano, Pekano, Pekano. Woke my mama. Pekano, Pekano, Pekano, Pekano. Woke ideology. Woke ideology. Woke ideology. Woke ideology. Woke ideology. Woke task. Woke ideology. Woke Olympics. Woke ideology. Woke ideology. Woke ideology. Woke ideology. Woke ideology. Woke ideology.