Ron DeSantis news today: Casey DeSantis nicknamed ‘Walmart Melania’ over leather jacket stunt

Ron DeSantis snaps at reporter who asked why he wasn’t taking questions from the public

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Casey DeSantis, Florida’s first lady and the wife of aspiring Republican presidential candidate Ron DeSantis, has been branded a “Walmart Melania” after she wore a leather jacket emblazoned with a map of the Sunshine State, an alligator and the legend “Where woke goes to die” during a campaign stop in Iowa to promote her husband.

Ms DeSantis wore the offending jacket in Des Moines at a “Roast and Ride” event hosted by state senator Joni Ernst.

The gesture recalled former US first lady Melania Trump wearing a jacket that said “I really don’t care. Do you?” while child immigrants were being cruelly separated from their families at the Texas border during her husband Donald Trump’s presidency.

“Walmart Melania made herself fair game when she put on this jacket,” one Twitter user wrote, while another prominent account tweeted: “Behind every Republican man, there’s a Republican woman selling out her sisterhood.”

Meanwhile, a Vice documentary about the candidate’s earlier career as a US Navy lawyer serving at the Guantanamo Bay detention facility in Cuba has been mysteriously dropped from Showtime’s schedules, according to The Hollywood Reporter, with no explanation given.

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Chris Christie set to launch 2024 presidential bid

Yesterday Mike Pence made his first steps towards announcing a tilt at the White House.

This evening, it looks like former New Jersey governor Chris Christie will launch his own bid for the Republican presidential nomination at a town hall gathering in New Hampshire.

The campaign will be the second for Mr Christie, who lost to Donald Trump in 2016 and went on to become a close on-and-off adviser before breaking with the former president over his refusal to accept the results of the 2020 election. He has cast himself as the only candidate willing to directly take on the 45th president.

Joe Sommerlad6 June 2023 12:15

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Casey DeSantis labelled ‘Walmart Melania’ over jacket stunt

Casey DeSantis, Florida’s first lady and the wife of aspiring Republican presidential candidate Ron DeSantis, has been branded a “Walmart Melania” after she wore a leather jacket emblazoned with a map of the Sunshine State, an alligator and the legend “Where woke goes to die” during a campaign stop in Iowa to promote her husband.

Ms DeSantis wore the offending jacket in Des Moines at a “Roast and Ride” event hosted by state senator Joni Ernst.

The gesture recalled former US first lady Melania Trump wearing a jacket that said “I really don’t care. Do you?” while child immigrants were being cruelly separated from their families at the Texas border during her husband Donald Trump’s presidency.

“Walmart Melania made herself fair game when she put on this jacket,” one Twitter user wrote, while another prominent account tweeted: “Behind every Republican man, there’s a Republican woman selling out her sisterhood.”

Joe Sommerlad6 June 2023 11:55

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Trump’s latest Truth Social meltdown

Donald Trump unleashed a furious all-caps rant against the Department of Justice on Monday and appeared to indicate that he believed charges were imminent in the case of his dispute with the National Archives over his retention of presidential records.

In a Truth Social post, he also revealed that two other attorneys on his payroll, James Trusty and John Rowley, had also met with the Justice Department on Monday.

The former president wrote:

“HOW CAN DOJ POSSIBLY CHARGE ME, WHO DID NOTHING WRONG, WHEN NO OTHER PRESIDENT’S WERE CHARGED, WHEN JOE BIDEN WON’T BE CHARGED FOR ANYTHING, INCLUDING THE FACT THAT HE HAS 1,850 BOXES, MUCH OF IT CLASSIFIED, AND SOME DATING BACK TO HIS SENATE DAY WHEN EVEN DEMOCRAT SENATORS ARE SHOCKED. ALSO, PRESIDENT CLINTON HAD DOCUMENTS, AND WON IN COURT. CROOKED HILLARY DELETED 33,000 EMAILS, MANY CLASSIFIED, AND WASN’T EVEN CLOSE TO BEING CHARGED! ONLY TRUMP – THE GREATEST WITCH HUNT OF ALL TIME!”

Originally, it had been reported by Politico that attorneys Evan Corcoran and Lindsey Halligan, had been spotted entering the DoJ’s headquarters.

Read more:

Joe Sommerlad6 June 2023 11:30

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CNN boss apologises to staff after brutal magazine profile

CNN’s boss Chris Licht has apologised to the cable news network’s staff in a Monday morning call, according to reports.

The organization’s CEO has faced criticism from staff in the wake of the controversial Donald Trump town hall and a searing 15,000-word profile in The Atlantic.

Staff at the company have complained that the disastrous profile, released on Friday, showed poor judgement with CNN already suffering falling ratings.

Read more from Graeme Massie:

John Bowden6 June 2023 11:15

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Lauren Boebert caught on video sprinting to vote she claims she missed on purpose

Colorado far-right Representative Lauren Boebert has been caught on video sprinting to a vote that she later claimed to have missed on purpose.

She insisted at the time that she missed the Thursday House vote on the raising of the debt ceiling as a “no-show protest”.

But footage shared on Sunday by Morgan Rimmer of CNN shows Ms Boebert running up the stairs of the Capitol on the night of the vote.

As she runs up the steps in the footage, Ms Rimmer tells Ms Boebert, “they just closed it”.

Read about the moment here:

John Bowden6 June 2023 10:15

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Chasten Buttigieg calls out Nikki Haley for linking teen suicidal thought to trans girls using locker rooms

Chasten Buttigieg, the husband of Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, criticised Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley after Ms Haley claimed that the presence of trans girls in female locker rooms is connected to a rise in suicidal thought among teenage girls in the US.

Ms Haley, the former governor of South Carolina and US ambassador to the United Nations, has been making simliar claims in campaign trail appearances for weeks. But the assertion, offered without any evidence, gained national attention when she made it during a CNN town hall in Iowa on Sunday night.

After moderator Jake Tapper asked Ms Haley how she would define the term “woke” partway through the event, the candidate launched an attack on trans children.

John Bowden6 June 2023 09:15

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Mike Pence files paperwork to jump into crowded 2024 GOP primary race

Mike Pence, the ex-Indiana governor who spent four years as then-president Donald Trump’s loyal vice President until he became persona non grata in MAGA circles for certifying their defeat in the 2020 election, has officially declared himself a candidate for the GOP nomination in next year’s Republican presidential primary.

Mr Pence on Monday filed paperwork with the Federal Election Commission to register his candidacy for the 2024 presidential election, capping months of speculation over whether Mr Trump’s former right-hand man would challenge his old running mate, who is seeking to reclaim his former place at the head of the executive branch amid multiple criminal probes into his conduct.

Read more in The Independent:

John Bowden6 June 2023 09:14

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Showtime pulls Vice episode probing Ron Desantis’s Guantanamo record despite campaign trail questions

The premium cable network Showtime halted the planned airing of a Vice investigation into Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and his service as an attorney for the US military, just as the Republican candidate faces questions about the issue on the campaign trail.

The move was first reported by The Hollywood Reporter, explaining that the episode had originally been set to air on 28 May. The reason for the episode’s change was not given, and a rerun was played in place of a new episode during Vice’s 28 May timeslot on Showtime.

But a spokesperson for Vice told The Independent on Monday that the investigation itself may still make it to air.

Read more:

John Bowden6 June 2023 08:15

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Biden looking to shore up Hispanic support ahead of 2024

Joe Biden vowed in 2020 to work “like the devil” to energise Hispanic voters and flew to Florida seven weeks before Election Day to do just that.

But, as he stepped to the podium at a Hispanic Heritage Month event near Disney World, Biden declared, “I just have one thing to say”, and used his phone to play part of “Despacito.”

It was meant to salute the singer of the reggaeton hit, Luis Fonsi, who had introduced him.

But the gesture triggered online backlash from some Hispanics who saw it as playing to belittling stereotypes — proof that while outreach is important, failing to strike the right tone can undermine it.

“The details actually matter for people because it’s respecting their background, respecting their history, respecting their culture,” said Grecia Lima, national political director of the progressive activist group Community Change Action.

President Biden isn’t the first politician to strike a sour note trying to connect across cultural lines but the blowback he encountered illustrates a bigger challenge he faces while seeking a second term.

John Bowden6 June 2023 07:15

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RFK Jr heaps praise on Elon Musk saying he is ‘rescuing American Democracy’ during Twitter event

Mr Kennedy, who has long promoted the discredited theory that vaccines play a role in causing autism, participated in a Twitter Spaces event on Monday and praised Mr Muk for his stewardship of the social media giant for supposedly stopping censorship of voices that dissent from orthodoxy.

The forum is the second such event that Mr Musk has hosted with a presidential hopeful. Last month, Mr Musk hosted a Twitter Sspaces forum with Florida Gov Ron DeSantis as he announced his candidacy for the Republican nomination for president in 2024.

John Bowden6 June 2023 06:15

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/ron-desantis-casey-latest-news-today-b2352257.html

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