DeSantis, once a darling of the conservative news media, is now going against it
As the Iowa caucuses approach, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has increasingly focused on a peculiar target as he looks to clinch the Republican nomination: the conservative news media ecosystem that supports former President Donald J. Trump.
Desperate to argue that he is a better candidate than Mr. Trump — even though he has trailed by wide margins in recent polls — Mr. DeSantis appears to have turned on many of the news media that once promoted his candidacy, saying they were dishonest in their reporting. .
“He basically has a Praetorian guard of the conservative media — Fox News, the websites, all this stuff,” Mr. DeSantis told reporters outside his campaign headquarters in Urbandale, Iowa. “They just don't hold him accountable because they're afraid they'll lose viewers. And they don't want the ratings to 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, I think, is just an objective reality.”
It was the most animated version of a message that Mr. DeSantis, despite saying he is not complaining, has delivered repeatedly in recent days. While the former governor's criticism of Mr. Trump himself has been relatively muted, he has urged conservative news media to be more critical.
By calling on the conservative news media to hold Mr. Trump more accountable, Mr. DeSantis appears to be doing so himself, if not directly. But he and his team have also attacked Fox News, which shone in its coverage of Mr. DeSantis until it turned the wagons for Mr. Trump when the former president was first indicted in March 2023.
When Mr. DeSantis was a member of the House of Representatives, he became a star among conservatives through appearances on Fox News. He quickly built a support network with other conservative news outlets.
The New York Post, which like Fox News is owned by Rupert Murdoch, dubbed him “DeFuture” after his successful 2022 re-election efforts, making him a target for some Trump allies who portrayed him as the conservative news media establishment. . He had grown accustomed to being defended in his culture wars by conservative news media, and by an army of online allies who would defend him on social media.
But that was then. Mr. DeSantis' position in the race for the Republican nomination has eroded over many months. Fox News hosted Mr. Trump for a live town hall from Iowa this week.
Mr. DeSantis, who once consistently criticized the mainstream news media, has shifted gears, giving interviews to mainstream outlets like CNN and even left-leaning networks like MSNBC.
He now finds himself floating lines of attack against former allies as he fights for second place in the caucuses before putting them on the track. To that end, Mr. DeSantis used his statement about Mr. Trump's Praetorian Guard during an interview with MSNBC's “Morning Joe” before using it again on Friday.