Florida - Thursday May 25, 2023: Governor DeSantis’ formal declaration of his presidential ambitions got off to a rocky start on Twitter Wednesday evening.
It's estimated that 600-thousand people signed into Elon Musk’s Twitter Voice account at 6 p.m. to hear the news, instead they heard periods of silence, muffled voices and new age music.
After 25 minutes or so, with about a 100-thousand still holding on, Musk said - “That was insane. We are actually doing this from David Sacks Twitter account, because it looks like doing it from mine basically broke the Twitter system. Anyway, thanks for everyone for joining.”
Finally, it was time for DeSantis to announce what most already knew, “I am running for President of the United State to lead our great American comeback.”
DeSantis was critical of President Biden. “Our president lacks vigor. Flounder in the face of our nation’s challenges, and he takes his cues from the woke mob.” And only obliquely, and very briefly, did he reference his principal republican rival for the nomination, former President Trump. “We must end the culture of losing that has infected the Republican Party in recent years.”
It was an audio only conversation, followed by questions from selected guests on DeSantis’ favorite issues, Covid, Disney, the legacy media and book bans. "The whole book ban thing is a hoax," said DeSantis. "There has not been a single book banned in the state of Florida. What we have done is empowered parents to know what books are being used in school, and then to ensure that those books matched state standards and are age and developmentally appropriate.”
It lasted about an hour, and Musk pronounced the forum a success. “The amazing thing about Twitter is that there has never been a mechanism before where someone could address the nation or anyone that wanted to listen to them could, from anywhere in the world. So, this is a profound change.”