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Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has a new press secretary. Bryan Griffin is off to a pretty good start. He posted a Twitter thread to take ABC News to task over its coverage of Joe Biden’s signing of the Inflation Reduction Act. ABC News went ga-ga over the signing. Florida’s Parental Rights in Education bill? Not so much.

“Governor DeSantis has empowered our team to hold media accountable for inaccurate and disproportionately critical coverage, and we will continue to do so under his leadership,” Griffin told Fox News Digital when asked about the Twitter thread. Griffin called it “A tale of two bill signings with mainstream media coverage (@ABC)”. His Twitter thread is long but entertaining. He uses an ABC News article and breaks it down.

He went on to note the coverage by ABC News was heavy on “talking points straight from the White House.”

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Griffin added that the article “quotes three bill supporters,” while offering “no critics’ perspectives” and ended with six paragraphs of “talking points straight from the White House” and praised Biden because he “interrupted his summer vacation” for the signing. Then he began to compare that coverage to the coverage Governor DeSantis received when he signed the Parental Rights in Education bill. In the headline, the bill’s name is incorrectly stated. The word “gay” doesn’t even appear in the bill.

Griffin then pivoted to a March 28 article published by ABC News about another bill signing, but this time it was DeSantis’ Parental Rights in Education bill. DeSantis famously feuded with ABC News’ parent, the Walt Disney Company, over the Parental Rights in Education bill that banned Florida school employees from giving classroom instruction on “sexual orientation” or “gender identity” in kindergarten through third grade.

The ABC News article was headlined, “Florida governor signs controversial ‘Don’t Say Gay’ bill into law,” with a subhead that declared the “bill bans lessons on sexual orientation or gender identity in some grades.”

Griffin highlighted that the adjective used in the headline was “controversial,” instead of the positive treatment Biden’s bill received and the subhead for DeSantis’ bill is “painfully obtuse” because it used the term “some grades” instead of making it clear only very young children were impacted.

ABC News also primarily referred to DeSantis’ bill as a “fake misnomer,” as the “Don’t Say Gay” nickname that was coined by the left is misleading. DeSantis’ press secretary then pointed out that ABC News chose a less-than-celebratory image of the Florida governor, quoted three critics of the bill and nine paragraphs of perspective from the bill’s critics.

Like I said, it’s an interesting thread. Griffin is absolutely correct in his comparison, too. The press did backflips to congratulate Biden for signing his name surrounded by a few of his top supporters while they demonized DeSantis and the Florida Legislature for the bill that allows parents some say in their children’s education, especially the youngest children. The press is concerned that DeSantis may be the Republican nominee in 2024 and they don’t want that. Can you imagine if the first Latino president was a Republican? Plus, DeSantis communicates well and knows how to lead. Joe Biden is incapable of both of those things.

The press shop for DeSantis is known for its refusal to take abuse from the press. Griffin replaced Christina Pushaw who is known for her brutal honesty with reporters, especially on social media. She takes no prisoners. She is still working for DeSantis but in a different capacity. She’s his campaign’s rapid response director now. You know she was doing a good job by just reading Politico’s description of her.

“Pushaw, who will serve as the campaign’s rapid response director, has received national attention for her aggressive style that is unorthodox for a taxpayer-funded press secretary. She used the position to regularly pick public fights with reporters on social media, amplify right-wing media outlets and conservative personalities and attack individuals who oppose or challenge DeSantis,” Politico wrote after Pushaw’s job change.

“Pick public fights” is code for standing up for her boss and doing her job well. She’ll be great in rapid response.

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