Republican Florida Congressmen Matt Gaetz and Byron Donalds defended that state’s Republican governor, Ron DeSantis, after ABC News released behind-the-scenes footage of his 2018 debate preparation.
On Sunday, ABC News released several video clips of Gaetz and Donalds coaching DeSantis through how to debate his Democratic opponent, Andrew Gillum. The clips showed how DeSantis prepared to respond to controversies about past campaign remarks and how to appeal to supporters of then-President Donald Trump.
In one video, DeSantis and his debate preparation team discussed how he might address his working relationship with Trump.
“Is there any issue upon which you disagree with President Trump?” DeSantis was asked as a hypothetical debate question.
“I have to figure out how to do this,” DeSantis replied, before deliberating with his team.
“Obviously there is [some area of disagreement with Trump] because, I mean, I voted contrary to him in the Congress,” DeSantis said. “I have to frame it in a way that’s not going to piss off all his voters.”
Later on in the debate preparation clip, DeSantis said he would respond to the hypothetical question by saying he would “do what I think is right,” and “support [Trump’s] agenda, in terms of what he’s been able to do and if I have a disagreement, I talk to him in private.”
Gaetz, Donalds Defend DeSantis
Gaetz and Donalds both spoke out in defense of the Florida governor after ABC News published the footage.
Both congressmen have endorsed Trump’s 2024 Republican presidential campaign. Their defense of DeSantis is notable in light of the possibility that the Florida governor may announce a rival bid for the 2024 Republican nomination.
“I was on the DeSantis Debate prep team. These tapes should not have been leaked. It’s low class,” Donalds tweeted on Sunday.
“I ran the Desantis Debate Prep in 2018,” Gaetz also tweeted Sunday. “Though I prefer Trump for President (bigly), the release of these videos by the person operating the camera is disloyal hackery that I do not abide. Staffers who leak on the candidates they’ve done work for deserve the reputations they get.”
ABC News did not reveal how it obtained the debate preparation videos. ABC News is owned by the Walt Disney Corporation and the DeSantis administration is currently in a legal battle with the Disney brand.
Don’t ‘Monkey This Up’
In another video clip, DeSantis and Gaetz discussed how to respond to allegations of racism following comments he made about the election cycle.
In August of 2018, in an appeal to voters to elect him and reject Gillum, DeSantis said, “Let’s build off the success we’ve had on [Republican Governor Rick Scott]. The last thing we need to do
is to monkey this up by trying to embrace a socialist agenda with huge tax increases and bankrupting the state.” [0:22]
DeSantis’ “monkey this up” comment caught the attention of his critics and members of the media, who interpreted the comment as a possible racist reference against his opponent Gillum, who is black.
The 2018 debate preparation video that ABC released, showed DeSantis and Gaetz debating how to rebut allegations of racism over DeSantis’ “monkey this up” comment. At one point in the video, Gaetz advised that DeSantis was coming in “too hot” on the issue.
“It deserves to be hot,” DeSantis replied. In the 2018 video clip, DeSantis went on to say that he and his campaign had not done enough to push back on “all these stupid stories” targeting his campaign.
While the 2018 clip showed Gaetz trying to get DeSantis to tone down his defense against allegations of racism, the lawmaker has since come to see DeSantis’ side of the argument.
“DeSantis was right in his reaction to my advise on this,” Gaetz tweeted. [I don’t know] why the leaker here thought they were hurting him.”