Ron DeSantis US presidential bid announcement marred by Twitter glitches | World News
Florida governor Ron DeSantis’s long-awaited entry into the 2024 presidential marketing campaign descended right into a fiasco on Wednesday because the opening of the dwell Twitter occasion meant to announce his candidacy was derailed by glitches.
The dialog repeatedly crashed because the platform’s servers have been apparently overwhelmed, and most of the 400,000-plus customers who have been hoping to pay attention in missed the 44-year-old conservative throwing down the gauntlet to Republican major frontrunner Donald Trump.
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DeSantis lastly started talking after nearly half an hour of confusion and chaos — though what ought to have been an exultant launch had been completely overshadowed by the point he was in a position to make his case for the Republican nomination.
“I’m operating for president of the US to guide our nice American comeback,” he informed the listeners, though tens of 1000’s had deserted Twitter by that time.
As the web site struggled to get the occasion again on observe, its proprietor Elon Musk, performing internet hosting duties, might be heard noting the “large variety of individuals on-line” who had precipitated the servers to start “straining considerably.”
Whereas organizers sought to spotlight the occasion’s reputation — the DeSantis camp mentioned it had raised $1 million on-line in a single hour — Biden’s workforce was fast to capitalize on the glitches, tweeting a hyperlink to a fundraising web page and stating: “This hyperlink works.”
Trump joked on his Fact Social platform that “My Pink Button is larger, higher, stronger, and is working” — an indirect reference to a confrontation he as soon as had with North Korea’s Kim Jong Un.
The dialog ultimately went on for greater than an hour, however technical gremlins endured — a setback mocked as encapsulating the downward flip the governor’s picture has taken of late.
‘Struggle on woke’
Lengthy considered as essentially the most formidable challenger to twice-impeached Trump, DeSantis boasts deep midwestern roots, a big marketing campaign fund, a listing of ultra-conservative legislative wins and an unblemished file of election victories.
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Whereas Trump has dominated headlines together with his authorized woes, DeSantis has offered himself because the tip of the spear within the wrestle of unusual People in opposition to progressive values he sees as authoritarian and divisive.
The governor gave a extra conventional interview — minus the setbacks — on conservative TV community Fox News after the Twitter occasion, and tried to reclaim his repute for order and competence.
“Should you nominate me, I pledge to you that on January 20, 2025, at excessive midday, I will be the man on the west aspect of the Capitol with the left hand on the Bible and the fitting hand within the air, taking the oath of workplace because the forty seventh president of the US,” he mentioned.
“No extra excuses — we have to get this one achieved.”
DeSantis has used his place as Florida’s chief govt to stack up a litany of conservative accomplishments, signing off on some 80 state legal guidelines focusing on “woke indoctrination” in colleges and different public establishments.
They embody a ban on discussing gender id and sexual orientation in colleges, a block on funding efforts to advertise range at public universities and some of the restrictive abortion legal guidelines within the nation.
“The woke thoughts virus is principally a type of Cultural Marxism. On the finish of the day, it is an assault on the reality, and since it is a conflict on fact, I believe now we have no selection however to wage a conflict on woke,” he informed Fox News.
Trump on the assault
Refraining from explicitly criticizing Trump, the governor used the occasion to attract a distinction between his file of getting coverage initiatives into the statute books and the previous president’s repute for legislative inertia and chaos in his private {and professional} life.
However DeSantis lacks the frontrunner’s nationwide profile and the launch comes together with his scores in decline, as plenty of coverage missteps have prompted disquiet about his readiness to tackle Trump.
He now faces the daunting job of closing an unlimited polling hole, with Trump posting leads of near 40 share factors, regardless of being indicted on felony monetary prices and being discovered answerable for sexual abuse in a New York civil trial.
Behind the scenes, the Trump and DeSantis camps have been jostling to safe endorsements from state lawmakers whereas, on the nationwide degree, Florida’s congressional delegation has damaged closely for Trump.
However DeSantis is seen as missing the pure attraction wanted to peel away a few of the 14 million voters who backed Trump within the final aggressive Republican major, in 2016.
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Trump has not posted on Twitter since his two-year ban over the 2021 US Capitol riot resulted in November, however has been utilizing his personal social community to assault DeSantis nearly day by day.
In a Wednesday morning publish, Trump mentioned the governor “desperately wants a character transplant and, to the perfect of my information, they don’t seem to be medically accessible but.”
