Elon Musk’s Twitter Spaces crashes ruining Ron DeSantis’s 2024 campaign launch – live

After a 30-minute delay caused by technological glitches with Twitter’s “Spaces” audio conversation system, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’ much-hyped announcement of his 2024 presidential campaign kicked off with a billionaire praising another billionaire.

And with that, Mr DeSantis began making his pitch to voters — or at least the voters who are on Twitter and cared enough to listen.

Andrew Feinberg brings the key takeaways:

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On Wednesday morning, the former president began his day by spewing a series of attacks on the man expected to be his biggest rival for the Republican nomination in the 2024 presidential race.

For 1,000 days, after a decade of racist violence and unrest in Florida and around the US, a boycott launched by Black residents in Miami called on Black tourists and businesses to stay out of the city.

From 17 July 1990 to 12 May 1993, a boycott supported by the NAACP and other civil rights groups urged visitors to steer clear, inflicting potentially tens of millions of dollars in lost tourism revenue in Miami-Dade County.

Black Miami residents had long been subject to systemic inequality and exclusion from the city’s lucrative tourism industry, but the city’s rejection of Nelson Mandela following his release from a 27-year prison sentence proved to be the tipping point.

Thirty years later, another coalition of civil rights groups has issued travel advisories warning visitors before traveling to the state, where Republican Governor Ron DeSantis has advanced a far-right platform targeting civil liberties, education, healthcare and immigration.

“Governor Ron DeSantis has inflicted deep and lasting damage upon our state, eroding the fundamental rights of our residents and visitors while exploiting the word ‘free’ as a hollow campaign slogan,” said Nadine Smith, executive director of Equality Florida.

Attacks on the media, threats to dismantle elements of US government and warnings about the ‘woke mind virus’ dominate glitch-filled launch.

Last spring, Mr DeSantis signed legislation giving a $5,000 after-tax bonus to new law enforcement recruits in Florida. The bill, Mr DeSantis claimed, would lure the “best and the brightest” law enforcement officers from states around the country to Florida.

Technical issues delay start of Florida governor’s launch event which quickly runs off-course.

Writer James Surowiecki tweeted on Wednesday night: “The most telling moment in the whole DeSantis event was Sacks praising him for being like a ‘cool-headed ruthless assassin’ in the war on wokeness. Normal Americans don’t want their president to be a ruthless assassin.”

“I will never understand why DeSantis didn’t hold a big kickoff rally in a Florida football stadium. It would have been covered live by cable news, and would have sent the message, ‘I’m a normal guy who likes the same things you do,’ which is a message DeSantis needs to send,” he added. “Instead, he launches his campaign in the [most] online way possible, risking the kind of glitchiness he ran into, and ensuring the TV coverage of the event would be minimal, since television networks like events with images.”

MSNBC host Mehdi Hasan tweeted on Wednesday night following Mr DeSantis’s disastrous Twitter Spaces campaiugn launch: “What a lucky man Donald Trump is.”

“Consider his CNN Town Hall versus DeSantis’s Twitter Spaces ‘launch’ tonight. Trump is just so damned undeservedly lucky,” he added.

“Congratulations to DeSantis’s crack comms team, @BryanDGriffin, @ChristinaPushaw, and @JeremyRedfernFL, for organizing a totally effective and non-humiliating campaign launch for their boss with tech genius @elonmusk. Bravo! Remember, their pitch is ‘Trump but competent.’ Lol,” he said earlier in the night.

Florida state Democrats slammed Mr DeSantis after his disastrous Twitter Spaces campaign launch.

Representative Angie Nixon of Jacksonville said that Mr DeSantis is a “tantrum-throwing bully who threatens our ability to live our lives free from tyranny and oppression. He’s bought and paid for by the wealthy corporate elites while he sacrifices the health, safety, livelihoods, and futures of all Floridians”.

“Ron DeSantis has relentlessly attacked our freedoms, signing a near-total abortion ban, implementing permitless carry of hidden, loaded guns that make us less safe, and enforcing unconstitutional laws that are costing Floridians millions to defend in court,” she added. “This is a warning for all Americans: do not trust Ron DeSantis because he’ll always do what’s best for his own political career while the people get left further behind. And while Americans of all races, places, and backgrounds value our fundamental freedoms, Ron DeSantis will take all that we hold dear if it means taking another step up the political ladder.”

Leader Fentrice Driskell, a Tampa Democrat added: “How can Ron DeSantis expect to be our nation’s president after he’s failed Florida? He’s leaving behind a state where he stoked division, ignored families’ problems, and focused his energies on his own ambition. This man does not embody the characteristics we need in a president.”

“He’s a temperamental bully, who punches down on those who dare to disagree with him. Not surprisingly, America doesn’t seem to be buying what he’s selling,” she said. “His polling numbers have declined in recent weeks as people have gotten to know who he really is. They’ve seen him sign an extremist abortion ban, pushed a soft-on-crime permitless carry law, and picked a bizarre fight with Disney that hardly anyone cares about. Despite his announcement’s technical problems, today was historic: Ron DeSantis’ relentless ambition has pushed him to declare his intention to be the second-place finisher in the GOP primary for President of the United States of America.”