Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, a Republican, was confronted by Associated Press reporter Steve Peoples during a campaign stop in New Hampshire.
Peoples asked why DeSantis was not taking questions from voters while taking photos with crowd members. DeSantis responded sharply, asking, "Are you blind?" and pointing out that people were coming up and talking to him.
Videos posted on Twitter showed DeSantis taking photos with crowd members at the campaign event in New Hampshire, which has the first Republican primary next year. NBC News reported that DeSantis "did not answer questions from his lectern so that voters could all hear his answers at once."
DeSantis' press secretary, Bryan Griffin, reacted to a video of the confrontation on Twitter, saying, "This @AP reporter asked this question while @RonDeSantis was surrounded by voters in New Hampshire asking him questions and taking pictures. Perfectly illustrative of the modern media shutting their eyes and ears to the truth to push their narrative."
DeSantis has been trading barbs with former President Trump after he officially announced his 2024 campaign on May 24. The Florida governor drew laughter from an audience in Iowa on Wednesday while responding to Trump's claim that New York's response to COVID-19 under Gov. Andrew Cuomo's leadership was better than Florida's response.
"I mean, if you say Cuomo did a better job with COVID than Florida did, that's not what he used to say. Six months ago, he would have never said that, right?" DeSantis said to the crowd.
Several prominent media pundits and publications have described DeSantis as "far more dangerous" than Trump. HuffPost's opinion piece bluntly headlined, "No one is more dangerous for the White House than Ron DeSantis including Donald Trump," which said the Florida governor is "more informed, tactical and calculated, which makes him way more dangerous."
"Imagine Donald Trump, but with brains and savvy," Dustin Seibert wrote. "Imagine Trump, but with a stalwart dedication toward legislation that moves the country in a direction that should terrify most reasonable human beings."
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