Yesterday Philip Bump noted that when Señor Trumpanzee was released from federal custody he “didn’t slink off to his motorcade for his trip to the airport. Instead, he took advantage of the media attention surrounding the first federal arraignment of a former president and dragged the extended gaggle of cameras and reporters to a local Cuban restaurant. Any event can be a campaign event if you want it badly enough, and Trump wants it badly.” He shouted “food for everybody!” To the cheers of everyone at Versailles. “He came in, made a big promise in front of the cameras and then brought the cameras out with him.” No one got any food on Trump and “that,” wrote Bump, “right there, is Trumpian politics, distilled.”
Trump’s pre-politics career was as a salesman. And not just any salesman: a salesman of real estate in New York City. He spent decades telling people what they wanted to hear to close a deal. That skill worked well when he ran for president; he could pledge that he’d do any number of things, getting a lift from the promises and then understanding that later efforts to hold him accountable for those pledges wouldn’t garner as much attention. After all, it was easy enough to simply overlay another promise on top of it, kiting pledges until the election was over.
As president, he became well-known for promising that everything would be delivered in “two weeks.” Health-care reform was the signature example. In 2019, I counted at least 30 promises for when an Obamacare overhaul would arrive. After he contracted covid-19 in October 2020, he made one of his grimmest pledges: that he’d benefited from a “cure” to the disease that would be provided free to patients very soon. It wasn’t.
That’s the tradition into which the Versailles trip fits. Trump wasn’t stiffing anybody in Miami, really, since there was nothing to buy. Instead, it was Trump using a pledge of delivering something people wanted that ended up simply not happening. But— as was even more the case in East Palestine— he got the boost of positive press for the promise.
Some people say DeSantis is lucky because Trump is so awful. That is true but… Trump is also lucky because DeSantis is just as awful. His “Make America Florida” slogan is a real bust that is not going to get better with time. One Democratic group warned this week that under DeSantis Florida is:
“Yet that instead of working to bring down housing costs, keep Floridians safe from gun violence, or expand access to health care, DeSantis has pandered to the GOP’s ultra-conservative base by signing dozens of extreme bills into law. He banned abortion after six weeks, allowed people to conceal carry guns with no permit or training, siphoned billions of taxpayer dollars from public schools to private and religious ones, imposed limits on how race and sexuality can be taught in schools, and enacted several anti-LGBTQ laws. Plus, despite bragging that his policies are good for business, DeSantis has used his power to retaliate against Disney— the state’s biggest employer— for opposing his ‘Don’t Say Gay’ law. As a result, Disney recently canceled a $1 billion project that would have brought 2,000 jobs to Florida.”
Until last year, state senator Joe Gruters was chairman of the Florida Republican Party. He represents Sarasota County and part of Charlotte County in Tallahassee. He’s a very right-wing party hack, closely allied with Rick Scott and then with Trump and was co-chair of Trump’s 2016 campaign. He is considered largely responsible for the surge in registered Republicans on the Florida rolls— 5.3 million compared to just 4.9 million Democrats, something that helped DeSantis win all but 5 of Florida’s 67 counties (including once blue Miami-Dade and Palm Beach counties) and something that gave Republicans super-majorities in both chambers of the legislature.
This week, the Sarasota Herald-Tribune reported that Gruters, still a Trump loyalist, slammed DeSantis for vetoing Sarasota area projects as a form of revenge.
"The Governor is clearly upset I endorsed Donald Trump for President, and so he took it out on the people of Sarasota County," he said in a statement.
Gruters' blistering statement is the most dramatic break with DeSantis by any member of the Legislature, and a sign of how presidential politics are creating rifts in the Florida GOP.
Some examples of the governor's vetoes are $4 million for the widening of a segment of Fruitville Road, $1 million for a project that could potentially create a new Midnight Pass and $500,000 for a project that will relocate the city of Venice’s Fire Station #2.
DeSantis signed the $116.5 billion state budget at a ceremony in Fort Piece on Thursday after striking about $511 million in funding for projects and programs requested by state lawmakers.
The governor can take individual projects out of the budget through line-item vetoes. In Sarasota County, seven of the 12 funding requests made by local governments (or by a non-profit related to the government) were vetoed. So was $20 million in funding for a Nursing/STEM facility at the University of South Florida Sarasota-Manatee and funding for some other projects requested by Sarasota area nonprofits.
Gruters and others linked the vetoes to the rift between DeSantis and Sarasota's state senator, though Gruters didn't sponsor the USF funding request.
Most Republicans in the Legislature have endorsed DeSantis in the 2024 GOP presidential primary. Gruters is the only lawmaker who has endorsed former President Donald Trump.
Gruters was co-chair of Trump's presidential campaign in 2016 and has a long relationship with the former president, having twice brought him to Sarasota to receive the local GOP's "Statesman of the Year" award when Gruters was party chair. Gruters also served as chair of the Florida GOP during DeSantis' first term, but wasn't known to have a close relationship with the governor. This spring, Gruters also voted against a bill aimed at strengthening DeSantis' hand in upcoming court hearings with Walt Disney Co.
Now Gruters is accusing DeSantis of punishing him and Sarasota County residents for his relationship with Trump.
"Trump and I understand that people come first, and it's our job to deliver clean water, jobs, and a better America for the next generation," Gruters stated. "The governor clearly sees politics differently. Simply because I support his political opponent, the governor chose to punish ordinary Floridians who want better water quality, less traffic congestion and increased resources for disabled children to find gainful employment. It’s mean-spirited acts like this that are defining him here and across the country.”
Last year, DeSantis approved money for the three projects requested by Sarasota County and funds for a Longboat Key project, but vetoed all but one of the city of Sarasota’s five funding requests, as well as a request made by the city of Venice.
In all, DeSantis axed 7 of Gruters’ districts projects. As we saw the other day, this is why Elon Musk supports him— the Sulla factor + Ms. Scorekeeper, very much enough to excite any authoritarian pile of garbage like Musk.