Exclusive — DeSantis on Democrat Rhetoric, Media Contributing to Unrest: ‘Corporate Media Is One of the Most Divisive Forces in Our Country’

WINTER HAVEN, Florida — Corporate media is one of the “most divisive forces” in the country, and Democrat politicians such as Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA) are contributing to the civil unrest across the country, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) told Breitbart News in an exclusive interview immediately following his signing of the state’s anti-riot bill Monday.

DeSantis signed the anti-riot bill during a press conference at the Polk County Sheriff’s Office on Monday. The bill itself effectively takes defunding the police in Florida “off the table” and enhances criminal penalties for those who engage in criminal activity during a riot. The signing coincides with yet another spark of civil unrest in various blue areas across the country as Democrats renew their calls to defund police.

The Republican governor, however, believes the corporate media is playing a primary role in feeding the division, particularly by leaving out key facts in these breaking stories, further fueling lawless behavior.

“Corporate media is one of the most divisive forces in our country. They foment division. They foment these things. A lot of the time, they won’t tell the whole facts,” he said, using the officer-involved shooting of Jacob Blake as a recent example of journalistic malfeasance.

“For example, the guy in Kenosha, Wisconsin — they didn’t talk about why the police were there. The guy had sexually assaulted this woman. He was harassing her. She called the police because she was in danger. They tried to arrest. He resisted. And they cut out all the stuff and they act like these police are just going out and doing this, you know, for racial reasons, which is not true,” DeSantis explained.

“So corporate media is one of the main reasons our country is divided as it is,” he continued, emphasizing their seeming devotion to spinning “narratives” rather than reporting “facts.”

“They don’t report facts, they spin narratives. And so you can have the exact same situation happen in other parts of the country but if whoever is the suspect or the police — if it’s different, it doesn’t fit their narrative, then it just goes on the cutting room floor,” he observed. “So it’s all about furthering a narrative regardless of the facts.”

Breitbart News also asked DeSantis about California Democrat Rep. Maxine Waters, who over the weekend joined protesters in Brooklyn Center, Minnesota, and urged people to stay in the streets and “get more confrontational” if they do not get the verdict they want in the Derek Chauvin trial.

DeSantis said, without a doubt, that Waters’ rhetoric is contributing to the unrest as well.

“Of course,” he told Breitbart News. “She said unless we get the verdict we want, we’re going to take to the streets and be more confrontational.”

“And first of all, with this police officer’s trial with George Floyd — Keith Ellison is a radical attorney general in Minnesota. He took the case from the district attorney. The district attorney there was doing the case and he was following the evidence. Ellison wanted to charge the highest he could for political reasons. And so they’re not going to get the full verdict. There may even be an acquittal, but they’re certainly not going to get that,” he continued, explaining that it all goes back to what he described as Ellison’s initial “mishandling” of the case.

“So they did that for political purposes, then you have reckless machine politicians like Maxine Waters saying if we don’t get the verdict we want, then we’re going to — effectively she’s saying we’re going to riot,” he continued.

“It’s completely irresponsible, but I think there’s just been a comedy of errors in terms of how this thing was handled from the beginning by the likes of Keith Ellison,” DeSantis added.