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Credit: Disney/Fox, edited by ITMFlorida Governor Ron DeSantis is locked into multiple legal battles with the Walt Disney Company, but that won’t stop him from boasting that he made a “fortune” for the Walt Disney World Resort during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Governor DeSantis and Disney once had a relatively normal relationship. Famously, DeSantis was married to his wife Casey in a ceremony at Walt Disney World, although he says in his memoir that he had a condition that “no Disney characters could be part of our wedding. I wanted our special day to look and feel like a traditional wedding…I didn’t want Mickey Mouse or Donald Duck in our wedding photos.”
For its part, the Walt Disney Company made multiple financial donations to a political action committee supporting DeSantis and was, at the very least, regarded as important to the Florida economy, given that it’s one of the biggest employers in the entire state. In fact, Walt Disney World is the largest single-site employer in Florida, responsible for tens of thousands of jobs.
Related: DeSantis “Profoundly Un-American,” Disney Goes For the Throat
Despite that, relations between Ron DeSantis and Disney soured when former CEO Bob Chapek publically denounced the Parental Rights in Education Act, a key piece of legislation in the governor’s battle against “woke” politics and progressiveness. Disney also cut off political donations in Florida, and the feud began in earnest.
The main battleground between DeSantis and the powerhouse corporation of his state is the special tax district where Walt Disney World is located, formerly known as the Reedy Creek Improvement District. For decades, Reedy Creek has basically operated with Disney as the local government, in exchange for which the House of Mouse shouldered a massive tax bill.
In what Disney alleges was political retaliation for its stance on the so-called “Don’t Say Gay” law, DeSantis dissolved Reedy Creek and replaced it with the Central Florida Tourism Oversight District. Although the governor denies that he intended to punish Disney by dissolving Reedy Creek and staffing the new district board of directors with his own appointees, he also publicly joked that he would use the land to either build a new state prison or a rival theme park, statements that have landed him in legal hot water.
Currently, Ron DeSantis and Disney are engaged in multiple lawsuits against each other, and the governor has made his animosity toward the so-called radical politics of the Mouse a huge talking point in his current presidential campaign.
It’s odd, then, that Ron DeSantis made a point of boasting how much of a fortune he had made for Walt Disney World during his recent debate with California Governor Gavin Newsom. The debate topics ranged from immigration to the amount of human waste found in various cities, but DeSantis could not seem to resist touting the amount of money he had made for a company he regularly insults in public.
DeSantis said in response to Newsom (per Deadline), “I had Disney [World] open during Covid and we made them a fortune and we saved a lot of jobs… You had Disney closed inexplicably for over a year. You were a lockdown Governor, you did a lot of damage to your people.”
Related: “Charlatan” Key DeSantis Appointee Called Out Amidst Disney Feud
Within context, the Florida governor is clearly trying to illustrate the different effects of his approach to business during the COVID-19 pandemic. However, it can’t be denied that he seems to want to talk up that Disney made a fortune because of him. We’ll have to wait and see whether that becomes a regular talking point for him.
Do you think DeSantis made a fortune for Disney during COVID? Tell us your thoughts in the comments below!