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Bryan Griffin, press secretary for the DeSantis marketing campaign, stated that Mr. DeSantis had proven his dedication to defending each Israel and American Jews by way of his actions, calling him “a pacesetter who acts and delivers.” He didn’t touch upon the conversations with the donors.
This week, nonetheless, one in every of Mr. DeSantis’s closest Jewish allies, State Consultant Randy High quality, broke with the Florida governor and switched his endorsement to Mr. Trump. Mr. High quality wrote in an opinion column that Mr. DeSantis’s failure to confront antisemitism extra publicly had “damaged my coronary heart.” In an interview with The New York Occasions, he stated he had been dismayed by Mr. DeSantis’s “lack of management” after the neo-Nazi marches.
“Look, in the event you can’t say Nazis are dangerous, which ought to be the best factor on this planet to say, then what are you doing?” stated Mr. High quality, who’s the one Jewish Republican within the State Legislature and was publicly confronted by a neo-Nazi protester this month. “It’s necessary, as a result of Jews are scared.”
Mr. High quality stated the governor’s silence was each “cussed” and “incorrect.”
In response to a reporter’s query this week, Mr. DeSantis defended himself, calling the neo-Nazi demonstrators “knuckleheads” and asking why he would “elevate that nonsense” by drawing consideration to them.
“I feel a few of them are pretend,” the governor stated at a marketing campaign cease in New Hampshire. “I feel they’re simply making an attempt to get media clicks.”
He additionally accused Mr. High quality, who’s operating for the State Senate, of taking part in “pure politics” along with his endorsement.
In distinction to Mr. DeSantis, Senators Rick Scott and Marco Rubio, each Republicans, have condemned neo-Nazi actions in Florida.
After one incident final yr, Mr. Rubio wrote on social media that antisemitism was a “harmful poison” that should be condemned “in all places & each time, even when it’s only a small group of consideration craving losers” — a seeming rebuke of Mr. DeSantis.
Many leaders of outstanding Jewish teams agreed with Mr. Rubio’s evaluation. Sarah Emmons, the Florida regional director of the Anti-Defamation League, advised The Occasions this week that “public officers ought to name out antisemitism and hate in all varieties throughout the political spectrum, irrespective of the supply.”
Each the governor’s workplace and his presidential marketing campaign stated he had responded to the incidents with deeds somewhat than phrases, pointing to laws he has signed that bolstered non secular anti-discrimination protections in colleges, elevated penalties for antisemitic harassment and financed safety at Jewish day colleges. The governor has additionally directed state regulation enforcement businesses to pursue neo-Nazis for unlawful demonstrations.
“Motion to guard the Jewish neighborhood and maintain those that break the regulation accountable is extra necessary to the Governor than giving these demonstrators the wall-to-wall protection they (and the media) crave,” Jeremy Redfern, the press secretary within the governor’s workplace, stated in an announcement.
In a single high-profile antisemitic incident that befell in February, Rabbi Yosef Konikov was surrounded by neo-Nazi protesters as he tried to drive from the Chabad he leads in Orlando. The boys shouted slurs and threats. Mr. Konikov described the encounter — which was caught on video and was not his first run-in with the group, he stated — as “disturbing.”
However he stated he believed the governor had been proper to not converse publicly about what occurred.
“I don’t need these guys to get extra protection than they’re already getting,” defined Mr. Konikov, who stated he has attended Hanukkah celebrations on the governor’s mansion. He additionally stated that Mr. DeSantis’s workplace had known as him privately to supply assist.
Mr. DeSantis’s Jewish supporters consider the governor has made it abundantly clear the place he stands by way of his legislative agenda and his full-throated backing of Israel.
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