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Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is hoping to win the presidency by positioning himself as Donald Trump with out the feral, off-putting persona. Or any persona, actually. Does a subtly pained facial features introduced on by six days with no bowel motion depend as a persona? In that case, DeSantis is an everyday (or, somewhat, irregular) Rip Taylor, however with marginally much less confetti.
However hey, no less than DeSantis has a navy report, not like his high GOP rival, Bone Spurious the Yellow. Sadly, it’s not a report anybody ought to be bragging about—no less than if the alleged particulars of DeSantis’ stint at Guantanamo Bay are any indication.
Semafor is reporting that Showtime shelved a DeSantis-focused episode of its VICE documentary sequence earlier this 12 months over fears of a possible backlash. The episode, titled “The Guantanamo Candidate,” examines DeSantis’ tenure at Guantanamo Bay, the place he served as a lawyer from March 2006 to January 2007.
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Semafor:
Vice reporters had secured on digital camera interviews with a former detainee, Mansoor Adayfi, and a guard on the jail, workers sergeant Joe Hickman. Each stated they remembered seeing DeSantis on the jail throughout a controversial detainee starvation strike. The Vice crew traveled to Guantanamo Bay to aim to attempt to communicate to navy workers, and made a number of makes an attempt to ask DeSantis concerning the allegations instantly, finally confronting him at a press convention in Israel, in accordance with an in depth description supplied to Semafor.
However Showtime viewers who turned on their televisions Could 28 by no means noticed the episode. (They had been handled to a re-run of the scripted drama Yellowjackets.)
Properly, “Yellowjackets” is rattling good, to be truthful. And it’s a couple of group of people that step by step lose their minds attempting to outlive in a desolate, unforgiving wilderness, finally resorting to indiscriminate cannibalism to remain alive. So it’s an important primer for the 2024 GOP Iowa caucus for those who actually give it some thought.
In early June, VICE informed The Hollywood Reporter, “As with all present affairs programming there may be scheduling modifications, and we’re very a lot nonetheless in dialogue concerning the scheduling of this episode. We’re pleased with our reporting and of our persevering with partnership with Showtime.” In the meantime, Showtime merely acknowledged, “We don’t touch upon scheduling choices.”
Since then, Semafor has discovered that the community truly acquired chilly toes.
However the truth is, two individuals conversant in the incident stated, the Paramount-owned cable channel ditched the DeSantis episode over fears of the political penalties. One individual briefed on the choice informed Semafor that the corporate’s Washington lobbyist, DeDe Lea, raised considerations concerning the piece.
For its half, VICE acknowledged via spokesperson Elise Flick, “We not solely stand behind our rigorous reporting however are pleased with the unimaginable journalism showcased on this story.”
The choice was made as Showtime undergoes near-seismic modifications to its enterprise mannequin. As Semafor experiences, Showtime’s mother or father firm, Paramount, has been making cuts “to replicate a dark streaming enterprise.” It additionally performed a spherical of layoffs, and among the many casualties was the manager who authorised these sorts of “status” documentaries.
Nonetheless, the episode’s cancelation appeared sudden contemplating it had already gotten the go-ahead from Showtime executives and VICE’s authorized workforce. Showtime and VICE had additionally begun sending promotional supplies to reporters. However simply 4 days earlier than the documentary was scheduled to premiere, Showtime’s post-production workers despatched a notice to VICE saying, “The broader community group groups are taking a deeper inner have a look at this Sunday’s episode, which is able to delay its premiere.”
VICE requested for extra particulars on the choice, however Showtime failed to reply and “shortly scrubbed promotion of the episode from its web site.”
And that in itself is a disgrace, as a result of a few of the main points Showtime initially had on its website had been tantalizing. As an example, it had claimed the episode featured allegations from “former detainees that [DeSantis] was current at force-feedings that had been condemned as torture by the UN.”
In keeping with a July 13 Hollywood Reporter story, Showtime finally pulled your entire VICE documentary sequence in early July with half a season to go, and VICE is at the moment on the lookout for a brand new dwelling for the present.
However regardless of the cause for the Could disappearance of VICE’s DeSantis doc, the Gitmo scandal is unlikely to go away. Given the seemingly intractable MAGA-fication of the Republican voters, revelations that DeSantis was current as detainees had been tortured might truly assist him within the primaries—however they won’t appear fairly as lovely to your common swing voter subsequent November.
As an example, Ahmed Abdel Aziz, a former Gitmo detainee who was launched after 13 years, claimed he remembers seeing DeSantis on the facility, and that DeSantis witnessed and acquired complaints about pressured feeding. “He didn’t begin as a really unhealthy man, however the course of occasions, I believe, led him to haven’t any selection,” Aziz informed McClatchy by way of the Tampa Bay Occasions. “Lots of the very large management, in the event that they need to be harsh, it’s exhausting from the decrease individuals to take a distinct flip. He aligned with the unhealthy individuals in the long run.”
One other detainee, whom VICE additionally interviewed for its documentary, informed McClatchy he clearly recollects DeSantis being current throughout no less than one force-feeding.
Mansoor Adayfi, a Yemeni nationwide who was despatched to Guantanamo Bay in 2002 and likewise held with out being charged for 14 years, informed McClatchy that he realized after seeing Florida’s governor on the information that DeSantis was current at one level as he was force-fed in Camp Delta. Adayfi stated he remembers DeSantis being there alongside Zak Ghuneim, the camp’s longtime cultural adviser, and that he vomited on each of them, an account that Ghuneim denied in a cellphone interview.
Hopefully VICE’s DeSantis documentary sees the sunshine of day earlier than lengthy, as a result of if it seems like Trump would possibly truly go to jail, Republican voters might take away their heads from their pure docking stations lengthy sufficient to search for a viable various. And for some cause, DeSantis stays the also-ran with the most effective polling numbers.
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