In a Twitter thread promoting her latest column on Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, Puck News political reporter Tara Palmeri on Monday attempted to portray DeSantis as fearful of speaking with reporters by recounting her attempts to ask him questions as she chased him through the Florida State House.
Palmeri used the incident to argue that the Florida governor, who announced his campaign for president this week, was not ready for the national stage. In her column, Palmeri described DeSantis as a “paper tiger” who is “a superficially perfect test-tube” candidate who “is probably not ready for prime-time.”
Palmeri recounts chasing after DeSantis through the State House while peppering him with questions that he refused to answer. She said her “slow-motion chase” ended when DeSantis climbed into his SUV to leave.
The media quickly picked up on Palmeri’s “reporting,” with many journalists arguing that if DeSantis isn’t able to answer hard-hitting questions from reporters, he will have no chance against Donald Trump in the primaries.
But there was a little problem with that framing.
It turns out that Palmeri’s “slow-motion chase” was captured on video by DeSantis staffers. And the video revealed that Palmeri wasn’t asking hard-hitting questions at all.
In the video, which was promptly posted in response to her Twitter thread by the governor’s campaign team, Palmeri chased after the governor asking if he would talk to her because she is also Italian-American.
Palmeri then demanded to know why the governor opposes “Disney characters” and asked him which Disney character was his favorite.
Once the video was posted, Twitter users began to view Palmeri’s Twitter thread in a different light. Palmeri didn’t come off as a hard-hitting journalist seeking the truth but as an irksome pest asking silly questions while chasing after the governor.
DeSantis spokeswoman Christina Pushaw replied to Palmeri’s thread by sharing the video and tweeting that most people would also ignore random individuals “ranting at them about their ancestry” and their opinions on Disney characters.
