The Great Florida Hope is being pimped by Fox News:
Early in Florida’s vaccine rollout, during a period marked by confusion and images of seniors in long lines desperatefor a shot, Gov. Ron DeSantis’ office devised a pitch to air a more flattering view. In mid-January, his staff took the idea to Fox News.
The timing was perfect. Producers for Fox & Friends, the network’s top-rated cable morning news show, were already inquiring about DeSantis’ availability.
A plan came together in a flurry of emails and phone calls over several days. DeSantis’ team provided a senior, a location and the talking points. Fox News would bringthe cameras and its audience. No other media would be allowed in.
When Fox & Friends viewers tuned in Jan. 22, they heard applause live from St. Petersburg as a 100-year-old World War II veteran received his first coronavirus vaccine. Standing nearby, DeSantis cracked jokes about the senior’s good looks and boasted that Florida was leading the country in vaccinating older residents.
“I honestly think he could host the show with the chops we saw from him at the vaccine site,” a Fox producer wrote afterward in an email to Meredith Beatrice, DeSantis’ deputy director for communications at the time.
The details of this staged news event were captured in four months of emails between Fox and DeSantis’ office, obtained by the Tampa Bay Times through a records request. The correspondences, which totaled 1,250 pages, lay bare how DeSantis has wielded the country’s largest conservative megaphone and show a striking effort by Fox to inflate the Republican’s profile.
From the week of the 2020 election through February, the network asked DeSantis to appear on its airwaves 113 times, or nearly once a day. Sometimes, the requests came in bunches — four, five, even six emails in a matter of hours from producers who punctuated their overtures with flattery. (“The governor spoke wonderfully at CPAC,” one producer wrote in March.)
There are few surprises when DeSantis goes live with Fox. “Exclusive” events like Jan. 22 are carefully crafted with guidance from DeSantis’ team. Topics, talking points and even graphics are shared in advance.
Once, a Fox producer offered to let DeSantis pick the subject matter if he agreed to come on.
By turning to DeSantis to fill the many hours of airtime once devoted to former President Donald Trump, Fox has made Florida’s hard-charging leader one of the country’s most recognizable Republicans. Thathas given DeSantis a leg up on others who may seek the party’s nomination for president in 2024. A recent nationwide poll of Republican voters put DeSantis atop the field if Trump doesn’t run again. No other prospective candidate was close.
“He’s been given the first Fox audition for 2024, which also means he gets to set the bar,” said Adam Goodman, a veteran Republican media strategist. “That means all the other competitors, when they have their chance to have their day on Fox, there’s a measuring stick that they’re going to be up against, and that’s the governor of Florida.”
DeSantis’ office declined to make someone available for an interview about his media strategy. In a statement, spokesperson Taryn Fenske said: “While other networks were busy lauding states whose governors have either retired in disgrace or are undergoing a recall, Fox News was willing to hear our perspective and report the facts.”
Through a spokesperson, Fox News said the network “works to secure interviews daily with headliners across the political spectrum which is a basic journalism practice at all news organizations.”
It is not clear which came first after Trump lost — Fox’s focus on DeSantis or his meteoric rise. But internally, Fox producers acknowledge, in no uncertain terms, just how the network views DeSantis.
One producer told DeSantis’ team it was the mission of Fox’s midday host, Martha MacCallum, to “look forward and really spotlight the STARS of the GOP” and “she named Gov. DeSantis as one.”
Another put it this way in an email to Beatrice: “We see him as the future of the party.”
Fox News owns a significant space in DeSantis’ swift political ascent. It was through Fox that Trump discovered DeSantis — a little-known congressman from the Jacksonville suburbs who became one of the president’s fiercest allies. An endorsement for governor soon followed, paving the way for DeSantis’ takeover of Tallahassee.
DeSantis disappeared from Fox’s airwaves after entering the governor’s office in 2019, a tactical pivot from national politics. His absence didn’t go unnoticed. Early in 2021, a producer for Fox’s best-known personality, Sean Hannity, pointed out DeSantis wasn’t making his regular appearances on the show.
“Hoping we can get him on soon and there isn’t any issue!” the producer wrote.
Since Trump’s defeat, DeSantis is a Fox regular once more. In the first six months of 2021, DeSantis had scheduled as many appearances with top Fox hosts Hannity (8 times), Tucker Carlson (6) and Laura Ingraham (7) as he had meetings with his lieutenant governor, Jeanette Nuñez (7), according to his public calendar.
Meanwhile, the governor has not met one-on-one this year with Surgeon General Scott Rivkees, the state’s top public health official, his schedules show.
In that time, he has also granted interviews to Fox’s growing competitors, Newsmax and One America News Network, and, during hurricane season, the Weather Channel. While some Republicans venture onto CNN and MSNBC, DeSantis has not.
The competition within Fox to land DeSantis is stiff. After one producer was told DeSantis wasn’t available that week, she quickly replied: “He made time for Tucker last night!”
DeSantis is selective. He favors the friendlier hosts and larger reach of Fox’s morning show and primetime lineup. Dozens of appeals by Fox’s newsier daytime programs and lesser-watched weekend shows were turned down. After four appearances in five days on opinion-themed Fox shows, DeSantis received requests to go one-on-one with Chris Wallace, the Fox News Sunday host known for his probing questions, and with Bret Baier, the network’s well-regarded chief political correspondent.
“I will let you know as soon as possible,” Beatrice told Baier’s producer.
“We appreciate the request and will get back to you,” press secretary Cody McCloud responded to Wallace’s team.
The email chains ended there. DeSantis didn’t go on either program.
Representatives for Fox have publicly made clear that the network’s morning show and nighttime political commentators are not held to the same editorial rigors as the news division. DeSantis has used this to his advantage.
One night in January, Fox scheduled DeSantis to discuss COVID-19 as Maria Bartiromo guest hosted evening “Fox News Primetime.” Hours beforehand, Beatrice sent Fox a graphic that showed Florida favorably compared to California and New York — “locked down states,” as they were called on the chart — and encouraged the network to use it.
Fox did. In the middle of Bartiromo’s interview with DeSantis, a graphic appeared on the screen with the sametitle and even the colors chosen to depict each state. There was no indication from the broadcast that the chart had originated in the governor’s office.
DeSantis is counting on the pandemic being in the rearview mirror and, with the help of Fox, being seen as the guy who didn’t succumb to all that pansy-assed “mitigation” instead hanging tough and showing those pointy-headed doctors who’s boss.
I wonder what Dear Leader thinks about all this?