Florida Governor Ron DeSantis is facing accusations of faking a debris backdrop for a press event regarding Hurricane Milton recovery efforts.
A clip posted online on Sunday shows pieces of debris being added to a pile behind the podium where DeSantis was set to make his address in Treasure Island. It is unclear whether the governor set up in front of an existing pile or why the debris was being moved.
Florida Democratic Party Chair Nikki Fried wrote on X, formerly Twitter, that the governor had been caught “adding debris behind [the] podium” before his news conference.
“Ron has no shame—he’s spent weeks accusing everyone else of politicizing this disaster while ordering workers to window dress his press conference,” Fried said.
Playing devils advocate here. Most of the actual piles were in front of people’s homes. Maybe they didn’t what to film people’s personal property.
As someone in the area who has seen the aftermath of both storms first hand, the scene they created here doesn’t really do justice to the actual destruction that was present there.
I’m guessing there was a ruined business or two he could have stood in front of.