Why DeSantis’ 'obnoxiously right-wing' 2024 campaign mirrors Cruz’s 'failed' 2016 'act': Chris Hayes

08 July 2023

During Friday night's segment of MSNBC's All in with Chris Hayes, Hayes equated Florida Governor Ron DeSantis' 2024 presidential campaign to the disaster of U.S. Senator Ted Cruz's (R-TX) 2016 run.

Hayes played a clip of Fox News host Will Cain's Friday conversation with DeSantis, in which the two discussed the GOP governor's difficulty with "connecting with" voters.

The MSNBC host's response to the conservative pair's conversation was, "To be fair to Ron DeSantis, it's an impossible question posed by Fox News' fill-in host last night, who has had his own troubles connecting in the past.There's no good way for any politician to answer like, 'What's wrong with you? Why don't people like you?' And yet it's a consistent genre of campaign questions. But that really is not the kind of question the candidate wants to be hearing at this point in the campaign, and on that front, DeSantis really does only have himself to blame for being in this position, polling 30 points behind Donald Trump six weeks after formally launching his bid for president."

Hayes continued, "For a governor who has made a career out of being the far right-wing king, from the 'Don't Say Gay' law to banning trans healthcare in the state of Florida and banning abortion after six weeks, and shipping migrants out of the state, possibly in what some believe was a criminal scheme. DeSantis has positioned himself as the hardest core member of the MAGA army. And while that may get him air-time of Fox, and in fact it has, I don't think it's broadly popular among the general electorate. But also, there's a precedent here he should think of, because others have tried this exact same model before and it failed spectacularly. Do you remember the disastrous presidential campaign of one Texas Senator Ted Cruz? In 2016 he tried to run on his record as, well, for lack of a better way of phrasing it, an extreme conservative jerk. In his very first year in office, Cruz helped engineer a pointless government shutdown, he alienated members of his own party, fueled punchlines with his antics, including a secret meeting at a Tex-Mex restaurant called Tortilla Coast, and a dramatic reading of Dr. Seuss during a marathon filibuster?"

The MSNBC host emphasized, "Cruz went on to stake out the furthest right positions on everything from immigration to gay marriage, calling the landmark Supreme Court ruling on marriage, quote, 'among the darkest hours of our nation.' And on climate change, Cruz went so far to the right, he basically fell off the edge of his flat Earth."

Hayes then rolled a clip of Cruz discussing climate change, saying, "Today, the global warming alarmists are the equivalent of the 'Flat Earthers.'"

Hayes continued, "So, that was the 2016 version of the Ron DeSantis playbook: Be as obnoxiously right-wing as possible. And yes Cruz did eck out a win in Iowa, do we all remember that? He won Iowa and he took on Carly Fiorina as a running mate, and he did look like a contender sorta for a while? But in the end, how did the far-right obnoxious act work out for Ted?"

He then proceeded to play a montage of clips that included MAGA fans and Trump himself referring to the Cruz as "lying Ted."

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