DeSantis’ taxpayer-funded governor’s office hires former campaign employees
After a massive downsizing of Ron DeSantis’ 2024 Republican presidential campaign, three of the operation’s now-former aides have been hired by his taxpayer-funded governor’s office.
“The Florida governor is leaning on his taxpayer-funded office to keep select aides in his orbit as the campaign goes through a cash shortfall that led it to dump one-third of its staff in July,” Axios reports.
“DeSantis campaign manager Generra Peck told roughly three dozen campaign staffers during a meeting last month at the Tallahassee campaign HQ that they’d be let go. DeSantis’ chief of staff from the governor’s office, James Uthmeier, then appeared and urged them to apply for jobs in his office, two people familiar with the meeting said.”
The three aides “include conservative influencer Will Chamberlain, who has been hired by the governor’s office along with two other former campaign workers — digital aide Jordan Chamberlain, who is Will’s wife, and another communications aide.”
Chamberlain “in November 2020, popularized the #stopthesteal hashtag that helped galvanize many conservatives around the false notion that Donald Trump had won the 2020 election,” Axios notes. “Chamberlain is close to DeSantis rapid response director Christina Pushaw.
Pushaw is DeSantis’ former gubernatorial press secretary, and “has overseen the team that created and then promoted a video attacking Trump for being too pro-LGBTQ — which led to widespread criticism that the video was homophobic.”
Axios calls it “the latest instance of the governor’s publicly funded office blurring lines with his campaign operation,” and points to an instance back in May when “officials in the governor’s office asked Florida lobbyists to donate to DeSantis’ presidential campaign, NBC News reported.”
