DeSantis escalates feud with Disney: Here's everything we know

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’s ongoing culture war with the Walt Disney Co. is again in the spotlight after former President Donald Trump criticized his would-be opponent in the 2024 Republican presidential primary for what he called an “unnecessary political stunt.”

“DeSanctus [sic] is being absolutely destroyed by Disney,” Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social, his social media platform, on Tuesday.

Here’s everything we know about the feud between DeSantis and Disney, culled from our original reporting and Yahoo News’ partner network, including the Associated Press, Miami Herald and Orlando Sentinel.

How did DeSantis’s fight with Disney begin?

The long-running feud between DeSantis and the Walt Disney Co. started nearly two years ago, when the company required on-site employees at its Orlando theme park to be vaccinated against COVID-19, the Miami Herald reports. DeSantis, in response, announced that he would impose fines against Disney and other companies with vaccine mandates.

Things escalated last year when the governor took aim at Disney for publicly opposing legislation restricting schools from teaching about sexual orientation and gender identity, which critics called the state’s “Don’t Say Gay” law. (The Florida Board of Education on Wednesday approved an expanded version of the law at the governor’s request.)

DeSantis urged the Florida Legislature to retaliate by passing legislation that gives the governor control of Walt Disney World’s Reedy Creek Improvement District, and allows him to appoint a five-member board of supervisors. A 1967 Florida law created a special district that allows Disney to govern itself.

“There’s a new sheriff in town,” DeSantis said in February when he signed the legislation, according to the Associated Press.

How has Disney responded?

In February, before DeSantis took control of the board, the company quietly stripped the incoming board of most powers before the new members could take their seats. DeSantis accused Disney of blindsiding him and ordered an investigation into the company’s actions.

Disney CEO Bob Iger defended the move at the company’s annual shareholders’ meeting, calling the governor’s attempts at retaliation “anti-business and anti-Florida.”

“A company has a right to freedom of speech just like an individual does,” Iger said of Disney’s criticism of Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” law, according to the Miami Herald. “[DeSantis] retaliates against us — in effect to punish a company for exercising its constitutional right. And that seems really wrong to me.”

What’s the latest in the dispute?

At a news conference on Monday, DeSantis and state lawmakers proposed legislation that would require state inspections of Disney World rides and prevent it from ever having another mask mandate, the Orlando Sentinel reported. DeSantis even floated the idea of building a state prison next to the theme park.

“I mean, I just think that the possibilities are endless," he said.

DeSantis, a self-styled culture warrior and critic of so-called woke ideology, has used such clashes to leverage his national profile as he weighs a bid for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination.

What has been the response from other Republicans?

Trump and other potential GOP presidential hopefuls have slammed DeSantis’s handling of his ongoing feud with Disney.

“Disney’s next move will be the announcement that no more money will be invested in Florida because of the governor,” Trump wrote in his Truth Social post. “In fact, they could even announce a slow withdrawal or sale of certain properties, or the whole thing. Watch! That would be a killer. In the meantime, this is all so unnecessary, a political STUNT!”

“That’s not the guy I want sitting across from [Chinese] President Xi [Jinping] ... or sitting across from [Russian President Vladimir] Putin and trying to resolve what’s happening in Ukraine, if you can’t see around a corner Bob Iger created for you,” former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie said during a livestreamed interview with the news outlet Semafor on Tuesday, and added: “I don’t think Ron DeSantis is a conservative, based on his actions towards Disney.”

The super-PAC supporting Nikki Haley’s presidential campaign mocked DeSantis’s bid to “one-up Mickey Mouse after a devastating and embarrassing blow to his efforts to rein in Disney World.”

New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu, another potential 2024 candidate, told CNN that DeSantis’s Disney feud “has gone from kind of going after a headline to something that has devolved into an issue.”

“It’s not good for Gov. DeSantis,” Sununu said. “I don't think it’s good for the Republican Party.”

The Wall Street Journal criticized Trump for siding with “the woke Mickey Mouse to score points over the Florida governor,” but added: “Nobody emerges from this looking good.”

Wait, didn’t DeSantis get married at Disney World?

He did.

“Long before Disney became what he derides as a ‘woke corporation,’ its sprawling theme park near Orlando was the venue where he once said his ‘I Do's,’” Insider reported.

Here’s how the publication described his nuptials: “Dressed in his white, decorated Naval uniform, DeSantis exchanged wedding vows with Casey DeSantis, whose maiden name was Black, at the Grand Floridian's wedding pavilion, a chapel with arched windows overlooking Cinderella's Castle and the Seven Seas Lagoon. The reception was held at Epcot's Italy Isola, in a nod to the couple's Italian heritage.”

In a joint interview with Ron and Casey DeSantis on Sirius XM in February, the governor said his wife chose the venue, which, given the current feud, he admits is “kind of ironic.”