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.
Honestly, I don’t even feel it’s that bad to do. Is it a naturally occurring pile, no, but unless he’s taking perfectly good stuff from unscathed buildings, it’s still hurricane debris. The only problem in my eyes is that the effort spent piling debris could have been used to actually restore the location. So, I’m with the folks who say he should have found a place they were already piling stuff as part of the cleanup mission.