Critics bashed an online profile Friday of the wife of expected presidential contender and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, calling the piece misogynistic and vicious.
The Politico article, “The Casey DeSantis Problem: ‘His Greatest Asset and His Greatest Liability,” quoted anonymous former DeSantis staffers, alleged insiders and Democratic strategists who accused the first lady of Florida of being “blindly ambitious” in an effort to help her husband become the next US president.
Gov. DeSantis is expected to announce his bid for the presidency next week.
The story labeled the 42-year-old former Jacksonville TV anchor, breast-cancer survivor and mom of three “paranoid” and “vindictive” while quoting a male DeSantis supporter who said she needed to “take a more traditional role’’ and a Trump operative who called her similar to “Lady MacBeth.”
“If you’re a Democrat and a woman, you’re ‘fierce’ or an ‘unapologetic’ or whatever,” a senior DeSantis adviser raged to The Post. “If you’re a Republican or a conservative, you turn into a cartoon villainess.
“The double standard is shameful. And the people who do this are always the most outspoken feminists on Twitter.”
The Politico piece cited a months-old quote from longtime Trump loyalist Roger Stone on his Telegram account that read, “Have you ever noticed … how much Ron DeSantis’ wife Casey is like Lady Macbeth?”
Nate Hochman, a speechwriter for DeSantis, responded while referring to a Politico article last year that covered “how gender roles can still be weaponized in political attacks” against women such as former Secretary of State and presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, first lady Jill Biden and Gisele Fetterman, the wife of Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.).
“Politico, November 2022: Comparing women in politics to Lady Macbeth is a sexist trope,’’ Hochman tweeted.
New York Times opinion columnist Ross Douthat referred to the Friday article’s inclusion of a quote from ex-Republican strategist Rick Wilson, who said, “Never cross Casey.”
“The fascinating arc of history in which the founder of a ‘NeverTrump’ organization is touting a piece about Casey DeSantis organized around a Lady MacBeth analogy that’s based on a quote from, um, Roger Stone,” Douthat wrote.
A disgusted Twitter user added, “I just started seeing these attacks on Mrs. Desantis, and WOW.
“These people have no shame from behind their keyboards, sad sad time we live in.. you don’t have to like or support her husband, but you also should be a decent human being!”
DeSantis staffers disputed all the characterizations in the article.
“When activist media like @politico et al have no real access but want to push their narrative anyways about @GovRonDeSantis or @CaseyDeSantis, they quote liberal activists and pretend they’re insiders,” the governor’s press secretary, Bryan Griffin, seethed on Twitter.
Christina Pushaw, a former press secretary for Ron DeSantis, responded in support of Griffin,“Fact check: TRUE.”
Casey DeSantis recently accompanied her husband on a four-leg world tour, with visits to Japan, South Korea, Israel and the UK to tout Florida’s economic strength.
The couple met in 2006 while the Florida governor, a Harvard Law School grad, was stationed as a Navy officer in Jacksonville and were married three years later at Disney World.
On Friday, he traveled to New Hampshire to talk about his record as the twice-elected governor of the Sunshine State ahead of his anticipated campaign launch next week.
He was photographed at a roundtable in Bedford, NH, kissing babies and slamming diversity, equity and inclusion consultants for raking in cash while hectoring people about “how capitalism is racist.”
