- Governor Ron DeSantis’ campaign team held a donor briefing Thursday at the Four Seasons Hotel Miami.
- The event came a day after the governor’s glitch-filled campaign was announced on Twitter.
- Campaign team members gave talking points on how to spin the Twitter meltdown.
Ron DeSantis supporters gambled the 2024 candidate’s fundraising stunt after his glitches-filled presidential campaign kicked off on Twitter, but his team would have preferred servers not to crash amid the announcement from Wednesday, leaked audio obtained by FloridaPolitics.com reveals.
During a donor briefing held Thursday at the luxurious Four Seasons hotel in Miami, DeSantis’ campaign team answered a question about the Twitter event that was supposed to kick off the very popular presidential race. expected from DeSantis in 2024.
Instead, the announcement was marred by crashes, awkward silences and music on hold as nearly 500,000 people tried to log in.
“We all know we definitely would have preferred the internet not to be broken, no doubt,” a member of DeSantis’ campaign team said in the audio. “We didn’t write it that way.”
The rock launch quickly provided fodder for the governor’s chief rival, Donald Trump.
“Wow! The launch of DeSanctus TWITTER is a DISASTER! His entire campaign will be a disaster,” Trump wrote on Truth, his social media platform. “SHOW!”
Trump’s responses also gave some insight into how AI technology will be used to attack candidates. In an Instagram post, Trump shared a video mocking the event using the AI-generated voices of Musk and DeSantis. Other characters featured were George Soros, Adolf Hitler and “The Devil”.
But DeSantis’ camp tried to play down the technical issues of the event and focus on the money that was raised as a result of the governor’s announcement. Within 24 hours, the campaign raised more than $8 million through online donations and donors.
DeSantis spokespersons Bryan Griffin and Christina Pushaw shared a New York Times article reporting the numbers.
Overall, the campaign presented Twitter’s malfunction as an overwhelming sign of interest in a DeSantis presidential run. On Thursday afternoon, the campaign was selling merchandise from the event.
—Kimberly Leonard (@leonardkl) May 25, 2023
During the donor planning session and presentation, the DeSantis campaign also provided some insights and talking points to make the Twitter event a beneficial time for the governor.
A member of the team speculated that most of the candidates would have “melted” under the pressure of people waiting for the announcement to kick off. He also speculated that most campaign teams would have had someone on the phone, talking to a reporter and “running away to throw someone under the bus ‘before the event was over’ and it didn’t happen. product”.
Given the extensive media coverage of the Twitter debacle, a member of the DeSantis campaign team concluded that the announcement was a success and argued that DeSantis was “willing to engage on substance” regarding politics.
“The goal last night was the biggest reach possible and we achieved it,” he said.
A DeSantis spokesperson did not return a request for comment.
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