DeSantis after Twitter fiasco: ‘Not a big social media guy’ 

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) on Thursday said that, despite launching his presidential campaign on Twitter, he is “not a big social media guy” and prefers watching cable news to scrolling through social media.  

“I would rather watch you than then be on some app, but it is important for a lot of people,” DeSantis told Newsmax host Eric Bolling on Thursday. 

DeSantis on Wednesday announced his 2024 presidential campaign in an unconventional way by livestreaming on Twitter and being hosted by the platform’s owner, Elon Musk. The campaign announcement was riddled with technical difficulties and glitches, mishaps DeSantis claimed were caused by the large volume of listeners tuning in to the announcement.  

“Well, they were very confident that they had the ability to get a lot of people and they were anticipating a lot of people, but there were more people that tried to sign up than even what Twitter had anticipated,” DeSantis said Thursday.  

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More on DeSantis’s launch from The Hill

• DeSantis 2024 launch marred by technical glitches
• Five takeaways from Ron DeSantis’s glitch-ridden campaign launch
• Biden trolls DeSantis over glitchy 2024 launch on Twitter Spaces
• DeSantis says large volumes of listeners caused crash in Musk Twitter conversation
• DeSantis’s 2024 rivals pile on over tech issues with campaign launch

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The Florida governor said that despite the 20-minute delay in getting the announcement kicked off, he would not have traded it for the more conventional route of giving a speech.  

“I would have asked them to have maybe more capacity and say maybe we’ll get even more people, but I would not have traded doing a speech,” he said.  

Bolling asked whether DeSantis had heard from Rupert Murdoch or Murdoch’s sons over his campaign announcement, adding they were reportedly “ticked off” the Florida governor did not appear on Fox for his campaign launch.  

“No, we didn’t, but look, I get it. I mean, I understand that different folks have had views on all that stuff,” he responded.