Ron DeSantis slams corporate media: 'Pursuing partisan narratives and trying to smear people'

Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis slammed corporate media, saying he does not take interviews from them because he does not think the establishment press is helping the country and he is more focused on his job running Florida.

Hosts of "The View" have repeatedly attacked DeSantis, including calling him names, and his staff turned down an invitation for him to come on the talk show earlier this month.

"I found out I wasn't going on 'The View' when it made it into the media that my staff had declined, because they know better than to even ask me whether I would even go on in the first place," DeSantis told Will Witt during an interview published Monday by a new outlet, The Florida Standard.

"I have a state to run. I've got a lot of stuff on my plate," DeSantis said before turning to criticize the corporate media.

"I think that there are a lot of corporate media outlets in this country that are just dedicated to pursuing partisan narratives and trying to smear people who dissent from those narratives and I, first of all, I don't think that they're helping our country, I don't think that they're dedicated to the truth, but why do I want to be involved in that? I don't want to give them any extra eyeballs or any extra clicks and so that's just not something that I'm interested in," he said.

DeSantis also discussed his state's education plan, which he said has been "the focal point in the country of the parents' rights movement."

While the DeSantis administration has focused on education initiatives that give parents a greater role in their children's education while also paying teachers more, he said the basic principle is that "the school system is to educate kids, not to indoctrinate kids."

Florida curriculum now focuses more on teaching American civics without a liberal bias.

DeSantis said teachers in his state are not going to instruct children "to hate each other," but instead will teach accurate history.

"... To scapegoat some six-year-old kid based on their race one way or another is totally wrong, but we also have a responsibility to have a positive agenda, so we've doubled down on American civics. We've had more civics since I became a governor than we've ever done in Florida in the modern history of the state," he said, citing the fact that teachers in the state are also able to get a $3,000 bonus if they take a history training program.

DeSantis has also stood up against corporations seeking to influence state policy. In a notable example, DeSantis signed a bill revoking Walt Disney World of its special tax and administrative status after the company spoke out against his parental rights bill. 

He said the left knows they will not win elections on social issues such as "transgender stuff for kindergarteners," so they are attempting to "subcontract out their agenda to corporate America, hoping that woke CEOs" will push the leftist agenda instead.

"Those tactics don't work. I'm standing for the people I represent. We run this state, big corporations don't," he said.