Florida governor’s campaign gets off to shaky start after launch was marred by glitches
Good morning, US politics blog readers. Ron DeSantis’s presidential campaign kickoff descended into farce on Wednesday evening, after the Florida governor opted to make the bid official with an announcement on Twitter’s Spaces audio streaming feature. But there’s a reason White House aspirants usually unveil such things in speeches to cheering crowds, rather than with appearances on social networks known lately for their unreliability: the former are much harder to mess up. And that’s exactly what happened on Twitter, with DeSantis silenced for minutes while the website’s employees could be heard trying to fix whatever was wrong with Spaces, before they restarted the event and many listeners went elsewhere. So we can say his campaign launch didn’t go well, and the Twitter debacle will be fodder for talk shows and rival candidates for weeks, if not months, to come. DeSantis’s ultimate objective nonetheless remains the same: He still needs to close the big gap in Republican voter support between him and Donald Trump if he ever wants to appear on the same ballot as Joe Biden.
Here’s what else is going on today:
Debt ceiling negotiations are ongoing in between Republicans in the House of Representatives and the White House. The first days of June remain the estimated deadline for a deal to be reached to avoid a catastrophic default. There’s been no breakthrough yet, but we’ll let you know if one is at hand.
Today is the third anniversary of George Floyd’s death, and Biden has issued a statement asking Americans to “build on the progress we have made thus far and recommit to the work we must continue to do every day to change hearts and minds as well as laws and policies.”
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre will brief reporters at 1pm eastern time.