Florida Nazi rally prompts outrage and angry defence from DeSantis

The governor said his political opponents were trying to use the incident to smear him

After viral videos circulated online showing protesters waving Nazi flags on streets and highway overpasses in Florida, Republican Governor Ron DeSantis has issued a statement – but rather using it to denounce the Nazis, he used it to defend himself.

Eventually the governor's office did enlist press secretary Christina Pushaw to issue a statement saying that Mr DeSantis "has ALWAYS condemned antisemitic attacks & hatred, and he always will. To suggest otherwise is just plain wrong."

But that statement only came after other Florida lawmakers, including Republicans, and public figures condemned the protesters. Mr DeSantis' initial reaction was to defend himself rather than decry the protests, claiming that calls for him to denounce the Nazis were a political cudgel Democrats were using to try to "smear me as if I had something to do with it”.

He then said that Florida is one of the top destinations for Orthodox Jews because the state offers them "tremendous support”.

He said he refused to "play their game" during a press conference, calling the protesters "some jacka** doing this on the street" and suggesting instead that his political opponents were using the antisemitic demonstration to distract the public from their own alleged failings.

Mr DeSantis addressed the protests personally after Ms Pushaw tweeted – and then deleted – a message asking if the people waving swastika flags were actually Nazis.

"Do we even know they're Nazis?" she wrote in the deleted tweet. "I trust Florida law enforcement to investigate and am awaiting their conclusions."

When faced with evidence that some members of their base are actual white supremacists and Nazi sympathisers, some Republican lawmakers have claimed the bad actors are simply Democrats in disguise trying to make conservatives look bad.

This happened just hours after the 6 January attack in Washington, DC, when Representative Matt Gaetz stood in the Capitol and told his colleagues – who had all experienced the events first hand – that the Trump supporters who stormed the building were actually members of Antifa.

The Anti-Defamation League chastised Ms Pushaw for her comments, saying in a statement it was "alarmed" that she "would first give cover to antisemites rather than immediately and forcefully condemning their revolting, hate-filled rally and assault."

It went further to include Mr DeSantis, calling on him to "address the fears of the Jewish community thoughtfully – not with this troubling and careless approach."

The ADL actually defended Mr DeSantis recently after the state's Agriculture Commissioner Nikki Fried compared the governor to Adolf Hitler. The organisation frequently speaks out against flippant or otherwise inaccurate comparisons of people to Hitler and events to the Holocaust, arguing that using those images as props disrespects victims and survivors.

The Orange County Sheriff's Department eventually broke up the protesters as they were blocking a highway. Law enforcement said it is openly investigating whether or not any crimes were committed during the protest beyond blocking the roadway.