Ron DeSantis’ shaky 2024 campaign launch suffers another technical glitch after Twitter debacle

Rocky start for campaign as Florida governor hits campaign trail

On day two of the much-anticipated Ron DeSantis 2024 run for the White House, the Florida governor suffered another technical glitch, this time mid-interview.

Mr DeSantis spent the first full day of his campaign on a tour of rightwing media outlets, appearing on Eric Bolling’s Newsmax show The Balance on Thursday afternoon.

The previous evening’s much-vaunted campaign announcement on Twitter Spaces was dogged by crashes, awkward pauses, and more than a 20-minute delay before the audio-only event got underway.

This has led to widespread ridicule of the DeSantis campaign from both his Republican rivals and Democrats with Twitter owner and host of the event, Elon Musk, leaping to his defence arguing that the glitches boosted coverage of the Florida governor.

Following the Twitter launch, Mr DeSantis made a more traditional appearance on Fox News in which host Trey Gowdy poked fun at the glitchy start, saying: “Fox News will not crash during this interview.”

When Mr DeSantis made his appearance on Thursday on The Balance though, as Bolling was asking the Florida governor about the travel warning issued for his state by the NAACP, claiming it was not safe for minorities or the LGBT+ community, things didn’t go quite to plan.

“What’s your response to the NAACP for our audience?” Bolling asked, only for the split-screen shot of the two men to freeze.

“This is such a stunt. It’s a typical political farce,” Mr DeSantis could be heard saying over the frozen tableau of host and guest.

The picture was restored quickly, only to freeze again less than a minute later as Mr DeSantis made the claim that the NAACP doesn’t give advisories to other parts of the country — namely Chicago and Baltimore — where he says “kids have a better chance of getting shot than getting a decent education”.

Mr DeSantis argued over the frozen image that “people of all races are having the opportunity to get ahead” in his state.

Whatever Gremlin was tampering with the Newsmax feed was presumably shooed away as close to half a minute later the image was restored with no further interruptions.

Technical glitches aside, Mr DeSantis raised $8.2m for his 2024 campaign within 24 hours.