Florida Governor Ron DeSantis Using "Enemies List" To Target Critics

Republican Florida Governor Ron DeSantis is not a friend to the press by any stretch of the imagination, and it was recently revealed that he has an "enemies list" that the state is using to target certain journalists. One particular journalist that has been singled out by the administration is Thomas Kennedy, and he recently joined Ring of Fire's Farron Cousins for a discussion on what the state has done to him after they deemed him to be a threat.

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*This transcript was generated by a third-party transcription software company, so please excuse any typos.

You, as I mentioned earlier too, you've had some run-ins really with this administration, because you have shown up, you've been as a member of the press, you know, at some of the, these, these press gatherings, you know, some of these events that he's done and you have yourself become essentially a target of this administration. They, they know who you are and they're not very fond of you and, you know, because you're out there and you're actually telling these stories, you're getting words out there. But I want you to tell all the listeners here, you know, what, what's happened to you, you know, throughout some of these events that you've attended here? Because I, I've seen it on Twitter and I want everybody to, to know the real story of what's going on here.

Yeah, sure. So basically I've been a long standing critic of Ron DeSantis, even before COVID. I just found that, you know, his, things that he's done, his pro corporate legislation. He's been very anti-immigrant and has passed legislation that has enhanced the cooperation between federal immigration enforcement and municipalities here in the state. So a lot of the, the things that he pushes, I'm just vehemently opposed. But after COVID obviously DeSantis' extremism took a whole new turn, right? And in July of 2020, I attended a press conference where, you know, I basically called out the governor for his extremely lack luster COVID response at the time and his, you know, refusal to adopt any common sense public health measure. And basically after trying to attend a conference, a future press conference, in which I was detained in the parking lot without even attempting to go to go in. I found out the public records request that the Florida department of law enforcement has basically been keeping tabs on me.

They've been monitoring my social media. They've been sharing my personal vehicle information with local law enforcement agencies whenever Ron DeSantis is in town. They've been sharing my information and pictures to entities that have hosted Ron DeSantis, like Florida international university, for example, and have basically barred me from all publicly funded, you know, events by the governor's office. Not his campaign, his public office. And it's just disturbing to see, not his security detail, but, you know, like Florida's top police agency, the Florida department of law enforcement be weaponized against a critic. And in fact they have a dossier that I actually have pinned on my Twitter profile of me in which they track my political activities, my criticism of DeSantis and they themselves in the dossier say, it's a quote, this individual has no history of violence. But for some reason I basically, you know, treated like a existential threat to the governor, but that's because he really enjoys having safe spaces, to basically propagate his propaganda.

You know, that, that is absolutely terrifying. I mean, all, all, all I can say about this Florida government is, is recently about a month or so ago on, on Twitter, Christina Pushaw did end up following me. She has not yet interacted with me and, and I found it very odd that she would just randomly start to follow me because I've never had any interactions with her on social media. So, you know, I, I, I don't think by any stretch I'm, I'm clearly, you know, hopefully not being detailed.