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It’s been more than two decades since a state governor was elected to the White House, but you wouldn’t know it looking at the 2024 presidential race. Six current or former governors have entered the 2024 GOP primary so far. But no statehouse rivalry is more pronounced in US politics than the one between Florida governor and 2024 Republican candidate Ron DeSantis, and his Democratic counterpart from California, governor Gavin Newsom. The two, both seen as serious presidential prospects, if not now then someday, have been trading barbs for years, and things have only heated up as a presidential election season approaches. Most recently, Mr Newsom lashed out at Mr DeSantis this, calling him a “small, pathetic man,” after Florida officials facilitated a large group of South American migrants being dropped off without warning at a Sacramento church, a repeat of the Florida governor’s highly controversial move to do the same in Martha’s Vineyard last year. The California governor said Florida officials could face kidnapping charges. It’s far from the first time the two men – each the leader of a large, economically important state, whose policies typify each party – have locked horns. Their battles have much to say about where each party is going, and the political fate of these two men could suggest which vision of politics and leadership the American people want more. In March, during a visit to California to speak at the Reagan Presidential Library, the Florida Republican blasted Mr Newsom for following the advice of public health experts at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, accusing him of “subcontract[ing] ... leadership to health bureaucrats,” and claimed that Californians were flocking to Florida. “When the world went mad, when common sense suddenly became an uncommon virtue, Florida stood as a refuge of sanity, a citadel of freedom for people throughout the United States and indeed, throughout the world. We refused to let our state descend into some type of Faucian dystopia, where people’s rights were curtailed, and their livelihoods were destroyed. We made sure people had a right to work and we got people back to work and businesses back open,” he said. The Florida governor also said the Californian’s leadership showed how Democrats “coddle the criminals and put the rights of the criminals over the safety of the public and the rights of victims.” Mr Newsom, for his part, has made a point of showing how on issues like Covid and gun crime, California is empirically a safer place to be. "Just look at the data – California residents are safer, healthier and more prosperous than those unfortunate enough to have you as their Governor," Mr Newsom told CBS News during the Florida governor’s visit. "Oh by the way, you’re going to get smoked by Trump." Mr Newsom has made his own high-profile incursions into his rival’s state, including donating thousands to Mr DeSantis’s rivals. In April, the California Democrat met with students of Florida’s New College, a public liberal arts college that has recently become a target in Mr DeSantis’s wide-ranging campaign to bend Florida’s education system in a hyper-conservative direction by limiting access to materials concerning gender and sexuality, as well as the history of racism. “I can’t believe what you’re dealing with. It’s just an unbelievable assault,” Mr Newsom said at an appearance at a library near campus. “It’s common with everything he’s doing, bullying and intimidating vulnerable communities. Weakness, Ron DeSantis, weakness masquerading as strength across the board.” Last summer, Mr Newsom had an even bigger provocation for Mr DeSantis, using extra campaign cash to release a 30-second ad in Florida urging residents of the Sunshine State to move to California. "Freedom, it’s under attack in your state,” the spot claimed. “Republican leaders, they’re banning books, making it harder to vote, restricting speech in classrooms, even criminalizing women and doctors," the governor said in a voiceover narration accompanying images of Mr DeSantis and former president Donald Trump. Indeed, the two states couldn’t be more different across a variety of areas, with Florida all but banning abortion, while California ceased doing business with Walgreens because the company wouldn’t sell abortion pills. In addition to a debate over their state’s respective policies, it seems a deep dislike of the other man has fueled the back-and-forth, with the Florida governor painting Mr Newsom as an out-of-touch hypocrite, while the California leader accuses the Republican of being a spiteful bigot and a “bully.” “As he was locking down his citizens, he would then go and have these extravagant dinners at the French Laundry to basically rub his citizens’ noses in the fact that he was treating them like peasants. You know in Florida we weren’t locking them down, we lifted our people up. We made sure to protect individuals’ freedoms,” Mr DeSantis said in July. That same summer, Mr Newsom flatly told an interviewer, “I don’t like DeSantis, the way he talked about Fauci,” after the Florida governor joked about throwing “that little elf” Dr Anthony Fauci into the Potomac River. “My entire life, I don’t like bullies…That’s being celebrated in American politics. DeSantis is the worst of it.” Things escalated further in September, with Mr Newsom challenging the Florida governor to a televised debate, further cementing an idea at the time that the men were running a kind of unofficial presidential campaign against each other, even though at that time Mr DeSantis hadn’t yet declared, and even though Mr Newsom would eventually endorse Joe Biden and formally swear off a primary challenge. The rivalry has extended outside of the presidential contest to the world of business. In May, the Walt Disney Company announced it was pulling out of a planned $1bn development in Florida, keeping thousands of jobs in California, as the Magic Kingdom feuded with Mr DeSantis over the state’s controversial “Don’t Say Gay” law and its decision to dissolve Disney’s special municipal district privileges in the state. But a political face-off between the two doesn’t seem too far away, and any contest would likely be even more intense than the shadow campaign the men have been running against each other for the previous two years. Mr Newsom has admitted a kind of grudging respect for Republicans like Mr DeSantis, who he feels have successfully convinced the country to go along with their vision on culture war issues. The California governor has argued Democrats have a serious “messaging problem.” “We allow these culture wars to take shape, and we are constantly on the back end,” Mr Newsom said. Former California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has called a presidential run from Newsom, whose term ends in 2027, a “no-brainer.” With Mr DeSantis badly trailing Donald Trump in the polls, it seems a Newsom-DeSantis election may not be happening just yet, but may not be too far away in the future. Read More DeSantis news – latest: Texas sheriff backs Newsom and also recommends criminal charges over migrant flights Gavin Newsom suggests kidnap charges over Ron DeSantis’s migrant flights Ron DeSantis called out for ‘ignoring’ Hollywood beach shooting: ‘He doesn’t care’

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Donald Trump Jr has shared a seemingly AI-generated clip of Ron DeSantis edited into the role of Steve Carell’s Michael Scott in The Office in a clip in which the character is mocked for wearing a woman’s suit. “Imagine when next time it’s not an obvious spoof from The Office but an attempt to depict itself as legitimate and much more nefarious,” CNN’s Jake Tapper tweeted. “Don Jr among others has shared this video. I don’t think any of us are ready for this next election online,” Alex Thompson of Axios said. Democratic consultant Tim Hogan added that “Folks, we simply are not ready for the 2024 GOP primary memes”. “Rhonda Santis is a perfect drag name, just saying,” Mr Hogan tweeted. Philip Germain at the Lincoln Project added: “I am once again asking for Steve Carrell to play DeSantis on SNL.” “I for one welcome the onslaught of election-season deepfakes,” Jesse Walker of Reason magazine wrote. As the mockery continued of Mr DeSantis’s glitch-ridden campaign launch, the Florida governor began to push back. He slammed his main rival for the 2024 GOP nomination, former President Donald Trump, claiming he “is a different guy” than when he first ran for president. Mr Trump is leading all other Republican candidates for the party’s presidential nomination, with Mr DeSantis running in second place, according to polls. Mr DeSantis officially embarked on his own bid for the White House earlier this week in a chaotic Twitter Spaces event with billionaire Elon Musk. The governor told radio host Matt Murphy that he was running to the right of Mr Trump and portrayed himself as more conservative, according to USA Today. “It seems like he’s running to the left and I have always been somebody that’s just been moored in conservative principles,” said Mr DeSantis. “So these will be interesting debates to have, but I can tell you, you don’t win nationally by moving to the left, you win nationally by standing for bold policy. We showed that in Florida. I never watered down anything I did.” And Mr DeSantis claimed that Mr Trump is not the same person who first ran for office. “I don’t know what happened to Donald Trump – this is a different guy today than when he was running in 2015 and 2016 and I think the direction that he’s going with his campaign is the wrong direction,” Mr DeSantis said. And he attacked Mr Trump over his handling of the Covid-19 pandemic while in office. “I think [Trump] did great for three years, but when he turned the country over to Fauci in March of 2020 that destroyed millions of people’s lives,” Mr DeSantis said on a podcast. “And in Florida, we were one of the few that stood up, cut against the grain, took incoming fire from media, bureaucracy, the left, even a lot of Republicans, had school open, preserved businesses.” Read More Florida mom who tried to ban Amanda Gorman’s book has ties to far-right groups DeSantis accuses Trump of ‘moving to the left’ as he tells ex-president: ‘You’ve changed’ Ron DeSantis news – live: Don Jr shares AI-doctored clip of The Office showing DeSantis wearing woman’s suit Ivanka and Jared split over attending Trump 2024 launch – follow live Why was Donald Trump impeached twice during his first term? Four big lies Trump told during his 2024 presidential announcement

Former Vice President Mike Pence was a surprise guest this weekend at a rally in Paris, France, hosted by Iranian dissidents in support of overthrowing Iran’s regime. Mr Pence, who’s running in the increasingly-crowded 2024 Republican primary, railed against the authoritarian government in Tehran and what he claimed were efforts by the Biden administration to revive the 2015 nuclear accord between Iran, the US, and several European countries. That deal was abandoned by the Trump administration who accused Tehran of violating the deal “in spirit”. “Now, a new administration is threatening to unravel all of the progress we made in marinalising the tyrannical regime in Tehran,” Mr Pence claimed. “They are working overtime to restore the Iran Nuclear Deal, putting Tehran back on the fast track to obtaining nuclear weapons.” The Independent has reached out to the White House for comment on those comments. He also claimed that Iran could develop a nuclear weapon in a year if sanctions were rolled back and the 2015 deal snapped back into place. However, the Biden administration has shown no signs, at least publicly, of reigniting the abandoned agreement. If there was any possibility of restarting Iran negotiations, those would now have likely hit a roadblock with the suspension of Rob Malley, Biden’s special envoy to Iran, over an internal State Department review into whether he mishandled classified material. Sources with knowledge of the situation described Mr Malley as a proponent of the 2015 Iran nuclear deal to The Independent. The State Department has refused to confirm in recent weeks whether talks regarding the nuclear deal are ongoing, and has only said that Mr Malley’s status is under review. Pence appeared at the annual event hosted by the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) just days after an unannounced visit to Ukraine to meet President Volodymyr Zelensky. The dissident group’s event went off without a hitch and was attended by thousands despite an initial refusal by the French government to allow the group a permit for an outdoor rally. That decision was later reversed by a French court. Authorities had warned that the threat of a terror attack necessitated the rally’s cancelation. NCRI’s previous events in Paris have faced similar threats including in 2018 when a diplomat working for Iran’s government and three others were arrested and later convicted of a bomb plot. The former vice president’s European trip comes as his bid for the White House has yet to clear double-digit levels of support in any major polling, though he is likely to qualify for at least one presidential debate. Read More Mike Pence meets with Zelensky in Ukraine Indiana Supreme Court upholds abortion ban, says state constitution gives only limited protections Biden blames GOP for student loan ruling as 2024 political consequences loom Trump leaned on Arizona governor to flip state’s election results after 2020 loss, report says Biden condemns Supreme Court striking down affirmative action: ‘This is not a normal court’ Senator who once worked at a Planned Parenthood warns that Republicans are planning a national abortion ban

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