>>> So this morning we are getting a much clearer picture of how Florida governor Ron
Desantis plans to position himself as a presidential candidate.
The official announcement coming next week, but he laid out these plans in a conference
call with big donors.
We will have much more on that in a second, but there is also this new development that
plays into all of this.
His feud with Disney, the huge entertainment company and major Florida employer announced
that it is canceling plans, they did this yesterday afternoon, to build a new $1 billion
office campus in the greater Orlando area.
Disney cited changing business conditions as the reason for not moving forward.
CNN's Natasha Chen has more on all of this.
This is, what, like 2,000 jobs?
>> Yeah, John, 2,000 jobs.
It was supposed to be a regional hub for parks and resorts so some of the imagineers that
design all the stuff you see in the theme parks, as well as some corporate jobs, consumer
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corporate jobs, consumer product, support functions like finance technology, marketing,
communications, this was going to be at a complex in lake Nona that Disney purchased,
just east of Walt Disney world in central Florida and the move was going to take over
the course of several years and the company was giving people some flexibility about this.
I'm now hearing that some people who did not want to move to Florida actually left the
company and found other jobs to avoid that move and now it's not happening at all.
About 200 people already did make that move and so yesterday in a memo the chairman of
Disney parks, experiences and products says they will work with those individuals including
the possibility of moving them back here to Burbank in the southern California area.
Now, as far as reaction goes, governor Ron Desantis did release a statement through his
spokesperson and I want to read that to you, this was acquired by Steve contorno.
He did say it was unsurprising that Disney would cancel the project given the company's
[9:25:56 AM]
project given the company's financial straits, falling market cap and declining stock price.
Unsurprising they would restructure their business operations and cancel unsuccessful
ventures.
When we did hear from other local leaders as well, Orange county mayor demings and the
Florida democratic party chair all saying that this is really because of the desantis/disney
feud that they feel that they've lost these Florida jobs.
In the meantime the trump war room official campaign account on Twitter also put up this
tweet yesterday quoting the story saying Ron desanctimonious gets caught in the mouse trap,
the culture of losing continues.
So this really played into the politics of the moment and of course a lot of business
decisions went into this as far as what made sense for the company, but you can't help
but see this in the greater context as well of whether they will thrive as a business
as they are having this feud with the governor of the state.
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governor of the state.
John?
>> All right.
Natasha Chen for you, thank you very much.
As we said, this is part of a much bigger moment for Ron Desantis and the new developments
are last night he laid out his vision of a presidential campaign to major donors.
With us now from Florida, CNN's Steve contorno.
I've been on conference calls with campaign strategists that sounded like what Ron Desantis
did last night, where he laid out his case for how he's going to win and he sort of made
it all about electability.
>> Reporter: That's right, John.
We know that Desantis has been meeting with donors for several weeks now leading up to
this expected launch.
One of the reasons he has been meeting with them is to shore up their support because
a lot are concerned with some of his recent moms and recent stumbles.
There are Republican donors who object to the fact that the state signed this six-week
abortion ban, they're concerned about his waffling on whether he would support Ukraine
and
[9:27:57 AM]
would support Ukraine and whether this Russia is right in this war.
So he has taken a more direct role in assuring these donors that he has a strategy to beat
trump and that strategy is to say, look, I am much more a electable, especially in the
states that are going to matter in the presidential contest against Joe Biden.
Listen to what he told those donors according to the "New York Times."
He said, you have basically three people at this point that are credible in this whole
thing, Biden, trump and me.
Two have a chance to get elected president, Biden and me based on all the data in the
spring states.
So not only is he clearly saying, look, it's between me, trump and Biden in a way that
just totally dismisses the other Republican candidates in the field, but he's saying trump
can't get elected and that's not necessarily surprising to hear that from a candidate who
is trying to curry support, but Desantis has really avoided going directly at trump throughout
most of this run up to his campaign and yet here he is in very stark terms saying, look,
this guy can't get elected again, I'm your best bet if you
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again, I'm your best bet if you want to get a Republican in the white house in 2024.
>> Yeah, I mean, it's very blunt language, even more interesting coming from the candidate
himself, not a strategist there.
So, Steve, where does this whole Disney thing fit into it with Disney making this announcement
just days before Ron Desantis is going to make it official that he's running for president?
>> Reporter: Well, it's just another sign that this back and forth between Disney and
Desantis isn't going away.
It's been such a huge part of his narrative and on his terms, he wants to talk about Disney.
He made it a whole chapter in his book, frequently discusses it on the trail when in political
events in Iowa and new Hampshire and all these other states, but Disney continues to punch
back in a way that put this in a negative light for Desantis, just as they did when
they outmaneuvered him earlier this spring and suggesting that they are going to cut
2,000 high-paying jobs from the state really is giving his opponents an opportunity to
ding him as anti-business as he prepares to
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anti-business as he prepares to enter this primary, John.
>> It will be interesting to see