A strong supporter of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’s run for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination is under fire for attacking Kari Lake. Last year’s GOP candidate for Arizona governor continues to protest what she strongly feels were irregularities in last November’s race.
But to Pedro Gonzalez, a conservative influencer who is the politics editor of Chronicle magazine, she is tormenting an election official who she said was knee-deep in fraud that cost her the close election.
Wow I didn’t know that DeSantis influencer Pedro Gonzalez recently spread this vile rumor about @KariLake & @realDonaldTrump. He has serious issues. https://t.co/HHloXa5pb8
— Alex Bruesewitz 🇺🇸 (@alexbruesewitz) June 28, 2023
The DeSantis diehard accused Lake of being unable to “accept that she lost” and said she “continues to smear him with the help of Trump’s circus.” Gonzalez further berated her for displaying a photo of Stephen Richer, the election official, to a crowd of supporters in January.
He viciously went after Lake personally with charges that she was “couch-surfing at her friend’s house like a bum college dropout.” Rodriguez lashed out at “this married woman with children” in an unprovoked attack.
Unfortunately for the attacker, he has issues of his own to deal with.
A Breitbart News report revealed that Rodriguez, who is aggressively active on Twitter as a DeSantis supporter, repeatedly sent racist and antisemitic messages in 2019 and 2020. And how did the influencer defend himself from the Breitbart report?
He pulled out the lamest excuse in the Democratic playbook. It’s Trump’s fault.
Rodriguez responded by claiming that he is being targeted by the former president and that’s the reason his messages are now public.
The social media personality did not directly address the content of the messages but said that they came “from a different, dumb season of my life.”
That excuse might hold water in the case of a middle-aged man being accused of inappropriate behavior in high school. However, these messages were sent as recently as three years ago, making the passage of time irrelevant.
The Super PAC Never Back Down, which supports DeSantis, called the statements accredited to Rodriguez “inexcusable.”
But now the influencer has the time and energy to target Kari Lake, who continues to battle election corruption and enjoys strong support from Trump. As for Rodriguez, his focus might be better served staying out of Arizona politics and devising better excuses for reprehensible writings.
