TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, apparently outflanked by Disney in a tug-of-war over the control over the thousands of acres that’s home to the Magic Kingdom and other theme parks, is now ordering an investigation into how the dynamic shift happened.
The Republican governor on Monday requested a “thorough review and investigation” by state officials into an agreement reached earlier this year by the outgoing Walt Disney Co. board aiming to stymie Florida’s efforts to grab greater authority over the entertainment giant’s special land district near Orlando. That deal swung power away from the new leadership board installed by the governor and created just months ago by the Legislature.
With state lawmakers uncertain of a legislative fix, the move by DeSantis could be his administration’s best shot at wrestling control back from Disney.
“These collusive and self-dealing arrangements aim to nullify the recently passed legislation, undercut Florida’s legislative process, and defy the will of Floridians,” DeSantis wrote in a letter to Melinda Miguel, Florida’s chief inspector general.
The move by Disney blindsided DeSantis and his allies and undercuts a talking point that DeSantis had used frequently during his reelection campaign and in recent stops across the country. The governor has repeatedly talked about how he bested Disney after the company came out publicly against the state’s parental rights in education bill, also called the “Don’t Say Gay” bill by critics.
News about Disney’s maneuver has also sparked criticism from allies of former President Donald Trump.
“President Trump wrote ‘Art of the Deal’ and brokered Middle East peace. Ron DeSantis got out-negotiated by Mickey Mouse,” Taylor Budowich, the head of a pro-Trump super PAC, wrote on Twitter.
Florida lawmakers, at the request of DeSantis, earlier this year passed legislation to overhaul leadership of the Reedy Creek Improvement District, the entity that has allowed the company the ability to operate its own government-like functions for more than 50 years in central Florida.
That legislation came nearly a year after lawmakers pushed through a measure to dismantle Reedy Creek during a special session. But before the new DeSantis-backed board could assume control of Reedy Creek — or the governor signed the legislation, the outgoing board passed a series of agreements to ensure that Disney keeps power, such as the company having the final say on alterations to the property.
The DeSantis administration contends Disney’s action suffers from “serious legal infirmities” such as inadequate legal notice and ethical violations.
DeSantis wants both the chief inspector general, along with the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, to investigate the legal validity of the outgoing board’s moves and any financial gain the company could gain from such a decision.
Republican leaders also have expressed a willingness to pursue legislation to combat the Disney power play, but it's unclear what that would look like. House Speaker Paul Renner (R-Palm Coast) tweeted Monday that "all legislative options are now back on the table."
"What’s happened is disingenuous to say the least," Renner told reporters Friday.
Disney, however, has stood by its actions, saying in a statement last week that all agreements between the company and Reedy Creek board were “appropriate” and “discussed and approved in open, noticed public forums in compliance with Florida Government in the Sunshine law.” Officials with Disney did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the DeSantis calls for investigation.
In his memoir released earlier this year, DeSantis described how he undertook a stealth operation in 2022 to draw up the initial bill that targeted Disney “We need the element of surprise — nobody can see this coming,” his book quotes him telling then-House Speaker Chris Sprowls.
Gary Fineout contributed to this report.
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — Gov. Ron DeSantis on Monday signed a measure that will allow Florida residents to carry guns without a state permit — but falls short of what some gun-rights activists sought.
DeSantis signed the legislation behind closed doors in the governor’s office, with news of the bill signing being released first to Fox News. He had pledged during an appearance last week at a Georgia gun store that he would act quickly on the proposal, which passed the Florida Legislature on Thursday.
“You don’t need a permission slip from the government to be able to exercise your constitutional rights,” DeSantis, a Republican, said at the time.
Florida becomes the 26th state to allow residents to carry concealed weapons without a permit. The new legislation gives DeSantis another victory to tout as he gears up for an expected presidential campaign.
“Here in the free state of Florida, government will not get in the way of law-abiding Americans who want to defend themselves and their families,” said state Sen. Jay Collins, a Tampa Republican and sponsor of the legislation.
While DeSantis and other Republican backers have described the legislation as “constitutional carry,” supporters of gun rights have repeatedly called on GOP legislators to go further by allowing people to carry guns openly.
DeSantis has said he supports open carry, but top Republicans in the state Senate — including Senate President Kathleen Passidomo — oppose such a policy. Passidomo has cited the opposition of many of Florida’s sheriffs as a prime reason for her stance.
“The governor is weak if he cannot even get his own super majority legislature to add part of his agenda, which is open carry, to the permitless carry bill,” said Matt Collins, a gun rights supporter and former lobbyist for gun-rights groups. "It's embarrassing for him. It’s failed leadership and it hurts his chances in the upcoming presidential primary.”
Democrats, meanwhile, sharply criticized the approval of the gun measure.
“Hiding behind closed doors and standing shoulder to shoulder with the NRA, Ron DeSantis just signed legislation that could make it easier for criminals to carry guns,” Democratic National Committee chair Jaime Harrison said in a statement. “DeSantis knows this legislation could be dangerous for Florida families and that’s why he signed this bill with none of his usual produced fanfare.”
Florida law currently makes it a felony if someone carries a concealed weapon without a permit. There are more than 2.6 million people with concealed weapon licenses who must go through training and a background check first.
The new law, which takes effect on July 1, does not end the permitting program but instead makes it optional. Bill supporters contend many Floridians will go through the permitting process because other states recognize the licenses.
State Sen. Lauren Book, the Senate Democratic leader, also faulted Republicans for pushing ahead with what she called a “nonsensical, reckless policy” due to the “governor’s political ambition.”
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Saudi Arabia and other major oil producers on Sunday announced surprise cuts totaling up to 1.15 million barrels per day from May until the end of the year, a move that could raise prices worldwide.
Higher oil prices would help fill Russian President Vladimir Putin’s coffers as his country wages war on Ukraine and force Americans and others to pay even more at the pump amid worldwide inflation.
It was also likely to further strain ties with the United States, which has called on Saudi Arabia and other allies to increase production as it tries to bring prices down and squeeze Russia’s finances.
The production cuts alone could push U.S. gasoline prices up by roughly 26 cents per gallon, in addition to the usual increase that comes when refineries change the gasoline blend during the summer driving season, said Kevin Book, managing director of Clearview Energy Partners LLC. The Energy Department calculates the seasonal increase at an average of 32 cents per gallon, Book said.
So with an average U.S. price now at roughly $3.50 per gallon of regular, according to AAA, that could mean gasoline over $4 per gallon during the summer.
However, Book said there are a number of complex variables in oil and gas prices. The size of each country’s production cut depends on the baseline production number it is using, so the cut might not be 1.15 million. It also could take much of the year for the cuts to take effect. Demand could fall if the U.S. enters a recession caused by the banking crisis. But it also could increase during the summer as more people travel.
Even though the production cut is only about 1% of the roughly 100 million barrels of oil the world uses per day, the impact on prices could be big, Book said.
“It’s a big deal because of the way oil prices work,” he said. “You are in a market that is relatively balanced. You take a small amount away, depending on what demand does, you could have a very significant price response.”
Saudi Arabia announced the biggest cut among OPEC members at 500,000 barrels per day. The cuts are in addition to a reduction announced last October that infuriated the Biden administration.
The Saudi Energy Ministry described the move as a “precautionary measure” aimed at stabilizing the oil market. The cuts represent less than 5% of Saudi Arabia’s average production of 11.5 million barrels per day in 2022.
Iraq said it would reduce production by 211,000 barrels per day, the United Arab Emirates by 144,000, Kuwait by 128,000, Kazakhstan by 78,000, Algeria by 48,000 and Oman by 40,000. The announcements were carried by each country’s state media.
Russia’s Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak meanwhile said Moscow would extend a voluntary cut of 500,000 until the end of the year, according to remarks carried by the state news agency Tass. Russia had announced the unilateral reduction in February after Western countries imposed price caps.
All are members of the so-called OPEC+ group of oil exporting countries, which includes the original Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries as well as Russia and other major producers. There was no immediate statement from OPEC itself.
The cuts announced in October — of some 2 million barrels a day — had come on the eve of U.S. midterm elections in which soaring prices were a major issue. President Joe Biden vowed at the time that there would be “consequences” and Democratic lawmakers called for freezing cooperation with the Saudis.
Both the U.S. and Saudi Arabia denied any political motives in the dispute.
Since those cuts, oil prices have trended down. Brent crude, a global benchmark, was trading around $80 a barrel at the end of last week, down from around $95 in early October, when the earlier cuts were agreed.
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez arrived in Washington as the ultimate Democratic disruptor. Four years into her House career, she’s embracing a new role: team player.
The co-founder of the progressive “squad” — who rocketed to prominence with her willingness to take on party leaders when others on the left would not — is acquiring power via more traditional means now. She snagged a senior position on a plum committee, putting her in closer proximity to top House Democrats. At a recent party retreat, she coached fellow Democrats on how to up their communications game.
And after years of on-and-off sparring with former Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Ocasio-Cortez is forging ties with new Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries — a fellow New Yorker whose centrist instincts aren’t always aligned with her own.
Her evolution is driven partly by a new political reality for her party: Democrats lost the House last year, and progressives have found a lot to like in Joe Biden’s first two years in the White House. But Ocasio-Cortez’s shift also comes as the 33-year-old lawmaker is mulling her next steps.
In a lengthy recent interview in her Capitol Hill office, Ocasio-Cortez wouldn’t rule out any number of options, from challenging Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) next year (“don’t ask me that question … print that,” she said with a laugh), to remaining in the House for the long haul or, perhaps, leaving Congress entirely.
“There's a world where I'm here for a long time in this seat, in this position. There's a world where I'm not an elected official anymore. There's a world where … I may be in higher office,” she said.
Ocasio-Cortez’s shift suggests a potential exchange of one type of power — her penchant for internal pot-stirring and the outsize media attention that comes with it — for a more conventional kind of influence. Whether AOC 2.0 is actually more powerful than the previous one isn’t clear yet; she and Jeffries have not yet locked arms the way Speaker Kevin McCarthy and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) did ahead of his push to lock down the House’s top gavel.
Not that Ocasio-Cortez accepts any comparison between herself and the right flank of the GOP.
“There are people, including moderates, who sometimes try to draw this completely unfair, false equivalence between progressives and, frankly, the fascists that we see in the Republican Party,” Ocasio-Cortez said.
And Ocasio-Cortez’s new profile also isn’t without risk. The Democratic base doesn’t typically reward an ability to work the inside levers of Congress. But the influence she can accrue by playing Congress’ inside track may prove to be as potent as the saturation-level media exposure she would forgo in the process.
Ocasio-Cortez’s growing ease and seniority within the Democratic caucus is a far cry from when she arrived in the House in 2019 and decided to skip most party meetings.
At the time, Ocasio-Cortez said, many veteran House Democrats treated her with a mix of admiration, disrespect and fear. They would avoid speaking to her when she was standing nearby, she said, even as they lapped up news coverage about her latest utterance.
Her early sense that colleagues were forming impressions of her without bothering to talk to her was reinforced by non-stop leaks of closed-door caucus meetings, which, she said, “might as well have been broadcast on C-SPAN.”
“One of those things that I really learned during that period was that there was nothing I could do that would dampen that fervor. Whether I participated in it or not, there was just going to be all these stories and all of these things,” she said of the early media attention she received. "And so I decided to have agency."
Ocasio-Cortez is operating in a much different place now, and nothing encapsulates that repositioning more than her ascension to a top role on the Oversight Committee. Her role as vice ranking member has helped Democratic leadership bring her closer inside their tent — and allowed her to assert herself as an institutional force, while still channeling the energy she brought as a 29-year-old newcomer in 2019.
At the same time, she made clear in the interview that she reserves the right to hold the Biden administration accountable — especially in policy areas where she sees the president’s team as occasionally “weak,” like immigration.
Ocasio-Cortez’s rise on the committee is in part thanks to a partnership with Maryland Rep. Jamie Raskin, the top Democrat on the panel who led the push to impeach former President Donald Trump after the Jan. 6 Capitol riot. The former constitutional law professor and former bartender’s bond began during the last Congress when they worked together on the Oversight panel.
“People don't see the academic nerd side of her,” said Raskin, who at 60 is nearly twice Ocasio-Cortez’s age. “But I totally do, as a professor.”
As for her posture toward Democratic leadership, they’re still figuring each other out. She noted that her sometimes-prickly relationship with Pelosi caused consternation at times.
“I … own that I was very critical of our party’s leadership.” she said. Though Ocasio-Cortez said her relationship with the new batch of Democratic leaders is “still evolving," she acknowledged “a significant shift” in the dynamic with party leaders. She attributed at least in part it to an influx of new liberal, younger, more diverse members who are more natural allies.
All told, whether by design or not, Ocasio-Cortez has been making fewer headlines of late as Washington’s initial fascination with the “squad” passes. She’s as likely to speak directly to constituents and supporters through her own social media as she is to seek out a gaggle of reporters. Case in point: Her recent declaration — via a post on TikTok — that Congress shouldn’t rush to ban the popular China-linked app.
As for her work on the Oversight panel, Ocasio-Cortez has earned her begrudging respect from Republicans.
“She maximizes her five minutes as well as anyone in Congress,” Oversight Chair James Comer (R-Ky.) said of Ocasio-Cortez’s allotted time to question committee witnesses. “She’s always prepared.”
Some conservatives have even opened the door to collaborating with her on issues where progressives might align with their party, like data privacy and surveillance.
It's no accident that Ocasio-Cortez made an institutional home on the Oversight panel: Perhaps more than any other House committee, it offers members who clearly communicate a chance to go viral and force answers from the powerful.
And while Ocasio-Cortez has demonstrated her ability to go viral since her first days on the committee, she’s also now focusing on mentoring younger colleagues. She credited the committee as “one of the few refuges” when she first arrived on the Hill to “demonstrate my capacities and earned respect based on my work” — a place where senior Democrats were “willing to give me the benefit of the doubt,” she said.
“It's understandable when I first arrived, if someone would try to question my substance and my commitment to work, but that commitment has always been there,” she added.
One of the new members Ocasio-Cortez is mentoring is Rep. Maxwell Frost (D-Fla.), who at 26 is the youngest elected member of Congress — a designation she held back in 2019.
She’s “helping on the best ways to craft questions, the best ways to deal with combative people on the committee,” Frost said in an interview.
Ocasio-Cortez is now helping shape the party’s investigative strategy. She took part in a panel at Democrats’ retreat last month where she taught lawmakers how to get better at asking questions in hearings. She also helped strategize for a GOP-led trip last month to the D.C. jail, where detainees are being held in connection with the Jan. 6 Capitol attack.
If Ocasio-Cortez's growing involvement in internal party strategy is chipping away at younger liberals' affection for her, it didn't show in the reverence with which Frost described her mentorship. Among the lessons he's learned from her, he said, was "being a badass motherfucker."
