Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley invited Disney to relocate to South Carolina amid Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’s long-running dispute with the company to revoke its special legal and economic privileges.
“We’ve got great weather, great people, and it’s always a great day in South Carolina!” Haley said.
“As governor, I took a double-digit unemployment state and turned it into an economic powerhouse,” Haley said. “Businesses were my partners because if you take care of your businesses, you take care of your economy—your economy takes care of the people and everyone wins.”
Disney–DeSantis Feud
Haley’s invitation came shortly after Disney sued DeSantis on April 26, accusing his administration of “weaponizing its power to inflict political punishment” on the company for its opposition to the governor’s “Parental Rights in Education” act—or HB 1557—which banned instruction of gender identity and sexual orientation in public schools for kindergarten through third grade.
Under DeSantis, Florida has passed legislation that ended special conditions that Disney enjoyed for decades in how it administered the district where Disney World is located, which basically gave the company near-total operational autonomy.
Speaking to reporters Thursday, DeSantis said that the special privileges that had been granted to Disney in how it administered the special district were “not good for the state of Florida.”
“They had no transparency, no accountability, none of that, and that arrangement was not good for the state of Florida,” DeSantis said. “We did not think that that should continue, so we now have brought accountability,” he added.
Meanwhile, Haley’s remarks were met with backlash on social media, including by “Never Back Down,” the top super PAC supporting the Florida governor’s expected presidential run.
