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‘They Said They Wanted This’: DeSantis on Defense Heads to Hannity Over Sending Asylum Seekers to Martha’s Vineyard
Florida Republican Governor Ron DeSantis was forced to go on Fox News’ “Hannity” Monday night to defend his decision to send 50 asylum seekers from Venezuela who were reportedly falsely enticed to board planes in Texas with promises of food, cash, housing, education and jobs assistance and a trip to Boston, while actually being sent to Martha’s Vineyard.
“They said they wanted this,” the Florida governor now under investigation by a Texas sheriff and possibly facing a federal investigation told Sean Hannity, “they said they were a sanctuary jurisdiction,” he claimed, Florida Politics reports.
Massachusetts is not a sanctuary state, and has only eight sanctuary cities. Martha’s Vineyard is not one of them. Sanctuary cities promise to not cooperate with federal immigration authorities, meaning they will not report immigrants who are in the country unlawfully – which these asylum seekers were not.
These 50 or so immigrants were seeking asylum, and are therefore in the country legally. They reportedly have followed procedures to apply for asylum, so were in no risk of being deported, and therefore did not need to go to a “sanctuary jurisdiction.”
“Millions of people since Biden’s been President illegally coming across the southern border,” DeSantis told Hannity. “Do they freak out about that? No. You had migrants die in the Rio Grande. You had 50 die in Texas in a trailer because they were being neglected. Was there a freak out about that?”
There was nationwide anger about the 53 – not 50 – people found dead in a locked tractor trailer last year. There were national headline stories for days. One month later two men were charged “on counts of transporting and conspiring to transport immigrants illegally resulting in death; and conspiring to transport immigrants illegally resulting in serious injury,” The Washington Post reported in July of last year.
“It’s only when fifty get put into Martha’s Vineyard,” DeSantis continued, speaking of human beings as objects, “which wasn’t saying they didn’t want this. They said they wanted this, they said they were a sanctuary jurisdiction.”
READ MORE: Biden Approval Soars as Trump’s Sinks
Florida Politics reports DeSantis described the migrants as “basically destitute” and “put in a situation where they could have succeeded” by being flown to Massachusetts.
“Not only did they not welcome them, they deported [sic] them the next day with the National Guard,” DeSantis falsely claimed. Governor Charlie Baker, a Republican, called in the National Guard to assist the asylum seekers because Edgartown, a town of just over 5100 people, did not have the resources to properly care for their new guests.
One of the immigrants, CNN reported, had two gold teeth pulled out by a violent drug trafficking cartel when “he told them he could not make the extortion payment.”
About 30 chose voluntarily to be transported to a National Guard facility. Gov. Baker stressed the immigrants were given the choice to stay or go.
DeSantis also told Hannity all the immigrants had “signed consent forms to go,.” He claimed the flights were “clearly voluntary and all the other nonsense you’re hearing is just not true.”
Whether or not they signed consent forms is unproven. Also in question would be was there clear disclosure, did they know what they were signing?
Fred Wellman of the On Democracy podcast tweeted a few questions to Gov. DeSantis: “Who paid the ‘vendor’? Who paid for the videographer? Why didn’t you alert Massachusetts authorities before giving the story to Fox News? Why did you need to go to Texas if Florida is ‘overrun” with migrants?’
Hannity told DeSantis that the 50 immigrants “were fed, they were showered, they were offered haircuts and any other services they were needed, correct?”
The governor claimed they all received a “packet” with a “map of Massachusetts” and telephone numbers for service agencies.
3. Yesterday, https://t.co/Gl6evXRDcZ published a brochure that was provided to migrants to induce them to board a flight to Massachusetts.
The brochure suggested the migrants were eligible for a laundry list of benefits including “cash assistance,” and “housing”
THIS IS A LIE pic.twitter.com/0gGdax1I1p
— Judd Legum (@JuddLegum) September 20, 2022
15. BTW, this was a brochure (right) that was so haphazardly put together that it doesn’t even include the real Massachusetts flag (left)https://t.co/MXdhOY0s89 pic.twitter.com/y43YiQOBY1
— Judd Legum (@JuddLegum) September 20, 2022
But Popular Information’s Judd Legum, who published the brochure the immigrants were given to entice them onto the plane, says DeSantis officials held a “hastily scheduled press call with sympathetic media outlets” on Monday, attacking his reporting.
Legum also says the brochure contained information “from a Mass[achusetts] website, but it’s a website describing benefits for A DIFFERENT CLASS OF PEOPLE.”
“DeSantis and his team don’t understand the difference between refugees (who are eligible for resettlement benefits) & asylum applicants (who are not).”
DeSantis also claimed on “Hannity” that Martha’s Vineyard “could have absorbed these people without a problem.” That too is false. Martha’s Vineyard is a seasonal resort island that is home for a month or two to the wealthy, but off-season it’s a very different story.
“The median income on Martha’s Vineyard is $7K BELOW the state median,” Massachusetts state Rep. Dylan Fernandes said over the weekend in defense of the area. “The majority of year-round residents are diverse working class people who make these communities run.”
Watch Gov. DeSantis below or at this link.
DeSantis: The vendor doing this for Florida provided them with a packet with a map of Martha’s Vineyard and the numbers for different services on Martha’s Vineyard. It had numbers for the overall agencies in Massachusetts that handle things involving immigration and refugees pic.twitter.com/2YqzgvV0wR
— Acyn (@Acyn) September 20, 2022
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Maine Democratic U.S. Senate nominee Graham Platner is under fire after releasing a video declaring that new allegations against him are false, yet he is “taking time to reflect” on a path forward.
Politico on Monday afternoon reported that a woman who dated Platner, Jenny Racicot, “says he forced her to have sex with him nearly five years ago despite her repeated objections, an allegation Platner denies.”
“Racicot said she had an on-and-off relationship with Platner,” Politico reported, “for more than two years before he entered her rural Maine home uninvited one night in late 2021, deeply intoxicated, and forced himself on her while she repeatedly told him to stop. She said she cut off contact with him after telling him the encounter was not consensual.”
In a video posted to social media eleven minutes after the Politico story dropped, Platner says, “I wanted to directly address the troubling, serious, and false allegations against me. Any accusation of nonconsensual behavior is categorically false.”
He said he and his supporters “were united in a love of Maine, a belief that our politics must change, in a focus on defeating Susan Collins.”
“So, regardless of the inaccuracy of the reporting, but mindful the political reality will inflict, we are taking the time to reflect on the best path forward for the state that I love, the people that I love, the movement I belong to, and the goal of defeating Susan Collins.”
“Those were the goals when we launched this campaign. And they remain my goals today.”
“Throughout it all, you never turned your back on me. And I will not turn my back on you now. Every one of you deserves to see that vision come to fruition and see Susan Collins defeated. And we will use every tool at our disposal to do so.”
The Bulwark’s Tim Miller, a political commentator who served as the communications director for the Jeb Bush 2016 presidential campaign, blasted Platner.
“I’m sorry but ‘we are taking time to reflect on the best path forward’ is not an option on the table,” Miller wrote. “Either it’s false and you campaign with vigor or it’s true and you get out / apologize to everyone you let down.”
Journalist Ryan Grim, commenting on Platner’s video, noted that Platner “strongly suggests he is considering dropping out. Already Troy Jackson and Chellie Pingree, both gubernatorial candidates, are being kicked around in Maine circles as potential replacements.”
Several others, including Puck News’ Peter Hamby, predicted Platner will be dropping out.
Platner had postponed several campaign events before the Politico story was published.
— Graham Platner for Senate (@grahamformaine) July 6, 2026
President Donald Trump is facing backlash after posting a video of children — including showing their unblurred faces — graduating from kindergarten, with some of the girls purportedly wearing hijabs.
“President Trump posted a captionless video of graduating kindergarteners on Truth Social on Monday, goading his supporters into verbally attacking little children simply for being Muslim,” The New Republic reported. “The clip is from Gateway STEM Academy, a majority-Black K-8 public charter school in St. Paul, Minnesota. It shows about 21 children in caps and gowns on stage singing a song together. Most of the girls are wearing hijabs.”
The original post of the video which Trump reposted reads: “Public school in St. Paul, Minnesota. Every girl is in a hijab … in kindergarten.”
Trump did not add any comments. TNR called the post “Islamophobic, weird, and creepy,” while noting that the comments section of Trump’s post was filled with calls “by racist, xenophobic MAGA supporters” to “deport the children and ban hijabs.”
TNR also noted that it “should come as no surprise that Trump isn’t above attacking children who just learned how to read, but this post is still particularly discomforting—and will certainly contribute to the already potent level of anti-Muslim sentiment in the U.S. and in Minnesota.”
Critics blasted Trump.
“There is something deeply unsettling about the president of the United States—the most powerful person in the world—going after kindergarten schoolchildren in Minnesota because they wore hijabs, as Trump has done this morning on his website,” The Bulwark’s Sam Stein wrote.
One social media commentator wrote, “Trump posted an unblurred video of more than a dozen Muslim kindergartners to Truth Social, exposing the children’s faces while targeting them for their religion.”
Another added, “Trump is a bigot. The president took to Truth Social to attack kindergarteners in hijabs. These are little kids. The president isn’t just a bigot, he’s also a coward.”
The original video was posted to the X social media platform in June.
U.S. Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) at the time commented, “If you are in a public school in America, you should be speaking english.”
Image via Reuters
President Donald Trump’s apparent efforts to delay releasing the $5.8 million civil judgment to E. Jean Carroll are being met with a warning by the journalist’s legal team, who suggest there could be a legal maneuver for Trump to employ to forgo paying the judgment in either of the two cases he lost.
According to The Guardian, on July 4, U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan ordered Trump to release the $5.8 million judgment, which is in escrow, to Carroll by this coming Tuesday — or explain why he would not do so.
Carroll’s attorneys think Trump may be trying to buy time to mount another legal strategy, telling the judge that Trump’s request for an extension “appears to be little more than yet another play for time.”
“The case is separate from Trump’s appeal of a Manhattan civil jury’s 2024 award of $83.3m to Carroll for defamation,” The Guardian explains. “But her lawyers have suggested a legal scenario in which the president might seek to conjoin the cases and further delay payment of both.”
Carroll’s attorney Roberta Kaplan (no relation to the judge) wrote, “We can only assume that defendant is seeking … to buy time so he can try to concoct some new basis to put off paying plaintiff presumably in connection with his forthcoming petition and motion for a rehearing.”
Trump’s former attorney, Justin Smith, in one of his final acts, wrote to the Supreme Court suggesting that his client would be appealing the $83.3 million civil judgment.
Smith argued that the Supreme Court “may wish to consider the petitions together,” given they involve the same parties.
The larger judgment case involves possible questions of presidential immunity, and that has Carroll’s attorneys concerned.
“A conjoined case, Carroll’s lawyers fear, could result in both judgments being wiped out,” The Guardian reports.
The president has also made clear he is no fan of Judge Kaplan, after the jurist made several rulings that “angered” Trump.
“What else can you expect from a Trump Hating, Clinton appointed judge, who went out of his way to make sure that the result was as negative as it could possible be,” Trump wrote on Truth Social in 2023, “speaking to, and in control of, a jury from an anti-Trump area which is probably the worst place in the US for me to get a fair ‘trial’.”
Image via Reuters
Platner Scorched Over ‘Taking Time’ Video After New Accusation
Trump Sparks Fury Online After Posting Unblurred Video of Muslim Kindergartners in Hijabs
One Legal Maneuver Threatens to Undo Everything E. Jean Carroll Won
Inside the Group Helping MAGA Voters Walk Away — And What Finally Pushed Them
