‘The Gloves Are Off’: Fiery DeSantis Spox Resigns From State Office, Heads To His Campaign | Eastern North Carolina Now

    Publisher's Note: This post appears here courtesy of the The Daily Wire. The author of this post is Mary Margaret Olohan.

    Republican Florida Governor Ron DeSantis' fiery press secretary has resigned from her state office in order to act as his re-election campaign's rapid response director.

    "I am starting a new job on Monday on the governor's reelection campaign," Christina Pushaw shared in a phone interview with The Daily Wire on Friday afternoon. "I'm going to be director of rapid response. So that's somewhat similar to what I'm doing now, except more political, obviously. And it'll involve both communications and research, which I'm really excited about."

    Pushaw said Friday that she will resign from her position effective August 12, thanking the governor and his officers for giving her "latitude to respond to media narratives in direct and often unconventional ways" and allowing her to "redefine this role for a leader whose actions speak for themselves."

    She emphasized that she has full confidence in her successor, Bryan Griffin, who formerly served as her deputy, noting that "the chance to play even a small part" in making Florida the "freest state in these United States," as DeSantis has previously said, "has truly been the opportunity of a lifetime."

    "Now, the gloves are off," she tweeted on Friday morning as The Florida Standard broke the news of her switch. Her tweet was a little "tongue-in-cheek," she shared laughingly with The Daily Wire, noting that she does not typically hold back with her responses to the press.

    "Traditionally for a state employee, you don't have a lot of latitude," she said. "But I've been really fortunate to have that latitude to respond, to debunk those false narratives for more than a year that I've been here."

    Now that she will be working on the governor's campaign, she'll be able to directly respond to whoever wins the Democratic gubernatorial nomination and be "more direct" in terms of how she responds to political attacks.

    "I think that is going to be important at this juncture, for the next three months," she said. "Our focus has to be on defeating those who would take Florida off the great path that it's been on under this governor."

    Pushaw has consistently called out the press for "bad-faith coverage" and "skewed" or biased reporting, using Twitter to expose media narratives or to call out specific reporters who she feels misrepresent the facts.

    "They're afraid of the governor," Pushaw said in a December interview with The Daily Signal. "The left-wing elites, the establishment, and the corporate media are very much afraid of him. And it shows that he's a good leader, and that he's doing a good job."

    "I often say I wish I didn't have to call people out on Twitter or be confrontational," Pushaw said at the time. "I always try to speak directly with the reporter first and see if I can get all their questions answered and get the information to them that they're looking for."

    "But the thing is," she added, "if I do that, and they publish something that's not true, then I have no choice but to say something direct and publicly about it and to condemn this."

    In her resignation letter, Pushaw described the historic challenges that Floridians have faced. These challenges have included "protecting the rights of citizens to earn a living, gather to worship and celebrate life's milestones, and raise their children free of unconstitutional mandates."

    It also includes "ensuring that every student is set up for a lifetime of success with high-quality education - not ideological indoctrination," she noted, and "unleashing economic opportunity and achieving stability at the state level - despite reckless inflationary spending and tax hikes at the federal level."

    She also emphasized the importance of "upholding the rule of law and keeping Floridians safe" as well as "protecting life, promoting fatherhood, supporting foster and adoptive families, and leading the country in the fight to defend parental rights."