Apparently, no lessons were learned over at the Associated Press the last time one of their reporters spread fake news about Ron DeSantis.

As I reported on at the time, AP reporter Steve Peoples wrote a piece in which he claimed that DeSantis was avoiding voters and having trouble “connecting” with them (this was during the governor’s first trip to Iowa). That turned out to be completely false after others released videos of the Florida man mingling with people, taking pictures, and answering questions.

Eventually, an update was published to the aforementioned article acknowledging that the original reporting wasn’t correct. Unfortunately, but not surprisingly, the reporter in question has decided to simply double down on being terrible at his job. This time, though, DeSantis was on hand to respond directly, and he didn’t hold back.

This is the same Associated Press reporter who just a couple weeks ago spread the easily debunked lie that "DeSantis made little effort to connect with voters."

The AP was forced to delete that false line from its article after widespread backlash.https://t.co/7Z92YZ9Ogd

— Never Back Down (@NvrBackDown24) June 1, 2023

REPORTER: Why not take any questions from voters? Governor, how come you’re not taking questions from voters?

DESANTIS: People are coming up to me, talking to me. What are you talking about? I’m out here (inaudible) with people. Are you blind? Are you blind?

REPORTER: I’m not blind.

DESANTIS: Okay, so people are coming up to me, talking to me about whatever they want to talk to me about.

On a side note, I appreciate Never Back Down linking to my piece on the prior ordeal. Good to see Republican campaigns actually giving right-leaning news outlets the time of day, something that hasn’t always happened in the past.

Regardless, we don’t have to take DeSantis’ word for how things have been. Here’s a video that I found within a few seconds of reading about the exchange.

Here he is literally answering questions from voters yesterday. https://t.co/W5eKlQtlBt

— Bonchie (@bonchieredstate) June 1, 2023

In the video, you can see DeSantis being asked about whether his campaign will ballot harvest. He answers the question directly, saying that he will and that he “won’t fight with one arm tied behind my back.” So I guess the answer is yes, that this reporter is blind and can’t be bothered to do five minutes of basic research before popping off.

Conversely, Peoples is just a left-wing hack who seems to have an odd obsession with lying about DeSantis instead of just reporting the news. I don’t have to dive deep into why that might be given the political leanings over at the Associated Press. They want to destroy DeSantis because they fear him as a general election candidate.

Naive as the mainstream press may be, they believe they can coast to another general election win against Donald Trump (personally, I think they are playing with fire and that Trump can win if things fall right). They see DeSantis as having broader appeal among independents and in purple states like Georgia and Arizona. Thus, they’ve started this false narrative that he’s “stiff” or that he can’t interact with people on the campaign trail. Meanwhile, while Peoples is asking his silly, false question, DeSantis is literally seen interacting with people. Make it make sense.

But hey, at least this reporter’s fake news account wasn’t actually published this time. I guess that’s progress for an outlet with such a low level of credibility.