Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida has had a complex relationship with Donald Trump, the president who lives in his state and has worked to influence politics there. DeSantis was backed by Trump when he first ran for governor, and the two were allied, but then DeSantis ran against Trump for president in 2024. After Trump emerged victorious in the primary and then the election, the two appeared to mend fences, and DeSantis has mostly praised the president in public comments.
Then, this week, a heckler attacked DeSantis for that relationship.
The Florida governor, at an event Thursday, was speaking, when a protester got up and started yelling at him.
“Is that your f*king legacy? You bow down to a f*king pedophile! You’re a f*king pedophile!,” the heckler said, presumably about Donald Trump and his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein.
Stay up-to-date with the latest news!
Subscribe and start recieving our daily emails.
The event was to discuss Florida’s state-level version of DOGE, although at the moment he was interrupted, DeSantis was paying tribute to wrestling legend Hulk Hogan, a Florida resident, who had passed away earlier that day, Fox News reported.
BREAKING: Chaos at a DeSantis event today, a protester stood up and screamed:
“Is that your f*king legacy? You bow down to a f*king pedophile! You’re a f*king pedophile!”
The Epstein fallout isn’t fading, it’s detonating in real time. And DeSantis just got dragged straight into… pic.twitter.com/FfSkNFWWqV
— Brian Allen (@allenanalysis) July 24, 2025
The heckler also made reference to “Alligator Alcatrez,” the immigrant detention center in the Everglades that DeSantis set up earlier this month, Fox said, as DeSantis shared memories of watching Hogan wrestle Andre the Giant at Wrestlemania III in 1987. It has not been reported in the media who the heckler was.
“I was sad to see the news that Hulk Hogan passed away today. He was a major icon for anybody in Gen X,” DeSantis said in his remarks about the late wrestler.
Also this week, DeSantis floated the possibility of mid-decade redistricting, to potentially redraw Florida’s Congressional district map to give his party more seats.
DeSantis floats mid-decade redistricting for Florida congressional seats https://t.co/FhTtwyF3pj
— POLITICO (@politico) July 24, 2025
“Florida, you know, we got a raw deal on the census,” DeSantis said this week during an event in Bradenton, as reported by Politico. “We only got one seat when some of these other states were getting seats, when we’ve obviously had more growth. We should have gotten at least two.”
Photo courtesy of the Political Tribune media library.
