Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis is considering filing a lawsuit against Bud Light for “wake-up” by associating with transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney.
More than three months after a sponsored Instagram mail with Mulvaney and a personalized can of Bud Light sparking fury and boycott from conservatives and anti-transgender activists, DeSantis and others continue to criticize the brand for allegedly promoting “woke ideology.”
DeSantis, who has made his crusade against “awakening” the focal point of his 2024 presidential campaign, sent a letter to the Florida pension fund manager on Thursday, calling for an investigation and possible litigation against Bud Light’s parent company, Anheuser-Busch InBev.
DeSantis claimed that the company endorsed “radical social ideologies” and “breached its legal duties to shareholders” by sponsoring Mulvaney’s post, according to a copy of the letter obtained by CNN.
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The governor argued that a drop in Bud Light sales and Anheuser-Busch InBev stock price that followed the controversy means the Florida pension fund is being forced to “subsidize an ideological agenda through wake-up virtue signaling.”
DeSantis expanded on the potential “anti-wake” lawsuit during an appearance on Fox News. Jesse Watters Primetime on Thursday night, declaring that the beer brand was “pursuing a political agenda” and ignoring its “fiduciary duty.”
“We are going to launch an investigation against Bud Light and InBev,” DeSantis saying. “And it could be something that leads to a derivative lawsuit filed on behalf of the shareholders of the Florida pension fund.
“At the end of the day, there must be penalties for sidelining business to focus on your social agenda at the expense of working people,” he added.
news week reached out to Anheuser-Busch InBev for comment by email late Thursday.
Despite speaking at length on the subject and introducing legislation like the “Stop Woke Act” in Florida, DeSantis said that “not everyone really knows what waking is” during an interview with CNN’s Jake Tapper earlier this week.
“I mean, I’ve defined it,” DeSantis told Tapper. “But a lot of people who criticize awakening can’t even define it.”
Former President Donald Trump, who continues to lead DeSantis by a wide margin in the 2024 Republican primary polls, made a very similar comment about the term “awakening” during a campaign stop in Iowa in early June, saying “half the people can’t even define it.”
Trump spokesman Steven Cheung said in a statement to news week that DeSantis had been “stealing President Trump’s messaging and political ideas since day one” when asked about similar comments.
“Ron DeSantis doesn’t have original thinking in that minor league brain of his,” Cheung said. “He’s nothing more than a mean, off-brand version of MAGA who can only dream of being President Trump.”
The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines “awakening” as “consciously and actively attentive to important facts and issues (especially issues of racial and social justice).”
“It originated in African-American English and gained more widespread use beginning in 2014 as part of the Black Lives Matter movement,” the dictionary says. state. “By the late 1980s, it was also being applied by some as a blanket pejorative for anyone who is or appears to be politically on the left.”