Disney Rejects Ron DeSantis’ Desire To Toss Judge For “Woke” Bias; Trump Rips Both GOP Rival & “Disgusting” Mouse House

deadline.com:

Having seen his 2024 White House bid embarrassingly misfire on the launch pad last week, Ron DeSantis is once again being mocked by both the Walt Disney Company and Donald Trump for his luckless battle with the Mouse House. “Defendants’ motion to disqualify is premised on a misapprehension of the law and a misstatement of the facts,” states Disney lawyers (read it here) of the Florida Governor’s attempt to toss the federal judge in the Boh Iger-run company’s “retaliation” suit against DeSantis.

Disney responded on May 25 to the May 19 motion by the Sunshine State’s Attorney General to have Chief Judge Mark E. Walker removed from the matter for his so-called bias against DeSantis and his appointees about “political rhetoric directed at ‘woke’ ideology, calling ‘woke’ the ‘boogeyman of the day.’” Citing “the Court’s lengthy record of consistent fairness and objectivity,” Disney’s Daniel Petrocelli-led league of lawyers slam the DeSantis administration for cherry picking Judge Walker’s comment and taking legal precedent out of context: Defendants …base their motion on two year-old hypothetical questions during prior judicial proceedings where the Court accurately referred to widely-publicized statements from Florida legislators about their intent to change the governing structure of the Reedy Creek Improvement District (“RCID”) specifically because Disney expressed a political viewpoint disfavored by the legislators.

The Court did not make any findings about those statements, but simply invoked them during oral arguments as examples to test arguments being advanced by counsel addressing different issues under different factual records.