DeSantis campaign staffer used Nazi imagery in a video supporting the candidate

A staffer working on the Ron DeSantis presidential campaign has been fired after creating and sharing a pro-DeSantis video that included Nazi imagery.

Speechwriter Nate Hochman has been identified as the aide behind a video that ends with DeSantis standing in front of a sonnenrad, an ancient European symbol used by the Nazis to stand for their belief in Aryan superiority. According to the Anti-Defamation League, the Nazi swastika is also a form of a sonnenrad.

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Hochman reportedly made the video in secret and shared it through an anonymous pro-DeSantis Twitter account, @desantiscams. He then proceeded to retweet the video, though the retweet has since been deleted. An official from the campaign told Axios that Hochman “is no longer with the campaign. And we will not be commenting on him further.”

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Hochman’s firing was part of a larger purge by the DeSantis campaign, as it was recently announced that the Florida governor is cutting a third of his campaign staff as part of a reported campaign “reset” to try to revive his weak standing in the polls. The layoffs were also related to the fact that the campaign has spent almost 40% of the $20 million it raised in the second quarter of this year – with many of those funds coming from maxed-out donors who cannot donate again, according to Politico.

This is also not the first time a DeSantis staffer has caused controversy with a secret video. The New York Times recently reported that another pro-DeSantis ad that was widely slammed by both Democrats and Republicans for its virulent homophobia was also produced by a DeSantis staffer before being sent to an outside resource to publish.

The bizarre video made DeSantis a universal laughingstock. It opened with several clips of Donald Trump expressing support for LGBTQ+ people and frames these comments as damning. After the clips of Trump the video abruptly shifts to intense music and a photo of DeSantis shooting lasers out of his eyes, followed by snapshots of headlines about the anti-LGBTQ+ laws DeSantis has passed.

The video proudly shares that DeSantis has been called “evil,” “dangerous,” “draconian,” and “public enemy no. 1” and even includes a clip accusing DeSantis of passing legislation “that literally threatens trans existence.” It also contains images of shirtless buff muscle men inter-spliced with these statements about how DeSantis is hurting LGBTQ+ people in his state.

DeSantis defended the video earlier this month, stating that “identifying Donald Trump as really being a pioneer in injecting gender ideology into the mainstream, where he was having men compete against women in his beauty pageants — I think that’s totally fair game. Because he’s now campaigning saying the opposite.”

Based on his campaign’s earlier statement about Hochman, it does not seem like he will be commenting on the video with Nazi symbolism.

DeSantis is currently in a distant second place in 2024 Republican primary polling, getting an average of 18.4% support in recent polls, according to RealClearPolitics, which is down from 21.5% earlier this month. Trump is in first with an average of 52.4%.