Ron DeSantis wants to sue Bud Light

Republican Florida Governor Ron DeSantis is considering launching a lawsuit against Bud Light for going “woke” by teaming up with transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney.

More than three months after a sponsored Instagram post featuring Mulvaney and a custom can of Bud Light sparked fury and a boycott from conservatives and anti-transgender activists, DeSantis and others are continuing to rail against the brand for supposedly promoting “woke ideology.”

DeSantis, who has made his crusade against the “woke” the focal point of his 2024 presidential campaign, sent a letter to Florida’s pension fund manager on Thursday, requesting an investigation and potential litigation against Bud Light parent company Anheuser-Busch InBev.

DeSantis claimed that the company endorsed “radical social ideologies” and “breached legal duties owed to its shareholders” by sponsoring the post from Mulvaney, according to a copy of the letter obtained by CNN.

The governor argued that a drop in sales for Bud Light and the price of shares for Anheuser-Busch InBev that followed the controversy means that Florida’s pension fund is being forced into “subsidizing an ideological agenda through woke virtue signaling.”

DeSantis expanded on the potential “anti-woke” 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’re going to be launching an inquiry against Bud Light and InBev,” DeSantis said. “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’s gotta be penalties for when you put business aside to focus on your social agenda at the expense of hardworking people,” he added.

Newsweek reached out to Anheuser-Busch InBev for comment via email on Thursday night.

Despite extensively speaking on the topic and introducing legislation like the “Stop Woke Act” in Florida, DeSantis said that “not everyone really knows what wokeness 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 rail against wokeness can’t even define it.”

Former President Donald Trump, who continues to lead DeSantis by a wide margin in 2024 GOP primary polls, made a very similar comment about the term “woke” during a campaign stop in Iowa in early June, saying that “half the people can’t even define it.”

Trump spokesperson Steven Cheung said in a statement to Newsweek that DeSantis had been “stealing President Trump’s messaging and policy ideas from Day One” when asked about the similar comments.

“Ron DeSantis doesn’t have an original thought in that minor league brain of his,” said Cheung. “He’s nothing more than a mid, off-brand version of MAGA that can only dream about being President Trump.”

The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines “woke” as being “aware of 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 states. “By the end of that same decade it was also being applied by some as a general pejorative for anyone who is or appears to be politically left-leaning.”