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Ron DeSantis’ presidential campaign fired a staffer on Tuesday after he shared — and allegedly made — a campaign ad featuring a Nazi symbol edited over DeSantis’ head.
The DeSantis campaign told NBC News on Tuesday that staffer Nate Hochman was “no longer with the campaign” and that they would “not be commenting on him further,” just days after Hochman received backlash for retweeting the unofficial ad on Twitter.
The ad opened with a character looking grimly at a list of former President Donald Trump’s failures before DeSantis appears as the savior from a glowing door. The video then showed a video of soldiers marching as the Sonnenrad symbol — which was displayed in Nazi SS leader Heinrich Himmler’s Wewelsburg castle — appeared over DeSantis’ head.
Since World War II, the Sonnenrad symbol has been used by neo-Nazi organizations and Ukraine’s Azov Battalion, and it is listed as a hate symbol by the Anti-Defamation League.
Axios reported on Tuesday that Hochman — who has written for the New York Times and National Review — had not just shared the video, but also “secretly created” it, citing an unnamed source “familiar with the matter.” However, this has not been confirmed.
The incident wasn’t the first time that DeSantis’ presidential campaign came under fire for sharing a controversial video.
Last month, the DeSantis campaign was condemned by LGBT Republicans after it shared a bizarre video attacking Trump’s connections to the LGBT community.
Trump’s former acting Director of National Intelligence, Richard Grenell, called the ad “undeniably homophobic,” while the Log Cabin Republicans called it “dangerous and politically stupid.”