Ron DeSantis rehashes Obama-era Muslim reference

Space shuttle Atlantis is seen as it launches from pad 39A on Friday, July 8, 2011, at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla. The launch of Atlantis, STS-135, is the final flight of the shuttle program, a 12-day mission to the International Space Station. Photo Credit: (NASA/Bill Ingalls)

Florida’s Governor delivered an unexpected history lesson during a press conference, though it wasn’t immediately clear if his audience got the reference.

In remarks at Titusville’s Valiant Air Command, Inc. Warbird Museum, Gov. Ron DeSantis griped about comments made nearly a decade and a half ago by a former head of NASA around the time “they retired the space shuttle” program.

“I remember the head of NASA at the time said that the primary responsibility of NASA was to, you know, make the Muslim world feel better about their contributions to science,” DeSantis said. “I don’t think that’s why NASA was created.”

The Governor’s comments were a reference to remarks made in 2010 by former NASA chief Charles Bolden, in which the Barack Obama appointee said that kind of outreach was a priority, as the President wanted him “to find a way to reach out to the Muslim world and engage much more with predominantly Muslim nations to help them feel good about their historic contribution to science, math and engineering.”

The comments, made to Al Jazeera, were transcribed by Space.com. And though they had little to do with the space shuttle program, they created a stir at the time, with the Obama administration forced to offer more context and clarification.

A NASA spokesperson said then that “NASA’s core mission remains one of space exploration, science and aeronautics. Administrator Bolden regrets that a statement he made during a recent interview mischaracterized that core mission. The success of NASA’s efforts is increasingly enhanced by mutual cooperation with dozens of other countries around the world that are also committed to these efforts.”

“That was not his task, and that’s not the task of NASA,” White House spokesperson Robert Gibbs said, as reported contemporaneously by the Christian Science Monitor.

Despite the misinterpreted Muslim comments, Bolden would stay in the role through 2017.

The Governor’s tough talk about the Islamic world is a recurring theme in his public remarks, such as his advice this year to “expel from Congress, denaturalize and deport” Democratic U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar after she said Somalia’s interests mattered to her.

During a campaign stop in Iowa, the Florida Governor maligned Bethlehem as a “pigsty” and a “disgrace” just two days before Christmas 2023, complaining of the “intentional” mosque offending his sensibilities on that occasion, and saying control by Palestinian Arabs was the problem.