FACTOID: Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis served as a lawyer at Guantanamo from March 2006 to January 2007.
Vice reporters had secured on camera interviews with a former detainee, Mansoor Adayfi, and a guard at the prison, staff sergeant Joe Hickman. Both said they remembered seeing DeSantis at the prison during a controversial detainee hunger strike. The Vice crew traveled to Guantanamo Bay to attempt to try to speak to military staff, and made several attempts to ask DeSantis about the allegations directly, eventually confronting him at a press conference in Israel, according to a detailed description provided to Semafor.
Showtime Pulls ‘Vice’ Episode on Ron DeSantis
An installment delving into the Florida governor and Republican presidential candidate's time as a U.S. Navy JAG officer at Guantanamo Bay was quietly shelved without explanation.
No reason was given as to why the episode was pulled. “We don’t comment on scheduling decisions,” a Showtime spokesperson told The Hollywood Reporter.
In a statement, a rep for Vice told THR, “As with all current affairs programming there can be scheduling changes, and we are very much still in discussion about the scheduling of this episode. We are proud of our reporting and of our continuing partnership with Showtime.”
The description of the episode, as seen on cached versions of the Vice page on Showtime’s site, hinted at potentially explosive material about DeSantis, who recently entered the Republican presidential race.
- The episode’s description reads in part, “Seb Walker investigates allegations from former Guantanamo Bay detainees that Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis witnessed acts condemned by the United Nations as torture during his past service at the controversial detention camp as a Navy JAG officer.” (The “Chipping Away” part of the episode title refers to a different report on the “high-stakes race between the U.S. and China over the production of semiconductors.”)
Vice was first launched on HBO in 2013 as a collaboration with Vice Media and was known for gonzo-style journalism, such as sending Dennis Rodman to North Korea during its first season. The docuseries won two Emmys for HBO, which went on to launch daily news show Vice News Tonight in 2016. HBO canceled Vice in December 2018, and in 2019 Showtime picked up the show for additional seasons.
How Paramount buried a Vice documentary on Ron DeSantis at Guantanamo Bay
The Scoop
The episode opens with a shot of the outside the US prison complex at the southern tip of Cuba, where Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis served as a lawyer from March 2006 to January 2007.
Vice reporters had secured on camera interviews with a former detainee, Mansoor Adayfi, and a guard at the prison, staff sergeant Joe Hickman. Both said they remembered seeing DeSantis at the prison during a controversial detainee hunger strike.
- The Vice crew traveled to Guantanamo Bay to attempt to try to speak to military staff, and made several attempts to ask DeSantis about the allegations directly, eventually confronting him at a press conference in Israel, according to a detailed description provided to Semafor.
- (They were treated to a re-run of the scripted drama Yellowjackets.)
But in fact, two people familiar with the incident said, the Paramount-owned cable channel ditched the DeSantis episode over fears of the political consequences. One person briefed on the decision told Semafor that the company’s Washington lobbyist, DeDe Lea, raised concerns about the piece.
Showtime declined to comment on the decision to pull the episode.
“We not only stand behind our rigorous reporting but are proud of the incredible journalism showcased in this story,” a spokesperson for Vice, Elise Flick, told Semafor.
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