2024 Republican presidential candidate Gov. Ron DeSantis spoke out Thursday against the backlash to country star Jason Aldean's song and music video "Try That in a Small Town." DeSantis, alongside his wife Casey, said the U.S. is "off the rocker" when it comes to censorship issues and cancel culture on "Fox & Friends."
JASON ALDEAN 'TRY THAT IN A SMALL TOWN' CONTROVERSY PROOF OF A 'MORAL SICKNESS' IN AMERICA
GOV. RON DESANTIS: We need to restore sanity to this country. I mean, what is going on that that would be something that would be censored? Give me a break. We're off the rocker here in the United States with a lot of this stuff, with cancel culture, with big tech censorship, with a lot of stuff that the federal government's doing, policing so-called misinformation. We need to get back on kilter and start having a free society again and embracing truth. So I think it's part and parcel of a lot of the nonsense we've seen over the last many years.
Jason Aldean denied that his song, "Try That in a Small Town," has racial undertones in the wake of online backlash to the video, which was pulled from the CMT airwaves.
Aldean, 46, rejected the notion that the song referenced "race or points to it." In the music video, Aldean touts how small towns wouldn't put up with the kind of riots and lawlessness many cities across the country faced during the summer of 2020.
"In the past 24 hours I have been accused of releasing a pro-lynching song (a song that has been out since May) and was subject to the comparison that I (direct quote) was not too pleased with the nationwide BLM protests," Aldean shared with his nearly 8 million fans across social media.
"These references are not only meritless, but dangerous."
Brittany Aldean shared a selfie with her husband while on the beach and wrote, "Never apologize for speaking the truth."
"There is not a single lyric in the song that references race or points to it- and there isn’t a single video clip that isn’t real news footage -and while I can try and respect others to have their own interpretation of a song with music- this one goes too far," he wrote in posts shared on Instagram and Twitter.
Some of the lyrics in the song included in his forthcoming album include, "Yeah, ya think you're tough? Well, try that in a small town, see how far ya make it down the road. Around here, we take care of our own, you cross that line, it won't take long for you to find out, I recommend you don't."
Fox News' Tracy Wright contributed to this post.
JASON ALDEAN SUFFERS FROM HEAT STROKE IN HARTFORD, RUNS OFF STAGE MID-PERFORMANCE
