Yahoo Finance Live examines the news surrounding Disney's special tax status following Florida Governor DeSantis' signing a bill to amend that.

Video Transcript

DAVE BRIGGS: All right, so we asked a good question there-- what does it mean to be libertarian? What does it mean to be Republican? And that's because of, really, this breaking news here. On the battle between Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and Disney, the latest is the governor signing the bill into law that actually strips Disney of its self-governing tax status. And all sides are weighing in here.

The White House today weighed in, saying, DeSantis' punitive actions are just wrong, while former Republican Governor Charlie Crist turned Democrat says, DeSantis actually wants to be the King of Florida, not an elected official. And Brad, this is a very strange dynamic in which we're in. And I just mentioned what Rick said there about what does it mean to be libertarian. What does it mean to be Republican today? Because this is unlike anything we've ever seen-- a governor punishing a private company for its political stance. And that sets a very dangerous precedent in this country.

BRAD SMITH: Well, it's an overflow from what we've seen Trump do before. And if there's anybody that--

DAVE BRIGGS: You're right.

BRAD SMITH: --he is trying to lean into--

DAVE BRIGGS: That's true.

BRAD SMITH: --it's Trump's base. Trump, even the moment he was talking about running for campaign, and then eventually ended up becoming the president of the United States. After that, he directly started to take shots at companies who did not align with him. And so if there's anything that Governor Ron DeSantis is doing, it's going after companies that go against the GOP, the Republican Party, and whatever the Republican Party stands for at this point in time.

And it seems to be leaning more so into anything that is anti what progressives wants to see an agenda move forward around. And it's not just progressives. We should all be thinking collectively about what a progressed America looks like, not a conservative or a progressive, but what actual progress looks like in the future. If there's one thing I also take away from this, it's look at the counties that he's going after. Because this would affect Orange County and Osceola County. Those are two, in the most recent election, blue counties that went the way of President Joe Biden.

DAVE BRIGGS: You're not suspecting he did the math on that, are you?

BRAD SMITH: I am fully alleging that he did the math on this. And so with that in mind, in going after those two counties specifically, if you saw any type of population migration because of the taxation that would then be levied on those counties as a result of Disney not having to pay the same amount of taxes and the burden being so much more on the property taxes for individuals, then that directly impacts the voting power in those two counties because we know that counties that are near metropolitan areas typically lean blue. So in this, that has become more of a purple state-ish over the years or leaned-- or gotten closer to it. That's exactly where he's going after in this.

DAVE BRIGGS: But while this animates the small far-right base, as a guy who wants to run for president, I just can't imagine this is a large unifying issue--

BRAD SMITH: Why?

DAVE BRIGGS: --to take on a company that, up until three months ago, was universally loved and, again, a very dangerous precedent for a governor to be taking punitive actions over political stances. A lot to talk about with that one.