While the battle for the 2024 nomination continues to get dumber and dumber, Ron DeSantis continues to stand tall in Florida. On Thursday, The Walt Disney Company amended its federal lawsuit against the governor, dropping all involved claims except for the First Amendment claim. 

Disney on Thursday amended its federal lawsuit against Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis to focus solely on its First Amendment claim that the governor politically retaliated against the company.

Disney last week had asked to drop its other claims in the case, which concern a dispute over Walt Disney World's development contracts, because they are being actively pursued in a separate state-level lawsuit in Florida.

"We will continue to fight vigorously to defend these contracts, because these agreements will determine whether or not Disney can invest billions of dollars and generate thousands of new jobs in Florida," a Disney spokesperson said in a statement to CNBC.

The usual suspects showed up to try to spin the development, but there is no truthful way to describe this except as a retreat. Disney did not want to have the contract claims decided in state court because Florida's judicial makeup is not favorable. Specifically, DeSantis has transformed the state's supreme court over his two terms in office from majority liberal to overwhelmingly conservative. 

Sorry, it's just wrong that Disney wanted claims it chose to bring in federal court decided in state court. Disney tried everything it could to avoid having the state issues decided there because if it loses on the Board's state claims (which are strong), these collapse. https://t.co/xGiBdTleaj

— Dan McLaughlin (@baseballcrank) September 7, 2023

The new board that oversees Disney was more than happy to see the company back down in federal court, as they feel their claims in state court are likely to prevail.

Regardless, the fact that Disney had filed a lawsuit never meant that Disney had "beaten" DeSantis. For example, I lost track of how many lawsuits were filed against the Trump administration. So what? That doesn't denote victory. Oppositional forces have to actually win in court to beat someone. DeSantis and the board certainly feel confident in their prospects. 

Disney's stock is currently at a year-to-date low, and it has less than half the value it had before DeSantis took office. Anyone who thinks that's "winning" is just a hack who wants to see the Florida governor fail at all costs. 

DiSnEy AtE HiS LuNcH https://t.co/A4SlelkFpK pic.twitter.com/mqBHQaz7dC

— Bonchie (@bonchieredstate) September 7, 2023

There have been a lot of ice-cold takes shared over the last year or so. I suspect that in the end, DeSantis will make them eat their words, to the extent that he hasn't already. Will they apologize? Of course, not.