Florida GOP Chair Accused of Rape Instructed Moms for Liberty: ‘Apologizing Makes You Weak’

Florida GOP Chair Christian Ziegler trained members of his wife’s right-wing advocacy group Moms for Liberty on how to combat negative press during a June media training session. As of last week, Ziegler is under investigation regarding allegations of sexual assault brought forth by a woman involved in a long-term ménage à trois with him and his wife, Moms for Liberty co-founder Bridget Ziegler.

“Never apologize. Ever,” Christian Ziegler told members of the group during a training session covered by NBC News at Moms For Liberty’s national conference in June. “This is my view. Other people have different views on this. I think apologizing makes you weak.”

Ziegler discussed an early June incident in which an Indiana Moms for Liberty chapter had included a quote from Adolf Hitler in their “Parent Brigade” newsletter.  “He alone, who OWNS the youth, GAINS the future,” the quote read, with an attribution to Hitler at the top of the page. 

“We condemn Adolf Hitler’s actions and his dark place in human history. We should not have quoted him in our newsletter and we express our deepest apology,” Chapter Chair Paige Miller wrote in a statement apologizing for the quote’s inclusion after it made national headlines. 

Weeks later, Ziegler criticized the chapter’s handling of the controversy and advised them during his address that while the chapter correctly condemned the quote as “vile,” they should have pivoted back to their own messaging that the quote actually referenced the dangers of liberal indoctrination in public schools. 

“If you give [the media] the least amount possible, you’re fully controlling the message,” Ziegler told the conference. “The more you give them, the less you control. The less you give them, the more you control.”  

Ziegler is implementing a similar media strategy now that he’s embroiled in his own scandal. Last week, the Florida Center for Governmental Accountability’s news division, The Florida Trident, reported allegations that Ziegler was being investigated for sexually assaulting a woman involved in a long-term, three-way relationship with himself and his wife. Bridget Ziegler was reportedly not involved in the encounter, and charges have yet to be brought against her husband. 
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Zeigler denied the allegations of sexual assault but admitted to police that he had had sex with the woman on the date in question. In a statement released to his fellow Florida Republicans over the weekend, Ziegler wrote that “we have a country to save and I am not going to let false allegations of a crime put that mission on the bench as I wait for this process to wrap up.”

Despite Ziegler’s denials, and attempts to control the narrative, the fallout of the accusations is already in full force. On Monday, the Northumberland County, Pennsylvania, chapter of Moms for Liberty announced it would be breaking with its parent group, citing a misalignment in values “with the national organization.”

Later on Monday, the Republican Party of Florida called an emergency meeting to discuss Ziegler’s future as party chair, and the potential of “censure or discipline” against him. According to a report from The Miami Herald, which obtained a memo from State GOP Vice Chairman Evan Powers, the meeting will be held on Dec. 17, and Ziegler has declined to attend.    
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The pressure against Ziegler reached the highest levels of Florida’s government. On Friday, Florida’s Republican Governor Ron DeSantis called for him to step down. “I think he should step aside and think he should attend to that,” DeSantis told ABC News. “He’s innocent until proven guilty, but we just can’t have a party chair that is under that type of scrutiny.”

Spin that, Ziegler.