The reason Disney canceled constructing a $1 billion office complex in Orlando has little to do with Governor Ron DeSantis’ battle against the company’s woke priorities, Daily Wire editor emeritus Ben Shapiro said on his show Friday.

Disney actually scuttled the project because of economic blows it has taken unrelated to the state of Florida revoking special tax privileges from its Walt Disney World campus. In addition, the new office space planned for Florida received a wave of pushback internally from employees who did not want to relocate to the Sunshine State, according to Shapiro.

“Disney is spinning the fact that they are in a state of economic free-fall as a woke corporate stand,” Shapiro said.

In an email to Disney employees on Thursday, Disney Parks Chairman Josh D’Amaro said the company was canceling the $1 billion proposed investment in Florida. The cancelation came after CEO Bob Iger in an earnings call last week upped his attacks on DeSantis for cracking down on the company for pushing the state to embrace transgender ideology.

“We have a huge opportunity to continue to invest in Florida. I noted that our plans were to invest $17 billion over the next 10 years, which is what the state should want us to do. We operate responsibly. We pay our fair share of taxes. We employ thousands of people there,” Iger said.

“Does the state want us to invest more, employ more people, and pay more taxes or not?” he asked.

Shapiro said that Iger and Disney are trying to hide the real reasons the business is faltering by placing the blame on DeSantis.

“Basically, what happened here is that Disney does not have the money or the wherewithal right now to build a $1 billion project in Orlando. How do we know this? Because it is perfectly obvious to everyone,” Shapiro said.

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The Daily Wire host pointed out that Disney’s streaming service has declined recently. The platform has lost around 4 million subscribers so far this year and had to cut thousands of jobs in cost-cutting measures. In addition, the office complex had been delayed for years since it was announced in 2021, and it was expected to be delayed years longer.

Iger was also not a fan of the project. He believed that building the office space and moving Disney’s Imagineering workforce, which works with Disney’s movie studios to develop theme park rides and attractions, to Florida when the movie studios are located in California made little sense, according to The New York Times. The original proposal to move Imagineering to Florida was made under former Disney CEO Bob Chapek.

“This notion that this is something new, like it’s brand new that they’re deciding to do kill the project, that is not true,” Shapiro said.

“Disney is doing this because they are losing money. Disney has a problem,” Shapiro said, pointing out that the company’s stock price has cratered and lost about half its value since hitting a high in early 2021.

“Do you think that this was Bob Iger looking at the fact that they have been bleeding money and saying, ‘We’re not spending $1 billion on a campus that just moved some employees from one state to another?’ Do you think it’s that? The bleeding of money?” Shapiro asked. “Or do you think that he was just that invested in making sure that third graders could read Gender Queer at the library? Which one do you think it is?”

(Disclosure: The Daily Wire has announced plans for kids’ entertainment content.)

The founder of a charitable organization has been accused of fabricating a story about homeless veterans being kicked out of New York hotel rooms to make room for migrants.

State Assemblyman Brian Maher told the Times Union this week that he had been misled about a situation purportedly involving homeless veterans, adding that he was “devastated and disheartened” as the story unfolded.

The initial report, from the New York Post, featured claims from Sharon Toney-Finch, CEO of the Yerik Israel Toney Foundation, who said that 20 homeless veterans were told they would need to end their stay early at hotels not far from New York City and find somewhere else to go.

After publication, the story earned widespread attention and bipartisan condemnation, with Republicans and Democrats in New York calling for investigations. Now, with allegations coming out that the whole story was false, Maher has asked the attorney general of Orange County, where the expulsions allegedly took place, and New York’s district attorney to investigate potential misconduct by the Yerik Israel Toney Foundation.

“This is something I believe hurt a lot of people,” Maher said, who explained that he had spoken with individuals he believed to have been veterans displaced by migrants and someone who was said to have transported the migrants from the hotels they were staying at.

Maher said he was left waiting for three hours at a bank to meet up with Toney-Finch to verify that the foundation had paid for shelter for the veterans. A receipt that was purported to be from the organization that had previously been given as proof appeared to have been altered, according to state lawmakers who spoke with the Times Union.

The claim was also disputed by several of the hotels that were implicated in the initial report, saying that Toney-Finch’s narrative was not true. Todd Solloway, an attorney for Crossroads Hotel, said in a Wednesday letter that there “are not now, and never were, any group of veterans at the hotel and certainly none were kicked out to make way for migrant asylum seekers.”

“My client and their staff are receiving serious threats — including death threats — from all over the county as a result of his false accusation,” he added. “And, this morning, the staff at the Hotel were forced to call 911 to seek protection against someone who was menacing the staff at the hotel, claiming he was looking for the veterans.”

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According to Maher, he has worked with Toney-Fitch, an Iraq War veteran who received the Purple Heart, and her foundation several times over the last few years. He said that he asked for her to provide evidence several times in multiple phone calls as he began to believe he may have been lied to.

“Shortly after that, when I asked her why she would make something like that up, she said, ‘I had to help the veterans,’” he told the New York Post.

“Their gross misrepresentation of the facts surrounding our homeless veterans is appalling,” the lawmaker added in a statement.