DeSantis Torches Trump on COVID

As the CDC brings COVID back into focus for fall, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis called out former President Donald Trump’s handling of the pandemic.

DeSantis gave an interview to Fox News Radio where host Jimmy Failla asked about Trump’s allegations that the Florida governor took cues from former White House chief medical adviser Anthony Fauci.

“In fact, during that time in COVID, particularly the summer of 2020 and beyond, the Florida media was used … the Trump administration as a cudgel to attack me. Because they say, ‘Governor DeSantis is not following the White House guidelines. He has restaurants open. He has all this other stuff.’ And they were constantly coming back to that. So that’s just the reality,” he said.

DeSantis said Trump and his administration need “to own what they did” and said “those mistakes” would never happen again if he is elected in 2024.

“You can take that to the bank with me. But Donald Trump, he’s basically saying he did everything right, and I think that means you should understand he would do the same thing all over again if put in that position. And that would be disastrous for our country,” DeSantis said.

Trump has criticized many governors for how they handled the pandemic, but DeSantis slammed Trump for pushing back on their decisions to roll back restrictions.

At the time in 2020, Trump said he “strongly” opposed Georgia Governor Brian Kemp’s decision to reopen some indoor businesses against White House guidelines.

“I want him to do what he thinks is right, but I disagree with him on what he’s doing,” Trump said at a White House press briefing.

Both Kemp and DeSantis took issue with a video of Trump where he called governors out as “COVID Tyrants”.

“@BrianKempGA and @RonDeSantis were right and Donald Trump was wrong,” James Uthmeier, DeSantis’s chief of staff and campaign manager, posted in response.