Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has increasingly become one of the left’s favorite targets. So it should come as no surprise that he drew the ire of the media on Thursday after he fired back at President Biden for lecturing him on his coronavirus leadership.
After Biden publicly rebuked the governor for banning mask mandates in Florida schools, DeSantis slammed the president for allowing COVID positive illegal immigrants into the country and flying them to states like Florida. Both Morning Joe host Joe Scarborough and The View’s Sunny Hostin went after DeSantis this morning in a pathetic effort to defend Biden.
On The View, Hostin maliciously smeared the Governor as “directly” responsible for people dying from COVID. She touted debunked allegations that he “hid” the death toll in his state, calling him “DeathSantis:”
[F]or those people that think Governor DeSantis, DeathSantis, is doing such a great job in Florida, well, he's not doing such a great job because there are allegations that he hid the death numbers. There are allegations -- and now he doesn't want mask mandates. He's coming after Joe Biden which is absolutely ridiculous. We know this is all political. He wants to run for president. I don't want a president who directly led to the deaths of people, and may be hiding death numbers. That's not what makes a great president. It's definitely not Ron DeSantis.
Hostin also blamed President Trump and Fox News for people dying from the virus:
We know that the prior administration bungled it, mishandled the vaccine rollout, mishandled the messaging from the very beginning, and so, you know, 600,000 people did not have to die….
You know, public health is a collaborative effort, and when you look at Fox News as Joy mentioned, is now changing the messaging, 27% of viewers now say they probably or definitely won't get vaccinated, but 37% of viewers said that in March. So Fox News bears a lot of responsibility for vaccine hesitancy.
But conservative co-host Meghan McCain disagreed, pointing out that polls show the public disapproves of Biden’s handling of the virus:
[W]hat I think is really interesting is this recent Quinnipiac poll that said Americans' approval rating of President Biden's handling of the coronavirus in May was at 65% and now in July it's at 53%. It's a pretty big leap down. So people can place blame on people like Ron DeSantis and you know, Asa Hutchinson and whoever else, but the buck does stop with the president…
She also aptly pointed out that the more the left and the media attack DeSantis, the more popular he will become with the right. McCain asked her co-hosts why people were leaving blue states and cities for Florida and Texas if their governor's COVID policies were unpopular:
I mean, he's [DeSantis] such a target for the left right now. Everybody should keep attacking him because it's just making him more powerful and more likely to be the nominee for president. He knows what is he's doing, and a lot of the reason why he has popularity because of the way he's handled mask mandates and freedoms and opening up the beaches in Florida, and again, there's not an exodus out of these major cities like, you know, New York and Los Angeles and, you know, places like we're seeing all across the country from these blue-led areas into red states. This absolute exodus that's happening, culturally if there's not a problem.
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Read the transcript below:
The View
8/5/2021
WHOOPI GOLDBERG: Sunny, is it a little too late for all of this going on? I mean, Republicans are reversing themselves some for the good -- for the betterment of the people. This is a good thing, yes?
SUNNY HOSTIN: Mm-hmm. Well, it is a good thing, but the question is, is it too little, too late? We have over 600,000 Americans including my husband's parents that are now dead from the coronavirus. We know that the prior administration bungled it, mishandled the vaccine rollout, mishandled the messaging from the very beginning, and so, you know, 600,000 people did not have to die, and if you think about what's still going on right now in Texas and in Florida, they -- those states account for one-third of the new cases. There are 50,000 COVID patients lying in hospital beds. That didn't have to happen, you know, also think about it. You know, public health is a collaborative effort, and when you look at Fox News as Joy mentioned, is now changing the messaging, 27% of viewers now say they probably or definitely won't get vaccinated, but 37% of viewers said that in March. So Fox News bears a lot of responsibility for vaccine hesitancy.
Texas and Florida, especially Florida, for those people that think Governor DeSantis, DeathSantis, is doing such a great job in Florida, well, he's not doing such a great job because there are allegations that he hid the death numbers. There are allegations -- and now he doesn't want mask mandates. He's coming after Joe Biden which is absolutely ridiculous. We know this is all political. He wants to run for president. I don't want a president who directly led to the deaths of people, and may be hiding death numbers. That's not what makes a great president. It's definitely not Ron DeSantis.
GOLDBERG: Right. So Meghan, is this a reckoning for both sides, for left, right and center as we watch our COVID response?
MEGHAN MCCAIN: Um, I mean, what I think is really interesting is this recent Quinnipiac poll that said Americans' approval rating of President Biden's handling of the coronavirus in May was at 65% and now in July it's at 53%. It's a pretty big leap down. So people can place blame on people like Ron DeSantis and you know, Asa Hutchinson and whoever else, but the buck does stop with the president and the president in charge, and the narrative oh he's only been here for eight months. The American public doesn't care. They look to our leaders and the buck stops at the president. If I were Democrat, I would be concerned about why these numbers are going down with the approval rating and in regards to Ron DeSantis, I mean, he's such a target for the left right now. Everybody should keep attacking him because it's just making him more powerful and more likely to be the nominee for president. He knows what is he's doing, and a lot of the reason why he has popularity because of the way he's handled mask mandates and freedoms and opening up the beaches in Florida, and again, there's not an exodus out of these major cities like, you know, New York and Los Angeles and, you know, places like we're seeing all across the country from these blue-led areas into red states. This absolute exodus that's happening, culturally if there's not a problem.
