Morning Joe on Tuesday ripped into Ron DeSantis for perceived Covid sins. Washington Post editor and MSNBC analyst Eugene Robinson said Republican Florida Governor DeSantis' prohibition of localities mandating masks, and talk of withholding the pay of school officials who try to mandate them, was "criminal." Mike Barnicle passionately agreed, saying that DeSantis is "going to roll the dice with children’s lives . . . under the guise of ambition, his political ambition, running for higher office, AKA the presidency."
Here's some Robinson's comments:
ROBINSON: Sickening and killing your political supporters seems to me that the stupidest and most short-sighted political strategy I've ever heard of. Yet, that's what DeSantis is doing. He wants to inherit the Trump wing of the Republican party. And so he’s being Trumpier than thou . . . Do you want really want your child to be sick in the hospital? Sick enough to go to the hospital with Covid? Do you want any of the children in your state to suffer that fate?
Yet, that’s what Desantis is insisting on. He’s insisting that pediatric wards fill with Covid patients. It is outrageous to say the least, and frankly, it's, it’s criminal. It should be criminal. I mean, he’s harming people. You know, in search of his own political aims and it’s just disgusting.
No word from the Morning Joe crew on the dangers posed to Americans by the Biden policy of letting countless thousands of illegal immigrants untested for Covid flood the country, with three-out-of-ten reportedly refusing the vaccine.
Morning Joe ripping Ron DeSantis's perceived Covid sins was sponsored in part by Liberty Mutual, GMC, and Amazon.
Here's the transcript. Click "expand" to read more:
MSNBC
Morning Joe
8/10/21
6:29 am EDTMIKE BARNICLE: Lamar Jackson is a tremendous quarterback, a tremendous athlete, there's no doubt about that, Willie. But he’s not a team guy, because he has just proven that he’s not a team guy. . . . If Lamar Jackson transfers whatever element of Covid he might still have or might still get in the future, and risks his team forfeiting a game, that’s a loss for the team. So already he’s proven: not a team guy. The other aspect of it, getting Covid twice and still being worried about the vaccine. I mean, that is truly mystifying.
. . .
MIKA BRZEZINSKI: Gene, one of your recent columns in the Washington Post is entitled, "Too many Republicans are taking Covid-19’s side in the fight against the pandemic." And you write in part this: "This is the GOP’s pandemic now. Cynical and irresponsible Republican politicians have created an environment that is killing Americans who shouldn’t have to die. Swamping hospital systems with desperately ill patients. And they’ve done so in their own self-interest . . . Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has taken the position that pandemic public health measures are an intolerable assault on personal freedom -- a message many rank-and-file Republicans apparently welcome. Their basic message: your body, your choice, nobody else’s business."
And, of course, this was written before governor DeSantis threatened the salaries of school system employees. I mean, the Republican brand, like visually, is going to be the Covid virus. They’re siding with death!
. . .
ROBINSON: Sickening and killing your political supporters seems to me that the stupidest and most short-sighted political strategy I've ever heard of. Yet, that's what DeSantis is doing. He wants to inherit the Trump wing of the Republican party. And so he’s being Trumpier than thou . . . Do you want really want your child to be sick in the hospital? Sick enough to go to the hospital with Covid? Do you want any of the children in your state to suffer that fate?
Yet, that’s what Desantis is insisting on. He’s insisting that pediatric wards fill with Covid patients. It is outrageous to say the least, and frankly, it's, it’s criminal. It should be criminal. I mean, he’s harming people. You know, in search of his own political aims and it’s just disgusting.
BARNICLE: I would submit that this is the biggest, most important story in the country right now. Because it is a story of ego and blind ambition, all encapsulated in one man, Ron DeSantis. A graduate of Yale University, Harvard law school, who now is Governor of Florida, and is basically saying to the parents in the state of Florida, I’m going to roll the dice with your childrens' lives. That is basically what he is saying and doing. All under the guise of ambition, his political ambition, running for higher office, AKA the presidency.
