The MSM must really want to see Trump and DeSantis fighting. Today CNN’s Manu Raju took DeSantis out of context to make it look like he was attacking Trump.
First, here’s the tweet. The question begins at the 31:00 minute mark and I’ll transcribe it all below:
DeSantis says one of his biggest regrets was not speaking out "louder" on Trump admin calls for lock down during the pandemic. "And I think it knowing now what I know, then if if that was a threat earlier, I would have been much louder." About 32 mins in: https://t.co/HaR1MOfHWY
— Manu Raju (@mkraju) January 14, 2022
QUESTIONER: Speaking of consequential decisions, you’ve clearly had a lot of successes here as governor of Florida. What one decision you have made are you the proudest of and what one decision, if you could go back and change, would you change if you could?
Skipping to the 2nd half of his answer…
DESANTIS: What could you do earlier? I think, when COVID was first coming we were actually engaged in it. I was telling Trump to stop the flights from China because we didn’t know what we were dealing with. But, I never thought in February, early March that it would lead to locking down the country. I just didn’t. I didn’t think that was on the radar. I had Pence and the CDC director down at Port Everglades talking about cruise ships the second week of March. No one was talking about shutting down the country. I think if knowing now, what I knew then, if that was a threat earlier, I would have been much louder about trying to say this is not… But what happened was people like Fauci panicked, they were following the data out of China which was not trustworthy. Fauci will say ‘Chinese scientists, their not communists, their scientists’….
QUESTIONER: Meanwhile he funded them…
DESANTIS: When you’re in China, you’re all controlled by the CCP. And yes, Fauci funded them at the Wuhan lab and he lied about it. Why is he not being prosecuted for lying to Congress?
DeSantis wasn’t attacking Trump. He was saying that if he knew then what he knows now, he would have been far more vocal.
If anything, he was attacking Fauci, who he blamed right there in the interview. It couldn’t have been more clear.
Christina Pushaw, the press secretary for DeSantis, said Raju got it wrong:
If you listen to the podcast that's not what he said. He was pretty clearly criticizing Fauci & co. Manu is a CNN reporter.
— Christina Pushaw 🐊 (@ChristinaPushaw) January 14, 2022
“Manu is a CNN reporter” says about everything about you need to know. Fake News!
Below is the full podcast for your listening pleasure: