Last night Governor Ron DeSantis called out Trump for how he let Fauci run the country during COVID.
In case you missed it, here’s what DeSantis said:
Ron DeSantis fought against Fauci every day to protect our freedoms.
Donald Trump handed his government over to Fauci for an entire year, and even gave him a Presidential Commendation on his second to last day in office. pic.twitter.com/t2aK721ZeM
— Never Back Down (@NvrBackDown24) July 31, 2023
Well today Trump is pushing articles on Trump Social that claim DeSantis was praising Fauci in the spring of 2020. Here’s one such post:
From the article, here’s what it said:
Speaking at a news briefing on March 21, 2020, DeSantis made similar comments praising Fauci.
“The president’s task force has been great,” DeSantis said. “I mean, you’ve called, you know, we’ve talked Dr. Fauci number of times, talked to, you know, the surgeon, US surgeon general number of times, VP, you know, they’ve been really, really good and really, really helpful.”
At other press briefings in March 2020, DeSantis also cited Fauci’s guidance on mobile testing, individual testing, and how long the timeline on COVID might be.
“I would defer to people like Dr. Fauci,” DeSantis said on March 14, 2020. “I think Dr. Fauci has said nationwide, you’re looking at six to eight weeks of where we’re really gonna be having to dig in here.”
On March 25, 2020, DeSantis cited Fauci’s guidance on isolating.
“So please, please if you’re one of those people who’ve come from the hot zone, Dr. Fauci said yesterday, you know, you have a much higher chance being infected coming out of that region than anywhere else in the country right now. So please, you need to self-isolate. That’s the requirement in Florida.”
Okay let’s get real here. This was during the first month of the pandemic when people were still trying to figure out what was going on. There was much we didn’t know about the COVID virus and how it spread and with the ventilator shortage, nobody wanted to get it. There was a lot of fear around the country and we all remember seeing it.
Even during the interview clip we shared above, DeSantis acknowledged the uncertainty of the time saying “Back at that time there was a lot of uncertainty, I get it. But knowing what we know now, [locking down the US] was a catastrophic mistake and we can never let that happen to our country again.”
Early on it looked like Fauci was doing a good job. But that quickly changed and, as the article stated, DeSantis was one of the first governors with plans to open everything back up and keep it open. Fauci fought him on this and, as DeSantis indicated in the interview, Trump left Fauci in the position of power and that’s what he’s criticizing. DeSantis is not trying to rewrite history.
These efforts to try and paint DeSantis as a hypocrite on Fauci are deceptive at best and it tells me DeSantis is over the mark. This has Trump very worried because he knows he’s vulnerable on this. Why else would Trump put out post after post after post attacking DeSantis on this today if he weren’t very worried.