On the next episode of “The Ben Shapiro Show Sunday Special,” Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) discusses why he was treated as a villain by the media throughout the COVID-19 pandemic and the hypocrisy of those viewed as heroes during the same time.
DeSantis revealed that some of the governors and mayors who locked down their states or cities would then travel to Florida and be “out at the pool, drinking a margarita.”
“And it was like clockwork. That that would happen throughout COVID,” he said.
When asked by Daily Wire co-founder and editor emeritus Ben Shapiro about whether he was surprised to become the media’s COVID villain, DeSantis said he was not, and explained exactly how the media operated.
“They started weaponizing COVID against Trump and I think their meta narrative was, you know, Trump was bad,” DeSantis said. “That’s why they elevated people [former New York Gov. Andrew] Cuomo, because they were saying this is true leadership opposed to Trump.”
DeSantis added that he believed he was targeted specifically because he was a Republican in a key battleground state in an election year and that the media still refuses to acknowledge certain facts about COVID-19.
“I also think there was a lot of pressure on the media from some of these scientific elites. They didn’t want a control group because they were advocating policies that were going to have a hugely detrimental effect to the social fabric,” DeSantis said. “And if you could show a Sweden or a Florida or some of these other places that didn’t pay those terrible costs and still had similar outcomes in terms of COVID, then it would show that what they were advocating was not only misguided but it was actually harmful.”
DeSantis told Shapiro that Florida looked at the data and used a science-based approach to handling the pandemic that allowed Florida to fare better than many states that completely “kneecap[ed]” their society.
That “doesn’t stop the virus,” DeSantis said.
“It would be one thing if we could all just go in a cave for two weeks and the virus would disappear, but that is not true. So, you’re going to have to deal with it. And I think we’re finding that out now because you look, some of these very highly vaccinated countries in Europe are having massive spikes; Vermont in the United States hitting records,” he added. “So, that’s just the reality, and I think that living with it and not destroying your society was something that made sense. And, quite frankly, was what the literature up until COVID for pandemic preparedness had said, they always said, don’t let the fear overcome society. You have to keep things going.”
This episode of “The Ben Shapiro Show Sunday Special” will be available to Daily Wire users at midnight Central Time.