Asked on Monday for his response to the criticism from some Democratic politicians that he was supposedly absent when he was in fact helping his wife Casey with her treatment for breast cancer, DeSantis pointedly referenced President Biden’s trip last week back to his home state of Delaware, where he and his wife Jill, both triple-vaccinated, were seen masked as they were alone on the beach.
A reporter asked, “What do you make of this hysteria when you were on your so-called vacation this past week?” Florida Agriculture Commissioner Nikki Fried, who is running for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination, had slammed DeSantis in late December, sneering, “I don’t know where he is. But quite honest, even if he was here, he wouldn’t be doing anything anyhow, and we know that.”
On December 31, Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez echoed, “Hasn’t Gov. DeSantis been inexplicably missing for like 2 weeks? If he’s around, I would be happy to say hello. His social media team seems to have been posting old photos for weeks. In the meantime, perhaps I could help with local organizing. Folks are quite receptive here.”
DeSantis fired back at his critics, “I guess I should have been at the beach in Delaware, right? And they would have been really happy with that. We actually put out the schedule, and I think these people didn’t know that. They think because you’re not doing a big press conference you’re not doing [anything],” he continued.
“Friday, Kevin, Joe and I all had discussions about doing what we’re doing,” DeSantis continued. “Course, I was down in Miami later. Thursday, in the office working on this and some other stuff. And it’s true: Wednesday there was nothing on the calendar. So I think they’re like, ‘Oh, my God. He’s on vacation.’ I just looked at my wife and I’m like, ‘Going to the hospital with you is not a vacation for you, I know that.’”
“This is something that as a husband I think I should be doing,” DeSantis declared. “I’ve accompanied her to all her chemotherapy treatments and she’s there for a long time. I’m there most of the time, but it’s a draining thing. When she’s done with it, it’s not something that’s great to see. And so I just think that a lot of people, particularly people who have gone through breast cancer treatments, the notion that that would be considered a vacation is I think offensive to a lot of those folks, and they understand what you’re doing.”
He lauded his wife: “At the same time, she’s committed to not being in the fetal position the whole time. And she’s not through with it, but she’s almost through with it, and I think she’s going to end up good on the other end of it. But that’s just the way she is. …”
He concluded, “All I can tell you is sometimes we just try to get this stuff done…we don’t do political; we just want to help people with this. But when you’re in the political arena, sometimes you’re fortunate in the enemies that you have. These are folks that are just not shooting straight right now.”