Governor Ron DeSantis (R-FL) made it clear once again that he had no use for Dr. Anthony Fauci, who still serves as President Joe Biden’s chief medical advisor.
DeSantis and Florida Surgeon General Joseph Lapado joined Fox News host Laura Ingraham for a town hall event that aired on Thursday evening, and neither had anything nice to say about Fauci — particularly with regard to his recent comments about COVID-19.
DeSantis wants to give Fauci the boot. pic.twitter.com/bXFzz9mWwR
— Laura Ingraham (@IngrahamAngle) April 29, 2022
“Anthony Fauci, he’s a deity to the Democrats,” Ingraham began, directing the question to Lapado first. “But even god is having trouble kind of getting his story straight on whether the pandemic is mostly over or not. Your response to the latest flip-flop by the great doctor.”
“You know, it’s funny you bring that up, Laura, because I was reading that today,” Lapado replied. “It was — it’s over, yesterday I think. Today, oh, it’s still on, you know, and we’ll see what tomorrow brings. But this is really the kind of inconsistency that has really fueled the distrust for public health officials — and it is well-earned and well-deserved.”
Lapado was referring to several interviews Fauci gave earlier in the week — specifically when he told PBS “Newshour” host Judy Woodruff that the United States was “out of the pandemic phase” only to say a day later that the pandemic was certainly not over telling The Washington Post, “The world is still in a pandemic. There’s no doubt about that. Don’t anybody get any misinterpretation of that.”
Lapado went on to say that the inconsistencies also included the officials’ waffling position on masking – particularly their insistence that people continue to wear them despite multiple assessments suggesting they were not effective.
Ingraham pivoted to DeSantis then, noting that President Biden was planning to attend the White House Correspondents’ Dinner in spite of a spate of cases of COVID-19 in vaccinated and boosted individuals — and DeSantis pointed out the irony of Biden’s administration simultaneously fighting in court to reinstate the mask mandate for air travel.
DeSantis then interrupted Ingraham’s line of questioning to announce that Lapado was the “Anti-Fauci.”
“I tell him, ‘You know what? I don’t always see what you do day to day, but if you’re being attacked by NBC and CNN, I know you’re doing a helluva job,'” DeSantis said, and the audience cheered and applauded.
Ingraham concluded the segment with one more question for DeSantis: “Will they ever retire Dr. Fauci?”
“You know — If I had my druthers, you know, you take him and you chuck him across the Potomac,” DeSantis said — and the audience roared again.