‘Morning Joe’ Host Mika Brzezinski implored her Democrat hosts on Monday to come up with ways to criminally charge Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) over his handling of the coronavirus pandemic in Florida.
Brzezinski conveniently ignored Democratic New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s handling of the pandemic, which included a mandate for nursing homes — the most vulnerable population — to accept coronavirus-positive patients whether they were equipped to handle them or not.
Newsbusters reported that during Monday’s “Morning Joe,” Brzezinski mentioned a South Florida Sun Sentinel report that alleged DeSantis “intentionally engaged in a pattern of spin and concealment that misled the public.” Brzezinski suggested this article should be used to arrest DeSantis.
“My God, I mean, what does it take, uh, to be accused of breaking the law at this point? As governor, isn’t your job to inform the public and keep them safe?”
New York has seen more than 728,000 coronavirus cases and 34,723 deaths, while Florida has seen more cases (1.07 million) but a little over half the deaths (19,377), mostly due to the fact that Florida protected its vulnerable population.
None of that mattered to Brzezinski, who asked guest Rep. Stephanie Murphy (D-FL) to offer her thoughts on how to arrest DeSantis. Murphy, while agreeing with Brzezinski that DeSantis is terrible (based on ideology, not data), couldn’t give the host any advice on how to prosecute the Florida governor.
Brzezinski then asked Palm Beach County State Attorney Dave Aronberg, another Democrat, how DeSantis could be prosecuted.
“Dave, if the governor of a state purposefully withholds information that could—that could save lives, and purposely does not follow CDC guidelines that could save lives, is that at any point some sort of willful act that could add up to a crime or what? Where are we?” Brzezinski asked Aronberg.
For his part, Aronberg suggested the bar to prosecute DeSantis was much higher than what Brzezinski suggested.
“You have to meet a very high burden, Mika. It’s not enough just to ignore CDC guidelines. I mean, the Trump administration is doing that all the time, and it’s their own guidelines. You’d have to show some real high level of fraud here,” he said.
After dismissing Murphy, Brzezinski again turned to Aronberg. As Newsbusters noted, Brzezinski “demonstrated to Aronberg that she didn’t understand due process.”
Brzezinski said to Aronberg: “Dave Aronberg, just really quickly, having people delete information in government websites, I—I’m—I’m still confused as to how that’s not fraudulent. Denying people information, changing it, deleting it.”
As Newsbusters reported, “Aronberg, aware that they would need more than last Friday’s issue of the Sun Sentinel for a legal case, once again tried to help the MSNBC host conceptualize the ‘burden of proof’ aspect in criminal proceedings, but it was not clear at the end of the segment whether she understood.”
While Brzezinski spent her program looking for ways to criminally charge a Republican governor, media outlets have fawned over New York Gov. Cuomo despite his handling of the pandemic. Last month, the New York Democrat was even presented with an International Emmy Founders Award for his press briefings about the pandemic.