May 20, 2020: Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, toeing the Trump Administration’s line of pretending everything is fine, castigates the media for overhyping the coronavirus threat.
An excerpt from his rant:
You got a lot of people in your profession who waxed for weeks and weeks about how Florida was gonna be just like New York.
“Wait two weeks! Florida’s gonna be next! Just like Italy. Wait two weeks.” Well, hell, we’re eight weeks away from that, and it hasn’t happened.
So we’ve succeeded, and I think that people just don’t want to recognize it because it challenges their narrative, it challenges their assumption, so they gotta try to find a bogeyman. Maybe it’s that there are black helicopters circling the Department of Health. If you believe that, I’ve got a bridge in Brooklyn I’d like to sell you.
Two months after the rant:
- CNN: Florida shatters US record for new single-day Covid-19 cases
- Orlando Sentinel: Florida breaks state, U.S. record with 15,300 coronavirus cases reported in single day
- Tampa Bay Times: Florida breaks nationwide record with 15,300 coronavirus cases
- Reuters: Florida sets one-day record with over 15,000 new COVID cases, more than most countries
- And even “Republican Pravda” is reporting it: Florida shatters largest single-day record of coronavirus infections in US while world sees cases spike
Nice going, Governor DeVirus.