Far-right Republican Governor Ron DeSantis politicized tornado damage he said should not be politicized on Friday, falsely criticizing President Joe Biden as thumbing his nose at Florida whenever he has the chance while apparently forgetting he praised him as “very supportive” last summer.
In July, after the devastating collapse of the Surfside highrise condominiums, DeSantis praised President Biden’s response as “great,” and said Biden had “recognized the severity of this tragedy from day one,” and added, “you’ve been very supportive.”
He didn’t stop there.
“You guys have not only been supportive at the federal level, but we’ve had no bureaucracy.”
DeSantis is singing a different tune now that he’s ramping up his presidential aspirations.
Speaking at a highly-staged event with TV cameras rolling in front of the governor and other Florida officials DeSantis stood with a mobile home destroyed by a tornado last month behind him. He blasted FEMA for denying the state’s request for emergency relief and attacked Biden, claiming since he took office he’s denigrated the Sunshine State.
“These things should be above politics when people have needs like this. If you look at since Biden’s been president, it seems like whatever they can do to thumb their nose at Florida, you know they try to do it.”
Florida Politics reports “FEMA officials ruled the damage from the storm was not extensive enough to warrant federal response.”
DeSantis went on to complain that the Biden administration “cut our monoclonal antibody funding.”
The Biden administration revamped the distribution of monoclonal antibodies after Florida, thanks to DeSantis’ anti-vaccine policies became the top user of the coronavirus treatment, effectively limiting doses to other states.
DeSantis’ top donor is heavily invested in Regeneron, the manufacturer of the COVID treatment that the Florida governor had been pushing, opting for treatment over prevention in direct contradiction to CDC guidance. When omicron became the dominant variant the federal government stopped the distribution of the monoclonal antibodies after its manufacturers announced they did not work against omicron.
NCRM examined the Florida governor’s tweets going back to 2017. When Trump was president he tweeted @POTUS when referring to him. Since Biden has become president he has tweeted by our count 50 times at President Biden, never with the @POTUS name. The vast majority of those tweets are attacks.