The recent rise in direct rhetoric between Biden’s White House and the Republican governor with unbridled political aspirations reached its crescendo earlier this month, when Biden suggested that DeSantis’ actions “were not good” for Floridians. and the governor replied that he did not want to “hear a glance” from Biden about the coronavirus.
Biden later set aside DeSantis’ criticism by saying, “Governor who?” when asked about him, he led the Florida Republican to ask, “What else have you forgotten?” Biden then publicly scolded DeSantis, arguing that the governor “was trying to turn a public safety measure, that is, children wearing masks into school so they could be safe, into a political dispute.” The president now uses the power of his administration to help school districts that the governor has tried to punish for instituting masked warrants.
Biden administration officials and political advisers close to the president argue that the harsh conversation is aimed at saving lives, not scoring political points. And for his part, the Republican governor, who has seen his prominence on the right increase as his state becomes the nation’s last hot spot in the protracted fight against the virus, has welcomed in the dispute with the White House.
“The strategy is to combat misinformation and misinformation from any source,” said Cameron Webb, senior White House policy adviser for equity Covid-19, on the administration’s strongest commitment to rulers. which rejected federal recommendations. “Ultimately, history will look back at what is happening in different states. We will see and say who used the moment in the short term and who used the moment with the big, much bigger goal of keeping people safe.”
Republicans close to DeSantis argue back and forth with Biden signs. Democrats are worried about the Republican Party governor.
“The White House that highlights Florida, and specifically Governor DeSantis, shows its deep concern about the governor’s growing popularity,” said Helen Aguirre Ferré, executive director of the Florida Republican Party. “They’re worried it’s not going well for them in 2022 and they should be worried.”
The round trip has created a unique situation in politics where both sides welcome the struggle, albeit for different reasons.
Biden and his senior officials want to call for DeSantis to continue cracking down on medical recommendations in the fight against the virus, believing that making him an example could encourage other governors to do more. Biden and medical advisers also announce other governors, including some Republicans, such as Asa Hutchinson of Arkansas, who Biden publicly acknowledged after the Republican admitted it was a mistake to ban mask warrants in the southern state.
For DeSantis, his struggle with the White House – as is the case with the laws that drove masking and social distancing – helps him with a narrow but politically powerful segment of the Republican Party, increasing its national prominence before of a 2022 re-election campaign and a widely scheduled presidential bid for 2024.
“Sometimes, you know, it’s important to let a leader know when he’s on the right track or on the wrong track,” Webb said, “especially when he’s rooted in science, because it’s less a matter of opinion; it is less subjective “.
Webb argued that DeSantis and Florida, with more than 70 percent of the population receiving a vaccine, could be leading with an encouraging story, but because the governor has taken various anti-science positions, he is directly countering “what d ‘otherwise it could be a strong trajectory “.
“You’re giving in to the little boy”
DeSantis has taken a much more laissez faire approach throughout the pandemic, including the choice to close the state later than most governors and reopen it sooner than many others.
Although the governor was initially announced because Florida appeared to have lost the worst of the pandemic, cases increased in the summer of 2020 and the winter of 2021.
And Florida is currently experiencing the worst increase in the state’s struggle, with the daily average of seven days of new cases earlier this month surpassing 21,000, well above the state’s previous high. And while DeSantis is responding instantly to vaccines, it has also led the national fight against the use of masks for vaccinated people and within schools.
“Politicians want to force you to cover your face as a way to cover your own asses,” DeSantis said this week. “That’s just the truth. They want to be able to say they’re taking on this and they’re doing it even though it hasn’t been proven to be effective.”
Although comments like this have been announced by conservative media, numerous school districts have openly rejected the governor approving mask mandates.
Still, DeSantis has seen his fame soar to the right. In fighting the president, the governor is giving strength and his profile has followed.
A White House official, when asked about the recent back and forth of DeSantis and Biden, said, “People are always looking to gain notoriety or the like by taking on other leaders.”
Feelings among Florida’s top Democrats, including those who want to oust DeSantis in 2022, are complicated: Many welcome the White House calling DeSantis, but they know the fight has no consequences.
“Joe Biden is already president. Ron DeSantis is an aspirant and aspirants throw stones at people who have the job they want. What the White House is doing is trying to do everything it can in moderation to keep people from getting sick. and died, “said Kevin Cate, a longtime Democratic agent in Florida who currently works for Florida Agriculture Commissioner Nikki Fried. Fried has launched an offer to cancel DeSantis in 2020.
Cate added, however, that a Democratic White House fighting DeSantis only gives the Republican governor “what he wants and means will be less likely to save people’s lives.”
“You’re giving in to the little boy,” he said.
Another top Democrat said DeSantis is “the biggest role” for the White House because “to vaccinate people and get people to put on masks, you need to blame some of these bad actors,” because “no there is a way to end “the pandemic without fighting misinformation and lies.”
Still, that Democratic agent acknowledged that DeSantis “enjoys the fight” because “he’s very helpful politically with this small segment of his base.”
“Show the weaknesses of your policies”
The round trip is the latest in a strange relationship between the Democratic leader and the booming Republican ruler. DeSantis was first elected in 2018 by fully embracing then-President Donald Trump and became a vocal opponent of Biden in the 2020 campaign. The only heat the two men produced came in early this summer, when Biden visited South Florida following the condominium’s deadly collapse, with Biden putting his hand on DeSantis ’arm and praising his leadership, as the Republican governor said the gravity of this tragedy has from day one ”and had been“ very supportive ”.
That heat is already a distant memory.
Florida Republicans, especially those close to DeSantis, welcome the White House’s focus on the governor, arguing that it not only drives him, but also shows that the opposing party is concerned about him.
“He shows the weaknesses of his policies and the great support for what the governor does,” Ferré said. And DeSantis press secretary Christina Pushaw said the Republican governor is making his decision “based on scientific data and empirical evidence, not on signaling virtues or political considerations.”
The stream of all the comments from Florida Republicans is that Biden, who could run for re-election in 2024, is asking DeSantis, in part, because he could be his opponent in his candidacy for a second term.
“The governor has a pulse on what’s important in Florida, and that’s really an echo message” beyond Sunshine State, Ferré argued.
This argument, said John Anzalone, Biden’s longtime political adviser and pollster, shows how DeSantis’ scrap with the White House is “planned” and the governor “leads it from a political perspective.”
“When you really engage in persecution, Ron DeSantis doesn’t even talk to his constituents in Florida. He’s talking to Republican primary voters in Iowa and New Hampshire,” Anzalone said. “He is the son of the poster of political rhetoric and irresponsibility on this issue.”
Democrats use DeSantis against other Republicans
The White House is far from alone in defending DeSantis’ response to the coronavirus as a political frustration of what could happen if a Republican took control of a state this year or in 2022.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom, who is facing a withdrawal election, in part because of the wrong steps he took during the coronavirus pandemic, used DeSantis as a warning in recent statements to volunteers, arguing that the election of a Republican in California would mean that the state’s response would begin. imitate Florida.
Virginia Democrats have also begun comparing Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin to DeSantis, noting that the political newcomer has backed DeSantis. Virginia Democratic Party President Susan Swecker accused Youngkin of “imitating” and “modeling” herself after DeSantis in a recent call to “encode vaccine radicals.” Youngkin praised DeSantis ’treatment of various aspects of the coronavirus crisis in this year’s interviews.
And in New Jersey, Democrats have pointed out how Republican candidate for governor Jack Ciattarelli has praised DeSantis’ “leadership” during the pandemic, lifting the Florida Republican to attack Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy’s response to the virus. Murphy is re-elected in November.
“Ron DeSantis has put his donors and his political ambition before the children of Florida and Republicans across the country want to follow his example,” said David Turner, a spokesman for the Democratic Governors Association. “If Republicans believe this is the best way to recover from Covid, they will face a voter count in 2021 and 2022.”