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TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) – It didn’t take much for the White House to fire Florida Governor Ron DeSantis. As coronavirus cases increase across the Sun Belt, President Joe Biden has called on GOP governors to “step aside” from efforts to contain the virus.
DeSantis retaliated by saying he didn’t want to “hear about COVID from you, thank you,” adding, “Why aren’t you doing your job?”
The exchange was unusually direct and bitter, especially for politicians facing a crisis that is killing more and more Americans. But it was a sign that the now-familiar clubs of virus politics – the debates pitting “freedoms” against masks and restrictions – remain powerful weapons. And DeSantis, in particular, seems keen to lead this fight through next year’s midterm elections, and beyond.
“He has become, I would say, the main voice of opposition to the Biden administration,” said Rob Bradley, a Republican who recently left the Florida Senate due to term limits. “It’s no surprise to see Biden and DeSantis getting started.”
The strategy involves risks. DeSantis is running for re-election next year and is frequently mentioned as a 2024 presidential candidate. His national profile has risen in large part because he spent the early part of the pandemic delivering a message that conveyed the priority to his state’s economy over sweeping restrictions to stop the spread of the coronavirus.
But his condition is now an epicenter of the last wave. Florida has broken records on several occasions for patients hospitalized this week, and she and Texas accounted for one-third of all new cases nationwide last week, according to the White House.
DeSantis responded banning mandatory masks in schools and arguing that vaccines are the best way to fight the virus while the new restrictions are barriers to freedom.
“Florida is a free state, and we are going to empower our people,” DeSantis said in a fundraising email ending his response to the president. “We will not allow Joe Biden and his bureaucratic minions to come in and requisition the rights and freedoms of Floridians.”
Biden’s willingness to call on the Republican governor of Florida – as well as his colleagues in other hot spots like Texas – also marks a new turning point for him. For months, the White House has tried to downplay the perceived distance between the president and governors in hopes of depoliticizing the vaccination process.
He had sought to prevent a national panic over the spread of the delta variant and to keep the promise that the nation was ready to weather the pandemic. But with new cases averaging over 70,000 a day – above the peak of last summer before vaccines were available – the message has changed.
The White House is now presenting what is happening as a more localized concern primarily affecting areas of the country that have lagging vaccination rates and have not followed federal guidelines recommending face masks in areas with high case rates. . But the hardest hit areas tend to be run by Republicans like DeSantis.
Biden is more reluctant than DeSantis to continue the feud. Asked Thursday about DeSantis’ response to his comments, Biden simply asked, “Governor who?” and smiles.
Still, that hasn’t stopped White House press secretary Jen Psaki from raising criticism from the administration, saying it was a “fact” that DeSantis “has taken steps to address it. ‘against public health recommendations’.
“Frankly, it’s too serious, deadly serious, to do partisan slurs,” Psaki said.
She added that administration officials have kept in touch with Florida public health officials, despite DeSantis’ posture. Psaki also said the White House is working to make sure Floridians know what steps they should take to protect their health, “even if they are not steps taken at the top of this state’s leadership.”
Republican governors attacking Democratic presidents and vice versa are nothing new, meanwhile. And even passionate partisan back and forth as the coronavirus rages on has already happened.
In the first months of the pandemic last year, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo’s daily media briefings were broadcast live on national television and hailed by Democrats across the country as a scientific antidote to own sessions. President Donald Trump’s daily newspapers with the media. .
One day, while Cuomo was having his briefing, Trump tweeted that the New York governor was doing too much “complaining” and should “go out there and do the job.” Stop talking. ”Cuomo was asked about this and replied,“ If he’s sitting at home watching TV, maybe he should get up and go to work. ”
Cuomo is now under intense pressure to quit after an investigation revealed he sexually harassed nearly a dozen women and sought to retaliate against one of his accusers. But her state is no longer the virus hotspot that Florida is.
Biden also rarely channels the combat tactics of his predecessor, pointing out how strange the political dynamics of the latest wave of the virus become.
Another indication that the back-and-forth between Biden and DeSantis could portend similar future clashes as the mid-term approaches is that the Governor and President recently put their differences aside and appeared together after the deadly collapse. of a condominium building. in Surfside, Florida. This is far from what is happening now.
“He just tells us what he’s up against,” said Bernard Ashby, a Miami cardiologist who heads the Florida section of the Committee to Protect Health Care, of DeSantis. “I think it’s up to him, as the head of our state, to do something to reduce the number of people we see getting infected, hospitalized, ending up in intensive care and eventually dying.”
DeSantis is nonetheless in the process of doubling down. His harsh words for Biden have already caused a stir in conservative circles online, and the governor has since appeared on Fox News to reiterate them.
“It’s been his strategy all of his existence… everything that gets on Fox News is where it goes,” said Kevin Cate, a Florida-based Democratic strategist and veteran of Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign.
Cate, campaign consultant for Agriculture Commissioner Nikki Fried, candidate for governor and was an outspoken critic of DeSantis, said that if the loss of life in Florida now occurring from the coronavirus had been a hurricane, the governor would have “adjusted” to disaster response regardless of political perspective.
“If Ron DeSantis had a tenth of the vitriol against the virus he spews out about Joe Biden,” he said, “people wouldn’t die in Florida.”
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Weissert reported from Washington. Associated Press writer Zeke Miller in Washington contributed to this report.
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