Bartiromo: Yes, and not only that, but in a situation where there’s crime spiking across the country, the president of the union, police union, in Chicago is estimating that 3,200 Chicago police are defying the vaccine, and they will be off the job. That means off the streets.
What is that doing to the American people and their feeling of safety? It’s very concerning. Your thoughts on where this is going. I mean, is he just trying to insist that this is a law, so that companies follow, before it could be adjudicated and confirmed to be unconstitutional.
DeSantis: Well first, I think it’s important to point out, on a scientific basis, most of those first responders have had COVID and have recovered. So they have strong protection.
And so I think that influences their decision on a lot of this, that they have already had it and recovered. And so they’re making no accommodations for that. They’re still pretending like that doesn’t even exist.
And so that’s really, really troubling when you see that. But I can tell you, Maria, in Florida, not only are we going to want to protect the law enforcement and all the jobs. We’re actually actively working to recruit out-of state law enforcement, because we do have needs in our police and sheriff’s departments.
So, in the next legislative session, I’m going to hopefully sign legislation that gives a $5,000 bonus to any out-of-state law enforcement that relocated to Florida, So, NYPD, Minneapolis, Seattle, if you’re not being treated well, we will cover you better here.
That exchange is the context of Ron DeSantis’ insistence that he wasn’t inviting unvaccinated police to move to Florida and collect $5,000 , he was just inviting all cops to move to Florida.
Sure he was. It’s obvious what he was saying. But like his mentor Donald Trump he lies as easily as he breathes.
Charlie Sykes had this in his newsletter this morning:
Over the weekend, Florida’s Ron DeSantis suggested that his state would offer $5,000 signing bonuses to out-of-state cops who left their jobs because they had defied vaccine mandates.
Now DeSantis is furiously insisting that he did no such thing. “It’s for officers, period,” he now claims. “It has nothing to do with their vaccination status.” And anyone who suggests otherwise, is peddling a “false narrative.”
Well, you can take your own dive into DeSantis’ fancy fandango on the issue. Here’s a transcript of his conversation with Maria Bartiromo, where he talks about the bonuses quite clearly in the context of the vaccine mandates.
DeSantis is upset that you missed the subtlety, because the governor is all about nuance these days, as he executes his own tortured (some would say “cynical and reckless”) balancing act on the vaccine issue.
For months now, as Philip Bump notes, “DeSantis has tried to walk a line between the skepticism about vaccines that’s common in a very vocal part of the Republican base and the need to, you know, try to keep Floridians alive.”
His defenders insist that DeSantis has endorsed the use of the vaccines, and they take umbrage at any suggestion that the Florida wunderkind is playing political games with the lives of his own constituents. They prefer that you don’t pay attention to the rest of his elaborate dance. “Any time a member of the media writes about DeSantis’s approach to the vaccine,” Bump notes,” a member of his staff will huffily insist that the governor encouraged Floridians to get vaccinated. And he has. But he’s also been careful not to alienate the hard-right base on the subject.”
DeSantis is trying to pull this off by deploying a logic pretzel: He is not actually anti-vax. He is Pro-Anti-Vax, which (as Bump notes) is functionally the same thing.
What this means, as Jonathan Chait writes, is that, despite his angry denials, DeSantis “has clearly decided the anti-vaccine movement is his constituency. And if his actions cause Floridians to die, it’s a price he’s willing to pay to advance his political career.”
Chait lays out the case:
You can see DeSantis’s progression from anti-anti-anti-vaxxer to simple anti-vaxxer by observing the increasingly strident tone and content of his stances. DeSantis has:
– blocked cruise lines from requiring their customers to be vaccinated. This stance is both a violation of traditional conservative deference to property rights (why should a business owner be forced to permit onto his property infected customers he doesn’t wish to serve?) and a practical economic threat to an important Florida industry (who in their right mind would set foot on a cruise ship that didn’t require everybody to have a vaccine?)
– blocked cities from requiring that their public employees get a vaccine. DeSantis threatened to impose a $5,000 fine per infraction on any Florida town that imposed a vaccine mandate on its city employees
– refused to participate in a federal plan to give $100 checks to everybody who got a vaccine
– appeared at a rally beside an anti-vaxxer who told the audience the vaccine “changes your RNA” and then declined to contradict this absurd claim when his turn came to speak
And then there is his new surgeon general, who has repeatedly voiced doubt about vaccines.
Here’s what he said, as DeSantis looked on:
“People being forced to put something in their bodies that we don’t know all there is to know about yet. No matter what people on TV tell you, it’s not true. We’re going to learn more about the safety of these vaccines. We’re finding that some of these vaccines, the protection from infection is less than 40 percent,” he said, “We’re going to learn more about the safety of these vaccines, right?”
It’s interesting that Chait is saying that. Until recently he was convinced that Republicans weren’t actually trying to prolong the pandemic for political purposes. He’s obviously changed his mind, at least as far as DeSantis is concerned.
I think DeSantis is banking on the pandemic being more or less controlled by the time he has to run for re-election or, more importantly, for president. He will sell himself as someone who didn’t succumb to the pressure of the pointy headed scientists and woke media when he defied all the advice and it turned out that there are plenty of people who lived through it. So he’s a hero. Also, he’s demonstrated that he’s a roaring asshole bully which is the greatest asset a GOP politician can have.
Never mind the pile of bodies. Republicans just don’t care.