Derangement: Time for Another False Smear Against Ron DeSantis

Progressive and media lies about Florida Governor Ron DeSantis come in all shapes and sizes. We've addressed their wrong claims about COVID outcomes and their unfounded accusations of corruption. More recently, in assailing a DeSantis education policy, they've badly misconstrued what's actually written in the law. The inevitable attacks framing DeSantis as worse and more dangerous than Trump have already begun. Many left-wing critics, including the echo chamber news media, appear to be phenomenally afraid of DeSantis as a political figure and therefore seem almost pathologically incapable of treating him remotely accurately or fairly. Enter the horrible tragedy in South Florida in which a residential building collapsed, resulting in a rising death toll.

The usual suspects – lefty activists and journalists – instantly and ghoulishly tried to politicize the situation:

Right. But according to Ken, DeSantis event about licensing reform in 2019 (which is very needed btw) was responsible for a building built in the 1980's collapsing because of warnings from an engineer in 2018 (before DeSantis was Governor).https://t.co/HL3hWegKmL
— AG (@AGHamilton29) June 27, 2021

Then there's this attack from a Washington Post reporter, suggesting DeSantis dragged his feet in responding to the collapse:

There's a saying in emergency management: The first 24 hours are the only 24 hours.

FEMA was ready to deploy to the condo collapse almost immediately, and included the crisis in its daily briefing, but didn't get permission from Gov. DeSantis to get on the ground for a full day. pic.twitter.com/rVmCN47sQJ
— Hannah Dreier (@hannahdreier) June 26, 2021

The replies and rebuttals to this claim were swift:

Time to kill another conspiracy theory:

How this works:

Emergency declaration from the local government -> state government -> federal government.

The mayor didn’t sign an emergency order until 4:33 pm ET. The governor signed one less than an hour later, at 5:32pm. https://t.co/5cVl1YPFQs pic.twitter.com/uXMubrKxEs
— Jeremy Redfern (@EODTEC89) June 27, 2021

So, this is something I had a deep education on due to my previous job as an Explosive Ordnance Disposal tech. The control for these situations is directed by NIMS. https://t.co/6ZM7Jw9pb0

As you can see, requests flow from the local gov to the state gov: pic.twitter.com/uiVzZeJx4X
— Jeremy Redfern (@EODTEC89) June 27, 2021

And I’m not trying to throw the Mayor of Miami-Dade County under the bus.

Everyone must be willing to offer some grace in these types of situations. They’re extremely complicated, and FEMA isn’t necessary during the initial response.

The 1st priority must always saving lives.
— Jeremy Redfern (@EODTEC89) June 27, 2021

What you're implying was debunked by the Democratic mayor of Miami-Dade County on Meet the Press this morning:

"Not only has the state of Florida been here in force (...) we've not lacked for any support."

You should apologize and delete your tweet. pic.twitter.com/I8vgI6S4Bt
— Giancarlo Sopo (@GiancarloSopo) June 27, 2021

FLORIDA RON DESANTIS

On Sunday, DeSantis’ press secretary Christina Pushaw responded to the tweet, claiming Dreier left out crucial details from her tweets. She also added that Dreier did not ask her or DeSantis for a comment prior to her post. "This is missing important context, @hannahdreier never asked me for comment," Pushaw tweeted. "emergency response started within minutes of the disaster led by Miami Dade County, amazing first responders. County mayor signed local emergency [declaration] 4:40 & @GovRonDeSantis signed [executive order] less than 1hr later." She also posted a document proving that the Miami-Dade County state of emergency was not signed by Miami-Dade County Mayor Danielle Levine Cava, a Democrat, until 4:33 p.m. ET, over twelve hours after the initial collapse. DeSantis signed an emergency order at approximately 5:32 p.m. ET, less than one hour later.

Why would they call in FEMA to a single-apartment disaster when state/local search and rescue groups could be [and were] immediately deployed? Moreover, it appears Miami USAR 1 + 2 are literally the local task forces FEMA would have deployed anyway... pic.twitter.com/f4YBGxGznB
— Amy Swearer (@AmySwearer) June 27, 2021

This is yet another instance in which a national media outlet is so determined to slime DeSantis, regardless of the facts, that Florida Democratic officials have contradicted the claims. I'll leave you with this attempted dunk on DeSantis, the point of which was to imply that the governor wasn't focused on the disaster:

Hours after a building collapsed in Florida, Ron DeSantis is on Fox News talking about the building that collapsed in Florida, as is the chyron. Thank you Vox Detective https://t.co/G6hc6vXP03
— Stephen L. Miller (@redsteeze) June 25, 2021

Good question: