During a meeting with President Trump at the White House Tuesday morning, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis blasted the media for reporting and speculating his state would turn out just like New York in the battle against Wuhan coronavirus.
"Governor DeSantis you did face quite a bit of criticism for not closing your state as soon as some did..." a reporter said in the Oval Office.
"What have the results been? You look at some of the most draconian orders that have been issued in some of these states and compare Florida," DeSantis responded. "Florida has done better. I'm not criticizing those states. But everyone in the media was saying that Florida is going to be like New York or Italy and that has not happened because we understood we have a big, diverse state. We understood the outbreak was not uniform throughout the state. We had a tailored and measured approach that not only helped our numbers be way below what anyone predicted but also did less damage to our state going forward."
"I did an essential business order and a lot of things going safely," he continued. "We have challenges, this is not an easy situation, we've had people in the hospital but we're now in a situation where I have less than 500 people in a state of 22 million on ventilators as of last night and I have 6,500 ventilators sitting idle throughout the state of Florida."
DeSantis also praised the federal government, specifically White House Advisor Jared Kushner, for being ready to provide ventilators at a moments notice.
President @realDonaldTrump and his administration have been supporting @GovRonDeSantis and the people of Florida since the COVID-19 crisis began.
— Rep. Matt Gaetz (@RepMattGaetz) April 28, 2020
Get the facts on how @POTUS has delivered for Floridians during the pandemic: https://t.co/T4V0rsBWUf pic.twitter.com/qxxeInLOsI