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Who's Ready to Watch Ron DeSantis Take CBS News to the Woodshed?

Matt Vespa
Matt Vespa  |  April 06, 2021 6:30 PM

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is quickly approaching hall of fame status when it comes to owning the liberal media. It’s infuriating at the same time, however. The man has handled COVID in his state well, far better than alleged groper and now-known geriatric slayer Andrew Cuomo. The vaccine rollout especially has been immensely successful. Even then, the media attacked him for…making sure the elderly were vaccinated first. While DeSantis was doing that, Cuomo was ensuring nursing homes became meccas of COVID, infection, and death. There is no comparison. Liberal America’s darlings totally and utterly failed in responding to COVID. They’re still a mess. Meanwhile, Texas nixed their mask mandate and pretty much reopened. That was three weeks ago. There’s been no spike. 

Leah, Katie, Guy, and Reagan have all chimed in on the latest fake news attack on DeSantis, which is that Publix, the state’s largest grocery chain, and DeSantis were involved in some nefarious pay-to-play scheme over the vaccine. Publix was given a COVID vaccine distribution partnership. The outlet decided to zero in on Palm Beach to try and ensnare the governor. It didn't work out. DeSantis slapped down the charge, but CBS News edited out that part of the exchange. Reporter Sharyn Alfonsi was the one who asked the question. As Leah noted, the bold text is what CBS excised in their video:

Sharyn Alfonsi: Publix, as you know, donated $100,000 to your campaign, and then you rewarded them with the exclusive rights to distribute the vaccination in Palm Beach—

Ron DeSantis: So, first of all, that — what you’re saying is wrong. That’s—

Sharyn Alfonsi: How is that not pay-to-play?

Ron DeSantis: —that, that’s a fake narrative. So, first of all, when we did, the first pharmacies that had it were CVS and Walgreens. And they had a long term care mission. So they were going to the long term care facilities. They got vaccine in the middle of December, they started going to the long term care facilities the third week of December to do LTCs. So that was their mission. That was very important. And we trusted them to do that. As we got into January, we wanted to expand the distribution points. So yes, you had the counties, you had some drive through sites, you had hospitals that were doing a lot, but we wanted to get it into communities more. So we reached out to other retail pharmacies — Publix, Walmart — obviously CVS and Walgreens had to finish that mission. And we said, we’re going to use you as soon as you’re done with that. For the Publix, they were the first one to raise their hand, say they were ready to go. And you know what, we did it on a trial basis. I had three counties. I actually showed up that weekend and talked to seniors across four different Publix. How was the experience? Is this good? Should you think this is a way to go? And it was 100% positive. So we expanded it, and then folks liked it. And I can tell you, if you look at a place like Palm Beach County, they were kind of struggling at first in terms of the senior numbers. I went, I met with the county mayor. I met with the administrator. I met with all the folks in Palm Beach County, and I said, “Here’s some of the options: we can do more drive-through sites, we can give more to hospitals, we can do the Publix, we can do this.” They calculated that 90% of their seniors live within a mile and a half of a Publix. And they said, “We think that would be the easiest thing for our residents.” So, we did that, and what ended up happening was, you had 65 Publix in Palm Beach. Palm Beach is one of the biggest counties, one of the most elderly counties, we’ve done almost 75% of the seniors in Palm Beach, and the reason is because you have the strong retail footprint. So our way has been multifaceted. It has worked. And we’re also now very much expanding CVS and Walgreens, now that they’ve completed the long term care mission.

Sharyn Alfonsi: The criticism is that it’s pay-to-play, governor.

Ron DeSantis: And it’s wrong. It’s wrong. It’s a fake narrative. I just disabused you of the narrative. And you don’t care about the facts. Because, obviously, I laid it out for you in a way that is irrefutable.

Sharyn Alfonsi: Well, I— I was just—

Ron DeSantis: And, so, it’s clearly not.

Sharyn Alfonsi: Isn’t there the nearest Publix —

Ron DeSantis: No, no, no. You’re wrong.

Sharyn Alfonsi: —30 miles away.

Ron DeSantis: You’re wrong. You’re wrong. Yes, sir?

Sharyn Alfonsi: That’s actually a fact. 

Former CNN producer Steve Krakauer was appalled by the segment. 

“This is remarkably damning. One of the most absurdly misleading 60 Minutes clips I’ve ever seen,” he tweeted. 

Even Democratic mayors have called out CBS News for their fake news narrative. There is no pay-to-play scheme. These clowns have been trying to get the governor for months, and every time he leaves them eating pavement. Guy had a great segment on Fox where he noted three reasons why the media has fetishized taking DeSantis out. One, he won the 2018 gubernatorial election. Two, he’s owned them totally on his COVID response. And three, he’s the heir apparent regarding taking the mantle from Donald Trump when he’s left the national political scene. Pro-Trump and Trump-averse Republicans like him…a lot. The red states did it right. We can all see that now, but liberal narratives that keep their feelings from being hurt and their insufferable self-righteousness buoyed must be maintained. After all, that’s CBS News’ audience. Even as this narrative has suffered multiple gunshot wounds, being stabbed, garroted, and set on fire—CBS isn’t backing down. They can’t. 

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If this were a normal world, everyone involved with this story would be fired. It was intentional. It once again showed why we mock reporters and distrust them. They’re terrible people. They’re the Whores of Babylon. This story is no better than what Chinese state media outlets dole out every day. This isn’t the first time either. We all remember 2004 when Dan Rather and company tried to smear George Bush’s Texas Air National Guard service with the so-called “Killian documents.” Yep, they were fake. Total forgeries—and heads rolled. DeSantis is preparing his counterattack and I cannot wait to see it. He’s going to punch back against the “smear merchants” in the corporate media who he aptly noted were a disaster. No one trusts them. He added that CBS knew it was lying, the larger public knows CBS was lying, and everyone involved in the story knows they’re lying. All of this was done to keep a fake narrative alive just so that liberals can maintain their moral superiority complex.  

Wreck them, Ron. Grind them into dust and smoke ‘em.