Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis pulled no punches against the media on Wednesday for its hostile coverage of his handling of the coronavirus in his state.
Speaking to reporters alongside Vice President Mike Pence, DeSantis touted Florida's improving data, citing Dr. Deborah Birx of the White House coronavirus task force, who called it the "absolutely best data" among every state in the country.
"So any insinuation otherwise is just typical, partisan narrative trying to be spun and part of the reason is that you've got a lot of people in your profession who waxed poetically for weeks and weeks about how Florida was going to be just like New York," DeSantis scolded the reporters. "'Wait two weeks, Florida is going to be next. Just like Italy, wait two weeks.' Well hell, we're eight weeks away from that and it hasn't happened!"
DeSantis then pointed to Florida's "lower death rate" than states up north, in the Midwest, and in the South, adding "I was the No. 1 landing spot from tens of thousands of people leaving the No. 1 hot zone in the world to come to my state," referring to New York City.
"And so we've succeeded and I think that people just don't want to recognize it because it challenges their narrative, it challenges their assumption, so they've got to try and find a boogeyman – maybe it's that black helicopter circling the Department of Health. If you believe that, then I have a bridge in Brooklyn I'd like to sell ya," DeSantis said.
Watch the whole thing here: