Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis hassled a group of college students for wearing masks and said he snoozed through President Joe Biden’s State of the Union during an appearance in Tampa Wednesday.
Video footage shows the Republican governor instructing University of South Florida students to take off their masks as he walked toward the podium.
‘You do not have to wear those masks. I mean, please take them off,’ DeSantis said. ‘Honestly it’s not doing anything and we’ve gotta stop with this COVID theater.’
‘So if you want to wear it, fine,’ he added. ‘But this is, this is ridiculous.’
Several students took their masks off, while at least three kept theirs in place.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis hassled a group of college students for wearing masks and said he snoozed through President Joe Biden’s State of the Union during an appearance in Tampa Wednesday
Video footage shows the Republican governor instructing University of South Florida students to take off their masks as he walked toward the podium, calling it ‘COVID theater.’ Some students took their masks off, while others left them on
DeSantis was at the Tampa college to announce a $20 million investment to create cybersecurity and information technology workforce education opportunities.
But the event was also a press conference.
DeSantis, who is up for re-election this year in Florida, is being closely watched as a viable 2024 presidential candidate.
Over the weekend at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Orlando, the Florida governor came in second after former President Donald Trump in the event’s annual presidential straw poll.
Trump received 59.1 per cent of the vote, while DeSantis received 28.4 per cent.
All the other Republicans got 1.5 per cent or less.
When Trump was removed from the equation, DeSantis was the clear winner, garnering 61.4 per cent support.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis looked like presidential material to 28.4 per cent of Conservative Political Action Conference attendees who participated in the annual presidential straw poll. Without President Donald Trump (right), DeSantis’ number jumped to 61.4 per cent support
‘I watched most of the State of the Union, I did fall asleep during it, I confess,’ DeSantis said.
He blamed the sleepiness not on Biden, but on his kids.
‘I’ve got three kids five and under, so a lot of times by the time it gets past 9, we’re a little tired,’ he said.
The State of the Union didn’t start until a little after 9 p.m.
‘The striking thing is is we have a lot of problems in this country. And that’s obviously something you’ve gotta deal with. But it’s striking that so many of these problems have been created by Biden and his administration since he’s become president,’ the Republican governor said, pointing to high gas prices as one example.
He blasted Biden for shutting down the Keystone pipeline and suspending drilling licenses in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and certain other federal lands.
‘So consequently you’re importing more from countries like Russia – so that’s bad for consumers … but that’s also bad for our national security,’ DeSantis said, claiming the U.S. ‘would be energy independent,’ had it not been for Biden.
DeSantis also hammered Biden for saying ‘we need to secure the border and fix the immigration system.’
‘Well, he’s the one who opened the border. Are you kidding me?’ DeSantis said.
And despite Biden saying he didn’t support the ‘defund the police’ movement, DeSantis said that ‘many of these cities have defunded or cut police budgets and that’s why you see crime skyrocketing.’ He also lashed out at the administration’s support for eliminating cash bail.
‘Yeah there’s a lot of problems, it just seems to me that a lot of these problems are Joe Biden’s own creation,’ DeSantis said.
DeSantis was later asked if he heard anything in Biden’s State of the Union that he agreed with.
‘I’d have to think about some of the stuff. I agree – if you think about what they’ve done – Fauci is in the witness protection program now,’ DeSantis said. ‘If you listen to them, they never supported all these policies that were so destructive.’
DeSantis was referring to the lifting of COVID restrictions since the Omicron surge has passed.
Biden and his State of the Union guests interacted maskless Tuesday night on Capitol Hill.
‘We all want to be like Florida,’ DeSantis said.
Dr. Anthony Fauci, Biden’s top medical adviser, hasn’t been put in hiding, as he appeared at the White House’s COVID briefing Wednesday morning.
