It pains me to say this because I had high hopes for Kari Lake, but I’m so done with her. I’m not happy about this all, but what she said in her interview on the PBD Podcast pushed me over the edge.
“Let’s let us not forget that DeSantis also shut the beaches down,” Lake claimed. “DeSantis took a page out of Gavin Newsom’s playbook. Despite what he says, he shut the beaches down. He did force vaccines. He did force face masks on our kids. So he tries to act like he was perfect, and Florida was this —”
“DeSantis forced vaccines on kids?” host Patrick Bet-Davi asked, sounding a bit confused.
“He forced vaccines on people,” Lake clarified. “On workers. He forced face masks on children, and he was for all that. DeSantis was for all of that. So he thinks that we forgot that as well. Though granted, he didn’t continue the misery as long as —”
“Was it one month or a couple of weeks, or what it was?”
“It was a little more than that. It was a little more than that, the beaches were shut down to people.”
Literally everything @KariLake alleges in this clip is false.
— Matt Margolis (@mattmargolis) September 26, 2023
Let’s get right to it: none of what she said was true.
None of it.
In fact, Gov. DeSantis actually refused to do what Lake claimed. “Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis refused to issue an order to close the state’s beaches, despite fears regarding the spread of the coronavirus,” NBC News reported on March 17, 2020. Instead, he opted to limit parties to 10 people in order to keep beaches open.
Sorry, Kari. You’re wrong.
DeSantis also never forced COVID vaccines on Floridians, and he opposed vaccine mandates from the beginning, be it for adults or kids.
“Our goal is to make all safe and effective COVID vaccines available to Floridians who want them, but the state will not mandate that Floridians take these vaccines,” DeSantis said back in November 2020, before the COVID vaccines were approved for emergency use by the FDA. “That is going to be the choice of each and every Floridian.”
Florida may have made the vaccines available to those who wanted them, but DeSantis is very clearly on record opposing mandating vaccines.
Sorry, Kari. You’re wrong again.
As for mask mandates, DeSantis literally issued an executive order banning mask mandates in schools, citing adverse “health and societal ramifications” and the low risk children had for spreading COVID or becoming seriously ill from it. The Biden administration even sued the state of Florida over the ban… and lost.
Sorry, Kari. This is all public record, and you’re wrong yet again.
Related: Is Kari Lake Running for the Senate?
Why is Lake debasing herself by attacking DeSantis with these absurd lies? It’s quite clear she’s being an attack dog for Donald Trump. While I admire loyalty, Lake is attacking Trump’s most formidable primary opponent. And for what? A chance at being his running mate? Whatever her reason for these blatant lies, there’s no excuse for them.
Lake must have been called out enough for her lies that she even backtracked Tuesday evening.
“We could spend decades blaming each other for the Covid response. We probably will. I just don’t think that’s the most productive use of our time,” she said in a post on X, formerly known on Twitter. “I think our most immediate concern should be prosecuting Anthony Fauci. Can we agree on that?”
We could spend decades blaming each other for the Covid response. We probably will.
I just don’t think that’s the most productive use of our time.
I think our most immediate concern should be prosecuting Anthony Fauci.
Can we agree on that?
— Kari Lake (@KariLake) September 26, 2023
“Oh, so she can dish it out but can’t take it,” observed Christina Pushaw, Ron DeSantis’s Rapid Response Director.
Indeed.
