Ron DeSantis praised Anthony Fauci for Covid response in spring 2020 for ‘really doing a good job’
By Andrew Kaczynski, CNN
Updated 6:55 PM EDT, Thu June 1, 2023
DeSantis now criticizing Trump for trusting Fauci. Hear his defense of Fauci from 2020
02:26 - Source: CNN
CNN
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Republican presidential candidate Ron DeSantis is attacking former President Donald Trump for “turning the country over to [Dr. Anthony] Fauci in March 2020” but DeSantis was praising the chief public health official at the same time in previously unreported quotes, saying Fauci was “really, really good and really, really helpful” and “really doing a good job.”
In other comments, the Florida governor said he deferred to Fauci’s guidance on COVID-19 restrictions and later cited his guidance when communicating the policies he was putting in place early in the pandemic in the state of Florida.
You have a lot of people there who are working very, very hard, and they’re not getting a lot of sleep,” DeSantis said on March 25, 2020, at a briefing on Florida’s response. “And they’re really focusing on a big country that we have. And from Dr. Birx to Dr. Fauci to the vice president who’s worked very hard, the surgeon general, they’re really doing a good job. It’s a tough, tough situation, but they’re working hard.”