On Friday’s broadcast of the Fox News Channel’s “America’s Newsroom,” 2024 Republican presidential candidate Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) stated that fellow 2024 Republican candidate former President Donald Trump has “to take responsibility” for Dr. Anthony Fauci and said that Trump’s 2020 re-election campaign ran ads touting Fauci’s praise of Trump and Trump gave Fauci a Presidential Commendation.
DeSantis said, “Well, look, at the end of the day, the leader’s got to take responsibility. I think it was pretty clear early on in COVID that Fauci was misfiring. He was elevated to where his pronouncements were basically viewed as gospel around the country, and we rejected that and we fought. When we re-opened the state, he criticized us. When we had kids in school — first state in the country to have all school districts — he criticized us. When we said no vax mandates, they criticized us. So, we had to chart the course, and obviously, the results speak for themselves.”
He added, “Donald Trump’s re-election campaign, in October of 2020, was running ads, bragging, with Fauci saying, Trump did everything I told him to do. They were putting that out. They were bragging about it. And then, on January 19, 2021, Donald Trump’s last day as President, he gave Fauci a Presidential Commendation. So, those were wrong to do that.”
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