During an interview with NBC News on Monday, 2024 Republican presidential candidate Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) and Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds (R), who has endorsed DeSantis for president, said that rival 2024 GOP candidate former President Donald Trump attacked governors for trying to reopen during the coronavirus pandemic.
After DeSantis mentioned the criticism he got for his handling of the COVID pandemic and stated that he did what he thought was right regardless of the criticism, Reynolds said, [relevant remarks begin around 11:00] “Exactly. That is exactly what we needed to do. COVID Kim, I think, was my nickname. I can’t remember what they called [DeSantis]. But with all kinds of — the pushback was incredible, it was unbelievable, from the media, from the teacher’s union, from the Trump administration. He actually called out governors for trying to open up, to get the economy moving. They tried to force us to shelter in place.”
DeSantis then said, “But one of the things we will do — and I’m the only one that will do this — is I will bring a reckoning for everything the federal government did wrong, because it was a disastrous performance, and we’re still living with a lot of the legacy of it. Of course, the inflation all started when you shut down the economy and everything like that. And yet, I know Donald Trump says he did everything right during COVID. That is not true. And so, we need to have a reckoning, we need accountability. And Kim’s exactly right. She was doing things, Gov. Brian Kemp (R-GA) was attacked from the White House podium for opening up Georgia. … And so, it was media, bureaucracy, both Trump’s and Biden’s administration, and we just need to have an accounting for that.”
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