Florida Governor Ron DeSantis said on Monday that CBS’s long-running “60 Minutes” news magazine was discredited by promoting a “political narrative” about its handling of the coronavirus vaccine that goes against reality.
DeSantis said in “Tucker Carlson Tonight” that during a segment with correspondent Sharyn Alfonsi, his words were “deceptively edited” to portray his state’s senior citizens’ vaccination plan with Publix supermarkets as nothing more than paying a political donor corporate.
The Lakeland, Fla.-Based grocer also released “60 Minutes”, calling the reports “absolutely false and offensive”.
Presenter Tucker Carlson also showed Alfonsi’s clip followed by the full video of the DeSantis exchange during a press conference that the CBS program took.
DeSantis said his deal with Publix had nothing to do with a six-figure political donation, and that several Democrats from Florida came out in his defense and confirmed his account of the deal.
He told Carlson that in Palm Beach County, which was the focal point of the controversy, the leaders of the heavily Democratic district calculated that 90% of its elderly population lived less than 1.5 miles from a Publix.
While the eastern half of the county is along the dense I-95 corridor and has several Publix locations, the west end is sparse and agrarian.
DeSantis said “60 Minutes” left out that important context, because, due to the lack of pre-existing options, his government created a separate and exclusive vaccination site in the village of Pahokee, about 30 miles east of Clewiston – no affiliated with Publix.
“[What’s] lost in this is that we vaccinated 3.5 million elderly people. We are the first state to say that we serve the elderly first. We will not follow the CDC’s recommendation. What we did worked, “he said.
CRITICS BLAST ’60 MINUTES ‘FOR’ FALSE NARRATIVE ‘THAT DESANTIS ENGAGED PUBLIX IN THE PAY FOR GAME VACCINE SCHEME
“They didn’t want to discuss this. Obviously, they selectively edited the fund. They tried to act like there was a conspiracy with Publix.”
“They ignored the fact that I met with the county mayor who is a Democrat who said that” 60 minutes “did that. DeSantis added that FEMA’s version of the head of state is also a Democrat and also came to his defense on the subject.
“They didn’t say that we were building an African American church [vaccine] units before Publix takes a single shot. They did not say that hospitals were doing injections from the third week of December – because it did not fit the narrative. They don’t believe in facts. It was a political narrative “, he was irritated.
He accused CBS of not speaking to top Palm Beach County officials, who, though Democrats, would “blow up their narrative” – specifically citing the county mayor, Dave Kerner.
CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APPLICATION
Kerner also defended DeSantis on the matter, as Fox News previously reported.
Host Tucker Carlson assumed it was only a matter of time before Democrats and the media focused on DeSantis to try to undermine him – pointing to the exodus from the pandemic era of supposedly poorly managed states like California, Michigan and New York – while Florida has enjoyed an influx of new residents.
“I did not watch the program because it is sad to see something like ’60 minutes’ degraded”, added the presenter.