“The government said he could show up,” said Jensen, the Rancho Lakewood real estate developer, in a text message sent before the vaccination campaign started. “You should try to see if it would help you get exposure here.”
CNN obtained the texts through a request for public records.
“Excellent point,” replied Baugh. “After all, 22 is just around the corner.”
“Yes, and he is best known on the east side,” replied Jensen. “Premiere (the vaccination site) could have a good setup for him.”
“For sure, we will make a big fuss about having him at Premier,” said Baugh. “This can be huge for him.”
CNN contacted Jensen, Baugh and DeSantis for comment, but did not receive an immediate response.
DeSantis, a Republican, did not respond directly to the texts when asked about it at a news conference on Tuesday. Instead, he emphasized that the vaccination campaign was designed to help Manatee County raise vaccination rates for residents 65 and older. He revolved around a conspiracy theory, claiming that “the corporate party media” was “demonizing” the units because he did not want to “vaccinate people who disagreed with them politically”.
Although there are many suspicions that he will run for re-election in 2022, DeSantis has not yet announced that he is running for re-election.
Text messages arrive at a time when DeSantis, and the commissioner, are facing bipartisan requests for investigations into the Manatee County vaccination campaign.
Crist’s spokeswoman, Samantha Ramirez, told CNN that they had not yet received a response from the DOJ and postponed further comments on Crist’s campaign.
“The more we learn about Governor DeSantis’ abuse of power, the worse it is. We already knew that the Governor was sending vaccines to his favorite donors and constituents,” said Joshua Karp, a spokesman for Crist’s re-election to CNN in a statement. “It is now clear that the governor’s team has handpicked the vaccine recipients, bypassing the process of randomly selecting a county – for political gain – by denying the elderly and others the vaccines they need. The authorities must investigate this abuse of power. immediately.”