TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — Staggering from a string of messaging gaffes, dire coronavirus numbers, a tough encounter with the Miami press and more mainstream media piling on, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is retreating to his safe space: "The Sean Hannity Show."
Since the pandemic began hammering the state in mid-May, Hannity’s nightly show on Fox News has become a refuge for DeSantis when the swing-state Republican is being battered by a tough news cycle or wants to communicate an unchallenged version of his truth to his political base.
DeSantis on Tuesday made his 10th appearance on Fox since April. That includes a half dozen appearances on Hannity’s show. It’s an about-face for a governor who all but abandoned the network after his January 2019 inauguration as he sought to work across the aisle in the state Capitol to advance a bipartisan policy agenda, including new funding for the environment and teacher pay.
By turning back to Fox News, where he was in regular rotation when running for governor, DeSantis gains a clear path to reaching his political base, a collection of conservative voters whose approval is becoming more important as the Republican defends against an onslaught of public criticism that has hurt his once-stellar bipartisan approval ratings.
On Tuesday, Hannity used the lead-in to his DeSantis interview to trash Democratic politicians, chiefly the governor’s pandemic nemesis, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, and his early decision to send elderly coronavirus-positive patients back to nursing homes.
“They presided over a massive nursing home catastrophe. But at the same time, these governors also were endorsing mass protests, glorifying destruction and still deflecting any and all blame,” Hannity said. “When everything else fails, you blame people, you say they are going to die anyway and then blame Trump.”
Hannity also hyped Florida’s low coronavirus death rate even as public health experts and local politicians, including Republicans, express grave worry as Florida gains renown as a global coronavirus hot spot.
Hannity plugged Florida’s death rate of 17 per 100,000 people. He said the average age of new patients is 21 and that the state’s Covid-19 fatality rate is only 1.8 percent.
The numbers were partially correct. Florida’s Covid-19 death rate as of Wednesday was 18 per 100,000 people, less than half the mortality rate in the U.S. But the average age of new patients over the past seven days was 37 years old, according to data from the Florida Department of Health.
Hannity did not respond to a request for comment.
Left out of Hannity’s cheery Florida recap were the more than 50,000 new infections reported over the past week. Also unmentioned were state hospitals, nearly 100 of which have no intensive care unit capacity remaining.
The Florida Department of Health on Wednesday reported that 10,044 people were diagnosed with Covid-19 for the first time on Tuesday, bringing the rate of positive cases to nearly 14.2 percent.
Florida’s positivity rate hit a record 16.2 percent Monday, more than triple the 5 percent rate that was consistent through most of May.
Hannity’s selective use of data echoed the governor’s recent messaging. DeSantis has highlighted the falling age of the newly infected and their lower risk of death and complications from the virus. He also has emphasized protecting at-risk seniors, announcing on Monday the state’s 12th nursing home for Covid-19 patients.
“The uptick in cases that we are now seeing in Florida is nothing compared to the deaths that were caused by Cuomo and [Democratic New Jersey Gov. Phil] Murphy and [Democratic Michigan Gov. Gretchen] Whitmer’s nursing home scandals,” Hannity said.
DeSantis has tried to play down the continued spread of the virus since early June, but the resurgence of new cases had eclipsed his efforts to expand testing by the middle of the month. On June 20, DeSantis admitted the virus was quickly spreading, and he ordered bars and restaurants to close about a week later.
But on Tuesday night, DeSantis took Hannity’s easy handoff, noting that the state is seeing fewer hospitalizations from nursing homes.
“That’s actually a good sign, because that’s where the number on risk of mortality is,” he said.
DeSantis said he would like to see the infection rate return to 3 percent or 4 percent, where it was in May.
Despite the TV spin, “the metrics are not favorable today,” said Jill Roberts with the University of South Florida’s College of Public Health. “This unfortunately is an early indication that severe cases are occurring and that increased death rates will follow.”
Roberts said neither the lower average age of patients nor the death rate are the positive indicators that DeSantis and President Donald Trump make them out to be.
“Death is not the only endpoint that should concern the young persons who are taking increasing risk. Survivors are reporting significant remaining health issues (fatigue, inability to return to normal levels of exercise), and significant financial burden (loss of work. Medical costs),” Roberts said in an email Wednesday. “The death rate lags considerably behind the case rate.”
DeSantis appeared on Hannity after a press conference in Miami, where reporters pressed him on contact tracing, the process by which health care officials determine where a person contracted the coronavirus.
DeSantis said the state had received $138 million in federal funds for contract tracking. But when he was asked whose job it is to hire contract tracers, he pointed to Miami-Dade County Mayor Carlos Gimenez, a Trump-endorsed candidate for Congress who sat next to the governor during the press conference.
“He announced he was going to do it,” DeSantis said, filling an awkward silence after Gimenez didn’t respond to the question.
Gimenez later told reporters that contract tracing hires were the purview of the state Department of Health, which is part of DeSantis’ administration.
On Wednesday, the governor took more public grief from a conservative official.
Volusia County Sheriff Mike Chitwood, an independent who has endorsed Republican political candidates, took to Twitter to criticize a state Department of Health decision to withhold the addresses of people the state is monitoring for the coronavirus.
“This is just another failure in a long line of govt failures to confront this crisis in an effective way,” Chitwood tweeted.
The recent spike in cases has also prompted concern about next month’s Republican National Convention, which is set to feature Trump’s acceptance speech in Jacksonville. Jacksonville’s Republican mayor, Lenny Curry, is isolating after coming in contact with someone who had tested positive for the coronavirus.
Trump, who needs to win Florida if he hopes to be reelected, said Tuesday that he can’t “guarantee” a full Jacksonville venue in August because of Florida’s deteriorating situation.
“It really depends on the timing,” Trump told Voice of America late Tuesday, when asked about downsizing the convention. “Look, we’re very flexible. We can do a lot of things. But we’re very flexible.”
Source: politico.com
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