California Governor s Office via AP
As our RedState team has covered here, here, here, and here, 60 Minutes decided to use its once hallowed Sunday news program to do a hit piece on Florida Governor Ron DeSantis who, in case you didn’t know it, happens to be a Republican exposing that DeSantis’ choice of Publix for the state-wide vaccine distribution had to do with campaign contributions.
Jennifer Van Laar reported,
Alfonsi alleged that wealthy Palm Beach County seniors “cut the line” to get access to the vaccine. She’d been reporting around Palm Beach County for three months, she said, and there was a large disparity in vaccine access between “old-monied millionaires but also some of the poorest day laborers and farm workers in America,” and that it had “deteriorate[d] into a virtual free for all…as some wealthy and well-connected residents cut the line, leaving other Floridians without a fair shot.”
Gov. Ron DeSantis pushed back aggressively Tuesday against a â60 Minutesâ report that suggested he initially made a deal to distribute COVID-19 vaccines in a South Florida county at Publix Super Markets pharmacies because the company made a donation to his political action committee.
The Republican governor warned of unspecified âconsequencesâ over the report that aired Sunday night on CBS, which stood behind the story. The report focused on the vaccine rollout in Palm Beach County and also suggested Floridaâs vaccine distribution had generally favored the wealthy and well-connected.
âThese are smear merchants,â DeSantis said during a news conference in Panama City. âThey knew what they were doing was a lie.â
DeSantis made vague warnings to the media about the segment, which led to a round of applause from those at the press conference.
“Well, guess what, there’s going to be consequences for that,” DeSantis said of what he described as lies from the 60 Minutes segment. “I know corporate media thinks they can just run over people. … You ain’t running over this governor. I’m punching back. This is not over by any stretch of the imagination.”
Since the segment aired, DeSantis has issued a series of press releases to denounce it, particularly a portion that focused on a $100,000 donation Florida-based grocery chain Publix made to the governor’s campaign before it was picked to help distribute the vaccine.
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Does the media care what it accuses Governor DeSantis of? Not really. 60 Minutes is facing backlash for a story it aired Sunday on Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis including from the supermarket chain Publix and two prominent Democrats in the state. After the report aired, the Democratic director of the Florida Division of Emergency Management and Democratic county mayor of Palm Beach County both publicly responded, saying that partnering with Publix was not suggested by anyone from DeSantis office. Do CBS or 60 Minutes care? Obviously not. The only significant thing here is that DeSantis is getting the Trump treatment. That means the media just throwing everything they can at him. If one story doesn t work, they reach for another one with zero concern about the most basic facts.