White House seizes an opportunity to whack DeSantis
The pair has been feuding as Florida faces a surge in infections. And each has something to gain.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis answers questions related to school openings and the wearing of masks, Tuesday, Aug. 10, 2021, in Surfside, Fla. | Marta Lavandier/AP Photo
MIAMI — Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis made himself the national face of the anti-Biden Covid-response resistance.
So the president decided to punch it.
For the past two weeks, Biden and his allies have publicly escalated a war of words and with DeSantis on Twitter, in speeches by the president and in White House press briefings. Biden advisers see DeSantis — who has defiantly fought mask mandates as infections and hospitalizations skyrocketed in the battleground state — as a foil to a president whose strength is his empathetic style and safety-first response to coronavirus that helped him defeat DeSantis’ benefactor, President Trump, nine months ago.
Amid the Covid explosion, DeSantis’ constant criticisms as well as his controversial policies and a barrage of media questions about the governor, White House advisers say Biden and the team had no choice but to take on the Republican. But the president has seldom gone to such lengths to train so much fire on a critic other than Trump.
“DeSantis epitomizes the opposite choice in the sense of the way he handles this issue and his personal style,” said Celinda Lake, a pollster and Biden political adviser. “Without getting into the polarization of Trump — a lot of voters think Trump is sort of gone from the scene for now — he reinforces the contrast that helped us win the election and sharpens the focus on the Trump style and policies.”
But the political dynamics are unavoidable, and Biden’s attention on DeSantis has clearly elevated the governor.
DeSantis, up for reelection next year, has raked in campaign cash by attacking Biden and his administration’s coronavirus response, going so far as to single out the nation’s top infectious disease specialist, Anthony Fauci, by selling “Don’t Fauci My Florida” campaign merchandise last month, just as Covid cases began rising.
“When the Biden Administration attacks Gov. DeSantis, the White House looks scared and tone deaf,” said Helen Aguirre Ferré, a DeSantis campaign adviser and executive director of the Republican Party of Florida. “Gov. DeSantis doesn’t care what those in the D.C. bubble think or say, he only cares about Florida’s safety and success all the while protecting individual liberties.”
Ferré and other DeSantis advisers and allies also faulted Biden for focusing so intensely on Florida while saying relatively little of Democrat-run states with higher death rates, such as Michigan, New York, New Jersey or Connecticut.
Democrats say DeSantis’ approach to managing the current Delta variant surge poses a risk to him because it gives Biden an opportunity to question his competence and his seriousness in fighting a deadly virus, a criticism that worked with great success against Trump, according to one Biden adviser.
“DeSantis is Trump’s Mini Me,” the adviser said. “And he’s going to suffer the same fate as Trump. Unfortunately, a lot of people will get sick and die.”