Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis took former White House chief medical adviser Dr. Anthony Fauci to task in Iowa Friday over his actions during the COVID-19 pandemic, saying he and other elites “lied about the lab leak” theory and must “be held accountable.”
“We know now today,” DeSantis, 44, told attendees at a Davenport event promoting his new book, “The Courage to be Free,” “the elites were wrong about lockdowns; they were wrong about forced masking; they were wrong about closing schools; they were wrong about denying natural immunity; they were wrong about the efficacy of mRNA shots; and they were wrong — and indeed they lied — about the lab leak.”
“They said it was natural — we know it came from that lab,” added DeSantis, who was joined by Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds, to cheers and applause from the crowd at the Rhythm City Casino Resort. “And I think we need some accountability here. Fauci needs to be held accountable. All these agencies. The CCP [Chinese Communist Party].”
DeSantis, who shot to national prominence early in the pandemic due to his opposition to mask and vaccine mandates and his insistence on keeping schools and business open, also ridiculed the media during the event, saying the press was “all about furthering a partisan narrative” and that no one should be fooled into thinking journalists are “neutral gatekeepers.”
The Florida governor’s statements on Fauci echoed those he made last week on an episode of Fox News’ “Jesse Watters Primetime.”
“He needs to be held accountable,” DeSantis said on Feb. 28. “The lab leak, the lockdowns — he was wrong. Masks, he was wrong. School closures, he was wrong. He was wrong about the vax — saying you wouldn’t get COVID if you took it. He was wrong about passports.”
DeSantis also made hay over popular frustration with Fauci last August, when he described the medical adviser as an “elf.”
“Someone needs to grab that little elf and chuck him across the Potomac,” he said, two days after Fauci announced he would retire at the end of 2022.
Finger-pointing over the top medical adviser’s handling of the pandemic intensified Wednesday when former Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Robert Redfield said Fauci had “sidelined” him from internal debates to quash the investigation of the so-called “lab leak theory.”
“This was an a priori decision that there’s one point of view that we’re going to put out there, and anyone who doesn’t agree with it is going to be sidelined,” Redfield told members of the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic. “And as I say, I was only the CDC director, and I was sidelined.”
But Fauci fired back the following day, accusing Redfield of lying to Congress.
“He is totally and unequivocally incorrect in what he’s saying, that I excluded him,” Fauci said Thursday on Fox News. “It’s really unfortunate that in a public setting, like the hearing, that Dr. Redfield made that absolutely incorrect statement.”
DeSantis made his first trip to Iowa Friday as other Republican presidential hopefuls crisscross the state, including former President Donald Trump, former Vice President Mike Pence and former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley.
According to an Iowa poll released Friday, Trump and DeSantis are neck and neck, with 80% of self-identified Republicans in the state having a “very favorable” or “mostly favorable” view of the former president, and 75% saying the same of DeSantis.
