Email insights: Retiring Anthony Fauci still doing work for Ron DeSantis’ fundraising team
Dr. Anthony Fauci speaks during a Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions hearing to examine an update from Federal officials on efforts to combat COVID-19 on Capitol Hill in Washington. Image via AP.

fauci
A DeSantis email puts student COVID-19 learning losses on the outgoing director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.

Dr. Anthony Fauci is retiring from his job — but not before Gov. Ron DeSantis features him in another email appeal asking his supporters to help him fight against the “lockdown liberals’ idol.” 

Eighteen days before the Governor is up for re-election, his Democratic opponent Charlie Crist is not mentioned at all. Instead, Friday’s email appeal comes with a clip from ABC News as Fauci gave his final thoughts on 38 years leading the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.

Apparently, when it comes to the school closures that were done to stop the spread of COVID-19, DeSantis wanted more of a mea culpa from Fauci, who is stepping down at the end of the year.

We all know locking kids out of school and disrupting their education for over a year, as blue state politicians did, was a terrible decision,” the email, written as a letter from the Governor reads. “This week, Dr. Fauci had the audacity to claim he had nothing to do with school closures.”

The email was also a chance to assert that blue state school closures lasted longer than Florida’s because of “power-hungry bureaucrats like Fauci.”

“They never followed the data,” the letter says of scientists navigating the unprecedented outbreak. “They followed the checkbook of their woke mega donors.”

But not Florida’s Governor, the email argues.

Most Florida schools resumed in-person instruction when the 2020-21 school year started, while some states still had partial closure in effect at the end of that school year.

Since then, learning losses have been documented, this fundraiser points out.

“When you lock children out of school, there are going to be irreparable consequences — especially for our most vulnerable children,” the email says. “But power-hungry bureaucrats weren’t worried about that. They thought nothing about sacrificing the future of our children for their political agenda.”

The clip in the email does feature Fauci pointing out that 1,500 children died from COVID-19. But DeSantis does not seem to believe that bureaucrats closed schools to stop the spread of COVID-19 and save lives. 

“Their only goal is to take decisions out of your hands and force you to comply with their orders,” the letter says. “All they want is power and control over your lives.”

Fauci may be retiring, but “the extreme Left is attempting to bring their failed agenda to Florida,” DeSantis’ team adds.

The letter does not specify how that’s happening, but DeSantis needs help “fighting around the clock to make sure we keep Florida the freest state in the nation,” the letter says.

“Our freedom is on the line and if the Left gets their way, our rights will be stripped away one by one,” DeSantis writes, signing it under “In freedom.”

Anne Geggis

Anne Geggis is a South Florida journalist who began her career in Vermont and has worked at the Sun-Sentinel, the Daytona Beach News-Journal and the Gainesville Sun covering government issues, health and education. She was a member of the Sun-Sentinel team that won the 2019 Pulitzer Prize for coverage of the Parkland high school shooting. You can reach her on Twitter @AnneBoca or by emailing [email protected].


10 comments

  • The Real Tom

    October 21, 2022 at 2:04 pm

    Ron DeSantis bullying Fauci is a disgrace. Wait till DeSantis actually gains some popularity in the media. See how he likes the bullying and bad mouthing.

  • Ron DeSantis will burn in Hell with Satan for all Eternity.

    October 21, 2022 at 2:05 pm

    Holy christ. Can you imagine how many more dead Floridians we would have had if DeSantis got his way and we never had any lockdowns, no masks, and just acted like Covid wasn’t a thing.

    I already knew that Ron DeSantis was an evil idiot, but now I swear he must have some kind of death fetish. Pure evil.

  • Virginia Dart

    October 21, 2022 at 5:33 pm

    Why is it necessary to treat a scientist as an enemy of the public. The man has had a brilliant career.

    • Impeach Biden

      October 22, 2022 at 9:19 am

      Careful tossing that term “scientist” around. That psycho lunatic Rebekah Jones claims to be a scientist as well. Another Democrat nut job.

      • Elliott Offen

        October 22, 2022 at 10:15 am

        Trump was biggest nut job and crook the GOP has ever had. Let’s get some balance buddy. Let’s hear you condemn Trump crime spree. You don’t have to condemn the president Trump but at least condemn the crime spree for Christ sakes. You people have no room to talk and yet you do. Just shameless clowns..

    • Ocean Joe

      October 22, 2022 at 11:54 am

      Virginia, for the same reason the press is also treated as an enemy of the public.
      When your policies are based on lies, when you are out to convince your followers of your invented conspiracies, the last thing you want is a scientist, or a journalist exposing your nonsense.
      There is still no evidence of material election fraud, yet now 58% of the Republican party thinks it happened.
      They also believe in Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy.

  • Yrral

    October 21, 2022 at 9:12 pm

    Google GOP COVID Death Rate

    • Impeach Biden

      October 22, 2022 at 9:18 am

      Google Kalifornia Covid death totals with a state under complete lockdown. Thank God DeSantis is our Governor and not that metrosexual Newsom.

      • Elliott Offen

        October 22, 2022 at 10:19 am

        Yeah? Where do you think the money is coming from to rebuild Florida after hurricane Ian? To rebuild on top of the rubble and bodies just so it can happen again and again. Just so some rich asshole in Florida can wake up and see the beach first thing in the morning. Someone from California made that happen is what people should be saying now if they rebuild right in the same place.

  • Yrral

    October 21, 2022 at 10:05 pm

    Hey Hey Republicans,the GOP reaper is on his way,Desantis grim reaper of Florida Republicans Google Florida GOP COVID Death

Comments are closed.


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