Trump praises DeSantis despite record COVID-19 deaths in FL, canceled GOP convention
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis ended a week of record COVID-19 deaths, a canceled Republican convention, polling that showed his approval ratings plummeting and increased sniping from Republicans on his coronavirus response with his most important political backing: an embrace from President Donald Trump.
DeSantis, along with Florida House Speaker Jose Oliva and Rep. Matt Gaetz, were part of a Florida-heavy contingent at a Friday afternoon executive order signing with Trump and his top health officials at the White House.
“One thing I’ll tell you about Ron, he handles pressure well,” Trump said during the event.
DeSantis gave a brief speech praising the executive order — and the president — without mentioning the state’s response to the coronavirus pandemic or the shuttered convention.
The executive order Friday gave a federal stamp of approval to a 2019 Florida law that allowed Florida to explore importing prescription drugs from abroad.
“We had a plan in Florida and I went to see you,” DeSantis said to Trump. “Other presidents had the ability to pull this lever and they didn’t do it. I went up and asked you and not everyone was in favor of you doing it. You had a lot of people saying, ‘Don’t do it,’ but you were laser focused on lowering drug prices, particularly on seniors in the state of Florida.”
A day after the 2020 Republican Convention in Jacksonville was canceled due to Florida’s climbing COVID-19 case numbers and deaths, DeSantis had yet to publicly weigh in. A DeSantis spokesperson on Friday referred the Miami Herald to the Republican Party of Florida’s statement, which praised the president for deciding to cancel in the name of safety.
DeSantis’ coronavirus response is drawing criticism from fellow Republicans.
On Friday, West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice said DeSantis once bragged about Florida’s coronavirus response calls with governors across the country.
“We don’t want to be Florida,” Justice told reporters on Friday.
On Wednesday, White House counselor Kellyanne Conway criticized states like Florida who reopened rapidly, though she didn’t call out Florida directly.
“They opened up some of the industries too quickly, like bars,” Conway said. “The governors wanted complete latitude over when they would open their states. They pushed back heavily ... Republicans and Democrats, when it was falsely rumored that the president was going to be in charge of opening the states.”
And Trump himself said, “Florida is in a little tough, or a big tough, position.”
But DeSantis’ week, which began with masked protesters shouting him down during an Orlando news conference, ended with a White House photo-op.
The governor and Oliva were on hand to tout the executive order that allows for some drugs to be imported to Florida from abroad, and also met with the White House chief of staff, Mark Meadows.
The state measure, which was a priority of Oliva’s, opened up three pathways for bringing medication to Florida from different countries, including Canada, through a 2003 federal law that tasks federal officials with authorizing state plans to import prescription drugs.
No state has received such approval in the 17 years since the bill was passed. At the June 2019 bill signing in the Villages, DeSantistouted Trump’s support.
“I’ve been in the Oval Office arguing the case when almost everyone else in his administration has been saying don’t do it,” he said at the bill signing in 2019. “I don’t think we would have been able to get this done or have a pathway to get this done were it not for the president’s willingness to do it.”
It is illegal to import prescription drugs from Canada, though federal officials largely do not enforce the ban. Canadian drugs are cheaper in part because the country imposes caps on how much pharmaceutical companies can charge, while the U.S. does not.
Democrats said Friday’s event was a “staged ceremony.”
“Who do Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis think they’re fooling? Certainly not the millions of Floridians whose healthcare is in jeopardy because Trump has spent 3 1/2 years in office relentlessly pushing to repeal the Affordable Care Act with absolutely no plan to replace it,” Florida Democratic Party chair Terrie Rizzo said in a statement. “He’s promised to reduce drug prices before and has nothing to show for it.”
At the Friday event in Washington, DeSantis attributed the success of the state’s drug importation law to the president. ”In Florida we did some ground work, but it’s a result of presidential leadership,” he said.
And as Trump’s health officials gathered around him for a photo op to sign the orders, DeSantis didn’t join them.
“Let Ron have that,” Trump said, referring to one of the ceremonial pens used to sign the order. “Where’s Ron?”
Trump scanned the room.
“C’mon, Ron, get over here,” Trump said, as he tossed the pen to Florida’s governor.
Miami Herald reporter David Smiley and McClatchy DC reporter Francesca Chambers contributed to this report.
This story was originally published July 24, 2020 at 6:16 PM.