Democrats and liberal media activists claiming Florida GOP Gov. Ron DeSantis was "inexplicably missing" were the ones missing the fact DeSantis was in the office every day and was attending to his wife Casey's cancer treatments, according to his press secretary.
"Churnalism," Christina Pushaw tweeted New Year's Eve. "WFLA posted this story AFTER it was disclosed that on 12/29 Governor accompanied First Lady for cancer treatment, & they failed to report that governor was at Capitol every day this week but Wed. They made sure to include accusations by liberal activist Demings though."
Orange County Mayor Jerry Demings had claimed the state "should be outraged" about DeSantis' lack of COVID-19 press briefings through the holidays.
"Our residents, all Florida residents should be outraged, and they should ask the question, 'Now, where's our state? Where's our governor?'" Demings said, according to Fox News. "Where is Ron DeSantis now? When was the last time you saw the governor do a press briefing regarding COVID-19?"
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., also attempted to deflect from reports showing her with a martini maskless in Miami while COVID rages even worse in New York City, where her district lies.
"Hasn't Gov. DeSantis been inexplicably missing for like 2 weeks," Ocasio-Cortez tweeted, striking back at criticism she went to Florida instead of her district while on break from Washington, D.C. "If he's around, I would be happy to say hello. His social media team seems to have been posting old photos for weeks."
"In the meantime, perhaps I could help with local organizing. Folks are quite receptive here."
In October DeSantis had announced his wife has breast cancer.
"Just FYI, @GovRonDeSantis is not on vacation," communications staffer Kyle Lamb tweeted. "Literally no one from our office has said that he is. Anyone pushing that could have easily seen the public schedule and seen that he's taking calls and meetings this past week. Not having public events does not = 'vacation'."
MSNBC's Joy Anne-Reid was among those spreading the vacation disinformation in the media, getting flogged by Pushaw for it.
"Have you ever considered that you're one of the reasons nobody trusts the media?" Pushaw tweeted.
DeSantis attended a "Let Us Worship" event and the Orange Bowl on Friday night.
Eric Mack ✉
Eric Mack has been a writer and editor at Newsmax since 2016. He is a 1998 Syracuse University journalism graduate and a New York Press Association award-winning writer.
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