TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (WTXL) — Governor Ron DeSantis' campaign to be reelected as the governor of Florida includes the Republican's disagreements with Anthony Fauci, and now calls for the White House Medical Advisor to be investigated and fired.
The DeSantis campaign began selling “Don’t Fauci My Florida,” drink koozies and T-shirts just as the state began seeing some of the highest coronavirus hospitalizations, new infections and deaths per capita in the country.
Fauci has flip-flopped on wearing masks throughout the coronavirus pandemic, initially saying early on last year that they weren't necessary before changing his mind as COVID-19 numbers spiked throughout the country.
Former President Donald Trump, whose endorsement of DeSantis in 2018 helped the then-congressman win the governor's mansion in Tallahassee, publicly claimed in July 2020 that Fauci "made a lot of mistakes" while serving as a member of Trump's White House Coronavirus Task Force.
In a newly released letter, the DeSantis campaign says, "We’ve known for some time about the devastating consequences of Fauci’s lockdown policies: jobs lost, businesses shuttered, schools closed and lives destroyed."
Senator Rand Paul attempted to expose Faucifor false statements about the funding of the Wuhan lab, making broad assumptions the coronavirus was created there.
"This past week we saw Senator Rand Paul, one of the rare members of Congress who actually holds Fauci accountable, expose Fauci for his false statements about the funding of the Wuhan lab," the letter states.
DeSantis is seen as a potential front-runner for the GOP presidential nomination in 2024. A key part of his pitch: He resisted public health experts’ calls for stricter measures against the spread of the coronavirus, spurring criticism on the left and praise from the right for keeping his state’s schools and economy comparatively open.
"Fauci needs to be fired and an investigation into his role in funding the Wuhan lab must be launched immediately," reads the letter.
He is being challenged by several Democrats in the 2022 gubernatorial race, including Agriculture Commissioner Nikki Fried and former Gov. Charlie Crist.
READ 'FRIENDS OF RON DESANTIS' FULL LETTER BELOW:
We’ve known for some time about the devastating consequences of Fauci’s lockdown policies: jobs lost, businesses shuttered, schools closed and lives destroyed.
We’ve also known for some time that the most likely explanation for the start of the pandemic is that the COVID-19 virus escaped from the Wuhan Institute of Virology in Wuhan, China.
We’ve suspected for some time that Fauci and his bureaucratic brethren may have been involved in funding the Wuhan lab’s work to experiment on viruses in ways that made them more deadly to human beings.
In fact, this past week we saw Senator Rand Paul, one of the rare members of Congress who actually holds Fauci accountable, expose Fauci for his false statements about the funding of the Wuhan lab. Fauci got agitated because he doesn’t want us to know his role in funding reckless, ethically dubious research that may have precipitated a global pandemic.
Fauci needs to be fired and an investigation into his role in funding the Wuhan lab must be launched immediately.
Dr. Fauci was appointed director of NIAID in 1984. He oversees an extensive portfolio of basic and applied research to prevent, diagnose, and treat established infectious diseases such as HIV/AIDS, respiratory infections, diarrheal diseases, tuberculosis and malaria as well as emerging diseases such as Ebola and Zika.
