Former White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany reminisced Wednesday with GOP Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis over his resistance to COVID-19 guidelines ― and she got absolutely gushy about it. (Watch the video below.)
“You mentioned COVID there and I have this very distinct memory,” McEnany, now a Fox News host, said. “I was in the Oval Office with Dr. Anthony Fauci in the Situation Room with him. I mean, this man made you think like, your days were numbered, all of our days were numbered, all 323 million of us, you know?
“But then I go to Florida. I met you on a tarmac. And you were saying some pretty bullish things about opening the state. I was a bit taken aback because it was such a contrast to kind of the groupthink I was hearing there in Washington. But you earned the ire of the left on your COVID response. Now you’re getting attacked from the right there. There were a variety of responses to COVID. Why was yours the right one?”
DeSantis answered that his state became “the focal point for freedom” and bragged that during May and June 2020 in the state’s panhandle, “it was like COVID didn’t even exist.”
“There’s no doubt about that,” McEnany replied. “I came to Florida a lot on the weekends. People don’t know that. I left the swamp and it was pretty joyful to be in Florida. I went to restaurants, I drove the highways. Things were open.”
McEnany’s comments were construed by Mediaite as a veiled dig at ex-President Donald Trump, her former boss who insulted her recently and has a sizable polling lead over DeSantis in the 2024 presidential race. Trump has criticized DeSantis’ response to the pandemic, saying that even former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo handled it better.