"I've never seen any governor of either party ever behave like this," Dean Said. "It's almost as if he does not give a damn who has to die as long as he's gets reelected, and I think he's making a big mistake."
August 30, 2021

Former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean didn't pull any punches when asked about Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis being even more callous than Trump when it comes to the coronavirus pandemic, now that Trump has finally said something to his supporters about getting vaccinated, however lame that endorsement (which was met with boos) might have been.

DeathSantis has been losing in court, with a judge ruling this Friday that local school board can implement mask mandates, and MSNBC's Ari Melber asked Dean to walk his audience through "what's happening here."

Dean's response was spot on and deservedly scathing:

DEAN: Well, I'm actually just shocked by DeSantis. I never thought I'd say this, but I think he may be a lunatic than Trump ever was. I mean, Trump has finally come around to understanding that the best thing he can do for his supporters is get them vaccinated.

DeSantis is just completely out of touch with reality. Monoclonal antibodies has nothing to do with this. You've got to stop people from getting this disease, and he's not willing to do it, and I'm not sure what possible thinking he could be under going now when you got more than half the population that's in school districts refusing to comply, long before the court said it was okay, more than half of the people in Florida's school districts said no, we don't care DeSantis, shut up and go away.

This guy is not competent to serve in any capacity. You can't... if you are the governor, you can't do that. Once in a while you have to understand that the public pays your salary and that you owe them your best, not some political hobgoblin nonsense and a bunch of lies.

That's just... I'm shocked. I've never seen a governor like this before.

After Melber noted that it seems the people of his state have finally “had it” with DeSantis, with the polls finally moving in the wrong direction for him, Dean continued.

DEAN: Well I would think they would. This guy's putting their children's lives at risk. We're going to have dead kids all over Florida in these districts that are following DeSantis. It is outrageous. I've never seen any governor of either party ever behave like this.

It's almost as if he does not give a damn who has to die as long as he's gets reelected, and I think he's making a big mistake. I don't know who the Democrats are planning on running for governor, but if it's a halfway decent person, DeSantis is going to be gone after four years, and thank God, it's not a moment too soon.

There's no "almost" about it, Howard. That's exactly what's going on here, and Dean is right. If we start seeing large numbers of children winding up in the ICU and dying in his state, his constituents are going to continue to turn on him.

Dean also urgently recommended we start getting children between the ages of 2 and 12 vaccinated now, and hoped that Biden would push the FDA and CDC to take emergency action to allow more school children to have access to the vaccines.

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