To understand how Ron DeSantis last week became the apparent front-runner for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination – and how the liberal media helped the Florida governor get there – watch the video of his March 22 encounter with “60 Minutes” reporter Sharyn Alfonsi.
Or rather, watch two videos. In the unedited video, DeSantis provides a detailed rebuttal to Alfonsi’s allegation that he engaged in a pay-to-play scheme with the supermarket chain Publix, trading a $100,000 campaign donation in exchange for exclusive vaccination distribution rights in Palm Beach County.
“The first pharmacies that had” the vaccine “were CVS and Walgreens, and they had a long-term care mission,” DeSantis explained, adding that, according to county officials, “90% of their seniors live within a mile and a half of a Publix.” He concluded, “We’re also now very much expanding CVS and Walgreens, now that they’ve completed their long-term care mission.”
Not one of these quotes was included in the “60 Minutes” version, which is edited to make the governor appear dismissive and nonresponsive to Alfonsi’s allegation. Nor did “60 Minutes” mention that the decision to use Publix was made not by the governor but rather by the Florida Division of Emergency Management, whose director, Jared Moskowitz, is a Democrat. Moskowitz warned “60 Minutes” in advance of the story that “this Publix narrative was malarkey.”
For as long as I’ve been politically sentient, I’ve marveled at the mainstream media’s talent for giving Republican politicians a boost – always unwittingly. Donald Trump got an estimated $2 billion worth of free media by March 2016, including from TV hosts who would later deliver impassioned soliloquies about how they despised him.