During a press conference in Venice on Wednesday, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis tore into a reporter’s reasonable question regarding the maskless Super Bowl celebrations in Tampa, by saying, well, he likes sports.
Since Florida currently leads the country in cases of the new highly-contagious U.K variant, a reporter asked the governor to respond to the near endless photos and videos showing maskless crowds that occurred before and after Super Bowl 55. However, rather than showing concern over the issue, the governor instead ripped the reporter apart for trying to establish some sort of anti-sports narrative.
“The media is worried about that, obviously,” he said. “You don’t care as much if it’s a ‘peaceful protest,’ then it’s fine. You don’t care as much if they’re celebrating a Biden election. You only care about it if it’s people you don’t like. I’m a Bucs fan. I’m damn proud of what they did.”
This is Ron DeSantis’ angry response to questions about huge maskless celebrations in Tampa after Super Bowl in middle of deadly pandemic pic.twitter.com/5OlvGI6nWs
— Daniel Uhlfelder (@DWUhlfelderLaw) February 10, 2021
At that point, a small round of applause erupted from nearby Florida GOP Chair Joe Gruters and Vice Chair Christian Ziegler, who both seemed to enjoy the savory combo of false equivalencies and shitting on a journalist for doing their job and asking relevant questions.
As of last Friday, Florida reported 201 infections of the U.K variant, known as B.1.1.7, which is the most in the country by a long shot. California currently has the second most, with 150 cases. In the Tampa Bay area, where we are currently enjoying a maskless Super Bowl boat parade, 20 cases were found in Hillsborough County, 19 in Pinellas, six in Pasco and one in Hernando.
Experts expect the variant to be the dominant strain by March.
Riverwalk is overflowing with @Buccaneers fans as we celebrate their @NFL Super Bowl Victory! pic.twitter.com/hkK0WQsxNg
— Chad Chronister (@ChadChronister) February 10, 2021
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