60 Minutes' Hit Piece on Governor Desantis is being called false, even by Democrats

[Cerveza Fria]

'60 Minutes' faces backlash from Democrats and Publix for critical story on Florida's vaccine rollout

By Oliver Darcy, CNN Business

Updated 11:17 PM ET, Mon April 5, 2021

New York (CNN Business)"60 Minutes" is facing backlash for a story it aired Sunday on Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis — including from the supermarket chain Publix and two prominent Democrats in the state.

As part of a larger story about Florida's vaccine rollout, the renowned newsmagazine program spotlighted a recent $100,000 donation that Publix made to DeSantis' re-election bid.
The story, by correspondent Sharyn Alfonsi, suggested there was a possible link between the donation and the state's partnership with Publix stores for vaccine distribution — a serious issue of foul play, if true.
But, beyond spotlighting the public finance records, "60 Minutes" never offered any substantive evidence to support the significant assertion and link the donation with the partnership.

After the report aired, the Democratic director of the Florida Division of Emergency Management and Democratic county mayor of Palm Beach County both publicly responded, saying that partnering with Publix was not suggested by anyone from DeSantis' office.
In a Sunday night tweet directed at "60 Minutes," Florida Division of Emergency Management Director Jared Moskowitz wrote, "I said this before and I'll say it again. [Publix] was recommended by [Florida Division of Emergency Management] and [Florida Department of Public Health]. Period! Full stop!"
No one from the Governors office suggested Publix," Moskowitz added. "It's just absolute malarkey."
Palm Beach County Mayor Dave Kerner (a Democrat) offered a similar sentiment in a Monday statement.
"I watched the 60 Minutes segment on Palm Beach County last night and feel compelled to issue this statement," Kerner said.
Kerner accused "60 Minutes" of reporting "intentionally false" information, saying that the program knew DeSantis had met with him and that the county had been the entity to request "to expand the state's partnership with Publix."
Publix also issued a statement to criticize the assertion, but the supermarket chain did not mention "60 Minutes" by name.
"The irresponsible suggestion that there was a connection between campaign contributions made to Governor DeSantis and our willingness to join other pharmacies in support of the state's vaccine distribution efforts is absolutely false and offensive," Publix said Monday.
In a Monday afternoon statement, DeSantis' office said, "Florida partnered with Publix because they were ready to administer the vaccine in their pharmacies in a matter of days, whereas other pharmacies were not ready."
"Not utilizing this partnership with Publix as soon as possible would have been malpractice," the governor's office added, "especially as the state was racing to vaccinate as many people as possible, as quickly as possible."
A spokesperson for "60 Minutes" defended the story the newsmagazine aired.
In a brief statement, the spokesperson focused specifically on criticism "60 Minutes" received for not airing a portion of an encounter DeSantis had with Alfonsi at a press conference in which he pointed out to her that CVS and Walgreens — under a federal program — were the first pharmacies in the state to distribute vaccines.

[JoeD]

CNN running an article about shoddy journalism is like Mike Postle accusing someone of cheating at poker.

[desertrunner]

Gov Ron Desantis blasted them pretty good in the audio clip I heard, liked it.

[Daly]

Political hatchet jobs are a dime a dozen now days but this one was exceptional considering how poorly executed it was.

Even if Desantis wrote a flat out bribe request signed in blood - Florida had 17 Covid deaths (22.5M population) in the last 4 days and over 50% of people over 65 have been jabbed. I’m going to a party of 40/50 year olds on Friday as we have all been Vaxed. I have more “deserving” groups of friends up in the Boston area that have been desperately trying to get a shot for 2 months with no success at all.

He’s done a fucking excellent job since day 1. Someone at the DNC is scared and they should be.

[mulva]

awful. not surprised. you saw how 60 minutes treated trump.

it's a trash show now

[NickyPipes]

Political hatchet jobs are a dime a dozen now days but this one was exceptional considering how poorly executed it was.

Even if Desantis wrote a flat out bribe request signed in blood - Florida had 17 Covid deaths (22.5M population) in the last 4 days and over 50% of people over 65 have been jabbed. I’m going to a party of 40/50 year olds on Friday as we have all been Vaxed. I have more “deserving” groups of friends up in the Boston area that have been desperately trying to get a shot for 2 months with no success at all.

He’s done a fucking excellent job since day 1. Someone at the DNC is scared and they should be.

Yeah agree. Didn’t know how I felt about him until Corona. Before he was just “fine” in my opinion. He handled Corona extremely well. Florida should have been the model for most states. De Santis emergence has been quite surprising, but well deserved. Starting to actually look like he could be a legit candidate for President in the not so distance future. I figure I’d vote for him. Still think he doesn’t have all that much stage presence, kind of boring after Trump but so is Biden other than his entertaining “flubs”