Ron DeSantis was one of Operation Warp Speed’s biggest fans as recently as 2021, The National Pulse can reveal, as the Florida Governor and his team continue to try to ding Donald Trump over his COVID-19 policies.
“I think in terms of the vaccines and the testing… the logistics was really, really good. If you look at how the vaccine’s been distributed – yeah, granted I wish we got more vaccine every week – but I can tell you what, the vaccine is arriving,” DeSantis told Fox News’s Mark Levin, adding that vaccine distribution was a “…very difficult logistical operation and Warp Speed got it done.”
As a 2024 presidential candidate, the Florida Governor has changed his tune on Operation Warp Speed and the COVID-19 vaccines – attempting to use the pandemic response as a wedge issue against the Republican front runner, Trump. Just days before declaring his 2024 candidacy, DeSantis told the Florida Family Policy Council that, “We can never allow ‘Warp Speed’ to trump informed consent in this country ever again.”
Some DeSantis campaign donors are under the impression that the Florida Governor’s attacks on the COVID-19 vaccine and Operation Warp Speed are merely part of the campaign’s strategy to undermine Donald Trump.
“No one believes he actually believes any of the stuff about the vaccine. If you talk to the non-crazy people he’s got working for him, they don’t believe it, either. It’s politics,” The National Pulse previously reported an early DeSantis campaign ‘megadonor’ as saying.
In a post on X (formerly Twitter) from April 8, 2020, Jeremy Redfern – currently Governor DeSantis’s press secretary – was among the first people to recommend Dr. Anthony Fauci for a Presidential commendation:
Actually, you came up with the idea! But dont worry mate, I’m afraid *I* told Ron to run for President “one day” back in a 2016 radio interview. We all make mistakes! pic.twitter.com/TeRcyNQMan
— Raheem. (@RaheemKassam) September 6, 2023