Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) was interrupted during a press conference at the Jackson Memorial Hospital on Monday by an activist, Thomas Kennedy. Kennedy, the Florida state coordinator for nonprofit group United We Dream, called for the resignation of DeSantis over his handling of the COVID-19 crisis, before being escorted away from the premises.
“Shame on you. You are an embarrassment. You are an embarrassment for getting record-breaking cases every day, and you are doing nothing. You are falsifying information and you are misleading the public. Over 4,000 people have died, and you are blaming the protestors! You guys have no plan, and you are doing nothing. Shame on you!”
After pausing for a moment, DeSantis continued to talk over Kennedy.
Florida had announced 15,299 new cases on Sunday, breaking the record for the new cases in a single state in one day. On Twitter, Kennedy also called out Helen Ferré, DeSantis’s communications director, for her statement that “Florida has tested 2.4 million people, which is one out of 9 individual.” He claimed that the statement made the situation out to be better than it was as the turnaround time for the testing results was too long.
Kennedy did not receive his COVID-19 test results until nine days after he was tested. Kennedy claims that Ferré conflated 2.4 million tests with the number of people who were tested, disregarding the fact that some people are tested multiple times. This was part of what Kennedy referred to when he stated that DeSantis was “falsifying information” and “misleading the public.”
Kennedy stated on Twitter that he hopes that his actions in calling out DeSantis encourages others to “continue to speak out and challenge power.”
On Tuesday, an announcement for DeSantis’s roundtable with the Miami-Dade County Mayors stated that “all credentialed media are welcome to attend.” The hashtag #DeathSantis is trending in Florida.
