Gov. DeSantis Blasts The AP for Dishonest Hit Piece

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has responded to another hit piece against him. In April, 60 Minutes on CBS aired a bogus story about the governor, and now just last week, the AP implied that DeSantis was promoting Regeneron's COVID antibody treatment only because a hedge fund that donated to a pro-DeSantis political committee also owns shares of Regeneron.

"It was clearly a partisan hit piece," DeSantis told Sean Hannity Monday night on Fox News.

"They're trying to act like this is not an effective treatment -- it was a bizarre theory to boost Regeneron stock price, but as you know, Sean, President Trump bought out all of the Regeneron last year, so it's already been paid for by the federal government. When we take down from Florida to give to patients, there's no charge for it. It has no financial incentive at all. All we're trying to do is help people."

The AP attack on DeSantis is remarkably similar to the hit job 60 Minutes ran on him a few months ago. Based on speculation and a dishonestly edited video clip, 60 Minutes suggested that DeSantis was involved in a "pay-for-play" scheme for giving Publix first access to the COVID vaccine. DeSantis quickly exposed the 60 Minutes lie. 

Hopefully, for its own sake, the AP is more effective in its plan to take down DeSantis. An AP spokesperson defended the DeSantis story and told Fox News, "The Associated Press does not have political opponents. We do accountability reporting about those in power, regardless of political affiliation."

No political opponents, huh? So the AP does lie.

DeSantis' press secretary Christina Pushaw also jumped in, going after the AP and its reporter Brendan Farrington, who authored the hit piece on DeSantis. That caught the outlet's attention. Following Pushaw's tweets, AP CEO Daisy Veerasingham sent a letter to DeSantis accusing his aide of "harassing behavior." DeSantis responded with his own letter, claiming the AP ran a "botched and discredited" smear against him.

DeSantis goes on to tell Hannity:

"Sean, the days of corporate media being able to smear people with impunity and conservatives do nothing -- those days are over. I can tell you in Florida, we're fighting back with the truth, and we are going to hold you accountable when you are peddling false partisan narratives."

Luckily for DeSantis, the AP won't take any of this personally or allow it to interfere with its future reporting. As the AP says, it's a down-the-middle news agency that treats both political parties equally...