'What else has Joe forgotten?' Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis mocks Biden's snarky 'governor who?' remark by saying he's 'not surprised he doesn't remember me'
Ron DeSantis on Friday mocked Joe Biden for saying 'governor who?' when asked about Florida's no-mask policy and said he 'wasn't surprised' the president 'doesn't remember me'.
'Well I guess I’m not surprised that Biden doesn’t remember me. I guess the question is what else has he forgotten?' DeSantis said at a press conference in Tampa.
The Florida Republican and the White House have been in war of words since he announced he was banning mask mandates in schools.
It also came just hours after Biden said 350 million Americans had been vaccinated - more than the entire population.
DeSantis then listed what Biden had 'forgotten' in including the southern border, the Cuba crisis and the 'constitution itself'.
'I’m the governor who protects parents and their ability to make the right choices for their kid’s education,' he said, referring to his executive order banning mask mandates in schools, which has sparked backlash in Washington.
'I'm the governor who protects the jobs and education and businesses in Florida by not letting the federal government lock us down.
Ron DeSantis on Friday mocked Joe Biden for saying 'governor who?' when asked about Florida's no-mask policy and said he 'wasn't surprised' the president 'doesn't remember me'. I guess the question is what else has he forgotten?' DeSantis fired back
'I’m the governor who answers to the people of Florida, not to bureaucrats in Washington.'
DeSantis' comments on Friday came just hours after Biden's press secretary Jen Psaki took aim his policies again in the ongoing tit-for-tat.
Psaki took a dig at DeSantis' executive order by saying politicians should not be deciding mask policy and insisted the 'vast majority' of Republican governors were doing a 'good job' when it came to COVID.
She highlighted Arkansas's Asa Hutchinson and Maryland's Larry Hogan for praise as she continued her attacks on DeSantis.
Hutchinson said recently he regretted signing a law banning local mask mandates. Maryland has a 78% vaccination rate and Hogan was one of the first governors in America to require face masking.
'I want public health officials to make decisions about how to keep my kids safe, not politicians,' Psaki said
'Not only is Gov. DeSantis not abiding by public health decisions, he is fundraising off of this.'
Fox News' Peter Doocy asked Psaki if she was worried about 'harmful emotional damage and psychological effects' making young children mask up in school could have, as DeSantis has highlighted experts who say this could be the case.
'No,' the press secretary said. 'I will tell you from personal experience my rising kindergartener told me two days ago she could wear a mask all day. She's just happy to go to camp and go to school.'
'Parents in Florida, parents across the country, should have the ability and the knowledge that their kids are going to school and they're in safe environments that shouldn't be too much to ask,' she added.
'Governor who?' Biden joked with reporters when asked about the Florida Governor at an electric vehicle event at the White House
DeSantis has threatened to withhold funds from Florida school districts if they mandate that students wear face coverings. He said the new CDC recommendations for masks in classrooms 'lacks' scientific justification.
Amid rising cases due to the Delta variant of Covid-19 the CDC did an about-face and said that in high-risk areas - which is much of the country - even vaccinated people should mask up in public. It also recommended universal masking in schools.
This prompted cries from some that telling vaccinated people they still needed to wear masks could undermine perceptions of the jab's efficacy.
On Friday Rep. Andrew Garbarino, R-N.Y., wrote a letter, obtained exclusively by DailyMail.com, to CDC director Rochelle Walensky asking that the CDC release the data it used to come to the latest recommendation.
DeSantis then listed what Biden had 'forgotten' in including the southern border, the Cuba crisis and the 'constitution itself'
'After 15 months of abiding by public health safety guidelines, vaccinated Americans were able to rejoice and to return to some semblance of normalcy. However, the CDC has elicited increasing confusion with its recent reversal, failing to be fully transparent with the data it is using to amend its latest mask guidance,' the letter read.
The CDC had cited a recent outbreak in Barnstable, Mass., where following the July 4th weekend there were 469 cases of Covid-19 - 74 per cent among fully vaccinated people and most showing symptoms. Garbarino's letter noted that a different study by the Kaiser Family Foundation found the rate of breakthrough cases in fully vaccinated people is less than one percent.
'Furthermore, the concept that children must now wear face coverings while attending school ignores and rejects available scientific data on the issue, given that countless studies have shown that children experience lower infection and transmission rates than adults,' the New York Republican wrote.
Meanwhile, White House and DeSantis have traded barbs all week after the governor directed schools to break from guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and leave the choice up to parents whether they send their kids to school wearing a mask.
Education Secretary Miguel Cardona also warned Thursday there could be more closures if the war over face masks in schools continues.
'I'm worried that the decisions that are being made, that are not putting students at the center and student health and safety at the center, is going to be why schools may be disrupted. We know what to do,' he said.
'We can either have a free society or we can have a biomedical security state,' DeSantis said about coronavirus restrictions.
'And I can tell you, Florida, we're a free state. People are going to be free to choose.'
'I want public health officials to make decisions about how to keep my kids safe, not politicians,' the press secretary, above, told reporters on Friday
Biden warned on Friday that the number of coronavirus cases would go up before it came down but insisted America could beat the Delta surge and that the economic plan was working after the U.S. economy added 943,000 jobs in July.
The numbers surpass expectations but come amid warnings that the rapid spread of the Delta variant could reverse gains amid fears of fresh lockdowns and closures.
Even as he celebrated the jobs figures as proof that his policies were working, the president voiced fears of tough times ahead.
'Cases are going to go up before they come back down,' he said at the White House. 'It's a pandemic of the unvaccinated.'
He also garbled his words when he said 350 million Americans had been vaccinated, more than the entire population of the US.
Speaking just before he flew out to his Delaware home for the weekend, he wore a tan suit - triggering a wave of jokes on social media as commentators remembered the furore set off by President Obama's tan suit in 2014.
Biden added that the country was better prepared with vaccinations and masks this time around, so that the economic damage would not be as severe as it was last year.
'America can beat the Delta variant. Just as we beat the original COVID-19,' he said.
'We can do this.'
After delivering remarks, Biden left the White House without answering reporters questions, for a summer weekend at his home in Wilmington, Delaware
Florida will PAY parents to move their kids to private schools if they're 'bullied' for not wearing face masks a week after Gov. Ron DeSantis claimed he'd banned compulsory face coverings in schools
Florida officials have promised to pay for parents to move their children to private schools if they are 'bullied' for not wearing face masks in schools.
The Florida Department of Education approved an emergency rule Friday to hand out private school vouchers to any parent wanting to take their children out of public schools that have enforced mask mandates.
Such vouchers, offered through the Hope Scholarship, are usually used to move children from schools where they are the victims of bullying.
Under the emergency measure, the vouchers can now be used to move students out of school if they are subjected to so-called 'COVID-19 harassment' - where parents say a school's mask mandate or other COVID-19 restrictions amount to harassment and discrimination of their children.
This marks the latest round of the fight between Governor Ron DeSantis and local school boards in Florida.
Last Friday, DeSantis issued an executive order banning schools from issuing mask mandates for students when they return to class next month and vowed that Florida will not introduce any new COVID-19 restrictions.
The governor threatened to withhold state funding from school districts if they did not comply.
COVID-19 cases are surging across the Sunshine State with officials recording the highest tally of new infections Friday since the start of the pandemic and children accounting for around a fifth of all new cases.