Not long after Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis called out Joe Biden’s pettiness for snubbing him despite calling various Florida mayors before Hurricane Ian made landfall, Biden insisted that his political disputes with DeSantis were irrelevant when it came to hurricane relief.
“It’s totally irrelevant, but I’ll answer it,” he said in response to a question about his relationship with DeSantis during remarks he made at the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s headquarters. “He complimented me, he thanked me for the immediate response we had, he told me how much he appreciated it.”
“This is not about anything having to do with our disagreements politically, this is about saving people’s lives, homes and businesses. That’s what this is about,” Biden added.
But, during Friday’s White House press briefing, Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre refused to offer anything complimentary regarding DeSantis and his state’s response to the Hurricane.
“Yesterday President Biden said that Gov. DeSantis … complimented him and praised the immediate response from the federal government,” Kaitlan Collins of CNN began. “Is that a sentiment that the president returns? Does the president think Gov. DeSantis has handled the response to this well so far?”
Jean-Pierre pivoted from the question, insisting, “I can’t speak to the specifics of a private conversation” and that “we don’t want to make this about politics.”
Related: The Left Is Hoping DeSantis Botches Hurricane Response. Here’s What They Didn’t Count On.
Collins, to her credit, called out Jean-Pierre for not answering her question and gave her another opportunity to do so. “I’m not asking about politics,” Collins said. “I’m just asking if the president thinks that governor DeSantis has done a good job so far.”
Jean-Pierre refused to answer again. “I’m not going to get into particulars of who’s doing a good job and … who could do a better job, I should say.”
This is the exact same kind of petty behavior that DeSantis criticized Biden for earlier this week. Despite Biden’s assertion that his political disagreements with DeSantis did not matter, the White House was unable to even come up with even a generic compliment for DeSantis! Instead, the White House chose to completely sidestep the issue in order to avoid being on record as having said anything positive about DeSantis’s hurricane response.
Why not say something? The answer is obvious. DeSantis is a potential 2024 presidential candidate — a threat to the Democrats’ power, and they’re hoping that DeSantis’s hurricane response will go sour and that it could thwart his reelection in November and potentially end his presidential prospects.
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