Ossoff: Republican Officials ‘Lack the Courage’ to Level with People on COVID

Thursday on MSNBC’s “Andrea Mitchell Reports,” Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-GA) complained that Republican elected officials “lack the courage to level with their constituents” about how to protect themselves from coronavirus.

In a video, Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) said, “So why don’t you do your job? Why don’t you get this border secure, and until you do that, I don’t want to hear a blip about COVID from you.”

In a video Gov. Kemp (R-GA) said, “We don’t need mandates to know what to do. We have mixed messages coming out of the White House, out of CDC. That is why the people don’t trust the government anymore when it comes to COVID guidance, and mandates don’t work.”

Mitchell asked, “You heard Governor Kemp from your state. Starting today, Fulton County announcing a mask requirement for all employees and members of the public and county facilities regardless of vaccination status. Do you expect the governor will support that local order?”

Ossoff said, “I don’t know what Governor Kemp intends to do, but clearly there remain Republican elected officials who lack the courage to level with their constituents about the steps that they need to take, advised by public health experts to protect ourselves and our families. The American response to COVID-19 has been impaired from the very beginning by Donald Trump’s dismissal of scientific expertise. It became a partisan issue. This defiance in the face of public health advice from peer-reviewed scholarship about how we can protect ourselves and slow the spread of this virus is one of the reasons that the United States still struggles to get this pandemic completely under control.”

Follow Pam Key on Twitter @pamkeyNEN