Wasserman Schultz: FL’s Testing Shortage Is DeSantis’ Fault for Not Mandating Masks, Vaccines

On Friday’s “CNN Newsroom,” Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL) argued that Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) should be held accountable for the shortage of coronavirus tests in the state because he’s opposed mask mandates and vaccine mandates.

Host Boris Sanchez asked, “Ultimately, who do you think should be held accountable for the apparent shortage of tests in this country?”

Wasserman Schultz responded, “Well, I’ll tell you, in my state, the person that should be held accountable is Ron DeSantis, our Governor. Because there’s no one else in the entire United States that I think that has done more to make it harder to keep people healthy than Ron DeSantis. He has led the effort to pass laws in our state capitol to prevent people from being required to wear masks, to prevent businesses from requiring vaccines for employees. He’s withheld funds from school districts because they wanted to make sure that they could require students to wear masks so that they could keep children safe who, at the time, couldn’t get vaccinated themselves. So, when it comes to the effort to make sure that we can really prevent the spread, we have to make sure that we are maximizing our local government’s ability to be able to establish public health practices. And so that’s where I think the effort begins and, of course, we need to make sure that we ramp up testing as quickly as possible. And I think we’re going to have to provide some additional resources from Congress through an emergency supplemental to be able to assist with that.”

After Sanchez pointed out that the testing shortage isn’t limited to Florida, Wasserman Schultz added, “Certainly, the federal government has a responsibility and we need to make sure that we, as President Biden responsibly did, he enacted the order of half a billion tests that, obviously, will take a few weeks to arrive. But making sure that we can continue that pipeline is going to be the responsibility of an all-hands-on-deck effort. It’s not one branch of the government.”

Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett