Charlie Crist Bizarrely Asserts Ron DeSantis Is a Lockdown Governor

Democrat Rep. Charlie Crist (D-FL) bizarrely asserted that Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) is a lockdown governor during the first and only debate between the two Monday night.

DeSantis made it clear early during the debate that Crist is a strong ally of President Joe Biden, voting with the president 100 percent of the time “to give us these inflationary to drive up the costs of everything that we’re doing.”

“And the fact of the matter is over the last two years, we’ve now had record inflation all across this country at 40-year highs,” he said, explaining that Crist “supports Biden’s energy policies, which has made gas and utilities more expensive.”

DeSantis also mentioned that individuals would not be flocking to Florida if Crist had it his way, reminding Floridians that the Democrat “wrote me a letter in July of 2020 saying you need to shut down the state of Florida.”

“He said you need to force people to shelter in their own homes. That would have destroyed the state of Florida,” he said, adding that it would have damaged millions of children, as Crist would have kept them out of school. 

“I kept this state open. And I kept this state free, and we now have the biggest budget surplus in the history of Florida. We have a 2.5 percent unemployment, lowest on record, and we just did the biggest tax cut in Florida,” he added. 

Crist then bizarrely attempted to describe DeSantis as a lockdown governor, asserting that he is the first governor to shut the state of Florida down at the start of the Chinese coronavirus pandemic — something the entire county never experienced before. Yet, DeSantis was among the first to reopen the state, as blue states remained under mandates and restrictions for months on end. 

“Ron, that’s rich. You’re the only governor in the history of Florida that has ever shut down our schools. You’re the only governor in the history of Florida that shut down our businesses. I never did that as governor,” Crist said, failing to mention the obvious: He was not governor during a worldwide pandemic when everything remained uncertain.

“You’re the one who’s the shutdown guy,” Crist said before proceeding to defend lockdowns, expressing the need for someone who will “listen to science.” Notably, Crist is the same candidate who said on the campaign trail that he would force a mask mandate if so-called experts called for it.