DeSantis Draws Distinction From Trump, Says He Would Have ‘Fired’ Fauci

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis speaks to Iowa voters gathered at the Iowa State Fairgrounds in Des Moines, on March 10, 2023. Scott Olson/Getty Images

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis would have “fired” former National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Director Dr. Anthony Fauci if he was president during the COVID-19 pandemic, he tells Piers Morgan in a Fox Nation interview that airs March 23.

DeSantis, regarded the undeclared top challenger to Donald Trump’s bid for a third consecutive Republican nomination to run for president in 2024, was asked by Morgan to differentiate himself from the former president.

“Well, I think there’s a few things. The approach to COVID was different” between his management in Florida and how Trump dealt with it in the White House in 2020, he said.

“I would have fired somebody like Fauci. I think he got way too big for his britches, and I think he did a lot of damage,” DeSantis said.

The governor will not declare on Fox Nation that he is running for president—no one expects him to until after the Florida Legislature adjourns in early May—despite obvious signs to the contrary, such as recently concluding a book tour to Iowa and Nevada, which happen to be early primary states, and a mid-April book tour visit planned to early-primary state New Hampshire.

Dr. Anthony Fauci in Washington on Dec. 9, 2022. Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images

Fauci Frequent DeSantis Target

Fauci, NIAID director from 1984 to 2022, and chief medical adviser to President Joe Biden 2021-22, has been DeSantis’ most frequent target in his campaign-like book tour appearances.

During a March 16 rally in Winter Haven, Florida, DeSantis said “reality had no impact” on how Fauci, the NIAID, and Centers for Disease Control [CDC] managed the pandemic by issuing “flippant” decisions that had direct, immediate impacts, and lingering effects that continue now, on families, businesses, and students.

“For three years,” he said on March 16, “the experts got it wrong. We are not going to let this state descend into a ‘Faucian dystopia,’ allow this whole infrastructure they’re trying to impose on society to control behavior.”

DeSantis has demanded that Fauci be “held accountable” for school lockdowns, business closures, and mask mandates.

Other ways his leadership style—an aggressive use of executive authority—varies from Trump’s is “no daily drama, focus on the big picture, and put points on the board ... I think that’s something that’s very important.”

DeSantis tells Morgan that, should he run for president, he won’t focus on other GOP presidential rivals, such as Trump, but on President Joe Biden and Democrat policies.

“If I were to run, I’m running against Biden,” he said, denying that he would target Trump. “We are competing for the Republican [nomination], potentially, I get that, but ultimately you know the guy I’m going to focus on is Biden because I think he’s failed the country. I think the country wants a change. I think they want a fresh start and a new direction, and so we’ll be very vocal about that.”

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis celebrates signing into law provisions that would ban certain discussions about sexual orientation and gender identity in school classrooms from kindergarten to third grade, on March 28, 2022. Courtesy of Florida Governor's Office

DeSantis: I Can Get Democrat Votes

DeSantis said he would have more traction with independents and disaffected Democrats that any other potential GOP candidate. When elected to his first term as governor in 2018 by about a half-percent over former Tallahassee Mayor Andrew Gillum, an estimated 80,000 registered Democrat and mostly minority “school-choice parents” crossed partisan lines to vote for him.

“You can’t win with just Republicans,“ DeSantis tells Morgan. “You’ve got to win with independents, and you need to convince some of these Democrats, which I was able to do in Florida, because they’re not woke. They don’t like some of the nonsense going on. They want their streets safe, and they want quality education. So I think you could appeal to people across the canvas.”

With Trump embroiled in four criminal investigations and now on “arrest watch” with a 23-member grand jury in Manhattan expected to hand down an indictment this week for his 2016 $130,000 “hush money” payoff to porn star Stormy Daniels, DeSantis has been circumspect in his comments about the former president’s scandals, saying in Tallahassee on March 20 that he doesn’t have any experience in how to deal with paying off porn stars.

Trump, however, has not been circumspect in targeting his biggest potential obstacle to another GOP presidential run, implying there’s something shaky in DeSantis’ background during a year when he was a teacher at a private school, before serving as an attorney with the U.S. Navy’s Judge Advocate General office.

“Ron DeSanctimonious will probably find out about FALSE ACCUSATIONS & FAKE STORIES sometime in the future, as he gets older, wiser, and better known, when he’s unfairly and illegally attacked by a woman, even classmates that are ‘underage’ (or possibly a man!),” Trump wrote on his TruthSocial page earlier this week. “I’m sure he will want to fight these misfits just like I do!”

Trump has been calling the governor “DeSanctimonious” for months. DeSantis told Morgan that Floridians don’t understand what Trump means with the nickname, aren’t sure if it’s an insult, and has “a lot of vowels.”

“I don’t know how to spell the sanctimonious one. I don’t really know what it means, but I kind of like it—it’s long, it’s got a lot of vowels. We’ll go with that, that’s fine,” he tells Morgan. “I mean, you can call me whatever you want, just as long as you also call me a winner, because that’s what we’ve been able to do in Florida, is put a lot of points on the board and really take this state to the next level.”