CNN anchor Don Lemon called out Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida Wednesday for standing up against mask mandates.
“You can always count on [Ron DeSantis] for turning a deadly disease into an applause line,” Lemon said on “Don Lemon Tonight.”
He then played a clip of DeSantis saying, “Politicians want you to cover your face as a way for them to cover their own a**es. That’s just the truth. They want to be able to say they’re taking this on, they’re doing this, even though it’s not proven to be effective, they want to continue to do it.”
Lemon responded by calling it “bonko” and “bullsh*t.”
“They want to protect the kids, governor. What do you want?” Lemon asked DeSantis, to camera. “The CDC and the AMA both agree that masks reduce the transmission of the virus, but DeSantis reacted to the Miami-Dade schoolboard’s vote today in favor of a mask mandate with the statement, pushing the same old misguided bad faith view of freedom.”
He then showed DeSantis’ statement to Miami-Date school board vote.
“Forced masking of all schoolchildren is not consistent with protecting parents’ rights to make health and education decisions for their own children,” the statement read.
“This has nothing to do with freedom,” Lemon said, and rhetorically asked, “How is it freedom to force children who are too young to be vaccinated into schools where they could be exposed to a deadly virus surrounded by people not wearing masks? Putting politics ahead of lifesaving science? Like those governors are encouraging people to do?”
“Hospitals in hotspots across the country are full to capacity,” Lemon said. “People are dying, needlessly. Even though we have all the vaccines we could possibly ever need, even though we could be protecting children who are too young to be vaccinated simply by wearing masks.”
“It is just depraved. People are dying all across this country, people with loved ones who are grieving tonight. These are people who didn’t have to die. Their loss is a very preventable tragedy,” Lemon said.