CBS News’s 60 Minutes was accused of selectively editing an interview with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and manufacturing a “pay to play” scandal involving vaccine distribution in Florida.
“‘60 Minutes’ tried to invent a scandal involving Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ distribution of vaccines. To push the false narrative and protect its favored governors, ‘60 Minutes’ refused to interview people who disputed its false narrative, selectively edited video to hide facts, and omitted data that debunked its thesis and accurately describe Florida’s success,” the Federalist’s Mollie Hemingway wrote in a column on Monday.
“‘60 Minutes,’ known best for pushing obviously forged documents weeks prior to the 2004 election in order to harm Republican President George W. Bush, took the approach of claiming that Florida’s vaccine distribution has been uniquely ‘chaotic’ and the result of some ill-defined ‘pay to play’ conspiracy theory developed by its reporter Sharyn Alfonsi,” she added.
The column comes after 60 Minutes aired a preview clip of Sunday’s broadcast that showed reporter Sharyn Alfonsi questioning DeSantis in March over allegations that he rewarded grocery store Publix with virus vaccinations following a six-figure donation to his campaign.
RON DESANTIS SPURNS BIDEN VACCINE PASSPORT PLAN AND WILL BAN THEM IN FLORIDA VIA EXECUTIVE ORDER
Sunday, Sharyn Alfonsi investigates allegations that Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis made decisions about COVID vaccine distribution favoring wealthy or connected individuals, including a supermarket chain that recently donated to the governor’s PAC. https://t.co/VbVdXJ3xxv pic.twitter.com/6mbxfMdgPg
— 60 Minutes (@60Minutes) April 2, 2021
“Publix, as you know, donated $100,000 to your campaign,” Alfonsi said in the clip. “And then you rewarded them with the exclusive rights to distribute the vaccination in Palm Beach.”
“First of all, what you’re saying is wrong,” DeSantis said.
“How is that not pay to play?” Alfonsi asked.
“That’s a fake narrative,” DeSantis replied. “I met with the county mayor. I met with the administrator. I met with all the folks at Palm Beach County, and I said, ‘Here’s some of the options: We can do more drive-thru sites. We can give more to hospitals. We can do the Publix.’ And they said, ‘We think that would be the easiest thing for our residents.’”
Alfonsi, in a voice-over, then said that Palm Beach County Commissioner Melissa McKinlay said the Republican governor “never met with her about the Publix deal.”
“The criticism is that it’s pay to play, governor,” Alfonsi told DeSantis.
“And it’s wrong. It’s wrong,” the governor responded. “It’s a fake narrative. I just disabused you of the narrative. And you don’t care about the facts because, obviously, I laid it out for you in a way that is irrefutable.”
Social media users pounced on the clip, saying that it was edited to omit DeSantis explaining how the Publix deal came about.
“First of all, the first pharmacies that had [the vaccine] were CVS and Walgreens, and they had a long-term care mission, so they were going to the long-term care facilities. They got the vaccine in the middle of December. They started going to the long-term care facilities the third week in December to do LTCs,” DeSantis told Alfonsi. “So that was their mission. That was very important, and we trusted them to do that. As we got into January, we wanted to expand the distribution points.
Hemingway continued in her piece that “despite all evidence to the contrary,” Alfonsi stood firm that “DeSantis had personally rammed through a decision to use Publix grocery stores for vaccine distribution.”
Others echoed Hemingway on Twitter following the Sunday broadcast, with many characterizing 60 Minutes as unreliable.
Everyone knows 60 Minutes is totally partisan. https://t.co/gv4XM0fudY
— Richard Grenell (@RichardGrenell) April 5, 2021
60 Minutes really suggesting Publix was chosen for the vaccine program because they donated to DeSantis and not because of their bomb chicken tender subs ???
— Amber Athey (@amber_athey) April 5, 2021
Hey @60Minutes if ya’ll were real journalists, maybe you should look at say Cuomo, Whitmer, Wolf, Murphy, Newsom and other Dems re their butchery of senior citizens in rest homes. . . but we know you won’t because you’re just propagandists for the left & mustn’t hurt the “team.”
— Ned Ryun (@nedryun) April 5, 2021
So @60Minutes thinks it’s a scandal that Publix donated to DeSantis and was given a contract by the state to distribute vaccines despite the fact that a) it’s one of the most popular supermarkets in Florida and b) was recommended by the FL Dept. of Health, not the Gov’s office pic.twitter.com/c1U50v1GHE
— Greg Price (@greg_price11) April 5, 2021
Publix also denied that it received special access to vaccines, calling the claims “irresponsible.”
“The irresponsible suggestion that there was a connection between campaign contributions made to Governor DeSantis and our willingness to join other pharmacies in support of the state’s vaccine distribution efforts is absolutely false and offensive. We are proud of our pharmacy associates for administering more than 1.5 million doses of vaccine to date and for joining other retailers in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia to do our part to help our communities emerge from the pandemic,” Publix said in a statement.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
Jared Moskowitz, the director of the Florida Division of Emergency Management and also a Democrat, slammed CBS’s reporting.
“I said this before and I’ll say it again,” he tweeted. “Publix was recommended by [the Florida Division of Emergency Management] and [the Florida Department of Health] as the other pharmacies were not ready to start. Period! Full Stop! No one from the Governors office suggested Publix. It’s just absolute malarkey.”
@60Minutes I said this before and I’ll say it again. @Publix was recommended by @FLSERT and @HealthyFla as the other pharmacies were not ready to start. Period! Full Stop! No one from the Governors office suggested Publix. It’s just absolute malarkey. https://t.co/obkqYcbrzt
— Jared MASKowitz ? (@JaredEMoskowitz) April 4, 2021
DeSantis’s office did not immediately respond to the Washington Examiner’s request for comment.
“As we always do for clarity, 60 MINUTES used the portion of the Governor’s over 2-minute response that directly addressed the question from the correspondent,” a CBS News spokesperson told the Washington Examiner, adding that the governor was asked for an interview twice by the network.
