ron desantis briefing
Protestors interrupt Florida governor's Covid-19 briefing
02:15 - Source: WESH
CNN  — 

If there’s a face of the botched handling of coronavirus in the United States – other than President Donald Trump, of course – it’s that of Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis.

The Sunshine State’s seven-day average of cases is at more than 11,000, according to The New York Times. More than 5,000 people have died because of the virus in Florida.

Even Trump, forever downplaying the severity of the coronavirus, acknowledged that Florida is not in good shape.

“I say flames, we’ll put out the flames,” Trump told “Fox News Sunday” host Chris Wallace over the weekend. “And we’ll put out in some cases just burning embers. We also have burning embers. We have embers and we do have flames. Florida became more flame like, but it’s – it’s going to be under control.”

Amid the flames, DeSantis looks like a firefighter with no water.

On Monday, his coronavirus press conference was marked by protesters shouting “Shame on you!” (DeSantis just kept talking.) Over the weekend, when a reporter noted the death of civil rights icon John Lewis and offered DeSantis a chance to offer his condolences, the governor instead said this: “All right, yeah. I appreciate the question, but we’re trying to focus on the coronavirus. I appreciate it, but I’m going to let someone ask about — do you have a question about the topic at hand?”

DeSantis has continued to resist calls – including a recent letter from Florida’s congressional delegation – to consider a mask mandate. “We’ve advised that’s something that could make an impact,” DeSantis said last month. “At the same time, to do police and put criminal penalties on that is something that probably would backfire.”

And he announced earlier this month – via executive order – that all public schools in the state will return to five-day-a-week, in-person classes by August even as the virus rages in the state. (Florida’s largest teachers union is suing DeSantis over that decision.)

The image left by this series of missteps and misstatements is of a governor who is simply not up to the massive task of managing a huge state through the coronavirus crisis. That DeSantis spent May congratulating himself for expertly guiding the state through the pandemic and blasting his critics in the media who questioned his decision to close the state late and reopen it early doesn’t exactly help change that image.

“None of these people knew anything about Florida at all, so I didn’t care what they were saying,” DeSantis told the National Review on May 20, words that have come back to haunt him over these past two months.

Because of how much he has struggled to get the latest coronavirus surge under control, it’s worth examining how DeSantis got the job of governor in the first place.

DeSantis was elected to the House in 2012, and by 2016 was already running for the Senate. He dropped out of that race when Florida Sen. Marco Rubio (R) abandoned his presidential bid and decided to run again. Two years later, DeSantis again ran for statewide office – this time for governor, although he was considered a long shot in a primary against state Agriculture Commissioner Adam Putnam. (Putnam had left Congress in 2010 to return to state office and begin laying the groundwork for a 2018 gubernatorial bid.)

That all changed on December 22, 2017, when Trump, somewhat out of the blue, tweeted an endorsement of DeSantis. DeSantis went on to win the August 2018 primary over Putnam easily and then narrowly beat out Democrat Andrew Gillum in the general election.

Trump, because he is Trump, made sure DeSantis knew that his governorship was entirely due to the presidential endorsement.

“He was at 3 (percent), he had no money. Somebody else was at 38 and they had $22 million cash, right?” Trump recounted at the White House in February according to the Tampa Bay Times. “I said, ‘Look, if it’s important, I’ll do it,’ because he’s been another great warrior. And, by the way, he ran, I endorsed him, his numbers went through the roof.”

And DeSantis has, without question, taken his marching orders from Trump – particularly when it comes to his response to the coronavirus. After weeks of pressure to shut down the state amid the growing number of cases in late March and early April, DeSantis eventually relented.

His explanation for why? “When you see the President up there and his demeanor the last couple of days, that’s not necessarily how he always is,” he said. Yes, the governor of Florida – a massively populated state with a huge elderly population – decided to, finally, issue a shelter-in-place order because he saw the President’s “demeanor” toward the virus had changed.

What DeSantis has done – and not done – in Florida to deal with Covid-19 reveals the limits of a governing philosophy centered on staying on good terms with the President of the United States.

DeSantis now leads the a state at the epicenter of the coronavirus pandemic in the United States, and he appears to have very little idea of what to do next.