Quote:Democrat Palm Beach County Mayor Dave Kerner gave new details about the deceptive editing that occurred in a “60 Minutes” smear piece on Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, saying that he explained everything to the show before they aired the segment in an interview that lasted “probably over 45 minutes.”

Kerner was asked to respond to the following statement from “60 Minutes” in their attempt to explain the deceptive editing:

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.

“I participated in speaking with the producer of ’60 Minutes’ for probably over 45 minutes and gave very direct facts about the governor’s meeting that I had with him here in my office a few months ago,” Kerner said. “And when I watched the piece, I was just taken taken aback really that none of my comments, none of my perspective was included, and certainly the facts bear out the truth that this was a decision that I made, that county administration made, and really has been a wonderful addition to our overall plan here in Palm Beach County.”

Kerner said that he had met with DeSantis multiple times throughout the pandemic and they had worked well together. He also said the decision to work with Publix was a “no brainer.”

“And really, as a county mayor of of one of the largest counties in the nation, if we have a senior population that per capita outranks every other county in the state, so to have 67, ready-to-go vertically integrated points of distribution with 20,000 vaccines per week is a no brainer,” Kerner said. “And certainly Commissioner McKinley, my colleague on the board, eventually pointed out that there were some loopholes and gaps in the coverage of Publix. And we immediately rectified that, and quite frankly, we lead the state, all three major counties, by a longshot in terms of vaccinations provided to seniors 65 and over.”

Kerner said that he had to reach out to “60 Minutes” after they aired the deceptive segment because it was a “surreal experience” seeing how the show left out critical information that he gave them during his interview with them.

“I did issue a pretty scathing statement to CBS and ’60 Minutes’ on my own letterhead as the county mayor, not on behalf of the County, but I felt that it was important to have the truth out in the public sphere,” he added. “So for me, I left this experience really disheartened with ’60 Minutes’ and still don’t have an explanation as to why … my comments were never included.”

In his statement slamming “60 Minutes,” Kerner said that the show should “be ashamed” because they left out the key information he gave them “because it kneecaps their narrative.” Kerner said the segment “was not just based on bad information – it was intentionally false.”

Quote:CBS’s “60 Minutes” ran a deceptive hit piece on Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, suggesting that somehow he’d been involved in a pay for play scheme by having Publix involved in the vaccine rollout. But as we reported here, here and here, that was resoundingly debunked.

But that wasn’t the only part of CBS’s report about DeSantis that was questionable.

What was truly incredible was that they attacked him for prioritizing seniors, the people most at risk from the virus. You would think that focus should have been praised, not attacked. We saw how that lack of care for seniors resulted in more deaths in New York after Gov. Andrew Cuomo ordered nursing homes to take positive virus patients. But not only did DeSantis issue an order saying that you shouldn’t send positive virus patients into nursing homes, he also focused on getting seniors vaccinated early on since they were the population most at risk as well as being such a big part of the Florida population. Florida is among the leaders in the country for getting seniors vaccinated.

But CBS insinuated that focus was somehow bad, that it was somehow not correct they were prioritized over young frontline workers. They spoke as though seniors being more at risk was just something that DeSantis pulled out of his hat for the fun of it, rather than being the clear factual and scientific consensus.

From Townhall:

“Florida’s rollout started pretty typically. The first doses were given to healthcare workers and nursing home residents in early December,” Alfonsi said. “But then, a few weeks later, Gov. Ron DeSantis, breaking from CDC guidelines, announced he would not vaccinate teachers and essential workers next but instead put seniors first, making anyone 65 and over eligible for the vaccine, the first in the country to do that.”

“DeSantis said seniors were at highest risk,” she added, as if that was DeSantis’s opinion rather than fact.

Eighty percent of the deaths attributed to the Wuhan coronavirus have been among those 65 and older, according to the CDC. So DeSantis’ decisions were completely based upon the science and the statistics as to who was most at risk.

That’s why having vaccination in a Publix was so convenient since the stores are all over the state.

CBS tried to spin DeSantis making the vaccines so available to seniors as Florida’s 4.5 million “compete against each other” for the shots. I’m thinking that seniors in other places who didn’t have access as soon as Florida seniors would have loved to have the opportunity to “compete” for the shots. Most of Florida’s seniors, some 3.5 million people have now been vaccinated because of DeSantis.

“As a result, cases and hospitalizations in those 65 older have drastically reduced. In the 65 and older population, the number of new cases were down by 84% the week of March 21 – March 27, as compared to the week of December 27 – January 2, and hospitalizations were down by 83%,” a statement from his office says.

In other words, this is how you get the lower death numbers in Florida despite having such a concentrated population of seniors. That’s something that should be praised not attacked. But the fact that CBS tried to suggest that there was somehow something wrong with that focus shows how desperate they are to go after DeSantis.