Miami Herald: “DeSantis’ handling of the pandemic has elevated his national profile, more so as he attacks Biden and Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert. DeSantis’ political team, for example, is selling ‘Don’t Fauci My Florida’ drink koozies and T-shirts and regularly sends out fundraising emails attacking Fauci’s ‘lockdown policies.’ In response, Fauci has said DeSantis is ‘doing egregiously political things’ as part of his response to the pandemic in Florida, where this week there’s been record-breaking COVID-19 hospitalizations. ‘I don’t want to get into a tit-for-tat with DeSantis. I don’t want to go down to his level. He’s doing egregiously political things, having T-shirts that say ‘Don’t Fauci my Florida,’ selling beer mugs with derogatory statements about me – raising political money by trying to discredit me. So I don’t want to get into the mud with him,’ Fauci said during a Wednesday interview with McClatchy. Meanwhile, DeSantis’ political team is bragging that the anti-Fauci merch is ‘FLYING off the shelves, with orders coming in from coast to coast!'”
“DeSantis’ political arm is also fundraising off of his feud with the White House over mask mandates in schools. On Tuesday, Biden delivered a stern message to governors like DeSantis who are pushing back against mask mandates in schools: ‘Get out of the way.’ A day later, the governor held an official press conference in Panama City to talk about Hurricane Michael recovery efforts. But what got the most attention was his response to Biden, who he accused of ‘helping facilitate’ COVID-19 by not securing the border with Mexico. ‘Why don’t you get this border secure?’ DeSantis said. ‘Until you do that, I don’t want to hear a blip about COVID from you.’ A few hours later, his political team sent out a fundraising email using the governor’s statements almost verbatim. ‘Until Joe Biden gets the border secured and this crisis under control, I do not want to hear a blip about COVID from him or his administration,’ the fundraising email said.”