There’s a reason why so many mainstream media outlets are being deemed as ‘fake news’ these days. 60 Minutes correspondent Sharyn Alfonsi recently posted a clip asking Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis about a debunked conspiracy theory regarding vaccine distribution at a press conference. As pointed out by CBS News, the posted clip was edited to look like Gov. DeSantis dodged her question rather than answering it. Mind you, 60 Minutes had the guts to edit the clip from a press conference that other reporters were at. But that’s why it’s called ‘fake news.’


Reporter Alfonsi began questioning Gov. DeSantis by pointing out how grocery chain Publix donated $100,000 to his campaign and then was rewarded with “exclusive rights to distribute the vaccination in Palm Beach.” Gov. DeSantis immediately said that this was a fake narrative. He explains that his options included giving more to hospitals, drive-thru sites, or Publix, and that he was looking for the easiest thing to do for residents. Alfonsi argues back that Palm Beach County Commissioner Melissa McKinlay “never met” with her about the Publix deal. “The criticism here is that is pay for play governor,” she said.

Gov. DeSantis’ full answer, however, was edited and trimmed out so that he appeared to just be shouting back at Alfonsi and arguing against the false narrative, rather than explaining it. There was a video circulating on Youtube with DeSantis’s full interview answer, but it disappeared shortly from the platform. Shocker.

Here is the poorly edited clip.

In an answer that got trimmed from the interview, DeSantis points out how CVS and Walgreens were going to be distributing vaccines to long-term care facilities in December. He said the state wanted to expand the distribution points for January and that Publix was the “first one to raise their hand.”


Here is the full answer that Gov. DeSantis gave (and not that 60 Minutes would post it). It has been previously deleted from YouTube.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ujXprOCkLY&t=44s

“So yes, you had the counties, you had drive-thru sites, you had hospitals that were doing a lot, but we wanted to get into other communities more. So we reached out to other retail pharmacies: Publix, Walmart, obviously CVS and Walgreens had to finish that mission and we said we’re going to use you as soon as you’re done with that,” DeSantis explained.

The director of the Florida Division of Emergency Management, Jared Moskowitz, even adds in a tweet to 60 Minutes that Publix was recommended by his division and the Florida Department of Health. “@60 minutes 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 Public. It’s just absolute malarkey,” he wrote.

Gov. DeSantis said that Palm Beach has been one of the biggest and most elderly counties they’ve worked with, adding that they’ve vaccinated almost 75% of the seniors there. While the state needed to execute the mission on a timely basis, the federal government had delayed the federal pharmacy program time and time again.

Publix even dismissed the narrative as “absolutely false and offensive,” and issued a statement regarding the 60 Minutes clip. “The irresponsible suggestion that there was a connection between campaign contributons 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,” they wrote. The company adds that they have been proud to help vaccinate more than 1.5 million doses of vaccine to date and help in their part to assist communities.

But when you’re a liberal in the mainstream media, there are no consequences for lying. Even when there’s a full video to show what you’ve edited out in the first place.