'Demented' Ron DeSantis is using children 'as pawns' to out-Trump any Republican: Obama adviser

Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) continues to fight mask mandates and COVID-19 vaccine mandates as cases of Florida are so serious that some areas of the state announced that they were running out of oxygen.

DeSantis, whom foes have taken to calling "DeathSantis," has already started withholding money from two school districts that defied his mask ban. A total of ten school districts agreed to buck DeSantis, but he's only singling out two for punishment so far. Both of those counties voted Democrat in the 2020 election and in DeSantis' 2018 election.

The Justice Department announced this week that they intend to investigate whether the mask mandate bans in Iowa, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Utah and Tennessee are violating the rights of students with disabilities. They haven't yet opened an investigation into Florida, Texas, Arkansas or Arizona but will monitor them for potential action. A group of parents has already sued DeSantis for violating the rights of special needs children with his mask ban.

"Ron DeSantis is basically using kids as pawns in some sick, demented game to become the next mini Trump. it's despicable, it's a dereliction of duty," David Plouffe, a former adviser to President Barack Obama, told MSNBC's Nicolle Wallace. "Like so many issues in America, Nicolle, over two-thirds of Americans are united that if we need kids to wear masks in school, they should do that, both to keep them safe in schools that have unvaccinated kids under 12 to keep them safe and get past this pandemic."

While the Republican Party and Beltway press want to focus on Afghanistan, the rest of the country is actually focused on COVID-19 and the safety of children in schools, he explained.

"So, you see, all around the country, by the way, people attacking school board members, threatening violence," he continued. "You mentioned Madison Cawthorn in the lead-in suggesting these are political prisoners. So, the country needs to prepare itself. We have one of our two major political parties in this country basically celebrating violence. The overturning of elections, potentially assassinating school board members. It's insanity. But at the end of the day, here we are talking about kids, many of them unvaccinated. We don't have a date when kids under 12 can be vaccinated."

He went on to claim that there are as many people who died in Florida as went to Disney World before the pandemic.

"Florida is leading the country in cases, hospitalizations and deaths," Plouffe continued. "And you have DeSantis, who maybe had 24 hours where he did the responsible thing around vaccinations. I think he's thinking a lot more about Des Moines, Iowa, and Manchester, New Hampshire, and the 24 Republican primaries than he is the citizens of his state."

See the discussion in the video below: