Miami Beach Mayor Dan Gelber ripped Ron DeSantis for his 'tragically nutty' decision to accept the high rate of COVID cases in the state, charging the Florida governor with looking to gain a 'political advantage' out of the pandemic.
With the highly contagious Delta variant now spreading rapidly, Florida hit 11,515 hospitalized patients on Tuesday, breaking last year's record for the third straight day and up from just 1,000 in mid-June. The state is headed toward its worst outbreak since the start of the pandemic.
Gelber told CNN's Chris Cuomo on Tuesday evening that DeSantis has simply accepted that there will be people who die as a result of his 'brazen political decision ... he's doing in order to gain some political advantage.'
He slammed the governor for not embracing mask mandates and for not allowing the cruise industry to use vaccine passports.
'It really is sort of nutty too -- tragically nutty in a sense,' he said.
Miami Beach Mayor Dan Gelber ripped Ron DeSantis for his 'tragically nutty' decision to accept the high rate of COVID cases in the state
Twitter Privacy PolicyFlorida¿s governor is slowing down the state¿s Covid-19 response by design, says Miami Beach Mayor Dan Gelber.
¿It feels like he¿s doing everything in his power to make this disease incredibly difficult to challenge and to cabin.¿ pic.twitter.com/k8bS8kUZNz
— Cuomo Prime Time (@CuomoPrimeTime) August 4, 2021
Gelber accused the governor of playing to the conservative crowd of the Republican Party, the fervent MAGA supporters of Donald Trump.
'The point is that the governor has just decided as a show of, really, just to show off to this base that he's currying favor with that he's going to just stop all local officials from having any impact on this,' he said.
DeSantis, a close ally of Trump, is seeking a second term in the Florida governor's mansion in next year's election. He's also thought to be eyeing a run at the Republican presidential nomination in 2024.
The governor came to nation-wide attention and became
