CNN anchor Jim Acosta took Republican politicians to task on Saturday for their anti-vaccination messaging, suggesting that future COVID-19 variants should be named after them.
“People should not have to die so some politicians can own the libs. They’re not owning anybody,” Acosta said, calling out elected leaders including Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and Missouri Senator Josh Hawley. “But they may end up owning the pandemic, because they’re prolonging it.”
Acosta put a particular focus on DeSantis, who has been selling merchandise with anti-science slogans like “Don’t Fauci my Florida.”
“These politicians, they know better,” Acosta said. “Take a look at this. DeSantis is a graduate of Harvard Law and Yale. Hawley went to Yale Law and Stanford. [Louisiana senator John] Kennedy, studied at Oxford, UVA and Vanderbilt. Anybody who’s gone to an elite university not only passed a science class, but should also value expertise. And the experts are telling us to listen to the science that it’s better to be vaccinated.”
Toward the end of the segment, Acosta came to the point about naming rights for new deadly variants of the virus. “Perhaps it’s time to start naming these new variants that may be coming out after them instead of the Delta variant,” he said. “Why not call it the DeSantis variant? We could sell beer koozies that say ‘Don’t Florida my Fauci’ and use the money to help pay for all of the funerals that will be coming in the days to come,” Acosta said.
Watch the segment above.