President Biden flew to Florida over the weekend to help relief efforts after Hurricane Idalia. Noticeably missing was Florida governor and current Republican presidential hopeful Ron DeSantis – and MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” hosts were simply baffled by that choice.
DeSantis was of course still in the state, but at no point did he meet with the president. According to a statement to NBC News from DeSantis’ press office, that’s because “the security preparations alone that would go into setting up such a meeting” would “shut down ongoing recovery efforts.”
That wasn’t good enough for Joe Scarborough though, who said the move was just “so strange.”
“This is something that brings everybody together,” Scarborough scolded. “And you’re not doing it for a pep rally, you’re doing it because when the President of the United States comes to the state, whether Republican or a Democrat, they are coming, and that helps the state because aid always follows. But DeSantis not showing up once again shows he’s just — just bush league.”
Scarborough went on to praise former Florida governor Rick Scott, who actually did meet with Biden during his visit, despite what host Jonathan Lemire referred to as “a deep personal dislike between these two men.”
“This what Americans ,they really do want this,” Scarborough said. “They want people working together.”
Lemire also pointed out that DeSantis has met with President Biden twice before after previous natural disasters in the state.
“What changed? Well, Governor DeSantis is now running for president,” Lemire said. “And it appears that his team didn’t want this photo op. They didn’t want him standing next to President Biden, they did want to risk the Chris Christie-Barack Obama hug after superstorm Sandy, or any image like that. And [DeSantis] let politics get the better of him that day.”
You can watch the full conversation from “Morning Joe” in the video above.