Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis sat down with host Tucker Carlson in a new episode of Fox Nation’s "Tucker Carlson Today" to discuss the state of the media in the United States.
"I think it's a big problem. The corporate media has always had a liberal bias...If you go back 20, 30 years, it would always be through a liberal prism - but they wouldn't just do some of the stuff that they do now," DeSantis said.
CBS News' "60 Minutes" was recently under fire for suggesting DeSantis gave the Publix grocery store chain preferable treatment to offer the coronavirus vaccine based on its donations to his PAC.
"60 Minutes" correspondent Sharyn Alfonsi painted DeSantis as a villain who prioritized senior citizens over teachers during the report that was peppered with jabs at the Republican governor.
Publix called the notion that it received special access "absolutely false and offensive."
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"The irresponsible suggestion that there was a connection between campaign contributions 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. We are proud of our pharmacy associates for administering more than 1.5 million doses of vaccine to date and for joining other retailers in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia to do our part to help our communities emerge from the pandemic," a Publix spokesperson told Fox News.
Democratic state officials, conservative pundits, Floridians and journalism professors alike have called for CBS News to retract or correct the story. Instead, the network put out multiple statements defending the report but never responded to specific criticism tied to pay-for-play allegations. The long-running news magazine acknowledged the backlash on Sunday without offering an apology or correction.
In his interview with Carlson, DeSantis said that there is no accountability for the corporate press because they can continue to omit information to serve a narrative with "impunity."
DeSantis stated his belief that the media is "actively partisan." He went on to say that they "craft a narrative regardless of the facts - if there's a fact that's "inconvenient to the narrative, they'll smother and ignore the fact to be able to continue with the narrative."
DeSantis listed a few so-called "bombshell" stories that were eventually proven to be false - such as actor Jussie Smollett faking a hate crime, and the Russia collusion narrative.
"The phone call that Trump supposedly had with Georgia, where they fabricated the quotes. Those aren't even real quotes. And so I think it's a big problem for democracy."
"I think their model is kind of smearing their opponents for clicks. And I think that worked very well for them when Trump was president because they were really playing to an enraged left-wing base," DeSantis said.
"Now that we're in a different environment," he continued, "you see the ratings going down."
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Fox News' Brian Flood and Joseph A. Wulfsohn contributed to this report.
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