‘Absolutely Outrageous!’ Republican CNN Analyst TORCHES DeSantis For Not Meeting Biden During Hurricane Idalia Visit

CNN analyst Adam Kinzinger tore into Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis for refusing to meet President Joe Biden at a Hurricane Idalia site after the meeting had already been agreed to.

President Biden announced Friday that he would be traveling to Florida to survey damage from the hurricane that made landfall there this week, and confirmed to CNN that he would be meeting with DeSantis. But hours later the governor’s office told CNN they had no plans for such a meeting, citing logistical concerns. FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell told CNN the meeting had been “mutually agreed” beforehand and the White House confirmed.

On Friday night’s edition of CNN’s Anderson Cooper 360, guest host John Berman asked Kinzinger and fellow CNN analyst David Axelrod if the “optics” were the real problem:

BERMAN: Congressman, I want to shift gears back to what we started this block on, which was this confusion over whether President Biden will meet with Governor Ron DeSantis when Biden goes down to Florida to view the hurricane damage tomorrow. Do you think that DeSantis team is worried about the logistics of it, as they said in a statement, or is it more about the optics?

KINZINGER: There’s a 1 percent to 2 percent chance it’s logistics. There’s a 98 percent to 99 percent chance it’s the optics. Look, politics has become, you know, from even 10 years ago when there were moments you could put politics aside and do what you were actually elected to do, which is lead, help, you know, that kind of stuff, it has now infected everything.

And Ron DeSantis, at the cost of the benefit to Florida, has decided his political campaign cannot have him meet with Joe Biden, the President of the United States, who ultimately will be signing the checks that Florida is going to be begging for.

[20:35:14] I mean, it is absolutely outrageous that at a moment — I couldn’t imagine being governor of any state, having a tragedy like that, and then turning around and thinking about how this could affect my election. It just — it’s where we’re at now, and people have to just reject that.

BERMAN: Look, I mean, Charlie Crist practically changed parties because he greeted President Obama warmly in Florida when he was there.

AXELROD: Right.

BERMAN: Governor Christie was on the debate stage a week ago.

AXELROD: Yes.

BERMAN: People are still criticizing Christie —

AXELROD: Right.

BERMAN: — for greeting Obama after Sandy, David. So can you understand DeSantis’ view?

AXELROD: John, I thought about that when Adam said even 10 years ago, well, 12 years ago Chris Christie during Hurricane Sandy, Superstorm Sandy, you know, greeted the president warmly, who was coming to work with Jersey to get them the resources they needed to deal with this incredible tragedy. And he was vilified for it and it was a burden that he carried with him into his presidential race and it was raised everywhere he went, it morphed into you hugged Obama, you know?

And so, Adam’s right, this is what our politics has become. And I do think that there are a lot of Americans who are hungry for something different. I just don’t know that they’re voting in the Republican primary.

Watch above via CNN’s Anderson Cooper 360.