{"id":669576,"date":"2021-08-21T15:51:07","date_gmt":"2021-08-21T19:51:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=669576"},"modified":"2021-08-21T15:51:10","modified_gmt":"2021-08-21T19:51:10","slug":"the-strange-saga-of-an-ap-article-trying-to-condemn-gov-desantis-for-pushing-covid-19-treatments","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/the-strange-saga-of-an-ap-article-trying-to-condemn-gov-desantis-for-pushing-covid-19-treatments\/","title":{"rendered":"The Strange Saga Of An AP Article Trying To Condemn Gov. DeSantis For Pushing COVID-19 Treatments"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">32<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fthe-strange-saga-of-an-ap-article-trying-to-condemn-gov-desantis-for-pushing-covid-19-treatments%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=669576&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/GettyImages-1234749506.jpg?w=1200&amp;h=800&amp;ixlib=react-9.0.3\" class=\"ff-og-image-inserted\" \/><\/div>\n<p>Earlier this week, the Associated Press seemed to have a scoop: One of Gov. Ron DeSantis\u2019 (R-FL) top donors is invested in the company that makes a life-saving COVID-19 treatment \u2013 a treatment DeSantis has been touting since last year.<\/p>\n<p>On its face, the article didn\u2019t have much oomph, as DeSantis is not the only one pushing monoclonal antibody treatments, <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/wILNGZACxO?amp=1\">including the Biden administration<\/a>. Further, the donor, Ken Griffin, the CEO of Chicago-based hedge fund Citadel, also <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/FApNFgmYul?amp=1\">donated<\/a> to President Joe Biden\u2019s inauguration committee, yet the AP didn\u2019t write a similar article attempting to make Biden\u2019s encouragement of the treatment as something nefarious.<\/p>\n<p>At issue is the fact that Griffin\u2019s company, Citadel, holds $15.9 million in shares of Regeneron Pharmaceutical Inc., which makes the antibody treatment DeSantis and Biden are pushing. The AP hedged its article by acknowledging that hedge funds often \u201chave a wide range of investments,\u201d yet the news outlet continued to focus on DeSantis, justifying the article by saying \u201cthe relationship has generated a buzz on social media, as Democrats question the relationship.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cCitadel\u2019s investment in Regeneron is a tiny fraction of its overall $39 billion in investments, but if the stock price were to go up, Citadel would benefit. DeSantis spokeswoman Christina Pushaw points out that Citadel has far greater investments in Moderna and Pfizer, which manufacture COVID-19 vaccines,\u201d the AP also reported.<\/p>\n<p>Kirby Wilson of The Tampa Bay Times, however, <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/KirbyWTweets\/status\/1427750527719329795\">noted<\/a> that Regeneron \u201calready sold all ~1.5 million doses of its monoclonal antibody cocktail to the U.S. government, per a spokesperson.\u201d Because of this, it doesn\u2019t \u201cmuch matter to Regeneron (financially)\u201d if Floridians do take the treatment being pushed by DeSantis.<\/p>\n<p>Pushaw also emailed the AP in an attempt to explain why their article was pointless.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cClaiming that there is somehow \u2018corruption\u2019 by promoting the baseless political narrative that Governor DeSantis supports Regeneron over COVID vaccines (completely false, but that is another topic) is not even logically consistent when you examine the SEC filing,\u201d Pushaw told the outlet. \u201cCitadel holds far more shares of Pfizer and Moderna than Regeneron.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Still, the AP forged ahead with a biased article that is yet another media contribution to the attempt to paint DeSantis as a villain.<\/p>\n<p>The AP article led many on the Left to make baseless claims regarding the donor and DeSantis. One such claim, from the left-wing Democratic Underground, ended up getting fact-checked as \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.politifact.com\/factchecks\/2021\/aug\/19\/democratic-underground\/firm-led-top-donor-fla-gov-ron-desantis-donor-isnt\/\">mostly false<\/a>\u201d by Politifact, itself a left-leaning outlet. The Democratic Underground claimed DeSantis \u201chas been discouraging masking and downplaying Covid vaccines\u201d while encouraging the antibody treatments.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou\u2019ll be amazed to learn that the second-largest investor in Regeneron is Citadel Investment Group,\u201d whose CEO, Ken Griffin, is \u201cDeSantis\u2019 number one political donor,\u201d the Democratic Underground claimed in an Instagram post.<\/p>\n<p>Politifact noted, however, that Citadel is not Rengeron\u2019s \u201csecond-largest investor,\u201d and that while Griffin is a major donor to DeSantis, he isn\u2019t the number 1 donor (though the outlet noted Democratic Underground didn\u2019t give a donation time frame).<\/p>\n<p>DeSantis press secretary Pushaw <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/christinapushaw\/status\/1427812876715270147?s=12\">took to Twitter<\/a> after the AP article was published to condemn it as \u201ccheap political innuendo\u201d and calling out the author specifically for allegedly claiming his \u201cboss\u2019s boss\u201d wouldn\u2019t let him change the headline.<\/p>\n<p>Pushaw continued to criticize the AP article, prompting the news outlet <a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/business-health-arts-and-entertainment-coronavirus-pandemic-philanthropy-ae3f2d37495c5a1d6c7eb2e18f825b26\">to report<\/a> her to Twitter, alleging harassment. The AP claimed Pushaw\u2019s tweets \u201cled to a reporter receiving threats and other online abuse\u201d and ostensibly claimed that the outlet \u201cis seeking to fight online bullying against journalists, a growing trend that is often triggered by public figures.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>In a now-deleted tweet, Pushaw retweeted the AP article and wrote \u201cdrag them.\u201d She also wrote in another tweet that she would put the AP \u201con blast\u201d if the article wasn\u2019t changed.<\/p>\n<p>The author of the original AP article then claimed he was being harassed and threatened.<\/p>\n<p>Pushaw was suspended by Twitter for 12 hours.<\/p>\n<p>In response to the ban, Pushaw said \u201cYou will ban the press secretary of a democratically-elected official while allowing the Taliban to live tweet their conquest of Afghanistan?\u201d She <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/ChristinaPushaw\/status\/1429057628378963974\">added<\/a> that those who \u201cchallenge false narratives are often silenced by corporate media and Big Tech collusion.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><em>The Daily Wire is one of America\u2019s fastest-growing conservative media companies and counter-cultural outlets for news, opinion, and entertainment. Get inside access to The Daily Wire by becoming a&nbsp;<\/em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailywire.com\/subscribe\"><em>member<\/em><\/a><em>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Earlier this week, the Associated Press seemed to have a scoop: One of Gov. Ron DeSantis\u2019 (R-FL) top donors is invested in the company that makes a life-saving COVID-19 treatment &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2315279,"comment_status":"close","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-669576","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/669576","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=669576"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/669576\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2315279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=669576"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=669576"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=669576"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}