“60 Minutes” should have stopped digging that hole when it comes to the deceptive hit job that they did on Florida Governor Ron DeSantis. They should have just said, “Sorry, we were mistaken,” even though we all know it wasn’t a “mistake.”

Instead, as we reported earlier, they doubled down and stood by their claims.

That’s antagonizing the parties involved other than DeSantis including Publix and the two Democratic politicians who have debunked “60 Minutes” claims.

New emails between “60 Minutes” and Gov. Ron DeSantis’ office shows indicate just how much of a hit job the show was. They suggest while they asked for responses that they really weren’t interested in actually presenting the responses but were just going to go with the narrative they already had.

According to Fox, the show sent questions to DeSantis’ office on March 31, asking for responses by the next day at 5 p.m. including:

“How did the state determine that seniors were at greater risk” to the coronavirus “than other groups,” a response to claims from “sources” who say the vaccine rollout “favored wealthier communities” while “African American and Hispanic residents” were “not getting vaccinated as quickly” as white people.

DeSantis’ communications staffer Meredith Beatrice asked for more time and they didn’t respond. Beatrice also asked that they interview State Emergency Management Director Jared Moskowitz who could explain the whole thing to them as well as Palm Beach Mayor David Kerner, bother Democrats who had been involved in the vaccination rollout. “60 Minutes” producer Zill de Granados said they’d asked Moskowitz for an interview repeatedly but he’d turned them down, she claimed Kerner was not responsive to inquiries.

Granados told Beatrice on Thursday they couldn’t interview the two people anyway because the “deadline has passed” despite the fact that they show wasn’t going on until Sunday. “As you may know, the Covid pandemic makes our interview protocol much more complicated and time-consuming due to new distancing and testing requirements for correspondents and camera crews.”

Despite that they managed to interview remotely a critic of DeSantis, Florida State Rep. Omari Hardy.

They said that they’d spoken to Moskowitz and “approve his perspective.” “We have included the information he provided on background as it pertains to this story”. But as we previously reported, when asked by Fox if he thought they “appreciated his perspective” on the vaccine rollout, Moskowitz said if so where did they include that perspective in their piece?

“Did you see the perspective that the person in charge of the Covid response told them how Publix was selected in their agency and that the contribution story was garbage?

“They ran with pay to play, when I told them it was done by my agency and why and how. Did you see that perspective?” Moskowitz added.

DeSantis’ office submitted their answers to the questions that “60 Minutes” gave them by Friday. Those response were not included in the report on the show.

Beatrice then sent a blistering email also on Friday asking why were they refusing to interview Moskowitz and Kerner as well as the Florida Lottery Secretary John Davis.

“This lack of professionalism — it’s clear you are more interested in pushing a baseless partisan narrative than in reporting the facts on Florida’s successful vaccine distribution effort — from your team on this matter is greatly concerning,” Beatrice told the producers.

Both Moskowitz and Kerner made it clear that “60 Minutes” were less than straight about their interactions. Moskowitz said he’d told them at great length their claims were bull and Kerner said he offered to talk with them but they declined.

I did speak with @60Minutes. Never said I didn’t. They were very nice, but I told them that the @publix story was “bullshit”. Walked them through the whole process.The fact that I didn’t sit down on “camera” because I am responding to a 100 year emergency doesn’t change the truth https://t.co/G7QNsV42V5

— Jared MASKowitz 😷 (@JaredEMoskowitz) April 6, 2021

Democratic Palm Beach County Mayor Dave Kerner says the 60 Minutes report on Florida’s Publix deal is not just “bad information,” but “intentionally false.” pic.twitter.com/Xo5bHomrQy

— Alex Salvi (@alexsalvinews) April 5, 2021

So it’s pretty clear that not only did they present a very biased and false view but they weren’t interesting in the truth and then falsely casting even the interactions with the people who had information to give them.

The longer this @60Minutes deceptive editing scandal goes the worse it seems to get. https://t.co/ZQa40aMQIH

— Matt Whitlock (@mattdizwhitlock) April 7, 2021

HT: Twitchy