Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis slammed China's highly restrictive "zero-COVID" policies, accusing Beijing of a "maniacal desire to exert total control" as it cracks down on protesters, forcing months-long isolation.
DeSantis leads Republicans in the effort to condemn the Chinese Communist Party's restrictions after the White House released a lackluster statement in defense of protesters.
Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., said President Joe Biden couldn't release harsher words for the CCP because its policies are similar to how Democrats desired to handle the lockdowns in the early days of the pandemic.
"Well, it's interesting actually, that comment you just read from the Chinese government sounds a lot like the left-wing talking points we often get hit with here in Washington and across the country and America," Rubio said on "Fox & Friends" Tuesday morning.
A tweet from a CCP spokesperson regarding relaxed COVID-19 restrictions in the U.S. aimed at the death rate, claiming that 1 million deaths is the "price of 'freedom.'"
"What we want is to protect our people's lives and ensure them a better life," said the CCP's Assistant Minister of Foreign Affairs, Hua Chunying, tweeted.
DeSantis stood with protesters against "zero-COVID" and gave a passionate condemnation of the CCP's actions.
"I just want to make a comment about what we've been seeing going on in China," DeSantis said during a press conference on Tuesday. "This 'zero-COVID' policy is draconian, it violates people's liberties, and it is completely unscientific. And the people of China are right to be able to speak out and protest against what the Chinese Communist Party is doing."
Rubio said rhetoric coming from China "reminded of the early days of COVID when Trump was in the White House and the media here was going on about how much of a better job China was doing than America was doing with COVID."
"What we are learning is that the people of China are human beings," the senator added. "Human beings don't like to be locked up, they don't like to be told they can't go out, they can't go to work, they can't socialize, they can't go see family members."
"Zero-COVID" includes forced quarantines, isolations, business shutdowns, and mandatory testing. It's assumed that these strict regulations will persist until China reaches zero new cases and other countries are no longer in emergency states.
"This CCP has a maniacal desire to exert total control over its population. 'Zero-COVID' is really just the pretext for them to do what they want to do anyways – and that is not a model that can work over the long term," DeSantis said on Tuesday.
"The people in China are finally speaking out against it," he added. "And I just think we need the draconian COVID policies to go to the ash heap of history where they belong."