TAMPA, Fla. — Vice-President Mike Pence is scheduled to come to Tampa this afternoon to meet up with Gov. Ron DeSantis to discuss the state’s response to the coronavirus pandemic.

The visit comes as Florida reported an increase of 6,563 positive cases on Wednesday, with a quarter of them coming out of the Tampa Bay area. 

In advance of the trip, the Joe Biden campaign is blasting both President Trump’s administration and DeSantis’ handling of the public health crisis.

“Vice President Mike Pence and Governor DeSantis have a lot in common – most notably that both failed to effectively address the COVID-19 pandemic seriously or with urgency,” said Biden for President spokesperson Kate Bedingfield. “As COVID-19 cases continue to rise and the unemployment system remains broken in Florida, Governor DeSantis has continued to follow the Trump administration’s failed response playbook: ignore, distract and blame others.

“This is all in addition to the Trump administration and Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody’s ongoing fight to invalidate the Affordable Care Act in the Supreme Court amid this pandemic, which would take away health insurance from nearly 2 million Floridians.  They are looking for real leadership, real solutions, and real action, which is what they will get with Joe Biden come November.”

Moody is one of 18 Republican attorneys general who submitted legal briefs with the Trump administration last week calling for the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn the Affordable Care Act. If the high court were to do so, it would effectively end health insurance for as many as 23 million Americans.

President Trump’s campaign had originally announced that VP Pence would be coming to Florida today for campaign events in Sarasota and Lake Wales.

But over the weekend, it was announced that those events would be postponed “out of an abundance of caution.”