- 4 months ago
Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) announces a new Florida "MAHA Commission."
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00:00it's great to be back in Tampa Bay all right thanks so much please take a seat we're we've
00:09got a great a couple of announcements today and I'm very fortunate that we've got a star studded
00:15cast that's joining me including our wonderful first lady my wife Casey also our favorite green
00:28beret our Chuck Norris of Florida politics lieutenant governor Jay Collins is with us
00:34and our wonderful and leading Surgeon General of Florida Dr. Joseph Latipo
00:48I hear there's an opening for a new CDC director maybe we can help send Joe on his way up there I
01:03know I would have support that I think it'd be a great choice and then finally last but not least
01:08our Commissioner of Education Stasi Kamutsis I want to thank him for everything we're also
01:19joined by reps Valdez and Owen from the Tampa Bay area and I appreciate them coming out for this
01:26so we're here to talk about medical freedom and in particular highlight some of the things that
01:34Florida's done to lead the way but then now show how we're taking that to the next level and I know
01:41there were people that have always been involved in these issues but I think most people have really
01:46gotten interested in this in the advent of how the medical establishment acted during the COVID-19
01:52pandemic and you had a situation where so many of these entrenched elites were turning towards
02:00coercive measures uh dictating trying to dictate your behavior through various non-pharmaceutical
02:07interventions mandates uh pushing products on people uh that they didn't want and I think what
02:14people because it obviously it permeated the entire country uh when when the COVID-19 onset happened
02:22people started looking and they started saying okay you know you're telling me this um you're saying
02:28this piece of cloth putting on my face is going to save my life where's the data to back that up
02:34uh oh there haven't been any controlled studies that show that that those uh cloth masks stop uh infection
02:40oh well then why are you telling me oh just trust us do it do it and I think what we saw over the course of
02:45that is there were a lot of dictates issued whether that was from Fauci himself or some of his minions
02:53that was basic they were basically what they believed to be noble lies and so they were telling
03:01you to do put that piece of cloth over your face even though there were no clinical trials that showed
03:08that that would actually make a difference because they thought that if you had a piece of cloth over
03:13your face maybe you'd behave differently so they were trying to induce you to behave the way they wanted you
03:20to behave including putting out a lot of things that were just simply not true and one of the things
03:27that I think was most devastating about some of these folks is you know some of these medical elites
03:33including Fauci they were all in on these lengthy school closures you remember I mean I was here with
03:41our you know one of Stasi's predecessors uh Richard Corcoran who's now the president of new college in
03:47Sarasota which by the way was just ranked number one uh public liberal arts college in America
03:58you know they say go woke go broke new college is kind of the opposite we got rid of the woke and now
04:03you have a massive enrollment and test scores are going up and you have classical education is back
04:10right down the road from here in Sarasota uh in-state tuition like sixty three hundred dollars and so
04:16I don't think you could do much better than that but Richard Corcoran and I in the beginning of
04:20COVID I mean maybe maybe a you know six eight weeks into COVID um we said listen uh you can't have a
04:28situation where kids don't have access to going to school so we put the marker down and said all schools
04:36in Florida the public schools must be open for in-person instruction and you to think that we were trying to
04:44end the world with the reaction on that uh we were attacked by the American Academy of Pediatrics by
04:52Fauci by all these different people who basically wanted these kids to I guess just sit at home
04:59first of all in virtual instruction is very limited I mean Florida does it probably better than others it's
05:05not a substitute for actually being in the classroom the teacher union in Florida sued
05:12us and they were trying to stop my executive order and they were trying to force the schools to be
05:18closed so that's what we were dealing with five years ago when you were doing that and we knew
05:25that we were right because we had actually looked at the data and the reality is these young kids
05:31fortunately were not amongst the population uh that were significantly affected by this it was
05:38certainly more akin to seasonal flu for them and so we said okay so what are you going to do just keep
05:45them out indefinitely it ain't like this thing just goes away and some said well we got to wait till
05:50there's a vaccine and I'm just like no I am not going to do that so we said go but we also told parents
05:56hey if you want to do virtual that's fine that's your choice but you're going to have the option to have
06:03your kid be in school in person and you know what happened was I'll never forget we won the lawsuit
06:09it's a typical thing you know you hear this stuff they're now hitting you have a very leftist judge
06:14trying to stop alligator alcatraz we appeal and all this stuff but like we law a judge ruled against us
06:21on schools uh they said oh you can't force to be open and the union was crowing and I was like well
06:27this is we're going to win on appeal and we did win on appeal for that and so we won the court cases
06:31so then you're having kids go to school beginning of august 2020 uh and like there would be all these
06:38like legacy media outlets from like new york cnn abc news and they'd go and they'd be like oh my gosh
06:45florida is having kids and critics say they're sending kids to their destruction and I'm just thinking to
06:51myself these people have no concept they are putting narrative ahead of evidence-based medicine they are
06:58ignoring the data in favor of ideology when they were saying follow the science what they really
07:06meant is follow their political science because that's what they were doing so we put people in
07:11we made sure people had access to schools and we had a week go by two weeks go by three weeks go by
07:20the sky didn't fall uh kids were happy in fact we even had to fight the athletic association
07:26they didn't they wanted to stop sports in 2020 and every one of their medical experts was saying oh
07:35you can't have kids do sports covet this that and the other thing and I'm just thinking to myself these
07:40people have no evidence for what they're what they're doing so you want to deprive you know the these
07:47high school kids of football season volleyball all the other sports um without having a factual basis to do
07:54it and um you know we just let it be known like um the state of florida is going to have sports
08:01available for our kids if you as a parent don't want your kid playing football because you're worried
08:05about covid well you know that's your decision to make and we respect that uh but we are not going to
08:11have uh some of these folks make that decision for everybody else and so lo and behold you know we we
08:17got the season up and running and we had kids move from all around the country uh to florida because they
08:24were barred from participating in their states because they didn't follow the actual evidence
08:30so we were able to get do all that and i honestly thought at that point after a few weeks i thought
08:35the whole country schools would just open right because like we're seeing the evidence in real time
08:42we're seeing that this is something that obviously is appropriate and you didn't see that you know you
08:47had teacher unions fighting this in chicago los angeles you know they would say oh it's too dangerous
08:55to go to school and then you'd find one of these union people in the bahamas putting pictures on
09:00instagram and i'm like you gotta be kidding me so so we led on the schools which honestly it was already
09:08tough even having the kids in person because there was a lot going on i mean society was was uh it was
09:14just a different time uh so we may do as best we could but i can tell you had we listened to fauci
09:20and these people it would have been devastating for these kids there's just no question about it
09:25california illinois these states did did tremendous harm to to these vulnerable kids and you know what
09:33what they would do is you would have people issuing edicts and yet these elites their kids were still going
09:39to private school in person but they were shutting the public where they had the lower income and the
09:45working class kids that didn't have access to all these things and so that was public health pushing
09:52an agenda and it was one of the most harmful agendas to our kids that has ever been pushed in the modern
09:58history of our country we were right in florida and they were wrong about what they were trying to do
10:05you also look back and think about i mean i remember like in florida you know memorial day
10:132020 you know may of 2020 we got people were doing what floridians do they're on their boats they're
10:19fishing they're at the beach and you would have thought the media is like scandalized oh people are
10:23out you have to be at home you can't be doing all this other stuff we had you know i i told the uh the
10:29theme parks i told the universal sea world i said you guys open i was like we're ready you know all this
10:34stuff so so universal you know started started up to get back up and running sea world all those
10:39disney took a little longer because you know they've got different viewpoints out in burbank and
10:43that's just the way it is we've clashed with those viewpoints in burbank a time or two is that's fine
10:50it just it is what it is that's what you do but then we they're doing that and so they were all their
10:56fire was trained on florida because people were able to to make decisions and um but but the the
11:03public health elites and kind of the medical establishment they were very much wedded the idea
11:08you just need to be in your home uh that you shouldn't be out doing all this stuff uh which
11:12was wrong don't get me wrong it was wrong uh to say that um but but that's what they were saying
11:20but what was really revealing was you know as you get into the end of may beginning of june in 2020
11:26uh you have the blm protests that turned into riots around the country and they were protesting
11:35um like massive numbers of people going out and so then the question was well wait a minute you know
11:41you don't want people on a beach in florida you don't think people should be able to go to a restaurant
11:46indoors you don't want like the fact that um you know we have sports and all this other stuff in florida
11:52uh but i'm sure you're going to be just screaming from the mountaintops that you shouldn't have
11:57massive riots or massive protests with thousands of people right no uh they did not object to that
12:04in fact you had hundreds of public health experts sign a letter saying while it's inappropriate to
12:13protest against lockdowns while it's inappropriate to be out doing things for fun they said it was
12:20appropriate as a public health measure that you went out there and participated in the blm protest
12:28and even of course became many many riots and so they say we the undersigned support this and we think
12:35it's vital for public health and at that point if you thought these people had any more credibility
12:42come talk to me after this because i got some oceanfront property in arizona i would like to sell you
12:47it was a fraud and that was revealed that they were doing political science not medical science
12:56so you see that and you're like man you know what is going on with all this stuff
13:01so you know we obviously led the way going against the grain and it's hard because you know when you
13:07when you stand up that i tell people you know i've been around the block a few times campaigns you know
13:14leading on issues everything like that if you take all the incoming i've ever taken for any campaign
13:23any issue i've talked about all of that my entire time you add it all up and then you compare it to
13:29the incoming i received during covid it's not even close the covid was so much more intense
13:35so because this was a global thing you had elites and a narrative that that spanned continents
13:41they wanted people shut down they had an agenda that they were trying to do and and you got you
13:47know the state of florida that's basically telling them no they didn't like that and what they didn't
13:53want is they didn't want to have an a b test they didn't want to say well florida doesn't have florida
14:00has kids in school why can't why doesn't san francisco have kids in school florida this place isn't saying
14:07you have to have mass why is that no different an outcome than the places that say you have to have
14:12all this stuff that's what they didn't really want so the vitriol was very very intense and you know i i
14:19would say when we were doing the things about you know being open business everyone can work all that
14:24stuff we're not going to let local government shut you down all this stuff um you know we got huge blow
14:30back honestly the decisions at the time were very unpopular even with many republicans who were scared
14:36and didn't and we're listening to the narrative um and but you know at the end of the day leadership
14:41is about uh when when the chips are really down when people really need you uh it don't matter if
14:48they're going to fire at you you've got to be there for people and people needed a voice of reason and
14:53sanity and the state of florida filled that void not just for our state but for the country
15:06so we worked very hard understanding we were cutting against the grain you know we're like you
15:12know what you only live once we've got to get all this done we've got to make sure so yes the schools
15:17the businesses uh we were the first state in the country to ban vaccine passports and you remember
15:25i mean we don't talk about it as much anymore when the mnra shots were rolled out in december of 2020
15:32uh you started to hear well you know you shouldn't be able to go to this restaurant unless you show
15:39that you've gotten this movie theater sporting events all this stuff fauci was in favor of that
15:45you started to see blue states were doing that you actually had you got to like eat in chicago you got
15:50to show this card that you took an mnra shot for covid which by the way doesn't prevent you from getting
15:58covid again um but nevertheless that's what you had to do i saw that for a huge threat to your freedom
16:05and so we said no state agency nothing in state government you know we're not doing that we made
16:12sure local governments and and we pushed back but uh i had some people on the right because i said listen
16:19it's not enough to just say government can't do vaccine passports i don't think the private sector
16:24should be allowed to do it either because you know why they were just parroting what fauci was saying
16:30so the the private sector in that sense was kind of an arm of the administrative state they were just
16:35doing they were following the narrative and it's a situation where if these restaurants say you need
16:41this passport this movie theater that ballpark everything at what point are you free to make your
16:47own decisions they're coercing you to make decisions by trying to make your life miserable because you
16:53didn't do what they wanted you to do that was unacceptable and so we nipped it in the bud in
16:59florida and had we not done that i think you would have had vaccine passports nationwide i really think
17:05so and in fact they were trying to do it biden got in by then and they were trying to to do it there
17:11and one of the things some of his political advisors told him is like you know if you go for passports
17:16you know the governor of florida is going to torch you for it and it's true i would have torched him
17:21so we showed we're not doing that and i even got in it with some industries because you know
17:26some of the cruise lines wanted the passports and i said no i'm not doing that and honestly it was
17:32short-sighted of them to want to do that what we did was not only right for people but in the in the
17:37in the medium term uh over the years was definitely the right decision because florida really took off
17:43so we were able to ban the vaccine passports um we also i had to do you know i had the legislature
17:51pass a parent's bill of rights and um you know you had all these schools not all of them um some of
17:58the privates not all many of the school districts but not all that had uh school kid mask mandates
18:05and um that was not something that we thought was appropriate uh there was no evidence that it was
18:12effective uh there was uh i i think at least anecdotal evidence that it could potentially be very harmful
18:18for these kids to be breathing through that eight hours a day but the reality was was you know that's
18:23a parent's decision about whether they want to send their kid to school with with that on or not
18:29uh and so i did an executive order saying uh you cannot force kids to wear masks in schools in the
18:37state of florida and we got a lot of blowback from that uh we got a lot of heat from a lot of the folks
18:43but now looking back um and thinking about that how ridiculous was it that they were forcing these
18:51little kids i mean we've got a kindergartner a second grader a third grader they even know how to wear
18:56a mask if i even if i wanted them to they you don't wear it right you you're snot dirt all that it's
19:02like what are we doing here and so we said no we said that's a parent's choice um you know we were
19:09told you know that that was uh i think people tried to say you're a fascist for doing that i mean think
19:14about it i'm liberating people from restrictions and they're trying to say that that's authoritarian
19:20so we were able to do that no no no mask mandates through executive order parents bill of rights
19:26then uh we had the uh issue of mrna shots in our k-12 and university system and we banned
19:38the mandates for k-12 and universities uh the first state to do that we did that very early on
19:45because i knew what was going to happen down the pike and so i can tell you that there have been
19:51parents that have sent their kids to universities in florida i mean not solely but but that factor
19:59that you did not have a mandate for mnra shots was a huge factor in them choosing florida over
20:06choosing some of these other places and you know these mandates just persisted i remember i was out um
20:12um where was i this was probably a couple years into covet and um i was at my my baseball coach
20:20from uh up in yale was retiring so i went up to this final game to kind of see him off and
20:26you know i'm talking to people and they were playing harvard so i i some of those guys wanted
20:30to talk to me so i'm just talking to them and i'm like are they still making you like wear masks and
20:34take shots this is two years in the cover and they're like if it says this on our jersey yeah they're
20:38going to make us do all this kind of crazy stuff and i'm just thinking to myself like that's not
20:43right um that's not right to be mandating this and interestingly they wouldn't mandate it for the
20:49faculty only for the students so the students are like the lowest risk for this right and that was a
20:54whole nother thing with the universities we said our universities in 2020 our universities are going to
20:59be up and running oh my gosh you'd have thought that we had uh that without that got a lot of blowback
21:05and you know what happened uh kids went they had fun they behaved like college students yes they
21:11went to parties they probably you know went to establishments uh well i'm not advocating you know
21:16that all college students should be doing that but i'm also not naive enough to think that they're
21:21just going to sit in their apartments or their dorms all day so that was happening and you know what
21:27there some people would get covid and you'd have a little wave and then the wave would
21:31sit side and like nobody went to the hospital right and so it's like are you trying to tell me that
21:38that is worse than trying to isolate them in their in their apartments and and doing that no i mean
21:45honestly suicide went up in some of these areas where they were very coercive and restrictive so you're
21:50talking about the group of people who are at like the least risk of covid and you're saying somehow
21:55that they should be forced to take an immunity shot so we we nipped that in the bud very early on uh
22:02we also uh made a decision that that the way this spun out of control it really impacted people's basic
22:10civil rights so we said uh you cannot be forced uh to wear one of these masks uh as a condition of being
22:19able to live your life so that means you go to a movie theater uh you go to a store you go to school
22:25you do whatever that's a personal decision and some people didn't like that because like well if uh
22:30if if a business wants to for wants to force you to wear a mask and they'd be able to do it and my
22:34view is it's like honestly no i don't think so it's irrational and it's like we can just sit there and
22:40say some people are going to be marginalized uh to do it or we could just say no in florida you have the
22:46right to be free you have the right to make your own decisions you can participate in society uh without
22:52having these unscientific dictates imposed upon you
23:01and then maybe one of the most contentious ones was and you know this is stuff like you gotta listen
23:08to people um you know so many of these people in office like they pay all this money to do polls and
23:13this stuff like i've never done a poll since i've been governor um because i don't need a poll to tell
23:19me what's right um i do what i think is right but i take feedback from real people and actually listen
23:24to folks so as we got into 2021 mnra shots are out uh everyone was saying initially oh no no it's your
23:33choice no mandate then all of a sudden you start to see the the coercion so i had people come to me
23:39like you know i'm i have like you know three more months and they say i've got to take this i don't want
23:43to take it my wife doesn't want to take it whatever and i would hear this over and over again and you know
23:48people at that time it's almost like they're whispering because to suggest that you didn't
23:51want to do it was like oh my gosh are you you know it's like you have leprosy or something like oh just
23:56you know shunned and so it was very sensitive thing and so i'm thinking to myself and then i had like
24:02private sector i had like police and firefighters around the state that are coming to me and doing this
24:09i'm thinking about it and i'm just like you know nobody in the state of florida should ever have to
24:14choose between a job they need and a shot they don't want so we worked with the legislature to pass
24:21employment protections for folks uh basically non-discrimination to where they can't they can't
24:28base hiring and firing decisions on whether or not you took the covet mrna shot and that saved the jobs
24:35of thousands and thousands of people throughout this state we also um
24:50we also looked and see okay there's a broader context here what's going on
24:54and one of the engines for i think a lot of bad policy was the world health organization who
25:01is going to show and at the time uh biden was president they were working on this uh lockdown
25:07treaty they call it a pandemic treaty but basically it would have taken sovereignty from
25:13the us and other countries invested it in a unelected uh whatever it is organization funded by the ccp
25:23mainly mainly and then somehow they would be issuing edicts that are going to affect our our health and
25:30freedom uh no not on my watch and so we passed legislation in florida saying florida does not
25:37recognize who dictates whether it's the lockdown treaty or anything else now that president trump's in
25:45i don't think it's got uh legs at this point or at least least we hope it doesn't uh and so so that's
25:50very good that we're able to win that battle but these they're always trying to do more and more stuff
25:56and we're making sure that we're doing everything we can to be able to um to support the people now
26:03you also have things like and this is just crazy you'll have like some some like 14 year old girl that
26:11needs some type of medical procedure and she'll go in and if she hasn't gotten a flu shot or a covid
26:17jab then they won't see her and they won't they won't do the surgery and i'm thinking to myself how insane
26:25is that that you're not willing to treat somebody so some of these policies that have been put in
26:29place in some of these medical institutions are insane so we said in florida and legislation no like
26:35if you need a a lung transplant or something you know they can't say well we'll only do it if you do the
26:42the covid shot it's irrational it's not based on any evidence to be doing that but that's something
26:48that's really really important to me so we've done a lot over the years to really i think be on the
26:58right side of fighting against the hysteria the reality is is people these elites they just lost
27:05their way i think some of them just probably didn't really know what they were doing but i think others
27:10really saw that they were getting power for the first time in their lives this was kind of the super
27:15bowl for them and they wanted to use that for all they could and and they really abused their positions
27:22of trust that so many had placed into them and and and i think the the credibility of so many of these
27:27institutions and so many of these it's just it's it's done uh just totally up in flames over how they
27:34handled the covid19 pandemic and so we've you know joe latipo has been has been great um i think he's
27:42probably the only surgeon general who during covid said you know the mask isn't going to save you that
27:49that was willing to say you know all kids should be in school that was willing to say kids should not
27:53be taking mnra shots all the things that really cut against the medical establishment and i think on
28:00every instance he's been proven right on that but you know it takes courage to do that there's a lot of
28:05professional blowback that happens when you stand up and and do what's right so that has kind of i
28:12think crystallized for so many people hey there's a there's a lot of issues that we got to deal with
28:18with medical and medical freedom is something that that we've got to be very conscientious about
28:24protecting especially given how we've seen so many elites lose their way so uh joe latipo myself the first
28:33lady uh you know we've been pushing on a lot of different fronts uh to be able to continue to
28:38advance the ball uh we have great announcement today you know regarding kind of the state of florida's
28:43efforts uh to continue to promote uh policies that are um that are linked to medical freedom
28:50you know they say make america healthy again the maha uh we were doing that before anyone was even
28:56talking about it in florida and that's that's just the truth and so some of our guiding principles are
29:08one information given to individuals where then they can make an informed decision should be the bedrock
29:17of how we function in terms of health and medicine informed consent is the touchstone
29:25uh for everything that that goes on in this area of american life and what flows from that also
29:31is the primacy of parents to be able to direct health decisions uh for their minor children uh the
29:38reality is is um you know each individual uh parent has has different views different children may have
29:46different needs and we ought to be empowering parents rather than trying to take away the rights of
29:53parents and one of the things i think is very destructive that's happened more recently is this
29:58practice of these pediatricians who will not see um kids unless they take all of these um all of these
30:05shots and it's just that's not right and you know it's like you you think about it it's like there's been
30:16a an effort and i think covid really exposed it to say you have to do this and if you say why well you
30:22just have to okay well what's the what's the what's the research show what are the trials show what do all
30:27this show and uh you know i think about something like you know a newborn baby you know do they need
30:32that hepatitis shot like i mean like you know it's like you know what what's the what's the rationale
30:38for it i mean we know how you can get that okay so a baby needs that and then then if they do it you
30:44know are there drawbacks for it and usually they just tell you there's never a drawback for anything
30:48let me tell you anything you take could have a potential drawback i mean that's just the reality
30:53so we really want transparency we want people to be able to make the the best decisions that they can
31:01but some of this stuff you know if you look back when i was growing up what they would recommend
31:06now they're recommending like way more stuff uh for this and so i think a lot of parents you know what
31:12they want is is they want to be able you know you only get one shot um at raising kids right and you
31:18want to make the best decisions that you can and what you don't want to do is to do anything uh my view
31:24is unless there's a a really clear reason to put something in uh then then then i wouldn't do it right
31:31i mean that's just the way kind of kind of i am if you know you don't just say well maybe it'll help
31:35you no i mean does it help you or not and and you should have that you should be very clear and all that
31:40stuff so we want to do that so informed consent making sure we're protecting parents rights and
31:47then also just being willing to challenge uh medical orthodoxy that's not supported by the data
31:55and uh you know there's a lot of data out there that's proven certain medical interventions are
31:59effective great you know we we love to see it i mean we've made great strides in treating different
32:04things but you also have a lot of stuff that gets put out there that if you peel back the onion okay
32:09what's the basis for that um and covet showed that uh tremendously i mean literally they were doing
32:15studies about masks where they would say well you know this barber was here this person was here this
32:21person didn't have covered this person did uh did they one had a mask one didn't and it's like that's
32:26not a study guys you know that's an anecdote and yet they would put that out and the media would run it
32:31cdc study shows masks are effective or whatever and they weren't real studies they weren't real clinical
32:37trials so we know kind of the tricks on this and we want to make sure that we're exposing this and so
32:44i'm happy here uh to be here today to make uh the first announcement and joe latipo is going to make
32:51another announcement but today i'm pleased to announce the establishment of the florida maha commission
32:59as a working group which will recommend state level integration of these make america healthy
33:05principles and those principles are as i mentioned um individual medical freedom informed consent
33:12parent rights and also market innovation it will be chaired by first lady casey de santis and our
33:19lieutenant governor jay collins and will also include surgeon general joe latipo akka secretary shavon
33:26harris dcf secretary taylor hatch elder affairs secretary michelle branham department of environmental
33:33environmental protection secretary alexis lambert as well as experts in the field
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