Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has continued to fight against President Joe Biden’s federal vaccine mandate, adding that it would only cost jobs and millions of people who do not know their own medical history. He called it “unconstitutional” and an act of “federal overreach” to threaten the jobs of thousands of people over the jab.
“This is a guy who criticizes the state of Florida for protecting parents’ rights. He says school boards should be able to eliminate parents’ rights and force 5-year-old kids to wear masks all day. That’s what he thinks is appropriate government. Yet, here he comes from Washington, D.C., instituting an unprecedented mandate, which even his own people have acknowledged in the past is not constitutional. That’s not leadership,” DeSantis said.
But the feud between DeSantis and Biden did not start there. Biden previously referred to the governor by name when talking about their fight with school boards about mandating masks for students. Biden has not only called for 100 million workers to be vaccinated or get new jobs, but he has also accused DeSantis of bullying local officials. He said if the political leaders will not let them beat the pandemic, then he will use his “power as president” to get them out of the way.
DeSantis has pushed back against any White House authoritarianism, adding that Biden campaigned on shutting down the virus with policies that are only destructive to the livelihoods of many Americans and in violation of the Constitution. He also called on the president to recognize natural immunity, which he has so blatantly ignored in his vaccine mandate. DeSantis said he is losing patience with people who do not believe in living under a “one-person rule.”
A Florida appeals court recently sided with the governor on his mask mandate ban against Leon County. Leon County Judge John Cooper was attempted to rule that the governor could not enforce a ban on mandates in schools, adding that a mask mandate ban could cause “irreparable harm” to their children amid a rise in COVID-19 cases. He said that the state could not penalize school districts that force mandates if they demonstrate that they are reasonable, necessary, and within the state’s interest. This is pretty impossible to follow as we know by now that children have some of the lowest possible chances of getting COVID-19, let alone dying from it.
Cooper even tried to say that DeSantis “overreached’ his authority when he told the Florida Department of Health that parents should have the choice in whether their children wear masks for 8 hours in class. 13 school districts out of the 67 in Florida currently have strict mask requirements at the school and in violation of the state’s order. The state can even withhold funds from the salaries of school board members if they continue to disobey the law.
Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody even vowed to take action against these unprecedented power grabs, including Biden’s vaccine mandate. Moody deemed the vaccine mandates “outrageous and awful,” adding that she will be closely watching these developments in the state.
Biden even said in his speech that the vaccine mandate was not about “freedom of personal choice,” but protecting those you care about. The federal government’s overreach into state business has gone too far and Florida is pushing back. Between school mask mandates and requiring the jab, Biden and DeSantis have been butting heads and at war with one another. Makes you wonder if DeSantis is on any 2024 presidential ticket.
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