Gov. Ron DeSantis Promotes New ‘Free State Of Florida’ Legislation

Well thanks so much. Great to be back in South Florida. Great to be with you here today. We've got two great pieces of legislation that we'll be talking about. I'm joined here by our Agriculture Commissioner Wilton Simpson, our Surgeon General Dr. Joseph Latipo, Senator Ileana Garcia. Is this your district where we're at now? Yep. And Miami-Dade County Commissioner Roberto Gonzalez. I want to thank them and they're all going to talk about some of the things that we're doing today. Now before I get into that, one I just wanted to publicly say you know we lost Rabbi Lipsker recently and he was a good friend of ours for a long time. I know he meant a lot to people not just in the Jewish community but beyond in South Florida and was a was a really great Floridian and a great American. So our condolences go out to them. Yeah for sure. And so that was sad news. On some good news, Florida once again rated number one economy in the country by U.S. News and World Report and that's two years in a row. We've also been number one economy two years in a row by CNBC. We continue to be number one for higher education. I think that's eight or nine years in a row and when I became governor we were ranked 13th overall for whatever metrics they use and now we're up to six overall and there's a variety of factors that go into that. And so we're excited about that and you know we've got a lot of great opportunities ahead of us. If you look at where we are just in terms of say the budget and the fiscal in Florida. Since I've been governor we've almost quadrupled the state's rainy day fund. If you look at if you look at the amount of surplus that we've carried you know used to be pretty consistent there'd be five six billion in reserve and then we've gotten that up to where we're like 20 25 even that we got it down from there because that was too much and we've done some infrastructure tax cuts whatever but we have really really healthy reserves and running big surpluses. But then at the same time paying down an accelerated rate of our state's debt. So I have 180 years if you looked at all the debt that we've accumulated as a state just since I've been governor we've retired 41 percent of that and so and when you do that early and you got to be strategic you don't always do it early because it depends but if you can do it early we've now saved each year hundreds of millions of dollars in interest costs that you would have had to bear as taxpayers and so that's a great story we're going to continue that we now have the lowest per capita debt of any state in the United States and and we have the lowest number of state government workers per capita so you talk about lean government lean bureaucracy we have that for sure but but with all of that paying down debt surplus lean government we've done really big things and we've done big things for environment and natural research you look at we've done with Biscayne Bay the Everglades you look at what we've done for transportation you know we obviously have the junction here in South Florida that's going to end up being very helpful this is tougher here to to help with the traffic because there's not as many options to do but we've accelerated a map billions of dollars we have projects we just unveiled in I-4 we got all this stuff around I-4 that honestly sometimes is even worse than South Florida traffic believe it or not horrible traffic sometimes and it can be at any time of the day and so there's been a bunch of I-4 stuff done we've opened stuff it's been good but there's more that needs to be done there's also connecting roads and bypass roads so we're doing all but we said well while we're while we're accelerating that let's do some temporary expansion of lanes and so we did that eight months ahead of schedule and I just put out a video of that on Friday you look at before and after massive increase in traffic flow but you know that requires resources and so we've done that we've also done education number one we've never done more per pupil for k-12 education than we've done in this recent year our colleges yeah our colleges and universities our universities we have not raised tuition one penny for Florida residents and so you've got about sixty three hundred dollars on average to go to these universities and that's part of the reason we're number one in higher education because of affordability so we've been able to do all of that so so that's really positive we've got a lot of great momentum when you keep it going but one of the reasons why we've been able to do all this stuff one of the reasons our economy's number one one of the reasons why we've added over a hundred thousand manufacturing jobs in Florida just since I've been government the reason we have surplus pay down debt is because during COVID we had to make a decision that people had a right to work in this state businesses had a right to operate and kids needed to be in school and I know there was a lot of people down here that I had to fight with that I remember when I said you can't fine people for masks they were fining people for not wearing masks and so I overrode that with an executive order and save people a lot of money so so we did that and the contrast between some of these these states that were you know I mean look after six or eight weeks like you had to start to think that maybe you need to go in a different direction certainly after three or four months and all this stuff but nevertheless people really persisted in this and it was really intolerable and then you had the BLM riots you had a lot of things happening and so we were able to attract a lot of folks businesses individuals you name it people would visit Florida it was funny I was talking to some folks in tourism about like well how are things going now and whatever because you hear different things about you know no international travelers or that you know the media will try to say this or that and I don't you know sometimes it's like you can have an anecdote but what's the truth so so I'll ask these people what's going on and they're like look we're doing really well but they're like we will never be able to recreate 2020 to 2022 because it was just like Florida was the place where you would go right I mean I was down in the keys recently I remember people flooding the keys flooding the panhandle you name it you know they had record years uh but part of the reason and that wasn't really the the main reason we took the stand we did obviously we wanted to do well economically but we also and even more importantly wanted to respect people's ability to make the most of their own lives and make the appropriate decisions for themselves and so you know if you wanted your kid to go to school remote and those initial that initial school year 2020-21 you know we said fine but you can't and you can't demand that all schools be closed just because you don't want and guess what parents wanted their kids in school overwhelmingly we don't think that walking down the street government has a right to tell you you must muzzle yourself and cover your face with a piece of cloth first of all it's not going to do anything but but second of all it's not the appropriate role of government to be doing that I remember and first of all you've seen it in South Florida we embrace things like restaurants Fauci hated restaurants he thought that was like the worst thing ever and I'm just thinking to myself like what about all these people whose livelihoods depend uh on these things and so what's happened like a lot of the New York restaurants moved here uh to South Florida you had a big boom in that in Florida because we were very uh supportive of them being able to earn a living which is something that's really really important we also so so that contrast was huge that is that led to to Florida really taking out we would not be number one economy uh had we had we governed like New York or Illinois during those time periods uh and so that was really really important obviously in education too it's important that the kids are in school and that will have a ripple effect for many many decades probably the the states with some of these states locked these kids out of school for a long time uh really really harmful so so those were decisions and you know I was using my it's interesting like you'd have these governors around the country they'd use executive orders to basically restrict we were using executive orders to liberate like saying local governments can't do this local governments can't restrict local governments can't do the mass fines or any of this stuff and and that was great uh but those were kind of like emergency actions and so we worked with the legislature um and when when Wilton was senate president we enacted protections for people against these coercive policies for example no one should have to choose between a job they need and a shot that they don't want and they were trying to fire people because of COVID jabs we didn't allow that to happen we also were and I think it had Florida not taken this stand uh that this may have caught fire all across the country in early 21 people had this idea of COVID vaccine passports so literally if you wanted to go to a ball game or a movie theater or a restaurant they wanted you to have to show proof of an mRNA COVID jab and so what that does is it it eliminates any informed consent because your your life is restricted based on a medical choice you made which is really not any anyone's business but it was also even more ironic because these mRNA shots weren't preventing you from getting COVID in the first place and it wasn't preventing you from spreading COVID you know it was sold as if you do the shot you'll never get COVID and COVID will stop but that wasn't what actually happened so they wanted to do vaccine passports uh which really would have limited the ability of a lot of our residents just to be able to make the most of their own lives and so we were the first state in the country to pass legislation banning the use of COVID vaccine passports in our state and not just with government anything uh it was just not an appropriate thing to do so I we viewed it as a civil rights issue we viewed it as something that we wanted everyone to be able to participate in society and so we got that on the books we saved jobs as a result of the employment not allowing employment mandates first they were looking at government agencies like well obviously the state we're not going to do it local fire departments police departments that's unacceptable we're not going to let it but even private businesses this was run amok and a lot of people would have lost their jobs and so we save thousands of jobs as a result of doing that and we've also recognized bogus guidance coming from some of these uh exalted health authorities like the world health organization you know they want to do a lockdown treaty we've already done legislation in florida rejecting the who mandates in the state of florida so we really believe in informed consent we really believe oh we were also I think the first state to ban a very dangerous gain of function research which is um I mean just think where we would be if Fauci had not run wild on gain of function research I mean it really changed the the the scope or the path of the country even so and people now have looked at that and almost everything we did you had the usual suspect saying oh this is terrible they're not listening to experts and now no one would would advocate for a vaccine passport no one would advocate well some may but not very persuasively uh would advocate that you should lose your job over uh mRNA shots no one is saying that somehow what the who is doing is good everyone has seen this now for what it is and so you know that brings us here today because uh we're going to be talking about two pieces of legislation that I will sign uh the first is SB 700 there's a lot more to that and we'll probably talk about that the commissioner and I will do something in the future to highlight some of the other provisions uh but what this does with respect to putting fluoride in the water supply is it basically doesn't allow that anymore in the state of Florida uh it's forced medication when they're jamming fluoride into your water supply and they did it because you know if you have fluoride it'll help with dental and I'm not saying that's not true uh but we have other ways where people can get access to fluoride when you do this in the water supply you're taking away a choice of someone who may not want to have overexposure to fluoride and there have been studies done and Joe will talk about it when he comes up that there are impacts to pregnant women to children about having too much of this and you don't even have to agree with that analysis but at the end of the day we should all agree that we want people to be able to make informed consent have informed consent when it comes to these things jamming fluoride in the water supply uh irrespective of the of whatever for the teeth when you can get that other ways you know that's impinging on other people's ability you know to have access to water in ways that that they may not want to be exposed to to what is essentially a forced medication so the legislature was able to pass that and we will be able to sign that uh Joe Latipo issued guidance I guess like last year right late last year about community water fluoridation due to the potential risks that were associated with exposure and again pregnant women and children were at most risk now that this fluoride is a naturally occurring mineral present in groundwater fresh and saltwater rainwater soil plants and foods but the community fluoridation adjusts the amount of fluoride in drinking water uh to levels that are recommended high enough so that it could deal with uh with the tooth decay but of course you can get fluoride and toothpaste other ways outside of that um so what you've seen is these studies have been coming out people are now looking more critically at this and honestly I think because we saw how out of whack some of these medical elites were during COVID I think people are just much more skeptical uh when these elites are trying to jam anything down our throats and so there's a lot of people that look at this and they say okay well show me the evidence the burden is on you to prove why this is a net benefit which I think Joe would argue it's probably not with terms of health but the highest burden is why should this be forced on people um and it really shouldn't be forced on people so you're seeing more and more places you have countries uh where a lot of the municipalities in Europe have moved away from the forced fluoridation many municipalities in the United States and a lot in Florida I mean we've had a number of counties uh that acted in in um after Joe's guidance but also other stuff that was happening there so so this is I think the things that that a lot of people want to see done they want to see protections against this they understand there's other ways that you can get fluoride if that's something uh that you need and so there have been studies that have raised concerns about physical and mental health risks that have been associated with over exposure to fluoride now if you're brushing your teeth a couple times a day you know that's not going to likely present the same type but you know if you're drinking a lot of water exposed to that uh in the home or that's a different story potentially and so people just should have that information and then they should make the the appropriate adjustments and there's nothing preventing you and your house from adding fluoride to your water if that's what you think is good for you and your family then you still of course have the ability uh to do that so we don't want local governments unilaterally injecting the chemical into the water supply and exposing people to to potentially harmful side effects uh I know the Miami-Dade Board of Commissioners has uh voted and I think they voted the right way uh and so thank you of course for the counties that voted the other way where uh the the legislature the legislation that we'll sign is gonna is gonna answer that question anyways but but I do think that you guys led on this and I appreciate your leadership for that the other bill that I'll be signing is Senate Bill 56 so this was done by Senator Ileana Garcia and and it protects Floridians from geoengineering and weather modification uh activities now people have been coming up to me we don't do that in any of our state agencies um there's never been any permit issued from the entire modern history of Florida uh we're not engaged in any of that but people have concerns about because you have all these people that are saying well the way to fight climate change is to inject this stuff and block the sun and do all that and I'm just like no okay no we're not doing that in Florida we're the sunshine state you know we don't need any of this now so it wasn't being done by the state of Florida I can tell you that but um this is something that you hear out there that it's kind of like a little cottage industry where people think that they can you know solve global warming uh by just putting stuff into the atmosphere so Ileana's bill really slams the door on that uh any of those efforts are dead on arrival in the state of Florida so you don't have to worry about that going forward and I know there was um you know some back and forth on this bill I know there was an attempt by the house leadership to water it down we were concerned about what may end up happening but I I can say that this strong bill ended up uh passing and prevailing so that's good uh good good on Ileana for doing that and making sure that we continue to do what's right by the people of Florida so um so I'm I'm happy to be supportive of these two measures uh I I know that there's a lot of folks that wanted to see this done and so here we are uh getting it done as usual and with that I'll turn it over to our commissioner of agriculture Wilton Simpson. Thank you governor um you know Florida has passed now the 2025 farm bill um after seven years it sure would be nice that the federal government would follow our lead here I would think so um this bill is great news for agriculture and it's great news for all Floridians agriculture is a national security issue we we know that to keep the free state of Florida free we need to support agriculture I look forward to joining you in the near future to talk about all of the great things we have done in this comprehensive bill but today is about medical freedom governor I was proud to be part of your courageous work during COVID banning vaccine mandates banning vaccine passports and being co-chair of the task force to reopen the state of Florida when everyone else was shutting down their states you have continued to fight that fight and so have I this farm bill includes many protections for our consumers today we announced that drinking water will hydrate not medicate you should not be medicated without your consent it's plain and simple this is one more way that we block trampling of personal liberties there's a fundamental principle here informed consent if you have the right to decide what medication you take you have the right to decide what medication your children take that should not be a controversial idea in a free society this provision is more about more than just water it's about restoring trust in public institutions it's about drawing a bright line between public health and personal freedom and it's about pushing back against creeping philosophy that the government always knows best it doesn't we've seen too many example in recent years where trust the experts turned in to sit down shut up and obey not in Florida not on our watch with this legislation we're saying loud and clear Florida water will be clean it will be safe and it will be medication free that's how it should be and that's how it's going to stay in Florida from protecting parental rights to fighting back against federal overreach government governor thank you for your leadership I would also like to thank president Albritton speaker Perez senator true now representatives Tuck Alvarez and McClure and our partners in the Florida legislature for advancing this bill and standing up for common sense this is what conservative leadership looks like protecting agriculture defending liberty and putting people and putting the people of Florida first thank you governor hello everyone I've been down in Miami I was just thinking as I was sitting there listening to the commissioner I'm like I've been to Miami a lot lately I've had a lot of trips down here I love Miami I love my don't love Miami traffic and I gotta say I do like the Pinellas County Tampa Bay area more but it is beautiful here it's a very special place here and a lot of and I and you know Miami is obviously a very very special place some people say it's actually part of Florida I know that there's some some discussion about that but it is a very very special place and and yeah and I also have a lot of friends in the audience today so it's always a pleasure a lot of friends in the audience so so so that's you know that's great and you know where do we start we start with our governor who made like all of this possible right leadership by example right leadership by example leadership you know that is bold in the name of truth and in the name of your convictions and what you believe is right and and that creates space for other people to do the same you know it created a space for for me to come here when when the governor invited me to be the surgeon general it's created space for me to do what I think is is right scientifically and based on conscience and and ethical values and it's created space for other people to also also to live up to to what they believe is the right thing to do so it starts with that man right there and and I want to thank commissioner Wilton Simpson for for this agriculture bill that you know that makes it possible for the children the families of Florida not to have to worry about fluoridation and their water this fluoridation is like you know if I think of I think of Charlie Brown and I love that I I don't know I can't remember his name but the little guy holds his blanket right and I love it you know hold your blanket but unfortunately you know he's a kid but what we have instead we have professionals they're doctors dentists public health leaders who are holding on to fluoridation like that blanket I mean it doesn't matter what the evidence shows right whatever the studies show about potential harms and children and and pregnant women and who knows about the rest of us they're just holding on to it and it's okay when you're a but we're grown-ups here we're adults we're responsible for you know for the lives of other people we need to make good decisions so you just you know it's really cute when you're a kid but you can't hold on to that blanket as a grown-up okay I mean it's just I don't know you know you're uh Suakalde right your mayor Suakalde you I listen to the statements and I understand she's not a scientist and God bless everyone I honestly I I don't really so much have a problem with people whatever position they take on an issue but I really want to see that you're you're making an honest decision and I think that's that's that's what's important to me and it's just like literally guys with this fluoride issue you have multiple research groups in different states in different countries finding the same things right are they are they all just making it up I mean can you actually in in a sane mind ignore all of that evidence you can't yeah you gotta like you gotta let go of the blanket it's okay you know it's it's all right to revise your position it's all right to to do something that goes against what you know whatever you know Dr. Dr. Fauci we're talking about him you know how he feels about four days but it's okay to to reverse your your position when there's evidence I mean that's the right thing to do you you're in a position of leadership you're you're there to serve people and like you got to serve them you know and that means doing whatever it needs to whatever is needed to serve them and you know Senator Garcia we've been exchanging communications about this weather modification issue this was an issue that I've learned so much more about and honestly I am gobsmacked I mean there's quite a lot more to this and and you know we're still in the Department of Health we're actually engaged in some work right now to study this scientifically in partnership with the Department of Environmental Protection and we're engaged in that work frankly because as I'm I'm incredibly grateful for her leadership in this legislation I don't know if it's going to be enough to stop these activities I don't know if it's going to be enough to stop these activities because of the experience in Tennessee when they've done something similar although our legislation is more far-reaching and because of the etiology of the activities which I've learned learned more about I mean it's it's it's it's one of the pieces that it's just it's kind of stunning I mean first of all as the governor said it's are you kidding me right so your plan to save us all is to is to release stuff like aluminum oxide and other things into the sky so that it reflects the sun back out like that's your plan and you think that you know and it will come down at some point and we will breathe it in right and that's your plan to save humanity uh it it's it's completely I mean it's not only off kilter but it it's it's really I mean it's nuts that people think that they have a right to to to affect the the air that you drink without your permission I mean you know it I mean the fluoride's bad enough in the in terms of in terms of people doing stuff without you know without permission your your your acknowledgement you know your participant your your affirmative participation but are you kidding me the air that we breathe right that you have a right to do whatever you think is best for for the air in terms of putting something into it so so there there it's it's an issue it's an issue and I actually want it so one of our partners in in our trips down to down to Miami and other parts of the city the other parts of the state pardon me and I want to say also I mean you know this is a shout out to all of the the cities and the counties that have taken the you know wrestled with this issue even if they voted the wrong way on it I'm really appreciative of of our communities our community leaders who made this an issue that they were willing to step up and and and wrestle with and make a decision on instead of hiding about and not making a decision on so that's for all of them and in these visits we've actually been invited often to different counties and cities and you know I I certainly I'm a physician I take care of patients I have a PhD a doctoral degree in research science so I'm very comfortable and familiar with science but it helps to have an expert in an area I actually just want to call Dr. Mallon up she's a University of Florida professor she's made the trip with us to to many many parts of Florida to present some of the science so Dr. Mallon would you sure yes thank you so much to Governor DeSantis and Dr. Latipo for having me here today I'm an epidemiologist and an assistant professor at the University of Florida as well as a clinical psychologist and I have been conducting research on fluoride in human health for about 12 years now I first want to say it's really been an incredible journey from speaking with Dr. Latipo at the press conference last November when he issued guidance on community fluoridation to traveling around Florida and presenting research on health effects of fluoride exposure over the last several months and one of the most rewarding parts of this experience has been meeting and hearing from Floridians in local communities across the state whose voices are now finally being heard on this issue but we also saw situations like in Bartow Florida where for example where many people pleaded with their elected officials to stop adding fluoridation chemicals to their drinking water and that didn't happen now with this bill their requests will be answered there have been major milestones in the research on fluoride and neurodevelopment over the last decade and especially in the last year and with more and more studies finding associations of fluoride exposure with adverse neurological outcomes even at levels that we commonly encounter in Florida the findings of these studies point to an imminent need for policy change and the policy change happening in Miami-Dade today with the ultimate signing of this bill is one that will protect the brains of children in Florida from unreasonable risk of harm for generations to come thank you very much good afternoon everyone I would like to recognize friends in the audience today I'd like to recognize Marla Maples Marla Maples with Global Wellness Forum she has been she has been instrumental in helping me understand why Florida needed to be at the forefront of this issue and how important it is globally also I'd like to recognize the Paul Pack family joining us here today so it is a truly significant day for the state of Florida when we are taking decisive action to protect our skies our environment and the well-being of all Floridians I want to express my deepest gratitude to Governor DeSantis who is unwavering support and leadership in helping this happen Senate Bill 56 very shortly a reality this landmark legislation sends a clear message Florida will not stand by while unregulated activities threaten the delicate balance of our atmosphere and there will be harsh consequences for those who do so governor forgive me I've got to sit down because I am not feeling well do we have water