Bulwark Takes - Florida Surgeon General’s Dangerous Vaccine Move

Episode Date: September 7, 2025

Florida’s top doctor is pushing anti-vaccine politics while DeSantis bets big on a move most voters never asked for. Tim Miller and Sam Stein break down the dangerous gamble, the polling, and the growing backlash.

Hey everybody, Tim Miller from the Bullwork here with Sam Stein. We got a bunch of stuff happening on the Sunday shows this week. And in this video about the news out of Florida, where Ron DeSanctimonious and his Surgeon General Joseph Lidapo have decided that they're going to get rid of all vaccine mandates in the state. And Lidopo was on CNN State of the Union with Jake Tapper this morning discussing that. I'm going to play a little bit of that and then get you on the other side. Did your department do any data analysis? Did you do any data projection of how many new cases of these diseases there will be in Florida once you remove vaccine mandates?

Absolutely. So absolutely not. Because it's not a, you know, you mentioned Wippenkov there. So there's this conflation of the science and sort of what is the right and wrong thing to do. So scientifically, you mentioned Wippenkoff. So that's an example. This is part of the issue with informed consent. That's an example of a vaccine that is ineffective.

The data show that it's ineffective at preventing transmission. So sort of mandates with that really don't have anything to do with the notion of transmission. And then in terms of, you know, like analysis, well, ultimately, this is an issue very clearly of parents' rights. So do I need to analyze whether it's appropriate for parents to be able to decide what goes into the children's bodies? I don't need to do it. an analysis on that. What do you make of that there? Well, it's deeply, deeply reassuring for the citizens of Florida that this man just decided to go forward with this without any analysis whatsoever. Why would you want to like, you know, have some sort of projections about what

might happen if you don't mandate childhood vaccinations in your state and you're the surge in general of your state? I mean, it's so, it's so idiotic. What do we do here? Well, it's an issue of right and wrong, Sam. This isn't an issue of data. This isn't an issue of science. This is an issue of if you want to be responsible for bringing back Rubella to the community of Sarasota, then you have a right to do that, I guess. I guess I just don't understand why they're doing this. I mean, no one's asking for this. I mean, maybe some people are asking this, but not many people are asking for this. And the obvious consequences are that parents are going to see their kids contract diseases and people who have bad health conditions are going to be more vulnerable. And like,

what is the upshot is that, oh, you know, like you're not mandating some vaccine for some person who like feels, you know, hurt by the mandate. They have exemptions. They already have exemptions in the law. There are tons of exemptions. Florida's personal exemption use is on the uptick already. You don't need to get rid of the vaccines. If people are feeling morally conflicted or religiously conflicted about this, there are pathways under the current law to get exemptions. This is idiotic. It's a little bit curious to me, too, from the DeSantis perspective. I mean, I've never met Mr. Surgeon General Lidopo, but he seems like he's taking the red pill. I just think that this dude might just be an anti-vaccine quack. He wasn't

mandated to take the red pill, just to be clear. I didn't think he might just be a quack. I think I don't know, there's a lot of depth there. What gave it away? The DeSantis, and the question is always in these scenarios, sometimes this doesn't matter. Sometimes it does matter, which is like, are they crazy or are they cynical? You know, and it's like, in the case of the surgeon general, I think crazy is a pretty good bet. I kind of understood this as a cynical play for him during the campaign. We're going to go way back in the way back machine here to when DeSantis was primarying Donald Trump.

And it was like, how am I going to get to the MAGA right of Trump on things? And DeSantis kind of made this bet because of Operation Warp Speed, you know, that he could be more of the, oh, I was a tart liner on COVID. I did the Ivermecta. Right. So, like, that made sense. I mean, obviously it wasn't going to work. But, like, you could understand how it's a strategic mindset DeSantis got there. But, like, that campaign is over.

DeSantis is not running. You know what I mean? Like, there's no. So, like, what is the political benefit for him right now in this? I can't, I can't figure it. It's such a valid point. There's a, I don't. don't think they pick up that there's an actual distinction in the minds of voters between COVID

and the COVID vaccine and other traditional vaccines that as a society we have grown completely accustomed to that are part of our everyday routine that we know we take and give our kids if they want to enroll in the public school system. And it's actually very obvious in polling data too. So last week, the firm Fabrizio Award, which is like a highly influential firm in Republican politics, but mostly in MAGA circles. They did. Tony's a big gay and who has been Trump's pollster for a long time. That's right. He's Trump's big gay pollster. So this is, I just want to point this out because like the data is pretty conclusive on this stuff. When they ask people for their views on vaccinations and they broke it down, all voters, Trump voters,

Democrats, Harris voters, yada, yada, yada, yada. They asked, please tell me how important it is for people to receive each of the following vaccines. I'm just going to give you the Trump voters here, okay? MMR, that's the childhood of vaccine to prevent measles, mumps, and rebella. This is just Trump voters. 77% of Trump voters believe it's important for people to receive that vaccine. Shingles for people over 50, 70%. Hepatitis B, 69%.

I'm a little questionable on shingles. What's the big deal about shingles? Don't you just get a little bit of a skin rash? It's not great. let's not great okay let's just put it that way teap what are we talking this is where you come for centra you know i'm a squish across the board say even on vaccines i'm like you got to give it to them on one of them and i shingles yeah give me the shingles i like to see some of the white papers on the shingles you're right you're right take your shingles it's fine okay flu people they're not they're not big fans of the flu vaccine

i'll give you that that's at 45 but the covid vaccine trump voters 22 percent so we're talking about a delta of like 55% here. And I think DeSantis kind of over-indexed. I think he just sort of like figured, oh, all these voters hate vaccines in Trump world. And the fact is they don't. They really don't. They like their MMR vaccines.

They actually like their shingle vaccines, except for you. Hepatitis B, they like that vaccine. It's the COVID vaccine. And so I think he just misread the moment. And then he empowered this guy, Lodopo. And he just, he's just a dope. Like, I can't watch this man and be, like, confident that the state of Florida is getting the best medical advice.

At a news conference last week, he said that the vaccine requirements drip with disdain and slavery. Slavery. Yeah. So it's a flashback to slavery. That, you know, it's quite similar. You know, being told that you should get a, you know, scientific medicine to protect you in your community from getting diseases.

that is similar to chattel slavery and being, you know, being someone else's property. It's worse. Worse. I want to point out that one person in Maga World does not seem to have overindex, does not seem to be quite as confused as Ron DeSantis about where their voters are on this. And that is Donald Trump himself. I don't show you this. You got asked about the Florida, you know, vaccine, man. mandates in the Oval the other day. Let's watch.

Look, you have vaccines that work. They're just pure and simple work. They're not controversial at all. And I think those vaccines should be used. Otherwise, some people are going to catch it and they endanger other people. And when you don't have controversy at all, I think people should take it. So it is. Trump's kind of like doing the, well, I mean, there's some good ones, right? Like, are they all bad? There's like, I'm pretty sure there's some good ones out there. And, you know, we should do those and we shouldn't do the bad ones. I mean, it is, you know, it's a child's level of kind of insight there.

But sometimes that's better than, you know, getting deep into the sauce like Ron and RFK are. It's like how he's like, I like clean air. I like my air clean. No, I guess they should have asked them specifically about the shingles vaccine because I realized it was so just. I was just joking. Commenters, don't give me any choice. trouble. I'm just joking about the shingles. Just give him shingles. Also, Trump is, I mean, Trump has his own ways in which he's a lunatic, like, mostly related to his

megalomania, but he's not, like, he always, like, looks at the craziest people in the coalition and it's kind of like, you're crazy. You know what I mean? And it was even on different stuff. I know, it was like, he was, remember when he used to joke with Mike Pence about how this guy really cares about the babies, you know? And so I, and then, and, and, and, and Stephen Miller didn't you make fun of him for being a little, caring a little too much about race at some point, you know? So, like, Trump is like, you guys dial it back a little bit here. Yeah, no, he's funny in that way,

and he definitely has made fun of Mike Pence for being a little bit too religious. But, yeah, in this case, he obviously, although I do, some of it is just like, yeah, we, that's a little crazy, but I think some of it is also like, I think there's real, I actually do think there's, like, real voter backlash to what RFK is doing and what this guy in Florida is doing. And I think people are freaked a little bit. I mean, I know I'm freaked, but I think when you saw John Barrasso just kind of get, you know, push back on RFK like that, my sense is they understand that, you know, parents aren't really thrilled at the prospect of sending a little Jimmy off to kindergarten and coming back with measles.

I don't know why they wouldn't be thrilled with that, but. I agree that they sense it. And, you know, we are joking about how Trump's like, you know, lizard instead. is closer to the right place on this than like total anti-vax freaks. But are any of them actually going to do anything about, you know, like these guys, up to an including Trump, have all seemed not just reticent, but scared to do anything that would cause backlash among the craziest parts of the base. And Trump could reign RFK back in.

And it's easy to kind of like point at DeSantis, who is still kind of his foe and be like, in Florida, they're going a little overboard. But like, I don't see any signs. at this point that Trump or Barrasso or any of these guys are planning on reigning RFK and I mean maybe it'll happen eventually but yeah no I think we'll find out in like a couple weeks honestly there's a couple things happening in the next couple weeks that really matter um so this this vaccine advisory panel at the CDC which RFK is stocked with complete conspiracy nuts and anti-vaxxers they're going to have to put out recommendations

for the childhood vaccine schedule and other vaccines and so we'll see if they rain them in and then this ridiculous autism report that rfk is putting together that reportedly we'll see is going to blame tylonal and maybe folates oh yeah folates it is it is important i did i did a quick google on folates and it does seem like you should get some it does seem like it's important to get your folates folates i'm going to look for this folate deficiencies yeah and food but it's you know it's all it all seems like the good foods the dark leafy greens have folates asparagus brussels sprouts peas i eat a lot i eat a lot of i eat a lot of brussels yeah am i that bad now no no this is good you want the folate rich food i want the folates

the concern the the the theory was that it's the not the follics yeah the lack of folates is leading to oh well then i'm good man i'm eating a lot of kale i got my brussels gone so anyway okay well we'll keep an eye out on that sam stein thank you and jonathan cone if you're if you really want to go deeper on all this stuff jonathan cone's newsletter the breakdown has been unbelievable on this and a lot of other stuff in the health and policy space. Go check that out to bulwark.com. Subscribe to this feed. We'll be back here soon.

See you later. Peace.