Tuesday, during an appearance on FNC’s “The Ingraham Angle,” Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) elaborated on his call for a grand jury to investigate potential COVID-19 vaccine wrongdoing.

According to the Florida Republican governor, his state was taking measures to ensure accountability.

Partial transcript as follows:

INGRAHAM: Our next guest has fought relentlessly against medical cartels silencing campaign, which is why he invited people like Michelle and actual experts to join him in Florida today. And he’s also calling for a grand jury now to investigate any and all wrongdoing in Florida with respect to the COVID-19 vaccines.

Joining us now is Florida Governor Ron DeSantis. Governor, it’s great to see you tonight. What did you learn today and hearing again, these voices many of them suppressed, or people ostracized over the last few years?

DESANTIS: Well, Laura, like anything, I mean, you take an mRNA shot and the way to view it is OK, what are the benefits? And what are the drawbacks? And it seems like our medical establishment never wanted to be honest with people about the potential drawbacks. And so, you showed a clip from Dr. Ladapo down here in Florida. And the analysis that he’s done with people, particularly young men who’ve taken the mRNA shots.

We of course had witnesses talk about their experience, and how are we in a situation? Yes, Florida. We banned vaccine passports almost two years ago, we banned the shot mandates for jobs and saved a lot of people’s jobs. Nevertheless, throughout our country, you still have hundreds of universities in other states that are still mandating these boosters, on these college kids, when any type of cost benefit analysis would say the benefit for them taking the shot as you alluded to, it doesn’t prevented from getting infected or spreading it anyways, the benefit is minuscule.

But as Joe Ladapo and other studies have shown, you know there is a risk for doing it. So, why can’t our medical establishment acknowledge that, why the deception? Why have they continued to do this for two years?

INGRAHAM: I want to read some of the reaction to your move today. New York Magazine’s Jonathan Chait said it’s been very, very obvious that Ron DeSantis was courting the anti-vaccine movement. It’s a case study in conservative movements, intellectual dysfunction, and similar nastiness from Vanity Fair, taking your authoritarian ambitions to the next level. He demonizes public health safety measures to score political points.

Governor, is your goal with this roundtable today to demonize public health and safety officials?

DESANTIS: Well, let me tell you this, Laura, the authoritarians were the ones that wanted to mandate the vax on people, I protected people from having that happen and made sure Floridians could make their own choice. The authoritarians wanted to institute a vaccine passport system, almost like a social credit system. So that people who dissented from this would be marginalized from society entirely. We rejected that. And we banned it. So, we were from the very beginning, helping people make their own decisions, but not using either the coercive power of the state or allowing big corporations to condition those choices.

And so, look, at the end of the day, what we’re looking for is to provide truth, to provide accurate data and provide accurate analysis. And we had a great researcher from Denmark. Laura, Denmark does not allow people under 50, unless they have pre-existing conditions, to get the mRNA shots, because they’ve analyzed it, and said that the drawbacks outweigh the benefits. But they’ve also looked at all-cause mortality. And the researcher found that yes, in some age groups, there was a decline in COVID mortality after taking these, but there was then an increase in other types of mortality.

So, why have we not seen big declines in excess mortality since these things have been introduced? And so, we have now a panel that we’ve created in Florida, that is effectively going to function the way a CDC should function, and basically do evidence-based medicine, take study seriously that counteract the narrative and be willing to ask questions and go where the data leads.

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