Ron DeSantis spent a year watching Daniel Perez bury his medical freedom agenda.
Now Trump signed the executive order that Perez blocked twice.
And Ron DeSantis was fuming when the man who killed his bill turned around and called Trump’s vaccine order a common-sense masterstroke.
Perez Killed the Bill Twice
The Florida Senate passed DeSantis' medical freedom legislation twice – once in the regular session, once in a special session called specifically to revive it.
Both times, Daniel Perez buried it in the House.
https://twitter.com/ReOpenChris/status/1952353591164797069?s=20
During April's special session, Perez told reporters the bill was dead and the House wasn't moving on it.
"There is some concern here, on my behalf, about children being in school without measles, mumps, polio, and chickenpox vaccines that have been working for decades," Perez said.
DeSantis watched his top priority die twice – while Perez lectured him publicly about temper tantrums.
"He is not governing in the best interests of the people of the state of Florida," DeSantis said of Perez in May. "He has a personal agenda."
That was three months ago.
Now Perez Is a Medical Freedom Hero
Trump signed his Gold Standard Childhood Vaccine Recommendations executive order Monday.
The order trims mandatory childhood vaccinations from 18 diseases down to 11.
It also directs HHS to explore splitting combination vaccines into individual doses at separate visits – the kind of parental choice DeSantis spent two legislative sessions fighting to codify into Florida law.
Trump said in the Oval Office that autism drove the thinking behind the new guidance – pointing to rising autism rates as vaccination schedules expanded over the decades.
Perez celebrated it immediately.
"Thank you, President Trump, for standing up for parents and putting our children's health first," Perez posted. "Protecting our kids from dangerous diseases while avoiding unnecessary over-vaccination is a common-sense approach worth supporting."
DeSantis responded the same day.
"The FL Senate passed a transformational medical freedom bill that voters had been asking for, but Republicans in the Florida House couldn't even be bothered to vote on it. A dereliction of duty and a slap in the face of the voters who expected better," he wrote.
https://twitter.com/RonDeSantis/status/2087681894460649626?s=20
DeSantis is right.
Florida parents could have had this at the state level if Perez had done his job.
Trump Rewarded Him Anyway
Perez didn't just block the bill and flip on the issue.
Trump nominated him as U.S. Ambassador to Brazil in June.
When Trump met with Perez in 2025, he called him a fantastic Speaker who was respected all over the country – and handed him one of the more prominent diplomatic posts in the Western Hemisphere.
That is the full picture: Perez killed the DeSantis medical freedom agenda, praised the Trump executive order that proves he was wrong to kill it, and collected a federal ambassadorship for his trouble.
https://twitter.com/RonDeSantis/status/2087669668425162951?s=20
Republicans who actually fight these battles – who push the bills, absorb the attacks, hold the line through two failed sessions – are watching a man who blocked their work get rewarded by the president they elected to lead the charge.
That's not politics.
That's a slap in the face to every conservative voter in Florida who wanted this done at the state level, done right, done when it mattered.
DeSantis called it a dereliction of duty.
He was being polite.
Sources:
- A.G. Gancarski, "Dereliction of duty: Daniel Perez's vax reversal riles Ron DeSantis," Florida Politics, August 12, 2026.
- White House, "Fact Sheet: President Donald J. Trump Delivers Gold Standard Childhood Vaccine Recommendations for Americans," WhiteHouse.gov, August 10, 2026.
- Jesse Scheckner, "Donald Trump names Daniel Perez as Ambassador to Brazil in latest round of appointments," Florida Politics, June 1, 2026.
