DeSantis: If Florida didn't lead fight against federal COVID overreach, US would look like Canada

Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis defended his record on handling the COVID-19 pandemic, remarking that if he did not stand up to the continued overreach by the federal government, the U.S. as a whole would be as severely locked down and economically depressed as Canada.

While Florida is returning to normal with sporting events returning to full capacity, DeSantis reminded "Life, Liberty & Levin" host Mark Levin that children in the state had the benefit of in-person learning throughout the past schoolyear.

"You just have so many threats to freedom nowadays. And what we're doing is we've essentially, ‘Katie, bar the door' to protect Floridians and to protect their freedoms and opportunities. And you see it in a number of different ways," said DeSantis, who himself recently topped former President Donald Trump in a prospective 2024 straw poll of conservatives.

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Meanwhile, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau renewed his policy keeping the U.S.-Canada border closed to most traffic outside of commercial activities for at least another month. Much of Canada is still under economic lockdown.

"We were the leading state fighting against coronavirus lockdowns," DeSantis recounted. "I believe had Florida not done that, you would see the other states to have followed Canada, for example, [which] is still locked down."

DeSantis claimed that if he had not continued to stand up to the Biden administration and the federal health bureaucrats at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, other states in the U.S. would not have that lead to follow.

He surmised that U.S. bureaucrats were hoping for a more Canadian-style environment for 2021 and beyond.

"I think that's what a lot of these bureaucrats wanted to see in the United States. And we made sure that we lead in a different direction," he said. He continued by noting how his decision to ban vaccine passports and winning in federal court against the CDC over their restrictions will allow the cruise industry to be able to operate this summer. 

"They didn't have authority to do that. All these experts said, ‘oh, you just have to do whatever the CDC says,’" he added. 

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Later in the interview, DeSantis discussed the danger of critical race theory being taught in schools. 

"As soon as we started to see that percolate throughout the country, I immediately said, 'we're teaching the Constitution'. We're going to teach American civics and American history. And we don't have room for ideologies like critical race theory that are based on false premises," DeSantis said. "People are happy that we're doing that because they most parents do not want their kids indoctrinated with a lot of these ideologies."