Florida AG Moody knocks Dems, media over ‘unsettling’ COVID mandate flip-flops: ‘You never had the right’
Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody joins Fox News Digital at CPAC 2022 to discuss Democrats and the media’s flip-flop on mask and vaccine mandates as well as her legal struggles with the Biden administration.
After Philadelphia announced the city would reimpose an indoor mask mandate, NBC News’ senior medical correspondent Dr. John Torres praised the measure, noting that the decision indicated the "right amount of caution" to get coronavirus "under control."
But, back in February, many major liberal media outlets, including NBC, rallied behind Democratic policies to drop mask mandates across the country and embrace a return to pre-pandemic life, despite previous criticism of Republican states promoting freedom from COVID-19 restrictions. Florida was one of the prime targets for Democrats and the media given the state’s pushback on mandates throughout the duration of the pandemic, which critics claimed endangered the lives of Floridians.
Fox News Digital caught up with Moody in her state back in February during CPAC Orlando 2022. The Florida AG, at the time, slammed politicians and media personalities for celebrating the relinquishment of mask mandates, which Moody said seemed arbitrary and flippant given past attacks on GOP-controlled states and a lack of noticeable shifts in the scientific data presented.
PHILADELPHIA REIMPOSES INDOOR MASK MANDATE IN RESPONSE TO RISING OMICRON BA.2 CASES
Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody visits the Lakeland Police Department to announce a hiring bonus for new Florida police officers, Tuesday Sept. 7 2021. (ERNST PETERS/ THE LEDGER/Reuters)
"Democrats never understood that protection of individual liberties is truly what this country is about, that is why we exist as a United States today," Moody said in February. She couldn't be reached for additional comment on Tuesday.
On Feb. 9, New York Democratic Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney tweeted, "Democrats' plan to fight COVID is working - cases are down & vaccines are widely available. Now, it's time to give people their lives back. With science as our guide, we're ready to start getting back to normal."
Moody pushed back on his statement and other comments by politicians who insinuated that they had the ability to dictate people’s lives.
"The statements that some of these leaders have been saying. It’s time to give people their lives back. You never had the right to take them away in the first place. In Florida, we understood that," Moody said. The AG added that the government has no right to curtail people’s lives and inject themselves too deep into the free market, whether it be through lockdowns, business closures or other restrictive measures.
FLORIDA LEGISLATURE GIVES UP, ASKS GOV FOR CONGRESSIONAL MAP
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis speaks at the opening of a monoclonal antibody site Wednesday, Aug. 18, 2021, in Pembroke Pines, Fla. (AP Photo/Marta Lavandier)
As the attorney general noted, much of Florida’s recent successes are the result of a delicate balance between protecting citizens and ensuring that they retain their freedoms as individuals.
"In Florida, we always stood for freedom," Moody told Fox News Digital.
A recent study from The Committee To Unleash Prosperity found that Florida was one of the most successful states in handling the coronavirus pandemic based on metrics that included the economy, education and morality.
Yet, according to Moody, this success under the Biden administration has proven difficult as sweeping OSHA mandates threatened to encroach on state law and policy.
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"To be in the United States of America and have that going on I think is unsettling with many Americans," Moody said. "And so, as leaders it’s been important to us to not only take the deliberate, necessary steps to push back on some of this behavior, but to assure our own citizens that we’re doing everything in our power to ensure that we’re protecting them."
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