GOP Senator Disagrees With DeSantis on Mask Mandates: ‘We Should Allow Local Officials to Make Those Decisions’

Senator Bill Cassidy (R- LA) said Sunday he disagrees with Florida Governor Ron DeSantis on mask mandates.

DeSantis recently issued an executive order to block Florida schools from implementing mask mandates, saying parents should make those decisions. There are already some legal challenges to the order.

CNN’s Dana Bash asked the Louisiana senator about that state’s governor reinstating the statewide mask mandate.

Cassidy said that speaking as a doctor, “if you have a large percentage of your population which is not vaccinated, and your infection rate is going up, you’ve got one of two choices. If you’re inside, either you’re vaccinated or you have to wear a mask. Otherwise, you’re at too great a risk to further spread infection, to further pack those emergency rooms, to further prevent people who have terrible accidents from getting cared for because the hospital is full of covid.”

If people don’t want mask mandates, he added, “get vaccinated, the infection rate goes down and you don’t have a mandate.”

Bash asked about some governors like DeSantis “blocking local officials from imposing restrictions like mask mandates.”

“If a local community is having — their ICU is full and people at the local schools see that they’ve got to make sure they stay open, because otherwise children will miss out for another year of school, and they put in policy, then the local official should be listened to. That is a conservative principle,” Cassidy responded.

“So you disagree with Governor DeSantis?” Bash asked.

“I do disagree with Governor DeSantis,” the senator said. “The local officials should have control here. I don’t want top down from Washington D.C., I don’t want top down from a governor’s office.”

“If my hospitals [are] full, and my vaccination rate is low, and infection rate is going crazy, we should allow local officials to make those decisions,” he added.

You can watch above, via CNN.