RESOLVING THE LEDGER
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The following is the transcript of the interview with Rep. Byron Donalds, Republican of Florida and candidate for Florida governor, that aired on "Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan" on Aug. 23, 2026.MARGARET BRENNAN: We go now to Florida Republican Congressman Byron Donalds. He\u0027s also now his party\u0027s gubernatorial nominee in the Sunshine State. Welcome to Face the Nation.REP BYRON DONALDS: \u00a0Good morning, Margaret. Good to be with you.MARGARET BRENNAN: So you\u0027re a sitting congressman, but this job that you are running for would make you the chief executive of the third largest state in the country, so you\u0027ll have a lot of decision-making power over a number of things, including health policy. And I want to ask you about that because Florida has been at the forefront of this push to roll back vaccine mandates. In your state, the Department of Health can change some others, like polio and MMR vaccines, are mandated under Florida law. If you\u0027re elected, are you going to go to the Department of Health and the state legislature and ask for repeals? If so, which ones?REP BYRON DONALDS: Well, first of all, Margaret, it\u0027s good to be with you. Number one, I know that Governor DeSantis and and our Surgeon General Dr. Ladapo have already made moves on the rulemaking vaccines, the one, and put those under essentially giving parents the ability to make those decisions for their children. I agree with that decision. When it comes to polio, MMR, those are things that we want to make sure we study and really engage in before we make those determinations and work with the legislature before we make any of those decisions about requirements for those vaccines. I think it\u0027s important also to note that President Trump did allow for expansion and, really, quite frankly, reversing the concentration around the vaccine schedule. I know that my oldest son, he\u0027s 22 years old. The vaccination schedule for him was very different for kids today, and so spreading out that vaccination schedule, I think, does make sense. It gives an infant human body the ability to actually absorb and deal with that that rate of vaccination. But if we\u0027re going to talk healthcare, the bigger issue we have in the state of Florida is costs. And number one, the Affordable Care Act is not working for Floridians. We have seen premiums jump over the last 15 years since it passed. Deductibles\u00e2\u0080\u0094out of control for the last 15 years, and so the current structure of health insurance in our country under the Affordable Care Act is not working is not working for families, whether it\u0027s Florida or anywhere else in the United States. This is why my proposal is price transparency. We want doctors\u0027 offices and hospitals to post a real cash price for the top 20 services that they provide. So Floridians have an opportunity to see the real price, see the real cost, and make determinations about where they get their health care. I think that\u0027s much more of a constructive conversation about costs in healthcare and trying to stabilize prices than just simply vaccinations.\u00a0MARGARET BRENNAN: Right, but that also doesn\u0027t address coverage for them or how they pay for them. But I hear you. I\u0027m sure a lot of people would like to know what they\u0027re paying. But in terms of keeping people healthy, nearly all of Florida is below the 95% immunization rate for herd immunity for measles. So, is your message to Florida parents, get your kids vaccinated against that one?\u00a0REP BYRON DONALDS: No, actually, my message to Floridians and, quite frankly, to Americans is the reason why we have seen a measles outbreak in certain parts of the country is because of rampant illegal immigration into the United States from the previous administration. Margaret, before Joe Biden came to office, when our borders were basically secure (CROSSTALK)MARGARET BRENNAN: What evidence do you have of that?\u00a0REP BYRON DONALDS: Margaret, we\u0027ve seen the outbreaks in El Paso, Texas, in Southwest Florida, where I live, and many other parts where you know that you have a situation. People have come into the country illegally, have not had that vaccination schedule, and not the ones today on young kids that parents do have concerns about. (CROSSTALK)\u00a0MARGARET BRENNAN: So you want them to be vaccinated?\u00a0REP BYRON DONALDS: I\u0027m talking about previous ones where people weren\u0027t even getting measles vaccine or mumps and rubella. So the key thing is, you number one, you got to control immigration into your country. You can\u0027t have an entire segment of people more than 10 million coming to your country without that vaccination schedule. That\u0027s how you end up having some of these outbreaks. And so that\u0027s number one. But number two, and I will tell you, we could talk vaccinations, but the real issue in healthcare is the cost for Americans and the cost for Floridians, and we have already seen that the regulatory framework of the Affordable Care Act is driving up costs on every American, and that\u0027s what I want to stay focused on as the next governor of Florida.MARGARET BRENNAN: Okay, so you want vaccinated immigrants? Let me ask you about some of those immigrants. There are\u00e2\u0080\u0094REP BYRON DONALDS: Actually I just want legal immigrants to be clear. I just want legal immigration with assimilation. We cannot have open borders and we cannot have illegal immigration in our country.MARGARET BRENNAN: I want to ask you about legal immigration. There were 158,000 Haitians legally living in Florida under Temporary Protected Status or TPS until the Trump administration ended that program, You know, when it comes to Haiti, the State Department tells Americans don\u0027t go there for any reason at all. There\u0027s crime, there\u0027s terrorism, there\u0027s no healthcare access, there\u0027s kidnapping. You said that this TPS program was just to be a temporary re...
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