Today's don't sugarcoat it award goes to Chris Hayes.
CHRIS HAYES: Ron DeSantis’s dystopian. authoritarian vision is most apparent in the legislation he just signed yesterday. It bans all gender-affirming care for all minors in Florida, everyone 18 or younger.
That law also empowers state courts to change custody agreements if a child is receiving or is at risk of receiving gender-affirming care. Meaning taking a kid away from a parent.
Telling parents how they can or cannot raise their own children is among the most authoritarian things that government can do. And now that is exactly what Ron DeSantis and the Republican Party in Florida and generally the conservative movement that endorses this are doing purely for ideological and punitive purposes.
Now, the sick irony here, the one that I just can’t get over and really kind of sticks with me, is that the right-wing movement that gave us this new law signed yesterday is the very same group of people that screamed about parental rights for years amidst the pandemic. I get to say whether my kid wears a mask, I get to say whether my kid gets vaccinated. I get to say whether my kid goes to school. And Ron DeSantis was the public face of that movement.
RON DESANTIS (CLIP): He wants to have the government force kindergartners to wear masks in school. He doesn’t believe the parents should have a say in that he thinks that should be a decision for the government. Well, I can tell you in Florida, the parents are going to be the ones in charge of that decision.
Joe Biden suggests that if you don’t do lockdown policies, then you should, quote, get out of the way. But let me tell you this. If you’re coming after the rights of parents in Florida, I’m standing in your way. I’m not going to let you get away with it.
CHRIS HAYES: What a tough guy! You see all that swagger? He’s going to stand in your way if you’re coming after parental rights! If you try to tell a parent what they can do with their kids! That very same wing of the Republican Party embodied by Ron DeSantis and the government of the state of Florida, has now demanded and produced a situation in which the government that you saw there with the tough guy swagger about freedom? Is going to decide if your child. Who lives in your home that you gave birth to or raised, that you love your kid. What kind of care they can get! He decides. Care that, to be clear, the American Academy of Pediatrics supports and recommends.
Think about what this means right now as I’m speaking to their parents and families in Florida who have decided as a family, as parents, along with their doctors, that this health care, gender-affirming care, is the best care for their kids. You may not like it! But you know what? It’s none of your, excuse me, goddamn business! To me, that is what the courage to be free means. Freedom means that in my household, our family decides what kind of health care our child does or does not get! Not Ron DeSantis! Not the Republican Party. But that is no longer the case in Florida.
