Joseph Ladapo lauds Ron DeSantis’ COVID-19 approach during New Hampshire event

Ladapo DeSantis NH NBD
Just what the doctor ordered: The Surgeon General has the Governor's back in an early state.

State employees and assets continue to buoy Ron DeSantis’ presidential campaign, with the latest example being Joseph Ladapo’s trip to the Granite State.

The Surgeon General accompanied the Governor to a “Medical Freedom Town Hall” in Manchester, where the two brought their patented brand of COVID-19 mitigation contrarianism to a New Hampshire audience.

Ladapo led off his remarks with comments on the “confusing” staging of the town hall itself.

“There are people behind you and I wonder who designed this,” the Surgeon General said. “I guess it gets the most people in the room maybe. But, I feel, you know, I’m thinking, I, I want to be talking and I want to see everyone I’m talking to, so maybe I’ll keep spinning.”

Ladapo continued to rotate while addressing the crowd, with his back to the camera often, and he continued spinning as well.

He noted that he went to medical school at Harvard, and had “very fond memories” of learning to ski in New Hampshire, along with taking trips to the Granite State to sample “maple candy” and “look at the leaves change.”

While Ladapo notes he has a “day job in Florida,” he said he was “invited to come support a man” that he has a “great deal of admiration for” in DeSantis. From there, he told his personal story, including working in a hospital in California as the pandemic became real.

“There was this atmosphere of panic,” Ladapo related, saying there were “new protocols” every day, with “panic and fear” driving decisions. Yet he noted that the disease affected “older people” and claimed it “pretty much left kids alone.”

Ladapo struggled against the COVID-19 consensus until the Governor’s Office called.

“They told me they had a vacancy coming up. They were looking for a new Surgeon General,” Ladapo recounted, saying the call struck him as “awfully strange.”

“I didn’t know what to think,” Ladapo related.

His wife urged him to take the gig, saying “that’s the call (she) had been waiting for.”

“A day or two later I had a job interview,” Ladapo said, and after the “fun interview” with DeSantis and former Chief of Staff Adrian Lukis, he got the job offer the next day. He now makes more than $500,000 per year before taxes, after taking what he repeatedly called a “gamble” to take the job.

Ladapo described DeSantis as “willing to do what he believed is right despite the opposition.” He also noted that he met Donald Trump and that, while he has “nothing against” the former President, “there’s no one running in this election who has the critical qualities” DeSantis has.

Ladapo also lauded DeSantis’ “amicability” and his “free-flowing love and care about other people,” by way of calling the Governor to the stage.

From there, it was DeSantis’ show, and it was replete with well-trafficked arguments about the pandemic, familiar to Floridians.

The Governor called for “accountability” regarding the coronavirus, including the “negative impact” of federal policy.

“They were wrong about school closures,” DeSantis said. “They were wrong about outdoor transmission. I was getting hammered because I had beaches open in Florida.”

DeSantis also defended his decision to tell state universities that they would not isolate college students, suggesting that cohort handled COVID-19 without any problems in his state.

“They’re going to go out and they’re going to go to parties, they’re going to intermingle, you know, what a lot of them may get COVID and it’ll go, it’ll cycle through and then they’ll go on with their lives. And not one person was even admitted to the hospital in the college age in Florida, even though they were out living normally,” DeSantis contended.

The Governor eventually got around to bashing Anthony Fauci, by way of saying the “medical swamp” needs to be “drained.”

“He had been there since the ’80s. We need term limits for bureaucrats,” DeSantis said of the former Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.

A.G. Gancarski

A.G. Gancarski has been the Northeast Florida correspondent for Florida Politics since 2014. His work also can be seen in the Washington Post, the New York Post, the Washington Times, and National Review, among other publications. He can be reached at [email protected] or on Twitter: @AGGancarski


15 comments

  • PeterH

    November 1, 2023 at 1:30 pm

    Ladapo salary is $465,000 annually! He’s paid that amount to lie on behalf of his benefactor.

    It’s doubtful if an incoming Republican or Democratic governor would keep him and his outrageous policies!

    • Ocean Joe

      November 1, 2023 at 2:39 pm

      The University of Florida also hired him so he could add some professor level salary to that. Not sure they wanted to. He makes closer to a million Florida tax dollars.

    • MH/Duuuval

      November 1, 2023 at 5:18 pm

      Ladapo is cheap, like Trump. Latest campaign donation records show the Doctor has donated only $400 to Ron’s campaign.

  • My Take

    November 1, 2023 at 2:17 pm

    HOW many MORE did he kill?
    To keep sports bars open.

  • Michael K

    November 1, 2023 at 3:22 pm

    Florida was warned by UCLA that Lapado is a quack. DeSantis hired him anyway. Wondering if taxpayersate paying for his trip? Governor “hide everything” has obliterated Sunshine laws to cover his tracks.

    • Hamas Earl

      November 1, 2023 at 5:40 pm

      Anyway’? BECAUSE he is a Quack

  • JD

    November 1, 2023 at 3:23 pm

    When Lapado speaks, we all hear “Sycophant says what?”

    Shameless Desantis administration of grifters.

  • Tjb

    November 1, 2023 at 3:49 pm

    Josef Mengele and Ladapo both became tools for leaders with no moral compass.

  • Earl Pitts American

    November 1, 2023 at 4:01 pm

    Good afternoon America,
    A quick review of all the above comments indicates they were all made by Raicest White (Honkey’s) Dook 4 Brains Leftists.
    Leftists are the most raicest population in the USA and need to be investigated by our new Federal Law Enforcement Agency.
    Thank you America,
    Earlcl Pitts Anerican

    • Hamas Earl

      November 1, 2023 at 5:41 pm

      No apostrophe in Honkeys, Qearl.

  • Joe

    November 1, 2023 at 4:56 pm

    Lapdog lauds master at weirdo convention.

  • bob the dog

    November 2, 2023 at 7:24 am

    So here’s the facts from the Official State of Florida Covid information website. Through June 3rd 2021, there were 2483 hospitalizations in the 15-24 age group and 56 deaths, So Desantis told a bald faced lie. He is the do anything say anything please please please let me have control candidate. He is completely controlled by dark money interests. I want to know if he did anything in Iraq other than wield a ball point pen. If not, why is he posing in full combat regalia in front of a Humvee in his publicity photo from Iraq?

  • MH/Duuuval

    November 2, 2023 at 8:32 am

    Once Ron is out of office, it will be amusing to see if Ladapo can keep his UF job since tenure rules have changed.

    Will UF profs pass on Ladapo without comment?

  • wendy

    November 2, 2023 at 11:57 am

    He’s also lying about college age hospitalizations. I’m seeing officail counts between 225-435 deaths for the college age group (16-24) in Florida, so unless all of them skipped the hospital before they died, there’s another big lie for him.

  • waking up

    November 2, 2023 at 11:57 am

    Spinning so much he is dizzy. Screw DeSatan and his revisionist narrative about his dealings with the pandemic. Let’s not forget the checkpoints at the border!

Comments are closed.


#FlaPol

Florida Politics is a statewide, new media platform covering campaigns, elections, government, policy, and lobbying in Florida. This platform and all of its content are owned by Extensive Enterprises Media.

Publisher: Peter Schorsch @PeterSchorschFL

Contributors & reporters: Phil Ammann, Drew Dixon, Roseanne Dunkelberger, A.G. Gancarski, Ryan Nicol, Jacob Ogles, Cole Pepper, Jesse Scheckner, Drew Wilson, and Mike Wright.

Email: [email protected]
Twitter: @PeterSchorschFL
Phone: (727) 642-3162
Address: 204 37th Avenue North #182
St. Petersburg, Florida 33704