Florida Governor Ron DeSantis said that the White House is lying about his state’s position on vaccination for children under the age of five, after upholding the position he and Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo hold on the matter.

One reporter asked during a press conference on Monday: “There’s a lot of controversies, the end of last week, between your administration and the White House. What do you make of the White House saying the state reversed on child vaccines?”

“So the White House is lying about it, surprise. Not surprised the White House would lie, definitely not surprised that legacy media would amplify the lie, because that’s what they do. The State of Florida— they came out with an article saying the State of Florida, its Department of Health, has not ordered mRNA jabs for the babies. Yes, we didn’t. We recommend against it. We are not gonna have any programs where we’re trying to jab 6-month-olds with mRNA, that’s just not the reality.”

“And I think what happened was, they thought somehow that we would be embarrassed by that, no. We’re following the data,” the governor said, citing data from European countries that have not vaccinated its children. He said that he believes Floridians are able to decide for themselves and their children if they see a vaccine as necessary, and has never prohibited doctors and hospitals from administering vaccines.

“It is the weakest possible data that you could possibly see. A very small number of people, what the recommendation is from them, doesn’t even track the outcomes,” he cautioned, adding that there was “no proven benefit to put a baby with an mRNA.”

“We’re confident that people can make their own judgments,” DeSantis said but said that the recommendation from the White House was to vaccinate “young babies and kids who have already recovered from Covid,” and that there was no data to reinforce that position.