Byron Donalds Healthcare Immigration Lies Florida

Asked If Florida Parents Should Vaccinate Their Kids Against Measles, Byron Donalds Said No — and Blamed Immigrants

On Face the Nation, Margaret Brennan told Byron Donalds nearly all of Florida is below the vaccination rate needed for herd immunity and asked if his message to parents was to vaccinate. He answered 'No' and said the outbreaks are caused by 'rampant illegal immigration.' Florida had 141 measles cases by late July.

MAGA Report Cards · Aug 25, 2026

Byron Donalds is the Republican nominee for governor of Florida. On Sunday, August 23, he sat down with Margaret Brennan on CBS's Face the Nation.

She asked him a simple question about a disease that is spreading in his own backyard. Here is what he said.

The exchange

MARGARET BRENNAN: …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?

REP. 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 BRENNAN: What evidence do you have of that?

REP. BYRON DONALDS: …we've 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…

The question was whether parents should vaccinate their children. The answer was "No."

Brennan asked him for evidence. He named two places where outbreaks have happened. That is not evidence that immigrants caused them — it is a list of places measles is spreading.

What is actually happening in Florida

Measles is not an abstraction in Florida this year.

By the end of July, the CDC had recorded 141 measles cases in Florida, putting the state fifth in the country for the most cases. One of the outbreaks Florida's surgeon general has publicly discussed is in Collier County — part of the 19th Congressional District Donalds has represented since January 2021, and the "Southwest Florida, where I live" he pointed to on national television.

And Brennan's premise was correct. Just 88.9% of Florida's kindergarteners had completed their required vaccinations before the 2025-26 school year, according to WLRN, and nearly all of the state is below the roughly 95% measles immunization rate public health officials say is needed to stop the disease spreading through a community. Vaccine exemptions in Florida are at their highest level in a decade.

Measles is one of the most contagious diseases known. When enough children in a community are unvaccinated, it spreads. That is the mechanism. It does not require anyone to have crossed a border.

The state's own health department has been trying to make it worse

Donalds is not making this argument in a vacuum.

In September 2025, Florida Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo announced he wanted to eliminate every vaccine mandate in the state — a move that would have made Florida the first in the country to do it.

It didn't happen, and not because anyone changed their mind. Some of the required shots are written into Florida law and would need the legislature to act. Others are set by the Department of Health, which Ladapo runs — and his own department has yet to file the paperwork to complete the rule change. The mandates survived on a technicality.

So this is the backdrop for Donalds's answer: a state where the top health official tried to scrap vaccine requirements, where kindergarten vaccination rates have been sliding, where exemptions are at a ten-year high, and where measles is now spreading in the district he represents.

Asked what he'd tell parents, the man who wants to run all of it said "No."

He has made a habit of this

This is not the first time Donalds has answered a question with something other than the facts.

Days before the primary he told a rally that "even the American Medical Association has finally realized that this is insanity," claiming the country's largest doctors' group had turned against gender-affirming care for minors. The AMA told The Advocate it still believes parents, families and medical professionals should decide together.

A PAC supporting him ran an ad that deceptively edited a David Jolly clip on gender-affirming care to make Jolly appear to endorse surgery for children — PolitiFact found he was quoting someone else and never mentioned surgery, and rated the ad False.

And he told Floridians that the state's new data center law "ensures that utility rates will not go up due to data centers" — PolitiFact rated that Half True, because the law outlines ways to protect consumers but doesn't guarantee it, and doesn't cover rural cooperatives or municipal utilities at all.

In summary

Asked on national television whether Florida parents should vaccinate their children against measles — in a state with 141 cases by late July, a kindergarten vaccination rate of 88.9%, and an active outbreak in his own congressional district — Byron Donalds said "No," and blamed the outbreaks on "rampant illegal immigration." When Margaret Brennan asked what evidence he had, he named two places where measles is spreading. He offered nothing else.