Florida Republican Governor Ron DeSantis refuted a reporter who asked him during a Hurricane Milton press conference whether climate change worsens extreme weather events.

Hurricane Milton made landfall on Wednesday evening on the Gulf Coast to the south of Tampa Bay, only days after Hurricane Helene struck the Big Bend region of the state. DeSantis was asked during a press conference whether global warming worsens tornadoes and hurricanes.

“I think you can go back and find tornadoes for all of human history,” DeSantis responded, additionally observing that many storms in Florida over the past century and a half have been stronger than Hurricane Milton. “If you go back to 1851, there’s probably been twenty-seven hurricanes that have had lower barometric, so the lower the barometric pressure, the stronger it is.”

DeSantis made specific reference to the Labor Day Hurricane which occurred in 1935, informing reporters that the storm “totally wiped out” the Florida Keys and continues to remain “head and shoulders above any powerful hurricane that we’ve ever had in the state of Florida.” The most deadly storm in state history was the Okeechobee Hurricane, which killed thousands in 1928.

“So I just think people should put this in perspective there,” DeSantis added. “They try to take different things that happen with tropical weather and act like it’s something, there’s nothing new under the sun. You know, this is something that the state has dealt with for its entire history.”

Many legacy media outlets have advanced the claim that climate change worsens extreme weather, with the first question at the vice presidential debate centering on whether “climate change makes these hurricanes larger, stronger, and more deadly” relative to previous years.

DeSantis said in a statement that Hurricane Milton “moved quickly across central Florida, producing significant flooding, high winds, and destructive tornadoes.” There are millions of residents presently without power, yet more than 50,000 linemen are working to restore the infrastructure and have already returned power to at least 700,000 accounts as of Thursday.

Authorities in states such as Florida and North Carolina have been forced to amend their early voting and election day voting processes amid the series of storms in recent weeks.