Former Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin crowed over her unvaccinated status on Sunday, preaching to an audience that they should “stiffen” their spines against pressure to get inoculated against coronavirus. “It’ll be over my dead body that I’ll have to get a shot,” she said at Turning Point USA’s AmericaFest. Over the applause of the crowd and Turning Point founder Charlie Kirk, who was interviewing her, she continued, “I will not do it. I won’t do it, and they better not touch my kids, either.”

Palin previously revealed she had contracted COVID-19 in March 2021. At the time, she urged practices like mask-wearing, telling People it was “better than doing nothing to slow the spread.” On Sunday, when Kirk brought up vaccine mandates by schools and employers, the former Alaskan governor encouraged the crowd to band together. “If enough of us, though, rise up and say, ‘No, enough is enough’ — There are more of us than there are of them!” she said, adding later, “You need to all look around and… realize that those around you, as you stiffen your spine, their spines, too, will stiffen! And there is an empowerment in a group like this where you all can feed off each other, and really be strong.”