Florida Governor Ron DeSantis has formally agreed to debate his California counterpart, Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom, escalating a public feud that has lasted over a yr. The settlement got here in an interview with Fox Information host Sean Hannity. “Completely I’m sport, Simply inform me when and the place,” the Florida governor mentioned Wednesday.
Although Newsom has mentioned he won’t problem Joe Biden for the Democratic nomination in 2024, each governors are clearly hoping to grow to be their occasion’s standard-bearers, and have present in one another a automobile to lift their very own nationwide profiles. A debate will even present a possible increase for a flagging DeSantis marketing campaign, which in latest weeks has been beset by dwindling marketing campaign assets, layoffs, skittish donors, and even a video misfire over a marketing campaign aide’s utilization of Nazi imagery. Although DeSantis has largely averted instantly attacking present frontrunner Donald Trump, who leads him by practically 40 factors, he’s been far more snug going after Democrats and the media.
The Newsom-DeSantis spat goes again to final July, when the California governor, who was then working for re-election, purchased a $105,000 advert spot in Fox Information drawing consideration to Florida’s legislative efforts to ban books, prohibit voting, and sharply curtail entry to abortion. “Freedom is below assault in your state,” Newsom mentioned, talking on to Florida residents. Later in the summertime, Newsom publicly challenged DeSantis to a debate. “l’ll convey my hair gel,” he tweeted. “You convey your hairspray.”
Issues then escalated early this summer time, when Florida flew two planes of migrants to Sacramento as a part of an anti-migrant political stunt. Newsom exhorted the Division of Justice to open a legal and civil investigation into the matter, referred to as DeSantis a “small, pathetic man,” and floated “kidnapping expenses.”
In a Hannity look in mid-June, Newsom once more mentioned he’d be keen to debate DeSantis. “You’d do a two-hour debate with Ron DeSantis?” Hannity requested. “I’d make it three,” Newsom responded. The Florida governor reacted by telling Newsom to “cease pussyfooting round” and throw his hat within the Democratic major. “Are you going to get in and do it?” DeSantis mentioned at a press convention. “Or are you simply gonna sit on the sidelines and chirp?” (“Your whining could be very unpresidential!” retorted a senior Newsom advisor).
It didn’t finish there: Every week later, whereas on a donor go to to San Francisco, the place Newsom served as mayor from 2004 to 2011, DeSantis filmed a one-minute advert on the streets of the town’s Tenderloin neighborhood decrying the town’s “riffraff.” “We got here in right here, and we noticed folks defecating on the road. We noticed folks utilizing heroin. We noticed folks smoking crack cocaine,” said DeSantis, who later admitted he’d solely spent about “20 minutes on the bottom.” “You go searching, and the town will not be vibrant anymore. It’s actually collapsed due to leftist insurance policies.”
DeSantis additionally filmed and later launched an extended video with Day by day Wire editor in chief John Bickley, during which the Florida Governor walked the town streets, chummed it up with San Francisco cops, and touted Florida’s $5,000 signing bonus for legislation enforcement personnel who relocate to the Sunshine State.
“In a single respect, the controversy between California and Florida has already been had,” DeSantis advised Hannity Wednesday, citing the previous’s excessive out-migration numbers in comparison with his dwelling state’s. “However in one other sense, that is the controversy for the way forward for our nation. As a result of you have got folks like Joe Biden they’d like to see the Californication of the USA.”
In a letter to Hannity final week, Newsom proposed a debate date of November 8 or 10 and placement of Georgia, Nevada, or North Carolina. And in an announcement late Wednesday, a Newsom spokesman reiterated the proposed dates and advised DeSantis to “put up or shut up.” “Anything is simply video games,” he mentioned.
