The Vice President of the United States is returning to Florida with a speech slated in Orlando.
Kamala Harris is expected to speak at 1 p.m. Tuesday in Orange County, addressing the AME 20th Women’s Missionary Society Quadrennial Convention.
Harris’ travel plans were announced late last week. This will be her second trip to Florida in recent weeks, following up on her visit to Jacksonville last month to denounce Florida’s revised Black history standards, which include controversial language that suggests slavery had benefits for the enslaved.
In a 25-minute speech in Jacksonville, Harris linked the state’s treatment of Black history to “powerful forces’” efforts to “distort history,” including to “minimize or even deny the Holocaust” and obscure the history of Japanese internment camps or the treatment of native peoples.
She described a national agenda to purposefully dumb people down and disinvest people in knowledge of the past.
“All the people we’d send our children out to meet are clear about our history, and we’re going to send our own children out not to know what it is. Building in a handicap for our children that they’re not going to know our history when the rest of the world does,” Harris said.
“They insult us in an attempt to gaslight us and we will not have it,” Harris added.
Since that speech, DeSantis has messaged heavily about and against Harris. He at first accused her of trying to “chirp” and “demagogue” about Florida’s standards during a press conference in Utah. Most recently, he challenged the Vice President to a debate in Tallahassee about the standards in a letter from the Governor’s Office on Monday.
“In Florida we are unafraid to have an open and honest dialogue about the issues,” DeSantis wrote. “And you clearly have no trouble ducking down to Florida on short notice. So given your grave concern (which, I must assume, is sincere) about what you think our standards say, I am officially inviting you back down to Florida to discuss our African American History standards.”
The Governor also took his attacks on Harris to Iowa.
“They have this hoax that Kamala Harris is trying to do saying, you know, we had people, you know, because when we got rid of critical race theory, what they said was, ‘Oh, you don’t want to teach about any Black history,’” DeSantis claimed.
“Harris says that somehow Florida is teaching that having chattel slavery was good. Nobody said that and the standard said just the opposite. But she runs with the lie and the media repeats the lie. And here’s the thing. Republicans need to fight back against these lies,” he added.
DeSantis continued to vent during a Fox News interview that aired Monday.
“Harris comes in and parachutes. What Republicans should have done is push back against her and say you are operating in bad faith,” DeSantis suggested.
While DeSantis would theoretically be expected to be in the state he governs, he will be in New Hampshire for a second straight day Tuesday, where he will meet with voters in Concord and hold a “Conversation with the Candidates” on WMUR TV. So odds are nil that he will show up in Orlando and make his debate challenge in person.
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