Gov. Ron DeSantis has reversed course and is now willing to debate California Gov. Gavin Newsom on Fox News.
“Absolutely, I’m game. Let’s get it done. Just tell me when and where, we’ll do it,” DeSantis told Sean Hannity Wednesday.
“The debate between California and Florida is already over. People have been voting with their feet for years. But the debate about the future of our country is one we need to have. I’m game to talk about my plans to reverse the decline in this country anytime, anywhere, because I have the best vision for the future of our country,” DeSantis tweeted immediately after the segment.
Newsom previously claimed he would do a three-hour debate with DeSantis on “one day’s notice with no notes.”
Meanwhile, DeSantis, whose odds of being President are now officially better than Newsom’s according to betting markets, was not initially willing to commit to a debate when asked by Florida reporters weeks ago.
DeSantis told reporters in Fort Pierce that Newsom should “stop pussyfooting around” and challenge the incumbent President, fellow Democrat Joe Biden.
“What I would tell him is, you know what? Stop pussyfooting around. Are you going to throw your hat in the ring and challenge Joe? Are you going to get in and do it, or are you just going to sit on the sidelines and chirp? So why don’t you throw your hat in the ring and then we’ll go ahead and talk about what’s happening,” DeSantis said in June.
During the same interview, the California Governor attacked migrant flights Florida sent to Sacramento from Texas, which Newsom claims were a “stunt,” “embarrassing” and “pathetic.”
“This isn’t Martha’s Vineyard,” the California Governor tweeted, referring to a previous migrant flight paid for by Florida taxpayers. “Kidnapping charges?”
Earlier this year, DeSantis offered a provocation to the state when he sent a flight full of undocumented immigrants from Texas to California, which he bragged about during an event in neighboring Arizona.
“These sanctuary jurisdictions are part of the reason we have this problem because they have endorsed and agitated for these types of open border policies,” DeSantis said in June.
“They attack the previous administration’s efforts to try to have border security. And so that’s the policies they’ve taken out and then when they have to deal with the fruits of that, they all of a sudden become very, very upset about that.”
DeSantis blames California and other sanctuary jurisdictions for offering sweet deals to undocumented immigrants.
“A place like California, they give benefits, they give unemployment checks, they do all that. And so you can see why some of those folks were interested in going that direction in Florida,” DeSantis said. “We’ve gone the opposite way.
“You know, we say we have a legal workforce, we’re not going to have benefits, we’re not going to do that and basically trying to disincentivize it,” he continued. “Other states have tried to incentivize it. And so I think they should be the ones to pay to do it.”
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