Ron “Don’t Say Gay” DeSantis is a desperate man. The flailing Florida governor continues to fall further behind Donald Trump in the Republican race, now trailing the disgraced ex-president by nearly 60 points.
Clamoring for positive coverage, DeSantis agreed to debate California governor Gavin Newsom Thursday night, a man whom he isn’t running against.
And it blew up in his face. Fox News’ Sean Hannity, who moderated the proceedings, tried to tip the scales in DeSantis’ favor. Hannity teed up some of DeSantis’ favorite talking points and attempted to nail Newsom with unfavorable facts and figures.
But none of it mattered. At one point, DeSantis resorted to holding up a map plotted with fecal matter, in an effort to discredit California’s… mental health care system?
Yeah, we don’t get it, either.
This is the difference between a serious person who wants to make things better, and someone who is only interested in political theater.
— Bluedog (@HereLiesBlueDog) December 1, 2023
Did someone say "poop map"?https://t.co/gmEtVJQFmD
— Matt Fleming, Florida Expert (@Matt_Fleming321) December 1, 2023
Longtime sparring mates, DeSantis and Newsom position themselves as polar opposites of each other. In many ways, that’s true. Newsom is the face of liberal governance, whereas DeSantis represents right-wing demagoguery.
But there is one big similarity between the two foes, which Newsom brought up at the start of the debate.
Despite their national ambitions, neither governor will be the nominee of their party in 2024.
Ouch!
At first glance, it seems odd that Newsom would agree to debate DeSantis on Fox News. But after watching, the California governor’s motives were apparent.
He successfully promoted the Biden-Harris agenda in front of a Fox News audience, and further demoralized DeSantis in the process.
On multiple occasions, Newsom lambasted DeSantis for his ardent homophobia.
“I don’t like the way you demean the LGBTQ community,” he said. “I don’t like the way you demean and humiliate people you disagree with, Ron. I find it fundamental offensive. This is a core value that distinguishes the values of my state, and frankly the vast majority of Americans, against the weaponization of education.”
“Meatball Ron” had no response, other than standing sheepishly behind the podium
Trying to erase LGBTQ+ students is one of DeSantis’ biggest initiatives. He’s passed the odious “Don’t Say Gay” bill, which bars discussion of sexual orientation and gender identity among all grade levels.
The gay-hating governor is also leading the charge on book bans: PEN America says more than 40% of school book bans last year happened in Florida, surpassing every other state.
In recent months, DeSantis has attempted to rewrite his anti-LGBTQ+ record, insisting that books aren’t being banned in Florida schools.
Newsom wouldn’t let him get away with it.
“1,406 books have been banned just last year under Ron DeSantis’ leadership,” he said. “I love that he keeps pulling this, he’s been doing this all over the campaign trail. What’s wrong with Toni Morrison’s books? What’s wrong with Amanda Gorman’s, and the poetry? 1,406 books have been banned on your banning binge in the state of Florida.”
DeSantis kept trying to butt in — “not banned!” — but failed to stop Newsom’s onslaught.
“As it relates to parental rights, California, it’s in our constitution, parental engagement. It’s called the CFF process,” said Newsom. “We actually require parental engagement on curriculum development. We don’t require K through 3rd-grade sexual education. That doesn’t happen until middle school. What you’re doing is using education as a sword for your cultural purge.”
Right after this is over Ron is going to fire the person on his staff that suggested he do this. This is a public humiliation.
— Brutally Honest (@zBrutallyHonest) December 1, 2023
In addition to attacking LGBTQ+ folx, DeSantis is pinning his futile campaign on immigration. Most infamously, he dispatched a team from Florida to round up asylum seekers in Texas and fly them to Martha’s Vineyard without their knowledge.
Newsom took him down on that, too.
“I’m the only guy here that is a border state governor,” he said. “You’re trolling folks trying to find migrants to play political games to get some news and attention so you can out-Trump Trump and by the way… how is that going for you? You’re down 41 points in your own home state.”
I thought they didn’t televise executions.
— Eric B. (@ediddy1979) December 1, 2023
For years, DeSantis’ biggest talking point against Newsom has been his management of COVID, and the supposed migration of Californians to Florida.
But actually…that’s not true, either! Over the last two years, more Floridians have actually moved to California than the other way around.
Check and mate. We’ll see DeSantis at the bottom of the polls, thank you very much!
ZzBomb
God I love my Governor!
Fahd
My favorite quip: “I thought they didn’t televise executions”.
RIGay
BRILLIANT!!!!
dbmcvey
I will admit I thought this was a dumb idea but Newsom did great! AND ON FOX NEWS!!!
ShaverC
Newson should be ashamed of himself. Last time I was in LA it was a dump… and his policies destroyed San Francisco. Tent cities and homeless people everywhere, and like DeSantis said, feces everywhere. He won’t clean it up for the people who live there but he did when the Chinese Dictator decided to pop by. Classy guy.
dbmcvey
I live in LA and you’re full of it.
Kangol2
ShaverC, visit Naples, Florida and view the aftermath of the hurricane there. Gov. DeFascist should be attending to his state a bit more, instead of gallivanting all over the US in his pump boots! And I was in SF not long ago, and it isn’t the “destroyed” city you seem to think it is!
abfab
ShaverC has no idea where to go when he allegedly goes to LA so he just hangs out under bridges with his fellow trolls.
Los Angeles has AMAZINGLY GORGEOUS NEIGHBORHOODS!
I particularly love Laurel Canyon.
ShaverC
Downtown in both cities have been reduced to dirty, unsafe areas. I had to go to city hall in LA and I couldn’t believe the number of tent cities lining the streets. I guess you can hide in pretty Laurel Canyon but that doesn’t mean the whole LA area is doing well.
abfab
Paying off your numerous citations for lewd conduct and anti-social behaviour at City Hall is not seeing LA.
You GOPTROLLS seem to attract the dirty. And then you insist on sharing it with us. And that’s pretty sick.
Baron Wiseman
I have lived in Los Angeles since 1987. It should be criminal what Gavin Newsome and the Democrats have done to this city and state. I have never seen so many tents and homeless encampments. DeSantis certainly had great political theater with his San Francisco poop map, but it was effective to show what Newsome and liberal policies has sadly produced.
abfab
More bullshit from the most common MAGA TROLL. ^
decrans
Abcrabs is one of those Bill Maher liberals. He tut-tuts about the problems of the working-class and exists inside a Laurel Canyon bubble. He doesn’t want to roll up his sleeves and do the actual work and claims to be for the working poor every four years. These liberals of his ilk are borderline mentally ill.
SDR94103
you are the one who should be ashamed of yourself. Sticking a fluorescent tube up your ass thinking it would make you bright. Dummy.
Mack
dbmcvey I lived in LA for 40 years and I agree. You can find anything wrong with most cities in the US, but LA is the best city of all.
LumpyPillows
Lol, Abby is not a Bill Maher liberal, that would be me.
All cities have problems, and it has gotten pretty bad. I think the more liberal policies, while well intentioned, made it worse. Part of it is the extreme left’s need to create victims and victimizers is central to the policy mistakes. The trick is if the city and state governments can free themselves from the leftist nonsense, learn from their mistakes and make improvements, which they are. Most of the hard to solve issues have nothing to do with housing, but mental illness, which is a difficult problem to solve if you can’t admit it is the root cause and being crazy does not give a person the right to terrorize the neighborhood.
decrans
Lumpy, you are probably right. Bill Maher has a nuance that our dear Abcrbas sorely lacks. I was referencing Marianne Williamson’s interview with Maher. She talked about going downtown and working with the homeless population. Maher, meanwhile, was flabbergasted that a city existed beyond Television City and Beverly Hills. Abcrabs, Dickvaney, Zzbomb, and the rest of them exist purely in Maher’s LA bubbleland. Every four years, they will gnash their teeth about the working-poor. Meanwhile, the working-poor demographic has been lost to the Republicans in the last decade. Hillary Clinton called them deplorables. But these white privileged liberals will desperately attempt to take up their “Democrats are the party of the working-class” mantle, while the people they are trying to reach just blink at them. Ron DeSantis didn’t make the point that Gavin Newsom is tied to the plutocrats of Silicon Valley. He did mention the chasm between California’s uber-rich and lumpenproletariat class. He didn’t use the evidence that the middle-class has mostly exited his model state. A mark on Ron DeSantis in last night’s debate.
frapachino
Greasy Gavin’s wife had to come save him lol
Caddy4J
I don’t know what part of LA you were visiting, and yes LA does have a few bad spots as many other cities do, but I take offense by your statement stating LA is a dump. Unfortunately the governor doesn’t care about his own city, But he really needs to clean up his city, take care of the homeless drug users. I actually dont live in LA, but I grew up Near the city and even worked in LA. So before you paint a broadbrush on the city, you may want to take a look at your own before you start throwing stones.
Kangol2
I never watch FoxNews but I did for this and GAVIN NEWSOM CLEANED DEFASCIST’S CLOCK!!!
Whatever one may say about Newsom, who leads the nation’s largest and richest state, he looked presidential, like a leader, kept his cool, got in zingers, and showed that he is a showman, which is a quality not everyone has. Even when he fudged facts a bit he showed he knows how to keep going and present a seamless façade. He offered right-wing viewers a strong counterpoint to the petulant, huffing, wordy, overtalking little anti-LGBTQ, racist troll governor of Florida.
Great job, Governor Newsom! DeFascist, you sunk and you stunk!
Baron Wiseman
@Kangol2
Well, that is certainly one way to look at it.
I believe Newsome embarrassed himself. He was unable to answer questions, strayed from the topics and smirked and laughed throughout while engaging in petty and personal attacks.
DeSantis was able to provide statistics that prove the success of conservative common-sense policies. All fluff Newsome was glib and unable to explain why homelessness is three times higher in California than in Florida, why taxes are 49th highest in the nation when Florida has zero income tax, why violent crime is almost twice as high and he failed on the migration question which he knew was coming.
Not an impressive night for Newsome on the national stage, but when your opponent has a stronger hand and it’s residents have a better quality of life you flash those Chiclet teeth and dodge your record the best you can.
Mack
@Baron Wiseman every time you post something you make shit up. And here again you’re posting in your Wiseman moniker and posting lies. That must be a Republican right wing, to tell lies.
decrans
Mack, where’s the lie? California leads the nation in homelessness. Those stats were from a government agency. Do better. Or get this: get your liberal savior politicians to do better. Instead of whining about the working poor every four years, get them to actually do their jobs. Try it.
decrans
And I’ll concede DeSantis’s point: California leftists want to virtue-signal about homelessness and immigrants. As was the case in Mayor Adams’s New York, the city is flooded. Then we have crony capitalism, and the city social services industrial complex is stacked to the deck with political favoritism kickbacks. And ergo, the problem doesn’t solve itself. Wash, rinse, repeat. Newsom yesmen are handsomely rewarded and the cycle continues unabated. Until y’all social justice warrior Democrats get off your rear ends and start demanding accountability, your little utopia world isn’t gonna happen. This is American capitalism, kids. And the Dems play it just like the Republicans. It’s time for most of the Queerty neoliberal cosplayers to wake up and smell reality.
Baron Wiseman
@Mack
Maybe you are new to posting, but when someone makes an accusation it is the responsible poster that backs up their comments.
So, what did I make up? Where are the lies? You obviously did not watch the debate last night as the posted graphics for state comparisons was not kind to Newsom/California.
decrans
I’ll explain why violent crime is high in California. This corresponds with my earlier comment. Liberals felt the need to virtual signal to the far-left on immigrants and homeless people. Come one, come all. More encampments, more crime. This came at the apex of Black Lives Matter and the push to dismantle the police force. Once again, these fools felt the need to rectify the far-left virtue-signaling and mainstream Democrats’ worship of money (just like the Republicans). The mainstream Dems acquiesce and keep getting themselves into a briar patch. And I gotta say the that right-wing is very effective at pointing out the disconnect. It’s why you are seeing a national shift of voters (like me) waking up and realizing that the Democratic party has nothing to offer.
Ronbo
What will it take for “establishment Democrats” to accept that Biden is toast?
Remember when they ignored how awful Hillary was? As SoS, Hillary ignited wars across the middle-east that triggered more refugee movement than in all of WWII! HIllary’s actions (we came, we saw, he died! Ha ha ha!”) resulted in many European nation voters turning right-wing to deal with the millions of refugees at their shores.
Biden was the first, highest-level politician to recognize gay equality (except Sen. Sanders). Yea!
However, he ensured that Clarence Thomas was installed in the Supreme Court; Biden has supported EVERY war he has been asked about; Biden changed the law making sure that college debt followed those experiencing bankruptcy; Biden ensured the death of 7,000 Palestinian children; Biden now embraces the nation that managed 9/11; Biden has lost the youth vote and the Arab vote and the anti-war vote. etc….
Newsom is our best shot at winning. The longer we wait for Biden to quit the worse our chances. Ask Ruth Bader Ginsberg how sticking around past retirement worked out for the Democrats at the Supreme Court.
Fix the given problems now instead of complaining later.
woodroad34
Yeah, Ron DuhSantis is not a thinking man. Drunks, people who’ve just eaten a Taco Bell or had more than their proper quota of coffee, tweaked out people and others also take dumps outside…not just mentally ill people. Can’t you just see High-heeled Ronny maniacally Googling for a poop map? As for the homeless camps, Los Angeles has blocks and blocks of them–Beverly Hills doesn’t; so it sounds more like a municipal thing than a state thing. Although, I think Newsom could do more than what he’s doing.
abfab
That’s what they do. They literally search for shit. And they find it. And then they do nothing about it.
Kangol2
Newsom has some but not tons of leeway in California when it comes to housing; between local (city, suburban and county) ordinances and state regulations, many in statute form, it’s harder to build housing in California than in Florida. When California and Florida did build a lot of housing, in the early 2000s, it was still more expensive in California than in Florida, which has recently gone on a post-pandemic house-building tear. But as I saw down there recently, this has come with a number of problems–given Florida’s natural disaster-prone status, newly issued insurance is getting prohibitive; utilities costs are soaring because of demand; the amount of buildable land is running out; prices are starting to inflate; it’s getting harder to get a mortgage loan depending upon where you want to live; and rich people have a huge advantage when it comes to buying housing compared to everyone else. California also has far more industrial power than Florida. If California could loosen its regulations a little, and match all the unhoused people with housing that sat vacant after the 2007-8 financial crisis while building more new, affordable housing, it could rectify many of its major housing issues.
decrans
abfab
That’s what they do. They literally search for shit. And they find it. And then they do nothing about it.
Is abcrabs talking about the California Democrats or someone from another state? He’s usually drunk when he types out his mental diarrhea.
Baron Wiseman
One of DeSantis’ best moments came when he recalled: “I was talking to a fella who had made the move from California to Florida. He was telling me that Florida’s much better governed, safer, better budget, lower taxes. Then he paused and said ‘by the way, I’m Gavin Newsom’s father-in-law.’”
Kind of sums up the whole debate.
abfab
^MAGA TROLL
James
Who cares if he moved to Florida. HE STILL VOTES DEMOCRAT. Get lost loser, go back to visiting trump in prison.
Baron Wiseman
@James
“HE STILL VOTES DEMOCRAT.”
Ugh. Does it sound like he still votes Democratic?
“He was telling me that Florida’s much better governed, safer, better budget, lower taxes. Then he paused and said ‘by the way, I’m Gavin Newsom’s father-in-law.’”
Fname Optional Lname
Sounds exactly like something Trump would say. “So and So came up to me with tears in his eyes and said I was better than Jesus ….”
They’re all the same…. word salad whores who only speak to grift others or to boost their ego.
decrans
I did some fact-checking. Kenneth F. Siebel Jr. and Judith A. Siebel have a 3.3 million house in Naples, Fla. According to the open records at VoterRecords.com, they vote Republican. Y’all can have several seats, please. Gavin Newsom’s own failed policies have made his in-laws switch parties and move to another state. That should say a lot about the plutocratic neoliberal Queerty worships. And that was a point for DeSantis. Gavin just grinned like a vapid idiot. The roles reversed later in the debate. And DeSantis grinned like a vapid idiot. America! Y’all can’t pick political candidates to save your life!
decrans
The truth is both men had pithy zingers. It truly says something that a sizable chunk of Newsom’s relatives have absconded to red states over his gubernatorial term. Newsom represents a plutocratic class while Queerty and its brainless cadre of sycophants (Abcrabs, Dickvaney, ZZbomb, etc.) can not rationalize how a person’s own family has left the very state its dear leader claims to be a model for the rest of America. DeSantis was brilliant in this maneuver and deserve plaudits for his early execution of Gavin Newsom. Overall, the debate was a draw. I agree with Harold Ford Jr’s take on Fox News. The day after, it’s a political Rorschach Test. As usual, the same partisian idiots retreat into their tribalism. If you really parse the debate, they had the same amount of zingers and floor mopping moments. I especially enjoyed Gavin stammering around his answer to parental rights. After his uncomfortable grimace, Newsom puttered out a few basic Facebook memes on this issue. “Love is love!” Any presidential candidate trafficking in Facebook memes shouldn’t be taken seriously. This is Queerty, though. And here we are.
Baron Wiseman
@decrans
Both politicians had their moments…
Newsom’s best line was, “One thing that we have in common is neither of us will be the nominee for our party in 2024.”
Ouch.
decrans
Another solid DeSantis moment: Gavin Newsom has claimed to be the white savior of homelessness since his days as SF Mayor. Instead, homelessness has increased by 45 percent. He’s a real Batman, that one.
jp47
The only solid moment DeSatan ever has is what is between his ears. He’s dumber than a box of rocks and has “little man” syndrome. He wears high heel boots with lifts inside them to appear his published height of 5’ll.” In reality he’s much shorter, reportedly 5’7.”
decrans
Yawn.
Baron Wiseman
@jp47
Really? Is that all you’ve got?
Resorting to ad homiens and heightist shaming is unfortunately the level of discourse I’ve come to expect from Democrats.
abfab
”ad homiens”?
Dick.
decrans
And now, they’ve been out-argued, so they just resort to one-liners.
abfab
You belong in a resort.
decrans
Abs, can you articulate your political views? It’s a sign of being an adult. You’re like, what? A sixtysomething gay man typing one-liners on Queerty on a Friday night? How sad for you.
dmarcus
Why this debate occurred is unnecessary but boy did it show how unprepared DeSatan is. First he can barely hold his own with the other Republican candidates and is chicken poop when trying to be an alternative to Trump. I hate Trump but he knows how to hit below the belt and DeSatan can barely do an upper punch. So he thought he can go after Newsom when he can’t even hold his own among republicans?? LOL! He should’ve debated Trump, the big gun, not some CA governor who isn’t running for president.
CNY1983
theres no denying how creepy rhonda santis is and that he cant shake it no matter how badly casey santis wants to be the new jackie o.
its time to throw in the towel ron, stop wasting everyone elses money and really study how those shit maps lead right to your front door because its from you that all the shit originates.
by the way, how far over the expiration date is sean hannity? hes such as ass wiper that his hands are permanently brown and you cant get within 50 feet of him without smelling all the shit that falls out of his mouth.
GayEGO
Sorry Ron DeSantis! Truth is truth and you seem to follow Trump’s actions! I see they call you Rhonda!
johncp56
Wow all I could watch was 50 minutes, Ron disgusting got wiped, like a child, and of course, we in Ca have more homeless and more mental There are 40 million people here to Fls ? 20 mil