California Governor Gavin Newsom appeared flustered during Thursday night’s debate after Florida Governor Ron DeSantis picked apart his record on COVID-19.
Debate moderator Sean Hannity asked the governors about their radically different approaches to handling the pandemic, noting that both states had lower per-capita death rates lower than the national average.
Newsom first took aim at DeSantis by portraying him as a firm supporter of extreme COVID measures, pointing out that Florida declared a state of emergency before California. “Let’s talk about your record on covid. You pass an emergency declaration before the state of California did. You closed down your beaches, your bars, your restaurants. It’s a fact. You had quarantines, you had quarantines, you had checkpoints all over the state of Florida,” Newsom said.
DeSantis’ COVID record has long been seen as a positive among Republican voters, as he opened his state just weeks after the initial lockdowns while other states, including California, remained locked down for months.
“The stats are very clear. On a per capita age-adjusted basis, California and Florida are basically the same. Now, why is that important? Because Gavin Newsom did huge damage to people in California,” DeSantis stated. “He ruined livelihoods. We reopened