Republican presidential hopeful Ron DeSantis got the last word in South Carolina Friday after a heckler interrupted the Florida governor during a speech on left-wing indoctrination in public schools.
“Unfortunately, there’s bad stuff that’s getting into the schools; there’s pornography that’s getting into the schools,” DeSantis, 44, told the crowd at an event in Lexington, according to video footage of the exchange. “So the parents have had to blow the whistle in Florida.”
A woman then halted the governor in the middle of his speech and could be heard calling him “a f—ing fascist” apparently for his stance on “kids’ healthcare.”
She was booed loudly by the audience as DeSantis sarcastically replied, “Yeah well, thank you, thank you” before laying into her.
“We’re not gonna let you impose an agenda on our kids! We’re gonna stand up for our kids!” he shouted before telling his audience: “Those people like that in Florida are the people we beat every single day on policy. We do not let them win. We win all these battles. We’re not letting them indoctrinate our kids. Not on our watch.”
Critics — including Disney CEO Bob Iger — have attacked DeSantis since he signed into law last year a prohibition on the discussion of gender identity and sexual orientation in public schools from kindergarten to third grade.
Iger advocated against the so-called “Don’t Say Gay” bill in February 2022 and said it would “put vulnerable, young LGBTQ people in jeopardy” — leading to a feud with DeSantis that escalated into a full-blown legal battle for oversight of Walt Disney World resort in Orlando.
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Other declared and expected GOP presidential candidates have criticized the governor for the move, including former President Donald Trump, who has called the spat a “political stunt.”
DeSantis earlier this year also had his administration block what he called a “radical” advanced placement course on black history and signed another bill into law that would give parents the right to freely obtain education curricula, citing sexually explicit material that had been found in school libraries.
“Some people say if you don’t have every book under the sun in the library that you want to ban books,” he said in March of the latter law. “That’s not true.”
The Florida governor has been traveling to the early primary states of Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina in recent days to whip up support for his 2024 run.
He has sought to show off his handling of the coronavirus pandemic and public education in the Sunshine State as an alternative to both Trump and President Biden.
The 80-year-old president called DeSantis’ Parental Rights in Education Act “hateful” just months before it was passed last year.
Trump leads DeSantis by a 28-point margin in the primary, but both candidates lag several points behind Biden in the general election, according to a recent Yahoo News/YouGov poll.
