The Unlikely Hero of Ron DeSantis-Gavin Newsom Debate? Its Moderator, Sean Hannity

Talk of a Gavin Newsom-Ron DeSantis debate had been floating for months, but on Monday, it was officially announced that it will take place on Fox News in late November — with Sean Hannity serving as moderator.

It’s a rather stunning turn of events—a presidential-style debate between the Governor of California, who insists he has no interest in gazumping the Democratic nomination from either incumbent President Joe Biden or his running mate, Vice President Kamala Harris, and Florida Governor DeSantis, who’s gone from a Republican favorite to also-ran in just a few months of actually running for the GOP nomination.

As the political nation seems to grow super weary of a sequel to 2020’s Biden-Trump race, this event will be must-see TV, and it’s a particularly savvy brainchild of Hannity, who single-handedly arranged for this to happen, according to sources familiar with negotiations. In fact, it’s not unfair to say that Hannity is the only figure in the political media world that could pull this off. And thank God he has.

It’s such a unique and strange instance of a parallel political battle between two once and future party leaders who have fired plenty of shots across each other’s political bows over the past couple of years. The states of Florida and California became political talking points, especially on cable news, depending on the network one watches.

The growing homelessness problem in California was used by the right to talk about the downside of “blue state” governance. At the same time, more liberal outlets took aim at DeSantis for lifting mask guidance during the pandemic.

Neither DeSantis nor Newsom shied away from the conflict: the Florida governor has often talked trash on his California counterpart, and, for his part, Newsom even dropped a $100,000 ad buy in Florida to talk trash on DeSantis. In an age of kayfabe politics, we have a solid match.

And that’s mainly because, in many ways, Newsom and DeSantis neatly represent the next generation of leadership in their political parties, and regardless of who gets the nomination in 2024, an exchange of ideas between the two will be fascinating to watch.

The future political implications for this debate are significant and good for the body politic. When Fox News formally announced the date on Monday, I heard from a raft of friends and family wondering if Hannity could be a fair moderator. And that’s undoubtedly the question to ask.

I told each of them that I believed that he would — and pointed to his interview with Newsom from earlier in the year, which, at the time, I lauded as the best hour of cable news in ages.  That interview is worth reviewing even today, as both Newsom and Hannity treated each other with grace and respect, but each scored points on the other in a manner we rarely see on cable news anymore.

Newsom proved himself to be not just fearless, embarking into enemy territory on Fox News, but also showed himself to be both fluent in the conservative talking points and attacks of the day, but also self-aware and honest enough to own what he conceded were “disgraceful” failures of liberal governance.

But the MVP of that interview was Hannity, who presented as genuinely curious about Newsom’s political positions and gave the California governor his massive platform to present his case. A reasonable viewer came away liking Hannity and Newsom a lot more than they may have before.

Hannity proved that he was able and willing to give a Democratic political leader a fair interview, which reinforces the idea that he is by far the most important figure at Fox News now that conspiracy-mongering Tucker Carlson was forced out of prime time.

DeSantis is no stranger to Hannity’s program as the two are very like-minded — if not coordinated — on many of the Republican talking points of the day. DeSantis hasn’t shown that he can be anything but confrontational toward ideological opponents. Presuming that Hannity shows Newsom the same grace and respect he showed him before, DeSantis will be forced into presenting a more likable demeanor, something that has been thus far elusive to the presidential candidate.

The current political media ecosphere does not encourage discourse between opposing sides, and that comes at the cost of a more divided nation made up of partisan bubble-dwelling Americans who consistently have pre-existing biases confirmed by “their shows” — on both sides.

So kudos to Newsom and DeSantis for bucking the trend and entering into something that should truly benefit the nation, and especially the unlikeliest hero in all of this, Sean Hannity, for making it happen at all.

This is an opinion piece. The views expressed in this article are those of just the author.

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