Bret Baier Presses Ron DeSantis On Attacking ‘Successful Black Republican Politicians’ Over Controversial Florida Curriculum

Fox News’s Bret Baier confronted Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) for criticizing “successful Black Republican politicians” who pushed back against Florida’s Black history curriculum that said slaves “benefitted”  by developing skills.

Baier played a clip of Rep. Byron Donalds (R-FL) explaining he had an issue with just that “one sentence” and found it “dumb” that the DeSantis team “made this a story.”

“Now, you doubled down and you said anyone saying that is essentially siding with Vice President Kamala Harris or the Democrats. Is this a fight worth having?” Baier asked.

“We didn’t pick the fight, Bret. Kamala Harris got on a jet, at taxpayer expense and flew to Florida to lie about the African-American history standards that were developed,” DeSantis said.

He went on to accuse the left of lying and creating phony narratives, saying Republicans have got “to push back.”

“Here’s the thing. This was a public process. These guys were going through it. People could have raised objections. No one said anything about this. They were being lauded for the job that they did by people across the political spectrum. Now Harris comes in and parachutes? What Republicans should have done is pushed back against her. Say, ‘you are operating in bad faith. These guys down in Florida, they didn’t have an agenda. They were just trying to shoot straight.’ We know what the left does. Republicans, you cannot take that bait. You have got to fight back against these people.”

“We have heard from the head of that curriculum who is very articulate about what he was thinking. But these are two very successful black Republican politicians who are telling people how they feel. But these are two very successful Black Republican politicians who are telling people how they feel,” Baier said about Donalds and Gov. Tim Scott (R-SC).

“Do you honestly think that they — ” DeSantis began before Baier interjected, “Byron Donalds refers to one sentence.”

“OK, but look, to take something out of context and mangle it and accept a bad interpretation. I would challenge people to read them, and here’s the thing. I feel a need to defend my state. If I wasn’t running for president or I wasn’t who I was, no one would have cared about this,” DeSantis said.

Watch the clip above via Fox News.