‘It’s a Book Ban. No Doubt’: Sen. Murphy Joins Critics Rebutting DeSantis’s Media ‘Book Ban Hoax’ Claim
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis (R) sparked a bevy of condemnation and fact-checks from the left after he claimed the media was creating a “book ban hoax” to try and smear his policies in Florida.
“They’ve tried to create in Florida a narrative. It’s basically a book ban hoax. It’s a hoax,” DeSantis declared.
“What they’re doing. And they’re trying to say that because we have parental rights and because we have curriculum transparency. If you have a book that has hardcore pornography in a library that ten-year-olds can access, a parent objects to that. That does not satisfy Florida standards. It should not be in the library with those young kids. And I think I think 99% of parents agree with that,” DeSantis added in a speech earlier in the week.
Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) joined the chorus of condemnation on Friday, writing, “I read the memo he sent to teachers.”
“It sets up a byzantine, multi-step book approval process that makes it virtually impossible for schools to have any books that aren’t preapproved by the state. It’s a book ban. No doubt,” Murphy added, concluding, “With felony charges for teachers who don’t comply.”
Popular Information’s Judd Legum added, “This is a lie.”
“The video DeSantis claims is a hoax is accurate. The video shows that Mandarin Middle School removed THE ENTIRE FICTION SECTION from its library. In Duval County more than 1.5 MILLION books have been taken out of circulation,” Legum added.
“They’ve also said you just had on MSNBC, you had the reporter saying that Governor DeSantis does not want students to learn about slavery and its aftermath. Well, if you actually looked at what our standards are. Not only is it not prohibited to teach that, it’s required to teach that it’s required to teach all of those things. It’s required under Florida statute to teach about racial discrimination,” DeSantis added in his remarks.
Observers also commented on DeSantis’s delivery during the speech likening him to former President Donald Trump and his common use of the term “Russia hoax.” DeSantis also mimicked his critics during the speech using a humorous voice, much in the same style as Trump.
“They will say, ‘Oh, we they had the school take a book about Hank Aaron off the shelf because it talks about how he faced racial discrimination.’ And you’re thinking like, okay, and why are they doing that? They’re doing that to try to create a narrative,” DeSantis claimed, concluding
They’re not doing that because Florida has a law or anything like that. They know that’s not in the law, but they’re doing it because they know there’s enough people in corporate media who will just take that and we’ll run with that. So we’ve got all these examples cataloged of basically media lies to try to do the hoax. A lot of this has been debunked.
Below are additional reactions to DeSantis’s remarks:
https://twitter.com/benryanwriter/status/1629232824455667721
__
