DeSantis interrupted by protesters during Fox News town hall

Protesters belonging to the environmental advocacy group Sunrise Movement briefly interrupted a Fox News town hall in Iowa with GOP presidential candidate Ron DeSantis on Tuesday, chanting “no oil money.” 

The protesters interrupted a response DeSantis was giving to a voter’s question about Republicans distancing themselves from abortion bans in the aftermath of the Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade in 2022. 

As DeSantis said he is the only candidate who has successfully accomplished enacting restrictions on abortion, protesters stood up chanting with a banner and briefly blocked the camera. They were escorted out within a few moments.

“You live and you learn with these people, right?” DeSantis said as they were being escorted out. 

“That was a mistake. You guys didn’t get that one right,” he added before continuing with his response. 

Sunrise Movement pledged in a statement to The Hill further confrontations throughout the week ahead of the caucuses. The group also said that two other activists “snuck in questions” during the town hall about fracking and green jobs by telling Fox they were undecided Republicans with questions about “the economy.”

“Whether it’s DeSantis, Biden, or Trump we’re fed up with politicians who’d rather let people suffer and die than stand up to oil and gas millionaires,” Amalia Hochman, who asked a question during the town hall, said in a statement.

DeSantis’s town hall came less than week before the Iowa caucuses on Monday. DeSantis will face Nikki Haley, who participated in a town hall the day before, one-on-one for a debate Wednesday hosted by CNN.