Political strategist Donna Brazile on Sunday blasted Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, a GOP presidential candidate, for defending his state’s controversial new education guidelines on slavery and pointed to this latest controversy as evidence that DeSantis is “asleep at the switch.”
In a panel discussion on ABC News’s “This Week,” network contributor Brazile questioned DeSantis’s defense of his state’s slavery curriculum, which tells teachers to instruct students on “how slaves developed skills which, in some instances, could be applied for their personal benefit.”
Brazile, who served as the chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee in 2016, said she wasn’t surprised DeSantis had to cut a third of his campaign staff — especially amid pushback from even Black conservative lawmakers to his positioning on the slavery curriculum.
“DeSantis, the guy who is asleep at the switch — I mean, are we surprised that DeSantis cannot capture the imagination of the Republican base?” Brazile said. “At a time when America is still trying to figure out how to heal itself from its past, DeSantis is willing to go out there and essentially say, ‘People benefitted from slavery.’ Really? Who the hell has he been talking to?”
“When Tim Scott, one of his opponents, when you see members of Congress, the five Black conservatives, saying, ‘Stop, stop, stop.’ So I’m not surprised Mr. DeSantis is having a problem catching fire.”
“I had to say that because I’m a descendant of slaves. We did not benefit from slavery,” Brazile continued. “And if Mr. DeSantis cannot wake up and figure out that he needs another message, other than attacking people of color, gay people, trans people, then he is going to continue to fall as a result.”
DeSantis, who once posed a real challenge to Republican front-runner Donald Trump, has since fallen in the polls. He recently laid off 38 staff members as the campaign sought to reboot itself.
Generra Peck, DeSantis’s campaign manager, said in a statement at the time, “Following a top-to-bottom review of our organization, we have taken additional, aggressive steps to streamline operations and put Ron DeSantis in the strongest position to win this primary and defeat Joe Biden. Governor DeSantis is going to lead the Great American Comeback and we’re ready to hit the ground running as we head into an important month of the campaign.”