DeSantis spars with reporter over Florida’s controversial slavery curriculum

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) had a back-and-forth with a reporter on a campaign stop in Iowa Thursday over his state’s newly passed controversial school curriculum, which indicates that students should be taught that enslaved people “developed skills” for personal benefit.

A reporter posed a question to DeSantis about whether he believed there were beneficial aspects to slavery. DeSantis avoided answering, instead noting that the curriculum has been misinterpreted.

“That’s not what the curriculum says. The curriculum is very clear,” DeSantis said, chastising the reporter for omitting the wider context of the 200-page report.

The curriculum was criticized last week by Vice President Harris, who said it shows Florida is “pushing propaganda” on children.

“They dare to push propaganda to our children,” Harris said last week. “Adults know what slavery really involved. It involved rape. It involved torture. It involved taking a baby from their mother.”

“It involved some of the worst examples of depriving people of humanity in our world,” she continued. “So in the context of that, how is it that anyone could suggest that in the midst of these atrocities, that there was any benefit to being subjected to this level of dehumanization?”

DeSantis went on to call out Harris’s criticisms.

“Anyone that actually read that and listens to Kamala [Harris] would know that she’s lying,” he said. “That particular provision about the skills, that was in spite of slavery not because of it.”

The curriculum changes have been challenged by Republicans as well, including Rep. Byron Donalds (R-Fla.) who got into a back-and-forth with the DeSantis team over his stance on the matter.

While Donalds said he expressed support for a “vast majority” of the new standards, he opposed a part “that seemed to dignify the skills gained by slaves as a result of their enslavement.”

National Black advocacy groups have also denounced the curriculum, as has the country’s largest Black conservative organization.

The attacks come as DeSantis struggles in presidential primary polls behind former President Trump. Recent national polling averages have DeSantis receiving about 16 percent of support, to Trump’s 52 percent.

Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R), one of DeSantis’s rivals in the GOP presidential primary, also called out DeSantis over the curriculum, saying it’s “not leadership.”

DeSantis is in Iowa Thursday and Friday on a bus tour with his largest supporting super PAC, Never Back Down. The Iowa caucus is the first vote in the GOP primary, and it is considered very important for DeSantis’s campaign to perform well there in January.