FLORIDA — In an interview on Thursday, Mark Levin, an American lawyer, author, and radio personality, asked Governor Ron DeSantis about Charlie Crist’s recent outburst. “Those who support DeSantis should stay with him and vote for him, and I don’t want your vote. If you have that hate in your heart, keep it there,” Crist said during a press conference on Wednesday.
Later that night, in an appearance on MSNBC, Crist made additional comments about DeSantis, saying, “I’m going to beat [DeSantis] because I’m running on love, and love always wins. If he wants to run on hate, culture wars, dividing people, and making people hate each other, that’s his turf. It’s not mine. I’m on different turf, and it’s what Floridians deserve.”
INSULT TO VOTERS
The incumbent governor reacted to the statement as an insult to voters, saying, “[Crist] is insulting the voters... they’re parents that cared about their kids’ education, and so they support our agenda.”
“It’s not because of hate in their hearts. You have workers whose jobs were saved because we kept the state open. He wanted to lock it down. It’s not hate in their hearts, they’re just very appreciative of the leadership,” DeSantis said.
The governor went further, stating, “So he’s lashing out. He’s attacking people. And this is just not a way to win an election,” he said.
CRIST WANTED LOCKDOWNS
According to DeSantis, Crist wrote a letter in July 2020 telling the governor that he must shut down Florida. But DeSantis responded that the state would have been devastated if it completely shut down. “Instead, we ended up being the state that people gravitated towards. We had people working, businesses thriving. And now our economic indicators surpass the national average on virtually everything.”
When asked in the summer of 2021 if he would impose a mask mandate and return to lockdowns, a full year and a half after COVID, Crist responded, “absolutely, I would,” according to DeSantis.
On August 18, the governor’s re-election campaign announced The DeSantis Playbook. The resource, a first of its kind for Floridians, details the Governor’s Freedom Agenda – policies that made Florida a national leader in parental rights, law and order, environmental protection, and fiscally-sound economic policies.
