Harris on Debate With DeSantis: Not Happening

VP tells Orlando crowd she won't accept Florida governor's invite to chat about curriculum, slavery
By Jenn Gidman,  Newser Staff
Posted Aug 2, 2023 6:32 AM CDT
Harris on Debate With DeSantis: Not Happening
Vice President Kamala Harris is seen Tuesday in Orlando, Florida.   (Joe Burbank/Orlando Sentinel via AP)

Last month, Kamala Harris visited Florida to speak up against the state's new educational standards. Those controversial guidelines mandate that public school students be taught how enslaved people developed skills that "in some instances, could be applied for their personal benefit." Now, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has extended an invite to the vice president to debate him over the African American history curriculum, accusing Harris of turning the issue into a political one. "She came to Florida to attack us, and she's trying to attack me," DeSantis told Fox News Digital on Tuesday. "It's wrong to let false narratives stand."

That's why, he said, he penned a letter to Harris the previous day in which he wrote that Florida "pushed forward nation-leading stand-alone African American history standards— one of the only states in the nation to require this level of learning about such an important subject." DeSantis also accused Harris of trying to "score cheap political points," before inviting her to come to Tallahassee to debate him on the matter. DeSantis told reporters on Tuesday that Harris hadn't yet responded to his invitation, but Harris herself made clear that same day that DeSantis has his answer—and it's a no.

"I will tell you, there is no roundtable, no lecture, no invitation we will accept to debate an undeniable fact: There were no redeeming qualities of slavery," Harris told an audience Tuesday in Orlando, at a convention for the African Methodist Episcopal Church's Women's Missionary Society, per NPR. She didn't bring up DeSantis by name, but Harris added that the invite was an "attempt to legitimize these unnecessary debates."

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The AP notes a "newfound aggressive posture" in Harris as she's gone on the offensive against Republicans facing off with President Biden in his 2024 reelection bid. "The vice president has long been an effective messenger when Americans' fundamental rights are at stake," Rohini Kosoglu, Harris' former chief of staff, tells the news agency. "This recent attack on education, which most Americans would consider extremist, is no different." Harris has also been recently stepping up outreach efforts to voters of color, per NPR. More here, in an analysis of her reinvigorated role as 2024 approaches. (More Kamala Harris stories.)

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