[Watch] Andrew Gillum Flawlessly Demolishes DeSantis During Debate

The eyes of America were glued to the debate between Democrat Andrew Gillum and his opponent Republican Ron DeSantis on Wednesday (Oct 24).

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The landmark debate took a sharp and critical twist when Gillum tackled the issue of racist tactics being used against his campaign head-on. Gillum, who would be the state’s first black governor if elected, made the comment while discussing DeSantis’ decision to speak at conferences hosted by David Horowitz, an anti-Muslim conservative political activist.

“My grandmother used to say, ‘A hit dog will holler,’ and it hollered through this room,” Gillum said after DeSantis loudly rejected any common cause with Horowitz. “First of all, he’s got neo-Nazis helping him out in this state. Now, I’m not calling Mr. DeSantis a racist, I’m simply saying the racists believe he’s a racist,” Gillum said.

When debate moderator Todd McDermott brought up Horowitz to DeSantis in the previous question, the former Republican congressman interrupted him — no question was ever posed aloud — to suggest he was unaware of the provocateur’s racist past.

“How the hell am I supposed to know every single statement someone makes?” DeSantis said, before pivoting to an attack on the press, declaring, “I am not going to bow down to the altar of media correctness.”

Race has been a defining issue of the campaign since the very beginning of the general election when DeSantis went on Fox News to warn Florida voters not to “monkey this up”, DeSantis has denied the remark was a reference to Gillum’s race but supporters point out that the term has been used as a racial epitaph towards African Americans for more than 100 years.

Recent polling shows Gillum with a double-digit lead over the former Republican congressman, despite reports of a potential probe.

DeSantis had started off the debate by accusing Gillum of lying about the source of a high-priced theater ticket given to him by an undercover FBI agent back in 2016, despite Gillum’s clarification of the investigation that the FBI told him he was not a target.

“I was aware that Adam Corey and (an agent known as) Mike Miller arranged so that we could go and see the show. I arrived at the theater and received my ticket from my brother,” Gillum said. “The problem that I have is that I should have asked more questions to make sure that everything that had transpired was above board.”

In response to the slander, Gillum retorted by challenging DeSantis to release records detailing the more than $145,000 in taxpayer funds the Republican reportedly spent on travel during his time in the House, citing an email statement from the Florida Democratic Party and the Naples Daily News, calling DeSantis’s decision to withhold the information, “a stunning failure to be transparent with Floridians — that’s made even worse by the fact that some of the travel was used to fund two trips to New York City to appear on Fox New and boost his public profile.”

In regards to the accusations hurled by DeSantis, the Tallahassee mayor took full responsibility for “not having asked more questions” about the exchange:

“I’m running for governor and the state of Florida, we got a lot of issues,” he said. “In fact, we got 99 issues and Hamilton ain’t one of them.”

Check out the full debate below.