At GOP debate, DeSantis stumbled on health care question and was criticized by his opponents

On the campaign trail and now in both Republican presidential debates, Gov. Ron DeSantis frequently boasts about his vast achievements as governor of Florida since he entered the office in 2019.

But DeSantis appeared absolutely flatfooted on Wednesday night in Simi Valley, California, when he was asked during the GOP debate by Fox News Business moderator Stuart Varney about the fact that currently 2.5 million people in Florida don’t have health insurance.

“That’s worse than the national average.  Can Americans trust you on this?” Varney asked.

DeSantis didn’t directly answer the question, and instead initially criticized high inflation rates in the country.

“Well, I think this is a symptom of our overall economic decline,” he began. “Everything has gotten more expensive.  You see insurance rates are going through the roof.”

DeSantis then went on to criticize “Bidenomics” and to discuss his energy plan before he finally came around to addressing health care, saying that “we have big pharma, big insurance and big government, and we need to tackle that, and have more power for the people, and the doctor-patient relationship.”

After the minute and nine second response, Varney fired right back.

“Governor. Why is your record in Florida on (health) insurance worse than the national average?”

DeSantis then went on to say that there has been a population boom in the state and that the state does not have “a lot of welfare benefits in Florida.”

“We basically say this is a field of dreams, you can do well in this state, but we’re not going to be like California and have massive numbers of people on government programs without work requirements,” he said. “We believe you work, and you gotta do that, and so that goes for all of the welfare benefits.”

Left unsaid was the fact that Florida is now one of just 10 states in the country that hasn’t expanded Medicaid, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation. As part of the Affordable Care Act, states currently receive a 90% federal matching rate for adults covered through the ACA expansion. It was a signature initiative of former Democratic President Barack Obama, which is why it has always received resistance from Republicans, though many GOP-led states have ultimately relented and gone ahead to get more of their citizens onto the program.

Also, then-governor Rick Scott (now a U.S. senator) also did not pursue a Medicaid expansion in Florida.

Also, DeSantis was asked by moderator Ilia Calderón about the controversy regarding a sentence in the state’s new standards for African American history that says that Black people benefitted from slavery because it taught them certain skills “which in some instances, could be applied for their personal benefit.”

DeSantis responded that it was actually “a hoax perpetrated by Kamala Harris.”

“That was written by descendants of slaves,” the governor continued. “These are great Black history scholars. So we need to stop playing these games.”

But that wasn’t the end of the conversation on the subject. Calderon then asked South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott, the only Black person on the stage, about the issue.

“There is not – there is not a redeeming quality in slavery,” Scott said. “He and Kamala should have just taken the one sentence out.”

Scott then went on to say that America “has suffered because of slavery, but we’ve overcome that.”

Later, former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley, standing to DeSantis’ right, delivered the most direct criticism to the governor, when talking about energy independence. She said that “Ron DeSantis is against fracking. He’s against drilling.”

Haley was referencing that DeSantis in fact was against fracking and drilling, according to executive orders in Florida in 2019.

Meanwhile, former President Donald Trump leads the entire GOP presidential field by approximately 40 points in national polls, but was again absent at the debate. That’s two absences since the debates began.

No candidate was fiercer in attacking Trump and his absence from the stage than former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who was the first to mention the fact that under Trump’s tenure, the national debt increased to more than $7 trillion.

At one point, Christie spoke directly to the camera as he imagined Trump watching on television.

“You’re not here tonight because you’re afraid of being on the stage and defending your record,” he said. “You’re ducking these things. And let me tell you what’s going to happen. You keep doing that, no one up here is going to call you Donald Trump anymore. We’re gonna call you Donald Duck.”

DeSantis also responded to a question about the pending potential shutdown of the federal government this week by saying that President Joe Biden was “completely missing in action,” but then so was Trump.

“Donald Trump is missing in action. He should be on this stage tonight,” DeSantis said to applause from the audience.  “He owes it to you…… to defend his record, where they added $7.8 trillion to the debt. That set the stage for the inflation that we have.”

The Florida governor took another shot at Trump later in the debate on abortion.

On NBC’s Meet the Press earlier this month, Trump blasted DeSantis for signing a six-week abortion ban into law in Florida, saying, “I think what he did is a terrible thing and a terrible mistake.”

DeSantis has been hammering Trump for those comments ever since and did so again in Simi Valley.

“The former president, you know, he is missing tonight,” DeSantis said. “He’s had a lot to say about that. He should be here explaining his comments to try to say that pro-life protections are somehow a terrible thing.”

But DeSantis shrugged off a question by Fox News moderator Dana Perino about how he was going to win over independent pro-choice voters in a crucial swing state like Arizona. Perino referred to the fact that since Roe v. Wade was struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court last year, Republicans have lost ballot measures regarding abortion in six different states.

DeSantis said he would win in Arizona like he did in winning blue areas of Florida in his 2022 reelection victory, referring to how he won in places like Miami-Dade and Palm Beach counties.

Aaron Kall is the director of the University of Michigan Debate Program and Debate Institute. He said while he believed DeSantis performed well in the debate, that’s not going to be enough for the Florida governor to catch up to Trump.

“Nothing fundamentally changed in the race since the first debate and I don’t expect the needle to move after tonight,” Kall wrote to the Phoenix overnight. “This can only happen if Trump returns to the ring and (Chris) Christie did the best job trying to lure the frontrunner back to join the other candidates before the next debate in Miami. Maybe DeSantis will be the last candidate standing and eventually participate in head-to-head debates with Trump. I think Republican primary voters would like to see this matchup and the country would benefit from it. Time is running out for this to materialize though, as voting starts early next year.”

Speaking on Fox News with Sean Hannity immediately after the debate Wednesday night, DeSantis suggested that he’d like to debate Trump one-on-one.

But apparently that won’t be happening anytime soon. The Hill reports that a spokesperson for Trump said, “Sorry, Ron. We’re not as thirsty and desperate like you or your sleazeball partner Gavin Newsom.”

Fox News announced earlier this week that DeSantis will engage in a debate with Newsom in late November.