Florida gubernatorial candidate Andrew Gillum calls out racism in Trevor Noah interview
Tallahassee mayor and Florida gubernatorial candidate Andrew Gillum isn’t done slamming his opponent, Ron DeSantis, and exposing his bias saying, the GOP nominee has given “too much harbor to racists and xenophobes and anti-Semites.”
“He’s spoken at conferences with them,” Gillum, the mayor of Tallahassee, said when questioned by “The Daily Show” host Trevor Noah, The Hill reports.
“He authored a book justifying slavery,” Gillum added, likely making reference to DeSantis’s 2011 book, “Dreams From Our Founding Fathers: First Principles in the Age of Obama.”
“He, himself, when he became the Republican nominee, went on Fox News and said to the voters of Florida not to ‘monkey’ the state up,” Gillum continued.
“Right, it was a phrase I never heard before,” Noah said in response.
“Well, of course we never heard it before. He tried to justify it,” Gillum said. “But I mean ‘monkey around,’ right? ‘Monkey business.’ ‘Monkey it up.’ I mean this guy is Harvard- and Yale-educated. He could come up with a better phrase.”
“He said exactly what he meant to say. He communicated exactly what he wanted to say to his voters, to his constituents, and then, when he got called on it, he tried to run from it,” Gillum said.
On Tuesday morning, DeSantis’ team shot back at Gillum’s comments.
“This is an attempt by the Gillum campaign to continue to distract the media from his involvement in an FBI investigation, countless news reports on him asking for and taking free stuff from lobbyists, using city funds to pay for a trip related to his campaign, accepting contributions from an undercover FBI agent and not reporting it in his disclosures,” DeSantis communications director Stephen Lawson said in a statement to The Hill.
—Investigation into fatal police shooting of Stephon Clark in grandparents’ backyard completed—
Obama Set to Campaign for Gillum
Monday, it was announced that President Barack Obama is scheduled to stump with Florida’s two top-of-ticket candidates, Gillum and U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson, in Miami on Friday, which is only four days before the November 6th elections.
Gillum, who currently serves as the mayor of Tallahassee, has often been compared to Obama, and like the former president is running a campaign that relies heavily on the audacity of hope.
If he wins, he would make history as Florida’s first black governor and last Wednesday, he called out his opponent, GOP nominee Ron DeSantis for fraternizing with racists intent to treat the color of his skin like a liability.
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