Longshot 2024 hopeful Will Hurd says DeSantis’ black history curriculum in Florida perpetuates pattern of ‘mean and hateful’ behavior

Will Hurd, one of the 15 GOP candidates running for president, suggested Ron DeSantis has sunk his campaign with comments and policies surrounding education of black history and LGBTQ issues.

The longshot 2024 hopeful claimed that Florida’s curriculum regarding black history and slavery perpetuates DeSantis’ history of ‘mean and hateful’ policies.

Several Republicans have spoken out against a new Florida Department of Education curriculum initiative that can be interpreted by suggesting there were benefits of slavery for black Americans.

‘Slavery was really about separating families, about mutilating humans and even raping their wives. It was devastating,’ fellow 2024 candidate Sen. Tim Scott said.

Will Hurd is the latest 2024 Republican candidate calling out competitor Ron DeSantis for Florida’s new curriculum about black history 

Democrats claim that the new classes teach children that slavery in America had benefits for black Americans

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The black South Carolina Republican added: ‘So, I would hope that every person in our country and certainly running for president would appreciate that.’ 

DeSantis, however, insists that elite and establishment Washington Republicans are too easily influenced by Democratic narratives and claims it’s already been debunked that Florida’s education system is teaching there were ‘upsides’ to slavery.

‘I think part of the reason our country has struggled is because D.C. Republicans all too often accept false narratives, accept lies that are perpetrated by the left and to accept the lie that Kamala Harris has been perpetrating even though that has been debunked,’ the Florida governor said while speaking to supporters on the campaign trail last week.

‘I’m glad Tim Scott is following my lead,’ Hurd told NBC’s Meet the Press on Sunday morning. ‘I was the first Republican to come out and say slavery is not a jobs program. And anybody that is implying there is an upside to slavery is insane.’

The longshot candidate added that it’s ‘shocking’ that ‘Ron DeSantis has doubled-down on this multiple times.’

DeSantis said the problem is that D.C. Republicans too easily believe the rhetoric of Democrats who want to divide the Party

‘He wants to blame the people that wrote this and say, ‘I wasn’t the one who wrote this.’ Real leadership would have stepped up and said, ‘Hey, there is no upside to slavery, slavery was not a jobs program. Nobody should imply that’s what we did and we’re going to change the language.’ And this would have been done,’ he told NBC host Chuck Todd.

‘But this is one more part of a back pattern of Ron DeSantis being mean and hateful.’

Asked if the comments have ‘disqualified’ DeSantis from the running, despite consistently taking second place in the polls, Hurd said it would be ‘hard to make the case’ for black and brown Americans to support him in a general election.

He added: ‘Folks in the LGBTQ community won’t support him because of his hateful rhetoric towards my friends in the LGBTQ community.’