Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis Schools Kamala Harris For Lying About State's Curriculum On 'African-American History' With OutKick's Clay Travis

OutKick founder Clay Travis sat down with Florida's defiant governor and 2024 presidential hopeful, Ron DeSantis, for an exclusive interview.

One of the hot-button issues discussed was U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris' strong rebuke of the proposed African-American history curriculum in Florida.

In a fiery speech in Jacksonville over the weekend, Harris condemned DeSantis and the state for attempting to "erase" African-American history.

Ron DeSantis Sits Down With OutKick's Clay Travis

Harris stubbornly zeroed in on a passage (out of 190 excerpts) of the curriculum that highlighted how slaves learned skills. She tried to argue that Florida's schools will teach that slavery was good for slaves.

After all, African-American scholars helped create the curriculum.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis gives a victory speech after defeating Democratic gubernatorial candidate Rep. Charlie Crist. (Photo by Octavio Jones/Getty Images)

The snippet is a small passage in an extensive breakdown of history, which, to some surprise, drew some ire toward Harris for grossly exaggerating the material and rallying "racism" claims against DeSantis.

"They insult us in an attempt to gaslight us. And we will not have it," Harris declared. "They dare to push propaganda to our children; this is the United States of America, we're not supposed to do that!"

DeSantis has called the curriculum "robust" and a clear point of attack for Dems based on its factual detail of African-American history.

Clay Travis and Ron DeSantis discussed the 'fake news' hit job by Kamala and the left-wing media on Tuesday.

WATCH:

Clay Travis, Ron DeSantis Talk Kamala Harris' Egregious Lies

Clay Travis: "Kamala Harris has come after you over the new rules for teaching history in Florida.

"I'm reading directly from her Twitter account, 'in the state of Florida, they decided middle school students will be taught that enslaved people benefited from slavery. They insult us in an attempt to gaslight us, and we will not stand for it.'

"That's the vice president, Kamala Harris. When you saw this, when you hear this, what's your reaction?"

Gov. Ron DeSantis: "Well, obviously she's lying. But then you know that there is going to be corporate press that is going to run with that and try to create a narrative.

"There's actually been some that have pushed back because it's so egregious. Interesting. You know, when we got rid of critical race theory a couple of years ago. In the bill that we did, we said you must teach accurate history, you must teach about racial discrimination. You must teach about all aspects of African American history because we believe in true history.

"The left in the media at the time was saying, 'Florida doesn't want to have any African-American history.' The standards that were developed — these are black history scholars, many of whom were African-American themselves.

"They worked on this. It's very, very thorough. And it is every little aspect of not just slavery, but the black experience in America from colonial times to the beginning. No one can read those and think somehow that they are shilling for.

(Photo by GIORGIO VIERA/AFP via Getty Images)

"I mean, it's ridiculous. Everybody knows that. But she said that there were they said there was not going to be any black history. Now they're saying that somehow this is not accurate. And the reality is, you know, they're lying again.

(Look out for the full LIVE interview on OutKick)

"They're creating a narrative. But, you know, you actually had some of these guys go on TV. You know, one of them is an African-American scholar and he's like, everything we did here is factual. It's truthful. We are not doing an agenda.

"We're just telling the truth. And I think the reason why Harris and Biden and the left in the media react is because they see what we're doing in Florida and we've kneecapped their ability to use American history to advance their modern-day agenda.

"That is not the appropriate use of history. So they're doing that now. They're saying, oh, well, there is a provision in there that says somehow this was good. That's not what it says. What it says was that there were slaves that developed skills, which they did, but that was in spite of slavery. That wasn't because of slavery. And then they use those skills postbellum to be able to provide for themselves and their families. And so this scholar who's been on TV, you know, he said, that's my history. I'm not going to let Kamala Harris erase my history. Like, that's true. And that's what happened."

Clay Travis: "Do you think she is making a decision to intentionally lie or do you think she's lazy and hasn't done her research here?

Gov. Ron DeSantis: "She obviously is not doing any research. She hasn't read the standards, she was given this probably by an aide. She probably knows that given the fact of how these standards came into being.

"You know, these are serious people that developed and they were vetted. You actually have teachers' unions now, left-wing teachers' unions attacking it. But the unions were involved in this and they were complementing it as it was going on. It was done in the open for many, many months and no one said anything. And so then they figured, well, maybe we can demagogue and do it. So so they know exactly what they're doing."