DeSantis blows up debate moderators’ effort to query candidates on climate change
The moderators of the first Republican presidential debate Wednesday night in Milwaukee wanted to know if the candidates onstage seeking the GOP nomination believe that climate change is influenced by human consumption.
Ron DeSantis wasn’t having it.
When Fox News anchors Martha MacCallum and Bret Baier asked candidates to raise their hands if they believed that “human behavior is causing climate change,” DeSantis halted the survey, saying the candidates should debate the issue like adults and “not school children.”
DeSantis did not directly answer the question, instead pivoting to attack President Joe Biden’s response to devastating fires in Hawaii.
“Biden was on the beach while those people were suffering,” said DeSantis after the moderators mentioned the recent Maui wildfires. “He was asked about it and he said, ‘No comment.’ Are you kidding me? As somebody that’s handled disasters in Florida, you got to be activated. You’ve got to be there. You’ve got to be present. You got to be helping people and we still are doing that.”
The moderators pushed DeSantis to give a direct answer, but the governor was interrupted by Vivek Ramaswamy, who said that it looked like it was “a hand raised” for DeSantis. DeSantis did not challenge Ramaswamy after the entrepreneur went on to say that he was the only person on the stage who was not “bought or paid for” and that the “climate change agenda is a hoax.”
Nikki Haley answered the question directly and said that climate change is real. The other candidates’ positions were unclear.
This story was originally published August 23, 2023 at 10:29 PM.
