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

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

The highly anticipated 2024 hopeful claimed that Florida’s curriculum related to black history and slavery perpetuates DeSantis’ history of “vicious and hateful” policies.

Several Republicans have spoken out against a new Florida Department of Education curriculum initiative that could be interpreted as suggesting that slavery benefits black Americans.

“Slavery was really about separating families, mutilating people and even raping their wives. It was devastating,” said fellow 2024 candidate Senator Tim Scott.

Democrats argue that the new classes of children are learning that slavery in America benefited Black Americans

The black Republican from South Carolina added, “So I hope everyone in our country and especially presidential candidate would appreciate that.”

However, DeSantis insists that Washington’s elite and establishment Republicans are too easily swayed by Democratic narratives and claims it has already been debunked that Florida’s education system is learning there were “benefits” to slavery.

“I think part of the reason our country is struggling is that too often D.C. Republicans accept false narratives, accept lies perpetrated by the left, and accept the lie that Kamala Harris committed, even though it is debunked,” the Florida governor said when speaking to supporters on the campaign trail last week.

“I’m glad Tim Scott is following suit,” Hurd told NBC’s Meet the Press Sunday morning. “I was the first Republican to come out and say that slavery is not a job program. And anyone who suggests that slavery has an advantage is insane.”

The longshot candidate added that it’s “shocking” that “Ron DeSantis has doubled this multiple times.”

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

“He wants to blame the people who wrote this and say, ‘I wasn’t the one who wrote this.’ True leadership would have stepped forward and said, ‘Hey, there’s no benefit to slavery, slavery was not a job program. No one can suggest that we did that and we’re going to change the language.’ And this would be done,” he told NBC host Chuck Todd.

“But this is another part of a pattern of Ron DeSantis being mean and hateful.”

When asked if the comments “disqualified” DeSantis from the election despite consistently taking second place in the polls, Hurd said it would be “difficult to defend” for black and brown Americans to support him in a general election .

He added, “People in the LGBTQ community will not support him because of his hateful rhetoric towards my friends in the LGBTQ community.”