Ron DeSantis and Gavin Newsom BOTH accuse each other of lying in fierce debate – so who was telling the truth about COVID, migration, crime and the culture wars?

Ron DeSantis and Gavin Newsom came armed with a battery of stats and practiced offense for their “Great Red vs. Blue State Debate'.

The governors of Florida and California hurled accusations at each other over their handling of the pandemic, crime, immigration and the economy.

As mud flew, they bashed each other for making claims and using numbers that were simply wrong.

After DeSantis accused his opponent of telling a “storm of lies,” Newsom said, “I can't wait to get all the PolitiFacts…”, a reference to a post-debate fact-checking website.

So who told the truth?

Was Ron DeSantis' human feces map accurate?

Perhaps the most striking claim came from DeSantis when he produced a map of San Francisco showing all the places where human feces had been found.

The clear implication was that Newsom, as current governor of California and former mayor of San Francisco, had allowed the “once great” city to become a cesspool under his watch.

The map is correct, but requires some context, which was not provided in the debate.

It was enforced by Open The Books, an independent government watchdog organization, based on citizen reports to San Francisco authorities.

The available data covered the period 2011 to 2019.

Newsom became governor of California in 2019 and served as mayor of San Francisco from 2004 to 2011.

So he could have argued that he was not responsible for the situation depicted on the card

During those years – from 2011 to 2019 – he was lieutenant governor of California.

With no recent data available, it's impossible to say what a current map under his governorship would look like.

But given the rise in homelessness in San Francisco, things may have looked much worse for Newsom than what DeSantis showed.

Did California really run out of U-Haul trucks because people fled to Florida?

While criticizing Newsom's policies, DeSantis claimed, “They didn't even have U-Hauls in the state of California at one point because so many people were leaving.”

This claim is true: In early 2021, major moving company U-Haul said demand for one-way trips from California was so high that there was a shortage of vehicles.

“We have at times experienced shortages of available trucks and trailers for outbound moves in California and other West Coast locations in 2020 and 2021 due to significantly greater outflow versus inflow of equipment,” a spokesperson told the Sacramento Bee at the time .

Census data shows that more people left California for Florida last year than in the previous 16 years.

Newsom hit back by claiming that “more Floridians had come to California in the past two years than the other way around.”

But census data shows that in the past two years, 50,000 people moved from California to Florida, and only 28,000 the other way.

Spring Breakers on the beach in Florida during the pandemic – despite evidence Newsom claimed DeSantis was a 'lockdown governor'

Newsom claimed DeSantis was a 'lockdown governor during the pandemic'

Newsom claimed DeSantis was a “lockdown governor” during the pandemic

Newsom tried to portray DeSantis as someone who had locked down Florida during the pandemic, which was misleading.

“You've closed your beaches, your bars, your restaurants. It is a fact,” Newsom said.

In the early days of the pandemic, DeSantis took similar actions to other states, though he never issued a statewide beach ban and was widely criticized by Democrats for keeping them open over spring break.

He continued to open schools early and advocated opening his state's economy faster than others.

However, DeSantis made what appeared to be a false claim that Florida had a “lower standardized mortality rate for Covid-19” than California during the pandemic.

In 2020 and 2021, Florida experienced 183 excess deaths per 100,000 residents. the figure for California was 142 excess deaths per 100,000 residents.

A student at a California school during the pandemic

Which state really did better on education during the pandemic?

The two governors took very different approaches to education during the pandemic, with California schools remaining closed for much longer.

Newsom claimed Florida schoolchildren suffered “more learning loss due to Covid.”

He said, “Ron DeSantis had more learning loss during COVID: reading in fourth grade, math in fourth grade, reading in eighth grade, math in eighth grade.

“We've outperformed you in every, it's a fact, during COVID, in every one of these categories.”

The claim is not true.

Florida schoolchildren outperformed their California counterparts on test scores last year, according to the U.S. Department of Education's Report Card.

DeSantis responded that the National Assessment of Educational Progress placed Florida at number three in fourth-grade reading. California was far, far behind.”

He is right that Florida was third in fourth-grade reading and California was 32nd.

Violent crime figures from last year

Does Florida have a higher murder rate than California?

Newsom claimed that Florida has 66 percent more gun deaths than his state.

According to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Florida had 7.4 homicides per 100,000 residents in 2021, while California had 6.4 per 100,000 residents.

So Newsom was right that Florida has a higher per capita rate.

But both states are below the national average of 7.8 per 100,000.

Sean Hannity hosted the Fox debate

Newsom refutes the claim that California has the highest taxes

Newsom claimed it was a “factual lie that the state of California has the highest tax rate.”

He said that too Florida 'taxes low-income workers more than we tax millionaires and billionaires in the state of California'

But California's top state income tax rate – 13.3 percent – ​​is the highest in the US, although this only affects those earning more than $1 million.

Florida has no individual income tax.

Newsom claimed DeSantis supported “amnesty” for illegal immigrants

Newsom claims DeSantis supported 'amnesty' for illegal immigrants

Newsom claimed that DeSantis, when he was a congressman, “supported amnesty” for illegal immigrants.

In 2018, DeSantis supported a bill that would have given three-year renewable legal status to people who arrived in the U.S. illegally as children — the “Dreamers.”

However, the same year, DeSantis voted against another bill that offered Dreamers a path to citizenship.

DeSantis has banned 1,406 books

Newsom said Florida's governor was working on a “book ban.”

He said, “Last year, four hundred and six books were banned under Ron DeSantis.”

DeSantis called that a “false narrative.”

Newsom added, “What's wrong with Amanda Gorman's poetry?”, suggesting this was one of the banned works.

The number of 1,406, as viewers may have concluded, is not for books that are banned statewide.

It includes cases where publications at individual schools were temporarily removed following a complaint from a parent.

In the Gorman case, a parent complained to a school about her poem “The Hill We Climb,” which she performed at Joe Biden's inauguration.

It was then moved from the elementary to the high school section of the library.