California Governor Gavin Newsom entered enemy territory and debated Florida Governor and 2024 Republican presidential candidate Ron DeSantis on Sean Hannity's Fox News show. But was that a good decision in the long run? Glenn and Stu review the debate and reveal who they believe won. Glenn also points out the strategy that DeSantis used in the debate that he believes was most effective.
TranscriptBelow is a rush transcript that may contain errors
GLENN: So the New York Times, their buying takeaway with the debate with Gavin Newsom and DeSantis is. That it was unfair. It was stacked -- of course. It was on the Sean Hannity show, on Fox.
That would be like me saying, you know what, I'm going to go on. And I'm going to debate Gavin Newsom, on CNN.
And then the big takeaway from TheBlaze was, it was unfair. Of course it's unfair.
STU: And I don't even know if it's fair to say it was unfair.
GLENN: You're on Fox. He's a conservative.
And, quite honestly, you've got DeSantis, who is really good.
STU: Yeah. Really good.
GLENN: Really good.
STU: So the taking of this debate by Newsom is a high degree of difficulty, right?
It's not an easy task to go on the Hannity Show and beat Ron DeSantis in the debate.
I will say, it's one of those things going in. If you don't think you can absolutely dominate. Absolutely dominate Ron DeSantis. You don't take this opportunity. Quote, unquote, opportunity.
So a couple of takeaways from this. From the big picture. And we should play some of the clips. Number one, Newsom blew up his career last night.
GLENN: He had a good chance.
You don't take this on, unless you're somebody that can actually, you know, do it. Knock him out.
You have to have -- you had to be so confident, that you could walk in, to an opposing field.
You know, where things are going to be stacked against you. Just because.
STU: Right.
GLENN: And take him on. And have a couple of knockout punches. Did he have any?
STU: No. It was really a catastrophe for him.
So you had -- the interesting part of this. If you're going to take this in a way that will make you understand the Newsom choice. This was basically the last wall here, for the person who wants to say, we need to replace Joe Biden.
Like, this is not working with Biden. We need someone who is going to do something different than lose with an 81-year-old candidate. Right?
Like, you need somebody who will do something impressive. Let's just -- let me give you a different scenario here.
GLENN: Okay.
STU: You have a situation where Gavin Newsom comes into this very unfriendly room. Against a tough candidate. And destroys Ron DeSantis in the debate. Let's say that happens.
There would be people excited to say, guys, look, we love Joe Biden.
He served our party for 50 years.
But come on. He's losing to Donald Trump. Gavin Newsom would destroy Donald Trump. We have to make that move.
This is about the last chance you have, to make a move like that.
GLENN: All right. Let me go on a couple of things.
STU: It didn't happen, though. Right?
So we had an opportunity here. It didn't happen.
GLENN: So here is a clip. DeSantis versus Newsom. Watch this.
VOICE: The stats are very clear. On a per capita age-adjusted basis, California and Florida, basically the same. Now, why is that important?
Because Gavin Newsom did huge damage to people in California. He ruined livelihoods. We reopened it very quickly.
We saved thousands of jobs. We saved hundreds of thousands of jobs. Thousands of businesses.
We had our kids in school. He had the kids locked out of school, because of the teacher's union.
That is having a generational impact. California is one of the lowest literacy rates in the country, and the most recent nape exam, Florida came in number three for fourth grade reading.
California was far, far hidden.
So you should apologize for not getting your kids in school.
Why didn't you get the kids in school, in the summer of 2020, like we did?
STU: The only person --
GLENN: That didn't do the job you should have --
I mean, that's what would happen in any debate.
STU: Right.
GLENN: So that's not unfair.
And I don't think Hannity was unfair.
STU: No. Look, he's a conservative. Everyone knows he's a conservative.
GLENN: Right. It's just stacked against you.
It is going -- it's Gavin Newsom going into enemy territory.
But I have news for you, gang.
That's what Republicans do, every debate. Every debate.
STU: All the time! Every debate is that way for conservatives.
GLENN: Right.
So here he is on the gender books in schools. Cut five.
VOICE: Or is it the role of the school? What is the role?
VOICE: The role of the school is to educate kids.
Not to indoctrinate kids. It's not to impose an agenda. It's to do the basics.
And what we've said in Florida is, it's inappropriate to tell a kindergartner that their gender is a choice. It's inappropriate to tell a second grader, that they may have been born in the wrong body.
Now, California has that. They want to have that injected into the elementary school. My wife and I have a seven, five, and a three-year-old. And we don't think that's appropriate.
And I know most parents do not think it's appropriate.
It's also important to respect, parental rights, to know what curriculum is being used in the classroom. And everything should be age appropriate.
I actually have something that I brought, that some parents have objected to.
So this is a book in some of the schools in California. Florida, this is not consistent with our standards. Called gender queer. Some of it is blacked out. You would not probably be able to put it on air.
This is pornography. It's cartoons. It's aimed at children. And it's wrong.
So this should not be at schools. When people like, on the left, say, somehow you're banning books. When you're removing this from a young kid's classroom. No, this is not age appropriate.
So we will stand for the rights of parents. I think we will do that nationwide. I don't think you can have a situation where some states just trample on the rights of parents.
Parents have a fundamental right to direct the education and upbringing of their kid.
GLENN: I have to tell you, I think DeSantis should take this, as a massive win.
What Gavin Newsom was trying to do with be to -- to tell the Democrats, I'll destroy these guys.
DeSantis just did.
STU: This should be DeSantis entire campaign right now.
Show people what it would look like, if he were the candidate. If you were in the general, this is what you would get.
Remind people, that this is what he should do. Now, look, you won't get idiotic governors to come and debate you.
It wouldn't make sense to do debates with governors. You do have an entire liberal media. You have The View. You have a million opportunities where you can go and do these types of things.
It's like, take those opportunities. And show those -- it's difficult to walk the line. Right?
As a Republican candidate in this primary. We've seen zero people be successful as Trump walked in. Dozens have candidates have tried this.
It's really hard to walk this line. A lot of people like Trump. You can't really say anything bad about him. It's just a difficult thing to do.
This is not difficult. There are a million people on the left, that want to take their shot at Ron DeSantis.
Go in there. Mix it up with the left constantly.
Act like you're the general election candidate.
Go there and show everybody, how much better you will be than any of the other candidates. That's probably his about best path to winning this thing.
GLENN: Let's go to cut seven.
VOICE: Do you think 100 percent. 100 percent.
VOICE: By the way, results matter. Inflation now is down to 3.2 percent. Wages are up to 4.4 percent. The economy is booming.
5.2 percent GDP growth in the last --
GLENN: Booming.
VOICE: Those are facts you don't hear on Fox news, 14 million jobs.
VOICE: That was a lightning round. Now, on March 31st.
GLENN: Bidenomics. He's selling.
STU: Yeah, by the way, Biden has stopped saying this. You notice this. He's not said it in a month.
He's touted Bidenomics constantly. All of a sudden, he completely stopped saying it.
GLENN: Right. Let me play one more here. This is DeSantis showing a map of San Francisco.
Watch this.
VOICE: This is a map of San Francisco. There's a lot of plots on that. You may be asking, what is that plotting?
Well, this is a map that they plot the human species on the streets of San Francisco.
STU: He's horrible.
VOICE: Because that is what has happened in one of the previous, greatest cities this country has ever had.
Human feces is now a fact of life. Except when a communist dictator comes to down. Then they cleaned up the streets. They lined the streets with Chinese flags. They didn't put American flags there. They cleaned everything up.
So they're willing to do it for a communist dictator. But they're not willing to do it for their own.
STU: Incredible.
GLENN: Just he was stunning. He was stunning. Last night.
STU: And this is one of the things. Gavin Newsom in theory, is much better than Gavin Newsom in reality.
This idea, he's a younger guy. He's a good-looking guy. He's well-spoken.
Watch him. All you can say watching that television screen last night, any rational observer would look at Gavin Newsom, and just think of the word douche. That is who that guy is.
I know it's not the nicest way to put it. I got it. But that's all you would think about watching him. And the idea that this is their bench. This is the guy that they're defending on for the future of the party, should give you incredible optimism for the future of conservatism.