Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis went after former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley on a local South Carolina radio show on Tuesday and questioned her "leadership" based on a tweet following the death of George Floyd in 2020.
"I remember when the George Floyd riots were happening, I called out the National Guard," DeSantis told WORD 106.9's Tara Show in South Carolina on Tuesday.
"I said I’m standing with police, she was tweeting that it needed to be personal and painful for every single person. I’m thinking to myself, ‘Why does that need to be personal and painful for you or me? We had nothing to do with it.’"
"It just shows an example of her adopting this left-wing mindset and accepting the narrative. We need leaders who are going to fight the narrative. We need leaders who are going to fight back against the left and beat the left, and I’m the only one running that has a firm track record of defeating the Democrats and defeating the left on all these issues."
DeSantis was referring to a tweet from Haley in May 2020 where she wrote, "It’s important to understand that the death of George Floyd was personal and painful for many. In order to heal, it needs to be personal and painful for everyone."
DeSantis and radio host Tara Servatius also criticized Haley on transgender bathroom bills, with the Florida governor saying that Haley "killed legislation to protect girls and bragged about it."
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"There he goes again," a spokesperson for the Haley campaign told Fox News Digital. "Ron DeSantis is so desperate to revive his flailing campaign, he can’t be bothered with the facts. Nikki Haley has always supported separate bathrooms for biological boys and girls. Ron DeSantis had the exact same position as Haley in a 2018 interview, but now, Ron DeSantis is lying because he’s losing."
The Haley campaign was referring to a 2018 clip where DeSantis was asked as a gubernatorial candidate if he would "pass a bill" that allows transgender people to "pick the bathrooms they choose" and DeSantis said, "I would leave it as it is and stay out of that."
Since taking office, DeSantis has signed several pieces of transgender-related legislation in Florida, including bills that ban gender reassignment surgery for minors, bans pronoun use in schools and prohibiting "willfully entering restroom or changing facility designated for opposite sex."
