Kamala Harris' Reply to Ron DeSantis Viewed 1m Times: 'An Undeniable Fact'

Kamala Harris rejected Florida Governor Ron DeSantis' invitation to join him in a debate about Florida's revised African American history curriculum, which the vice president has condemned for saying that slavery benefitted enslaved people in some ways.

"Right here in Florida, they plan to teach students that enslaved people benefitted from slavery," Harris said on Tuesday while delivering remarks at the 20th Women's Missionary Society of the African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church Quadrennial Convention in Florida.

"They insult us in an attempt to gaslight us, in an attempt to divide and distract our nation with unnecessary debate," she added. "And now, they attempt to legitimize these unnecessary debates with a proposal that most recently came in of a politically-motivated roundtable."

"Well, I'm here in Florida. And I will tell you, there's no roundtable, no lecture, no invitation we will accept to debate an undeniable fact: there were no redeeming qualities of slavery."

A clip of her speech shared on Twitter, now renamed X by owner Elon Musk, has been viewed more than 1 million times.

Harris' response came a day after the Florida governor addressed a letter to the vice president on the state's new curriculum and invited her come to debate the issue in Tallahassee.

The Florida Board of Education approved the state's controversial 2023 Social Studies curriculum last month, which includes middle school instruction on how "slaves developed skills which, in some instances, could be applied for their personal benefit."

Harris has been among the most vocal critics of the Sunshine State's new school curriculum, calling it propaganda.

"They want to replace history with lies," she said of the curriculum during a speech in Jacksonville, Florida, in July.

"They insult us in an attempt to gaslight us, and we will not have it," the vice president continued. "So, it is not only misleading; it is false. And it is pushing propaganda. People who walk around and want to be praised as leaders, who want to be talked about as American leaders, pushing propaganda on our children."

DeSantis has previously distanced himself from the new curriculum, saying he had nothing to do with it. But he has also defended it, saying at an event in Utah last month: "They're probably going to show that some of the folks that eventually parlayed, you know, being a blacksmith into doing things later in life."

On Monday, he invited Harris to bring an expert sharing her opinion on Florida's curriculum to join him and William Allen—a former member of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights who worked on Florida's revised African American history curriculum—in a debate in Tallahassee.

The Republican governor, who's running for the party's presidential primary, said that Florida "is the number one state in the nation for education" and added that the White House should applaud the state's "boldness in teaching the unique and important story of African American history."

During her speech on Tuesday, Harris said: "We will not stop calling out and fighting back against extremist so-called leaders who try to prevent our children from learning our true and full history."

Newsweek contacted the White House as well as DeSantis' spokesperson for comment by email on Wednesday.