Christie: DeSantis reaction to slavery curriculum in Florida ‘not leadership’

GOP presidential candidate Chris Christie pushed back Sunday against Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R), a fellow 2024 White House hopeful, over his reaction to the new slavery curriculum in Florida, claiming the governor is not displaying leadership.  

“’I didn’t do it’ and ‘I’m not involved in it’ are not the words of leadership,” Christie said in an interview with CBS’s Margaret Brennan on “Face the Nation.”  

Christie, the former governor of New Jersey, was referring to DeSantis’s response to Vice President Harris, who recently called Florida’s new Black history education standards “propaganda.” The guidelines are based on Florida’s controversial law, which requires that race be taught in an “objective” manner that doesn’t seek to “indoctrinate or persuade students to a particular point of view.”  

The guidelines sparked heavy criticism, specifically over the requirement of teachers to instruct on “how slaves developed skills which, in some instances, could be applied for their personal benefit.” 

“Governor DeSantis started this fire with the bill that he signed and now he doesn’t want to take responsibility for whatever is done in the aftermath of it, and from listening and watching his comments, he’s obviously uncomfortable,” Christie said Sunday.  

Christie also claimed DeSantis “starts these things for political advantage,” describing the move as “politically manipulative.”

“The fact is that, you know, if … this was such a big issue for Governor DeSantis, he had four years to do this,” Christie said. “He only started to focus on this when he decided he wanted to run for president and try to get to the right of Donald Trump.”  

“We’re dividing our country into smaller and smaller and smaller pieces, and politicians are pitting them against each other to create conflict,” Christie added.  

“We’re arguing about these issues, these smaller issues, when we’ve got big issues in our country like runaway inflation that continues to hurt families, like an educational system,” he continued, noting the smaller issues he referred to include the governor’s “micromanaging curriculum in schools,” not the issue of race.  

“Let’s talk about the failing test scores throughout the country that are making us less competitive with the rest of the world,” Christie said.