Former Rep. Ron DeSantis, the Republican nominee in Florida's gubernatorial race, on Wednesday castigated the "unhinged left" for attacking conservatives, saying civility has been "tossed out the window."
DeSantis appeared on Fox News' "Fox & Friends," where he reacted to a clip of Sen. Ted Cruz (R., Texas) being harassed and forced to leave his table at an upscale D.C. restaurant on Monday night by protestors chanting, "we believe survivors" and shouting questions about whether Cruz would vote his "best friend" Judge Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court.
"I think the left is totally unhinged and they have been and it's not just what they did to Sen. Cruz. obviously you saw the Kavanaugh hearings, which was a total disgrace," DeSantis said. "This stuff can be really dangerous. If you remember, last year our Republican baseball practice was shot up by one of these left-wing activists, so this is really really a bad road to go down."
Co-host Brian Kilmeade asked why "this anarchy" is allowed to happen, referencing another incident that occurred in DeSantis' own state last week. Gov. Rick Scott (R., Fla.) was forced to leave a restaurant after hundreds of angry protesters showed up to speak out against red tide algae issues.
"Look, I think that you have this far left-wing fringe, which is quite frankly represented by the guy I'm running against, Andrew Gillum. They are radical," DeSantis said. "They are going to do whatever they can regardless of normal processes to try to intimidate people who disagree with them. That's not what democracy is all about. We're supposed to have civility, but that's really been tossed out the window."
He went on to attack the tactics used by liberal activists, specifically those filming and disrupting lawmakers who just want to have a "meal with [their] family."
Later in the interview, DeSantis castigated his Democratic opponent's agenda proposals, saying Gillum wants to "abolish ICE–the immigration agency–have open borders, allow people who are committing crimes to be released back into our society."
"He has aligned himself with the furthest-left fringe groups that you can. He's running on a 40 percent tax increase, which would totally destroy our economic momentum," DeSantis said. "He wants to have a national health care system, which would abolish Medicare, and abolish people's private insurance, and cost $32 trillion over 10 years, so as Floridians are familiar with that, the more they see that, the less likely they are going to want to go in that direction."
DeSantis announced his resignation from Congress earlier this month to focus on the Florida gubernatorial race. He will face Gillum, a progressive candidate who has aligned himself with several prominent anti-Semitic organizations, on the ballot in November's midterm election.