(CNN) — California Governor Gavin Newsom will send money all the way across the country to help Rep. Charlie Crist defeat Florida Governor Ron DeSantis this November.
The California Democrat he tweeted on Thursday pledging to donate $100,000 to make DeSantis a “one-term governor” and asking supporters to donate to Crist, who won the Democratic nomination for Florida governor on Tuesday.
When asked regarding the donation during an event in Los Angeles, Newsom said he was forced to donate to Crist because “I don’t like thugs.” Newsom pointed to DeSantis’s verbal attack on Dr. Anthony Fauci at a rally Wednesday, during which the Republican leader said of the nation’s top infectious disease expert: “Someone needs to grab that little goblin and throw him across the Potomac.” “.
“Name someone using pejorative terms because they’re short, who the hell raised these guys?” Newsom said. “What kind of people are they? I know we all had to sit there and put up with and accept the demonization of (Donald) Trump, but not everyone has to act like him. I mean literally, I remember growing up and people would have washed them down.” soapy mouths if they talked like that. I have four kids, I don’t want these guys to be role models.”
The DeSantis campaign responded to news of Newsom’s contribution by tweeting a video stringing together clips of crime, homelessness and drag shows in California.
Newsom and DeSantis are considered future presidential contenders for their respective parties and their rivalry has been brewing for a while. The two leaders have served as proxies in the battle between the blue state and the red state over pandemic policies. Newsom said 40,000 more Californians would have died from the coronavirus if they had taken DeSantis’s approach. DeSantis accused Newsom of handing over control of his estate to a “coercive biomedical apparatus” that repeatedly pushed for COVID-19-related shutdowns.
Over the Fourth of July weekend, Newsom made waves when he posted an ad in Florida encouraging people to move to the Golden State, “where we still believe in freedom: freedom of speech, freedom to choose, freedom from hate and freedom to love. In his reply to the commercial, the DeSantis campaign pointed out that California was losing residents while Florida was attracting more people than any other state.
