Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and California Gov. Gavin Newsom engaged in a fiery debate Thursday night that underscored the stark differences in the Sunshine State leader’s conservative policies and the Golden State executive’s liberal agenda.

The Fox News event in Alpharetta, Georgia, moderated by Sean Hannity, was billed as “The Great Red vs. Blue State Debate.”

DeSantis is looking to gain much-needed ground on Donald Trump in the Republican presidential primary. Newsom, however, is not running for president, although he is the subject of much speculation for 2028 — and some observers believe possibly sooner.

Thursday’s debate was often messy, with the two governors regularly talking over each other. Throughout the night, Newsom made points he insisted were “facts,” while DeSantis dismissed them as “lies.”

And nearly every question Hannity asked teed up DeSantis to attack Democrats while consistently putting Newsom on the defensive. 

Here are six takeaways from the debate.

Newsom cheerleads for Biden

Newsom wasted no time making it clear that he supports Joe Biden for reelection in 2024 and, to anyone wondering why he was debating DeSantis, that he has no intention of taking on the incumbent president.

In his first answer, Newsom said he was “here to tell the truth about the Biden-Harris record.” 

He then said of himself and DeSantis, “One thing … that we have in common is neither of us will be the nominee for our party.”

He later defended Biden’s economic record, touting job growth and saying DeSantis recently celebrated $28 million that Florida received as part of the CHIPS and Science Act championed by Biden.

At one point, Hannity, seeming a bit annoyed that Newsom was not directly answering some of his questions, asked: “Is Joe Biden paying you tonight? I thought this was state versus state.”

DeSantis said doubling down on Biden’s economic policies is the wrong approach.

“How many people are able to afford groceries now compared to what you were doing three or four years ago?” said DeSantis, who accused Newsom of running a “shadow campaign” for president.

Pressed later in the debate by Hannity, Newsom reiterated he has no plans to run for the White House next year.

Migration

In a debate full of bog-standard political jabs, Newsom set his feet when he swung at DeSantis for the Florida governor’s policy that put migrants on transportation, dropping them in “sanctuary cities” across the country.

“That kind of gamesmanship with human lives, using human beings as pawns, I think, is disqualifying,” he said.

Newsom’s appearance on the stage made him a surrogate for Biden’s immigration platform, which he defended by saying that Republicans have blocked Biden border initiatives, including a package that would include beefing up border agents, customs agents and border security tech. He then added that, as a Congressman, DeSantis backed Obama-era immigration laws. He did, however, say that he believes that the current asylum system is “broken.”

DeSantis first countered by suggesting that Biden “opened the borders,” said that Biden is “sitting on his hands” and “refuses to hodl the drug cartels accountable.” He then picked up a softball from Hannity, who asked if “terrorist cells” will take advantage of Biden’s “open borders.”

“There will be, unfortunately, a terrorist attack at some point that we’ll be able to trace back to our southern borders,” DeSantis said.

Crime

The evening’s segment on crime opened with a body blow against Newsom, with a graphic indicating that California’s crime rate was substantially higher than the national average, and almost double that of Florida.

Newsom countered by noting that California’s violent crime rate is down 55% from the 1990s, and that the murder rate is higher in Republican-run states than in Democratic-run states.

DeSantis struck back on Hannity-provided data on mass shootings, which observed that, since 2019, California has had 21 mass shootings compared to nine in Florida over the same time period.

“What California wants to do is they want to make it harder for law-abiding citizens to defend themselves, then they go easy on the criminals perpetrating the crime,” DeSantis said.

Newsom responded by noting that DeSantis slipped the matter of Florida’s murder rate, before bringing up the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School mass shooting in 2018. Though DeSantis was not governor at the time of the tragedy, parents of survivors have repeatedly asked him for support, Newsom said, to no avail.

“You had a chance to do something on behalf of those Parkland families. You did the exact opposite,” Newsom said.

COVID

The pandemic, and the differing public health policies enacted by both California and Florida, held as a favorite topic for DeSantis, who proudly touted his record of “opening up” Florida well before California — one he used as a culture war cudgel against Newsom. (Anyone whose bingo card had a space for “French Laundry mention” was extra happy with DeSantis.)

“Governor, you did a lot of damage to your people,” he said, arguing that Newsom “ruined livelihoods.” He also said that Newsom — and other Democrats — are “owned lock, stock and barrel, by the teachers union.” 

Newsom retorted by propping California’s COVID learning loss record against Florida’s, arguing that the Sunshine State hasn’t measured up to the Golden State. (A McKinsey analysis found that California’s learning delay gap is indeed wider than Florida’s, among the top and bottom quartiles, though the average students were performing well.)

Newsom also measured the death tolls between the states, stating that Florida’s per-capita death rates were higher than California’s, which bore out according to CDC data.

Newsom also noted that Florida and DeSantis were quick to adopt closures, tout mask-wearing and execute quarantines “until he decided to fall prey to the fringe of his party. And as a consequence of that run, tens of thousands of people lost their lives.”

Parental rights

DeSantis defended his record on banning books and discussion about sexual orientation and gender identity in schools. He pulled out a page from the graphic novel “Gender Queer,” which showed sexually explicit, partially blacked-out images, claiming the books were in schools in California.

“When people like on the left say that somehow you’re banning books by removing this from a young kids’ classroom — no, this is not age appropriate,” DeSantis said.

Newsom accused DeSantis of being on a book “banning binge” and “using education as a sword for your cultural purge.” 

“I don't like the way you demean people, Newsom told DeSantis. “I don't like the way you demean the LGBTQ community. I don't like the way you demean and humiliate people you disagree with, Ron. I really find this fundamentally offensive. And this is a core value that distinguishes the values of my state, and frankly, the vast majority of Americans against the weaponization of education.”

Name-calling over Special Olympics

Arguably the most heated exchange came after Newsom criticized DeSantis for threatening to fine the Special Olympics $27 million last year because the organization had a COVID-19 vaccine mandate for athletes.

DeSantis defended the move by arguing, “They had Down syndrome, and they wanted to discriminate against them.”

He then called the California Democrat a “liberal bully” who wanted the athletes “to be ostracized.”

Newsom responded by calling DeSantis, too, “nothing but a bully” for attacking transgender people, the LGBTQ+ community and women.