Television presenter Ana Navarro, co-host of The View, had her audio cut off for five seconds during a heated live debate about Republican presidential candidate Ron DeSantis on Monday. It is not yet clear if the audio was cut deliberately or there was a technical fault.
The ABC commentator was discussing Florida's new education standards with actor Whoopi Goldberg, who accused the state of pushing for a revisionist version of history and of trying to teach students about the alleged "personal benefits" of slavery for those enslaved in the U.S.
The state's 2023 Social Studies curriculum, which was approved by Florida's Department of Education last week, includes classes on how "slaves developed skills" that could be used for "personal benefits," as first reported by CBS News.
Vice President Kamala Harris condemned the new curriculum and called it an attempt to "gaslight" students, saying during a speech at Delta Sigma Theta Sorority Inc.'s national convention in Indiana on Thursday that "they want to replace history with lies."
At an event in Utah on July 20, British newspaper The Independent reported that DeSantis appeared to defend the curriculum, saying that he had nothing to do with it, but he imagined "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."
CNN's Kit Maher tweeted a video clip of DeSantis' response to her question about the education standards.
Newsweek contacted the Florida Department of Education and DeSantis' office for comment by email on Tuesday.
DeSantis tells me FL's new Black history standards are "rooted in whatever is factual," when I asked him his thoughts on middle school instruction on "how slaves developed skills which, in some instances, could be applied for their personal benefit" – pic.twitter.com/Ae5YVYGIOP
— Kit Maher (@KitMaherCNN) July 22, 2023
Navarro, who has criticized DeSantis before on The View, said on Monday that as a Florida resident, she can testify that the governor is responsible for the state's new education stance.
"I live in Florida, I've been spitting mad about the culture wars that Ron DeSantis has been creating, so when he says he has nothing to do with it [that's bulls***]," she told Goldberg, as her audio got cut off for five seconds.
"He has created the environment that's led to this. What they say is that the updated standards now say enslaved people developed skills that could be applied for their personal benefit," she continued.
“How dare you!” The View rips into Ron DeSantis. It gets so heated, Ana Navarro has her audio cut for five seconds. (Video: ABC) pic.twitter.com/U0IdeE9DXt
— Mike Sington (@MikeSington) July 24, 2023
"Slavery was the darkest moment of American history. Our biggest shame. People got torn from their homelands. Men, women, newborns, put in the bowels of ships, shackled, made to row from Africa to America, then brought here and sold like chattel, separated from their children, beat, whipped, worked to death, raped. How dare you, shame on you people in Florida! How dare you try to whitewash slavery."
She then accused DeSantis of having only acquired the skill of "lying and creating culture wars," saying that this won't lead him to the presidency. "How dare you whitewash slavery," she said. "For this man, Ron DeSantis, whose apparently the only skill he has acquired is lying and creating culture wars that he thinks are going to make him president—they're not, buddy, that's why you're 30 points down," she concluded in the clip.
According to polling website FiveThirtyEight, DeSantis trails Donald Trump in the Republican primary polls, with 18.9 percent of the vote as of July 24 against the former president's 51 percent.
