DeSantis Calls for Crist Running Mate to Be ‘Disqualified’

PUNTA GORDA, Fla.—Gov. Ron DeSantis made it clear on Aug. 30 that he thought his gubernatorial opponent’s running mate should be disqualified and never hold office in Florida.

At a press conference in Fort Pierce, DeSantis criticized Charlie Crist’s choice of Karla Hernandez Mats saying that she puts “union politics” first.

He called her “disgraceful” for defending a teacher who had been abusing children since 2004 and advocating that the U.S. attorney general investigate parents who speak out at school board meetings.

Mats was chosen as Crist’s Democratic running mate on Aug. 26.

She is a former middle school teacher and the vice president of the American Federation of Teachers.

DeSantis stated she has sent out controversial tweets about Fidel Castro as well as defending the actions of a now convicted child predator.

The governor complained that the union boss worked “tooth and nail” to keep children locked out of school during the pandemic.

“They opposed everything we did in the state of Florida to give kids an opportunity and to put parents and families first,” DeSantis said.

He went on to say that there has been learning loss due to locking children out of school.

“We already know the catastrophic damage that happened for locking these kids out of school and we know Florida is so much better off because we actually put our kids first and we understood how important it was to be in education.”

In May of 2020 Mat’s got into a war of words with parents and government officials over policies involving the pandemic and compared parents who showed up at school board meetings to fictitious serial killers such as mass murderer Leatherface from The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and butcher knife slayer Michael Myers from the Halloween series.

Crist served as the 44th Republican governor from 2007 until 2011; he