Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis was interrupted briefly during his town hall event in Iowa on Tuesday evening by protesters chanting, “No oil money!”
One demonstrator from the environmental group Sunrise Movement then rushed the stage with a banner before security escorted the individual away.
“You know, you live and you learn with these people. Right?” DeSantis said as he watched security pull the person off stage. “All right. All right. Well, you guys, that was a mistake. You guys didn’t get that one right.”
Sunrise Movement pledged in a statement to The Hill further confrontations throughout the week ahead of the caucuses. The group also said that two other activists “snuck in questions” during the town hall about fracking and green jobs by telling Fox they were undecided Republicans with questions about “the economy.”
“Whether it’s DeSantis, Biden, or Trump we’re fed up with politicians who’d rather let people suffer and die than stand up to oil and gas millionaires,” Amalia Hochman, who asked a question during the town hall, said in a statement. (The Hill)
Tonight, we disrupted DeSantis’s FOX Town Hall.
— Sunrise Movement 🌅 (@sunrisemvmt) January 10, 2024
DeSantis doesn’t care that the climate crisis is killing us because he’s too busy drowning in oil money bribes to care about our lives.
We won’t let him get away with it. pic.twitter.com/1fvFzFKQrl
Amalia told FOX News that she was an undecided GOP caucus-goer. Surprise! She’s a Sunrise activist.
— Sunrise Movement 🌅 (@sunrisemvmt) January 10, 2024
DeSantis knows fracking kills, because he campaigned on banning it at home…but he can’t resist those sweet fossil fuel bribes 🤑 pic.twitter.com/dCby6754my
🔥🔥 Ron DeSantis roasts leftist disruptors chanting ‘NO OIL MONEY!’
— DeSantis War Room 🐊 (@DeSantisWarRoom) January 10, 2024
"Well you guys didn't get that one right.” pic.twitter.com/7zyTXf2QRE
DeSantis, who had been in the middle of a response on abortion, picked up right where he left off once the disruption was over.
"I'm the only one running that's actually enacted protections for the sanctity of life," he said. "I think Donald Trump attacking pro-lifers the way he has, that is now going to be weaponized by the political left to use against Republicans and to use against pro-lifers and that is wrong."
The moderators, Fox New's Martha MacCallum and Bret Baier, then played a clip of former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley's response on an abortion question from the night prior.
“I think she’s indulged in some of these left wing tropes [about abortion],” the GOP hopeful said, referring to Haley.
“She has chastised pro-lifers, saying, you know, ‘You shouldn’t be talking about putting women in prison.’ Nobody’s talking about that,” DeSantis continued. “I’ve not met a single pro-lifer that has ever talked about that. That is a trope that the left and the media will use and yet she’s indulged that.”
DeSantis and Haley will face off in a one-on-one debate Wednesday evening hosted by CNN, just days ahead of the Iowa caucuses. Former President Donald Trump, meanwhile, will participate in a Fox News town hall event.
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