Ron DeSantis agrees to debate Gavin Newsom on Fox News

GOP presidential hopeful and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said Wednesday night that he is “game” to debate California Gov. Gavin Newsom, saying all that’s needed is a date, time and location.

“Let’s get it done. Just tell me when and where,” DeSantis, 44, told Fox News’ Sean Hannity when asked.

“I mean in one respect, the debate between California and Florida has already been had, as you suggest. People have been voting on that,” the Sunshine State leader told the primetime host.

“They’ve been voting on it with their feet. They have fled California in record numbers.”

Hannity floated the debate on June 12 during an interview with Newsom, 55, suggesting a showdown between the governors over policy differences.

“I’m all in. Count on it,” Newsom said of the idea.

“You would do a two-hour debate with Ron DeSantis?” Hannity asked.

“Make it three,” Newsom replied.

DeSantis told the Fox host on Wednesday that the evidence heavily favors his leadership in Florida over Newsom’s leadership of the Golden State.

“Florida has been the number one state for net in-migration. We have the number one ranked economy, number one now in education, crime rate at a 50-year low,” DeSantis said. “But in another sense, this is the debate for the future of our country, because you have people like [President] Joe Biden [who] would love to see the Californication of the United States.”

“Biden may not even be the nominee. You could have Gavin Newsom; you could have [Vice President] Kamala Harris. And I think if we go down that direction, that’s going to accelerate American decline,” he went on. “We can’t see America decline anymore. We need to reverse American decline.”

DeSantis is in a distant second place in the Republican presidential primary to former President Donald Trump, who enjoys 53.9% support nationwide compared with the Florida governor’s 18.1%, according to the RealClearPolitics polling average.

Meanwhile, Newsom has denied any presidential ambitions in 2024 while boasting of his success as California governor. Some have also said the 80-year-old Biden should abandon his re-election campaign due to his age.

The governor’s office has asked for a 90-minute live debate without a studio audience in Nevada, Georgia or North Carolina on Nov. 8 or Nov. 10, a Newsom aide told Politico.

DeSantis rep Andrew Romeo declined to lay out a time frame Thursday, instead telling The Post: “We look forward to working out the details and providing an update on specifics in the near future, as well as laying out the clear contrast between Newsom’s model for American decline and Governor DeSantis’ vision for our Great American Comeback.”

On Tuesday, Harris declined an invitation from DeSantis to debate a new history curriculum about slavery in America that he helped introduce in Florida schools.

“Extremists attempt to divide our nation with unnecessary debates. But I have news for them: We will not be distracted — and we will not be deterred,” the vice president said on Twitter. “There is no roundtable, no lecture, no invitation we will accept to debate the undeniable fact: There were no redeeming qualities to slavery.”

Harris had traveled to Florida last month to criticize an updated African-American studies syllabus that included lessons on “how slaves developed skills which, in some instances, could be applied for their personal benefit.”

DeSantis has rebuffed the attacks, telling critics that such skills were acquired “in spite of slavery not because of.”

Dr. William Allen, a former chairman of the US Commission on Civil Rights, worked on the curriculum and has also called criticisms of its standards “categorically false.”