Ron DeSantis left viewers baffled – and grimacing – in a particularly bizarre moment during his fiery debate with Gavin Newsom.
The Florida governor came face to face with the California governor on Fox News on Thursday night in what appeared to be a practice session for an unlikely presidential debate, where the two men sparred over Covid-19, the 2024 race and LGBT+ rights.
But there was one moment in particular that got viewers talking, when Mr DeSantis curiously brandished a so-called “poop map” showing apparent dump sites across the city of San Francisco.
The incident unfolded when Mr Newsom hit out at Florida’s mental health resources – or lack thereof – under his GOP rival, while touting California’s own.
“Ron has literally the worst mental health system in America, forgive me, outside of Mississippi and Texas. And so, with all due respect of being lectured on some of these topics, Ron DeSantis is not the one I’m going to be listening to,” he said.
At that moment, Mr DeSantis was seen reaching into the inside pocket of his suit jacket and pulling out a piece of paper.
“This is a map of San Francisco,” Mr DeSantis said, holding up a map of the city with brown markings across it.
“There’s a lot of plots on that. You may be asking: ‘What is that plotting?’ Well, this is an app where they plot the human faeces that are found on the streets of San Francisco.
DeSantis brandishes map of human faeces— (Fox News)
“And you see how almost the whole thing is covered? Because this is what has happened in one of the previous greatest cities this country has ever had.”
Mr Newsom simply broke into laughter as Mr DeSantis continued: “Human faeces is now a fact of life except when a communist dictator comes to town.”
Referring to Chinese President Xi Jinping’s recent visit, the Florida governor claimed: “Then they cleaned up the streets. They lined the streets with Chinese flags. They didn’t put American flags there.
“They cleaned the streets up. So they’re willing to do it for a communist dictator but they’re not willing to do it for their own.”
Social media users were perplexed by what they had just seen from the man hoping to become the Republican nomination in 2024.
“Ron DeSantis just held up a poop map of San Francisco to show where people are tagging feces from homeless people on all the public streets. Holy s***. Literally,” one person wrote on X.
“Hi, I’m Ron DeSantis and I brought a poop map,” added another.
Another person joked on X: “Ron DeSantis is a Florida Man with a poop map in his pocket. The jokes write themselves.”
Another person chimed in: “lol, so the preparation Ron did was to make print out of poops.”
“As a former media trainer, I would not have advised DeSantis to hold up a photo of poop,” said gun control activist Shannon Watts.
Meanwhile, Kayleigh McEnany – Fox News host and former press secretary to Donald Trump’s White House – championed Mr DeSantis’ bizarre move calling it “another strong and powerful moment” from the Republican.
The map in question is a graphic released in 2019 by OpenTheBooks.com, which mapped out reports of human faeces across San Francisco between 2011 to 2019.
Ron DeSantis and Gavin Newsom clash in Fox News debate— (Fox News)
There were more than 75,000 points – that is reported sightings of human faeces – on the map.
OpenTheBooks.com founder and CEO Adam Andrzejewski also weighed in on the saga, telling the SF Chronicle on Thursday night that “my first thought was one of pride” when he saw his map making an appearance on the debate stage.
“It was a cultural moment in 2019, and obviously it was a moment again this evening,” he said.
This isn’t the first time Mr DeSantis has commented on human waste in the streets of San Francisco.
Back in June, the Florida governor visited the California city, posting a video on X claiming he had seen people “defecating on the street”, using heroin and crack cocaine.
He used the visit to hit out at liberal policies in the Democratic state and argue that “we need to restore sanity in this country”.
