Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) clashed with a man at a stop along the campaign trail in Littleton, New Hampshire on Thursday, engaging in a tense exchange of words over the Israel-Hamas conflict that ended with the voter declaring, “You had my vote, but you don’t now.” The conversation kicked off with the voter, identified by The New York Times as a local Arab-American ski shop owner named Ron Lahout, asking DeSantis what he thought “about the annihilation and the decapitation of all the Palestinians in Gaza right now.” According to footage of the event posted on social media, DeSantis replied that “they are not decapitating babies’ heads,” apparently in a confused reference to unverified reports of acts committed by Palestinian militants. The argument continued with Lahout calling Gaza a “prison” and DeSantis saying that Hamas used Israeli civilians as “human shields.” When the Florida governor insisted that other Arab countries refused to “absorb some of the Palestinian Arabs,” Lahout snapped that DeSantis had lost his vote.
Read it at The New York Times
