A CNN senior political commentator called out Vice President Kamala Harris for making a "completely made up" remark about Florida's new school curriculum, as part of which Harris claimed the state was teaching children that slaves "benefitted from slavery."
Harris said in a recent speech that "in the state of Florida, they decided middle school students will be taught that enslaved people benefitted from slavery. They insult us in an attempt to gaslight us, and we will not stand for it!" Harris shouted.
Scott Jennings, a Harvard lecturer and former special assistant to President George W. Bush, took issue with the vice president's remarks while on a CNN panel, as reported by the Daily Mail.
"What is amazing to me [is] that how little Kamala Harris apparently has to do that she can read something on Twitter one day and be on the airplane the next to make something literally out of nothing," he told CNN.
The Republican commentator was referring to two sections of the curriculum; page six of the 216-page document stated, "Instruction includes how slaves developed skills which, in some instances, could be applied for their personal benefit."
There also exists an allegedly-contentious portion of the curriculum on page 17, which stated instructions are to include "acts of violence perpetrated against and by African Americans" in reference to the race riots in the early 1900s.
"I looked at the standards, I even looked at an analysis of the standards, in every instance where the word slavery or slave was used, I even read the statement of the African-American scholars that wrote the standards – not Ron DeSantis, but the scholars," Jennings explained.
"Everybody involved in this says this is completely a fabricated issue, and yet, look at how quickly Kamala Harris jumped on it. So, the fact that this is her best moment, a fabricated matter, is pretty ridiculous," he added.
The vice president recently referred to Supreme Court members and Florida lawmakers as "extremists" for decisions regarding affirmative action and the Florida state curriculum.
"At this moment in our country, we just witnessed the United States Supreme Court strike down affirmative action, give businesses the right to discriminate, and deny debt relief to millions of Americans with student loans," Harris declared.
"All the while, these same extremists, in most cases, refuse to pass reasonable gun safety laws to keep our children safe. And speaking of our children, extremists pass book bans to prevent them from learning our true history," the vice president continued.
"And while they do this, check it out, they push forward revisionist history. Just yesterday in the state of Florida they decided middle school students will be taught that enslaved people benefitted from slavery," she added.
The Florida Education Association also condemned the new teachings and said the lessons are "a disservice to Florida's students and are a big step backward for a state that has required teaching African American history since 1994."
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