Sean Hannity reveals HE personally brokered the showdown between Ron DeSantis and Gavin Newsom on Thursday and reveals how they didn’t want an audience for the debate

Ron DeSantis and Gavin Newsom will go head to head in Georgia on Thursday night in a showdown that Fox News is describing as the “Great Red State vs. Blue State Debate.”

Governors will discuss their vastly different approaches to COVID lockdowns, crime, immigration, taxes, climate policy and school choice.

Republican DeSantis and Democrat Newsom have been at loggerheads over their state’s politics — and both have lofty ambitions that extend to the White House.

Their match will be officiated by Sean Hannity, Fox News Channel’s longest-serving primetime host.

He has frequently interviewed DeSantis as he seeks to unseat Donald Trump as the GOP nominee in 2024, and his few conversations with Newsom have been lively and well-watched.

Now Hannity has told DailyMail.com in an exclusive interview how he personally negotiated the terms of the upcoming debate and managed to get them in the same room.

The Fox News host said he intervened to facilitate exchanges between the governors and said those conversations included at least one of the men who did not request an audience with the studio.

Newsom initially challenged DeSantis to a debate in September 2022. At the time, DeSantis had not yet entered the 2024 Republican presidential primary.

In a June interview with Hannity, liberal Newsom again said he would debate with conservative DeSantis, with the Fox host serving as moderator. DeSantis formally agreed in August, telling Hannity: “I’m ready. Let’s do that. Just tell me when and where.

Great Red Vs. The Blue State debate will air live on Fox News Channel from Alpharetta, Georgia for 90 minutes starting at 9:00 pm on Thursday. Hannity serves as the sole moderator.

“I personally negotiated or navigated—I don’t know what you call it,” Hannity said in an interview Tuesday. “I took a crazy stand and dealt with it personally. I thought it was too important.

The debate will have no audience, and even if the two men’s respective staffers were in the room during the telecast, they would not be able to talk to them even during commercial breaks, Hannity said.

Other than Fox, no other media outlets are allowed access to the room where the two men will come face to face.

– I know them both. So I just felt like I needed to put everything together in a way that would suit both governors,” Hannity told DailyMail.com.

“Maybe the climb is harder than I initially thought.”

He added: “But I promised everyone that I would keep the behind-the-scenes negotiations secret, and I will keep my word.”

Hannity has interviewed both DeSantis and Newsom and has a good relationship with both. He dismissed concerns about whether the debate would be balanced, with critics pointing to the fact that it airs on the Fox News Channel, is moderated by a conservative and takes place near DeSantis’ home state.

Hannity, who routinely cites California’s crime and housing crisis as a symbol of everything that’s wrong with the Democratic Party, seemed to get along well with Newsom during their recent meetings.

“From the first time we met, we just hit it off and we had a certain relationship that was like, ‘Come on, you don’t believe in all this,’” Hannity said. according to the LA Times.

“It was always friendly and never controversial. You can tell him anything. You can have fun with him.”

In an exclusive preview of the upcoming debate, Hannity said he would suggest talking points and let DeSantis and Newsom set the tone for the debate. He believes the debate could devolve into personal attacks between the Florida and California governors, given the level of public scrutiny each other has received over the past year.

“I know they’ve been talking back and forth with each other for quite a while now, and I have no idea if it’s personal or not, but from the outside it definitely seems like there might be something going on here a little bit. You know, in some ways it might be personal,” Hannity said of the governors’ feud.

“But we’ll find out on Thursday.”

California is the most populous US state and Florida is the third, and on opposite coasts the two states have very different leaders in their governor’s mansions.

A DailyMail.com poll shows 47 percent of Americans would prefer to live in the Sunshine State under DeSantis, compared with 40 percent who want to live in California under Newsom.

The poll of 1,000 likely voters also shows DeSantis would lead Newsom by four points if they went head-to-head in a hypothetical 2024 general election.

DeSantis is a traditional conservative. Once a staunch Trump ally, the governor, midway through his second term, is now running against the former president for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination.

He is known for his response to COVID-19 and has received national recognition for quickly reopening Florida and easing pandemic restrictions faster than many other states.

He then drew widespread criticism from Democrats for his focus on education policy, particularly the Parents Bill of Rights. Liberals have deemed the law a “don’t say gay” law because it limits the teaching of gender ideology and sexual orientation in Florida schools.

Newsom, on the other hand, is very liberal and has been a sharp critic of DeSantis’ leadership in Florida. He has faced harsh backlash from conservatives who say his leadership has destroyed California, leading to soaring crime, homelessness and drug use.

California is grappling with an epidemic of burglaries, and gas prices have reached $7 a gallon in some places.

The Golden State governor has repeatedly said he has no ambitions for the White House in 2024 and has no plans to launch a primary bid against President Joe Biden.

He has repeatedly said he has no ambitions for the White House in 2024 and has no plans to launch a primary bid against President Joe Biden.

Asked whether Newsom would be a more energetic candidate in the GOP field than Biden, Hannity replied: “You know, it’s really hard to say.”

“I mean, he was pretty adamant… that he wouldn’t run in 2024,” he added. “So I’ll take his word for it.”

“And he was also pretty adamant that the next person — if for some reason Joe didn’t run — the next person he thought should be (Vice President) Kamala Harris.”

DeSantis doesn’t believe Newsom’s claims that he doesn’t have White House ambitions this cycle and said last week that Thursday’s debate is important because he could be a Democrat on the 2024 presidential ticket.

“Look, he’s running a shadow campaign, even people in his own party are saying that,” DeSantis told Fox & Friends this month.

“A lot of Democrats want to unseat Biden,” DeSantis said. “So, you know, you can have Harris, you can have Newsom — you can have a lot of different people.”

He added: “But I think it’s important that Republican voters feel like we might not be running against Biden.”

The feud between DeSantis and Newsom really began in September 2022, when the California leader became a vocal critic of his Florida counterpart’s ploy to transport migrants from the Texas border to sanctuary cities and liberal enclaves such as New York and Martha’s Vineyard. in Massachusetts.

Immigration is sure to be one of the issues raised during Thursday’s debate, Hannity warned.

“I’m looking at it. Okay, what issues are affecting people in their individual states?” Hannity explained his approach to moderating debates.

“And frankly, this could affect anyone from any state,” he added. “You know, state policy can often affect people’s lives much more than federal policy. I know we’ve talked more often about the federal government, but you know, look at this issue of immigration, for example, and it certainly impacts every state. Every state is now, in some sense, almost a border state.”

“So, issues or problems, and once I kind of bring it up and explain, you know, I ask a specific question about it, they’re actually the ones who are going to have to do some of the talking,” he said. – That’s their business. And I’ll give them time to respond.