Showing his command of both the response to Hurricane Milton and Florida state history after viewing storm damage in Fort Pierce, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis (R) closed a Thursday afternoon press conference by sparring with a number of reporters who tried to bait him into directly blaming Hurricane Milton’s existence and damage on climate change. Having none of these political games, DeSantis schooled them.

Others were more blatant, but the one prior to them was more subtle: “Obviously with every hurricane the tornado are a concern, but it seems the story of Hurricane Milton really is all of tornadoes. Have you ever seen something of this magnitude, just as far as the number of tornadoes and the amount of damage they did?”

DeSantis didn’t engage in this and stuck to the facts that in “every hurricane, we have a lot of tornados spin off...sadly” though “we may of had more tornado warnings on this one than the typical hurricane”

“Things churn off these — these weather systems and it's just devastating. And so, this is unfortunately something that is — that is kind of normal with the big storm...[E]ast coast of Florida, Palm Beach, St. Lucie, a bunch of stuff happened over here and you were probably hundreds of miles from the eye of the storm at the time the tornados spun off. But that is just — that is to be expected to a certain extent,” he added.

It was here that a reporter invoked “global warming” being behind “an increase in tornadoes” and DeSantis immediately saw what he was dealing with.

As he’s shown for years, he was ready to return fire twice as hard, starting with the fact that “you can go back and find tornados for all of human history for sure” and proceeded to walk through the barometric pressure at landfall of Milton versus other storms in the past.

While deathly serious, DeSantis explained there’s precedent for far stronger storms, with one in 1928 having killed thousands between Florida, the Caribbean, and the east coast of the United States.

He cited this in part to rebut the fact that those with an agenda to inject climate change into everything have “tried to take different things that happen with tropical weather and act like it's something” when “there’s nothing new under the sun” (click “expand” below the video to see his full answer):

WATCH: Ron DeSantis absolutely nukes a reporter who tried to tie yesterday's tornadoes from Hurricane #Milton to global warming pic.twitter.com/Pj0nENTilZ

— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) October 10, 2024

I — I think you can go back and find tornados for all of human history for sure. And especially, you know, Florida, how does this storm rate in — in — in kind of the history of storms? I think it hit with a barometric pressure of — what was it — about 950 millibars when it hit? Which I think if you go back til — to 1851, there has probably been 27 hurricanes with lower barometric — so, the lower the barometric pressure, the stronger it is. I think there have been about 27 hurricanes have had lower barometric pressure on landfall than Milton did and, of those, 17 occurred, I think, prior to 1960. And the most powerful hurricane on record since the 1850s, in the state of Florida, occurred in the 1930s, the Labor Day hurricane. Barometric pressure on that was 892 millibars. It totally wiped out the Keys. We haven't seen anything like it and that remains head and shoulders above any powerful hurricane in the state of Florida. The most deadly hurricane we’ve ever had was in 1928, the Okeechobee hurricane, killed over 4,000 people. Fortunately, we aren't going to have anything close to that on this hurricane. Even ones like Ian where you had, you know, it wasn’t even close to that. But I think people should put this in perspective. They tried to take different things that happen with tropical weather and act like it's something — there’s nothing new under the sun. 

You know, this is something the state has dealt with for it's entire history and it's something we will continue to deal with. I think what’s changed is we’ve got 23 million people. A storm that hits is likely to hit more people and property than it would of 100 years ago and so, the potential for that damage has grown. But what’s also changed is our ability to do prevention, to pre-stage the assets. I mean we never did the pre-staging of powers assets until I became governor. Now? People, like, expect that. That wasn't what was done in the past. That’s why people would be out of power for three weeks when we’d have hurricanes. We thought that that’s not good. Now, we have to pay to get the guys to come in, but my view is, the quicker you get people hooked up the better, the economy is anyways, so why don't we just do that? Having different search and rescue, having a state guard, all these different things are bringing different tools to the fight allowing us to respond more effectively. So, if we had the tools we had in 1928 to fight in Ian or to fight some of these, you would had higher death tolls. There’s no question about that.

Another reporter pressed their luck: “Speaking of history, sir, how many storms form as rapidly as they have between Helene and Milton?”

Without notes and from memory, DeSantis had another set of facts to set this leftist actor back:

Oh, I mean, I think most people remember 2004 where we had — seemed like we had them every other week in 2004 then there’s also a time period — you know, we had, from 2006 to 2016, we had no hurricanes in Florida. There are times we have had a lot. The 1940s we were getting hit a lot. You know, now, more recently, we’ve had — we’ve had a spate — spade of more, so that's just kind of the nature of it, but — but this really does — it has a lot of similarities to 2004 in terms of the season.

A fourth consecutive reporter went political by inviting him to attack those “engaging in misinformation” as a way of ripping Republicans.

DeSantis certainly blasted those on the far right making claims about people or groups being able to control the weather, but he also put them alongside “others think[ing] it's all because of fossil fuels”:

Reporter to DeSantis on #Milton: “Governor, a lot of folks particularly a lot quite a few who trust you and look to you for information are obviously engaging in misinformation about some entity controlling the weather. Can you take this opportunity to denounce that… pic.twitter.com/y4clMD34Tn

— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) October 10, 2024

For some reason, one of the reporters from earlier chose to waste the press conference’s last question on more partisan showboating:

One reporter who had tried to get Ron DeSantis to blame #Milton on climate change came back AGAIN.

The result was the same -- not good for him!

Reporter: “What about the role of carbon emissions in promulgating said storms?”

DeSantis: We’ll, I’ve already addressed the… pic.twitter.com/P8bB1RzW6e

— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) October 10, 2024

To see the relevant transcript from the presser on October 10, click “expand.”

Florida press conference [as seen on FNC’s Outnumbered]
October 10, 2024
12:51 p.m. Eastern

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER #1: Obviously with every hurricane the tornado are a concern, but it seems the story of Hurricane Milton really is all of tornadoes. Have you ever seen something of this magnitude, just as far as the number of tornadoes and the amount of damage they did?

GOVERNOR RON DESANTIS (R-FL): I mean, every hurricane we have a lot of tornados spin off. I think we — we may of had more tornado warnings on this one than the typical hurricane, I would think. But to see what happened here, sadly, that is not something that’s uncommon. These tornados — I mean, you’re talking — when mother nature — I mean, this is just — it’s just churning, churning. Things churn off these — these weather systems and it's just devastating. And so, this is unfortunately something that is — that is kind of normal with the big storm. We probably had more warnings than we would with a normal storm, especially the ones that come across the peninsula like this. You know, you could get it, I mean, you’ve east coast of Florida, Palm Beach, St. Lucie, a bunch of stuff happened over here and you were probably hundreds of miles from the eye of the storm at the time the tornados spun off. But that is just — that is to be expected to a certain extent.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER #2: [Inaudible] global warming?

DESANTIS: Tornados?

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER #2: Yeah. There’s an increase in tornadoes in [inaudible].

DESANTIS: I — I think you can go back and find tornados for all of human history for sure. And especially, you know, Florida, how does this storm rate in — in — in kind of the history of storms? I think it hit with a barometric pressure of — what was it — about 950 millibars when it hit? Which I think if you go back til — to 1851, there has probably been 27 hurricanes with lower barometric — so, the lower the barometric pressure, the stronger it is. I think there have been about 27 hurricanes have had lower barometric pressure on landfall than Milton did and, of those, 17 occurred, I think, prior to 1960. And the most powerful hurricane on record since the 1850s, in the state of Florida, occurred in the 1930s, the Labor Day hurricane. Barometric pressure on that was 892 millibars. It totally wiped out the Keys. We haven't seen anything like it and that remains head and shoulders above any powerful hurricane in the state of Florida. The most deadly hurricane we’ve ever had was in 1928, the Okeechobee hurricane, killed over 4000 people. Fortunately, we aren't going to have anything close to that on this hurricane. Even ones like Ian where you had, you know, it wasn’t even close to that. But I think people should put this in perspective. They tried to take different things that happen with tropical weather and act like it's something — there’s nothing new under the sun. You know, this is something the state has dealt with for it's entire history and it's something we will continue to deal with. I think what’s changed is we’ve got 23 million people. A storm that hits is likely to hit more people and property than it would of 100 years ago and so, the potential for that damage has grown. But what’s also changed is our ability to do prevention, to pre-stage the assets. I mean we never did the pre-staging of powers assets until I became governor. Now? People, like, expect that. That wasn't what was done in the past. That’s why people would be out of power for three weeks when we’d have hurricanes. We thought that that’s not good. Now, we have to pay to get the guys to come in, but my view is, the quicker you get people hooked up the better, the economy is anyways, so why don't we just do that? Having different search and rescue, having a state guard, all these different things are bringing different tools to the fight allowing us to respond more effectively. So, if we had the tools we had in 1928 to fight in Ian or to fight some of these, you would had higher death tolls. There’s no question about that.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER #3: Speaking of history, sir, how many storms form as rapidly as they have between Helene and Milton?

DESANTIS: Oh, I mean, I think most people remember 2004 where we had — seemed like we had them every other week in 2004 then there’s also a time period — you know, we had, from 2006 to 2016, we had no hurricanes in Florida. There are times we have had a lot. The 1940s we were getting hit a lot. You know, now, more recently, we’ve had — we’ve had a spate — spade of more, so that's just kind of the nature of it, but — but this really does — it has a lot of similarities to 2004 in terms of the season.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER #4: Yeah, Governor, a lot of folks particularly a lot quite a few who trust you and look to you for information are obviously engaging in misinformation about some entity controlling the weather. Can you take this opportunity to denounce that misinformation and set the record straight for folks who believes someone is controlling the weather?

DESANTIS: Look, if I could control the weather I would do, you know, 78° and sunny year around. Now, we get that, you know, a lot in Florida. Coming up in the months. But there would be no reason to ever do. So, look — and this is on both sides. You have some people think government can do this. And then others think it's all because of fossil fuels. The reality is what we see — there is precedent for this in history. Like, it is hurricane season. You will have tropical weather. We hope that, you know, a lot of the tropical weather are fish storms in the Atlantic that never impact us. The reality anything that gets in the Gulf of Mexico — it’s got to hit something. Maybe it hits Mexico. Maybe it hits Louisiana. But Florida is one, especially if it’s move — when they bend east, we’re the ones that are gonna do — so — so, like I said there is nothing new under the sun. This is — these are natural occurrences. We will — we will deal with tropical weather for as long as we’re Floridians.

UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER #3: What about the role of carbon emissions in promulgating said storms?

DESANTIS: We’ll, I’ve already addressed the historical record of the storms in Florida. Like I said our biggest storm, our strongest storm by far remains the Labor Day from the 1930s.