Watch: ‘Freedom Is Under Attack In Your State,' CA Gov. Newsom Tells Floridians In Ad

FLORIDA — California Gov. Gavin Newsom had a Fourth of July message for Floridians: “Freedom is under attack in your state.”

In a 30-second ad that aired Monday on Fox News affiliates in Florida, Newsom targeted the Sunshine State’s GOP leaders.

“Republican leaders, they’re banning books, making it harder to vote, restricting speech in classrooms, even criminalizing women and doctors,” he said in his ad. (Watch the full ad below.)

Newsom added, “I urge all of you living in Florida to join the fight or join us in California where we still believe in freedom — freedom of speech, freedom to choose, freedom from hate and the freedom to love. Don’t let them take your freedom.”

The Democratic governor has previously taken aim at Florida, urging Disney in March to bring jobs based in Florida to California in response to the Sunshine State’s passage of the Parental Rights in Education bill, according to The Hill. Referred to as the “Don’t Say Gay” bill by its critics, it limits how gender identity and sexual orientation can be discussed in public school classrooms

Newsom’s July 4 ad came days after “Don’t Say Gay” and other controversial new Florida laws, passed by the state legislature and approved by Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis earlier this year, went into effect.

In addition to the Parental Rights in Education law, Florida’s “Stop Woke Act” bans the teaching of critical race theory. Meanwhile, a 15-week abortion ban that was scheduled to hit the books was temporarily blocked by a judge following the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling to overturn Roe v. Wade.

The American Civil Liberties Union, ACLU of Florida, Center for Reproductive Rights, Planned Parenthood Federation of America and the law firm Jenner & Block had filed a lawsuit against the state to block the ban on behalf of several medical facilities that offer abortion services. DeSantis has said he will appeal the judge’s ruling, according to Politico.

In Florida, some GOP officials took to social media in response to Newsom’s ad.

In a tweet tagging DeSantis Tuesday, Helen Aguirre Ferré, executive director of the Republican Party of Florida, wrote, “There is one governor who is winning in Florida and it isn’t Gavin Newsom.”

Christina Pushaw, DeSantis’ press secretary, shared Newsom’s ad on Twitter, calling the governor the “#1 U-Haul Salesman of 2021 increasingly desperate to communicate with Californians who fled his left-lib dystopia for Florida.”

She added, “Sorry, you aren’t getting those U-Hauls back.”

And Jeremy Redfern, press secretary for the Florida Department of Health, responded to Newsom with photos of trash piles and homeless camps, presumably in California, on Twitter, writing, “Shouldn’t you be worried about California?”

He later tweeted, “You’re free to poop on the street in Newsom’s California.”

Newsom isn’t the only high-profile Democrat to target Floridians upset by the state’s controversial new policies.

In April, following the passage of “Don’t Say Gay,” New York City, under the leadership of Mayor Eric Adams, sent a message to Florida’s LGBTQ+ residents by erecting five billboards across the Sunshine State denouncing the law and touting the city as a welcoming place for the gay community.

One ad reads, “Come to the city where you can say whatever you want.” The word “gay” is also printed dozens of times in bright colors across the billboard.

“People say a lot of ridiculous things in New York. ‘Don’t Say Gay’ isn’t one of them,” reads another ad.

Meanwhile, the three other billboard ads have the following messages:

• “When other states show their true colors, we show ours.”
• “Loud. Proud. Still allowed.”
• “New York City is alive. And so is free speech.”

Watch Newsom’s ad targeting Florida’s Republican leaders via NBC Bay area below: