Florida Democrat Andrew Gillum refuses to 'get down in the gutter with DeSantis and Trump' in Fox News interview with Shep Smith

Florida Democrat Andrew Gillum took the high road as he appeared on Fox News with Shep Smith on Wednesday to discuss racially insensitive remarks made by his opponent just a few hours before.

In a morning interview with host Sandra Smith, Florida's GOP candidate for governor, Ron DeSantis, labeled him “articulate” and warned that he would “monkey up” the state.

“Florida elections are always competitive, and this is a guy who, although he is much too liberal for Florida, he has huge problems with how he’s governed Tallahassee, he is an articulate spokesman for those far left views,” DeSantis said. “The last thing we need to do is to monkey this up by trying to embrace a socialist agenda.”

Smith asked Gillum to respond.

"That part was not lost on me. It's very clear that Mr. DeSantis is taking a page directly from the campaign manual of Donald Trump," Gillum said. "But I think he's got another thing coming to him if he thinks that, in today's day of age, Florida voters are going to respond to that level of derision and division. They're sick of it."

"Was that racist or a figment of speech?" Smith interjected.

Gillum said he would stick to the issues.

"I'm not going to get down in the gutter with DeSantis and Trump. There's enough of that going on," Gillum said. "I'm going to try to stay high... and talk about the future of this state."

Watch below.