Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) lashed out at former President Donald Trump in his first town hall since coming in second in the Iowa Caucuses.
DeSantis spent much of the CNN Town Hall, hosted by Wolf Blitzer, criticizing Trump, whom he had just lost to in Iowa by a historic margin. He explained his loss by saying that Trump wields tremendous star power, but he attempted to downplay it by touting the percentage of voters who had chosen another candidate.
“He was the former president of the United States, he’s one of the most famous people that’s ever been involved in American politics,” DeSantis said. “And there’s obviously a lot of Republicans that appreciated his policies, but you still had roughly half of the Iowa caucus-goers that made another choice. And so that tells me that there is an appetite for a different leader, and I think what I represent is somebody that has delivered on those key conservative policies that we’ve all been wanting to see in Washington, D.C.”
He went on to tout his record as governor of Florida, using it to say that he would deliver on promises he said Trump didn’t deliver on.
“Honestly a lot of what Donald Trump promised to do but didn’t deliver, whether that is the border wall, whether that is reducing debt, whether that is draining the swamp. So, I think as the field has narrowed, we are now in a position where people are going to be able to make even better choices,” DeSantis said.
DeSantis also claimed that a state’s Republican party was trying to “rig” a caucus for Trump, but he said that he was “willing to fight in all these situations.”
He also said that he was the “only one who’s not running a basement campaign at this point,” objecting to Trump’s and former United Nations ambassador Nikki Haley’s decisions to forgo the debate.
The Florida Republican told voters that nominating Trump would result in a general election loss in 2024, as it would focus the election on unfavorable issues.
CLICK HERE FOR MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
“We have a choice as Republicans — what do we want the 2024 election to be about? With me as your nominee, it’ll be about holding Biden accountable on the economy, on the border, on crime, on the problems internationally, on the growth of government and the bureaucracy, bringing accountability for Covid, ending weaponization of federal agencies, and then offering a way where we can restore the American dream and get the nation’s [finances] in order. I think we win if that’s how the debate is,” he said.
“If Donald Trump is the nominee, the election will revolve around all these legal issues, his trials, perhaps convictions if he goes to trial and loses there, and about things like January 6th,” he continued. “We are going to lose if that is the decision that voters are making based on that. We don’t want it to be a referendum on those issues. We [want it] to be a referendum on the country going in the wrong direction and a candidate like me being a president can reverse the decline and here’s the thing.”
