In Iowa, DeSantis signals the start of a brawl with Trump
Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida came to Iowa for his first trip as a presidential candidate and made it clear that he was done being Donald J. Trump’s punching bag.
After months of receiving attacks from Mr. Trump that went largely unanswered, Mr. DeSantis has borrowed one of his rival’s favorite lines — “I’m going to counterpunch” — and jabbed back.
He called one of the spending bills Mr Trump signed “grotesque” and accused him of increasing the national debt. He said the way Mr. Trump had sided with Disney in Mr. DeSantis’ war with the entertainment giant was “bizarre.” He described Mr Trump’s criticism of the governor’s handling of Covid as “ridiculous”. And he challenged Mr. Trump to take a stand on the debt limitation bill pending in Washington.
“Do you lead from the front?” Mr. DeSantis said almost teasingly. “Or are you waiting for polls to tell you what position to take?”
A tricky balancing act awaits Mr. DeSantis. All of those comments didn’t come onstage during his first campaign speech to hundreds of Republicans at an evangelical church, but during a 15-minute press conference with reporters afterward. He did not mention Mr. Trump by name when speaking directly to voters in each of his first three stops in Iowa, though he has drawn implied contrasts.
The bipartisan approach reflects the remarkable degree to which his path to the nomination depends on his ability to persuade — not alienate — the sizable bloc of Republican voters who still love Trump, even if they are willing to consider an alternative.
“I don’t like to see them fight and smear campaigns,” said Jay Schelhaas, 55, a nursing professor who visited Mr. DeSantis Wednesday in Pella, Iowa. As an evangelical voter, he said he did not know who he would support in 2024 after supporting Trump in his two previous presidential elections.
Some themes have emerged in Mr. DeSantis’ early broadsides. He has sought to question Mr. Trump’s commitment to conservatism (“I unfortunately think he has decided to go left on some of these issues”); his ability to carry out his agenda (“I’ve been listening to these politicians talk about securing the border for years and years”); and his ability to win the 2024 general election (“There are many voters who will never vote for him”).
It was no coincidence that Mr. Trump arrived on the heels of Mr. DeSantis in Iowa on Wednesday, signaling the increasing political skirmish between the leading Republican presidential candidates and Iowa’s pivotal role in their path to the nomination. Mr. Trump has an advantage of about 30 percentage points in early national polls from the Republican primary.
In a statement, Steven Cheung, a spokesman for Mr. Trump, said Mr. DeSantis’ first speech was “intended to appease established Never Trumpers who are looking for a swamp puppet who will do their bidding.”
Mr. DeSantis seeks a challenging middle ground as he enters this new, more confrontational phase. He’s trying to show voters that he’s the kind of fighter who will never back down — not even against his party’s dominant figure. At the same time, he must avoid being seen as overly focused on Republican infighting.
“I’m going to turn my fire on Biden,” Mr. DeSantis said during his kickoff speech Tuesday night in Clive, a suburb of Des Moines, as he ramped up his attacks on Mr. Trump. “And I think he should do the same.”
Advisers to Mr. DeSantis said his more assertive attitude stemmed largely from the fact that he is now a real candidate. But it’s a remarkable shift. At a recent dinner with donors in Tallahassee, Florida, Mr. DeSantis was asked when he was going to punch Mr. Trump, and suggested he wouldn’t immediately, according to one attendee, who spoke on condition of anonymity in a private conversation.
For the third time in Mr. DeSantis to Iowa this year, Mr. Trump plans to follow suit with a two-day swing of his own. In March, when Mr. DeSantis came for his book tour, Mr. Trump arrived in the same city days later, drawing a larger audience. In mid-May, Mr. Trump scheduled a rally to stamp out the Florida governor’s trip, though he canceled at the last minute, saying it was because of the weather. It was Mr. DeSantis who then boosted him and showed up at a nearby barbecue joint.
“The weather was so nice that we felt we just had to come,” Mr. DeSantis told Clive, laughing.
Mr. Trump is doing a local television interview on Wednesday and on Thursday he will host a luncheon with religious leaders in Des Moines after attending a breakfast with a local Republican group. He also hosts a Fox News town hall event moderated by Sean Hannity.
Mr. Trump has been far from subtle in his attacks on Mr. DeSantis, calling him “Ron DeSanctimonious,” denouncing his Florida leadership and slamming him from the left for previous proposals to cut Social Security spending and health care reduction.
“I think he has to respond somehow,” Tim Hamer, a retired Iowan who worked in banking and owned a lavender farm, said of Mr. DeSantis. Mr Hamer, who attended the governor’s event at Council Bluffs on Wednesday, said he had voted for Mr Trump in 2016 and 2020 but was now leaning towards Mr DeSantis
“The point is,” he added, “don’t descend to Trump’s level.”
One of the issues on which Mr. DeSantis has explicitly broken with Mr. Trump is legislation the former president signed into law allowing nonviolent offenders to have their jail terms reduced. Last week, Mr. DeSantis called the measure “a jailbreak law.”
Mr. DeSantis has also pointed to his ability to serve two terms as president, in contrast to Mr. Trump, who said the next president could appoint as many as four Supreme Court justices.
He said Tuesday: “I don’t need someone to give me a list to know what a conservative justice looks like.” Mr. Trump — whose nomination of the justices who tilted the Supreme Court to the right and overturned Roe v. Wade applauded conservatives — pledged in the 2016 campaign to pick a judge from a list prepared by conservative judicial activists, and he has promised to release another list before 2024.
Regina Hansen, who attended the DeSantis event at Council Bluffs, said she wished Mr. Trump and Mr. DeSantis would restore their once friendly relationship. But in the meantime, she said, she thought the best way for Mr. DeSantis to win over Trump supporters was to keep talking about himself, his track record and his family.
“I have a very positive opinion of him, more so than before I came here today,” said Ms. Hansen after hearing Mr. DeSantis speak.
But Will Schademann, who came to the meeting with a copy of Mr. DeSantis’ recent book, said he felt the governor should continue the attack on the former president.
“I just think it’s the right approach,” said Mr Schademann, who added that he has voted for Mr Trump twice. “He needs to contrast what he did with what Trump did.”
At his Wednesday stops in Council Bluffs and Salix, Iowa, Mr. DeSantis his verbal attacks on President Biden and continued his lashings at Mr. Trump slanted.
“Our great American comeback tour begins by sending Joe Biden back to his basement in Delaware,” he told Council Bluffs.
In contrast, Mr. DeSantis indirectly but emphatically criticized Mr. Trump, a bombastic former reality TV star.
“The Bible makes it very clear that God disapproves of pride and looks at people who have humility,” he said.
In recent days, Mr. DeSantis has seemed especially excited to talk about his handling of the coronavirus, which propelled him to national fame. Mr. Trump recently compared unfavorably how the governor handled the pandemic with that of former New York Democrat governor Andrew M. Cuomo.
Mr. DeSantis has tried to deflect this attack, noting that at least at the beginning of the pandemic, the Trump and Cuomo administrations agreed on the need to close non-essential businesses to contain the spread of the virus. to go.
“The former president would double his lockdowns from March 2020,” Mr DeSantis said.
“Do you want Cuomo or do you want free Florida?” he added. “If we just decided the primaries on that, I’d be happy with that verdict from Iowa voters.”
Bret Hayworth contributed reporting from Salix, Iowa.