Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis on Tuesday showed new urgency in taking on Donald Trump, attacking the former president at every turn at a CNN town hall in Iowa with the state’s caucuses less than five weeks away.
In the town hall at Grand View University in Des Moines, moderated by CNN’s Jake Tapper, DeSantis turned most questions into opportunities to contrast his record as governor with Trump.
The economy? Trump “set the stage” for rising inflation, DeSantis said. The border crisis? Trump didn’t complete the wall, and Mexico didn’t pay for it, he said. Abortion? Trump is “flip-flopping on the right to life,” the Florida governor claimed.
Here are takeaways from DeSantis’ CNN town hall:
DeSantis came out of the gate with a clear focus on closing his polling gap in the Hawkeye State with Trump.
He took an early shot at Trump, blaming the former president for the country’s inflation woes under current President Joe Biden and for his Republican rival’s actions at the start of the Covid pandemic.
“Shutting down the country was a huge mistake, printing trillions and trillions of dollars was a huge mistake,” he said.
Later, he dinged Trump for failing to finish the wall at the US-Mexico border as he had famously promised in 2016; for not debating him; for criticizing Florida’s new six-week abortion ban; and for not replacing Obamacare with a Republican alternative.
“When he gets off the teleprompter now, you don’t know what he’s gonna say,” DeSantis said. “It’s a different Donald Trump than in ‘15 and ‘16. You know, back then he was colorful, but it was really America First, about the policies. Now a lot of it’s about him.”
It was a striking string of attacks, though, not because it covered new ground. DeSantis has lobbed similar critiques at Trump on the campaign trail for weeks. But he has rarely, in a prime-time appearance, narrowed his attacks so directly at the former president, and at every turn.
Just a week ago, at the fourth GOP presidential debate, it was Haley whom DeSantis went after, beginning his criticism of the former South Carolina governor 30 seconds into the debate. He mentioned Trump only when provoked.
The change in approach Tuesday is perhaps illustrative of the mounting urgency within his campaign to make headway in a state. DeSantis has signaled a readiness to go after Trump in the past, before retreating. It remains to be seen if this time will be different.
DeSantis sharply disagreed with Biden, who earlier Tuesday had warned in a closed-door fundraiser that Israel was losing international support for its campaign against Hamas amid its heavy bombardment of Gaza following the October 7 terrorist attacks.
Biden said that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government “does not want a two-state solution,” referring to the idea of a Palestinian state existing alongside the state of Israel.
DeSantis, though, said Tuesday night that such a solution would be impossible because some groups “want to destroy Israel more than they want their own state.”
“I don’t think you can have a ‘two-state solution’ when the Arabs will view it — the Palestinian Arabs will view it — as a stepping stone to the destruction of Israel,” he said. “Why have we not had a solution there? Because they’ve never recognized Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state. And until they’re willing to do that, anything that would be done would just weaken Israel.”
The Florida governor’s comments came after an Iowa voter asked him which he would consider a higher priority: support for Israel in its war in Gaza or for Ukraine in its war against Russia.
DeSantis chose Israel. He called it “a unique country in terms of our relationship,” and said Europe should do more to support Ukraine.
DeSantis also defended Israel’s tactics in Gaza, saying that the global criticism of the country was “because of antisemitism” and arguing that blame for the war lay entirely with Hamas.
“Hamas should unconditionally surrender. Israel cannot possibly live with a terrorist group who wants to annihilate their entire country and kill every Jew and usher in a second Holocaust,” he said. “So they have every right to defend themselves.”
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