Gov. Ron DeSantis took center stage in downtown Tampa on Thursday, proudly accepting the endorsement of 60 Florida sheriffs for his presidential campaign. The gathering, beyond consolidating law and order as a pillar of his campaign, turned into a platform for DeSantis to launch a series of pointed critiques against former President Donald Trump, the leading contender for the Republican presidential nomination.
During his address, DeSantis scrutinized Trump’s 2016 election commitment to build a border wall funded by Mexico. Highlighting the shortfall in the wall’s completion and the cost borne by U.S. taxpayers, he dismissed Trump’s recent justification that there was “no legal mechanism” for Mexico to finance the wall. Challenging this, DeSantis claimed feasible solutions, such as imposing fees on remittances, could generate the requisite funds.
“I don’t think anybody voted for Biden. They were voting against Trump! That’s why they did it. Let’s just be honest. He energized Democrats,” DeSantis said. “You could have John Kennedy walk through the door right now and he wouldn’t energize Democrats as much as Donald Trump does.”
“When BLM was ransacking cities in the summer of 2020, I wasn’t just sending social media messages saying ‘Law & Order!’ — I ensured Law and Order in the state of Florida,” he said at another point.
His comments marked a significant shift in strategy as he approaches the pivotal Iowa caucuses in January. After struggling to gain momentum, DeSantis has transitioned to direct and at times, stark criticism of Trump, suggesting the former president has failed to keep his promises and moved away from the core values he instilled in the Republican Party. According to DeSantis, this shift positions him as the ideal candidate to progress Trump’s vision.
DeSantis’s newfound willingness to critique Trump was evident during the second Republican presidential debate. He accused Trump of being “missing in action” and highlighted the former president’s failures on his campaign store with items like the satirical “Trump Veto Pen” priced at $7.8 trillion, accompanied by the phrase, “Item Not Found.”
Furthermore, Never Back Down, a super PAC supportive of DeSantis, has been running a series of anti-Trump ads. These advertisements span various subjects, from Trump’s stance on abortion and COVID policies to his decision not to charge former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Recent finance documents reveal that this super PAC has invested significantly in promoting these messages in pivotal states, including Iowa, North Carolina, and New Hampshire.
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7 Responses
For all those who doubted me when I said in order to run against Trump you’ll end up saying the 2020 election wasn’t stolen…
He isn’t wrong, and that is part of why I don’t plan to vote for Donald in the primary.
@MDschweks:
Saying no one voted for Biden isn’t saying the election want stolen (and I’m not saying it was or wasn’t).
There clearly were millions of votes that were cast for the Democratic nominee, the claim by Desantis is that the bulk of those votes were in protest of the Donald as opposed to being in support of JRB’s policy positions.
MDSchwecks, the election may well have been stolen. Certainly the Democrats went to great lengths to cheat. But at the end of the day the fact remains that of the however many people there were who genuinely cast votes for Biden, many of them were voting not for Biden but against Trump, and would not have come out had there been a different Republican nominee.
Why do you need such an old president?
Trump caused a lot of trouble for the GOP, and certainly DeSantis is right, Trump brought out the Democrat vote.
I hear, but if you believe it was stolen all that is totally irrelevant, no?
No, it’s completely relevant. Had Biden not received the votes that he genuinely did receive, all the cheating would not have helped him (if indeed it did help, which we will never know).