At Iowa event, DeSantis steers clear of criticizing Trump
DES MOINES — Florida Governor Ron DeSantis vowed “I will get the job done” but shied away from attacking former president Donald Trump as the two top rivals for the Republican presidential nomination were making rare appearances at the same Iowa campaign event on Friday night.
Despite Trump being charged a day earlier with additional counts over his retention of classified documents that could shake up the race, DeSantis stuck to his standard campaign speech, mostly targeting President Biden.
The Florida governor also repeated his frequent promise to halt the “weaponization” of the Justice Department, an allusion to Trump’s legal troubles, but offered no specific thoughts on the cases against him. That’s despite Trump also bracing to be charged soon in Washington over his efforts to overturn the 2020 election.
“The time for excuses is over. We must get the job done,” DeSantis said. “I will get the job done.”
Trump frequently avoids attending multicandidate events in person, questioning why he would share a stage with competitors who are badly trailing him in polls. But with Iowa’s first-in-the-nation caucus less than six months away, the former president joined a dozen other GOP hopefuls in speaking to about 1,200 GOP members and activists at the Lincoln Day Dinner.
“If I weren’t running, I would have nobody coming after me,” Trump said at the dinner in his only veiled reference to his legal issues. He also insisted the same would be true if he were trailing in the polls.
He earlier opened an Iowa campaign office in Urbandale, outside Des Moines, prior to the main event — and wasn’t shy about slamming his competitors around the same time DeSantis was taking the stage at the dinner.
“I understand the other candidates are falling very flat . . . it’s like death,” Trump said, adding, “There’s no applause, there’s no nothing.”
More than 100 people packed the small office, many wearing “Make America Great Again” hats and shirts. They had waited in 100-degree weather to enter, and the poorly ventilated office quickly became sweltering. Staff handed out water bottles, and people fanned themselves with campaign handouts. Some used paper towels to wipe away sweat.
DeSantis, who like most of Friday’s speakers vowed to visit all of Iowa’s 99 counties prior to the caucus, is Trump’s strongest primary competitor but has been trying to reset his stalled campaign for two weeks. He’s increasingly focusing on Iowa in its efforts on trying to derail Trump.
The governor’s stumbles have raised questions about whether another candidate might be able to emerge from the field and catch the former president. Some evangelicals, who can be determinative in the state’s caucuses, have pointed to South Carolina Senator Tim Scott’s upbeat message and pulpit-style delivery as strengths that could help him rise there.
Scott, who also spoke Friday night and didn’t mention
Trump or the cases against him, held a town hall the previous day in Ankeny with Iowa’s Republican Governor Kim Reynolds. Afterward, Scott took a swipe at DeSantis over the Florida governor’s support for new standards that require the state’s teachers to instruct middle school students that slaves developed skills that “could be applied for their personal benefit.”
The only Black Republican in the Senate, Scott said all Americans should recognize how “devastating” slavery was. “There is no silver lining” to slavery, he added.
DeSantis has also faced criticism from teachers and civil rights leaders, as well as mounting pushback from some of his party’s most prominent Black elected officials.