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.
Here are takeaways from the CNN town hall:
Focusing on the front-runner: 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.
It continued extensively from there, with DeSantis lobbing a total of eight attacks on the former president over the course of the hour. 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.
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.
DeSantis says Trump is “flip-flopping” on abortion: DeSantis has faced criticism – including within the GOP – for signing into law a measure that bans most abortions after about six weeks, with Trump implying it was “too harsh.”
He argued Tuesday night that Florida’s law includes exceptions for situations such as the one faced by Kate Cox, the Texas woman who sought court approval to have an abortion after learning her fetus has a fatal condition and doctors told her she could risk her future fertility if she doesn’t get the procedure. The Texas Supreme Court on Monday ruled against her, even though Cox had already left the state to seek an abortion elsewhere.
The six-week abortion ban that DeSantis signed in Florida includes limited exceptions for cases of rape, incest, pregnancies that jeopardize the life of the mother and fatal fetal defects.
He then pivoted to an attack on Trump, noting the former president had, while in office, strongly opposed abortion rights. He said Trump is now “flip-flopping on the right to life.”
On a two-state solution and Israel: 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.”
DeSantis dodges on Obamacare and Social Security: Though DeSantis criticized Trump for not implementing a replacement for the Affordable Care Act, his own plan remains to be determined.
DeSantis said he would roll out his own health care plan “deeper in the election season” – meaning likely after Republicans in the early-nominating states have already picked their nominee.
Similarly, DeSantis criticized Haley’s position on reforming Social Security, but he largely avoided specifics on how he would preserve its longevity – avoiding a topic that dogged him earlier in the campaign season.
Read more of the key moments from the Iowa town hall with Ron DeSantis.
Source: www.cnn.com