By MICHELLE L. PRICE, HOLLY RAMER and WILL WEISSERT (Associated Press)
HOLLIS, N.H. (AP) — Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and former President Donald Trump traded barbs on Tuesday as the 2 main Republican White House candidates staged dueling occasions within the essential early voting state of New Hampshire.
Addressing a city corridor in Hollis, DeSantis vowed to “actually” construct the U.S.-Mexico border wall that Trump tried however failed to finish in his first time period whereas pledging to tear down Washington’s conventional energy facilities in ways in which Trump fell quick.
Speaking later at a Republican ladies’s luncheon within the state capital of Concord, Trump countered that DeSantis was being compelled to accept second place within the major and accused the governor of supporting cuts to Social Security, Medicare and different entitlement applications as a solution to tame federal spending.
Beyond the rhetoric, the conflicting occasions demonstrated every candidate’s evolving technique. DeSantis took in depth viewers questions — a trademark in New Hampshire politics that he eschewed throughout his earlier go to to the state, drawing criticisms that he was stilted and overly scripted.
Trump, in the meantime, supplied his conventional, free-wheeling speech for greater than hour however didn’t take questions. Reporters protecting the occasion had been confined to a pen, chaperoned to the toilet and advised they might not communicate to attendees within the convention heart ballroom and even within the hallways.
DeSantis, requested about individuals who had twice voted for Trump over his guarantees to “drain the swamp,” used his reply to attract a few of his sharpest contrasts but with the previous president.
“He didn’t drain it. It’s worse today than it’s ever been,” DeSantis stated. He added that such guarantees don’t go far sufficient as a result of a subsequent president “can just refill it.”
“I want to break the swamp,” DeSantis stated, pledging to take energy out of the nation’s capital by instructing Cabinet businesses to halve the variety of workers there.
Many main Republicans stay fiercely loyal to Trump, however there may be some proof that the assaults in opposition to the previous president are resonating. Speaking about Trump on Tuesday, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, a California Republican, stated, “Can he win that election? Yeah, he can win that election.”
“The question is, is he the strongest to win the election?” McCarthy continued on CNBC’s “Squawk Box.” “I don’t know that answer.”
At his personal occasion, Trump famous that DeSantis is “holding an event right now to compete with us.” Trump vowed to “drain the swamp once and for all” however used the slogan extra to criticize President Joe Biden than the Florida governor.
“You can’t drain the swamp if you’re part of the swamp, and Joe Biden and other opponents, many of them, are all owned, controlled, bought and paid for, 100%,” Trump stated.
The former president echoed DeSantis in promising that “this election will be the end of the world for the corrupt political class in our nation’s capital.”
DeSantis was additionally requested in regards to the pro-Trump mob that overran the U.S. Capitol in January 2021, as Congress was assembly to certify Biden’s 2020 victory, and responded, “If it’s about relitigating things that happened two or three years ago, we’re going to lose.”
“I wasn’t anywhere near Washington that day. I had nothing to do with what happened that day. Obviously, I didn’t enjoy seeing. You know what happened. But we’ve got to go forward on this stuff,” DeSantis stated. ”We can’t be wanting backwards.”
That, too, contrasted with Trump, who repeated baseless claims Tuesday that he was denied a second time period as a result of the opposite aspect “cheated.” Numerous federal and native officers, a protracted listing of courts, prime former marketing campaign staffers and even Trump’s personal legal professional normal have all stated there is no such thing as a proof of the fraud he alleges.
The simultaneous visits by the candidates intensified the scrutiny of the function that New Hampshire, the first-in-the-nation GOP major state, will play in deciding the following Republican presidential nominee. Much of the main focus of the early major has been on Iowa and South Carolina, the place evangelical Christians are dominant.
Spending time in New Hampshire, against this, offers the candidates had been testing their messages in entrance of a extra libertarian-leaning citizens.
Trump’s first-place end in New Hampshire’s 2016 Republican major — after dropping Iowa to Texas Sen. Ted Cruz — helped propel him to dominance within the get together. But his Democratic rivals ended up successful the state in each the 2016 and 2020 normal elections.
Before his speech, Trump introduced that his New Hampshire crew options 150-plus devoted activists and organizers all through the state’s 10 counties.
DeSantis’ marketing campaign angered some members of the New Hampshire Federation of Republican Women by scheduling his city corridor across the identical time Trump was addressing the group’s lunch gathering. It complained that DeSantis’ occasion is “an attempt to steal focus from” its personal lunch, and that different presidential candidates scheduled round it.
That didn’t cease DeSantis from utilizing his city corridor to speak up the brand new immigration coverage proposal he launched Monday in South Texas, betting that the difficulty can energize GOP voters, even those that are 2,000 miles north of the U.S.-Mexico border.
“We’re actually going to build the wall,” DeSantis stated of Trump’s failed pledges to take action. “A lot of politicians chirp. They make grandiose promises and then fail to deliver the actual results. The time for excuses is over. Now is the time to deliver results and finally get the job done.”
DeSantis’ immigration plan was the primary main coverage rollout of his marketing campaign and requires ending birthright citizenship, ending the border wall and sending U.S. forces into Mexico to fight drug cartels. Many of these largely mirror Trump’s insurance policies, whereas going through lengthy odds since they’d require reversing authorized precedents, approval from different nations and even amending the U.S. Constitution.
But the Florida governor additionally tailor-made his Tuesday message to New Hampshire, noting how more durable border safety might finally assist restrict the ravages of opioids, which have hit the state significantly laborious, at the same time as deaths from overdoses have climbed everywhere in the nation.
He promised the “most assertive” coverage in opposition to drug cartels “any administration has ever had,” including, ”We need to do it as a result of it’ll save lives.”
DeSantis has tried to realize floor on Trump by questioning the previous president’s continued maintain on the nationwide get together. At the city corridor, the governor slammed the GOP’s “culture of losing” below Trump and talked about the “massive red wave” that many prime Republicans predicted however that by no means materialized nationally in final yr’s midterm elections.
“We had a red wave in Florida,” DeSantis stated, noting he simply received reelection final fall. “But that’s because we delivered results in Florida.”
Source: www.bostonherald.com”