At a town hall in New Hampshire on Dec. 15, Gov. Ron DeSantis came out swinging at both President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump, answering possibly to criticism that he has not been aggressive enough against the top contenders in the race for president.
Mr. DeSantis pointed out President Trump’s failed cabinet picks during his presidency and suggested the possibility that President Trump would have difficulty assembling one in a second term given the legal challenges leveled at the previous Trump administration.
He laid out a trail of undelivered promises by President Trump during his presidency—including his vow to build the wall to protect the United States against massive illegal immigration and the flow of drugs over the southern border and his pledge to “drain the swamp.”
During his campaign, the governor of Florida said that President Trump has also failed to take a much-needed strong stand against the woke ideology attacking American family values, accusing him of hedging on questions about transgender ideology.
“Donald Trump was asked whether a man will become a woman. His answer was ‘ah ah ah ah,’” said Mr. DeSantis. “He really didn’t really give a good answer on that.”
Adding to his offensive attacks against President Trump, Mr. DeSantis also emphasized the former president’s inescapable lame duck status since he has already served one-term.
“He'd be a lame duck on day one because could not serve two consecutive terms,” Mr. DeSantis said, adding that that would “almost guarantee” that Democrats would reverse any of Trump’s policies. “If you’re there eight years, even the executive actions after an eight year period, they do start to stick to where it’s a little harder to reverse because so many other things grew up around it.”
Earlier in the day, following a campaign appearance in New Hampshire’s capital city of Concord, Mr. DeSantis told reporters there that if President Trump were to lose the Iowa caucus or New Hampshire primary, he would probably just blame it on election fraud.
“If Trump loses, he will say it’s stolen, no matter what. Absolutely. He will try to delegitimize the results,” Mr. DeSantis said.
The GOP hopeful also took a few more swipes at President Biden than he has in past campaign speeches, opening his Windham appearance with a comparison of his five-year old son to President Biden’s son Hunter. “The only thing you’re gonna have to worry about my kids bringing back to the White House is homework and not cocaine,” Mr. DeSantis quipped. “He’s not going to be making business deals overseas. Don’t worry about that.”
Under his administration, Mr. DeSantis added, “It’s gonna be a very G-rated White House.”
He even questioned President Trump and President Biden’s moral standpoints on such controversies as releasing records from the operations of sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein, using it as an example for a call of more transparency from elected officials.
Support
New Hampshire Sen. Regina Birdsell, who attended Mr. DeSantis’s Windham’s appearance, told The Epoch Times she was impressed with the Florida governor’s “rock solid” speech, saying that she’s with him 100 percent in his quest for The White House.As a U.S. Coast Guard veteran, she supports Mr. DeSantis because he is the only veteran running for the presidency. Policy wise, she said, she is especially aligned with his push to keep China from buying any more American real estate, having introduced a bill in New Hampshire to block land purchases by China in New Hampshire.
Others like Beth Schaer of Nashua, who was hearing Mr. DeSantis speak for the third time since he launched his campaign, told The Epoch Times that she is an ex-Trump supporter looking for a candidate with conservative values without bullying his way to the presidency.
She’s also looking for someone who can get the national debt under control—and from what she has seen Mr. DeSantis do in Florida, she believes he is the only candidate that can. “He’s the real deal,” she said.
Even current Trump supporters such as Liz Barbour of Hollis, New Hampshire, who is running for a seat in the New Hampshire House, said she is really starting to warm up to Mr. DeSantis. “I still like Trump, but DeSantis is starting to show that he has a proven track record and plan to get this country back on its feet,” she said.
They and others in the crowd recognized that Mr. DeSantis has a lot of work cut out for him to catch up to President Trump, who is leading the GOP pack, according to some national polls, by as much as 50 percent.
Ms. Schaer feels that Mr. DeSantis has plenty of time to do so. “He has the time and he has the energy,” she said, pointing out that he is currently the only candidate holding down a full time job running a state while running for president.
Others at Mr. DeSantis’s Windham small town hall rally also pointed to the advantage of his young age compared to President Trump who, if re-elected, will be 82 at the end of his term—a year over President Biden’s current age.
Mr. DeSantis, who is 45 with three young children, ages 5, 4, and 2, unwittingly or not spotlighted just how young he is compared to President Trump when he revealed he is still paying off student loans. He did so when responding to an answer from an audience member of how he was going to prevent “grifting of public office.”
Leading off by first saying “taxpayers shouldn’t be paying off my student loans”—a jab to President Biden’s relentless push to forgiven student loan debate—Mr. DeSantis landed what was his biggest round of applause of the night when he said that on day one, he would propose legislation to prohibit Congress from trading stocks and also take away their gold-plated pensions, which are nearly double what the average American worker receives while they pay for the congressional pension through income taxes.
“I don’t think members of Congress should be able to do the stock trades because they literally make inside information, leveraging the office to be able to make money where you as an American would not be able to do that. So I would say you ban that.” He added, “There’s no reason why these congressmen should be getting these pensions, they should do the 401(k) like everybody else.”
Mr. DeSantis said he sold his stocks when he was elected as governor to avoid any appearance of impropriety.
