DeSantis hits back at Trump during California GOP convention
Mabinty Quarshie
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ANAHEIM, California — Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) hit back at former President Donald Trump‘s claim that he turned Florida red during a dinner address to the California GOP convention on Friday.
DeSantis’s comments came after Trump derisively referred to him as “Ron DeSanctimonious” earlier on Friday during the convention, and bragged about his polling advantage over all his 2024 rivals. Trump is currently leading the Florida governor 57.6% to 13.7% according to a RealClearPolitics poll average.
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“I understand that one of my residents was here earlier saying that he turned Florida red,” DeSantis said without directly naming Trump. “All I will say is that Ronald Reagan made the point there’s no limit to what you can do when you don’t care who gets the credit. I just wished if he was the one that turned Florida red that he wouldn’t have turned Georgia and Arizona blue because that’s not been good for us at all.”
Trump lost both Arizona and Georgia, two crucial battleground states, in his 2020 election loss to President Joe Biden. Some experts have said that the former president’s involvement in Georgia’s senatorial races in 2020, the subsequent runoff races, and the 2022 midterm elections cost Republicans the two Senate seats — leading Democrats to take back and maintain control of the Senate with the elections of Sens. Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock.
DeSantis also implicitly criticized Trump for contributing to the national debt, which he has often done on the campaign trail.
“We know that the inflation that we’re suffering under is the result of borrowing, printing, and spending by members of Congress in both parties across two administrations over the last three and a half years that sunk trillions and trillions of dollars into the economy paying people not to work, doing all this other stuff,” he said. “Of course, you are going to get inflation when that happens.”
The national debt hit $33 trillion this month for the first time in the nation’s history. Under Trump’s administration, the national debt increased by $7.8 trillion, according to the Treasury Department. However, the former president dealt with the unprecedented
pressures of the COVID-19 pandemic which caused the nation’s debt to soar.
Trump’s Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017, which is estimated to cost over $1.8 trillion for the 2018-2028 period, including interest, was another contributing factor.
While the Trump and DeSantis campaigns have continuously feuded over several issues, the California GOP convention had increased tensions due to the state party’s recent rule changes in how delegates in the state are allotted.
Never Back Down, the super PAC that is backing DeSantis’s presidential campaign, pulled resources out of California due to the state GOP’s proposal in late July to change delegate allocation rules during next year’s Super Tuesday primary. The state’s new rule awards the candidate who receives more than 50% of the vote in the primary all of its 169 delegates, the most of any other state. If no candidate surpasses 50% then delegates are proportionally awarded based on a statewide vote.
A spokeswoman for Never Back Down, Erin Perrine, told the Washington Examiner in late August that the move was “Trump-inspired rigging.”
DeSantis agreed to a Nov. 30 Fox News debate with Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA) in Georgia, after the two have been clashing over recent months and challenging one another to meet onstage. The Florida governor alluded to the upcoming debate during his speech.
“I think most of you know we’re scheduled to have a little tussle with your governor on Fox News,” he said to cheers. “He’ll pull out statistics and this and that. And I can pull out statistics like for example just today, Florida got ranked number one for education freedom by the American Legislative Exchange Council. I can go all day with stuff like that.”
But DeSantis said that what mattered most was not the back-and-forth with Newsom but with how California residents are leaving the Golden State for elsewhere.
“When people have to make decisions about themselves, about their families, about their freedom, how are they behaving? And people are leaving for the first time in the history of California,” said DeSantis. “Where’s the number one destination that people are leaving these failed blue states? They’re going to the free state of Florida.”
“The California model represents more American decline,” he added. “The Florida model represents a way for us to reverse American decline and represents a way to have an American revival. And that’s ultimately the choice that people are going to have to make.”
During his address, DeSantis went through a litany of issues that he’s mentioned previously including blocking black lives matter protests in Florida, banning classroom instructions on gender and sexuality in K-12 schools, building a wall at the southern border, and curbing crime rates in Florida.
DeSantis pointed to his tenure as governor as the key reason he’s the best-suited Republican to become the party’s next standard-bearer.
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“In Florida, we have produced results that are second to none,” he said before referencing Wednesday’s GOP debate. “People say things that I think they think you want to hear. And that’s better (than) saying the wrong things don’t get me wrong. But I’m the only guy on that stage that’s actually delivered on every single issue that we’re talking about,” he said to applause.
Before he ended the speech DeSantis implored California Republicans to fight back against attacks on their freedom. “I’m not backing down. We’ve got a country to save. Let’s get the job done,” DeSantis concluded.