Trump blasts DeSantis’s claim it will take more than four years to ‘finish the job’
Rachel Schilke
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Former President Donald Trump blasted Gov. Ron DeSantis‘s (R-FL) claim that the United States needs a two-term president, bragging that it would only take him less than a year to complete his work.
Trump mocked DeSantis to the crowd at a campaign event in Des Moines, Iowa, on Thursday, saying he could turn the country around in six months.
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“I’ve been watching DeSanctus go out and say, ‘I’ve got eight years. It’s going to be eight years,’” Trump said of DeSantis. “Let me tell you something, you should vote against him. It will take me six months to have it totally the way it was.”
“We’ll have it fast. It’s drilling, it’s the wall, and it’s getting criminals out of our country that have been allowed to come in so freely,” he continued.
Last week, DeSantis told Good Morning NH that the United States is on the “wrong track” and pitched himself as the presidential candidate that can solve “all of these issues” as a likely two-term president — a knock to Trump, who would return to the White House as a lame-duck on Day 1.
DeSantis reiterated his claim in Des Moines earlier this week at a campaign event after announcing his presidential campaign on May 24.
“Let’s just be clear, it really does take two terms as president to be able to finish this job. The bureaucracy is so entrenched that I think we can bring George Washington back. And I don’t think he could fix it in one single four-year term,” DeSantis said to the crowd at his event.
Trump said on Thursday that voters should not throw their support behind DeSantis for president.
“Who the hell wants to wait eight years?” Trump said. “If it takes eight years to turn this around, then you don’t want him.”
Trump and DeSantis are the leading contenders for the Republican nomination in 2024. Sensing a challenge from DeSantis early on, the former president began launching a series of attacks at the Florida governor. He’s created nicknames and disparaged DeSantis’s weight, appearance, and track record as governor.
DeSantis called the mudslinging “juvenile” and “petty” and believes it has alienated voters away from Trump. However, DeSantis said he doesn’t let the attacks bother him.
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“I don’t care what they say about me in terms of name-calling. Although, you know, I would say you need to call me a winner because we’ve won in Florida over and over again,” DeSantis said Thursday. “I don’t care about any of that. But I think it is a distraction. And I think it turns off the voters.”
Recent polling shows Trump with a substantial lead over DeSantis. A poll from Quinnipiac University on May 24 found that Trump received 65% of the vote compared to DeSantis’s 25%.