OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author's opinion.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who has been running second behind Donald Trump for the 2024 GOP presidential nomination throughout the race thus far, predicted that Trump will make excuses should he lose the first-in-the-nation primary in Iowa next month.
“If Trump loses, he will say it’s stolen no matter what. He will try to delegitimize the results,” DeSantis told reporters following a rally in New Hampshire on Friday, according to Fox News.
DeSantis further noted that Trump “did that against Ted Cruz in 2016,” as he referred to Trump’s tweet after narrowly losing the caucuses to the conservative senator from Texas in which Trump wrote: “Ted Cruz didn’t win Iowa, he stole it.”
All said, however, DeSantis is running a distant second to Trump in Iowa polling.
During his town hall discussion and in response to reporters, he consistently criticized Trump for not fulfilling 2016 campaign promises, deemed him too old for a potential return to the presidency, and highlighted his absence from debates with fellow Republican contenders for the nomination.
“He’s promising the same things he did in ’16 that he didn’t deliver. And now he’s just running on the same stuff again,” he argued. “You know, we didn’t get a wall. We didn’t get the swamp drained. He said he was going to go after Hillary [Clinton] and then let her off the hook two weeks after the election.”
“Why won’t he [Trump] debate? Why not?” he asked during his session with reporters. “And I do think he would not perform the way they remember the Trump from 2015 and ’16. I think that’s the real reason he’s not debating.”
Trump is “a different guy now, and I think he owes it to actually show up and answer questions,” DeSantis insisted.
“When is the last time he stood on a stage and just took questions from voters?” DeSantis asked. “Has he done that at any point in this campaign? He certainly hasn’t done it on a debate stage. How often has he been willing to go and really answer the tough questions… people want to see you earn it.”
In response, Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung said in a statement to Fox News that “Ron DeSantis is acting out on his Lincoln Project fantasies and doing his best impression of a Never Trumper by reciting Democrat talking points peddled by Crooked Joe Biden and his campaign.”
Cheung also charged that “when Ron’s political career is finished in a few weeks, he can start moonlighting as a Democrat surrogate because he’s showing everyone his true colors.”
Last week, DeSantis left no doubt during a campaign stop in New Hampshire on Friday over the question of whether he would serve as the former president’s running mate.
In a word, no.
During the campaign event, DeSantis also said that former South Carolina governor and UN ambassador under Trump, Nikki Haley, has not been as clear with her response.
“She will not answer directly — and she owes you an answer to this — will she accept a vice presidential nomination from Donald Trump? Yes or no?” DeSantis said during a campaign stop in New Hampshire. “And I can tell you, under any circumstance, I will not accept that because that’s not why I’m running. I’m running for the nomination and to be president. … I’d rather be governor than vice president, no question.”
At another point, DeSantis said he’s the only one who can beat out Trump for the nomination.
“I’m the only one that can beat [Trump] — there’s a reason they spend money against me. He has not spent any money against her. She has not spent any money against him,” he said.
