The two Republican White House candidates mocked each other with DeSantis vowing to ‘actually’ build the US-Mexico border wall Trump failed to complete while Trump accused DeSantis of supporting cuts to Social Security and Medicare.
The rivalry between Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and former US president Donald Trump deepened on Tuesday as the two leading Republican White House candidates mocked each other during duelling events in the critical early voting state of New Hampshire. Addressing a town hall in Hollis, DeSantis vowed to “actually” build the US-Mexico border wall that Trump tried but failed to complete as president. He also pledged to tear down Washington’s traditional power centres in ways that Trump fell short. Speaking later at a Republican women’s lunch in Concord, Trump countered that DeSantis was being forced to settle for second place in the primary and accused the governor of supporting cuts to Social Security, Medicare and other entitlement programmes as a way to tame federal spending. Beyond the rhetoric, the conflicting events showed each candidate’s evolving strategy. DeSantis took extensive audience questions – a trademark in New Hampshire politics that he eschewed during his previous visit to the state, drawing criticisms that he was stilted and overly scripted. Trump, meanwhile, offered a freewheeling speech for more than hour. He did not take questions in Concord, and reporters covering the event were confined to a pen, chaperoned to the bathroom and told they could not speak to attendees in the conference centre ballroom or even in the hallways. But the former president answered questions at a subsequent stop in Manchester, where he opened his New Hampshire campaign office. DeSantis, asked about people who had twice voted for Trump because of his promises to “drain the swamp” in Washington, used his answer to draw some of his sharpest contrasts yet with the former president. “He didn’t drain it. It’s worse today than it’s ever been,” DeSantis said. He added that such promises don’t go far enough because a subsequent president “can just refill it.” “I want to break the swamp,” DeSantis said, pledging to take power out of Washington by instructing Cabinet agencies to halve the number of employees there. Court says Trump must face New York civil fraud claims; Ivanka case tossed DeSantis has tried to gain ground on Trump by questioning the former president’s continued hold on the national Republican Party. At his town hall, the governor slammed the Republicans’ “culture of losing” under Trump and mentioned the “massive red wave” that many in the Republican Party predicted but that never materialised nationally in last year’s midterm elections.
