Today, on Fox News “The Ingraham Angle,” 2024 GOP presidential candidate Governor Ron DeSantis (R-FL) asked his rival, former President Trump, to take part in this week’s Republican presidential debate.
Polls show that DeSantis is far behind Trump in the national race. He explained how he would attack Trump if the chance came up.
“In the event that Donald Trump was to appear on stage next to you, what would you say to him to close the gap between the two of you?” Laura Ingraham, head of FNC, said.
DeSantis responded, “Well, I find it interesting, and he doesn’t want to be standing on that stage. It’s his duty to present himself, defend his track record, and explain what he would do if elected. How would you change things going forward? He is not willing to do this, and I think people should be able to hear from all of the candidates. Apparently, he hasn’t been ready to step up and do it.”
“Gov., how would you deal with him?” Ingraham replied.
DeSantis answered, “Well, he needs to step up to the plate, and after that, we’ll do it. Well, I believe we could speak about quite a number of things. In 2024, he is running on a great deal of the same promises that he made in 2016 but didn’t keep. He said they would drain the swamp, but they didn’t do it. He still says it’s okay to hire Christopher Wray. Wray wasn’t fired. He didn’t have Fauci fired. Mexico had agreed to pay for the wall, he said. It didn’t happen. They began building the wall, but we still need to do a whole lot more to complete it.”
He went on, “He said he would work to get rid of the national debt. In four years, they piled almost $8 trillion to the debt. Also, don’t forget that he said he would hire a special counsel for Hillary Clinton. Two weeks later, following the election, he says, Oh no, forget about it. You say it in the run-up to the election. This is what you say next. It sounds like he is planning to create one for Biden now, but he said he would do that in 2016.”
DeSantis said, “So I believe it is about you having to do these things. We can’t change the country if we keep doing the same thing and fail to deliver on our promises. It’s now time to show accomplishments. We are going to be at Reagan’s library. He told us it was time to make a choice and that it was our meeting with fate. If we don’t make the right choice, I fear that the America we leave our children and grandchildren will be less free and far less prosperous compared to the one we received.”
