"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.ĭeSantis has tried to gain ground on Trump by questioning the former president's continued hold on the national Republican party. He added that such promises don't go far enough because a subsequent president "can just refill it." It's worse today than it's ever been," DeSantis said. But the former president answered questions at a subsequent stop in Manchester, where he opened his New Hampshire campaign office.ĭeSantis, 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 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 center ballroom or even in the hallways. Trump, meanwhile, offered a free-wheeling speech for more than hour. 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. Speaking later at a Republican women's luncheon 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 programs as a way to tame federal spending.īeyond the rhetoric, the conflicting events demonstrated each candidate's evolving strategy. He also pledged to tear down Washington's traditional power centers in ways that Trump fell short. Ron DeSantis and former President Donald Trump deepened Tuesday as the two leading Republican White House candidates mocked each other during dueling events in the critical early voting state of New Hampshire.Īddressing a town hall in Hollis, DeSantis vowed to "actually" build the U.S.-Mexico border wall that Trump tried but failed to complete as president.
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