CNN
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Former President Donald Trump and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ long-awaited Iowa campaign rally on Saturday failed to materialize as bad weather, including tornado warnings, forced Trump to cancel a rally scheduled in Des Moines.
“Unfortunately, due to tornado warnings in Des Moines, we are forced to cancel today’s outdoor rally at Lauridsen Amphitheater. Stay tuned, we will be rescheduling it soon. Be safe out there! ” the former president posted on his Truth Social platform.
Trump, who is making his third bid for the White House, has shown early dominance over the GOP primary field, but his frequent attacks on DeSantis have indicated he views the Florida governor as his most serious potential challenger.
DeSantis, meanwhile, has been cautiously approaching the GOP frontrunner in 2024 as he maneuvers toward a presidential campaign of his own. The governor has spent much of the past month avoiding Trump, dodging the former president’s constant missives and deflecting questions about his potential challenger’s mounting legal troubles, and there’s little sign he plans to change tack any time soon. to officially enter the race in the coming weeks. .
“You know, there’s different things in the news, but we’ve been busy,” DeSantis said Wednesday.
DeSantis tested his Midwest retail policy Saturday at Republican Rep. Randy Feenstra’s annual family picnic in the northwestern town of Sioux Center, the state’s most conservative corner. Trump received 82% of the vote in Sioux County in 2020, and evangelical influences permeate the area’s politics.
In his remarks, DeSantis touted the conservative policy victories he won during Florida’s recently concluded legislative session, but included a warning for his party as he hinted at a possible presidential announcement.
“If we make 2024 a referendum on Joe Biden and his failures and provide a positive alternative for the future of this country, Republicans will win across the board,” he said. “If we don’t do that, if we get distracted, if we focus on past elections or other side issues, then I think the Democrats are going to beat us again, and I think it’s going to be very difficult to recover from that defeat.” .
In what sounded like a future campaign platform, an advanced DeSantis told the audience it was time to restore “sanity,” “normality,” “integrity” and “truth” to the country’s approach to education, crime and border security. Parents should have more rights than school systems, he said, and offenders should be severely punished.
As he spoke, the Florida governor stood a few feet from a large “DeSantis ’24” sign, supplied by Never Back Down, a super PAC supporting his political aspirations. Outside, the super PAC had lined the roads with similar signs and boarded a “Team DeSantis for President” bus. On the tables were eight-page booklets promoting his biography and achievements. Attendees were also offered the opportunity to sign a pledge to endorse DeSantis for president in 2024.
The Feenstra family picnic, held at the Dean Family Classic Car Museum in Sioux Center, has quickly become a coveted speaking opportunity for Republican presidential hopefuls. Former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, already a 2024 candidate, headlined the event last year, and former Vice President Mike Pence, who is also weighing a White House bid, spoke at the inaugural picnic in 2021.
Trump’s name was not mentioned throughout Saturday’s program at the Sioux Center, and several attendees told CNN they were open-minded, if not anxious, about an alternative in 2024.
“His policies in Florida have worked really well for the state, and we want to have that for the entire country,” Iowan Pam Briese said of DeSantis.
After mixing and cooking food for the crowd in Sioux Center, DeSantis will host a GOP fundraiser Saturday evening in Cedar Rapids, his twelfth event since March. The top 10 raised more than $4.3 million for local Republicans, their political team told CNN.
With Trump on the attack, DeSantis’ allies have begun testing possible counterattacks. On Wednesday, ahead of Trump’s CNN town hall in New Hampshire, Never Back Down called the former president “a candidate who has lost his luster” and suggested he was appearing on the cable outlet to “hold on to its eroded ‘frontrunner’ status”. During Wednesday’s event, the super PAC cheered on host Kaitlan Collins as he pushed Trump on the unfinished US-Mexico border wall, accusing him of rejecting gun owners as president by banning rejection actions.
As Trump left the stage, the group tweeted a list of controversies Trump had spent the hour discussing, including the E. Jean Carroll battery and defamation case, investigations into “his repository of classified documents owned of taxpayers at Mar-a-Lago.”, his attempts to overturn the 2020 Georgia presidential election and his role in the January 6, 2021 U.S. Capitol uprising and whether he would pardon the rioters.
“How does this make America great again?” said the tweet.
The letter stood out for its willingness to focus Trump on issues that DeSantis himself has not wanted to take into account. DeSantis has repeatedly refused to answer questions about the results of the 2020 election and Trump’s election lies. And when DeSantis has addressed these controversies, he has largely leaned on Trump.
Although he initially called the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol “unacceptable,” DeSantis, on the one-year anniversary of the bloody riot, called the coverage “sickening” and “Christmas ” for the media to “discredit anyone who supported Donald”. Trump.” When the FBI descended on Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate to seize classified documents last summer, DeSantis called it “another escalation in the weaponization of federal agencies.”
Meanwhile, his political team, which operates a “rapid response” Twitter account to quickly counter negative coverage and criticism from perceived political enemies, did not tweet at all about the CNN town hall, even as Trump suggesting that the governor was so far behind in the polls “he should relax and take it easy and think about the future.”
Trump has made the Florida governor a focus of his primary attacks, criticizing DeSantis’ voting record as a congressman on issues like entitlement overhaul and calling him disloyal for considering a presidential run after receiving Trump’s endorsement in his 2018 run for governor, a point the former president brought up again on social media Friday before the Iowa trip. Trump has also appeared to threaten DeSantis for considering announcing a 2024 bid.
“I would tell you things about him that will not be very flattering. I know more about him than anybody, except maybe his wife,” Trump said in an interview last fall. with Fox News Digital.
While it’s not uncommon for super PACs to engage in the dirty work of the candidates they support, some of DeSantis’ staunchest online allies seem uncomfortable with the messaging, even in the face of Trump’s much more aggressive jabs. It’s the latest sign of the difficult task facing Republicans as they seek to overcome someone who remains an icon for many in the party.
John Cardillo, an influential conservative who has access to DeSantis’ political operation, in a tweet called Never Back Down’s approach “rehashing outdated talking points.”
“I swore a Democrat wrote that,” he tweeted Brendon Leslie, who runs Florida’s Voice, a website known around the state for its glowing coverage of DeSantis.
Never Back Down stood by the approach.
“We’re not afraid to set the record straight and push back on bogus attacks from potential opponents who are afraid to take on the governor should he jump into the race,” super PAC spokeswoman Erin Perrine said in a statement . CNN. “Americans know Ron DeSantis is the future.”
Trump’s canceled rally in Des Moines was believed to be his first campaign event since Wednesday’s CNN town hall and his first time in a controlled environment since a jury found him guilty of abusing sexually and defame the author E. Jean Carroll.
His advisers told CNN that his focus would have been on educating voters about caucuses and voter outreach. Trump recorded at least one video purportedly aired during the rally explaining the caucus process and encouraging Iowans to learn from it.
DeSantis’ visit has been a chance for Iowans to see another side of the governor. In a pair of appearances in Iowa earlier this year, DeSantis delivered remarks from a stage and stood behind a rope to take photos and sign his new book for attendees.
Before the trip, Never Back Down announced that 37 Iowa state lawmakers were supporting DeSantis, a show of strength that included several people in the party leadership. Among those supporting DeSantis are state Senate President Amy Sinclair and state House Majority Leader Matt Windschitl, who are seen as young conservative leaders from rural Iowa.
Shortly after the super PAC was announced, a source familiar with Trump’s campaign plans said the Trump team would reveal the support of nearly 150 Iowa county leaders and grassroots activists for the former president
Feenstra said earlier this week that she was following plans to stay out of the primary at this point and would not endorse DeSantis in Saturday’s event.
“We have great candidates right now and I look forward to meeting them all,” the congressman said. “We have so many great things in Iowa and I’m just showing them off.”
This story and headline have been updated with additional information.
