DeSantis: ‘Roughly Half of the Iowa Caucus Goers Made Another Choice’ Other than Trump

BLITZER: “I want to ask a couple of questions about the result in Iowa last night. As I mentioned, you were the second-place finisher last night, but Donald Trump cruised to a historic victory. What can you do to stop him from scoring another big win here in New Hampshire next week?”
DeSantis: “Well, look, I think that he was the former president of the United States, he’s one of the most famous people that’s ever been involved in American politics, and there’s obviously a lot of Republicans that appreciated his policies. You know, but you still had roughly half of the Iowa caucus goers that made another choice. And so that shows me, that tells me that there is an appetite for a different leader, and I think what I represent is somebody that has delivered on those key conservative policies that we’ve all been wanting to see in Washington, D.C.. You know, in Florida, think about what we’ve done with our taxes and budget. Massive tax cuts every year I’ve been governor, but budget surpluses, and we paid down 25% of our state’s total debt. That’s all the debt we’ve had since statehood, I’ve knocked down 25% of it. Florida’s state government, lowest number of state employees per capita in the country. Our budget, even though we have millions more people than New York, our budget is half the size of New York’s state budget. So I represent the fulfillment of a lot of what we want to do — honestly, a lot of what Donald Trump promised to do, but didn’t deliver — whether that is the border wall, whether that is reducing debt, whether that is draining the swamp. So, I think as the field has narrowed, we are now in a position where people are going to be able to make even better choices. But I’ll tell you, I had almost $50 million spent against me so far this presidential election campaign. That’s more than has been spent against Donald Trump and Joe Biden combined, and one is the current president, one is the former president. But I
Think that should tell you something. They don’t do that unless they think you are a threat. And I think they see me rightfully as somebody that’s going to go to Washington and not just rearrange the deck chairs on the Titanic, not just be a potted plant, but be a change agent. Because we all know Washington is not working for the American people and we need to change that.”