Republican Florida Gov. and presidential candidate Ron DeSantis torched former President Donald Trump over his promises that he allegedly failed to deliver, during a Sunday interview with Fox News’ Howard Kurtz.
The governor assured he will “focus on the issues” rather than launching personal attacks against the other presidential candidates running in the 2024 primary. He responded directly to former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, another 2024 candidate, who claimed he is the only one in the race directly “calling out Trump.”
“He promised to drain the swamp. It got worse. He did not drain the swamp,” DeSantis said during a Sunday interview with Fox News. “He promised to have the Mexico pay for a border wall. They did, like, 50 miles of wall. There’s massive expanses still there. He said he was going to eliminate the national debt. They added almost $8 trillion to the debt in four years and, of course, in 2020 he turned the country over to Dr. Fauci, and those lockdowns and the borrowing and printing really sent us on a bad course.”
“I’ve been very, very frank at that,” he continued. “But I have no interest in attacking Donald Trump or any of these other candidates. Personally, I think we’ve gotta rise above that and focus on the issues.”
The Trump administration constructed about 458 miles of the border wall, most of which had been built in places already containing a barrier, according to U.S. News. A total of 55 miles was built along the Rio Grande in Texas. (RELATED: ‘Too Harsh’: Trump Calls Out DeSantis Over Six-Week Abortion Ban)
The Florida governor has promised to build a border wall as part of his plan to secure the U.S.-Mexico border.
DeSantis, unlike Trump, has repeatedly said he would have fired former White House senior medical advisor Dr. Anthony Fauci if he were in office at the time of the COVID pandemic. The Trump campaign claims DeSantis once praised Fauci too, pointing to two of DeSantis’ old tweets in which he cited Fauci about COVID information.