Florida Governor Ron DeSantis hit out at Donald Trump for adding trillions to the national debt during his time as president and supporting an amnesty for illegal immigrants.
DeSantis, who has usually avoided retaliating to the former president’s string of attacks and insults, directly criticized the man who will now be his biggest challenger in the 2024 Republican presidential primary.
Speaking to RealClearPolitics on Wednesday following his 2024 announcement on Twitter Spaces, DeSantis was asked about the attacks aimed at him by Trump and whether his campaign will focus on not only why he should win, but why Trump should not get re-elected.
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“So [Trump’s] drawing helpful contrast with me now,” DeSantis said.
“He’s running attacks, attacking me for voting against an omnibus spending bill that he signed when he was president. Absolutely, I think he should not have signed those omnibus spending bills. He added almost $8 trillion to the debt in a four-year period of time,” DeSantis said, referring to how the national debt rose from $19.9 trillion to about $27.7 trillion during Trump’s time in office.
“I’m happy to be on the conservative side of that debate because I think our debt has gone up way too much,” he added.
DeSantis also noted that Trump attacked him for opposing Trump’s so-called amnesty bill in 2018, which would have provided around 1.8 million young undocumented immigrants a path to United States citizenship in exchange for a number of hardline immigration policies, such as providing billions of dollars to build a wall across the southern border.
DeSantis said Trump tried to argue that those voting against the bill, which the House of Representatives rejected in June 2018, were voting against his border wall proposals.
The Florida governor argued the immigration bill was “pittance for that in exchange for a massive amnesty.”
“I oppose amnesty. I thought it was supposed to be America First policy to oppose amnesty, and yet he endorsed and tried to ram through an amnesty,” DeSantis said.
“These are contrasts and I’m happy to discuss,” he added. “He wanted omnibus. I opposed omnibus. He wanted amnesty. I opposed amnesty.”
While it appears DeSantis has finally started to retaliate to Trump’s attacks, the governor did not mention the former president once during his online 2024 announcement. In comparison, Trump and his team continued to mock DeSantis over his Twitter Space event, which was plagued by technical difficulties and sound issues.
“Wow! The DeSanctus TWITTER launch is a DISASTER! His whole campaign will be a disaster,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “Is the DeSantis launch FATAL? Yes!”
Newsweek reached out to Trump’s team for comment via email.