Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis stepped up his anger at former President Donald J. Trump on Friday, arguing that his Republican presidential rival is weak on crime and immigration, and accusing him of handing over critical decision-making during the pandemic. of the coronavirus to Dr. Anthony S. Fauci.
In an appearance by conservative commentator Ben Shapiro, Mr. Mr. DeSantis Trump, the GOP front-runner, to “move to the left” on criminal justice and immigration issues after winning over the party’s base in 2015 and 2016.
He promised to repeal what is known as the First Step Act, a bipartisan criminal justice measure signed into law by Mr. Trump in 2018 expanded early release programs and reformed sentencing laws, including mandatory minimum sentences for nonviolent drug offenders.
“He came up with a bill, basically a jailbreak law,” Mr. DeSantis said. “It allows dangerous people to get out of prison who now re-offend and really, really hurt a lot of people.”
This year, The New York Times reported that Mr. DeSantis and his allies saw the criminal justice bill, signed by Mr. Trump to encourage his son-in-law Jared Kushner – and immediately regret – as an area of political weakness, and that Mr. DeSantis has signaled that he will use it in the nomination fight. The bill is unpopular with parts of Mr. Trump’s hard-core base. Trump.
But for Mr. DeSantis, attacking Mr. Trump over the First Step Act is potentially complicated. Mr. DeSantis himself voted for the first version of the bill when he was in Congress, and Trump’s allies are keen to highlight that fact.
“So now Swampy Politician Ron DeSanctimonious claims he voted for it before he voted against it,” said Steven Cheung, a spokesman for Mr. Trump, in a statement. “He looks like John Kerry. What a lie! He can’t get away with his damaging, embarrassing, and low-energy campaign announcements. Rookie mistakes and unforced errors — that’s who he is.
(Mr. DeSantis’ allies noted that the version of the bill he voted for looked very different, and that the final version passed when he was no longer in the House.)
When asked by Mr. Mr. Shapiro DeSantis about the recent criticism of Mr. Trump that crime has increased under his watch in Florida, the adopted state of the former president, Mr. DeSantis was angry and said that the policies of Mr. Trump has undermined law and order.
Mr. DeSantis stepped up his attacks on his former ally, whom he has avoided direct criticism for months, less than 48 hours after he entered the race in a bumpy Twitter event.
And as Mr. DeSantis seems to veer to the right on issues like crime, some of his internal campaign strategy is coming to light.
At a fund-raising meeting in Miami on Thursday, donors peppered Mr. DeSantis’ top campaign staff with questions about his policy positions and how to present them to other Republicans, according to one a leaked audio recording posted online by the website Florida Politics.
A donor raised a question about the right transition, to which a campaign official eventually replied, “We only need to win a primary to become a general.”
Donors and officials also discussed how to communicate with Republicans who support abortion rights. (Mr. DeSantis last month signed a six-week abortion ban in Florida, with limited exceptions, while Mr. Trump has been reluctant to support a federal ban.)
One donor offered one possible answer.
“Abortion is safe, legal and rare in Florida,” he said, parroting a phrase coined by former President Bill Clinton, a Democrat. “It is not forbidden,” he added. “It’s limited.”
In his interview with Mr. Shapiro on Friday, Mr. DeSantis has positioned himself as unmoved by illegal immigration, saying he was attacked by Mr. Trump for opposing the amnesty law while in Congress.
He also criticized Mr. Trump on his administration’s handling of the coronavirus epidemic in 2020, especially the level of influence exerted by Dr. Fauci, the longtime infectious disease expert and face of the federal government’s pandemic response.
Dr. Fauci, who retired in January, has been a frequent target of Republican attacks on issues such as remote learning, stay-at-home orders and vaccine mandates.
“He responded by elevating Anthony Fauci and really handing the reins over to Dr. Fauci, and I think the consequences are dire for the United States,” Mr. DeSantis said. “I’m leading this country in the fight against Fauci. We’re defeating him every step of the way.”
He said that Dr. Fauci should have been fired, but Mr. Trump honored him.
“I think the fact that Donald Trump gave Anthony Fauci a presidential compliment on Trump’s last day in office, that’s a punch in the gut to millions of people across the country who have been hurt by the lockdowns. Fauci,” said Mr. DeSantis.
A day earlier, in a post by Mr. Trump in his Truth Social platform, the former president criticized Mr. DeSantis for Florida’s response to the pandemic. He said that even former Governor Andrew M. Cuomo of New York had done a better job limiting the loss of life to the virus than Mr. DeSantis.
Mr. DeSantis described Mr. Trump’s claim as “very strange,” and said it suggested he would double down on his actions in the event of another pandemic.
