During a joint interview with NBC News and The Des Moines Register, Republican presidential candidate and Governor Ron DeSantis said that his opponent and former UN Ambassador Nikki Haley won’t “be able to handle” the scrutiny she would face in a general election.
“But speaking again of Nikki Haley, and you mentioned this in some of your earlier comments, but in a New Hampshire Town Hall last night, she said that, you know, Iowa starts it, but New Hampshire, corrects it. Do you think New Hampshire is going to correct what Iowa decides?” reporter Brianne Pfannenstiel asked DeSantis.
“One I think it’s a slap in the face to Iowans to say that they somehow need to be corrected,” DeSantis responded. “It’s almost as if like she’s acknowledging she’s not going to do well here. And so she’s blaming the voters. You know, that’s unacceptable. And I can tell you, I’ve gone to all 99 counties. I’ve spoken with people all across this state. And what I’ve come away with it is a lot of optimism about America because you have people that are hardworking, God fearing patriotic. They represent the backbone of this country, so they don’t need correcting.”
“And I think for Nikki Haley to be in a different state and trying to virtue signal in ways that are, that diminish the voters of Iowa,” he continued. “I think it was, honestly it was a mistake. But you know, sometimes these gaffes are what people really think. And I think that that’s what she really thinks she’s not showing up in the places that I’ve shown up and she’s not going to do that… She’s phony, you know, she doesn’t have core set of convictions. She’s coming in here she’s trying to trying to be relatable but just doesn’t get Iowa and I think that’s becoming more and more apparent.”
“Here’s the thing,” DeSantis said. “Her, you know, quote, rise was media driven. There’s not a lot of grassroots energy. You can talk to all these activists here. They’re not seeing it. It’s been media driven, but now that she’s facing scrutiny, you know what they give it they can take it away. And so I think you’re going to start to see you know, a lot of turbulence she’s because she’s not good off script. You know, she can take the scripted questions the minute she’s got to improvise. We saw it in New Hampshire a week ago with some of the other stuff she’s had to deal with. So I think that’s going to be par for the course and as Republicans you know, you need to be you need to have a candidate’s gonna be able to handle this because you are going to be put through the woodchipper by the corporate press, the minute you’re going against a Democrat, and she’s just not going to be able to handle that.”
