The Iowa GOP primary vote is coming up very soon, and I just want to make sure that everyone has a chance to get to know the candidate with the best record of achievements. DeSantis’ appearance on CNN was praised by CNN and others as the strongest they have seen him speak. He’s improving his speaking ability, and so I thought I would post it along with an article.

Here’s the video:

And the article from the far-left Iowa Capital-Dispatch.

Birthright citizenship:

DeSantis said that if elected, he would sign an executive order eliminating the constitutional guarantee of citizenship for children of undocumented immigrants born in the U.S., also known as “birthright citizenship.” While president in 2018, Trump said he would sign an executive order to eliminate it, but never did so.

“The 14th Amendment obviously applies to U.S. citizens,” DeSantis told CNN moderator Kaitlan Collins. “It was never the intent to say, ‘you come illegally across the border, have a kid and all of a sudden, the kid is an American citizen.’ That creates an anchor in the society so that you then can’t deport the illegal aliens who came in. It’s an incentive to come in illegally. That was not the intention of that.”

[…]The governor then followed up by bashing Trump for saying that he would do the same thing, but never did so. “What is he now telling people in Iowa this time around? He says he’s going to do the same thing that he didn’t do the first four years. I mean sometimes you can say ‘Congress stymied you’ and all this other stuff.  All he had to do was put his John Hancock on a piece of paper, and he did not do it. When I tell you I’m going to do something, you can take it to the bank. I’m going to do it.”

Abortion legislation:

On abortion, DeSantis defended his signing of a bill last year that would ban abortions in Florida after six weeks of pregnancy, with some exceptions (the law has not gone into effect as the Florida Supreme Court is reviewing a legal challenge to the 15-week ban passed in 2022. If they do maintain that law, the six-week ban would go into effect short afterwards). And he said Trump was weak on the issue.

“This was a guy who was at the March for Life in January of 2020, and he said that all life was a gift from God. He said the unborn was made in the image of God. He said that there should be protections. That’s what he was saying when he was president at the March for Life. Now he’s saying it’s a terrible, terrible thing. So how do you reconcile those two views. Did he flipflop? Did he not believe it at the time?”

When Collins asked him if he thought that Trump wasn’t actually “pro-life,” DeSantis replied, “Of course not.”

“Some issues are pretty fundamental,” DeSantis added. “How do you flipflop on something like the sanctity of life?” as the audience cheered.

Trump supported pro-life during his first term as president, but recently he’s been critical of the repeal of Roe v. Wade decision, and also critical of states like Florida, that have restrictions on abortion.

All 99 counties:

DeSantis has gone all in on Iowa, the first state in the country where Republican voters will be able to decide on who their presidential nominee will be in November. He’s campaigned in all 99 counties in the state and received the endorsement of Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds.

Gun rights:

[…]The town hall took place just hours after six people were shot at a high school in Perry, Iowa, approximately 40 miles northeast of Des Moines earlier in the day. DeSantis called the shooting a tragedy, and then pivoted to how he had worked to enact a comprehensive gun safety law that was passed by the Florida GOP-controlled Legislature in the immediate wake of the massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland in February 2018 that killed 17 people.

Collins asked him about one provision in the law that GOP lawmakers now say that they want to repeal: a three-day waiting period to purchase a firearm in the state.

“I think the background checks should be instant,” he said, giving a boost to the proposed legislation. He added that if the background check reveals a criminal conviction or a mental health issue, the purchase would then be prevented. “But I think that you want instant background checks, and so that’s what I support.”

Ukraine funding:

DeSantis… said on Thursday that “we need to bring it to a conclusion.”

Did that mean ending U.S. support for Ukraine? Collins asked.

“It means end the conflict,” DeSantis responded, before blasting President Biden for not giving the American people a clear message on what the U.S. objective is in the conflict. Collins again pressed him what “ending the conflict” actually meant – did that mean no more American dollars or military aid to the Volodymyr Zelensky administration?

“What it means is bringing it to a situation where Russia is in a box and you’re not having wars break out to Europe,” he said, adding that he would never send U.S. troops to fight in the conflict – something that Joe Biden said when the war began nearly two years ago. He did say that he would be willing to help out Europe “to bring it to a conclusion.”

As he had done on the campaign trail, DeSantis spoke about his own military experience, saying that if elected he would be the first veteran to serve in the White House since George H.W. Bush in 1988.

Just to help the author of the article out, DeSantis wants no more funding, and no more weapons. He thinks that Europe should supply Ukraine with funding and weapons, because the United States has to prioritize the threats from China and America’s Southern border.