Ron DeSantis is girding for battle with Donald J. Trump the place he believes the previous president could also be most susceptible to assault from a fellow Republican: on substance.
Mr. DeSantis, the Florida governor, is anticipated to make a sequence of policy-based arguments, in accordance with his public statements and interviews with individuals who have met with him privately and described their conversations on the situation of anonymity.
He’s telling Republicans that, not like the mercurial Mr. Trump, he may be trusted to stick to conservative rules; that Mr. Trump is just too distractible and undisciplined to ship conservative coverage victories reminiscent of finishing his much-hyped border wall; and that any coverage guarantees Mr. Trump makes to conservatives are nugatory as a result of he’s incapable of defeating President Biden.
Mr. DeSantis’s problem is apparent to anybody who has seen a latest ballot: Mr. Trump maintains a deep psychological maintain over many Republican voters who seem resistant to reasoned arguments in opposition to him.
The thrice-married Mr. Trump, who stands accused of hush-money funds to ladies together with a porn star, has by no means been the avatar of a social conservative. However he largely ruled as one. That he was motivated extra by transaction than by conviction was irrelevant to tens of millions of evangelicals who cheered as he led to a Supreme Court docket that might overturn Roe v. Wade.
However Mr. DeSantis is anticipated to argue that the explanation Mr. Trump made so many ideologically inexplicable personnel selections — like elevating Dr. Anthony S. Fauci on the outset of the Covid disaster — was as a result of he has no mounted rules to fall again on when he confronted tough selections.
In contrast, allies say that Mr. DeSantis will attempt to make the case to Republican voters that they’ll belief him to face his floor on powerful points like abortion.
Individuals who have frolicked privately with Mr. DeSantis describe him as an ideologue whose glad place is a quiet room the place he can learn a tutorial journal or coverage paper. Considerably socially awkward, he peppers his conversations with references to the Structure, the Federalist Papers and Supreme Court docket case regulation.
Mr. Trump has by no means been accused of citing the Federalist Papers in informal dialog. His consideration span for coverage is restricted at greatest. He has highly effective intestine instincts on commerce, immigration and a few elements of international coverage, however in most coverage areas he’s open to deal-making or to the solutions of whoever spoke to him final.
Listed here are 5 of their likeliest friction factors on coverage.
Abortion
Because the Supreme Court docket overturned Roe v. Wade final June, Mr. Trump has appeared uncomfortable with the results of his signature achievement. He privately blamed abortion hard-liners for Republicans’ disappointing ends in the midterm elections, has refused to say whether or not he would assist a nationwide abortion ban and implied Florida’s new six-week abortion ban was “too harsh.”
Mr. DeSantis has seized on these remarks, and his allies hope the problem helps him make inroads with the Christian proper. “Defending an unborn youngster when there’s a detectable heartbeat is one thing that just about 99 p.c of pro-lifers assist,” Mr. DeSantis mentioned not too long ago, noting that Mr. Trump, “as a Florida resident,” hadn’t mentioned whether or not he would have signed “the heartbeat invoice.”
Nonetheless, regardless of supporting abortion rights for many of his grownup life, Mr. Trump was probably the most consequential anti-abortion president in historical past. He reminds conservative audiences that whereas earlier Republican presidents made loads of guarantees, he was the one who ended Roe.
Taking over Huge Enterprise
Mr. DeSantis and Mr. Trump differ of their approaches to company America.
Mr. DeSantis subscribes to the idea, common among the many self-described “New Proper,” that leftists have taken over so many American establishments — together with academia, the media and large companies — that conservatives are fools to cede these battlefields to progressives within the identify of “restricted authorities.”
As a substitute, Mr. DeSantis argues that conservatives should use each lever of presidency energy to battle again — and if that leaves conventional conservatives feeling squeamish, then so be it.
Mr. Trump has flirted with this concept however by no means absolutely purchased into it. He has fought in opposition to so-called environmental, social and governance investments, railed in opposition to social media firms for his or her remedy of conservatives and enacted tariffs that enraged multinationals. However he additionally slashed taxes for corporations and invited chief executives he would later deride as “globalists” into the Oval Workplace and onto his enterprise councils.
A longtime New York businessman, Mr. Trump loves, above all, to be seen chopping a deal. He sees Mr. DeSantis’s fights in opposition to “woke” Disney as futile and unhealthy for Florida’s economic system. He has cheered on the latest efforts by Robert A. Iger, Disney’s chief government, to outmaneuver Mr. DeSantis.
China, Ukraine and NATO
Mr. Trump and Mr. DeSantis have break up in essential methods on two pivotal international coverage questions: easy methods to cope with China, and what function america ought to play in Ukraine’s warfare in opposition to Russia.
Mr. Trump has been credited for prodding Republicans and Democrats into viewing China as a ruthless adversary moderately than an imperfect buying and selling accomplice. However for many of his presidency, Mr. Trump noticed the U.S.-China relationship via a purely financial lens.
He praised President Xi Jinping of China as he chased a commerce deal that he might trumpet to American farmers. He imposed tariffs on China however rejected different measures like sanctioning Chinese language officers for human rights atrocities, lest that interfere with his trade deal. It was solely in 2020, after Mr. Trump blamed the Chinese language Communist Celebration for the unfold of Covid, that he lastly sidelined his administration’s China doves and absolutely empowered its hawks.
Mr. DeSantis cares much less about U.S.-China commerce and extra concerning the nationwide safety threats that Beijing poses. As governor, he signed a regulation banning Chinese language social media platforms reminiscent of TikTok from state authorities units and one other that may cease many Chinese language residents and corporations with ties to its authorities from buying property in Florida. Mr. Trump has promised to enact similar restrictions on Chinese investment and has known as for China to pay trillions of dollars of Covid reparations, however his report suggests he shall be extra open than Mr. DeSantis to negotiating with Beijing.
On Ukraine, Mr. Trump has gone additional than Mr. DeSantis in ruling out American assist for Kyiv. Whereas Mr. Trump known as Russia’s invasion a “crime in opposition to humanity” within the early days of the warfare, he has extra not too long ago refused to draw any moral distinction between the Ukrainians and the Russians — saying solely {that a} deal should be struck. He has mused about handing over chunks of Ukraine to Russia.
After dodging questions on Ukraine, Mr. DeSantis informed the previous Fox Information host Tucker Carlson that defending Ukraine in opposition to Russia was not an important U.S. curiosity and dismissed the warfare as a “territorial dispute.” Stung by criticism, Mr. DeSantis walked again the “territorial dispute” line, and in a subsequent interview he known as Mr. Putin a “warfare felony.” Mr. Trump refused to do the identical when requested to on CNN.
Whereas each Mr. Trump and Mr. DeSantis are contemptuous of worldwide establishments such because the United Nations, the previous president poses a extra important menace to the post-World Battle II worldwide safety framework.
Mr. Trump’s former nationwide safety adviser, John R. Bolton, feared his boss would withdraw america from NATO and grew satisfied he would achieve this if he received re-election to a second time period. Now, Mr. Trump validates these fears on his campaign website, pledging to “end the method we started underneath my administration of essentially re-evaluating NATO’s function and NATO’s mission.”
Spending, Commerce and the Fed
In Republican nominating contests earlier than the age of Trump, the main candidates tended to battle over who was extra fiscally conservative — who would abolish extra federal businesses and who was extra prone to scale back the federal authorities “to the scale the place I can drag it into the toilet and drown it in the bathtub,” because the anti-tax activist Grover Norquist put it.
However Mr. Trump has redefined the G.O.P. major marketing campaign right into a battle over who’s probably the most protectionist on commerce, and who will most faithfully protect authorities advantages for the aged. Mr. DeSantis, who rose in politics as a Tea Celebration fiscal conservative, has thus far proven little curiosity in attempting to out-populist the previous president on authorities spending and commerce, and appears to hope he can reorient the celebration’s dialog round fiscal self-discipline.
Mr. Trump and his tremendous PAC have called out Mr. DeSantis’s congressional votes to chop spending on Social Safety and Medicare. Mr. DeSantis has mentioned he received’t “mess with” Social Safety for seniors presently depending on this system, but unlike Mr. Trump, he has not dominated out trimming entitlement spending in ways in which would have an effect on youthful People once they retire.
Mr. Trump has initiated assaults in opposition to Mr. DeSantis for his past efforts to kill the Renewable Gasoline Normal, which requires ethanol to be blended into the nation’s gasoline provide. Fiscal conservatives see this as “huge authorities” overreach, however Mr. Trump is aware of how essential ethanol is to Iowa’s economic system.
Mr. Trump’s allies plan to painting Mr. DeSantis as “weak” on commerce — which means he received’t use tariffs as aggressively as the previous president, who proudly branded himself “a tariff man” and launched commerce wars with China and Europe. Mr. Trump has promised that in a second time period he would introduce “a brand new system of common baseline tariffs that rewards home manufacturing whereas taxing international firms.”
Mr. DeSantis will distinction his price range surpluses in Florida to the trillions of {dollars} Mr. Trump added to the nationwide debt when he was president. Mr. DeSantis will level out that as a member of Congress he voted in opposition to the trillion-dollar-plus spending payments that then-President Trump signed into regulation in 2017 and 2018. And Mr. DeSantis plans to tie Mr. Trump to excessive inflation by criticizing his appointment of Jerome H. Powell as Federal Reserve chairman.
Crime and Punishment
Mr. DeSantis has signed hard-line laws on crime, together with a regulation that lowers the threshold for imposing the dying penalty.
Mr. Trump, who has cultivated a law-and-order persona, undercut that picture in workplace by permitting his extra liberal son-in-law, Jared Kushner, to steer bipartisan negotiations on a felony justice regulation that might shorten federal jail sentences.
Mr. Trump rapidly regretted signing that regulation, generally known as the First Step Act, and blamed Mr. Kushner. Privately, Mr. Trump’s personal advisers have acknowledged the First Step Act is a vulnerability together with his political base.
But Mr. DeSantis’s skill to immediately assault Mr. Trump over the regulation is sophisticated by the truth that, together with most Republicans, he voted for the preliminary Home model of it — one which centered narrowly on jail reform and was opposed by civil rights teams and lots of Democrats. The a lot totally different model that handed, enacted when Mr. DeSantis was not in Congress, included sentencing reforms and the power to use retroactively for a diminished sentence.
The well-funded tremendous PAC supporting Mr. DeSantis is anticipated to assault Mr. Trump’s report on crime.
And in one thing of a course correction, Mr. Trump has known as for imposing the dying penalty for drug dealing, sending the Nationwide Guard into high-crime areas and deploying the U.S. military in opposition to Mexican drug cartels.
