DeSantis Campaign Press Release - Ron DeSantis Holds Virtual Press Conference with Iowa Media as Countdown to the Caucus Begins

"I think she's [Haley's] had a lot of problems, just conducting herself on a daily basis without sticking her foot in her mouth. And that's not the way you're going to be able to be successful in a general election."

DES MOINES, Iowa – Ron DeSantis today held a virtual press conference with Iowa media. The highlights are below.

Watch the full press conference HERE.

On Nikki Haley's repeated gaffes and lies:

With Nikki Haley, her flippant comments and derogatory comments in New Hampshire saying that Iowans would be corrected by another state, you know, I think are very, very damaging, because I think it plays into this conceit about people in the middle of the country that somehow, you know, they don't count or that they need to be corrected by other folks. So I think that that was really bad. I do think that reveals kind of her true view about the folks in Iowa. And now that she's come under scrutiny, I think she's had a lot of problems, just conducting herself on a daily basis without sticking her foot in her mouth. And that's not the way you're going to be able to be successful in a general election. The media, even though they've really helped her for many weeks, you know, they're going to turn, and certainly anyone that's the Republican nominee is going to come under withering assault, you've got to be able to handle that. And I think she's shown an inability to do that. And part of it is, you know, she just hasn't been honest with voters. I mean, she was asked, for example, in Iowa, why she said Hillary Clinton had been an inspiration for her running for office. And her response was that she never said that, which is a lie. That is in her book, she talks about Hillary inspiring her to run for office, she even wrote that Hillary, in some ways remained an inspiration. Still, she's on video saying this stuff. So why would you not be honest with Iowans? If they have a question about your record, explain it. But don't lie and say that you never said things which are recorded and amply documented. So I think that she's having trouble.

On the extreme weather forecasts this week:

I'll just grin and bear it. I mean, as a Floridian, I was, I was in Sioux Center the other day, and I was walking up to the event, and I was like, what's the temperature? And they're like, 26, but there really wasn't any wind. And I'm like, honestly, I couldn't deal with this is that the worst thing in the world, and then we were in Dallas County, I think it was like 28, I'm like, there's no really no wind. And then I looked at the forecast and my saw the negative two, you know that that is going to be something that I'll just bring an extra layer for sure. I don't have a lot of layers down here. I normally could just make do. But I'm just going to I'll just blow through it now, hopefully, voters I think are still I think they're still motivated to come in and meet and hear from the candidates. And so we're gonna have a full schedule, do whatever we can do. I mean, obviously, if there's something really significant with the weather, they use, people need to be safe, and we're not going to put anyone in jeopardy. But I think on caucus night for it to be really, really cold. I think that our supporters are are in it. I think that they're very passionate folks. And I think that they're going to turn out and so we'll be in will be in good shape, no matter how the weather happens. But if it is really cold, I think we have the type of supporters who expect that and will brave the elements.

On how he will balance campaigning and the upcoming Florida legislative session:

We've been full bore on doing stuff as governor, really the whole campaign. You know, I'm not as I'm not out unnecessarily doing press conferences like I otherwise would do. But you know, if you look at what we've done the number of what amount of legislation we've signed the vetoes, the grants that we're awarding, responding to hurricane I, Dalia, we did a special session of the Florida Legislature in November passed a number of really key pieces of legislation. So the work goes on. Fortunately, I ran on a lot of bold ideas and 22 we accomplished all of those in the legislative session and 2023 I'll be outlining some priorities tomorrow and my speech. But fortunately for us, you know, we have a great story to tell where Florida stands visa vie other states the direction that we've gone our fiscal situation better than any time in the history of the state, our ability to bring tax relief and continue doing great things with education and environmental conservation, as well as ensuring safe streets. You know, it's a great story to tell, we're going to tell it and we're really in tune with the both houses of the legislature about keeping the direction going and really solidifying a lot of what we did, but there's no way that you're ever going to be able to match the lead slative session that we did in 2023, there was just so much stuff that was done on every issue under the sun. No one's ever seen anything like it. And so fortunately, we achieved what I said I would achieve. But there's always more to do.