Fox’s Harris Faulkner Puts DeSantis on the Hot Seat in Testy Exchange: Your Campaign Seems to Have Had a ‘Mission Failure’
Fox News host Harris Faulkner confronted Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis over his recent campaign reset and his failure to overtake Donald Trump in the GOP primary polls.
DeSantis continues to lag in polls against Trump in major primary states such as Iowa and New Hampshire as well as at the national level, according to Real Clear Politics. Moreover, his campaign has laid off dozens of staffers recently after burning through millions.
Faulkner asked the GOP presidential hopeful why his campaign had “what looks like mission failure” during an interview on Wednesday morning.
“There are concerns, Governor, about your recent campaign reset,” Faulker said. “Campaigns are like civilian missions. Your campaign recently had what looks like mission failure. Why?”
“At the end of the day, you’re looking at return on investment, on everything. I set out the vision. If that vision is not realized, I make changes to be able to get us going forward,” DeSantis responded. “But I can tell you this when you’re on the ground in Iowa and New Hampshire, like we’ve been over the last six days, you know, those voters want to see you. And when we’re able to go meet with them, talk about our success in Florida, talk about me being the only military veteran in the race. Talk about our vision for America. We get folks to join the team.”
The governor then pivoted the conversation to brag that he’s raised more donor money than Trump and President Joe Biden.
“We’re doing that and we’re having a lot of success with doing that, and we’re going to continue to develop that,” he added. “And yes, we did raise more than both Biden and Trump. We actually spent less than Trump in the second quarter. But the reality is, is we’re continuing to have great success on all those fronts. So we’re looking forward to continuing the momentum.”
Faulkner then asked DeSantis for his reaction to a statement from Trump’s campaign.
“‘Team DeSantis has lit tens of millions of dollars on fire in return to Santos has seen a collapse in polling. The people left to suffer are a few dozen low and mid-level staffers. If Ron actually cared about spending the money wisely, he’d refund every dollar he has left and go back to governing Florida, which is what he was elected to do,'” Faulkner said citing a statement from Team Trump.
“That’s a lot of hogwash packed into one statement,” the governor fired back testily. “The reality is we’re laying the groundwork to be able to actually win delegates, which is what you need to do. And so you got to make those investments. We’re the only one really doing that on the ground in places like Iowa and New Hampshire. And we’re going to continue to do that. And I understand if if we weren’t a threat, they wouldn’t be putting out those statements.”
Watch the full clip above via Fox News.
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