How Ron DeSantis compares with Donald Trump on policies and views
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) has pitched himself as Donald Trump but more electable. He's seen as the biggest threat to Trump winning the 2024 Republican presidential nomination - but he trails in most polls, and Trump slams DeSantis as a "cheap knockoff to the real deal."
So how do their policies compare? Here's a running list of some of the big ones.
1. Election results
Trump: He still refuses to admit he lost the 2020 election, and he's brought much of the Republican Party along with him. (Polls repeatedly show a majority of Republican voters agree with the factually unsound notion that the 2020 election was illegitimate.) Trump is still repeatedly questioning election results.
DeSantis: He's refused to say what he thinks of the 2020 election, in an apparent effort to strike a middle ground between Trump supporters and voters who know the election wasn't rigged. But the Florida governor has presided over a tightening of Florida election laws, such as creating a controversial election police unit that has so far failed to uncover widespread fraud, and he has elevated election deniers in his government.
2. The Jan. 6 attack
Both have said they'd pardon, or would consider pardons, for Jan. 6, 2021, defendants who stormed the U.S. Capitol in an attempt to circumvent Congress's certification of Joe Biden as president.
3. Big government
Trump: He is ramping up his authoritarian-style approach to governing by campaigning on ideas to use the military to fight crime or finding ways to rapidly fire federal workers and even school principals. He regularly promises retribution against his and his supporters' perceived enemies.
DeSantis: He is also irking traditional conservatives by using the levers of state government - everything from new laws to lawsuits - to attack corporations and Democrats who speak out against him. He's also severely limited what can be talked about in public schools.
4. Medicare and Social Security
Trump: The two have fought bitterly over their positions on this. Trump opposes any changes in entitlements despite concerns about the popular programs running out of money and having to cut payments in the coming decade. (Though DeSantis has tried to argue there are times in Trump's past when he's been amenable to revamping the programs, which is open for debate.)
DeSantis: As a member of Congress from 2012 to 2018, he voted to restructure Medicare and Social Security in a way that could curb some benefits for future retirees. But he's since said: "[W]e're not going to mess with Social Security as Republicans. I think that that's pretty clear."
5. Disney, anti-LGBTQ+ policies, critical race theory and 'wokeness'
DeSantis: This is where DeSantis has been driving the conversation. He has accused Trump of "siding with Disney" as DeSantis tries to exact punishment on the massive corporation for opposing his anti-LGBTQ+ policies. He's also remaking public schools and colleges in Florida to eliminate discussion of LGBTQ+ issues and topics on race. He speaks of government as a tool to quash his enemies. "I will be able to destroy leftism in this country and leave woke ideology on the dustbin of history," he's said.
Trump: He has trailed DeSantis on the culture wars, both in passion and ideas. While Trump is no stranger to divisive policies (as president he banned travel from predominantly Muslim countries and separated families at the border), he is not nearly as focused as DeSantis on antagonizing the left, particularly on LGBTQ+ issues. On Disney, specifically, he's called the feud "unnecessary" and mocked DeSantis for being unable to end it. (Disney and DeSantis are now suing each other.)
6. COVID-19
Trump: While he was president, the federal government helped rapidly develop vaccines that would bring the pandemic to heel. For all of Trump's waffling on whether there should be broader restrictions on society during the pandemic to keep people safe, he embraced the vaccine and urged his supporters to get vaccinated.
DeSantis: He was governor of Florida during the pandemic, and he quickly sought to run to Trump's right on covid restrictions. He did a full reversal on the coronavirus vaccines, going from praising them to shunning them, and he declared that Florida was open for business as other states remained shut down.
7. Abortion
DeSantis: He recently signed a six-week abortion ban into law, although he doesn't talk about it much, an apparent recognition of how banning abortion before most people know they're pregnant is politically unpopular outside of a small circle on the right.
Trump: He has called six weeks "too harsh," although he's refused to say what kind of ban he would support - if he'd support one at all.
8. Immigration
Trump: He's made this issue his political calling card. He recently stepped up his anti-immigrant rhetoric, issuing a promise to end birthright citizenship for children born to undocumented immigrants in the United States on his first day in office.
DeSantis: He made headlines - and received criticism - for shipping migrants requesting asylum up north to more liberal communities, telling them to deal with it. He also signed one of the nation's harshest anti-immigration laws last month, making it difficult for undocumented immigrants to drive or work in the state and potentially intimidate them from seeking medical care.
9. Crime
Trump: He campaigns on an apocalyptic version of U.S. cities, describing them as crime-infested and in need of cleaning up by the military. But DeSantis has accused him of being soft on crime for signing into law a 2018 bipartisan criminal justice reform bill, known as the First Step Act, that reduced some long prison sentences and sentencing requirements.
DeSantis: He voted for an earlier version of the First Step Act. As governor, he's signed several, controversial tough-on-crime bills into law that increase sentences for some drug offenders, make it easier for police to arrest protesters, who could then be charged with a felony, and he's made it harder for local communities to redirect funds from police budgets elsewhere.
10. Ukraine
Trump: Leaning into his inclinations to give Russia the benefit of the doubt, Trump refused to say whether he wants Ukraine to win its war against Russia. The United States has supplied Ukraine with tens of billions of dollars in increasingly lethal weapons and other aid over the past year to try to stop Russia from invading a democratic country unprovoked. He's refused to say whether Russian President Vladimir Putin is a "war criminal."
DeSantis: He originally downplayed Russia's invasion as a "territorial dispute," earning harsh criticism from traditional figures in the Republican Party who have questioned the governor's foreign policy skills. He walked back that comment and called Putin a "war criminal." But then he called for a cease-fire in Ukraine, anathema to Ukrainians who want to win the war outright.
11. China
Trump: The two are racing each other to be viewed as China's biggest antagonist. As president, Trump pursued a trade deal with China, but he also started a trade war. He accuses DeSantis of not supporting that trade war.
DeSantis: He's tried to box out China from real estate deals in Florida, and he's banned TikTok from the phones of state employees out of national security concerns.