Donald Trump “flip-flipped” on abortion, overreached in response to COVID-19 and failed to uphold his campaign pledge to get Mexico to pay for a wall on the southern U.S. border, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said Tuesday in Iowa.

DeSantis, who is in a distant second place behind Trump in most national polls in the battle for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, stepped up his case against the former president during a CNN town hall in Des Moines five weeks before the state’s first-in-the-nation caucuses.

He zeroed in on abortion in a state where evangelical voters form the backbone of the GOP, contrasting Trump’s recent skepticism about strict anti-abortion laws with his earlier comments about protecting the sanctity of life.

“You should be consistent in your beliefs, especially on something that’s very fundamental, and he has not been consistent,” DeSantis said. “And there’s a lot of voters in Iowa who really care about this, who need to know how he’s changed his position.”

DeSantis last month picked up the endorsement of Bob Vander Plaats, a prominent Iowa evangelical leader who has also questioned Trump’s commitment to the anti-abortion movement. Trump has responded by emphasizing his support from more than 150 pastors around the state.

Abortion has become a flashpoint in U.S. politics since a Supreme Court majority shaped by Trump’s three appointments eliminated the constitutional right to abortion, helping to power unexpectedly strong Democratic performances in the 2022 midterms. Trump has not backed a national abortion ban and has criticized the way many Republican politicians talk about the issue. He has implied that a Florida law DeSantis signed, which outlaws abortions after about six weeks of pregnancy, is “ too harsh.”

Asked about the case of Kate Cox, a Texas woman who sought an abortion when her health deteriorated as she carried a fetus with a fatal condition, DeSantis was vague. He said “these are very difficult issues” and pointed to the Florida law’s exceptions allowing abortions when the mother’s life is in danger, though in Cox’s case, the Texas Supreme Court ruled that her pregnancy complications did not constitute the kind of medical emergency under which abortions are allowed.

DeSantis has staked his campaign on a strong showing in Iowa’s leadoff caucuses on Jan. 15, but he’s struggled to break out of a distant second place. Like most of his rivals, he has largely treated the front-runner gingerly, avoiding direct criticism of Trump, who remains popular with GOP primary voters.

But sprinkled through the CNN town hall was a case to Trump-supporting voters that it’s time to move on. Trump, he said, is no longer the colorful “America First” advocate whom Republicans embraced in 2016.

“Now a lot of it’s about him,” DeSantis said.

And he worked to pierce rosy memories of Trump’s tenure in the White House. He said Trump erred in his response to COVID-19, an issue that helped catapult DeSantis to GOP prominence when he refused to go along with strict lockdowns that most other governors imposed early in the pandemic.

“The first three years of the Trump administration, the economy’s better than it has been, but that last year with COVID, I think was mishandled dramatically,” DeSantis said. “Shutting down the country was a huge mistake. Printing trillions and trillions of dollars was a huge mistake.”

DeSantis also took aim at one of the defining themes of Trump’s first run for the White House: his promise to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border and have the Mexican government pay for it.

“That didn’t happen,” DeSantis said. “And why didn’t it happen? Well, one, I think he got distracted, and he didn’t do it on day one. But, two, he didn’t utilize the levers of power that he had.”

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CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa (AP) — Ron DeSantis has visited each of Iowa’s 99 counties. He has the endorsement of the governor and boasts the largest get-out-the-vote operation in the state. And he has predicted victory in Iowa’s Jan. 15 caucuses.

But as the Florida governor works to project strength in the Republican primary and cut into former President Donald Trump’s huge lead, DeSantis’ expansive political machine is facing a churn of leadership, stagnant polling numbers and new concerns about potential legal conflicts.

Specifically, there has been concern in recent weeks among some within DeSantis’ operation that interactions between his campaign and his network of outside groups are blurring the lines of what’s legally permissible.

Multiple people familiar with DeSantis’ political network said that he and his wife had expressed concerns about the messaging of Never Back Down, the largest super PAC supporting the governor’s campaign, in recent months as his Iowa polling numbers stagnated in late summer and autumn.

The governor and his wife, Casey, who is widely considered his top political adviser, were especially frustrated after the group took down a television ad last month that criticized leading Republican rival Nikki Haley for allowing a Chinese manufacturer into South Carolina when she was governor.

DeSantis’ team shared those messaging concerns with members of Never Back Down’s board, which includes Florida-based members with close ties to the governor, according to multiple people briefed on the discussions. Some of the board members then relayed the DeSantis team’s wishes to super PAC staff, which was responsible for executing strategy, the people said.

The people spoke on the condition of anonymity to share internal discussions.

Federal laws prohibit coordination between presidential campaigns and outside groups. There is no known lawsuit or federal complaint alleging DeSantis’ campaign broke the law. And in the super PAC era that began with the Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United decision, murky relationships between campaigns and allied outside groups have become commonplace.

Still, Adav Noti, legal director for the Campaign Legal Center, said that the reported communication between DeSantis’ team and the super PAC goes “too far.” Noti suggested the communications could draw the scrutiny from the Federal Election Commission, which is responsible for enforcing campaign finance laws but has been gridlocked by internal divisions.

“To actually have a conversation with the candidate’s agents and the super PAC’s agents about strategy — there is no plausible argument that that is legal,” Noti said. “This is not a gray area.”

DeSantis’ campaign has strongly denied the governor has tried to influence the network of outside groups supporting him given the federal laws prohibiting coordination. Asked for comment, DeSantis spokesman Andrew Romeo described the AP’s reporting as “more nonsense from unnamed sources with agendas.”

“While the media continues to obsess over attacking DeSantis with anonymous tabloid trash to support a false narrative, we remain focused on organizing in Iowa and sharing our vision for how to help the many Americans struggling this holiday season,” Romeo said.

Never Back Down founder Ken Cuccinelli dismissed questions about DeSantis’ political operation as insignificant in the overall campaign, saying “not a single voter gives a flying rat’s tail about personnel stuff.”

“We’re going to be backing the governor all the way through this thing,” Cuccinelli said in an interview at last Wednesday’s GOP debate in Alabama. “We’re not going anywhere, and I fully expect to be right there for it.”

Cuccinelli, a former Virginia attorney general, also made clear he was speaking of his own personal experience when asked directly if he felt any pressure from the DeSantises about the super PAC’s strategy.

“No, not to me. No, no, I don’t play those games. I just don’t play those games,” Cuccinelli told The Associated Press. “I’ve met the governor, and I’ve encountered Casey at events, but I don’t have those conversations.”

Five Never Back Down senior officials have either been fired or quit in the past two weeks, including two chief executives, the chairman and the communications director. The group has not explained the departures publicly. At the same time, DeSantis’ Florida allies created a new super PAC, Fight Right, which quickly earned the public blessing of the DeSantis campaign.

DeSantis said he was unfamiliar with Never Back Down’s ads last week when asked at an event in Cedar Rapids — an event sponsored by the super PAC, which has hosted him on campaign stops across the state — about how well he thought they represent him.

“I don’t know. I don’t see them, to be honest with you. I don’t watch a lot of TV. So, I don’t know. I can’t really speak to that,” DeSantis told reporters, pivoting to and praising his own campaign-financed ads.

The Florida governor is relying on super PACs more than any other leading presidential candidate in the brief history of the outside groups, which exploded in importance after a landmark U.S. Supreme Court ruling in 2010.

Never Back Down has spent nearly $43 million on paid advertising so far this year, according to the media tracking firm AdImpact. By contrast, DeSantis’ formal campaign, which he does legally control, has spent just $4.4 million.

In Iowa alone, Never Back Down has spent more than $16 million on advertising. That’s more than any other political entity, campaign or super PAC in Iowa. The group was airing several ads in November, some promoting DeSantis and others critical of Haley.

Never Back Down remains responsible for many of DeSantis’ campaign stops and get-out-the-vote efforts.

DeSantis has visited all of Iowa’s 99 counties, a traditional gesture some candidates make before the caucuses to demonstrate their commitment to Iowa. Never Back Down hosted DeSantis at events in 92 of the counties he visited, according to the group’s schedule.

Super PACs can accept unlimited donations, while campaigns have strict limits. The big catch: Groups like Never Back Down cannot legally coordinate with the formal campaigns on how to spend that money. And a candidate is barred from controlling a super PAC.

But as is the case with most candidate-focused super PACs in 2024, those who lead outside groups are usually close to the candidate. Many of Never Back Down’s original top staff and officers, including most of those who left this month, did not have longstanding relationships with DeSantis. Late last week, Phil Cox, who managed DeSantis’ 2022 reelection, was named a senior adviser to the super PAC.

DeSantis on Friday praised Never Back Down, which claims 26 paid staff in Iowa and says it has collected written commitments from more than 30,000 Iowa Republicans to caucus for DeSantis next month. That’s a significant figure for a contest in which the record number of participants was 186,000, in 2016.

Iowa’s caucuses traditionally reward well-organized campaigns. DeSantis’ allies hope the months of effort will help them overcome expectations from polls suggesting Trump will be dominant on Jan. 15.

“I think the idea was that they would be able to really focus on this organization,” including in all 99 counties, DeSantis said on Iowa PBS’s “Iowa Press” Friday. “So I think it was smart that they did that.”

Many voters who gathered to see DeSantis at a crowded bar along Iowa’s border with Nebraska late last week said they were not aware of the apparent turmoil. And those who were said they weren’t particularly concerned.

“That happens with every campaign. It’s early. Shakeups with people are going to happen,” said 57-year-old Sally Madsen of Council Bluffs.

Madsen, who previously supported Trump, has already decided to caucus for DeSantis. She said Trump lost her support in the final year of his presidency for how he handled the COVID-19 pandemic and his failure to help who she described as “innocent” Jan. 6 rioters, many of whom have been convicted and some sent to prison.

“He didn’t do anything for them,” Madsen said of Trump. “I don’t know if he could even attract good people to work for him at this point.”

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NEWTON, Iowa (AP) — Ron DeSantis completed his campaign promise to visit each of Iowa’s 99 counties, crossing a symbolic but also tactical threshold by telling his audience in a central Iowa town “this should show you that I consider myself a servant, not a ruler.”

Former President Donald Trump, who still remains far ahead of DeSantis, mocked him at a larger rally about 100 miles away on Saturday and said the Florida governor’s campaign was falling “like a very seriously wounded bird.”

In that way, the Florida governor’s moment, much like the months of campaigning so far, took place under Trump’s towering shadow.

The presence of Trump on DeSantis’ day of accomplishment underscores the challenge he and other Trump rivals face in Iowa. DeSantis has said he expects to win the caucuses. He’s focused much of his campaign on the state and a super PAC supporting him has invested more than $16 million in advertising and more on building a campaign organization for the Jan. 15 caucuses.

But even with the endorsement of Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds, DeSantis has not cut into Trump’s huge lead and is facing new pressure from the campaign of former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley.

His political operation lost another top official on Saturday. Kristin Davison resigned from the Never Back Down super PAC less than two weeks after taking over from the previous CEO following his departure, according to two people familiar with the matter who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal operations. Politico first reported Davison’s departure.

Never Back Down spokesperson Jess Szymanski said that Scott Wagner would serve as the new CEO and that the group still has “the most organized, advanced caucus operation of anyone in the 2024 primary field.”

DeSantis portrayed the timeworn feat for presidential candidates of visiting all of Iowa’s counties as an adventure for his family. On one visit, he went to the “Field of Dreams” baseball movie set and pitched to his children on a baseball diamond cut into a cornfield.

Stops at famous bakeries and ice cream parlors made for quaint stories about his family, including wife and three young children, trekking across Iowa since May. But the mission taught him more, he said.

“You meet people, rustle up some votes,” he said at an events center in Jasper County, just east of Des Moines in central Iowa. “But is it just all about politics?”

Trump has savaged DeSantis, mostly criticizing him as disloyal for running against Trump after seeking his endorsement when DeSantis first ran for governor.

“We hit him very hard and he’s been falling out of the air like a very seriously wounded bird,” Trump said during his Cedar Rapids event, twirling his right index finger to symbolize what he says was DeSantis’ fall.

DeSantis advisers argue that making stops in each county on Iowa’s sprawling checkerboard can squeeze critical support out of small rural counties while also demonstrating a commitment to courting all parts of the state.

But he is facing internal problems within his political operation — with two key officials leaving the major super PAC supporting him — and a challenge from Haley as the chief competitor to Trump. She has been rising in early-state polls and picked up the support of Americans for Prosperity, the political arm of the powerful Koch network.

Over the year, many Iowa Republicans have said that they continue to support Trump and what they see as his accomplishments, notably the nomination of three Supreme Court justices who voted to overturn Roe v. Wade and abolish a federally guaranteed right to abortion.

Some Republicans feel Trump has been weakened by the indictments he faces, even if they see the cases as politically motivated. But few in the GOP field have attacked Trump as a centerpiece of their campaigns, driven by a belief that those criticisms can backfire.

Nathaniel Gavronsky, a Republican from Wayne County, Iowa, attended Trump’s event in Cedar Rapids. Gavronsky said he had met every candidate in the January caucuses and was likely to support North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum.

Gavronsky said DeSantis’ visit to all 99 counties helped his campaign, “but the problem is you can’t go there with rhetoric. You have to actually take harder questions.”

“Trump’s going to win,” he said. “If it gets to the point where Trump might not win my caucus, I’ll jump ship and make sure Trump gets in there.”

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Never mind the Republican presidential debate Wednesday. The more fascinating faceoff will likely be between the haggling governors of California and Florida in November.

If it actually occurs, that is. The two are still squabbling over debate rules. But I figure they’ll settle their relatively minor differences and go at it on national television, entertaining millions.

There’s too much potential benefit for both California Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom and Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis for them to pass up this golden opportunity to gain national attention.

A Newsom insider told me there’ll absolutely be a debate because both governors desire one. It was first proposed by Newsom last year and DeSantis has accepted. Fox TV host Sean Hannity would moderate.

The insider, who didn’t want to be named, dismissed the hassle over rules as typical pre-debate jockeying.

“It’ll be the most interesting debate in the next two years because it’ll be about the future,” the Newsom confidant said.

Candidates for the Republican presidential nomination, including DeSantis, will debate Wednesday in Milwaukee and again Sept. 27 at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley. But those debates will mostly sound like echo chambers.

GOP candidates will largely reiterate the same basic conservative views with only hair-splitting differences in their scripted talking points.

And they’ll struggle to differentiate themselves from the multi-indicted former President Trump without riling his large and loyal voter base.

But in a debate with the liberal California governor, DeSantis — a distant GOP runner-up to Trump in polls — won’t need to pull his punches. He can blast away at Newsom, reminding viewers that the left coaster is a President Biden surrogate.

Meanwhile, Newsom isn’t running for anything — except good positioning to perhaps launch a presidential campaign in 2028. He can swing freely at DeSantis.

There’ll be no subtle differences in their philosophical views. They’re diametrically opposed on immigration, gun control, taxes, abortion, school textbooks and, fundamentally, the right course for America.

I’ll be eager to hear Newsom try to explain why there are now more homeless people in California than there were when he took office in 2019, despite his having spent billions in a failed attempt to solve the problem.

And it’ll be amusing — if agitating — to watch DeSantis try to answer for his crass, soulless stunt of flying desperate immigrants to California and dumping them on church steps.

“It would be interesting for the country to see a direct debate between two approaches to governing,” says Republican consultant Rob Stutzman. “Now, for two different perspectives, you have to flip between two different news channels.” Fox and MSNBC.

Voters would be winners by hearing unabridged arguments from both sides.

Both politicians also would be winners by attracting wide attention and enhancing their images among core party constituencies.

Not everyone agrees.

“If I were Gavin Newsom, I would not even be talking about a debate with DeSantis,” says longtime Democratic consultant Darry Sragow, who publishes the California Target Book, which chronicles state political races.

“He can get plenty of attention squaring off with DeSantis without being in the same studio. He can continue to travel this country far and wide using DeSantis as a foil.

“Unexpected stuff can happen in a debate that can totally turn around a career. Something like a facial gesture or looking at a watch. The risks are too great and there’s not sufficient upside.”

One place Newsom excels, however, is in face-to-face confrontations, as he did in a sit-down interview with Hannity in June. It was arguably Newsom’s best performance as governor. His answers were characteristically detailed but unusually crisp.

I recall another California governor debating a national politician 56 years ago and emerging the unanimous winner. That was Republican Ronald Reagan outperforming Democratic Sen. Robert F. Kennedy of New York over the divisive issue of the Vietnam War.

“Kennedy, after the debate, asked, ‘Who the f— got me into this?’” Reagan biographer Lou Cannon wrote in his book “Governor Reagan, His Rise to Power.”

Newsom is no Reagan. But neither is DeSantis Kennedyesque. I wouldn’t fret about putting the Californian in the ring with the Floridian.

Both governors have agreed on a date, Nov. 8, and a purple state, Georgia, for the Fox debate site. The main hangup is over whether the debate should be held in an empty TV studio or before a live audience of rooters.

Newsom wants only the two governors answering Hannity’s questions without an audience. DeSantis desires a room full of spectators, half chosen by him and half by Newsom.

The problem with rooting sections is they tend to interrupt the debaters’ presumably substantive answers to important questions. The event becomes a childish circus.

“It would be a great debate — a must-see debate — just them and no audience,” says Bob Shrum, a former Democratic strategist who now is director of the Center for the Political Future at USC.

“DeSantis wants a cheering section — extra help from the audience.”

Shrum doubts they’ll ever agree on details and doesn’t believe there’ll be a debate.

That would be a shame for everyone.

Newsom shouldn’t quibble over details. Just seize the opportunity to heroically venture into the lion’s den — Fox TV with a right-wing governor — and perform before millions.

“This is a gift from the political heavens for Newsom,” says former Republican operative Dan Schnur, who teaches political communications at USC and UC Berkeley. “He gets a national stage with nothing to lose and everything to gain. He gets credibility for 2028.

“For Newsom, it’s just batting practice.”

Newsom and DeSantis have one thing in common. They’re former college baseball players. In their debate, both are practically guaranteed home runs.

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