DeSantis argues Trump has ‘lost the zip on his fastball’

Republican presidential candidate Ron DeSantis painted former President Trump as a different candidate than he was in 2016 and predicted that Iowans would be more likely to choose a different candidate.

“I think you've seen Donald Trump doing events around the state recently, and I watched some of those events, saw snippets of his speeches, and I think in 2016. We're comparing Mr. Trump to Mr. Trump now. You know, this is just a different person,” DeSantis said during a virtual press conference Monday.

“He lost the momentum on his fastball,” he added.

Florida Governor DeSantis cited several recent examples of President Trump's “sickening” comments, including during an Iowa rally calling recent school shootings “really terrible. “And it was amazing to see it here,” he said. And he added that he “has to move on to get over it.”

The governor also addressed President Trump's recent suggestion that the Civil War could have been negotiated to avoid the scale of bloodshed.

“Some of the things he was talking about about magnets in the water, saying we needed to somehow get people over the Perry shooting, it really hit me hard to hear that,” he added. “He could have even hinted at the effects of the Civil War… He could have somehow negotiated… You couldn't even negotiate funding for a border wall when you had a Republican Congress. ”

DeSantis argued that the former president's comments will likely persuade voters in the Hawkeye State to choose another candidate when they go to the polls next week during the Iowa caucuses.

“So, I looked at it, I looked at it closely, and I think the more Iowans see this Trump and the kind of Trump they knew, the more people are going to be willing to participate. “I think it's a different direction,” he said.

Trump's lead remains strong, with 51.6% of the vote in the poll, according to The Hill/Decision Desk's average Iowa poll. DeSantis followed with 18%, followed by former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley with 17.1%.