DeSantis challenges Trump to one-on-one debate

Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-Fla.) has formally challenged President Donald J. Trump to debate him one-on-one. He issued this challenge after the second Presidential primary debate, in which Trump declined to take part.

DeSantis issues his challenge

Gov. DeSantis issued the challenge after the debate, at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, had closed. In an interview with Fox News’ Sean Hannity, the Florida governor said Trump “owes it to our voters.”

The governor boasted of having “done it,” that is, advanced key Republican principles while in office as governor.

During the debate, Fox News’ Dana Perino suggested that, if all candidates remained in contention, Trump would win the nomination. She seemed to be saying Trump would win a plurality by splitting the vote, a proposition difficult to defend. According to the latest Economist/YouGov poll, Trump has majority support from Republican voters. (A McLaughlin poll shows the same.) Nevertheless, Perino then asked each candidate whom he or she would “vote off the island.” This was a reference to the contestant elimination method in the now-defunct CBS-TV reality show Survivor. DeSantis refused to cast such a vote and called the very question “disrespectful to my fellow competitors.”

The second debate took place in the cavernous hangar where President Reagan’s original VC-135 executive transport now rests.

And where was Trump?

While this debate was taking place, President Trump was at the plant of Drake Enterprises in Clinton Township, Michigan. There he addressed a crowd of union-member workers in various trades, including auto workers, plumbers and pipefitters.

In his speech Trump spoke of electric-vehicle mandates and their bad effect on blue-collar jobs. While he won no friends in the United Auto Workers’ leadership, he did win friends among the rank-and-file. The general consensus seemed to be that, what Democrats promise to do, Trump actually did in his term of office.

The UAW is on strike against all Big Three automakers, over pay, work week, pensions, benefits – and whether they will still hold jobs in the EV era.