A flurry of campaign activity swept across Iowa this weekend as the Iowa Caucuses are just eight days away.
Former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis are competing to be the prime challenger to former President Donald Trump. Haley said Republicans need to start “opening the tent” and letting in Democrats and independents who may be interested in Caucusing.
“Republicans have lost the last seven out of eight popular votes for president,” Haley said on “Iowa Press” on Iowa PBS. “That’s nothing to be proud of. We should want to win the majority of Americans, but in order to do that you don’t do that by demonizing a group of people, you don’t do it by pushing another group away.”
Haley said the only way to bring the country together is to talk to everybody. “What we’ve seen over the last few years: Republicans have left the Republican Party. Democrats have left the Democratic Party…and you’ve got a lot of people who are independents sitting in the middle, looking for a home. I want them to come to where we are,” Haley said. “I don’t want to send them the other way and that’s what the other candidates are doing.”
DeSantis argues his record as Florida’s governor sets him apart from his rivals. “When we made promises, we delivered on those promises. Talk is cheap. Sloganeering doesn’t matter. You can go do all the political stuff, do a rally. Do all this,” DeSantis said in Ankeny Saturday. “Are you actually going to deliver when it’s crunch time?”
During an event in Ankeny Saturday, DeSantis said while Republicans won a narrow majority in the U.S. House last year, nothing has changed with Democrats controlling the Senate and the White House.
“We need a change agent in Washington,” DeSanti said. “We need a president that’s going to upend this apple cart.”
During a speech in Sioux Center Friday, former President Donald Trump extended his sympathy to the victims and families impacted by Thursday’s school shooting in Perry.
“To the entire community: we love you, we pray for you and we ask God to heal and comfort really the whole state,” Trump said. “…It is a very a terrible thing that happened…so surprising to see it here, but we have to get over it. We have to move forward, but to the relatives and to all of the people who are so devastated right now to a point where they can’t breathe, they can’t live — we are with you all of the way. We love you and we cherish you.”
Saturday was the third anniversary of the rioting in the U.S. Capitol as congress was certifying Joe Biden’s election. During speeches in Newton and Clinton, Trump said people who’ve been jailed and charged but not convicted for alleged actions that day should be released.
“Some people call them prisoners. I call them hostages. Release the J6 hostages, Joe,” Trump said. “…This guy, what he’s done to people.”
Iowa Democratic Party Chair Rita Hart said Trump is trying to rewrite history and deny his role in inciting the violence that day.