“There is no silver lining” to slavery, he added.ĭeSantis has also faced criticism from teachers and civil rights leaders, as well as mounting pushback from some of his party’s most prominent Black elected officials. Senate, Scott said all Americans should recognize how “devastating” slavery was. Scott, who also spoke Friday night and didn’t mention Trump or the cases against him, took a swipe this week at DeSantis over the Florida governor’s support for new standards that require the state’s teachers to instruct middle school students that slaves developed skills that “could be applied for their personal benefit.” Tim Scott’s upbeat message and pulpit-style delivery as strengths that could help him rise there. Some evangelicals, who can be determinative in Iowa’s caucuses, have pointed to South Carolina Sen. The governor’s stumbles have raised questions about whether another candidate might be able to emerge from the field and catch the former president. He also insisted the same would be true if he were trailing in the polls. “If I weren’t running, I would have nobody coming after me,” Trump said in his only veiled reference to his legal issues. Still, with Iowa’s first-in-the-nation caucus less than six months away, Trump joined a dozen other GOP hopefuls in speaking to about 1,200 GOP members and activists at the Lincoln Day Dinner. The former president frequently avoids attending multicandidate events in person, questioning why he would share a stage with competitors who are badly trailing him in polls. But he offered no specific thoughts on the cases against him - even though Trump is also bracing to be charged soon in Washington over his efforts to overturn the 2020 election. The Florida governor also repeated his frequent promise to halt the “weaponization” of the Justice Department, an allusion to Trump’s legal troubles. We must get the job done,” said Ron DeSantis. Instead, Trump’s competitors mostly reserved their sharpest criticism for President Joe Biden and a Democratic Party they argued had lost touch with mainstream America - failing to pounce on additional counts over Trump’s retention of classified documents that might have otherwise been an opportunity to cut into his comfortable early lead in the polls. 'We really are on the cusp of something so big,' Trump said.īut the weather could be an issue for Trump. A snow storm is expected to hit Iowa on Tuesday morning, but if it comes early that could complicate things for his campaign.DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) - Donald Trump and his top rivals for the GOP presidential nomination took the stage one by one Friday night to address an influential gathering of Iowa Republicans, with none of the top-tier hopefuls mentioning that new federal charges had been filed against the former president just a day earlier. Trump is seen as the candidate who would most benefit from a large turnout. He says he'll be at some caucus sites himself. These last-minute rallies are all about getting supporters to caucus for Trump on Monday night. 'And I guess they are tired of being so politically correct we can't function anymore,' Trump added. 'The American public is tired of being bamboozled,' Falwell said. Trump tapped his biggest evangelical supporter, Jerry Falwell Jr., to appear with him at a rally in Davenport. Trump is also trying to compete with Cruz for evangelical voters.

The Dems are going to sue. I mean he was born in Canada.' by the way he's going to have to solve that problem. 'It's a problem he's going to have to solve. Texas Senator Ted Cruz is right on his heels, and Trump is trying to do whatever he can to stop him. Despite legal experts saying otherwise, Trump still insists that Cruz can't be president because he was born in Canada. Trump leads in the latest polls here but not a wide margin. 'We are going to take our country back, we are going to bring it back and we are going to be proud again,' Trump said.

Trump put on a show Saturday as he stumped across Eastern Iowa in the final stretch of campaigning before the caucuses. A win in Iowa would give his campaign an even bigger surge of momentum heading into New Hampshire. Our Grace Rauh has the story from the campaign trail in Iowa.ĭonald Trump likes to dazzle his supporters. In the final days of campaigning in Iowa, Republican front-runner Donald Trump is taking aim at his rivals while urging supporters to caucus for him on Monday night.

Trump daily schedule pd