Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said signing a law restricting abortion in his state had cost him donors and support, defending the decision as he sought to burnish his credentials with evangelical voters in Iowa.
“I lost a lot of really big supporters — some of them just aren’t pro- life, some of them think it’s a political liability,” DeSantis told former Fox News host Tucker Carlson, who moderated the Family Leadership Summit in Des Moines. “At the end of the day, you get into office, to be able to do what’s right, and you’ve got to stand on principle.”
The summit drew a slew of Republican 2024 hopefuls, but one candidate cast a shadow from afar: former President Donald Trump who skipped the event and earlier in the week publicly attacked Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds, the state’s Republican governor, for saying she would remain neutral in the GOP primary race despite his having endorsed her in the past.
