Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis slammed former President Trump for not taking part in Wednesday night’s second GOP presidential primary debate.
“Where’s Joe Biden? He’s completely missing in action from leadership. And you know who else is missing in action? Donald Trump is missing in action. He should be on this stage tonight,” DeSantis said, jabbing at both the current and former presidents.
“He owes it to you to defend his record where they added $7.8 trillion to the debt, that set the stage for the inflation that we have now,” DeSantis added of Trump.
Trump, the frontrunner of the GOP presidential field, skipped the GOP’s first presidential debate in Milwaukee in August and passed on the second event held at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Southern California. He’s cited his lead in the polls as a reason for not getting on the stage with his fellow White House hopefuls.
Seven qualified candidates — seen by many as competitors in a race for second place — took the stage on Wednesday night: DeSantis, conservative entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, former Vice President Mike Pence, former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley, South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott, former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum.
The former president’s name didn’t come up until about 15 minutes into the two-hour event.
Christie also knocked the former president for his absence from the Simi Valley, Calif., stage.
“Donald Trump — he hides behind the walls of his golf clubs and won’t show up here to answer questions like all the rest of us are up here to answer,” Christie said.