Republican presidential candidate Ron DeSantis will sit down with CNN's Jake Tapper on Tuesday for an exclusive interview, the network announced Sunday.
As the Florida governor travels across the country for his presidential bid, Tapper will talk to DeSantis following a campaign event in Columbia, South Carolina. The interview will air on "The Lead" on Tuesday, July 18, at 4 p.m. ET.
DeSantis officially launched his campaign for the White House in late May, following months of speculation.
His campaign raised nearly $20 million in the second quarter that ended June 30, per his latest Federal Election Commission filing, though the pace of his donations slowed after his initial White House announcement, a CNN review shows. The DeSantis campaign also confirmed Saturday that it had let several staffers go last week.
National polling shows DeSantis far ahead of most of the GOP primary field but trailing former President Donald Trump considerably. DeSantis' campaign has resisted calls to dramatically change course in his campaign, instead eyeing the first GOP presidential debate in late August as his opportunity to alter the trajectory of the race, CNN previously reported.
On the campaign trail, DeSantis has projected himself as a more conservative alternative to Trump on several issues, including abortion and guns. He has touted Florida's handling of the Covid-19 pandemic and measures he's signed that LGBTQ advocates have criticized.
In the first major policy proposal of his presidential campaign, DeSantis last month proposed a sweeping crackdown on illegal immigration, including sending the US military to the border and mass detention and deportation of undocumented people.
