Donald Trump has so far left open whether he wants to become US President again in 2024. However, he does not tolerate possible competition. The behavior of Florida Governor Ron DeSantis therefore goes against the grain.
Since being voted out more than a year ago, Donald Trump has been flirting with running for president again in 2024, but he has not yet declared that he will actually run. Nevertheless, the former US President expects potential rivals within the party to let him go first in the race for the White House – and to state this publicly. One such potential competitor is Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. Although DeSantis has not yet claimed the presidency, he is one of the most discussed Republican party leaders in connection with the elections in the year after next.
“DeSantis is a Republican voter favorite if pollsters remove Trump from hypothetical 2024 nominee field,” writes the US news site “Axios”. “DeSantis would be an excellent candidate for 2024 if Trump doesn’t run,” tweeted Republican major donor Dan Eberhart on Tuesday. “He’s like Trump, but a little smarter, more disciplined and harsh without being too harsh.”
Donald Trump has been rumored to be badmouthing DeSantis for months
Trump appears to be making DeSantis’ growing popularity among Republicans nervous. Because unlike many others, the governor has so far refused to publicly rule out a candidacy in 2024 if the ex-president seeks another four-year term. “I wonder why the guy doesn’t say he won’t run against me,” Trump complained according to the “New York Times” already with several employees and consultants. For months, the 75-year-old has been quietly grumbling about DeSantis in front of friends and visitors to his Palm Beach residence for not acting like a retainer.
Trump has criticized DeSantis on several occasions in private statements, also writes “Axios”. The ex-president privately denounced the governor as “ungrateful people” and as a politician “without personal charisma” and with a “boring personality” who has no realistic chance of defeating him in a possible 2024 showdown, the news site quoted sources as saying , who recently spoke to the former president about the governor of Florida. At the same time, Trump emphasizes that he is not worried about the governor as a possible rival for 2024.
“If I were to face him, I would hit him like I would hit anyone else,” said the ex-president last October to Yahoo News confident, adding that he doesn’t expect DeSantis to end up running against him: “I think most people would give up, I think he’d give up.”
The storming of the Capitol: These images shook the world a year ago
24 images
According to The New York Times, Trump is particularly angry with DeSantis because he believes his early endorsement of the previously little-known Florida congressman secured the governorship in 2018 in the first place. “Look, I’ve helped Ron DeSantis on a level that no one has ever seen before,” the ex-president said in an interview. Without his help, DeSantis “wouldn’t have had a chance” to win.
DeSantis criticizes Trump’s lockdown policy
Tensions between the two top Republicans came to the fore last week after DeSantis declined to disclose his full coronavirus vaccination history. In an interview with the right-wing TV station One America News Trump then explained that he himself was already boosted and insulted party colleagues who did not commit to their vaccinations like he did: He saw a few politicians who were vaccinated and were asked in interviews: “Are they boosted?” Those asked avoided the answer. “They don’t want to say it because they’re cowards,” Trump said, blatantly referring to DeSantis. “You have to say it – whether you are or not, say it!”
DeSantis’ response was not long in coming: in an interview with the conservative podcast “Ruthless” published two days later, the governor claimed that the friction between him and Trump was a media invention. In the same conversation, however, he revealed that one of his biggest mistakes was that he did not vigorously resist Trump’s lockdown calls when the coronavirus began to spread in the US in spring 2020.
If he knew then what he knows now, he “would have been a lot louder,” DeSantis said. But at the beginning of March 2020 he never thought that the virus “would lead to the country being sealed off”. “I just didn’t know. I didn’t think that was on the radar.” The governor followed the White House at the time and closed schools, government buildings, gyms, bars and restaurants in Florida and recommended that Florida citizens stay at home.
For Trump’s opponents, the clashes between the ex-president and the governor are a godsend. Ann Coulter, a right-wing columnist and commentator who has fallen out with Trump, tweeted last Wednesday: “Trump wants to know what Booster status Ron DeSantis has, and I can reveal it now. He was a loyal supporter [engl. booster, Anm. d. Red.], when Trump ran for election in 2016, but then he learned that our President is a liar and a cheat whose deceit endures.”
And in an email to the New York Times, she wrote what she believes the rise of DeSantis says about the former president: “Trump is done,” she said. “You should stop worrying about him.”
Sources: “New York Times”, National Public Radio, CNN, “Huffington Post”, OAN, Yahoo News, Ann Coulter on Twitter