Donald Trump is offering unsolicited advice for Ron DeSantis, who is still the second-place candidate in the GOP presidential race.
“I think he has to get out for the good of the party. He could have waited and he would have been odds-on favorite for ’28 but he didn’t do that,” the former President said on the John Fredericks Show.
As he has before, Trump told the story of how DeSantis would be politically “dead” if he hadn’t endorsed the Florida Governor in 2018’s race against Adam Putnam.
“He’d be working in a law office right now just doing whatever he was going to do,” Trump argued.
Trump also contended Friday that DeSantis thought he was going to lose the General Election to Andrew Gillum.
“We got him past the General Election running against a then very hot candidate who Ron didn’t think he could beat, but we beat him,” Trump said.
The former President also maligned his opponent’s political skills, contending that without his backing Desantis would be nothing.
“But the fact is he’s a lousy campaigner. Remember he was at like 3% when I endorsed him. So on his own without endorsement, without my endorsement, he was at 3%,” Trump said.
“He’s proven to be a terrible campaigner. He’s got no personality and … and it looks like he’ll be superseded by somebody else,” Trump added. “He’s really gotten back to the pack and I’ve gone way forward and we’re leading by 50 or 60 points in many cases (in polls).”
As he is prone to doing, the former President is exaggerating his lead overall.
The Race to the White House polling average only has Trump with a 37-point lead, 54% to 17% over DeSantis. The Governor is still comfortably ahead of Vivek Ramaswamy and Mike Pence, both of whom have more than 5% support.
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