During an interview on Newsmax, former President Donald Trump took aim at Ron DeSantis, calling Florida’s governor a “failed candidate” with “no personality” and suggesting he wouldn’t be in second place in the Republican race for much longer.
Trump also argued DeSantis likely has ruined himself for a future run for the presidency.
“DeSantis is a failed candidate,” Trump said, before recounting his version of events around the 2018 endorsement of DeSantis against Adam Putnam.
“He’s a failed candidate again. He’s got no personality, he’s got nothing going on and he’s dropped like a rock. I don’t even think he’s going to be No. 2 for long. I mean, somebody’s going to come along, like maybe Tim Scott or somebody, and probably take his place and probably this stops him in ’28. You know, he could have walked into ’28 maybe,” Trump told interviewer Eric Bolling.
Most of this material is familiar, though Trump’s contention that Scott, a Senator from South Carolina, could overtake DeSantis in opinion polls and the campaign writ large, is new. Trump had previously floated Vivek Ramaswamy as the heir apparent to DeSantis status atop the non-Trump field. Ramaswamy is telling his own donors that’s likely to happen.
Meanwhile, DeSantis’ own campaign has expressed worry about Scott in a strategy memo to donors, while the Governor has attacked the Senator for criticizing Florida education standards that claim that slavery benefited the enslaved.
Trump’s campaign has continued to attack DeSantis as if he’s still the second-place candidate, including with a memo this week from strategists Chris LaCivita and Susie Wiles that questions the viability of the Governor’s latest campaign reboot. The Trump operatives claim that unlike John McCain, the 2008 candidate who turned his campaign into an insurgent operation and won the nomination, DeSantis won’t be able to do that.
Polls show DeSantis is still in second place overall, at least when they are averaged out. The Race to the White House average has Trump at 54%, DeSantis at 16%, and all other candidates in mid-single digits or below.
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