Though the 2024 GOP Primary campaign saw a number of tough exchanges between Gov. Ron DeSantis and Donald Trump, the President apparently thought his former protégé went soft on him during their months as active opponents.
DeSantis relayed as much during an interview with Graham Bensinger.
“‘You should have attacked me.’ He’s like, ‘You never attacked me,’” DeSantis said, recalling the President’s words.
“And part of the reason I didn’t, I mean, honestly, I like him. He’ll throw pot shots at you, whatever, but that’s all just politics.”
While DeSantis noted that he disagreed with the President on COVID and Dr. Anthony Fauci, he clearly struggled with the campaign’s primary function of effecting a changing of the guard.
But part of that was seeing, as he put it, “the writing on the wall.”
DeSantis said the race was a “unique situation” where he was confronted with the reality of Trump’s “immovable” base amid his legal complications at the time.
“It’s a difficult mountain to climb. If someone thinks you could be a (Ronald) Reagan-type figure in the Republican Party, and they still ain’t voting for you because they’re voting for Trump, you just know that,” DeSantis related.
Finishing a “weak second” in Iowa sealed his decision to bail on the race after what would have been a disastrous showing in New Hampshire.
DeSantis also bemoaned a lack of media coverage, saying Fox News had “gone on the other side” and “made an editorial decision” not to showcase him as the campaign heated up in 2023.
While he didn’t need “legacy media” in the state as Governor, he realized that the conservative media wasn’t as reliable as it was before he got in the race, so his strategy pivoted as his fate seemed increasingly assured.
“A lot of those people were, they were either silent or they were backing Trump, right? So I had to engage with those, and I didn’t realize that until much later,” DeSantis said.
“But then toward the end of the process, I’m doing town halls on CNN. I’m doing stuff with NBC. I’m doing all this stuff, and I do think that that’s something that you have to do. You just have to be out there.”
DeSantis has seven more months as Governor, and speculation that he ends up in Trump’s administration continues to swirl, even as some of those close to the President are adamant that’s not happening.
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