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(Trends Wide) — On the day of the 2022 general election, Donald Trump sent a very clear message to Ron DeSantis with 2024 in mind: Don’t run, or you’ll see!
“I would tell you things about him that aren’t going to be very flattering, I know more about him than anybody, other than maybe his wife,” Trump said in an interview with Fox News Digital.
(Trump, a Florida resident, did say Tuesday that he had voted for DeSantis for another term as governor.)
Trump’s rhetoric is the most outspoken threat he has made against DeSantis in recent weeks. At a rally in Pennsylvania over the weekend, Trump referred to DeSantis as “Ron DeSanctimonious,” something like “Ron the Sanctimonious.”
That nickname came less than a month after Trump called it a “BIG MISTAKE” for DeSantis to endorse Colorado Republican Senate candidate Joe O’Dea.
O’Dea had previously told Trends Wide’s Dana Bash that she would “actively” oppose the former president if he ran for the White House in 2024.
And it comes after Trump has repeatedly insisted that DeSantis would be reckless if he ran against him. “If I went up against him, I would beat him like everyone else,” Trump told Yahoo Finance in October of last year about DeSantis. “I think most people would retire, I think he would retire.”
That idea may be a bit wishful thinking on Trump’s part.
DeSantis appears poised on the brink of a victory Tuesday over former Gov. Charlie Crist, a victory that could serve as a springboard to a 2024 bid. As Politico has noted, DeSantis raised a staggering $200 million for his re-election and there was $90 million left in the bank.
He has also avoided bowing to Trump as so many other Republican elected officials have done. DeSantis didn’t even seek Trump’s endorsement in his 2022 campaign.
Trump has routinely said he effectively created DeSantis by endorsing him in the 2018 Republican gubernatorial primary. He repeated that claim Tuesday in an interview with NewsNation.
“He wasn’t going to be able to even figure in the race, and as soon as I endorsed him, within moments the race was over,” Trump said. “I got him the nomination. He didn’t get it, I got it. Because the moment I did that endorsement, he got it. I think he could have been nicer, but that’s up to him.”
There is no question that Trump’s endorsement helped DeSantis, who was a relatively unknown congressman at the time. But since then, DeSantis has emerged as a force all his own. He was openly skeptical of the covid-19 lockdowns. He positioned himself as perhaps the country’s strongest opponent of teaching critical race theory and other policies considered “woke” (liberal, politically correct).
Most polls conducted on the 2024 GOP primary show Trump with a comfortable lead. However, DeSantis often garners double-digit support, and is often the only Republican challenger to achieve such a feat.
