President Donald Trump is firing back at Florida’s Republican Governor Ron DeSantis in private as the race for the GOP presidential nominee in 2024 heats up, according to a new report.
Trump has yet to confirm whether he will run but he is the clear frontrunner should he decide to make another attempt at the top job.
DeSantis is the only GOP politician who stands a chance against Trump in the primary if both run.
They two have been trading veiled swipes for a while with neither mentioning the other by name but that will not last.
Trump recently ripped “gutless” politicians who refuse to tell the people their vaccination status.
Most GOP operatives believed this to be a direct swipe at DeSantis.
DeSantis fired back saying his big regret in his first term was not speaking out more forcefully against lockdowns under President Trump.
Now we have a report that Trump is saying DeSantis has a dull personality and no realistic chance to beat him in 2024.
Axios reported: Behind the scenes: “In the context of the 2024 election, he usually gives DeSantis a pop in the nose in the middle of that type of conversation,” said a source who recently spoke to Trump about DeSantis.
The source, who shared the private remarks on the condition of anonymity, has heard Trump criticize DeSantis on multiple occasions.
The source said Trump makes a point of saying he isn’t worried about the Florida governor as a potential 2024 rival.
“He says DeSantis has no personal charisma and has a dull personality,” the source added.
…The second source said that in Trump’s view, “there’s no way” DeSantis would be governor without Trump’s endorsement.
The former president also’s said something to the effect of: “What’s the big deal? Why won’t he just say he’s not going to run against me?”
DeSantis appeared on the Ruthless Podcast recently and, when asked about his one regret in dealing with the pandemic in the early days, he gave a very telling answer.
He said his one regret was not speaking out more forcefully against lockdowns under President Trump.
“When COVID was first coming, and we were actually engaged in it, I was telling Trump to stop the flights from China because we didn’t know what we were dealing with.
“I never thought in February– early March that it would lead to locking down the country.
“I didn’t think that was on the radar.
“I had Pence and the CDC director down in Port Everglades talking about cruise ships the second week of March and no one was talking about shutting down the country.
“And I think if knowing now what I didn’t know then if that was a threat earlier, I would have been much louder about [saying lockdowns were a bad idea].”
???? NEW EPISODE ????
Gov. @RonDeSantisFL and a thousand Floridians join the variety progrum for a major interview in St. Petersburg, FL.
— Ruthless Podcast (@RuthlessPodcast) January 14, 2022
DeSantis also took aim at Supreme Court Justices John Roberts and Brett Kavanaugh. He said:
“On the nurse mandate and the doctor mandate, Roberts and Kavanaugh joined with the liberals to allow the nurse mandate.
“But honestly, Roberts and Kavanaugh did not have a backbone on that decision. “That’s just the bottom line.
“So here’s what’s going on, think about how insane this is.
“Now, in Florida, we protected the nurses, so we have people that are working. But in other states, they fired nurses who were not vaccinated.
“So they have COVID-positive people back on, meanwhile the unvaccinated, likely immune through prior infection, healthy nurses are on the sidelines fired.
“How insane are these policies?”
DeSantis says one of his biggest regrets was not speaking out “louder” on Trump admin calls for lock down during the pandemic. “And I think it knowing now what I know, then if if that was a threat earlier, I would have been much louder.” About 32 mins in: https://t.co/HaR1MOfHWY
— Manu Raju (@mkraju) January 14, 2022
Here the full show here.
