Trump Sees Florida Governor Ron DeSantis as a 2024 Presidential Threat, and He Doesn’t Like it.

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. 

The only chance the Republicans have to lose the 2024 Presidential Election is if Donald Trump heads the ticket. And it looks like he will attempt to do so and damn the Republican Party and damn the rest of the country.

The Red-Haired Menace lost all credibility with the moderates and some Republicans in this country (and their votes) with his disgraceful conduct in denying a smooth transition of the Presidency because the poor baby refused to admit he had lost.

Then, Trump incited a riot at the Capitol because his VP Mike Pence refused to comply with Trump’s wishes that Pence refuse to certify the election, and election certification is the VP’s job. Pence refused to be intimidated, and Trump came off looking like a fool and a dangerous one at that.

It’s a simple fact that no matter how dedicated his far-right base is to Trump, at least half the country can’t stand his guts.

In a typical Trumpian temper tantrum, Trump is throwing shade at Florida Governor Ron DeSantis because of DeSantis’ sky-high favorability rating. In addition, DeSantis is one of the few Republicans who has refused to rule out running for the Presidency in 2024.

Heading the list of Republicans who do not have the guts to battle Trump in 2024 is his former UN Ambassador Nikki Haley, South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem, and Senators Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), Rick Scott (R-Fla.), Tim Scott (R-S.C.) and Josh Hawley (R-Mo.).

Other potential Republican rivals who haven’t ruled out challenging Trump include former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Senators Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Tom Cotton (R-Ark.).

In his Trumpian narrow-minded world, DeSantis’ noncommittal is tantamount to treason, so it must be off with DeSantis’ head.

Also, in a new national survey of Republicans by Echelon Insights, a GOP polling firm, they determined that without Donald Trump on the ticket, DeSantis lead former Vice President Mike Pence by 22-15 percent, with all other possible contenders relegated to the single digits,

To increase Trump’s ire, DeSantis said last week on last week on the “Ruthless” podcast, “One of my biggest regrets in office was not speaking out ‘much louder’ in March 2020, when Trump advised the American public to stay home to slow the spread of the coronavirus.”

It came to light last week that Trump has been saying privately, and saying it often to sources who’ve recently talked to him about the Florida governor, that Ron DeSantis is “an ingrate with a dull personality,” and he has no realistic chance of beating Trump in a potential 2024 showdown.

The New York Times’s Maggie Haberman reported that “Trump has been telling a range of aides a version of, he isn’t getting the deference from DeSantis that he wants in the pre-2024 leadup.”

Trump has also been saying privately that Trump, as he should, seems less bothered by Pence than DeSantis. He’s told advisers he thinks Pence’s future in GOP politics has ended because he refused Trump’s illegal request to send electors back to the states on January 6, 2021.

In 2020, The Washington Post said that the closeness between Trump and DeSantis was being exaggerated. 

Ben Terris and Josh Dawsey wrote in the Washington Post:

It was the fall of 2018, and Hurricane Maria had left close to 3,000 people dead a year earlier on the island of Puerto Rico, a fact Trump chose not to believe. The death toll, he claimed, had been exaggerated by Democrats to ‘make me look as bad as possible.’

DeSantis, who is 41, had dressed his children up in “Make America Great Again” gear for his campaign ads, but even he couldn’t stand with the president on that one.

DeSantis’ campaign tweeted, ‘Trump doesn’t believe any loss of life has been inflated,’ in a move that, according to a senior Trump campaign official, left the president’ absolutely livid.’

A political divorce felt imminent. Trump, who believed DeSantis would be nowhere without his support, even contemplated publicly attacking his ally for the perceived lack of loyalty. Instead, with encouragement from his campaign manager, Brad Parscale, and recognizing how important Florida would be to his own reelection chances in 2020, Trump stood down, asking only for DeSantis to keep future disagreements private. DeSantis agreed.

It now appears that Donald Trump, knowing he needed Florida to beat Biden in 2020, a state he won and still lost the Presidential election, turned a blind eye to DeSantis’ earlier remarks just to win an election. And now he’s pissed because Ron DeSantis is extremely popular with Americans, and Donald Trump is not.

Without actually naming names, Trump is taking potshots that he obviously directed at DeSantis.

During an interview on OAN, Trump said, “I’ve watched interviews with gutless politicians who refuse to say whether they’ve had a booster shot. You got to say it, whether you had it or not. Say it!”

Truthfully, DeSantis has never come out and clearly said he has received the third booster shot.

DeSantis did say, “So, I’ve done whatever I did. The normal shot, and that at the end of the day it is people’s individual decisions about what they want to do.”

And he left it at that.

Stay tuned for more tension between grumpy Donald Trump and his most powerful adversary in the Republican Party: Ron DeSantis.

*****

Concerning a vaccine mandate, Ron DeSantis has been very clear that it is up to the individual, with their doctor’s advice, whether to take the vaccine shots or not.

When asked by the Washington Post to comment on DeSantis’ position on vaccine mandates, DeSantis spokesperson Christina Pushaw said, “Governor DeSantis’ refusal to answer is a matter of principle. I am not privy to the governor’s private medical decisions and am unable to share information about his booster status or plans. Governor DeSantis has consistently said that vaccination, and by extension, boosters, should be a personal choice, and anyone who has questions or concerns should consult with a healthcare provider.”

When the vaccines first came out, DeSantis attacked vaccine mandates, as he well should have. It’s not the government’s right to tell the general public what they must do in their lives.

What would they mandate if the government were allowed to get away with this next?

Electric cars for everyone, to save the planet?

Or maybe, because obesity causes a myriad of problems, the government could mandate that people would have to maintain a certain weight in relation to their height, otherwise face fines and increased medical costs.

Concerning mandates, DeSantis said, “People are being forced to put something in their bodies that we don’t know all there is to know about yet. No matter what people on TV tell you, it’s not true. We’re going to learn more about the safety of these vaccines. We’re finding that some of these vaccines, the protection from infection is less than 40 percent. We’re going to learn more about the safety of these vaccines, right?”

The truth is that the omicron virus has changed the equation. Medical experts are now saying that even three vaccine shots will not prevent you from getting Omicron. And six feet distancing is also ineffective since you can catch the virus up to 60 feet in the air.

I know several people who have had all three shots and have still come down with the omicron virus. The main advantage of getting the shots, and it’s an important one, is that if you do catch omicron, it will likely be a mild case and will not require hospitalization or result in death.

That’s why I took all three of my vaccine shots. But I still think it’s preposterous that the government would be allowed to force people to get the jab.

We live in America, not Russia, Cuba, or China.