Trump: ‘Very Unlikely’ Ron DeSantis Will Be My Running Mate
“I’ve never thought of it. We have a lot of great people in the Republican Party,” says former president.
Former President Donald Trump said he probably won’t pick Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-Fla.) as his 2024 running mate.
Trump was asked during an interview with Newsmax on Friday if he would consider bringing DeSantis onto his presidential ticket.
“No, I think that would be a very unlikely alliance,” Trump replied.
“I’ve never thought of it. We have a lot of great people in the Republican Party. I’ve never thought of it. but you know some people every once in awhile mention it, but that’s about it.”
Trump went on to explain how DeSantis would have likely lost the midterm election had he not stepped in to endorse him.
“I appointed him. He was failing badly in the polls. He was out of politics. He was going to be out of politics, and I endorsed him, and he went from a very small number to a very high number. I had rallies for Ron, and we got him in,” Trump noted.
“Then a couple of years later, they said, ‘Would you run against the president for president?’ He said, ‘I have no comment.’ I said, ‘That’s not supposed to happen.’”
The 45th president also called DeSantis a “disciple” of former House RINO Speaker Paul Ryan and criticized his COVID response in Florida, which was initially in line with lockdowns and other stringent measures.
“The things he’s voted against are devastating because people don’t know this about Ron: Ron was a disciple of Paul Ryan. And Paul Ryan was a loser. You know that. He was a loser in many ways,” Trump claimed.
“You know everyone thought he did great on COVID; but if you look at the list, he did poorly on COVID. He was in the numbers, the same numbers as New York — a little bit worse than New York.”
“He’s bad on education. Bad on COVID. Bad on many different things that people don’t know about as somebody I feel like I am running against, even though he has not announced,” he added.
Trump’s remarks come amid a passive aggressive feud between him and the Florida governor that came to a head when DeSantis ridiculed Trump rather than came to his defense regarding a looming possible indictment by a Manhattan Democrat district attorney investigating whether he paid hush money to porn star Stormy Daniels.
The remark backfired on DeSantis, as many Republicans didn’t take well to his decision to get petty rather than address the serious issue of Democrats weaponizing the justice system to go after political opponents.
