Former President Donald Trump seems like he’s getting a bit nervous about a 2024 presidential run against Gov. Ron DeSantis. During a recent interview, he issued what seems like a mild threat against the rising fascist Florida lawmaker.
We all know that Trump—like all totalitarian leaders and cartel thugs—doesn’t like disloyalty. DeSantis stopped licking Trump’s boots a while back and broke with the twice-impeached ex-president months ago. Trump hasn’t forgotten or forgiven.
Trump called into conservative podcast The Water Cooler Monday and launched a shot across the bow at DeSantis, reminding listeners that he and he alone got the governor into office. "I got him elected, pure and simple,” Trump said.
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"So now I hear he might want to run against me. So we'll handle that the way I handle things," Trump added, in his best Vito Corleone impression.
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DeSantis has yet to officially announce a run for the White House, but in a December 2022 poll, DeSantis led Trump by 23 percentage points among Republicans.
It’s been over a year since Trump began his attacks on DeSantis. In an interview with One America News, when the former president was asked about the COVID-19 vaccine, the anti-critical race theory governor was the first person Trump threw under the bus.
And Trump’s outbursts have continued. In December, Trump posted a whole temper tantrum post on Truth Social about his unfavorable polling.
"Great polling has just come out on me versus various others, including [President Joe] Biden, but I still have to put up with the same old 'stuff' from The Wall Street Journal, which has lost an incalculable amount of influence over the years, and Fox News, whose polls on me have been seriously WRONG from the day I came down the escalator in Trump Tower,” he wrote according to NBC News.
Dan Eberhart, a GOP donor who is backing DeSantis, told NBC, "DeSantis is rising, and Trump is increasingly scared of being left for dead by the Republican Party … Trump is not going to let DeSantis grab his throne without a fight. We are on the eve of nothing less than a civil war in the Republican Party.”
An NBC source close to Trump responded with, “For every bad poll, there’s a good poll.” And for now, Trump is the only Republican candidate in the race.
Trump didn’t stop his complaints and threats against DeSantis during his Monday interview, though. He also bitched about his lack of support from evangelicals. Trump started by saying, “I don’t really care,” but then called out “disloyalty” in the world of politics.
“Nobody has done more for the right to life than Donald Trump,” he continued.
On the first episode of season two of The Downballot, we're talking with Sara Garcia, the strategy and outreach manager at Crooked Media—home of Pod Save America—about everything her organization does to mobilize progressives and kick GOP ass. Sara tells us how Crooked arose to fill a void in the media landscape, how it not only informs listeners but also gives them tools to take action, and some of her favorite shows that she loves to recommend to folks.
Co-hosts David Nir and David Beard also discuss the Republican shitshow currently unfolding in Congress—and starkly different outcomes in two state legislatures that just elected new House speakers via bipartisan coalitions; the landslide win for the good guys in a special election primary in Virginia; why George Santos faces serious legal trouble that will very likely end with his resignation; and the massive pushback from progressive groups and labor unions against Kathy Hochul's conservative pick to be New York's top judge.