The campaign launched by Florida GOP Governor Ron DeSantis for the Republican presidential nomination for 2024 is not going super well.
He remains far behind Donald Trump in most national and state polling measuring prospective voters’ opinions of the field. On Fox over the weekend, DeSantis appeared with host Maria Bartiromo as a message appeared on the screen that noted he was 34 percentage points behind Trump, according to recent Fox numbers. And in his actual comments provided during that interview, he wasn’t very impressive.
“We will end the weaponization of government,” DeSantis proclaimed, whatever that means. “And that’s of course a new FBI director on day one. That’s a difference between me and Donald Trump. He says the jury’s still out on FBI Director Wray. I think you need a new start on day one.” DeSantis somewhat perked up when he mentioned what he called a difference between himself and Trump, as though he was just desperate to think of something.
DeSantis than alleged that it was “Donald Trump’s own agencies” that perpetrated an imagined suppression of the truth in the lead-up to the 2020 presidential race. And that was about it, an argument that doesn’t even make sense. If you go with the argument that those agencies did something wrong, then well, Trump has spoken over and over about how opposed he is to what went on, and the idea that trying to associate Trump with those agencies’ actions will work is, uh, dubious. Spend five seconds listening to Trump and the distance is glaringly obvious.
A lot of what DeSantis said just sounded like repackaged versions of Trump’s BS. And then Bartiromo asked DeSantis if he’d even be on the stage for the first presidential debate, seemingly expressing suspicion as to whether his campaign would even be able to survive, knowing Maria’s support for Trump. The interview made DeSantis look like a desperate mess barely keeping himself moving forward in the primary as Trump dominates. Check out the video below:
