Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis thinks he would beat President Joe Biden if he ran against him in 2024, the governor revealed in an interview with Piers Morgan.
DeSantis definitively addressed 2024 when he told Morgan: “If I were to run … I’m running against Biden.”
“Like, we are competing for the Republican, potentially, I get that, but ultimately, you know the guy I’m gonna focus on is Biden because I think he’s failed the country,” DeSantis continued. “I think the country wants a change. I think they want a fresh start and a new direction and so we’ll be very vocal about that.”
Asked by the Fox Nation host if he would defeat Biden, DeSantis said: “I think so.”
“I won with independents by 18 points,” the governor said, addressing the midterm elections, “and so that will be the same formula that we would take, and honestly forget about me, I think anybody should take the formula like that nationally.”
“You can’t win with just Republicans,” he added. “You’ve gotta win with independents and you need to convince some of these Democrats, which I was able to do in Florida, because they’re not woke, they don’t like some of the nonsense going on. They want their streets safe, and they want quality education. So I think you could appeal to people across the canvas.”
The interview reportedly took place two hours after DeSantis, during a Monday press conference, slammed Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg for “pursuing a political agenda and weaponizing the office” against former President Donald Trump.
“I’ve seen rumors swirl, I have not seen any facts yet, and so I don’t know what’s going to happen,” DeSantis said, asked about Trump’s potential indictment. “But I do know this. The Manhattan district attorney is a [George] Soros-funded prosecutor, and so he, like other Soros-funded prosecutors, they weaponize their office to impose a political agenda on society at the expense of the rule of law and public safety.”
DeSantis also addressed the potential charges against Trump related to the $130,000 hush-money payments to porn star Stormy Daniels. Those payments were made by former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen, allegedly to keep her quiet about an alleged affair with Trump.
“I don’t know what goes into paying hush money to a porn star to secure silence over some type of alleged affair—I just, I can’t speak to that,” DeSantis said.
“But what I can speak to is that if you have a prosecutor who is ignoring crimes happening every single day in his jurisdiction, and he chooses to go back many, many years ago to try to use something about porn star hush-money payments, you know, that’s an example of pursuing a political agenda and weaponizing the office,” the governor continued. “And I think that that’s fundamentally wrong.”
“But the real victims are ordinary New Yorkers, ordinary Americans, and all these different jurisdictions that they get victimized every day because of the reckless political agenda that the Soros DAs bring to their job,” DeSantis added. “They ignore crime and they empower criminals, and that hurts people, hurts a lot of people every single day.”
“Ron DeSanctimonious will probably find out about FALSE ACCUSATIONS & FAKE STORIES sometime in the future, as he gets older, wiser and better known when he’s unfairly and illegally attacked by a woman, even classmates that are ‘underage’ (or possibly a man!),” the former president said, referring to an unsubstantiated claim that DeSantis formerly partied with underage girls. “I’m sure he will want to fight these misfits just like I do!”
About two hours after he made the remarks at the press conference, DeSantis sat down with Morgan. The full interview will air on Fox Nation on Thursday.
Morgan writes that he asked the governor about specific differences between DeSantis and Trump, to which DeSantis responded: “Well, I think there’s a few things. The approach to COVID was different. I would have fired somebody like [Anthony] Fauci. I think he got way too big for his britches and I think he did a lot of damage.”
Axios reported that DeSantis made the “did a lot of damage” comment about Trump. The outlet was forced to issue an editor’s note correcting its story and noting that DeSantis was referring to Fauci.
DeSantis also told Morgan: “I also think just in terms of my approach to leadership, I get personnel in the government who have the agenda of the people and share our agenda. You bring your own agenda in, you’re gone. We’re just not gonna have that. So, the way we run the government, I think, is no daily drama, focus on the big picture and put points on the board, and I think that’s something that’s very important.”
Morgan wrote that this remark “slammed Trump’s chaotic, self-obsessed, divisive management style.” A DeSantis spokeswoman told The Daily Signal that the comment merely speaks to the governor’s leadership style.
DeSantis also joked about Trump’s nickname for him—Ron DeSanctimonious—telling Morgan: “I don’t know how to spell the sanctimonious one. I don’t really know what it means, but I kinda like it, it’s long, it’s got a lot of vowels. We’ll go with that, that’s fine. I mean, you can call me whatever you want, just as long as you also call me a winner because that’s what we’ve been able to do in Florida, is put a lot of points on the board and really take this state to the next level.”
“To me, it’s just background noise,” he reportedly told Morgan of Trump’s ongoing criticisms.
“It’s not important for me to be fighting with people on social media,” he added. “It’s not accomplishing anything for the people I represent. So, we really just focus on knocking out victories, day after day, and if I got involved in all the undertow, I would not be able to be an effective governor. So, I don’t think it’s something that makes sense for me.”
Morgan reminded DeSantis that Trump had tweeted before the 2018 election: “Ron DeSantis is a brilliant young leader. Yale and then Harvard who would make a great Governor of Florida. He loves our country. He’s a true fighter.”
DeSantis reportedly chuckled before answering, “Things have changed a little bit, I guess. It is what it is.”
“We had a good relationship [when he was a congressman] and I think one of the reasons he got to know me is because I saw the Russia collusion thing as a farce from the beginning,” DeSantis said of Trump, according to Morgan. “Very few people said that. We had a handful of us in Congress that were fighting back against that.”
“So, I would go on TV, and I would defend him when it wasn’t popular and when it was kinda politically risky, but I just thought it was the right thing to do and then I thought that he had good ideas for the country,” DeSantis added. “And then when I became governor, his last two years as president, we worked very well together. He had a place in Florida and worked well with us to serve our state.”
Morgan suggested that DeSantis made a “fatal error” in his relationship with Trump.
“What’s that?” the governor asked.
“You got too popular,” Morgan responded, to which DeSantis laughed.
“Well, I would say if you look at some of the change from that … the major thing that’s happened that’s changed his tune was my reelection victory,” DeSantis said.
The governor insisted that his view is that “we should want the country to do well.”
“I want other Republicans to do well,” he added. “I want them to eclipse me. We’re setting a great standard in Florida, have everyone up their game.”
Neither the White House nor the Trump campaign responded to requests for comment from The Daily Signal.
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