DeSantis Responds to Trump’s COVID Criticism: I Got Reelected
“And I’m happy to say, you know, in my case not only did we win re-election, we won with the highest percentage of the vote that any Republican governor candidate has in the history of the state of Florida.”
President Donald Trump has set his eyes on Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis as his biggest opponent in 2024, even though the governor hasn’t declared his candidacy.
Trump said DeSantis closed Florida “for a long period of time” for COVID. He also claimed the DeSantis team is “trying to rewrite history” regarding his response to COVID.
Except…no.
DeSantis responded today (emphasis mine):
DeSANTIS: “I roll out of bed, I have people attacking me from all angles. It’s been happening for many, many years. And if you look it, the good thing about it, though, is like, if you take a crisis situation like Covid, you know, the good thing about it is when you’re an elected executive, you have to make all kinds of decisions, you gotta steer that ship, and the good thing is, is that the people are able to render a judgment on that, whether they reelect you’re not. And I’m happy to say, you know, in my case not only did we win re-election, we won with the highest percentage of the vote that any Republican governor candidate has in the history of the state of Florida.
(Applause)
We won by the largest raw vote margin, over 1.5 million votes, than any governor candidate has ever had in Florida history. In fact, we almost double the previous record, which I think was like 780,000 vote margin. So, what I would just say is, that verdict has been rendered by the people of the state of Florida.”
Ron Desantis responds to a question by @henryrodgersdc on recent criticism he's received from Donald Trump:
"People are able to render a judgment on that, whether they re-elect you or not…that verdict has been rendered by the people of the state of Florida." pic.twitter.com/15Ez0SHoSU
— Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) January 31, 2023
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Comments
Ouch. That’s a good statement, slightly sarcastic but still very true. This whole strategy of needling DeSantis doesn’t seem to be paying off so far for those who seek to undermine him or dissuade his potential can
Candidacy.
WTF that’s two in a row.
I hate seeing this go on. I’d love to see a Trump-DeSantis ticket.
Ron responds with class.
Trump punches low and when people aren’t looking….they are night and day.
I doubt DeSantis wants to be the next Pence for Trump to use as a punching bag when it’s convenient for him.
That makes no sense. What on earth could be in it for DeSantis? Why would he subject himself to that? Why would he give up a great governorship to take up a position that famously isn’t worth a bucket of warm piss? If he decides not to run for president he should keep his current job.
In fact he should do that anyway and leave president for later; Florida needs him a lot more than the nation does.
Also, having both of them on the ticket runs the risk that in a close election Florida’s electors might have to vote for someone else for VP, thus throwing the VP election to the senate, with no guarantee of a R majority there.
Agreed Milhouse. If he’s smart, and he seems to be, he needs to at least run this term as Governor out, and perhaps one more whilst training up a successor, THEN spend two years running for the Presidency – if that’s where he wants to go!
Wrong DeSantis should stay Governor until he term limits out.
However, a DeSantis-Trump ticket would be the ultimate impeachment insurance! LOL
I’d rather see Trump fuck-off. He was a fucking idiot who squandered his presidency by acting like an out-of-control toddler. He was as bad as the Democrats who also acted as out-of-control toddlers.
Worse, Trump never accepts responsibility. It’s ALWAYS someone else’s fault. No matter what idiotic thing he says or does.
So I’d rather not sabotage DeSantis by hanging Trump around his neck.
This is it.
Trump wasn’t strategic enough for the position he was in, which demanded brilliant tactics and careful forethought.
It wasn’t entirely “fair”, but he did sign up for it and actually encouraged it by the way he conducted himself.
He just came out as “tough on Putin”, citing R presidents before Trump. Sigh.
Maybe we need Trump in 2024 after all, old man that he is. We’re less likely to get world war that way.
What’s he supposed to be doing? Kissing Putin’s ass? You may not like us sending weapons to Ukraine, and that’s fine, but I want a president who’s tough on Putin.
Yeah, cute. But no republican will win a national election corrupted by unverified mail-in ballots, unmonitored drop boxes, and ballot harvesting.
100%.
It doesn’t matter who we nominate if we don’t fix AZ, NV, WI and a handful of states that Dems will ballot harvest to victory.
Every red state that is not fixing their election rules now is asking for future failure.
Meanwhile Dems are signing up illegals for drivers licenses, dropping signature verification, mailing ballots to everyone, and letting no citizens vote in local election (wink wink but not National really) … and doing everything they can in the states where they have control to make sure Republicans can never win there again.
… And playing the long game on NPV so 57 million Californians can win the presidency when they all vote Dem …
I will vote for either of them for President. And if we don’t start figuring out how to win the swing states it won’t matter who we nominate.
People can start with cleaning up the local voter roll of their county. Cross match registration address v property tax roll address. When that studio apt or flower shop is listed as the address for a dozen registrations ask questions at the county clerk’s office. Both lists are available, they are public records. Several organizations are offering assistance to accomplish this across the Nation. It doesn’t depend upon hoping your local officials are willing, ordinary people can be proactive in this, waiting on someone else isn’t required.
California is one state with a limited number of electoral votes. It doesn’t matter how many votes go one way or the other. It only takes one vote for the electors to go to one candidate or the other. We should look at the winner take all system of selecting electors. As for letting Democrats do what you describe, we should be encouraging Republicans to do the same thing. Why in hell should they just lay over and play dead? Fight fire with fire.
If no r can ever win a national election then doesn’t that undercut any argument about DJT being indispensable?
Uh I don’t recall making any argument about anyone being indispensable but I would say that Saint DeSantis is not indispensable himself. But as a broader point, the reality of a corrupted national process seems to scream that reform is desperately needed and that someone needs to advocate such reform.
So your solution is to stay at home and not vote at all?
That was already his plan, unless he gets his way and Trump is the nominee.
If Trump does, it suddenly makes sense to vote again by some backwards logic. Don’t ask him to explain why because it will just hurt the cognitive dissonance siren in his brain.
IMHO DeSantis I seems to be inviting the ire of DJT, otherwise, why not just come right out and say whether he will run or not?
If he has no intention to run, he could simply come right out and endorse Trump. But that is not what he’s doing. He’s teasing him – or taunting more like.
Now, why would he be doing that?
I’m sorry, but if we’ve learned anything these last years when it comes to elections, you have to follow the money! DeSantis has a lot of questionable money flowing into his coffers of late; questionable because of who it is all coming from: mainly those who detest Trump.
DeSantis may very well have his eye on the Oval Office, but he’s playing a dangerous game with people who simply cannot be trusted with the best interests of the country.
He needs to wake up and see that the “game’s afoot!”
There is no real reason for DeSantis to announce officially now – In fact doing so would make it more difficult as he would have to formalize a lot of things, be subject to more laws surrounding official campaigns.
The only thing he is doing that irritates trump is being an effective leader, and showing he has what it takes to run an executive branch well.
Big money, corporate interests, public pressure are a part of politics. There’s a quote from an old school CA legislator about lobbyists and those who seek to influence policies that goes something like:
‘if you can’t take their money, drink their whiskey, screw their women the turn around and vote against them in the morning, you don’t belong in this place’
Don’t sweat the money, b/c if you devote your time to railing against it you won’t have any excess to do anything else. It isn’t going away.
What’s DeSantis is doing is using political judo. Trump keeps throwing punches at him and DeSantis slips aside then uses the opportunity to his advantage. Maybe the better advice would be directed at DJT to shift his attacks to declared candidates? Now there is one, Haley, though DJT oddly seems to have encouraged her to run in opposition to himself.
At the rate Trump is going, he’s gonna start sounding like another Hillary.
That Hillary analogy makes no sense but maybe you can explain it to me after President Trump wins the Republican primary.
Shrill and desperate.
If you’re scared of him now, you probably should avoid reading the mean tweets.
He lies a lot.
She lies a lot.
End of analogy…simple and spot on.
Are you Joe Scarborough? I don’t think Mika would approve of the Hillary reference. comment?
No.
Are you Alex Jones?
Never listened to him but I understand there is a general media effort to smear and silence him as a conspiracy theorist nut. Not saying anything one way or the other about Alex. I never listened to him. But that your default position so seems to be to label Trump supporters as deranged according to media definitions explains a lot about DeSantis supporters.
Trump cultists, yes.
I actually supported Trump. I don’t any more.
BTW, Alex Jones just got sued to oblivion for literally lying about Sandy Hook being a staged event….and rightfully so. He’s in the mold of Trump. Attack dog mentality but short on strategy and critical thinking.
I believe it was from May to September of the same year.
If Trump keeps this up, DeSantis is going to declare just to spite him.
I think Trump was a great President but an ego as thin as a wedding veil.
DeSantis is king.
Trump is also king but don’t attach DeSantis.
DeSantis may not even run in 2024. Trump is jumping the gun here.
Jumping the gun, or skittish.
President Trump is Just tired of ungrateful, sold to the highest bidder people
It’s the human condition
I thought jealousy was the linchpin of human nature.
Do you have some evidence that DeSantis has been “sold to the highest bidder?”
Trump demands loyalty and shows none. He barely helped DeSantis at all during the reelection, instead choosing to attack the governor while he was running.
Trump is beside himself that so many have moved on from him. Hence, he resorts to tactics reserved for his enemies in a move of loud desperation.
Lol no, people have not moved on from President Trump
That’s a ridiculous statement
The only ones who have moved on from Trump are the old Republicans who were never with him in the first place. Forever looking for the perfect candidate to hold their noses while voting. “JEB!!! DeSantis!!!!
Phil, this covers a LOT of people who voted for Trump (holding their noses) because Hillary was worse. Why are you attacking the very people who voted for Trump . . . often not even FOR him but against Hillary? Your attempts to make your case for Trump are . . . confounding. Are you even “FOR” Trump? It’s hard to tell because all you do is rail AGAINST everything and everyone.
https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2023/01/31/ohio-senator-j-d-vance-endorses-donald-trump-for-president/
Tit for tat.
Voters have moved on.
Not you but you’ve made it clear that you and your small band of loud conspiracy nutters are outliers.
Trump is doing what he always does: turn an opponent into a meme. Except this time he’s been doing it sooner than usual.
He’s trying to. It’s not working.
What you said is perfectly reasonable and if he doesn’t run then why has Trump attacked him? But you got a downvote because of this non-partisan statement. Who could possibly find fault with this? Is Trump on this forum?
I think it might be someone from Texas.
:-{)}}}
Trump is right, I remember the videos of police on the beaches of florida, I don’t bemoan that in the first 6 weeks, they had filled us all with fear
But I think President Trump believes DeSantis is trying to rewrite history, which he is by omission
Sorry, meant to downvote you and your incessant Trump bootlicking. Trump praised DeSantis for reopening.
“Look at what’s going on in Florida, it’s incredible. If you look at so many different places that have opened up … the ones that are most energetic about opening, they are doing tremendous business, and this is what these numbers are all about.” Now he’s attacking DeSantis.
Trump has no loyalty.
The endless “we love DeSantis, orange man bad” article at LI
Sigh…
Perhaps Trump should stop attacking DeSantis.
“Scoreboard” is always a pretty solid comeback.
Trump should stop attacking DeSantis and should move to his best pitch: life in 2019.
Specifically, weren’t you better off in 2019? Before people crammed down on your life because of COVID, weren’t you freer, more prosperous, and on a better trajectory overall?
Make that pitch, and the appeal would be yuge.
He has, but he is keeping his eye on the rear
You mean, on the past.
I think many of us hoped that Trump would use these four years to reflect and learn from some of his mistakes or bad habits and come out a new man fighting the Dems and Dementia Joe. But no, he is going after his own party and especially DeSantis. DeSantis is acting like the little boy being bullied at school who tries not to get into a fight with the bully. We all know what happens when he finally has had enough and goes for the bully’s throat!
Oh please, he should reflect on being stabbed in the back by RINOs, media, military , media, dot.com, globalists, judiciary, Intelligence agencies including the FBI, CIA…
I mean this billionaire, who we all knew was brash, is our Patton, he fights for us he face up his life as he k ew it, for US, he continues to fight for US
And you want it to
Be a learning lesson so
He is a nicer kinder person…
Maybe you need a reminder of what President Trump ACTUALLY did
I would have LOVED to list it all, but pretty sure the Professor wouldnt approve, way too long…
https://trumpwhitehouse.archives.gov/trump-administration-accomplishments/
Yeah. Right. Trump did us a great service exposing our Republican enemies who were fighting him even before announcing in 2016 and haven’t stopped since. We elected him because he is a fighter. Now you squishes are criticizing him for being a fighter. It is essential for Trump to take out these McConnell Republicans before the general election and that is what he is doing.
If only the stupid Republican voters would stop defending the Stupid Party and appreciate what a great service Trump has done for the country, they might come to realize that it is the “sensible middle” that has emerged to carry the fight for our constitutional freedoms, not the “conservatives” (whatever that is). Time to talk a walk and visit the real world outside of your echo chamber.
Well you’re a quitter as you told everyone here loud and proud before you left.
Turns out you aren’t good at that either.
You think DeSantis is a McConnell Republican? HAHAHA!!!
Trump is tearing into a potential rival, not trying to clear the party of squishy RINOs. This is all about Trump’s ego and his need to have everyone kiss his ring. There’s no sign he’s learned anything.
And you don’t know what a conservative is? DeSantis. He’s a conservative. Trump… is not.
If DeSantis was subjected to anything similar to the intentionally manufactured campaign against Trump, would he have won re-election?
Exactly, no one, and I mean no one, could withstand what President Trump has been subjected to, and then these people want him to play nice
Dear God…
Excellent, and long, series of articles at the Columbia Journalism Review by Jeff Gerth about the way the press lied about Trump and misled the people.
https://www.cjr.org/special_report/trumped-up-press-versus-president-ed-note.php?a=home-hero&utm_source=cjr-org&utm_content=homehero
Republicans are so used to holding their noses to vote for the lesser of two evils that they don’t know how to vote for the most effective and consequential conservative POTUS ever. There’s a lesson about what is fundamentally wrong with “conservatives” (whatever that is) when a take no prisoners centrist like Trump can claim that title. Why can’t conservatives be the best conservative POTUS? Read these threads. It’s all there. The Stupid Party in full glory.
Yep. So fast people want to dump Trump, without considering what he went through, including the questionable election of 2020.
How many times did people laugh at Trump, and he was shown to be right? Yet he is faulted because he actually fights back.
It’s surreal.
Seriously? You’re now claiming he’s the philosophical successor to Bush ’41, Bush’43, Dole, Romney and McCain???????
Since the intentionally manufactured dirty tricks worked last time do you anticipate that the d/prog will abandon those successful tactics in 2024? If so why? If not then why wouldn’t they be successful again if deployed v DJT?
Of course they will do the same, or the current version of it. But people are now discovering the truth. Hopefully, that will help. See the CJR articles cited above. It shows the extent of how the media, especially the NYT, misled.
Which changes what?
People who suspected all the BS that was going on have been validated – to themselves. The people who don’t care, never cared to begin with. The ones who matter are the people who have good hearts and didn’t think they were being misled but have now figured out they have been. It is that group that matters, and I don’t think that group matters. Why? You would have seen that group overrun everyone at the midterms.
And don’t give me this election fraud bullshit. Not that it doesn’t exist, but that it cannot be overcome.
If it could have been, it would have been.
It wasn’t. Covid BS, 2020 election BS, 2016 election BS – America didn’t say enough is enough. America shrugged it shoulders. Where was the outrage to change the rules so fraud cannot occur? I seem to remember one state doing a pretty good job, run by someone who for some inexplicable reason is pilloried here by some.
If Trump is the nominee, I’ll vote for him. But I swear to dear God in heaven, the strategy of our side better come up with a deeper answer than “Donald Trump” because our problem is a little bit bigger than that and the forces against him have only escalated.
Trump’s support is wanting, not growing.
Please supply data that indicate “people are now discovering the truth”
No bullshit blog links, actual numbers.
He was and he did. They threw everything they could at him.
No, DeSantis wasn’t. Trump withstood attacks like no other politician in the history of the Republic. EVER!
So did the governor of Michigan, the woman from planned parent/hood, of Whitmer-closet infamy and cover-up.
Still, fair is fair, and the Florida Republicans have some good ideas and strive to perform.
If DeSantis is smart, he’ll sit out 2024. I fear that a Dumb-o-crat will win the White House in that election. The combined machinations of the corrupt FBI, media and Silicon Valley — combined with the Dumb-o-crats’ usual ballot shenanigans — will ensure that. The recent midterm elections tell me that more than half of the voting-age population will vote Dumb-o-crat no matter how bad things get.
Whether dotard-marionette, Biden, or, greasy Newsolini, runs, I wouldn’t count either of them out, as galling as that may seem.
I would go further …. IMO DeSantis would be out of his mind to run in 2024, unless Trump blows himself up. He has a fabulous job that he is very successful at. Trump has already proven that it is all about him, with the 2020 election GA Senate runoff races. Joe Biden thanks him for Senate control. If DeSantis were to beat Trump in primaries, I would not bet a nickel that Trump would not pull the same GA stunt again in the general election.
Finally, DeSantis has 3 little kids and a wife who recently has hopefully recovered from cancer, that I did not think was trivial. At his age, his opportunity will not go away any time soon.
Pasadena Phil Wrote: “Republicans are so used to holding their noses to vote for the lesser of two evils…”
With an embarrassment of riches, The Feckless R’s, should stop being so feckless, and figure a way to deploy all of them.
— DeSantis runs the levers of admin better than Trump.
— Trump is The Spectacle of The Empire; always.
— Pompeo, who’s hanging around being coy right now, comes off as Mr. Sensible Gravitas in his current pitch.
— etc.
Yes, but if the kind and scale of vote fraud that eliminated Trump had happened in Florida you wouldn’t have been. It isn’t as if Democrat vote shenanigans are unknown in Florida, Broward and Palm Beach counties have a reputation for it, and they’re large enough to sway state-wide elections by themselves. Only a matter of time before the felon vote FL foolishly approved becomes a thing. Adding hundreds of thousands of potential voters with historically low turnout when they can vote makes them an ideal pool from which to submit fake ballots on their behalf.
Know why is didn’t happen? BECAUSE DESANTIS MADE SURE IT DIDN’T. He spent years cleaning house, using his power and the legislature to clear out avenues of fraud. And he won in Florida by nearly 20 points, in a state that was almost the textbook definition of “purple state.” Democrats can’t cheat in Florida nearly as much anymore, and it shows in the results. It wasn’t just DeSantis winning, it was a GOP wipeout.
Trump, during his time in office, made no such efforts. He campaigned in 2020 like he did in 2016, thinking that holding rallies would be enough. It wasn’t. In 2016 he took them by surprise, but four years later they were ready for him. And there’s no sign he’s figured that out. Instead he’s spending his time going after a rival. He’ll split the party, and then if he wins the nomination (and he probably will) he’ll go on to get crushed by whoever the Democrats run.
This is a key point. Desantis won because he did what is necessary for a much cleaner election. In my mind, that’s the number one reason to support him.
Trump depended on state governments to do that, but it didn’t happen. I think it should have been the number one rallying point, but it wasn’t.
Yep. DJT refused to grasp the issue post Biden inauguration. He had the opportunity with his unique platform to spend two years working in red and purple states to help ballet security and voter integrity laws get upgraded and enforced.
Had he done so he would have built out a network of grassroots supporters for his 2024 campaign. Not to mention fixing issue v talking about them, while also keeping his name in the news with positive things, from populist right perspective.
DeSantis wasn’t running in Philadelphia.
Trump objected to DeSantis reopening Florida and Brian Kemp reopening Georgia.
The fact that DeSantis didn’t mention that establishes that unlike Trump DeSantis actually has class.
He also has your best interest in mind. He is defeating the DIE agenda while Trump is enabling it by trying to make sure Biden is re-elected 2024.
Winning ,not whining is what counts in politics-DeSantis won rerelection by a huge margin and Trump has not helped the GOP elect more Republicand or b reelected
Trump was reelected as well.
Notice how nobody — even DeSantis — attempts to make a believable explanation as to why six states stopped counting votes at exactly 10:00pm with Trump way ahead (17% more votes than 2016) but Biden comes out of nowhere with a record of 81 million votes the next morning.