The former President Donald Trump issued a strong statement Wednesday in response a Ron DeSantis interview that will air later this week.
Piers Morgan, a British broadcaster, wrote an opinion piece for the New York Post Tuesday previewing his interview of the Republican governor. Morgan stated that DeSantis had “finally taken the gloves off” Trump. The former president has repeatedly criticised DeSantis since launching his reelection campaign in 2024.
DeSantis spoke out about his 2024 campaign during the interview that will air on Thursday. It is expected that it will launch later in spring. Morgan’s preview says that DeSantis, Florida governor, said during the interview, “I have what is required to be president and can beat.” [President Joe] Biden.”
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis is seen delivering a speech in Tampa, Florida on November 8, 2022. Former President Donald Trump is pictured at National Harbor’s annual Conservative Political Action Conference, March 4, 2023. In response to DeSantis’ comments in an interview with Piers, Morgan this week, Trump issued a lengthy statement Wednesday.
Octavio Jones/Getty. Anna Moneymaker/Getty
DeSantis also addressed Trump’s repeated attacks, saying that his “regular attempts at provocation” (such as calling the Florida governor Nicknames or taunting Trump with hypothetical election polls in which Trump is ahead) are nothing but “background noise.”
The ex-president began Wednesday’s statement, which was obtained from Newsweek, by addressing the preview of DeSantis appearing with Morgan the day before. He wrote, “Now that Ron DeSanctimonious has finally admitted he’s in Race by starting to fight back and now that his Polls are crashed so he doesn’t have any other choice, let’s explain the facts.”
Trump claims that DeSantis is “for a Republican an average Governor” and that DeSantis won “1.2 million more Votes in Florida in the 2022 midterm elections than me. Trump won the 2020 presidential election with approximately 5.7 million votes in Florida. DeSantis won his gubernatorial election in the fall with approximately 4.6 million votes.
Trump said, “He was a disciple Paul Ryan and did what Ryan told him to,” Trump added. “Florida has been a success for many years, well before Ron put Ron there. It’s amazing what Ocean and Sunshine can do!”
Trump also criticised DeSantis’ approach on the coronavirus epidemic, claiming that “he was a big Lockdown governor” and that Florida had one of the highest COVID-19 deaths rates.
“Other Republican Governors did much better than Ron and, since I allowed them this freedom, never closed their States,” reads the statement. “Remember, that was my decision.
Trump stated that Ron was an average Governor. But he is Number One in Public Relations.
Trump also posted his statement in a series on his Truth Social account. Newsweek reached out to DeSantis’ campaign by email for comment.
Morgan was able to hear DeSantis speak out about his administration’s COVID approach, and he said that Trump’s approach to the virus outbreak would have been “different.”
“I would have fired somebody such as Fauci,” the governor said. He was referring to Anthony Fauci who was Trump’s former top medical advisor to COVID-19. “I think that he got way to big for his britches and I think he did quite a bit of damage.”
Monmouth University released Tuesday’s survey that found 41 percent of Republican and GOP-leaning voters preferred Trump over DeSantis for their next presidential candidate.
However, in a hypothetical race between the Republicans, 47 percent of respondents said they would vote for Trump and 46 percent gave their support to DeSantis.
