Former President Donald Trump appears to be confident when it comes to a potential matchup against Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R).
During an interview with David Brody on “The Water Cooler,” Trump shared his reaction to speculation surrounding DeSantis’ potential 2024 White House bid.
“I got him elected pure and simple. He would have never… And there was no reason to go wild about endorsing him. So, now I hear he might want to run against me. So, we’ll handle that the way I handle things,” Trump said.
Listen to his comments below:
Trump today on Desantis: “I got him elected, pure and simple. And there was no reason to go wild about endorsing him .. So, now I hear he might want to run against me. So, we’ll handle that the way I handle things.” pic.twitter.com/rBBYyUtnNW
— Ron Filipkowski (@RonFilipkowski) January 16, 2023
Last month, Trump went off on a poll showing DeSantis beating him in a potential matchup for the Republican nomination.
“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” to announce his run in 2016, Trump said.
DeSantis held the lead in front of Trump 52% to 38% in the Wall Street Journal survey released last month.
Dan Eberhart, a GOP donor supporting DeSantis, previously told NBC News, “DeSantis is rising, and Trump is increasingly scared of being left for dead by the Republican Party.”
He added, “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.”
DeSantis kicked off his second term as governor in January, stressing that Florida would not be home to the “woke.”
“We reject this woke ideology. We seek normalcy, not philosophical lunacy. We will not allow reality, facts, and truth to become optional,” DeSantis said during his inaugural speech.
He added, “We will never surrender to the woke mob. Florida is where woke goes to die.”