Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-Fla.) is still not sharing whether he will run for president in 2024.
But already, he has been the target of attacks from former President Donald Trump.
Speaking to reporters on Saturday, Trump accused the Florida governor of being “disloyal” to him. He also took aim at DeSantis’ handling of COVID-19 as he claimed, “Florida was closed for a long period of time.”
On Tuesday, a reporter asked DeSantis to respond to the former president’s comments.
“I roll out of bed, I have people attacking me from all angles. It’s been happening for many, many years,” he began. “And if you look at 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 got to steer that ship.”
Watch the video below:
Wow! DeSantis fires back at Trump.
“If you take a crisis situation like Covid…when you’re an elected executive, you have to make all kinds of decisions…the people are able to render a judgement on that, whether they reelect you or not…I’m happy to say in my case… we won” pic.twitter.com/2IqOAwn05Z
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) January 31, 2023
DeSantis’ then used his response to take a subtle jab at Trump over his 2020 election defeat.
“And the good thing is, is that the people are able to render a judgment on that, whether they reelect you or not. And I’m happy to say, you know, in my case, not only did we win reelection, we won with the highest percentage of the vote that any Republican governor candidate has in the history of the state of Florida. We won by the largest raw vote margin — over 1.5 million votes — than any governor candidate has ever had in Florida history.”
He added, “And in fact, we almost doubled the previous record, which I think was like 780,000 vote margin. And so what I would just say is that verdict has been rendered by the people of the state of Florida.”
In November, DeSantis cruised to reelection with a nearly 20-point margin.
He could have responded with something akin to, “Trump is wrong. I had the best Covid response. Florida was great; people could not believe what they were seeing. We re-opened like no one else. He is the one re-writing history — not me.”
Instead, he focused on the fact the voters weighed his governance — and advancement of conservative policies — and chose to deliver him a landslide victory.
Meanwhile, the American public weighed Trump’s time in office and chose to add his name to the list of presidents who did not win reelection.
Rather than getting in the mud with name-calling, simply pointing out the differences in how the two men’s reelection bids shook out could be a potent response to Trump.
While DeSantis is working to advance a conservative agenda after winning reelection, Trump is out of power, posting on Truth Social, and golfing. In other words, a loser.
Without engaging in name-calling, DeSantis could strip away the image of Trump being the greatest winner the political world has ever seen.
And destroying that image would likely be the key to defeating him. When you start to poke holes in the image, Trump’s bombastic personality and chaotic style will be seen less as the secret sauce for victory and more as the liabilities they have been for Republicans.