Final month, Donald Trump stated that if Ron DeSantis finally ends up leaping into the race for the 2024 GOP presidential nomination, he’ll “deal with” the Florida governor “the best way I deal with issues.” Clearly, this didn’t imply that he’ll merely run a greater marketing campaign and/or rent a therapist to show him respiratory workout routines and suppose calming ideas. Fairly, it was clearly a pointed reference to the best way the ex-president has “dealt with” his actual and perceived competitors prior to now, i.e., by threats, intimidation, and insults. And he’s wasted no time doing simply that.
In an interview on Thursday, Trump instructed conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt that he was single-handedly answerable for getting DeSantis elected as governor in 2018. Whereas it is a declare Trump has made earlier than, this time he added a bit extra flourish to the story. “Ron DeSantis obtained elected due to me,” he instructed Hewitt. “You keep in mind, he had nothing, he was useless, he was leaving the race, he came visiting and he begged me, begged me, for an endorsement. He was on the point of drop out…. He stated, ‘Should you endorse me, I’ll win,’ and there have been tears coming down from his eyes.”
He later added that after he rubber-stamped DeSantis’s marketing campaign, “every thing collapsed” for major opponent Adam Putnam, and that the endorsement obtained DeSantis “previous the crackhead [Andrew Gillum], who was the most well liked individual within the Democratic Get together on the time,” within the common election.
Is the story of DeSantis crying whereas begging for Trump’s approval truly true? On the one hand, this sounds quite a bit like Trump’s well-known “sir” tales, that are crafted to make him look good however have a tendency to not have a foundation in actuality. (It additionally sounds tonally much like his insults about individuals doing issues “like a canine.” In reality, we’re actually shocked he hasn’t but claimed DeSantis begged him “like a canine,” however maybe that’s coming.) On the opposite, DeSantis was as soon as such an enormous fan of Trump that he made a whole, vastly embarrassing marketing campaign video about his love for the man.
So, it’s exhausting to say.
In associated information, throughout the identical interview with Hewitt, Trump refused to say if he would help the following Republican presidential nominee no matter who that individual is. “It must rely on who the nominee was,” he stated, which isn’t dissimilar to the reply he gave a couple of years in the past when requested if he’d settle for the end result of the 2020 election whatever the winner.
