Neither Florida Governor Ron DeSantis nor former President Donald Trump has announced bids to run for the White House in 2024, but that hasn’t stopped Trumpworld’s most loyal right-wing pundits from choosing their side.
DeSantis, Roger Stone said on a recent podcast, “doesn’t have the charisma that Trump has.”
“He doesn’t have the presence that Trump has,” Stone continued. “He’s not self-deprecating. He’s not funny. He’s not entertaining. He’s kinda stiff. A little boring.”
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Likewise, Fox News host Dan Bongino remains loyal to the ex-president.
“He should run again,” Bongino said Tuesday on his podcast.
Trump’s recent spat with Elon Musk has also created a foil for Trump’s most loyal sycophants to declare their fealty to the former president. Bongino specifically mentioned his disagreement with Musk’s assessment that Trump should “hang up his hat.”
But where Musk’s attacks represent an entertaining sideshow, DeSantis’ support among Republicans represents an actual threat.
And Trump’s closest and most high-profile supporters seem to understand the risk.
At this point, most are trying to avoid an actual fight. Newsmax host Greg Kelly has urged DeSantis not to get ahead of himself and run for president. The top-rated Newsmax star called DeSantis a “career politician” who has poached plays from Trump’s playbook.
“Obviously, he has studied President Trump very, very carefully. You can kind of see it in this picture in Mar-a-Lago. I mean, they’re very similar, and I think DeSantis inhaled so much from Donald Trump,” Kelly said on his primetime program. “The agenda, the style, it is all Trump’s.”
Likewise, anti-Muslim activist Brigitte Gabriel, who has largely dedicated her Twitter to posting pro-Trump messages, recently declared that DeSantis isn’t up for the task come 2024.
“I love Governor DeSantis and would be open to having him as President in 2028, but we need Trump in 2024,” she said in an early July tweet. “No one else can save the country.”
Other vocal Trumpworld voices that, from time to time, still speak to the ex-president have also cautioned DeSantis not to step in the way of Trump.
On Tuesday morning, former Trump advisers Steve Bannon, Boris Epshteyn, and Steve Cortes joined the chorus encouraging DeSantis to avoid taking on Trump in a GOP primary.
“Ron DeSantis [has] got a bright future in the Republican Party,” Epshteyn said. “There is no doubt what the American people want right now… a third [Trump] term.”
Bannon similarly insisted that the Republican Party must turn to Trump’s “broad shoulders”—a term that former Vice President Mike Pence also regularly used to praise Trump—and Cortes asserted that DeSantis “will not be” president in 2024, “assuming that Donald Trump decides to pursue the nomination.”
Cortes said he “strongly” believes DeSantis would be president one day. “But that will not be in 2024,” he said.
Other steadfast Trump allies have been less diplomatic about their warnings to DeSantis.
Pro-Trump lawyer Lin Wood has derisively referred to DeSantis as “Ronnie,” and claimed that DeSantis turned a blind eye to “rigged elections,” a new insult in the most loyal Republican circles.
“I want to see him [DeSantis] take action to FIX 2020, end rigged elections, and end child sex trafficking,” he told The Daily Beast. “Those objectives require serious investigations and prosecutions.”
A DeSantis spokesperson declined to comment on this story when reached by The Daily Beast. The Trump campaign didn’t return a request for comment.
In a recent interview with New York magazine, Trump said he doesn't view DeSantis as a presidential primary opponent, noting—as has been his custom recently—that he endorsed DeSantis at a critical time during the 2018 gubernatorial primary in Florida.
“I don’t feel that,” the ex-president told the outlet. “I endorsed Ron, he was at 3, and as soon as I endorsed him, he went to first place, he was not gonna win.”
But even though much of Trumpworld has taken aim at DeSantis, some right-wing pundits are jumping ship to back the Florida governor.
For one, far-right Pizzagate conspiracy theorist Mike Cernovich is officially off the Trump train.
“Trump was surrounded by idiots he hired and Mark Meadows, but that’s redundant,” he tweeted at the end of June. “DeSantis 2024!”
Rising Fox News star Lisa Boothe, who recently attended a big-dollar DeSantis fundraiser, also appears to be backing the governor.
“DeSantis 2024,” she wrote on multiple occasions on Twitter. “Ron DeSantis is the future of the Republican Party.”
Yet, when reached for comment, Boothe emphasized that “no one has announced.”
“Joe Biden is the worst president in the history of our country,” she said. “He should resign in disgrace.”
While right-wing pundits are just beginning to pick their respective GOP presidential candidates, there is one thing conservative TV and radio talkers agree on: DeSantis is a talent.
There is no better example of such than longtime right-wing talk radio host Michael Savage, a fervent Trump supporter, who recently admitted, “DeSantis is almost bulletproof.”
