the ongoing feud between former President Donald trump and
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis is heating up now.
It turns out that Desantis is starting to test the waters in being a little critical
of trump's response to Covid, which we'll get to in just a second before.
But before I get to those details, let's discuss the continuation of Trump,
just insulting Rhonda Desantis in some cases openly in other
cases behind the scenes while talking to those close to him.
Now the hill published a piece today arguing that trump
has griped behind the scenes for months about Desantis rapid political rise,
including chatter about a future white house bid.
But the complaints from the former president have only gotten louder or grown
louder, which isn't surprising when you consider a story that we covered recently
where he was talking about republicans who do something that gets under his skin.
And this was immediately after Ron Desantis did exactly what he describes in
this clip.
>> Do you reconsider your push for
it or what's your view now on the vaccine in general?
>> Well, I've taken it, I've had the booster.
Many politicians, I watched a couple of politicians be interviewed and
one of the questions was, did you get the booster because they had the vaccine and
they're answering it.
Like in other words, the answer is yes, but
they don't want to say it because they're gutless.
You gotta say it whether you had it or not say it.
But the fact is that I think the vaccine has saved 10s
of millions of people throughout the world.
I've had absolutely no side effects.
I've had it like other people have had it nothing special.
Now, that was a statement that trump made about gutless republicans immediately
after Ron DeSantis had an interview with Maria Bartiromo on Fox business
where he refused to answer whether or not he had gotten the booster shot.
So it was clear who he was talking about.
Now there are some former trump advisors who are actually befuddled at the fact
that trump is being critical of Ron DeSantis and is engaging in this feud.
In fact, Sam Nunberg is one of those former trump advisors and
he told the hill quote, President trump is the one clearly picking the fight here and
it's a fight that's too early and unnecessary.
We're not in republican primary season.
This is a fight for mid 2023 it's not a fight to start having
in 2022 then this is my favorite part of Nurnberg's quote.
He says if Donald Trump believes he is punching down when he's attacking
Ron DeSantis, then why do it meaning clearly trump sees DeSantis and
the fact that he is a rising star within the Republican party as a major
threat to his chances of winning the presidential bid in 2024.
Or at least the republican primary in 2024.
Now, what is Trump irritated about as we know,
Trump doesn't like anyone outshining him.
So that's definitely part of it, but he's also mad that DeSantis is not showing him
deference because he genuinely believes that he's the one who made DeSantis his
political career trump is the one who endorsed DeSantis as he was running for
governor in Florida.
And remember that gubernatorial race was a close one and
Trump supporting him could have made all the difference.
He's also annoyed that DeSantis won't say whether or not he plans to run for
president in 2024.
So he wants DeSantis to say either no, absolutely not or yes,
I'm definitely considering it and DeSantis is doing what most politicians do,
especially at this stage in the election cycle, if you can call it that they
usually play coy until there's about a year out until the election takes place.
So before I get to DeSantis statements about Trump.
Jenks, I wanted to get your thoughts on what trump has been saying about him.
>> Here I'll summarize it with this trump is basically
saying Meow [LAUGH] >> Exactly 100%and honestly I'm here for
it, but I have a prediction that I think some people might disagree with but
continue.
>> Yeah So look, this is the most predictable thing in the world.
In fact we predicted it, We told you that eventually trump would fight
the DeSantis if DeSantis didn't bend a knee and so far he hasn't, so
of course trump is going to catch feelings, this is 7th grade recess.
And he's gonna snipe behind the scenes, he can't help himself.
He's got diarrhea of them out so that anytime anybody comes by and
he hasn't kissed my whatever yet.
Right ring, let's call it ring.
And so and just to be fair to Trump DeSantis did rise up being mini me.
So it's like mini me turning against Dr evil or Jabba the Hutt or whatever he is.
So it's entirely predictable as as we told you, it would certainly happen and
here it is and it has everything to do with trump's ego.
But the most relevant part of the story on a is that DeSantis is not backing down so
we might have an actual primary in which case there will be blood politically
republican republicans and democrats, they will tear each other to pieces.
>> That's exactly right.
And in regard to DeSantis fighting back, I just want to be clear that he's
just kind of like dipping his toe in the water for now.
Right, a little dippy dip.
So what did he say?
Well recently he was on some Conservative podcast and
he talked about trump's response to COVID.
And remember DeSantis is really trying to stand out as this anti mask
mandates anti vaccine mandates anti shutdown kind of guy as if he's real
different from everyone else in the Republican party, but
he did try to draw like this minor distinction between himself and trump.
He said this in a recent interview with the conservative, ruthless podcast.
DeSantis said that he regretted not pushing back more aggressively when trump
advised Americans to stay home in the early days of the coronavirus pandemic.
He also said quote, I was probably the first governor in January of 2020 to call
for travel restrictions from China.
I supported Trump when he did that.
But we have to take a step back and
acknowledge that those travel restrictions just didn't work.
So again, I don't really see that as the same as Trump calling dissenters gutless.
I think that Ron DeSantis, much like other republican politicians,
much like all other politicians is a little more careful, possibly a little
more strategic before ultimately engaging in this full blown feud.
But I think once the 2 of them are on a debate stage during
the GOP primaries, It doesn't matter.
I don't think it matters how strategic Ron DeSantis is Trump just has this way
about him.
He has this way of making all of the other political opponents look like clowns.
I mean he did it with every other GOP contender during
the 2016 Republican primaries.
I don't see how it would be any different with Ron DeSantis
regardless of how much his constituents like him at this moment.
It's the childish bullying and
name calling that somehow is very effective with Republican voters.
>> Yeah, and I hear you on that.
But I think things just got a little interesting because previously I would
have said there's nobody has any chance of beating Trump, but
now there's 2 vulnerabilities that trump has, it's not showing up in the polling.
And let's be clear he's still dominant as we speak within the Republican Party.
But one is, we've been telling over the last couple of weeks,
the republicans have made a turn the donors have for the Republican Party.
It's very clear because, they got their most loyal politicians and
then we predicted they would get their most loyal media figures to start turning
on Donald Trump and that's exactly what's happened.
And in fact, Laura Ingram just came out since she might not vote for
Donald Trump in 2024.
So just again, as we predicted, they're the donors behind the scenes.
The oligarchs are pushing the Republican Party to actually fight back
against Trump and they will, they themselves don't necessarily
only a couple of votes, but their money speaks volumes.
>> Does it though, didn't didn't speak volumes in 2016.
The media was against him in 2016.
The donors were against him in 2016.
They didn't want him, they saw him as a buffoon.
They saw him as like someone who wasn't good for the country.
I mean, and then that was followed with four years of negative media coverage.
Like I just don't believe that that's enough to kind
of overwhelmed honestly as much as I hate to say it.
The characteristics of Trump that do end up playing well with the republican
electorate.
Let's keep it real.
He's entertaining and he's funny and once he decides that he's
going to go all in on insulting any political opponent he goes all in and
he persuades the base to follow him through.
So I don't know we'll see that's just my prediction.
I could be completely wrong about that.
But trump is one of those, I don't know,
he's just one of those cases where the typical conventional wisdom
doesn't really apply the same way that it does with other politicians.
>> Yeah look and so there's a lot of truth in what you're saying but
let's break down why.
Right, so he won because he's a populist now we know that he's a fake populist but
but he's plain spoken in that sense.
And that really resonated democrats.
Meanwhile thinking if you haven't gotten to Harvard through 3D.
And gotten three different doctorates and
speaking like an ask that no one understands that you can't win elections.
So it's really easy to beat the democrats.
Almost anybody could beat them.
And so but the media gave Trump billions of dollars of free coverage.
They might have thought he was a buffoon but they thought he was such a buffoon.
They're like it's okay let's give him 3billions.
3billions and now they'll do that.
>> They'll do the same.
>> But anna that leads me to my second point.
Look first, just to finish up the first moment real quick the donors themselves,
if they're funneling the money through Marco Rubio and Jeb Bush, then you're
right, they don't matter at all because those guys couldn't win anything.
They're just obvious corporate donor robots and
good on the Republican primary voters to figure that out.
Okay, now unfortunately we're in the wrong direction with Trump but
when they get the Laura Ingraham's and the Brian Kilamede and
other influencers and right wing media then that could have a difference.
And so that money is huge and it will talk for
the next couple of years to take trump down.
>> Yeah and just to give you a few more quotes from republican insiders,
one of whom decided to share his name with the Hill.
This is a ford O'Connell a GOP strategist.
He says quote what Ron DeSantis has done is he's taken Donald trump's
America first playbook and crafted it as a fForida first playbook.
If you had told me that Ron DeSantis would display more political
courage than Greg Abbott.
That's the Texas governor.
Of course I wouldn't have believed it.
The idea that DeSantis gave all the other republicans a backbone and cover to do
what's best for their states is why conservatives are now rewarding him.
And one GOP consultant, a different individual who did not give the Hill his
his or her name said quote, I think he's a little more polished and
I've heard this comment several times right?
That Ron DeSantis is like Donald Trump without the baggage.
He's got the Harvard credentials, he served in the military,
he's the governor of the third largest state but
he can still speak the language of the MAGA crowd.
That part I'm not so sure about he continues to say or
she continues to say with Trump, there's still a lot of drama.
So I think it probably worries him that there's this other guy who's
getting a lot of attention and I I agree with a lot in that statement.
The baggage statement is something that I've heard not from other GOP strategists
from but from other Trump supporters who go to Trump rallies and talk to the press
while at the trump rallies and so I'm curious to see how it all plays out.
I think that it is feasible that someone like DeSantis could,
you know when in the GOP primaries during this presidential bid we'll see.
But in the meantime at least we get to enjoy this feud because Trump does not
like anyone outshining him and it's definitely amusing.
It's like this frenemies situation that's kind of fun to watch.
>> Yeah so last two things here Republican voters.
Yes, they're in love with Trump, but why?
Because he takes on the establishment, he takes on the Libs and he and
he owns the Libs and he's the most anti establishment politician, right?
But if they perceive them as pro vaccine and the right wing media told them for
over a year now that the vaccine is the boogeyman and it's run by the Jews and
the space lasers and microchips and Trump says take the vaccine.
DeSantis said by the way, DeSantis definitely took the vaccine and
the booster when asked about it, he said,
well I don't talk about the things I might have taken.
Okay, alright, you definitely took it.
Okay, but if he says no vaccine is for weak men then they'll flock to him,
they will flock to whichever is the most anti establishment side.
But final point is to go back to what Anna was saying, If they actually run
against each other, this will definitely be decided in the debates.
So one of our members just wrote an approval that if trump and
DeSantis are in a primary debate and trump, ordered him to leave the stage or
something demeaning like that DeSantis would.
And so that will decide it guys.
If trump bullies the Santis and the santas can effectively stand up to him,
then we've got a contest.
If trump bullies DeSantis and DeSantis bows his head, it's over,
it's going to be trump.
>> I want to take a bet because I think DeSantis would about his head.
But I could be wrong.
We'll see.
>> No, by the way, I'm not betting, I have no idea which way DeSantis gonna go.
Could he be a total coward and then bend down and lick trump's boots?.
Of course, that's how he started his career, so
that's still very likely just the jury's out for now.