Ron DeSantis,
who's really been floundering in recent weeks after declaring a bid for
president or his presidential run, I should say, just two months ago.
Might be losing his most powerful allies,
his most powerful cheerleader, Rupert Murdoch.
And that's clear in the way Fox News has kind of been covering his campaign
recently.
So according to new reporting from Rolling Stone and the New York Times.
The wealthy media bosses souring on DeSantis, originally his preferred
candidate to take on Donald Trump in the Republican presidential primaries.
Let's give you a few excerpts from this reporting,
starting with the Rolling Stone.
In recent weeks, the Murdochs have grown increasingly displeased with the DeSantis
campaign's perceived stumbles, lackluster polling.
And inability to swiftly dethrone Trump, multiple sources tell Rolling Stone.
They have also seriously questioned whether the governor is even
capable of defeating Trump in the 2024 GOP presidential primary.
I have to be honest, he did seem promising, but
he experienced a sharp decline pretty quickly.
>> Mm-hm. >> Even before he announced his candidacy,
which is kind of interesting.
So Murdoch has been voicing his doubts and frustrations in private discussions.
That was something that I was curious about.
And now I guess, based on the sources that Rolling Stone spoke to,
it has been confirmed.
At times, he wonders if DeSantis has any kind of comeback in the near future.
So, one of Rolling Stone's sources is a senior Fox employee who said that
Rupert's understandable worry is that we may end up being stuck with Trump anyway.
And DeSantis is underperforming.
Anybody can see that.
And the Murdochs, they're seeing it too.
What do you think, Sean?
>> I think it makes a lot of sense from their point of view to be very worried
about it.
He was kind of flatlined for a while, and now he's actually going down.
Morning consult has him at the lowest point that he's been at,
tying a low point that he'd reached earlier.
>> Ron DeSantimonius meatball run.
>> Yeah.
>> He's a little too sauced up.
>> We haven't even gotten in a lot of the meatball run.
And that's I think the biggest problem for Ron DeSantis is,
he has mightily struggled during objectively the easiest part of this room.
>> I know.
>> Dude, you haven't even had to debate him yet.
You've barely had to do any rallies.
You've barely had to do any retail politics.
You haven't done a single opposition interview.
You're having trouble getting through talking to Maria Bartiromo for
a few minutes.
Donald Trump is barely attacking him.
He is definitely going easy.
It's vicious objectively compared to how you or I would act.
But for what Donald Trump could do, he's doing nothing.
And Ron DeSantis is falling apart.
He can just fill his day with whatever he wants, homophobic videos, talking
about Disney, quick break for pudding, and then back to the culture war stuff.
He's never faced tough questioning, and he still can't hold up to the non scrutiny.
>> Listen, the Republican primaries is Game of Thrones
territory in my opinion, right?
Especially with the inclusion of Donald Trump.
Donald Trump seems to thrive off of getting attacked,
which iit's pretty incredible.
He soaks it in.
He loves to be combative.
He loves to fight.
By the way, I'm not saying that as if it's a good thing, but
it does give him an advantage in this particular context.
Ron DeSantis looked good on paper to the Republican Party, right?
Two people that are trying to kind of prop him up as a real opponent to Donald Trump.
But once he's off script, once he is asked a difficult question,
once someone's combative with him, he really starts to flail.
>> Mm-hm. >> He doesn't know how to handle it.
He gets uncomfortable.
I don't know what, it's just who he is I think.
He just starts getting nervous.
And so when you take this nervous guy, this awkward guy,
and you put him against Donald Trump,
who thrives off of that conflict, he's in a no win situation.
>> Yeah, honestly, look, is this maybe a little bit controversial?
A lot of people have spent the past couple of months as DeSantis
has been having trouble comparing him to past Republicans who struggled.
And some people might say, he's like Scott Walker, he's like Jeb Bush.
But in Jeb's defense, Jeb floundered under full on attack from Donald Trump.
>> Yeah.
>> Jeb did many debates before he was dead.
Ron DeSantis is not living up to the standard set by Jeb Bush at this point.
>> That is true, in fact, no, I gotta give you this quote.
This is one of my favorite quotes.
So remember, Rolling Stone spoke to an insider over at Fox and
referencing or referring to Rupert Murdoch and Lachlan Murdoch and
top executives over at Fox News.
This Fox insider told Rolling Stone, quote,
they are transactional and can smell a loser a mile away.
>> I can smell that loser.
>> That hurt.
>> Yeah, he's not gonna like that.
He's not gonna to have to do one of his awkward laughs.
>> He's gotta really re-up on the pudding for some comfort.
>> I know, he'll need the energy from the sugar.
Yeah, look, Donald Trump has had a lot of experience with getting attacked.
People have been mocking him for decades.
So that certainly helps.
It's built a thick skin, so thick it looks like it's aged leather.
But then also, one of the first tricks that he pulled on his audience was
training them to think that any attack against him reflected poorly not on him,
but on the person making it.
That they would by attacking him.
They're a part of the deep state or a rhino or whatever, and
that everything is illegitimate.
It's a witch hunt.
That sort of general shield that he built up around himself
has endured literally everything that he's been accused of.
>> Mm-hm.
>> It's almost like, and
this is maybe the most inappropriate marvel related analogy I can make.
It's like Black Panther's energy absorbing armor.
He takes in the hits and
then unleashes it in a way that no other politician gets to do.
Other politicians are hurt by the terrible things that they do and say.
>> Look, I think it's because it takes a tremendous amount of, I don't even know
the right word to describe it, and I don't wanna come across as complimentary.
But, Trump is a no apologies kind of guy.
And unfortunately, in today's current culture,
that ends up being an advantage, right?
>> Yeah.
>> Apologizing for your behavior is not applauded.
People don't look at that as, wow, that is a man of character.
So, every other politician, including some of the so called strong men
Republican politicians that we talk about on the show on a regular basis.
They start to show a little bit of weakness, right?
They start to waver a little bit.
>> [CROSSTALK] >> Yeah, exactly.
>> Rob DeSantis, I'm saying, cuz he's never really been attacked.
>> He's never been attacked.
And look, I'll give you another example.
So you mentioned Maria Bartiromo, right?
He got interviewed by Bartiromo this week.
I want you to take a look at how that conversation went down.
>> I'm wondering what's going on with your campaign.
There was a lot of optimism about you running for president earlier in the year.
But here's this weekend's headline from the Politico playbook failure to launch,
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis's campaign to topple Donald Trump has stalled.
We are way behind, says a top DeSantis pack official, sounding the alarm.
What happened?
>> [LAUGH] Maria, these are narratives.
The media does not want me to be the nominee.
I think that's very, very clear.
>> I don't know John, he seemed very smooth there, super comfortable.
>> I'd seen that before, but I didn't realize that was a poll.
The media is souring on to him.
No, that's Republicans.
They don't want you to be president.
And honestly, one of the reasons that we and
other people thought that he might have a chance,
is it's not like he doesn't have some characteristics that they might like.
He is that he is willing to be brutally cruel and vicious,
particularly to marginalized groups.
If it was up to him, he'd press a button,
the entire LGBTQ community loaded up in a rocket and sent to the center of the sun.
He has that viciousness.
>> But you wanna know something?
>> What?
>> Believe it or not, some of that viciousness has turned Rupert Murdoch off,
according to the report.
So I wanna give that to you.
According to two of the sources, Murdoch has privately winced at DeSantis's nonstop
cultural grievance strategy, arguing that it is being executed sloppily.
The strategy has for
months attracted criticism from fellow Republicans where I haven't seen them for
being unsavvy and too online to connect with the median voter.
>> Then there was some criticism of the ad from some Republicans.
>> That deserved it, yeah.
And that ad definitely was too online.
But honestly, you wanna talk about too online?
Trump was obsessed with Twitter, he was on Twitter 24/7.
>> Mm-hm. >> That man tweeted more in one month than
I've ever tweeted in my entire life.
>> Yeah, also, that paragraph was condemning him.
The way that you condemn someone and
the reasons that you condemn someone also says a lot about you.
The issue with that ad, one of the issues, I guess the top 20,
is that it's too online.
Is that the biggest issue with that ad?
It's like genocidal in regard to the LGBTQ community, but
it's too online or whatever.
Even though he's talking specifically about gay Republicans.
>> Yeah. >> He's talking about repressing, and
then Rupert Murdoch is like,
his cultural grievance strategy is too sloppily executed.
That's the big issue that you have with it?
What he wants to do is it's sloppy?
>> [CROSSTALK] >> But it wasn't done efficiently enough.
He's a psychopath, or at least he's playing one on TV.
>> But is it as sloppy as the sexual harassment that was taking place over at
Fox News?
>> That was pretty sloppy, too.
>> That's pretty sloppy.
I don't know if Rupert Murdoch should be opining on what is and is not sloppy.
>> I'm just saying. >> That's true.