Former President Trump sharply criticized Gov. Ron DeSantis, R-Fla., in an interview on the popular “Full Send” podcast that streamed live on YouTube Thursday.
DeSantis, who polls show trailing Trump in the GOP presidential primary, has yet to announce his campaign for president. He is expected to join the race next month and has been traveling to battleground states since winning re-election in his gubernatorial race to pitch his Florida model of governance to national voters.
“Do you think that your biggest competition lies within your own party?” Aaron Steinberg, one of the “Full Send” hosts, asked.
“Yeah, like from the people running in the party?” Trump responded.
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“Yea, yea” Steinberg responded.
“Yea, but they’re really fading fast. I mean, it’s fading very, very quickly,” Trump said.
The former president then honed his focus on DeSantis.
“You have a guy from Florida, Ron DeSantis, who I got in with my endorsement. He was at three points. He was nothing, he was not going to win. He was going to lose and I endorsed him,” Trump said.
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“He was dead politically. I endorsed him and saved him. He was losing by like twenty-five, thirty points very shortly before the election. When I endorsed him he went like a rocket ship,” Trump continued. “I should call him rocket man, but now he’s rocket man that’s crashing.”
“When you help somebody, I believe in loyalty. You just don’t do what he did,” Trump added.
When asked if he would consider DeSantis to be his running mate, Trump declined.
“I don’t see it,” he said. “We have a lot of great people in the Republican Party.”
Trump’s 2024 campaign has been building momentum in recent weeks while DeSantis has dropped in support according to recent polls. Off the heels of New York Attorney General Alvin Bragg’s indictment, the former president’s poll numbers have increased.
Trump also received eight endorsements from Florida’s delegation of House Republicans, many of which came after DeSantis’s trip to D.C. this week.
