Ron DeSantis doesn’t expect to get back in 2024 race no matter how bad Donald Trump legal trouble gets
Ron DeSantis. Image via Fox News Channel

Ron Desantis - Fox News
'He is going to have the delegates and so it will all be in his hands.'

Ron DeSantis publicly is standing by his decision to exit the presidential race last month, adding that he doesn’t expect to get back in no matter what happens to Donald Trump amid four separate trials and indictments on 91 counts.

“He is going to have the delegates and so it will all be in his hands,” DeSantis said Saturday on the Fox News Channel.

DeSantis said he didn’t see “any situation where he would bow out even in the face of criminal convictions,” noting that “voters” had to “make the decision” about whether Trump’s legal woes meant to them.

“I raised that as a concern when I was running and, you know, not enough voters thought that that was something that they were concerned about at least,” DeSantis told Brian Kilmeade.

The Governor, who endorsed Trump when he got out of the race before the New Hampshire Primary, did his one-time rival a solid by criticizing Nikki Haley’s attacks on Trump ahead of next Saturday’s South Carolina Primary, saying she was playing to “very liberal Democrats” in Iowa, as he claimed to see at the caucuses.

“They had N95 masks on, they had shirts that had liberal slogans on. That was a core part of her strategy: to appeal to those people … people who aren’t kind of stock Republicans and that’s just not going to work in a Republican primary, but it’s definitely not going to work against somebody who is as well known and has already been President, like Donald Trump,” DeSantis said.

A.G. Gancarski

A.G. Gancarski has been the Northeast Florida correspondent for Florida Politics since 2014. His work also can be seen in the Washington Post, the New York Post, the Washington Times, and National Review, among other publications. He can be reached at [email protected] or on Twitter: @AGGancarski


23 comments

  • Michael K

    February 17, 2024 at 10:12 pm

    In case you missed it: America has zero interest in Rhonda’s culture wars, racism, bigotry, and their New Confederacy. The DeSanti are following Rick Santorum, Mike Huckabee, Scott Walker, and other failed radical right-wing Republicans into the dustbin of history. Nobody wants Little Dee. Nobody.

    • Defund Dangerous florida

      February 18, 2024 at 5:53 am

      So true; the idea DeStupid is home writing over and over on his Trapper-Keeper;
      ‘Vice President DeStupid’

      ‘Vice President Ronald DeStupid’

      ‘PREZZIDENT RONNY DEE!!!’

  • The Dunning-Krugers of Florida

    February 18, 2024 at 4:58 am

    This poor boob

  • Tom

    February 18, 2024 at 7:40 am

    “That was a core part of her strategy: to appeal to those people …”

    Those people? Roughly 2/3 of the American voting public are democrats or independents and to this idiot, they’re just “those people”. He probably wonders why people don’t like him. Dunning-Kruger indeed.

  • Mayorkas Impeached

    February 18, 2024 at 7:40 am

    This country needs someone like DeSantis as President. Highly educated and smart and can actually hold a press conference without the teleprompter, cheat sheets, cue cards, fixed questions and reporters. His time might not be now but he will be back. To the small number of howler monkeys here that continue to throw poop at him, he would win re-election as the Governor of Florida tomorrow if there was an election. More entertaining is watching Nikki Fried jumping up and down as if she has any sort of future in Florida politics.

    • Michael K

      February 18, 2024 at 9:59 am

      Mr. “highly educated” (athletic, not academic scholarship) ran the worst campaign in modern history and burned through $150 million of other people’s money without winning even a single county in Iowa. I’d call that arrogant and wasteful stupidity – hardly a qualifier for the presidency, or even a governorship.

    • Paul

      February 18, 2024 at 3:24 pm

      …he’ll be back. Like herpes.

    • Dont Say FLA

      February 19, 2024 at 10:05 am

      Rhonda is highly educated at ball handling, but have you seen their legislative success rate? It approaches zero. Law after law after law, struck down, even by judges that Rhonda appointed.

      Rhonda might have been given instruction and a law degree, but the instruction part seems not to have stuck with them, by all evidence.

      Given hypotheticals like a third term, Rhonda would more likely be hung like Trump wanted done with Pence than re-elected.

      And more Nikki Fried ad hominem? This isn’t a post about her. She must have Flop Gov Rhonda and the rest of the FLgOP shaking in their boots so much they gonna break a high heel.

      Or does Rhonda not know Nikki Fried from Nikki Haley from Nancy Pelosi, like his muy loco, naranja suited buddy Maga Lardo?

  • Bill

    February 18, 2024 at 9:40 am

    “Highly educated and smart and can actually hold a press conference without the teleprompter, cheat sheets, cue cards, fixed questions and reporters.”
    Too funny. You get the bit where if you take away all the things you mentioned that it’s just some guy standing there talking to himself right? That aside though, I’d put even money on him losing a recall election. I’d think that his efforts to run to the right of trump might have put a lot of people off. I’d say a centrist democrat might be in with a chance. Unfortunately, we’re stuck with him for a couple more years so the point is moot.

    • MH/Duuuval

      February 18, 2024 at 3:55 pm

      Reality bites.

  • Earl Pitts "Sage Political Expert Emeritas" American

    February 18, 2024 at 9:48 am

    Good Mornting America,
    ALWAYS REMEMBER:
    “IT’S NOT NEWS UNTIL THE SAGE EARL OF POLITICS WEIGHS IN”
    EARL WEIGHS IN:
    If you will all put on your thinking caps you will recall this: “I, Earl Pitts American, did not “Shut-Down” Ron “The Ronald’s” campaign. “Its Not OVER untill Earl says its Over”. And I, Earl Pitts American” never said “Its Over”.
    Our sage plan remains “Our Plan”, nothings changed, we are just allowing The Dook 4 Brains Left to live under the Illusion that they are going to run against Trump again and “Roll Trump Again” like last time.
    When we pull the “Old Switch-A-Roo” and Trump backs out 2 weeks prior to The Election thats when Ron and Earl step up to “RIDE THE BIG RED WAVE INTO THE WHITE HOUSE”.
    ps America, “Relax Your Sphincters” from the nagging worry about whats gonna happen to Trump – Ron’s gonna “Pardon” him and I, Earl Pitts American, will stand beside Trump as he puts his hand on “THE BIBLE” as I, Earl Pitts American, swear-in Trump as “AMERICA’S SAGE BORDER CZAR”.
    Thank you America,
    Your next VPOTUS, Earl Pitts American
    *FREE BUMPER STICKER*
    *VOTE RON & EARL 2024*

    • S. Wabbit

      February 18, 2024 at 1:52 pm

      You dook.

    • rick whitaker

      February 18, 2024 at 5:46 pm

      CAUTION ⚠ TROLL COMMENT BY EARL THE SPHINCTER FREAK

  • swiftly woke

    February 18, 2024 at 12:04 pm

    N-95 masks and liberal slogans? Sounds sexy! Like Taylor Swift wearing a shirt that says-“try grabbing this pussy, you orange turd!”

    • MH/Duuuval

      February 18, 2024 at 3:52 pm

      The N-95 mask says it all: I am not a MAGAnut.

  • ScienceBLVR

    February 18, 2024 at 2:37 pm

    I’d pay a lot more for that Taylor T-shirt than a pair of Trump sneakers…

    • Dont Say FLA

      February 18, 2024 at 7:59 pm

      People are saying the Trump sneakers can’t get wet or they fall right apart. They’re not for wearing

  • Nebraska Granny

    February 18, 2024 at 5:00 pm

    Funny Earl, funny. I agree, a little wacky, but I agree. This circus can’t go on forever. Neither Biden or Trump are not fit mentally or physically for public office (this coming from a 70s something grandma. The tempers of both fly off the handle at a moment’s notice. Trump has said he will make the US a dictatorship-for-a-day (then probably extend it) and has said he will make Ron DeSantis a political eunuch. That’s called revenge, a no-no. Biden is in the final stages of Alzheimer’s, the whole world can see it. Let a man take the oath of office who has criminal charges and others against him, some of which have got to be true?! Pride goeth before a fall, my friends, and these 2 dudes will make a sound in the forest, guaranteed. Just watch and learn.🤠🇺🇸🌎

    • Earl Pitts "Sage Political Expert Emeritas" American

      February 20, 2024 at 7:59 pm

      Thank you Granny,
      I know that after Ron and Casey move into the White House after the upcoming POTUS election that you will get that little “AHH-HAA MOMENT” and think to yourself:
      “Hey who was that Sage, Handsom, Well Endowed, fella who told me this was going to happen”?
      Well Honey that would be Me, Earl Pitts American.
      Thank you Beautiful Nebraska Granny,
      Earl Pitts American

    • TJC

      February 21, 2024 at 4:35 pm

      “Biden is in the final stages of Alzheimer’s…” you say. It is pretty obvious you are not familiar with the final stages of that disease.
      And as the person who constructed this sentence: “Neither Biden or Trump are not fit mentally or physically for public office…” you are not qualified to judge other’s mental abilities.

  • Dont Say FLA

    February 18, 2024 at 7:56 pm

    What does Rhonda Dee mean, “back” in the race? They might have registered and blown a huge wad of cash, but they were never in the race, not even for one day.

  • My Take

    February 19, 2024 at 8:39 pm

    Trump just in trouble, maybe not.
    Trump withdraws, back in a flash.

    • MH/Duuuval

      February 20, 2024 at 3:51 pm

      Dee could run and back-pedal faster in a pair of the gold lame shoes DJT is hawking. Is there a donor out there who might purchase a pair for Dee?

Comments are closed.


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