On Wednesday, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis dismissed questions about a potential “GOP Civil War” after former president Donald Trump lashed out at him over social media. During his remarks, DeSantis avoided talking about the 2024 presidential elections, telling reporters to “chill out.”‘
As the 2022 midterm elections were concluding, Trump posted on Truth Social, criticizing DeSantis and insisting that he was primarily responsible for the Florida governor’s successes. Trump insinuated that DeSantis is indebted to him, and therefore should not plan to run against him in the 2024 elections, nicknaming him “Ron DeSanctimonious.”
Trump said, “I stopped his Election from being stolen. And now, Ron DeSanctimonious is playing games! The Fake News asks him if he’s going to run if President Trump runs, and he says, ‘I’m only focused on the Governor’s race, I’m not looking into the future.’ Well, in terms of loyalty and class, that’s really not the right answer.”
Then, on Tuesday night, Trump officially announced that he will run for President in 2024 at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida. During his speech, he criticized not only Joe Biden and his administration’s failures but also the Republican Party for failing to convince voters of the stakes of the midterm elections.
The following day, DeSantis appeared at an event in Matlacha, Florida to give an update on the state’s Hurricane Ian recovery efforts. Given the news from the night before, reporters pressed him to speak about Trump’s recent announcement and the brewing controversy surrounding the two.
DeSantis shut this topic down, encouraging the press to keep their focus on more important things like the upcoming December 6 runoff elections in Georgia between Senator Raphael Warnock (D) and GOP candidate Herschel Walker. It is essential for Walker to win if Republicans are to maintain the 50-50 split in the Senate.
“We just finished this election, OK? People just need to chill out a little bit on some of this stuff, I mean seriously,” DeSantis said.
“I mean, seriously, we just ran an election,” he continued. “We have this Georgia runoff coming, which is very important for Republicans to win that Georgia runoff. I mean, I know around the country, Florida was kind of the biggest bright spot. It was not so bright in many other parts of the country. It was a substandard performance given the dynamics that are at play.”
“But I think what people like me who have been given the opportunity to continue is – OK, let’s do something with that. And the reason why we want historic victory is, at the end of the day, we led, we delivered and we had your back when you needed us. That is why we won big,” DeSantis added.
Gov. DeSantis unloads on “GOP Civil War:”
"We just finished this election, ok? People just need to chill out a little bit on some of this stuff, I mean seriously. We have this Georgia runoff coming, which is very important for Republicans to win."
— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) November 16, 2022
