DeSantis Dodges On If He Will Support Trump in 2024, Slams Ex-President For Covid Attacks: He’s ‘Full of It’

 

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis (R) vented his frustrations at former President Donald Trump on Thursday when asked if he would support Trump if he were to win the 2024 GOP presidential nomination.

“Regardless of his attacks, Will you 100% pledge to support Trump as the GOP nominee?” DeSantis was asked during a press conference in Tampa after announcing a new lawsuit against the Biden administration.

“What, I would say this, when you are saying that Cuomo did better on Covid than Florida did, you are revealing yourself to just be full of it. Nobody believes that,” DeSantis replied, adding:

And you know why? And you know why I know that? Because I remember in 2020 and 2021, when he was praising Florida for being open, saying we did it much better than New York and Michigan and everyone was coming to Florida and that we were one of the great governors in the United States. And he used to say that all the time.

Now, all of a sudden, his tune is changing. And I would just tell people, do you find it credible? Do you honestly find it credible? Would you have rather been in New York during Covid under Cuomo regime, or would you rather have been in the free state of Florida?

“And I probably can count the number of Republicans on my hand in the nation who would have rather been under Cuomo in New York. And we know that. And so these are just frivolous criticisms,” DeSantis continued, concluding that Trump is just “saying things that are false.”

In recent months, Trump has slammed DeSantis for everything from his fight with Disney to being disloyal for running against him to even suggesting he groomed teenage girls – all in an apparent attempt to keep him out of the 2024 GOP primary.

Clearly, that tactic failed as DeSantis has officially joined the fray and the two have exchanged barbs in recent weeks, with a particular focus on the pandemic, lockdowns, and Trump’s relationship with Dr. Anthony Fauci.

Trump has raised a lot of eyebrows on the right by attacking DeSantis’s record in Florida, which has been held up as a kind of winning model for Republican governance. Trump posted on his Truth Social in recent weeks that under DeSantis Florida was the “Third Worst in the Nation for COVID-19 Deaths (losing 86,294 People), Third Worst for Total Number of Cases, at 7,516,906. Other Republican Governors did MUCH BETTER than Ron.”

Trump even claimed Florida “did worse than New York” in terms of the Covid death rate, taking a hammer to DeSantis’s long-hyped success in keeping Florida “free” and safe during the pandemic, a claim DeSantis is now pushing back on.

Watch the full clip above.

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Alex Griffing is a Senior Editor at Mediaite. Send tips via email: alexanderg@mediaite.com. Follow him on Twitter: @alexgriffing