Posted on 04/06/2024 7:50:51 PM PDT by conservative98
By KIMBERLY LEONARD
04/06/2024 09:38 PM EDT
HOLLYWOOD, Florida — Ron DeSantis is making nice with his most loyal donors and, at least over the weekend, ignored Donald Trump.
During a retreat in South Florida for the governor’s donors that featured golf, cigars and spa time, and little mention of the Republican Party’s presumptive nominee, DeSantis thanked and wooed the people who most avidly supported his presidential run. Part of the weekend was also to brainstorm how he could keep Florida front and center in the conservative movement with more than 2 and a half years left as governor.
Robert Salvador, a DeSantis donor, recalled the governor’s team “said, probably 10 different times, that we still have three years here to do all this. We have three years to make this a beacon of freedom and keep it a beacon of freedom.”
Yet left unsaid throughout the weekend was DeSantis’ ambitions for another presidential run and any substantial mention by the governor of Trump, his one-time rival for the Republican nomination who was also holding a massive fundraiser at the home of a Palm Beach billionaire just over an hour’s drive away. Trump is still living in Florida and often remains the biggest news story of the day.
While DeSantis kept his promise to endorse Trump immediately after dropping out of the presidential race, he hasn’t aggressively made the case that Trump needs to defeat President Joe Biden in November. In fact, it’s been the opposite: In previous interviews and earlier virtual meetings with donors, DeSantis hammered Trump over using “identity politics” for choosing a running mate and over his general election vulnerabilities. Trump and his campaign have clapped back by mocking DeSantis in brutal and personal ways.
But over the weekend at the event held at the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino, DeSantis withheld criticizing the president and instead seemed focused on the remaining few years of his administration.
The Trump campaign declined to comment for this story, but the timing of the campaign irked some Republicans, who would like to see DeSantis embrace Trump more strongly as the former president tries to close a fundraising gap with Biden. Dennis Lennox, a Republican operative who helped organize a letter on behalf of Michigan state GOP lawmakers to get DeSantis to run for president, said the retreat’s timing — with part of it overlapping with the Trump event — “fuels a narrative that he is undercutting Trump.”
Another veteran GOP operative, granted anonymity to discuss the event without reprisal, said DeSantis’ event was a bad look while Republicans up and down the ticket were working to beat Democrats, especially with a six-week abortion ban DeSantis signed into law in Florida set to take effect in less than a month, one Democrats plan to try to use against the GOP.
“The optics are nuts,” said the person, who isn’t attending the retreat. “We have a presidential election going on. [DeSantis] couldn’t wait until after November? He’s starting his campaign for president in the middle of a presidential campaign. Another tone deaf move.”
The only quote is something good about DeSantis wanting Florida to be and stay a beacon of freedom. Other than that, the author makes claims with nothing to back them up. It’s all designed to splinter the Republican party, and some Freepers keep falling for every anti-DeSantis article they find to post.
Every Republican voter and every Republican politician should have been outraged by the fake impeachments, the stolen elections, the constant lies and coverups perpetrated against MAGA and the one man willing to fight back against this Marxist asault on our Republic.
Instead, DeSantis, Pence, Christie, Romney, Ryan, McCain, McConnell and all these other disgusting RINOs, jealous of President Trump’s MAGA revolution, and too long in the swamp, fell silent and hung him and MAGA out to dry. By failing to stand with President Trump against these lies and attacks, they aided and abetted the enemy. By their silence, they allowed a huge faction of the American public to believe the false narrative that President Trump was simply a deluded power monger, unwilling to admit that he had lost an election.
After all, if his own fellow Republicans believed that narrative, why shouldn’t they believe it?
I will never forgive any of these scum for staying silent - and DeSantis is no different than the rest.
Agree with every word you posted!
Since he hired his successful presidential campaign advisors to advise him to govern Florida, and his not so stealth continued campaign.....
desanctimonious has done more press conferences on Florida issues in the last 30 days, than he did in the year of his grassley 99.....
and is spending Florida taxpayer money, like a democrat...
Yet the desantis supporters still think it’s a good thing, what he’s doing now, after desanctus has been ignoring Florida for a year while he thought he would win the republican presidential nomination
And he’s gotten to the point that he’s now having to make no topic press conference announcements, then make up things to keep the press interest. At this rate, he might soon be doing press conferences on his poop of the day because he’s run out of tax payer’s money to spend and real things to talk about....
Still hoping Trump ends up in jail or repubs lose the house due to neverTrump RINOs quitting and they pass legislation to block Trump. Despicable.
DeSantis is a good conservative. I can’t believe how bad his campaign was.
Thanks!…well said
I love Florida, it has been my home for many, many years….
I worked towards DeSantis 2nd term……..and on the DAY of election , we found out DeSantis was going to run for the Preidency.
I will not truly believe him again.
Forgiveness is one thing….
…but when a person shows you who he or she is…….you better believe it!
Maybe he’ll run for senator someday. Scott’s getting pretty old.
Yeah. He fired a lot of election officials and cleaned up voting in Florida. He’s not a talker, but a doer.
We shall see - I like a lot of what he does but breaking his vow to Floridians about not running until he term was up and turning on Trump were not good signs...
BJ did the same. No big deal.
You mean he started walking on the right path again? He was wandering off into the fantasy future for quite a while there wasting time for us people here in FL who have big problems with insurance etc. that he ignored for a year and a half while he followed his fantasy. It was not walking the right path in my opinion. If he wandered back onto the right path, that’s very good, but I don’t really believe him. It could be all performative.
Smart if true. Despite his nasty treatmen of DeSantis, Trump is not DeSantis’ real enemy. For the sake of party unity, DeSantis needs to forgive and forget, just as Ted Cruz did after “lying Ted”.
Re: 26 - Agreed. It was baaaad!
DeSantis has made himself rather slimy and weak looking in his 2024 bid for the WH. Without this particular legislature he has now, he would have to actually show some fight. Signing bills designed by people on your side is easy. Fighting actual RAT opposition is tough.
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