DeSantis won't say if he'll support Trump in 2024

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis declined on Thursday to say whether he would support Donald Trump if the former president becomes the Republican nominee to challenge President Joe Biden in 2024.

DeSantis, who launched his own presidential campaign last month, was asked whether he would “support” in the wake of Trump’s recent barrage of criticism over the governor’s handling of Covid-19. DeSantis sidestepped that part of the question and instead said Trump was “full of it” for criticizing how DeSantis responded to the Covid-19 pandemic.

DeSantis’ national profile among conservatives grew during the pandemic after he pushed back against mask and vaccine mandates as well as government-ordered lockdowns. He became an outspoken critic of national health adviser Anthony Fauci and pivoted from an early advocate of vaccinations to an outright skeptic.

But Trump and his allies have tried to undercut that record by pointing to the governor going along with lockdowns and school closures in the first few weeks of the pandemic. Trump has repeatedly suggested — including this week during an interview with Fox News’ Bret Baier — that former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo did a better job handling Covid than DeSantis did.

That drew a fierce rebuttal from DeSantis who said Trump’s recent comments were “false” and not “credible.”

“When you are saying that Cuomo did better on Covid than Florida did, you are revealing yourself to just be full of it,” DeSantis said during a press conference he held in Tampa to announce a new lawsuit against the Biden administration. “Nobody believes that. …. 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.”

DeSantis added that Trump’s comments were “frivolous.”

“If you have to make that argument, you probably don’t have very good arguments,” DeSantis added. “I don’t think people are going to buy it.”

The back-and-forth between Trump and DeSantis highlights how DeSantis has tried to move to the right of the former president on Covid. DeSantis has embraced vaccine skepticism and animus toward Fauci and made it a central point of his reelection campaign last fall.

Trump himself acknowledged that he has a problem with GOP voters during his Fox News interview this week, where he talked about how he has not spoken much publicly about his efforts to get Covid-19 vaccines approved so quickly.

“I really don’t want to talk about it because, as a Republican, it’s not a great thing to talk about, because for some reason it’s just not,” Trump said.

DeSantis’ decision to sidestep saying whether he would support Trump was noticed by the former president’s allies.

Make America Great Inc., the super PAC supporting Trump, put out a statement asserting “DeSantis is showing his true colors with this response. He is not an America First conservative and he is out of touch with Republican voters.”

The Republican National Committee earlier this month announced qualifying standards for its August presidential debate. One of the requirements is that participants will commit to supporting the eventual Republican nominee and pledge that they will not participate in any outside debates.

Two candidates — former Govs. Chris Christie of New Jersey and Asa Hutchinson of Arkansas — have called on the RNC to waive that requirement, in light of Trump’s recent federal indictment, which the pair have said make him unfit to be the party’s nominee.

Trump has previously been unwilling to say whether he would back the Republican nominee if it isn’t him.